Scott Ritter discusses the history of false pretenses the US government has used to repeatedly search him, and the events around the most recent raid.

TLDW Summary of Discussed Points:

FBI's Raid of Ritter's House

When Scott Ritter went on his book tour in Russia, he talked with the Russian embassy about what he was doing so they wouldn't suspect him of anything malicious. Since Ritter was a former intelligence officer, this was important to clear up misconceptions. The Russians talked with him and showed him an essay about peace written by Anatoly Antonov (the Russian ambassador to the USA). Later, Ritter used this as a source in an article he wrote as a journalist, in which he lays out how he obtained the essay.

The FBI used this to accuse him of "working for the Russian government" and raid his house. They're using the Foreign Agents Registration Act act (FARA), which lets the US gov act against any citizen who writes non-State Department approved stuff on the basis that they are "working for a foreign government".

The FBI raid carted away his massive archive of already-declassified evidence of the Iraq War sham on false pretenses of "keeping classified documents", which Ritter has used over the years to write articles, books, and documentaries on the Iraq War lie.

The FBI took away all his family's electronics and bugged his TV, so he had to replace those.

Kursk Offensive Aftermath

Ritter has previously met and talked with Apti Alaudinov, one of the Russian commanders now assigned to clean up after the Kursk Offensive. Apti has said that the Kursk Offensive was the result of the Russian Ministry of Defense leaving parts of the border poorly guarded against NATO-armed units. Apti and co. have already knocked out the Kursk invasion’s logistics, is capturing their equipment, and now just has to kill and capture the leftover Ukrainian stragglers. Ritter is waiting to interview him in a bit.

On a related note, Ritter says the US government regularly releases known fake declassified evidence to produce false inflammatory headlines in the media about Russia, China, Iran, etc. and lie to the US people. Any stuff in the US media about this invasion is guaranteed bullshit.

The invasion force was equipped with the nicest NATO gear (Starlink, latest training, live US intelligence) and speak English/French/Polish, indicating this incursion was planned and executed by NATO, not Ukraine alone. Do not believe the shit in the media about Zelensky ordering this alone. NATO ordered this, its failure is just a nice excuse to get rid of Zelensky for someone more malleable.

We will see severe Russian retaliation for this, possibly even attacking F16 bases in Poland and Romania in return.

Overall Russia-Ukraine Situation

The Russians have exhausted Ukrainian reserves and are advancing continuously, forcing the Ukrainians into unreinforced positions. The Kursk invasion has used up all of Ukraine's new equipment without distracting any significant amount of the Russian army, as the Russians merely deployed troops from reserve to clean up and did not shift any off of the frontline.

In response to the invasion, Russia is changing their peace deal to unconditional surrender for Ukraine and incorporate all Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine into Russia. Russia has no choice but to do so to halt further NATO assaults on their borders.

Israel and the Axis of Resistance

Israel is fatally losing from the Palestinian genocide. The Houthis have completely shut down Israel's southern port, Hezbollah has depopulated Northern Israel via their rockets and settlers' fears. Most of the world is committed to a two-state solution, which will require Israel to remove its settlements and make it collapse.

Israel cannot take on the Axis of Resistance. It is running out of tanks, spare parts, and ammunition. Its army is exhausted. To stay in power, Netanyahu wants to keep the conflict just below all-out war so he can stay in power.

Hezbollah and Iran are looking for a balance between an effective response to stop Israel from attacking again without provoking all-out war, for example by bypassing the Iron Dome to take out airfields and F35s, to show even more clearly that they can destroy Israel's military if needed. Russia and China are also working to help this along.

America is an empire in decline, and this crumbling empire seeks to take everything down with it. I don't want that solution, and that's why I and [alternative media] struggle to correct this slide by empowering the American people with knowledge and information about the reality of what's going on so they can better hold their government officials accountable for what's done in their name. … The US, in my case, is seeking to interfere in my ability to carry out advocacy journalism by manufacturing .. a case of violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

— Scott Ritter

---

Again, if anyone brings up his supposed history of child sexual offenses, see my [previous writeup](https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5319924/4836806) which I have repeated below:

Just in case anyone brings up his weird history of child sexual offenses, he was never prosecuted for harming actual children. Both prosecuted offenses were supposedly sting operations (aka entrapment) by FBI and police, which makes them super suspicious. For example, the first one in 2001 was conveniently timed to interfere with his anti-Iraq War advocacy.

The US government seized his passport in early June just to stop him from attending the St. Petersburg Economic Forum and derail his planned tour of Russia, where he would’ve gotten more coverage of his antiwar advocacy.

I would not be surprised if the FBI makes up a new sex offense charge based on this raid to try to shut him up about Russia, since that got the media so riled up the last 2 times. Another kind of bogus charge also wouldn’t be a surprise.

Regardless of the possibly legitimate origins of Bangladeshi protests, we must keep a close eye on their possible co-opting by the USA and the resulting new administration.

Bangladesh is in a great location for the USA to use it to fuck with India and China.

Belly of the Beast is a Cuba-based journalism collective trying to provide a counterweight to anti-Cuba propaganda.

TLDR: Israel deliberately attacked the USS Liberty spy ship in 1967 during the Six-Day War, with the intention of sinking it, for 3 reasons:

1. To stop the ship's crew from informing the USA that Israel had started the Six-Day War via their surprise attack on Egypt
2. To stop the ship from overhearing their plans to invade the Golan Heights, which might prompt the USA to stop them and slow their acquisition of more Lebensraum
3. As a Gulf of Tonkin style false-flag operation, with the goal of pinning blame on the Egyptians for sinking the ship in order to get the US to help them invade Egypt for even more Lebensraum.

After failing to sink the ship, which would have killed all crew and witnesses, Israel used AIPAC and associated organizations to lobby for the view of the attack as an "Israeli mistake".

---

The Israel-USA relationship seems mutually parasitic. The USA uses Israel as a military base, but gets to use Israeli settlers surrounding it as human shields. In return, Israel can kill Americans for their own goals.

Acquiring nukes seems like the best way for any country to protect themselves against outside interference.

We know that as soon as Gaddafi decommissioned his nukes, Libya was targeted and invaded. If Iraq actually did have nukes, the USA wouldn't have been so brazen to invade.

China, Russia, and North Korea's acquisitions of nukes are also some of the main reasons why they are not easy targets for direct US invasion.

If Iran had nukes, it would drastically limit Israel's ability to indiscriminately attack Iranian assets.

Western policies against nuclear proliferation always seem to target the countries that need them the most to ensure national sovereignty, and never refer to their own nukes.

For example, they always fearmonger about "rogue states" like North Korea getting nukes, while being perfectly okay with Israel's own nukes. It might be best if these policies are ignored entirely.

TLDR: China is the only significant force in renewables adoption in the world, because the country uses central planning to advance its environmental objectives. The West's reliance on the profit motive to drive green energy is not working and will not work because renewables are not profitable enough.

This article is the most positive I have ever seen any mainstream news be towards China and central planning. I don't think there is a single "but at what cost" statement in the entire article. Frankly, I'm impressed this managed to get past the TIME editors.

The author, Brett Christophers, wrote The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won't Save the Planet and Our Lives in Their Portfolios: Why Asset Managers Own the World, and Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It?, among others, published via Verso Books.

TLDR:

The sale has already happened. Norfolk Southern bribed Cincinnati politicians and funded shittons of ads to trick Cincinnati citizens to sell their government-owned railroad to them for cheap.

More info:

• https://jacobin.com/2023/10/cincinnati-public-railroad-norfolk-southern-east-palestine-disaster
• https://jacobin.com/2023/10/cincinnati-ohio-rail-worker-publicly-owned-privatization-norfolk-southern
• https://www.governing.com/infrastructure/say-goodbye-to-the-last-city-owned-interstate-railroad
• https://www.derailthesale.org/economics.html
• http://archive.today/2023.12.16-020729/https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2023/12/15/norfolk-southern-paid-6m-convincing-cincinnati-voters-to-sell/71745654007/

The Cincinatti government possessed the last municipally owned interstate railroad in the USA, running from Cincinnati, Ohio to Chattanooga, Tennessee. It leased the railroad to Norfolk Southern (of East Palestine disaster fame) for $25 million per year, and it was indispensable for Norfolk Southern's operations.

Norfolk Southern (NS) funded a PAC, Building Cincinnati’s Future, and donated tons to the Cincinnati mayor's election campaign. Together, they made tons of ads to convince Cincinnati citizens to sell the railroad for $1.6 billion to NS, to be put in an investment trust fund.

If you calculate from the previous per-year lease, Cincinnati would have made that $1.6 billion off of the lease anyways after 64 years. A report commissioned by Cincinnati even showed that due to the railroad's importance to NS's operations and NS's impressive financial profits, the city could actually get away with raising the lease to ~$70 million per year. At that rate, the city would have made $1.6 billion back in less than 23 years. Even better, the city would have been able to continue making money on the railroad forever, and be able to raise the lease to match inflation, thus making even more money.

Now that the city has sold the railroad, it has lost that guaranteed income stream forever. That $1.6 billion now sits in "The Building Our Future Trust Fund", and the city will try to make money from it by paying professional money managers to invest in the unstable market. Data shows that more than 90 percent of professional money managers underperform the market in the long term. Not only that, these Wall Street bankers will take a cut of the money that belongs to the people of Cincinnati for the privilege of doing so. If the fund does end up losing value, the city receives nothing.

Any person with basic money sense knows that a stable asset that makes guaranteed money over time is better than a random lump sum which may or may not perform well when invested into stocks and bonds. After all, its why landlords buy and rent houses instead of just flipping them.

Along with the loss in money, Cincinnati has also lost the ability to use access to the railroad as leverage to force NS to do good stuff. For instance, they could have forced NS to add safety features, modernize the track, and let Amtrack run on the line. Now, NS is free to pour toxic waste all along the right-of-way, and the city can't do anything about it.

The fact this guy was on the record for such heinous crimes, yet got such a generous deal from the government, virtually guarantees he is some sort of CIA informant or COINTELPRO-type agent.

Make sure to verify your information sources!

%%last updated to match The Deprogram Wiki on 2024-01-03%%

Ernesto "Che" Guevara

If you are capable of trembling with indignation each time that an injustice is committed anywhere in the world, we are comrades.

— Che Guevara. (1964). Quoted in Guerrillas in Power: The Course of the Cuban Revolution (1971) by K. S. Karol

Ernesto "Che" Guevara was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist.

As a young medical student, Guevara traveled throughout South America and was radicalized by the poverty, hunger, and disease he witnessed. His burgeoning desire to help overturn what he saw as the Capitalist exploitation of Latin America by the United States prompted his involvement in Guatemala's social reforms under President Jacobo Árbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow at the behest of the United Fruit Company solidified Guevara's political ideology. Later in Mexico City, Guevara met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and sailed to [[r.TheDeprogram Cuba|Cuba]] aboard the yacht Granma with the intention of overthrowing U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the two-year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime.

After the Cuban Revolution, Guevara played key roles in the new government. These included reviewing the appeals and firing squads for those convicted as war criminals during the revolutionary tribunals, instituting agrarian land reform as Minister of Industries, helping spearhead a successful nationwide literacy campaign, serving as both President of the National Bank and instructional director for Cuba's armed forces, and traversing the globe as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban Socialism. Such positions also allowed him to play a central role in training the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Additionally, Guevara was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal guerrilla warfare manual, along with a best-selling memoir about his youthful continental motorcycle journey. His experiences and studying of Marxism–Leninism led him to posit that the Third World's underdevelopment and dependence was an intrinsic result of imperialism, neocolonialism, and monopoly capitalism, with the only remedies being proletarian internationalism and world revolution.

Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment continental revolutions across both Africa and South America, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and summarily executed.

Additional Resources

You can find his writings in the Marxist Internet Archive: https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/index.htm

Video Essays:

• Who Did Che Guevara Murder? | BadEmpanada (2019)
• Che Guevara: Homophobic Racist? Response to Steven Crowder & PragerU | BadEmpanada (2019)
• Che Guevara's True Legacy | BadEmpanada (2020)
• Conservatives Love Lying About Che Guevara, Inventing Fake Quotes | BadEmpanada (2020)
• Cuba and Che Guevara TALKING POINTS by Sky News - How Do They Hold Up? | BadEmpanada (2021)
• Che Guevara: Revolutionary Hero | Che's Life, Legacy, and Theory | Marxism Today (2022)

Books, Articles, or Essays:

• Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life | Jon Lee Anderson (1997)

Podcasts:

• In Defense of Che Guevara: Analyzing his Life and Answering his Critics | Revolutionary Left Radio (2017)

%%last updated to match The Deprogram Wiki on 2024-01-03%%

Cuba

The Cuban Revolution, led by Fidel Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara, was a Communist revolution which aimed to address issues of inequality, poverty, and national self-determination. Under Castro's leadership, the Cuban government nationalized industries, implemented land reforms, and initiated programs to improve healthcare and education access.

Brief History

Slavery was introduced to Cuba by the Spanish during the early 16th century. African slaves were brought to the island to work on sugar plantations, which became the backbone of the Cuban economy. The brutal conditions of slavery led to various slave rebellions and uprisings throughout the colonial period.

In 1898, the Spanish-American War resulted in Spain ceding control of Cuba to the United States.

The majority of workers in Cuban sugar plantations during this period were either former slaves or descendants of enslaved Africans. Despite the official abolition of slavery in 1886, workers faced extreme economic exploitation. They were trapped in a cycle of poverty, with low wages and limited opportunities for social and economic mobility. The patronato system emerged, where former slaves and their descendants continued to work on the plantations under debt peonage, a form of economic bondage.

In 1952, Fulgencio Batista seized power in a military coup, suspending the Cuban Constitution and ruling as a dictator. Batista's regime was backed by influential Cuban elites, including large landowners, sugar magnates, and business tycoons who benefited from Batista's policies. The U.S. provided military aid and economic support to Batista's military dictatorship.

...as Castro's revolutionary threat became progressively more potent... the Batista regime sought to counter it with a campaign of terror. As regime-inspired terrorism mounted, anti-Batista groups engaged in counter terrorism against regime supporters and by mid-1958 killings had become widespread and general throughout the country. The regime's campaign of terror got out of control and the government in Havana probably had no clear idea of how many killings the police and army forces were committing. Similarly, the anti-Batista forces--which by mid-1958 had the support of 80 to 90 percent of the population-- had little control over the acts of counterterrorism being committed against pro-Batista elements throughout the country.

...the large-scale campaigns of murders and terrorism characteristic of the last years of the Batista regime have not occurred during the Castro regime.

— CIA. (1965, declassified 2005). Political Murders in Cuba: Batista Era Compared With Castro Regime

The Embargo

The majority of Cubans support Castro... The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship... it follows that every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. If such a policy is adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.

— Lester D. Mallory. (1960). 499. Memorandum From the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Mallory) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Rubottom)

Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the embargo which persists to this day, over 60 years later.

The non-binding resolution [calling for an end to the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba] was approved by 185 countries and opposed only by the United States and Israel... It was the 30th time the United Nations has voted to end the embargo... The trade embargo was put in place following Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution and has remained largely unchanged, though some elements were stiffened by Trump.

— Reuters. (2022). Cuba and U.S. spar over U.N. resolution calling to end embargo

• The U.S. Embargo on Cuba Is MUCH WORSE Than It Seems | BadEmpanada (2021)
• The Cuban Embargo Explained | azureScapegoat (2022)

Castro Stole My Stuff

The US claims that it has instituted a policy of tightening the economic noose around Cuba with the Helms-Burton bill on the grounds that Cuba refuses to compensate US companies following nationalisation of their property. This is patently untrue, as Cuba not only successfully negotiated compensation agreements with other countries, but has and is ready to negotiate with the US.

— S. J. Noumoff. (1998). The Hypocrisy of Helms-Burton: The History of Cuban Compensation

• The Cuban Nationalization of US Property in 1960: the Historical and Global Context | Charles McKelvey (2019)

Doctors

Despite the challenges posed by the embargo, Cuba has the most doctors per capita in the world and recently surpassed the US in life expectancy.

• The Truth About Cuban Doctors | BadEmpanada (2020)
• [[Meet the U.S. Students Studying Medicine For Free in Cuba - YouTube]] | BreakThrough News (2022)

Democracy

• [[How Democracy Works in Cuba - YouTube]] | azureScapegoat (2018)
• [[How does Cuba work - YouTube - Viki1999]] | Viki1999 (2021)
• We Asked Cuban Voters If They Live In A Democracy Or Dictatorship. Here's How They Responded. | BreakThrough News (2022)

Participatory Democracy in action: LGBT rights

Prior to the revolution, homosexuality was stigmatized and criminalized in Cuba, reflecting the prevailing attitudes of the time. Unfortunately, the revolutionary government under Fidel Castro initially continued this stance. However, Cuba's stance on LGBT rights has evolved to the point where it has become a symbol of progress within the Latin American context. In 2010, Fidel Castro himself admitted that the persecution of homosexuals in the early years of the revolution was a mistake:

If anyone is responsible, it's me.

— Fidel Castro. (2010). I am responsible for the persecution of homosexuals that took place in Cuba: Fidel Castro

In 2022, Cuba became the first Latin American country to mark LGBT History Month. Now, Pride parades in Havana are held every May, to coincide with the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, and attendance grows every year. Cuba also passed one of the most progressive Family Codes in the entire world:

The Family Code not only protects the most vulnerable in Cuba, it protects the course of Cuban socialism. Writing the referendum involved the whole population throughout the processes of drafting and amending. It went through 25 revisions over the course of 3 ½ years.

After the referendum was introduced in 2019, Cuba carried out a nationwide process of education and outreach. Discussions took place in every workplace, organization, neighborhood and community group. To keep all Cubans well-informed, people took the discussions to rural areas and to those who do not have internet access.

The Family Code was approved by Cubans 2 to 1. A large percentage of Cubans, 74%, took part in the vote...

In Workers World Sept. 25, 2022, Minnie Bruce Pratt wrote, “Nearly 6.5 million Cubans took part in more than 79,000 meetings facilitated by the Federation of Cuban Women, the Committees to Defend the Revolution and other community organizations. Over 400,000 proposals were offered by the people; these were submitted to the National Assembly of People’s Power for evaluation, and a revised draft was returned to the people for further discussion and proposals...

Cubans are very proud of what they call participatory democracy, the process they used to introduce and pass the referendum. It is an example to the world and a lesson in democratic centralism.

— Lyn Neeley. (2023). Cuba’s new Family Code, a law of love

• Millions of Cubans Vote on New Family Code, LGBT Marriage, Adoption Rights & More | BreakThrough News (2022)

Additional Resources

Video Essays:

• Cuba: Before and After the Revolution - The Story of When Michael Parenti Visited Cuba | azureScapegoat (2017)
• The Truth About The Cuban Missile Crisis | Spooky Scary Socialist (2018)
• How Cuba Works | BadEmpanada (2020)
• The Truth About The Cuba Protests | Second Thought (2020)
• Why They Hate The USA: CUBA | Hakim (2023)

Podcasts:

• Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution | Revolutionary Left Radio (2017)
• Season 2 - The Cuban Revolution | Blowback (2021)
• Episode 13 - Cucked by Fidel (CIA pls no assassinate) | The Deprogram (2022)