Given the age we live in, guilt by association is a great tool to take down people you dislike.

I've gone to bat for Chomsky on this sub a thousand times, and I'm still going to bat for him on this occasion. The recent report is even LESS of a big deal, seeing as the accusation is that Epstein HELPED Chomsky with a rearrangement of funds after his wife's death.

In response to questions from the Journal, Chomsky confirmed that he received a March 2018 transfer of roughly $270,000 from an Epstein-linked account. He said it was “restricted to rearrangement of my own funds, and did not involve one penny from Epstein.”

Chomsky explained that he asked Epstein for help with a “technical matter” that he said involved the disbursement of common funds related to his first marriage.

“My late wife died 15 years ago after a long illness. We paid no attention to financial issues,” he said in an email that cc’d his current wife. “We asked Epstein for advice. The simplest way seemed to be to transfer funds from one account in my name to another, by way of his office.”

Chomsky said he didn’t hire Epstein. “It was a simple, quick, transfer of funds,” he said.

The public reaction will, undoubtedly, carry over from the previous reports of Chomsky interacting with Epstein on multiple occasions. The accusations are baseless, but the public outcry seems to be limited to:

• Why would he interact with a convicted pedophile, especially Epstein?

• Why would he interact with billionaires at all, he's a socialist/anarchist/etc.?

Given the previous reports hubub, I had gotten in touch with Bev Stohl, Noam's personal assistant for 24 years (and who was present both during the loss of Noams first wife and the Epstein interactions), and with her blessing, she's allowed me to share her response to the whole ordeal.

Me: Mrs. Stohl, you were his assistant during the timeline of events the WSJ is quoting. If you have any opportunity, could you write something to provide some necessary context to how Noam took interviews?

• Did he do any background checks on the people who asked to meet with him? Did he ever do any kind of check, even as much as looking them up on Wikipedia?

• Was Noam, particularly in the 2010s, going anywhere by himself that he wouldn't have had you or other colleagues accompanying him?

• Was it out of the ordinary for billionaires to come visit or ask him to talk? Did Noam ever discriminate because someone was percieved to be "too rich"?

Bev: Hi - darn, I wrote you a long reply and it disappeared. I’ll try again.

Noam took people at their word when they wrote him - it didn’t matter if they were billionaires, jobless, well known, unknown. In fact, as much as he kept his finger on the pulse of human rights and social justice, he didn’t pay attention to gossip or hearsay and in some cases whether people were jailed and why. He never feels he or anyone should have to explain or defend themselves. He believes in freedom of speech, whether or not he agrees with what someone has said or done. He meets with all sorts of people because he wants to know what they think, and I suppose how they think. He’s always gathering information.

As I said, he doesn’t feel he needs to explain himself or apologize. While I know a simple statement could sometimes get him out of the fray of those who want to continue to muckrake him, he refuses to go there.

If he met with Epstein in our office, it would have been just another meeting. In my experience, he never looked anyone up. He glanced at the schedule minutes before a person arrived, and took it from there. Noam has never acted with ill or malicious intent. Never.

Bev

Edit: Here's some more context from the Guardian's report (thanks to u/Seeking-Something-3)

”He went on to confirm that in March 2018, he received a transfer of approximately $270,000 from an account linked to Epstein, telling the Journal that it was “restricted to rearrangement of my own funds, and did not involve one penny from Epstein”. In response to further questions from the Guardian, Chomsky responded: “My late wife Carol and I were married for 60 years. We never bothered with financial details. She had a long debilitating illness when we paid no attention at all to such matters. Several years after her death, I had to sort some things out. I asked Epstein for advice. There were no financial transactions except from one account of mine to another.” “These are all personal matters of no one’s concern,” Chomsky said.”

I would hope that people who frequent this subreddit would have an interest in Chomsky, including trying to understand why he did the things he did. The arguments on the latest posts seem to continue with the same guilt by association.

With the context that Bev provides, I would hope that there would be a more measured discussion in the comments. However, given the current hatred that Noam gets for his position on the War in Ukraine, I do not expect that much charitability. But for those that new Noam the most, his capacity to interact with everyone without prejudice was what made him so accessible to millions of people.

I hope this extra context helps inform those who might visit this subreddit.

I look forward to the comments.

"If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible...”
​- Harry Truman, 1941.

Since the end of the Second World War, the bourgeois historiography has tried to distort various incidents in order to vilify Socialism and the USSR. One of these incidents- which has been a "banner" of imperialism's apologists and other anticommunists- is the so-called “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact” which was signed in 1939. In it's unscientific, unhistorical effort to equate Communism with Nazism, the bourgeois propaganda presents the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact as a medium of expansive policy by the USSR and Hitler's Germany. The distortion of historical events, the amalgamation of lies and the half-truths by the Imperialists and their collaborators aim in defaming the huge role of the Soviet Union in the anti-fascist struggle of WW2.

However, the reality is different than the one presented by the bourgeois historiography. Here, we will examine the circumstances and the events which led to the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact, in an effort to debunk the anti-communist propaganda on this matter.

Having the financial and technical support of US and European monopolies, Hitler's Germany began to strengthen its armed forces in the mid-1930s. In 1936, the Nazis proceeded to the militarization of Rhineland, helped Mussolini in capturing Abyssinia (Ethiopia) while they played a crucial role in the imposition of Franco's fascist dictatorship in Spain. The strengthening of Nazi Germany and the beginning of fascism's expansion in Europe took place under the tolerance of the then powerful “democratic” imperialist powers; Britain, France and the US.

After the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in March 1938, the Allies (Britain, France) proceed to the Munich Agreement (30 September 1938). The apologists of Imperialism usually try to downgrade the importance of this agreement between Britain, France, Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany. However, the impact of the Munich agreement- an act of appeasement towards the Nazis- was definitely significant. With the signatures of the then British and French Prime Ministers, Neville Chamberlain and Édouard Daladier, the Nazis annexed Czechoslovakia and intensified their expansionist aggressiveness towards Eastern Europe.

A few months later, on April 7, 1939 the fascist regime of Italy invaded and captured Albania. On March 31, 1939, the governments of Britain and France guaranteed the protection of Poland in case of a Nazi attack- Both London and Paris signed bilateral agreements of mutual aid with Poland. When Germany invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939, Britain and France declared war against Hitler but without taking any military action until next year! From their side, the United States declared their neutrality.

Before the invasion of the Nazi army in Poland, the government in Warsaw had tried to negotiate with Hitler a possible joint attack against the Soviet Union. The negotiations failed, as long as the Polish bourgeoisie preferred instead to sign defense agreements with Britain and France. What is important here is that Poland had rejected an agreement of mutual defense (against Nazis) offered by the Soviet Union.
​
The Imperialist propaganda tries to obfuscate Britain and France's stance of appeasement towards the Nazis and hides the reasons behind the US “neutrality”. The words of US Senator Robert A. Taft are characteristic: “A victory of communism would be much more dangerous for the United States than a victory for fascism” (CBS, 25 June 1941). According to historian John Snell, the western powers regarded the Third Reich as a “barrier” against the Soviet Union in central Europe. The strategic aim of the “democratic” imperialist states was to turn Hitler against the Soviet Union; in a few words, to use the Nazis as a weapon against the construction of Socialism in the USSR. That was the initial aim of the so-called “allies”.

On that point, we must remind that, before the war and while Hitler's regime was building a powerful military, the Soviet Union took numerous initiatives in order to deal a defensive agreement with the European capitalist states. Despite the Soviet calls for the preparation of a common front against the Nazis, the western European “allies” declined such a perspective. For example, before the 1938 Munich Agreement, when Hitler annexed Austria, the Soviet Union proposed an International conference (March 1938) which would deal with the confrontation of Nazi aggressiveness.

On July 23, 1939, the Soviet Union proposed to Britain and French the beginning of negotiations for the formation of a defense plan in case of a German attack. However, the British government had other priorities: to secretly negotiate a non-aggression pact with Hitler's representatives in London. Indeed, while the Soviet Union was proposing to the capitalist states an anti-fascist front, the British government was secretly negotiating with the Nazis the “spheres of influence” in Europe!

What the bourgeois historiography deliberately hides is the fact that the Soviet Union was the only state that had not an aggressive, expansionist policy. Both the two sides of international imperialism (the “democratic” capitalist allies and, on the other hand, the Nazi-fascist Axis) were aiming at the elimination of the Soviet Union. The real enemy of both sides was the Socialist construction in the USSR and for that they didn't hesitate to use each other against Moscow.

The temporary non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany came after numerous efforts by the Soviets to deal a defense agreement with Britain and France. Therefore, being under the continuous threat of the expanding Nazi army and in order to prepare itself for an extensive war, the Soviet state forced to sign the non-aggression pact with Berlin. What bourgeois historians and apologists of Imperialism call an “alliance between Hitler and Stalin” was in fact a necessary diplomatic maneuver by the Soviet Union in order to gain time and prepare effectively for a full-scale war. Even bourgeois historians admit that the Soviet policy was complete realistic, given the then circumstances and the danger of a German attack (F.Dulles, The road to Tehran, New York, 1944, p.203-207).

According to the imperialist propaganda, the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact led to the Soviet “capture” of a part of Poland and the Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. Such arguments- about the supposed “Soviet occupation”- have fostered the rise of fascist, neo-Nazi groups in these countries after the counter-revolution in the USSR. However, the truth is also quite different. Poland had participated actively in the allied imperialist attack which was launched against the newly-founded Soviet state in 1918. With the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) the Bolshevik leadership had renounced Tsarist claims to Poland. The Polish government kept under it's control a number of areas in the Baltic region, including western Belarus, western Ukraine and a part of Lithuania). After the Nazi invasion in Poland in 1939, the Red Army moved towards the Soviet-Polish borders and liberated the above-mentioned areas.

The bourgeois-imperialist propaganda tries to distort history when it refers to “Soviet occupation”- on the contrary, the Soviet Army was the one which liberated the Baltic countries and eastern Europe from the Nazis. The Motolov-Ribbentrop pact did not include any kind of Poland's “partition”. On the contrary, the 1938 Munich Agreement between Britain, France and the Axis (Germany, Italy) led to the partition of Czechoslovakia and the seizure of the country by Hitler's army.

Conclusion

The imperialist propaganda regarding the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact consists one of the numerous cases of blatant anticommunist lies. Through bourgeois historiography, Imperialism tries to equate communism and fascism, to vilify Socialism and the Soviet Union. In order to do this, Imperialism's apologists distort history and invent the most hideous slanders against the Soviet Union and the socialist states; from the “Moscow trials” and the “gulags” to the supposed “Stalin-Hitler alliance” and the “Soviet invasion” in Afghanistan. What the Imperialists want to hide is the fact that fascism is just another kind of bourgeois authority- the simple fact that, as Bertolt Brecht said, fascism is the “most naked, brazen, oppressive and deceitful form of capitalism”.

https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/stalin-never-allied-with-hitler-the-truth-about-the-1939-molotov-ribbentrop-pact-by-nikos-mottas

Trump is an obvious brazen criminal president who should be in prison and he lost the popular vote by millions and squeaked by a tiny margin in the archaic electoral college. Even Trump himself expected to lose. And the reason he was able to do that was due to Cambridge Analytica Facebook hack that was used to target voters in critical swing electoral college votes, voter suppression, and actual electoral fraud by REPUBLICANS. The majority DID NOT elect Donald Trump. This is 100000% a fact. Why does nobody talk about this? Why do Republicans keep getting away with stealing elections like they stole 2000, 2004, attempted to steal 2008 and 2012 but got overwhelmed by Obama voters, stole 2016, and attempted to steal 2020 with the Trump Fake Elector Plot.

Republicans were sued and found guilty in court. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Voter_Registration_Crosscheck_Program

In December 2019, the program was suspended indefinitely as part of a settlement[1] of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas challenging Kansas' management of the program.

Washington post article: "academics and states that use the program have found that its results are overrun with false positives, creating a high risk of disenfranchising legal voters. A statistical analysis of the program published earlier this year by researchers at Stanford, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania and Microsoft, for instance, found that Crosscheck “would eliminate about 200 registrations used to cast legitimate votes for every one registration used to cast a double vote.”

https://www.gregpalast.com/election-stolen-heres/

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/the-gops-stealth-war-against-voters-247905/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/20/this-anti-voter-fraud-program-gets-it-wrong-over-99-of-the-time-the-gop-wants-to-take-it-nationwide/

https://apnews.com/article/hacking-ap-top-news-elections-politics-technology-39dad9d39a7533efe06e0774615a6d05

https://stallman.org/republican-election-rigging.html

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/brian-kemp-georgia-election-integrity.html

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/23/leaked-cambridge-analyticas-blueprint-for-trump-victory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot (this is about Republicans attempting to steal 2020)

https://youtu.be/FS52QdHNTh8 This documentary is about how Fox News Republican brainwashing works.

https://youtu.be/Kc9OHBHtho8 This documentary covers about media corruption, but most importantly, it covers how Republicans stole the 2000 election.

That's how dictatorships form and brainwashing and mind control and disinformation works. People would rather believe WELL KNOWN pathological liars and criminals like Trump and DeSouza without any shred of credible evidence, ONLY BASED ON THEIR POPULARITY and their word, rather than believe the truth. America is sliding into a dictatorship thanks to Republicans. It is not news at all that Republicans would rather abandon voting and democracy than their power. THEY SAID SO THEMSELVES.

Here are Republicans admitting they are against people voting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So5AWc2tAwI

how the right wins by voter supression https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-7xo3CaJHw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62lv6zPMXuo

fascism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpCKkWMbmXU

lies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nknYtlOvaQ0

trump coup prediction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BliU4aR1CMU

shared psychosis

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-shared-psychosis-of-donald-trump-and-his-loyalists/

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/06/01/our-entire-democracy-now-risk-because-gop-attacks-warn-100-scholars

https://www.vice.com/en/article/k78znw/the-gops-off-the-rails-march-toward-authoritarianism-has-historians-worried

Anne Nelson: Inside the Radical Right's Shadow Network

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YANRFT3jv0

Nancy MacLean democracy in chains

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/07/american-anger-polarization-fox-news/

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/elections/2021/01/06/trumps-failed-efforts-overturn-election-numbers/4130307001/

And here's one for the Tucker Carlson fans who don't know he's a well-known brazen liar and CIA and globalist elitist asset. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_nFI2Zb7qE

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/
https://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/

The Ukrainian security Service (SBU) only ever spotted 56 Russian fighters between 2014 and 2015, note that they were unable to even specify Russian troops. Of course, it's likely that some of them were.

https://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/war-against-ukraine/sbu-registers-involvement-of-56-russian-in-military-actions-against-ukraine-since-military-conflict-in-eastern-ukraien-unfolded-399718.html

The European Court, on the topic of Russian crimes around the donbass, takes for granted that the donbass was occupied by "Separatist Rebels". They point out that Russian involvement was primarily in the form of " military strategy” including providing weapons, carrying out artillery attacks requested by the rebels and giving them political and economic support." and also find evidence of some Russian military personal in numbers consistent with the SBU.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-moscow-netherlands-human-rights-63564ad2165875c83d2570337363ec1e

Independent OSCE observers in Ukraine never found any substantial evidence for Russian deployment. As in, they found equally substantial evidence that the Spanish army had deployed there.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/25/counting-the-dead-in-europes-forgotten-war-ukraine-conflict-donbass-osce/

The kind of deployment that Russia would need to account for the civil war, in this narrative that ignores Ukranian Agency, would be impossible to hide from all these observers. It is time to stop denying Ukrainian Agency here. You do not need to invent ghost armies if you start taking seriously Ukrainian Agency.

MODS, this is not about the ongoing war in Ukraine, so I did not think it appropriate to post to the megathread. Plus, the megathread is becoming an echo chamber, where any dissenting notions from this conspiracy theory about a Russian ghost army are just ignored.

People there are becoming disinterested in engaging with opposing positions; you know who you are.

Edit: bonus paper written by a Ukranian academic on the subject. It goes into detailed polling evidence to show why you do not need to invent a Russian ghost army if you just take Ukrainian agency seriously.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299383810_The_Separatist_War_in_Donbas_A_Violent_Break-up_of_Ukraine

TL;DR The replies at the time of this edit are extremely good evidence of how weak the opposing position is: all of them have thus far not even tried to engage with a single source or point brought up above.

Edit: I will be reposting this weekly until someone actually tries to engage with it.

She's not an ally.

I fully intend to vote for Jill Stein in November, as her platform is more consistent than Kamala's, and I live in a blue state. I have been disenfranchised by the US mainstream media and politics for years, and I didn't vote for Obama's reelection.

If I didn't vote in the upcoming election, as I was tempted to do, I would undoubtedly be personally targeted and persecuted. "If you aren't going to vote you don't deserve to live in a democracy."

The risk of voting for a spoiler candidate is not felt in non-swing states. Best to vote third-party and send a message to the mainstream political binary.

Edit: Maybe I spoke too soon by referring to Jill Stein as a potential spoiler candidate. If you live in a swing state and support Jill Stein, you're more than welcome in my book to vote for her.

Both Brezhnev and Putin's actions were ultimately immoral and not in the interests of the Russian people but also those conflicts didn't have the same clear cut good and bad guys as WWII. The American/Western tendency to view every foreign conflict through the lens of WWII only really serves to discourage people from taking a more nuanced and critical view of American/Western foreign policy.

https://youtu.be/o7grSsuFSS0

Hello all!

I wasn’t going to find this perspective on r/Israel or even r/Judaism, so forgive me for asking here, although I know the topic is slightly tangential. I’m (admittedly) Zionist, but I am open-minded, and I want to learn from those who are not. I have a few questions:

1. Jewish Voice for Peace believes in a one-state Palestine in which Jews, Muslims, Christians, and the non-religious enjoy equal rights and opportunities, and live side by side. Why do you believe, given the most recent Palestinian opinion poll, that a Palestinian + right of return Palestinian-majority/dominated state would not persecute the Jews currently living in Israel? Which safeguards do you imagine in place to prevent this?

2. Jews have suffered eliminationist persecution throughout the world. Inquisition, Holocaust, Farhud, etc… How would you respond to the argument that, if not for Israel, there would be no place for Jews in Europe today, where antisemitism has reached terrifying levels, to flee to when they’re fearing for their lives elsewhere?

3. What criticisms do you have (if any) of the mainstream “anti-Zionist movement?” Do you think there are any ways in which it could do a better job appealing to Zionist Jews? Do you think it could clarify its relationship with “methods of resistance” better — that is, be more explicit in what it does and doesn’t condone? Etc…

Thank you in advance!

Fortunately they don't have to. For you see comrade despite what every Serbian, Tankie, "pacifist" that is remarkably okay with genocide, and concerned "American" or "European" on social media that will happily shit on their own nation but goes absolutely berserk the second someone insults mighty Russia may endlessly post... those weapons don't need to stop the current Russian offensive.

They just need to be on the way.

Allow me to explain: Lets say for example that you are Lieutenant General Valerii Zaluzhnyi head of the armed forces of Ukraine. You and Zelenskyy are having your morning coffee (Russian media will later photoshop a mountain of cocaine into the pictures of this meeting) you are discussing the dire situation in the Donbass and the fact that you only have 100 000 rounds of 152mm shells for your artillery.

This is a problem because Glorious Leader Zelenskyy says that he can only get another maybe 15 000 maybe 20 000 more shells if he begs, borrows, steals and black market sources constantly for the next three months.

Do you dare use 50 000 shells to stop the Donbass offensive? Will 30 000 be enough? Can you even afford to use 30 000?

But then a monitor flickers to life! On screen is Joe Biden sitting in the oval office, in the back ground construction workers are installing a life support system on some sort of massive golden throne emblazoned, "God Emperor US Military Industrial Complex."

Joe promises you 144 000 NATO 155mm rounds and the artillery to use them. Training to start immediately, familiarization with the new systems should take a week for experienced artillery crews.

As you ponder this windfall the screen comes on again it is that baguette eating cougar hound Macron. "Hon hon hon hon hon," he says, "I shall give you ze CAESAR system and 20 000 rounds of satellite guided munitions."

You thank him and await the inevitable call from Boris Johnson who won't let Macron one up him like this. Another 30 000 rounds of 155mm, more star streak missiles and some brimstone anti shipping missiles. Then the usual secret chat with Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, (who all for some reason REALLY hate Russia. Must be NATO propaganda.) they promise more tanks, more mortars and more bullets.

You decide you can easily use 75 000 rounds of 152mm munitions to stop the Donbass offensive, start retiring 152mm howitzers one company at a time as the new 155mm stuff comes online. Even if the Russian forces interdict 25% of the new tubes and munitions within a month you will be better equipped than you were in March.

Last for another 2-3 weeks and you can begin killing hundreds of Russians per day with precision guided NATO grade artillery rounds.

Now repeat the same scenario with slightly different time tables with Tanks, (230 from Poland already delivered) Aircraft, Drones and one can see the long, bloody path to a conventional Ukrainian victory.

Meanwhile Russia is having an armaments factory explode "randomly" every 2-3 days as the defense industry nears partial collapse due to sanctions and sabotage.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/un-us-buying-big-ukraine-grain-shipment-for-hungry-regions/ar-AA10S0J2?ocid=Peregrine&cvid=872004291c114a5aadd26bbfe34ed710