Author: admin

Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, interviewed Tim Kirby, a journalist, radio host, and political analyst from the U.S. who moved to Russia in 2006. The human rights activist asked her guest why Washington believes it can say whatever it wants about Russia, how liberal values increase suicide and drug use rate, and why democracy in the West is a pleasant lie that never was and never will be.

https://rumble.com/embed/v2iziyu/?pub=1jxcnw

Mira Terada: Thank you for agreeing to the interview. Please tell out viewers and readers about what you do if somebody doesn’t know it.

Tim Kirby: I do a lot of things. One of the main areas of my activity is making videos about traveling around Russia. You can find them on YouTube, Rumble and other platforms. I also worked in political science for many years. I have been writing about geopolitics for many years. I dreamed about it when I was a teenager. Dreams do come true in Russia. Another important thing for me is helping other people immigrate to Russia. I am a member of the working committee of the State Duma, which is trying to change, if not the laws, then at least the attitude towards immigration. In America, they would say that I am a semi-professional American football player, although I consider myself a professional. I play in the Eastern European American Football Super League. I am a striker, and this is another childhood dream realized in Russia.

M.T.: That’s impressive. What circumstances forced you to move to Russia and take up journalism?

T.K.: There is a book by Tim Kirby “Why Russia?”. It has 150 pages containing the answer to this question. In fact, the answer is very large and includes many nuances. I get asked this question almost every day, so every time I try to answer it differently. For you, I will answer this: in the West there are attacks on masculinity. It’s a factor I don’t usually mention when I answer this question, but there’s a whole chapter in my book dedicated to attacks on masculinity and how I’m actually very lucky that my father is a macho who showed me what it means to be man, and how he should behave. What my father taught me in many respects did not coincide with what society said. To be honest, I’m much closer to being a father, because I grew up in an area that was mostly African American. Their attitude towards gender is more traditional: men should be men, tough, and so on. Living in what I call a castrated lifestyle was very hard. This is a society where everyone has a house with a white fence, this is a society of office workers and the middle class. This life is not for me. In Russia, fortunately, you can be as masculine as you like. Here is an attitude to gender, which I prefer.

M.T.: Back in 2020, you said that one of Russia’s biggest problems is the lack of serious perception of the United States. What, in your opinion, is the reason for this and has anything changed in the last few years?

T.K.: There is a theory that it all started with Peter the Great. His reforms led to great progress in Russia, however, in my opinion, the price of this progress was too high. Peter the Great made a logical error. He traveled to Europe and saw that European shipbuilding and other technologies were superior to Russian ones. Anything could be the reason for such a high level of technology, but Peter the Great confused the superiority of Europe in technology with the superiority of European culture over Russian. This mistake has driven Russia into what I call a cultural inferiority complex for the last 300 years, although now the situation is changing. Talk to foreigners who were in Russia before the war in Ukraine. In general, they agree with me that when you talk to Russians, they almost bow to people from the West, because Western culture is supposedly better than their culture.

In fact, one of the reasons that the Soviet Union collapsed was because the elites in the Soviet Union believe that the West was superior.

Why then fight with those superior? Why not join them? Then it was a big mistake, because when Russia tried to join the West in the 90s, the West once again showed how much they despise Russia and considers it below their level. Now something strange is happening. For the last five years in the West, there has been a migration crisis due to transgender people and Black Lives Matter. The standard of living in the West is falling. In the past five years, Russians have begun to feel for the first time the wrongness of their ingrained sense of inferiority towards the West. Now that the war has begun and Russia is winning it, many masks have come down from the West. Now is the time for change. It is important that your viewers understand that there is a concept of historical inertia. This means that people get used to some way of life that existed in the past, and continue to act according to old patterns even after the disappearance of this phenomenon. This is very common. This is similar to the phenomenon of slavery in the US. Although it was abolished in 1864, much of that time is still relevant today.

M.T.: So for American prisoners, though.

T.K.: This is a diffrent topic. American prisoners make up 2% of the country’s population. There are many more nuances, especially with child slavery. In any case, historical inertia exists. For 300 years, Russians, including Peter the First, hated themselves. The Communists, by the way, also took their ideology from the West. In the 90s, people like Yeltsin and Gorbachev tried to overthrow it again for the sake of the West, because by submitting to the West, as they thought, they would get rich. This went on for 300 years. In the last 5-10 years, people have begun to move away from this. I do not think that the Russians have already overcome this complex in front of the West. They still have a lot of work to do, and it will take a few more years. My children and their friends no longer experience such piety towards the West. Perhaps the next generation will get rid of it. Adults, on the other hand, suffered greatly from the mistake of Peter the Great.

M.T.: You also claim that the main disease of Russia is the desire to please the West and get the approval from it. Has our country managed to recover from this element?

T.K.: As for the desire to be liked by others, just like other countries, such as China, Korea or Japan, Russia wants to be liked by other countries.

I think all Russians as being a more collective society have the desire to be liked.

The West can use this for its own purposes. Russia communicates politely with other countries, although this is not always the case. In fact, I find it strange that even when the Russians oppose NATO, for example, their protests are very polite. They write something like “please stop this.” That way you won’t affect anyone. Another problem is that Russians do not recognize the importance of subconscious in decision making. When they make plans for the West, they are sure that all decisions are made rationally. I participated in an online forum hosted by members of the State Duma. There was a man there who said that he had the signatures of a million children from all over Russia to end the war. I was asked what I think about it. I said that no one would care about it, because it is not spectacular and does not evoke any emotions. People make decisions based on subconscious. Russian politicians interact with the West through all kinds of documents with signatures and official meetings. There is something in this, but it is inefficient. When Russians talk to me, they don’t see me as my person, but as a reflection of America. They say they are angry at America for killing people in Serbia, Libya and Iraq, and now in Ukraine, that the American government is killing people, and we Americans vote for these politicians and we are responsible for their actions. After that, they say they love America. Where does this positive attitude towards America come from? From Hollywood, video games, and so on. I recently heard that the Russian government is finally going to start investing in the entertainment and video game industry, because these are emotions, these are feelings. Recently was released a game Atomic Heart. It has robots and ballerinas in cool futuristic Soviet background. I won’t be surprised if thousands of people, having played this game, want to go to Russia and look at Soviet architecture. This is the same as our eighties movies with Schwarzenegger and Stallone. You saw beautiful California beaches, big houses, or something in these films and wanted to see it live. It’s all about emotions, but most people in the Russian government don’t get it. There is a huge gap between PR and how the government operates. PR staff understands that the subconscious plays a leading role in decision making. At the beginning of the war, Putin spent an hour explaining its causes. He gave a rational explanation. In fact, people supported him not because of this, but because they watched the murders of Russians in Ukraine for eight years. In fact, support for a special military operation came from the emotions of the people, and not from a logical speech delivered by the president. It needed to be said, but it did not cause public support.

M.T.: I agree with you. Michael Singer writes about the conscious and subconscious in his books.

T.K.: I hope the government people will read that.

M.T.: According to your own words, American rhetoric that could lead to the outbreak of a nuclear war is essentially an army that does not reflect reality. What do you think the deliberate escalation of the Ukrainian conflict by the United States can lead to here?

T.K.: You are talking about deliberate escalation. I hear very often about a conspiracy to provoke a third world war. If this conspiracy really existed, then the war would have begun long ago. It’s not that hard. All they have to do is attack Russia with some big rocket. The Russian defense will respond to this, and that will be the end of it. It would be the end of the world. The idea that there is a secret plan that will lead us to nuclear Armageddon is simply wrong. It doesn’t make sense if you understand how governments work and how easy it would be for people in the Pentagon or the White House to actually achieve that goal. So we don’t have to worry about that. As for rhetoric, the American one is very different from the Russian one. For example, if there is a person in the same room with an American who he does not like, the American will not say anything. In such a situation, he will be polite. If an American stumbles upon an unpleasant person on the Internet, he will suddenly become a tough guy and says everything.

That is why Washington is behaving the way it is. American politicians are convinced that no one here knows what they are talking about, and that their words will not lead to any consequences.

Therefore, Washington believes that they can say whatever they want about Russia. There is an anecdote: a guy from the USSR asks an American if he considers himself free. The American says yes, because he can insult President Reagan as much as he likes. Then the guy from the USSR said that he was also free, because he could also insult Reagan. Besides, American politicians have no idea that everything they say is translated into Russian. Tucker Carlson will fart in America and we will feel it here. American rhetoric is like trolling on the Internet, where no one is responsible for their words. Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson recently interviewed American politician Tulsi Gabbard. Halfway through the interview, Gabbard talked about how the House of Representatives actually works. Its members are only trying to keep their job and get more campaign money. Technically, this is not their job, but in fact they do their best to please those who donate to them, most of which come from the military-industrial complex. Politicians do not speak their mind. They are trying to get money from big companies like Raytheon. In exchange for a donation, politicians vote in a way that is beneficial to military companies. This is a system problem. Russians think rationally, so they take the words of American politicians as their personal opinion and try to bring some rational arguments. The motives of American politicians have nothing to do with Russia, peace or war. They care about survival in the system.

M.T.: After the start of the Ukrainian conflict, the problems with freedom of speech in the West only worsened: any opinion that differs from the position of Washington is immediately destroyed. Do such actions of American politicians go against the First Amendment to the US Constitution?

T.K.: There is an Overton window, that is, some boundaries of what is acceptable and unacceptable to say in public. There must be a balance here, since too blurred boundaries will lead to chaos, and too rigid ones will lead to a weakening of the state. This was one of the reasons why people in Soviet Union could not criticize the party and propose any reforms. They could only praise the party and work. It is necessary to observe the golden mean. Now in America, the boundaries of what is acceptable have been significantly tightened.

M.T.: Does this violate the First Amendment?

T.K.: The fact is that it can be interpreted in different ways. It was written during the time of Anglo-Saxon Protestants of various views. Then there were fears that these contradictions would lead to problems in the future. In Europe, at one time, this resulted in bloody clashes. Nevertheless, many nuances were already worked out then. People were not judged for jokes, sarcasm and so on. Defamation was prohibited by law. Freedom of speech does not give you the right to lie. Here’s a classic example: you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater. You can not use freedom of speech to provoke various tragedies. So there have always been limits. Now the amendment does not work as intended by its authors.

M.T.: Have you encountered censorship or artificial restrictions of freedom of speech by Western technology companies?

T.K.: Yes. In 2014, during Maidan, I published a book. People who identified themselves as members of the “Right Sector” posted my book on the Internet. They said that they hacked the server and made the book available to the public so that I would not make money on it. This was my first experience with something like this. Then I interviewed the German politician Peter Bystron, who had a pronounced pro-Russian position. After the interview, he asked me for a phone number to keep in touch. I gave him my number. After that, I could not log into my Facebook and Instagram accounts. They said they blocked my pages because a child was using them. I have been using these accounts for several years. There were my photos, I did not let my children use it. It was clear that these were the pages of an adult. After that, I proved for a long time that I was an adult. I still can’t log into my account and can’t create new pages on other devices or on a different phone number. They somehow know that it’s me. That’s how I got kicked off those platforms. I also created Tim Kerby website. Rumble has a Tim Kirby Russia channel. There is no censorship on this platform unlike YouTube. There I was not allowed to enter the page, and I had to redo it. I don’t know what their logic was. I’ve been banned from several platforms, but I haven’t suffered as much as Andrew Tate, who is currently in jail. Andrew Tate and Alex Jones have been really heavily censored on the internet.

M.T.: Back in the middle of nineties in the last century, scientists and researchers noted that the liberal values and ideas imposed by the United States and its capitalist allies are not shared by the vast majority of the population of our planet. Why then have Americans are pushing them so hard and persistently for so many years?

T.K.: I don’t know if the ancient Romans were really interested in what the Germanic tribes did in their huts, or in their dancing around the fires at night, or something like that. The same thing is happening now. They were so sure of their superiority that they were not interested in all sorts of subhumans. We must not forget that Western culture in many ways goes back to Roman culture. Then there was the Middle Ages with the Pope at the head, and then there were Protestants and a surge of violence that occurred immediately after the Protestant Reformation.

So the West has long been convinced of its superiority over others.

This superiority gives them the right to go to other countries, to influence their population, to instill in them civilization. After all, the Romans also believed that although they kill other peoples, they bring civilization, so the Germanic tribes should be grateful to them. I do not think that the attitude of the West towards others has changed. We heard the same rhetoric about the war in Iraq. The Americans said that yes, 2 million people died, but then Iraq would become part of a larger community, and it would have democracy. Despite the huge number of counterarguments, people believe that democracy will lead society to wealth, harmony and happiness. Where do these notions come from? After World War II, the United States turned West Germany and Japan into smaller versions of America. It was considered a huge success. Here again the phenomenon of historical inertia occurred. America managed to remake its enemy for itself and make a rich country out of it. It was a great moment. Since then, the US has been trying to fix many societies. Unfortunately, the experiments that followed Germany and Japan failed.

M.T.: A few weeks ago, I interviewed Scott Ritter. He also talked about the superiority of the United States. When you talked about the imposition of democracy, I had a picture in my head of Victoria Nuland with a gun, coming with weapons to other countries and making them adopt American democracy.

T.K.: So it happened in USSR. Then they said: “Proletarians of all countries, unite.” The mission of communism was to spread throughout the world. If someone did not like communism, then class consciousness had not yet appeared in this country. That is, not only America is engaged in such things. I like in Russia that its ideology is based on Christianity and Eurasianism. This ideology is based on the values of the country and its history. It cannot be applied anywhere except Russia and the former countries of the USSR. We cannot turn the Philippines into Russia. We cannot turn Africa into Russia. If they could, why waste time on it? This would be an artificial formation, and not the result of a natural course of events. This is one of the things that distinguishes today’s Russia from the Soviet Union, which to some extent still held to the idea that everyone should support communism.

M.T.: What you said about the Soviet Union happened several decades ago, while American democracy has not changed for years.

T.K.: The Soviet system was destroyed and replaced by something else. The United States has managed to remain relatively stable from the start. We could enter into a discussion about whether the Civil War really changed the way America works, but in any case, these are the same people, while in the Soviet Union everything was destroyed and reformatted. The United States did not have such a reformatting to a different ideological view.

M.T.: But do you think those reforms are needed in the US?

T.K.: This is for the Americans to decide. If we want to keep the society we are used to, where families form communities that form states, and so on, where people live, reprodice and die, then now we will not get it.

The shocking statistics prove how unhappy America has become when it abandoned traditional values. Now in America, one in three young men under 30 do not know what the touch of a woman feels like.

Society cannot function like this. This is a sad statistic. In Russia, women want to get married, and this is what attracts Americans here.

M.T.: And you help people move to Russia.

T.K.: The problem is that according to the laws, people practically cannot move here. This is what I’m currently working on with a committee that is mostly made up of Spravedlivaya Rossiya members. The laws make it very difficult to move, and in my opinion, this harms Russia’s interests.

M.T.: Is the liberal substitution of traditional values an attempt by the United States to create a new way of world governance? Do you think they will succeed, or is their plan doomed to fail?

T.K.: From the question, it seems that there is some kind of global conspiracy. For this question, it doesn’t matter, because modern values that have replaced traditional ones don’t work. We have just discussed one of the aspects. People are unhappy. They become unable to reproduce themselves. One of the main biological functions is to reproduce ourselves so that we continue to exist in the future. People are gradually losing this ability due to postmodern values. New values may work in someone’s interests, but they do not support society. Look at levels of depression and drug use. People in general are unhappy. People try to pretend. This is probably related to liberalism, because the ultimate goal of liberalism is to get complete freedom from society and be anyone. If you want to be a dolphin, be a dolphin. This is also called labels. In the 90s it was cool to say “don’t label me”. If, for example, I call you a woman, then I mentally classify you as a woman. For those who are dragging us into a dark future, this is a form of oppression. I don’t see this as a problem. Who cares?

M.T.: I think that the problem is also that people cannot accept themselves for who they are. For example, I am a woman and I like being a woman. I don’t want to be anyone else. Problems start when they are not satisfied with themselves.

T.K.: It goes back to feminism. Who were the first feminists? They were the bored, wealthy housewives of the British Empire. They wanted women to become men because men are superior to them. Feminists did not even criticize historians who wrote about great leaders, warriors and so on, and left women without attention. If feminists paid attention to this, then women would receive more recognition in society. Feminists wanted to eliminate the gender division of society and allow women to work in male areas. It killed the feminine. Hence the question of abortion. Feminism revealed a female inferiority complex that has spread throughout the world since the 19th century. Feminism exists on the belief that men are superior. If one day women would understand how wonderful it is to be married when a husband protects and cares for them. Caring for others is what women do best. Fathers are much worse at raising children, especially when they are sick. When women recognize their value in the traditional sense of our idea of a woman, then feminism will die and everyone can be happy. This is a real nightmare that began over 100 years ago when women tried to take over male functions or take on the role of a man. This is not possible due to our genetics.

M.T.: You have repeatedly criticized the presidential election in the United States because of numerous facts of fraud, which, according to millions of Americans, allowed Biden to steal the last presidential election. How do you think this is possible in a country that proclaims itself the source of democracy?

T.K.: How is this possible? How, with the help of activists, to drop hundreds of thousands of additional ballots in certain districts in order to bypass the system and the Electoral College? How is this possible in America? The USA was originally a constitutional republic. From the 1800s they suddenly became a democracy. They were not originally created as a democracy.

No country is ever meant to be a democracy, not even ancient Athens. So democracy is a lie. It is a falsehood.

One of the main things that I try to get across to people, one of my main messages throughout my work, is that the idea of a democracy ruled by the people is a lie. It will never exist. In general, whether they are communists, capitalists, feudal lords, or Saudi sheikhs, in fact, there is a system that is very similar to democracy, but most of the population, such as peasants, are at the bottom of the hierarchy. There is a kind of elite and opposition that oppose each other at the top. There is a middle class that has more power than the peasants, but not enough to influence anything. The model of the society in which we live can be represented as a pyramid, as a hierarchy. In a democracy, the model would look like a line. Real society does not fit into it. There are those who have more and less power. There is also the concept of representatives of the will of the people, for whom the population votes. How do you know that this person will represent you? There are Democrats and Republicans. If you vote for a Democrat, then nothing obliges him to comply with the principles of the Democratic Party. There are Republicans who vote as Democrats but run as Republicans. There is no guarantee that politicians will behave the way you expect when you vote. It destroys the concept of representative government because these people do not represent your interests. Democracy is a farce, but a pleasant farce. People think that they influence something, but in reality they are only peasants. So everywhere. In France, before the overthrow of the king, there were three estates: the aristocracy, the clergy and the peasants. Such a system was at least based on reality.

M.T.: Please rate the policy of the current American president? Why, in your opinion, is he not interested in problems within his own country, but provides significant financial assistance to states on another continent?

T.K.: There is a theory that I don’t particularly believe in myself, but many people believe it to be true. In their opinion, most of the problems in America are due to “enemy” territories. But again, I think they know how the game is played. I don’t think they particularly care.

AMERICANS DO SUBCONSCIOUSLY BELIEVE THE UNITED STATES IS ABSOLUTELY INVINCIBLE. REGARDLESS OF HOW MANY MISTAKES THEY MAKE OR HOW MUCH TAXES THEY HAVE COLLECTED. THEY ALWAYS SUGGEST THE US IS THE BEST.

So arrogance plays a role here, they don’t think they should care about anything. Like, why bother? Who cares? Or the fact that we have an insane system where the average politician is just a politician for show, whose goal is to get re-elected for another term. This is their main task at the post. Their job is to just stay where they are. This is their number one mission. We also have a system where there is no dictatorship, which is a federal system. So a lot depends on the states. I think it’s a little easier to deal with corruption at a smaller level. You know, one person close to me said that in the US there will always be a problem with books in schools. We always run out of textbooks, run out of supplies, paper or whatever, but there’s always a new $5 million administration building. This happens all the time. The question is where does the money go. George W. Bush said that everything would be much easier if it were a dictatorship. And that’s the whole problem. The system does not operate as a one-sided dictatorship. We still have a lot to do.

M.T.: Do you agree with the statement that the United States deliberately adds fuel to the fire of conflicts around the world in order to allow its military industrial complex to profit from what’s happening?

T.K.: Yes, I think we will come back to this question many times, unless there really is a radical change in America. I wrote an article a few years ago, and I still believe that the military-industrial complex no longer needs an enemy. It does not need to wage wars or engage in any activity. This is a kind of “Overton window”. The perception of the military in society and in Washington is that they can get as much funding as they want. They don’t need to fight any wars. I hope people wake up and realize everything.

THE AMERICAN MIC GETS TRILLION DOLLARS A YEAR IN FUNDING JUST BECAUSE OF ITS EXISTENCE.

M.T.: What kind of world order do you think awaits us after the end of the Ukrainian conflict?

T.K.: Well, it may have already come.

AS ONCE RUSSIA FIRED THE FIRST SHOT IN THE SPECIAL MILITARY OPERATION, US HEGEMONY IS ENDING. RUSSIA HAS INDEPENDENTLY MADE A DECISION, AND NOBODY COULD STOP IT.

Now it is, in fact, a monopoly. We cannot be sure what form the world will take. We definitely see that there will be a big international, maybe two international orders. There will be a West with its own hegemony, and a kind of eastern or southern international order, in which there will be China, Russia, India, Iran and many others. So in a sense, it could be like competing international institutions on both sides of the line, sort of going against each other. I think the really interesting question is what will the money be like? You know, we heard a lot of rumors from the media about how they are going to establish a fair world order and create a new currency based on goods of various kinds. This will be fair to everyone. I think that when this happens, life will change a lot. Money is a big part of our lifestyle, any changes in this system will affect us. The world will definitely feel these changes. It’s hard for me to predict the future. We can already say with confidence that monopolarity is over. There are still many countries, for example, in Africa, in South America, which are still a little scared of the old hegemon. But already now they are beginning to doubt that the United States is the master of the world, which can do whatever it wants, as before. It looks like it’s over, whether the United States starts to prosper again or faces Civil War 2.0. It looks like the game is already over.

Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, interviewed Okay Deprem, a journalist and political scientist from Turkey. The human rights activist found out how the United States is using Europe to fight Russia, why Ankara supports Ukraine while maintaining friendly relations with Moscow, and what characteristics make Turkey one of the worst countries in the world in terms of human rights.

https://rumble.com/embed/v2izfew/?pub=1jxcnw

Mira Terada: Good afternoon, dear Okay! Thank you very much for taking the time to do this interview. Please tell our viewers and readers what you do?

Okay Deprem: I have been working as a journalist and correspondent from Turkey at Donbass for more than eight years. I have been corresponding and the creating visual and written materials for the one of the most famous national TV channels of Turkey and at the same time, for the informational portal of the same media.

M.T.: From the perspective of a political scientist, how do you assess the events taking place in the world? Are Americans really trying to extend their hegemony by pushing Russia and Europe against each other?

O.D.: The world is living very messy and total transformation, geopolitical and ideological transformation. The transformation has begun just after the conclusion of the Cold War. On the other hand, due to other comment or point of view, this transformation has begun slow by the end of 2000-s, but especially, of course last a year. The current conflict is political, social and economical. This competition that takes place between West (North American, West European and European block) and East (Eurasian alliance under the leadership of the Russian Federation, China, India and several countries). Just about the second part of your question, naturally, it is on discussable. The United States had been doing several times different kinds of conflicts and events throughout the last few decades. This time also and hegemonic.

This war is the global attack of the United States against Russia. Europe just it has been seen and observed just after the Second World War, is being used by the United States against Russia

M.T.: Please explain the relationship between Turkey and NATO? Some experts argue that the alliance, through its direct provocations, is forcing the country to consider the prospect of leaving it.

O.D.: The relationships between Turkey and NATO gets worse and worse. It is a very important fact. Turkey is not satisfied still being a member of NATO, and conflicts and disagreements between the Alliance and Turkey a year by year get bigger, get deeper, deeper, etc. Of course there are several messes inside Turkey demanding the exit of Turkey from NATO. Some state establishments, political parties, different state institutions have been arguing, discussing about the need, about the necessity of exiting from NATO. This is one of the main discussion topics in politics of Turkey for several decades.

M.T.: In one of your articles, you stated that Turkey’s decision to join NATO in 1952 was «a crucial mistake and a suicide mission for the country». Can you please explain your point of view?

O.D.: In the same article, I traced the history of relations between Turkey and Russia. In the 1920s, when the Republic of Turkey and the Soviet Union were founded, there were friendly relations between the two countries. Despite the death of Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, relations between Russia and Turkey until the 1950s, especially until that fateful date, had a positive dynamic.

After Turkey joined NATO, relations with Russia deteriorated sharply. For Turkey this was a critical moment in the history and a political suicide.

M.T.: At the end of January of this year, Swedish police gave official permission for the leader of a Danish far-right party to burn a Quran outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm. Why do you think the Swedish authorities allow such horrific acts?

O.D.: I am sure that we cannot evaluate this event independent of some former incidents in the sphere of mutual relationships between Sweden and Turkey. We remember that Turkey was preparing to block the possible entry of Sweden to the alliance of NATO and especially having underlined as one of the most important reasons behind it, just because Sweden officially had been keeping several Kurdish serious opponents, had been supporting several Kurdish political organizations and political key persons, etc. But afterwards, of course, we know the condemnation of the events related to it. And just after beginning of the discussion quite seriously about the block of possible entry of Sweden to NATO, I think the Sweden authorities began, maybe not officially, but at some local level, to show some kind reaction to the position of Turkey. This was approved by authorities, both in Sweden and in Denmark.

M.T.: Do you think we can draw analogies between Ukraine and Kurdistan, can NATO countries use this region as leverage against Ankara?

O.D.: The United States has long been using Kurdistan for its own purposes. Its historical and natural borders go into the territories of Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq. Various Kurdish political and armed formations operate in these territories. The US has never made a secret of its support for Kurdish rebel organizations and autonomous regions, such as in Syria. The United States supports these Kurdish formations in northern Syria, which the Turkish government considers a threat to Turkey.

The fact of direct or indirect US support for Kurdish autonomies and organizations is a threat and a provocation against Ankara.

M.T.: The bilateral relationship between Russia and Turkey goes back more than five centuries, but at the same time Ankara supports Ukraine by providing humanitarian aid as well as, according to unconfirmed reports, American-made cluster bombs. Why do you think this is the case?

O.D.: Firstly, I don’t know where to read the detail about what kind of military aid Ankara provides to Ukraine. Secondly, Ankara and even Turkish military companies did not supply weapons to Ukraine for free. If we connect both parts of the question, then it turns out that Turkey, having good relations with Russia, supports Ukraine to some extent. Nevertheless, if we compare Turkey’s relations with Russia and Ukraine, then the strongest relations will be with Russia.

If at the beginning of the conflict Turkey was on the side of Ukraine, trying to maintain a balance in its foreign policy and act in accordance with the course of America and Europe, now Ankara is more interested in relations with Russia as an equal ally.

It would be strange to expect Turkey to sever all relations with Ukraine, since even before the start of the special military operation, Turkey and Ukraine had quite close relations, even closer than with some European countries due to the geographical proximity of the two countries.

M.T.: At the end of October last year, the Turkish authorities refused to release human rights activist Osman Kavala from prison, contrary to the relevant decision of the European Court of Human Rights. How do you assess the human rights situation in Turkey?

O.D.: If you take the history of Turkey, not only in the last 20 years, but long before that, the human rights situation in Turkey was quite problematic. I don’t even remember in my life cases when cases that did not concern politicians from other countries were resolved democratically. The case of Osman Kavala is not individual. Even before him, hundreds of activists, politicians, journalists and writers were sent to prison.

Hundreds of people have been threatened by the government, including by the current government.

Unfortunately, this is why Turkey has one of the worst human rights situations in the world.

M.T.: Turkey is ranked 149th in the World Press Freedom Index as of 2022. Please comment on the level of pluralism, media independence and censorship in the Republic? Have you encountered censorship or artificial restrictions on freedom of speech?

O.D.: During my 20 years of work as a journalist, that is, from the beginning of the 90s, and even during my political career before that, hundreds of newspapers, magazines, TV channels and so on were closed. The most telling example is the 2016 coup attempt. After the coup, the authorities closed the TV channel and news publications belonging to the media group where I worked without a court decision. This media group was not associated with Gülen. In addition to shutting down a number of media outlets, the authorities also illegally confiscated the media group’s property. This incident can be considered a typical example of censorship. Hundreds of similar cases have occurred over several decades.

M.T.: How do the Turkish media cover the Ukrainian conflict? Do they report about the crimes and information provocations committed by the Ukrainian military?

O.D.: Little and rarely is written about the conflict in Ukraine in Turkey. The Tele1 media group I work for is Turkey’s only source of information about the conflict in Ukraine. We are the only media in the country that reports on the provocations of the Ukrainian military and the crimes of the Ukrainian Nazis against civilians. Since March of last year, I have been making reports for our media group or for other media. In addition, since 2014 I have been a correspondent for several Turkish media in Donbas. In my materials, I touched on the topics you mentioned. Our media is the third or fourth most popular in Turkey, so these materials have been seen by millions of people. I am the only Turkish correspondent in Donbass.

M.T.: That is, people in Turkey know about the events that have taken place in Donbas since 2014?

O.D.: Yes.

M.T.: Can we say that the Ukrainian conflict will put an end to centuries of attempts by European and Anglo-American imperialism to exploit our countries?

O.D.: I think yes. Back in 2014, even in the fall of 2013, it was clear that this was not a local or intrastate conflict.

Even then, the United States, the Baltic countries, countries neighboring Ukraine, as well as large EU countries such as France and Germany, tried to benefit from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in various ways.

Thus, they tried to resist not only Russia, but indirectly through it, China and other Eurasian states. With this confrontation, they are trying to achieve several goals. The first is to weaken Russia politically, militarily and economically. In addition, they have long been planning for Ukraine, not only to expand NATO, but also to use its resources, namely its territory, population, infrastructure and industrial potential to enrich the economies of America and Europe. In addition, they want to appropriate the natural resources of Ukraine. In European and Anglo-Saxon countries, such an agenda has long been present, and a plan has long been developed to implement these goals.

Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, interviewed Max Blumenthal, a popular American journalist and founder of The Grayzone, one of the largest independent news outlets. The human rights activist discussed with the publicist why the U.S. media does not discuss the United States’ involvement in the North Streams sabotage, how Ukrainian criminal gangs persecute journalists around the world, and why American leftist politicians who oppose the war are now silent.

https://rumble.com/embed/v28o1sm/?pub=1jxcnw

Mira Terada: In your opinion, these so-called revolutions taking place all over the world right now. Is such a revolution possible in the US, especially now when there is discontent among the population?

Max Blumenthal: Well, I’m not sure what revolutions are taking place right now. There’s a lot of rebellion. There are a lot of protests, especially in Western Europe, where they’re accustomed to first world living conditions, and they’re seeing that their governments are not willing to actually represent. I would like to believe revolutionary change is possible in the U.S., but our biggest obstacle is the media. The media is completely committed to the status quo in this country and has supported every policy that has divided people and produced inequality. And now we see the media. It claims independence in the United States, unlike in a country that’s ruled by a one-Party state, but it functions like the media under a regime and displays incredible discipline whenever something happens that the regime does not want the public to learn about.

The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines is one of the worst acts of industrial and environmental terror of our time.

And one of our most famous investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, has exposed what we all knew, which was that the United States was responsible for this act of terror. So the US media, the regime media refuses to speak about this report by Seymour Hersh and does not want to address the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines at all because it would produce popular anger, especially in Germany, where people are suffering without the energy that they’re accustomed to. The media refuses to talk about, refuses to show the lives of America’s poor, the same way it refuses to show the experience of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation or people in the Donbass who have been under the Ukrainian guns and been targeted by US weapons for over eight years. That story has never been told in our media. The media doesn’t want us to know what our government is doing with our money. It only wants us to know what war crimes Russia is committing because we’re not responsible.

M.T.: Yes, they’re trying to flip all the truth upside down. You are a historian by your education. Does it make sense to destroy history in favor of new trends? After all, history and its lessons is an opportunity to avoid mistakes in the future. If all mistakes mercilessly crossed out, what is there to learn to learn from?

M.B.: That’s a great question. We’re not looking just at the destruction of the perversion of history in our societies, but the destruction of cultures in order to advance the objectives of the hegemonic power. So in Ukraine, we can see the post-modern regime. Kiev is destroying books in Russian language books and libraries, supporting the banning of Tchaikovsky and Russian cultural treasures across Europe, arresting clergy from the Orthodox Church and forming a separate Orthodox church more influenced by the West, just destroying all these cultural traditions to advance a war in our own country and across the West, there’s a war on there.

There have been support among the liberal class for eliminating and banning Russian language media, for example, or Russian broadcasters to prevent us from hearing the Russian side and also support for censoring social media to silence dissenting voices by the states.

And conservative American lawmakers are supporting the banning or forbidding of certain books that teach about slavery and genocide committed in the United States on grounds that teaching it is brainwashing children. And I would just say children or young people in the United States are encouraged to look at their phones all the time. They’re given tablets at school, computers, and they’re taken away from books. And so the learning of history is de-emphasized among youth.

M.T.: What needs to happen in the United States for its elites to stop playing the world hegemon and impose their political values to the world?

M.B.: Unfortunately, we’re seeing right now a military confrontation. Indeed, the U.S. military and its proxy militaries are advancing the interests of those elites and their ability to accumulate capital and maintain control over the world financial system. And so when an alternative financial system is able to emerge and their sufficient deterrent capacity held by those countries that want to get out of the U.S. imperial umbrella, the elites will have to respond. And I think this will lead, unfortunately, to a deepening of the political and cultural wars we’re facing at home.

M.T.: A standard question. How to deal with the Peacekeeper?

M.B.:

I was targeted by a group, the Ukrainian group. They’re based in London, and they include people from the Ukrainian Interior Ministry and they sent out a dossier to journalists across the world.

That contains my home address the addresses of all my family members and their coworkers, and claim that I was paid by Russia to say what I’m saying and that I’ve become extremely wealthy because of the Kremlin and that I am a genocide denier and an anti-Semite. I’m Jewish, by the way. As far as the kill list goes, this list is very dangerous for people inside Ukraine. It can be dangerous for people who can be reached by the SBU, but it’s also a badge of honor for those of us who are not as threatened over here in the United States. It means that we are a threat to this war effort. To the extent that it is run out of the United States or has help, assistance from any Americans, they should be investigated and prosecuted, and the site should be shut. This site is involved in an accessory to murder.

M.T.: Why the U.S. does nothing with this site and doesn’t accept sanctions against Ukraine? Because the site has personal data of US citizens. It turns out that the government doesn’t want to protect its own citizens, dividing them into right and wrong.

M.B.: Right. And my research leads me to believe that some of the people involved with this site, I don’t have concrete evidence, so I don’t want to state it directly that some of the people on the American side who helped create this site or consult for it have also contracted with the FBI. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry supports this kill list openly, Anton Gerashchenko specifically. We know that the Ukrainian Interior Ministry is has received support from US intelligence and the Ukrainian SBU is trained by the CIA.

M.T.: What measures are Biden and the U.S. government taking to prevent the war?

M.B.:

Well, actually, there are some really dangerous people around Joe Biden who would like to see an offensive in Crimea and would like to push the envelope all the way to nuclear escalation.

There are also elements in British intelligence who think that the U.S. should escalate against Russia and ignore the threat of nuclear escalation. And while Biden has avoided crossing certain extremely dangerous red lines, we still see constant escalation. And we have to wonder, would we be in this situation if Biden had lost?

M.T.: Why a leftist politicians in the U.S., such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who tend to condemn the government for expanding the military industrial complex and aggressive policies, now stay in silence?

M.B.: The answer is because there’s a Democratic president, they are Democrats. And if Trump were in office, they would possibly be criticizing Donald Trump’s Republican war because they’re totally on principle. Bernie Sanders is worse than Ocasio-Cortez. He supported Yugoslavia. He supported Libya. He never understood why these wars were wrong in any way. And he has nothing to lose now. He has no ambition. He’s at the end of his career. What does he have to lose? Bernie Sanders genuinely supports this this proxy war.

M.T.: What can you say about the Rage Against the War Machine? What do you want to achieve? What reaction do you expect?

M.B.: Well, for 20 years, the antiwar movement in the United States has been dead. And this is an attempt to bring it back to life by bringing as many different forces together across political divisions to show the planners of this war and the next war that they plan against China, that the people will have a voice. This rally is bringing together people from the left and the right who may not agree on other issues like abortion or the economy, but who think that stopping this war is the most important issue of our time. Saving lives in Ukraine, the Donbass and beyond, and preventing nuclear conflict is more important than the differences we have here at home. Some of the critics of this rally are saying, for you to oppose this war, you also have to believe in certain other issues. You have to believe in a woman’s right to have an abortion, or you have to take progressive views on social issues. I have those views, but other speakers do not. But I’m willing to unite with them over this. But others are saying, “no, we cannot unite.” People are trying to stop this rally because some of the speakers do not hold the right view on abortion or gay rights, illustrating how silly the political situation is in the U.S. and how divided we are, which makes it so difficult to have a movement, let alone a revolution against very toxic system. I think this rally is about trying to meet at important points and get over those divides. If you look at polling, Americans more than ever are tired of Biden and Trump, more than ever are independent, more than ever believe a comedian should be president than a politician. There are places we can meet on civil liberties, on opposing war, on censorship, on opposing inequality and moving the focus from these really divisive culture war issues to issues around class. Because if you look at the class character of the people who voted for Biden and the people who voted for Trump, the average voter, they’re the same, they have the same class interests.