what are the dominant themes
of the mass media as you see them now
that represent what you're focusing on
your critique of and I wanted to start
with the place of the U.S in the world
today how would you
characterize for us mass media treatment
and what's wrong with it
if you look at how the role of the US
and the world is covered in U.S
establishment media
I think a fundamental problem is that
it's presumed that we have the right to
be the rulers and we have the right to
tell other governments what to do that
we have the right to impose sanctions
that are designed to entire
economies and make people suffer
and our motives in doing so aren't
questions so we talk about wanting to
spread democracy around the world and I
think it's taken for granted if you read
establishment media accounts that not
only do we have the right to do all
these policies but that our motives are
are pure and I just don't accept that as
a journalist as a journalist we're
supposed to be skeptical of power
especially power within our own
societies because that's the power that
we're responsible for and I don't see us
media doing that the US is a hegemonic
power it has hundreds of military bases
around the world as you've covered its
corporations control you know a huge
proportion of the world well and so when
you're a hegemon you need enemies
constantly to justify your
hegemony your military bases your
interventions
um all the money that is spent on war on
weapons of war
and so the you know the Soviet Union
played that purpose during the Cold War
and it was also used to justify
undermining any alternative to the U.S
led system so for example even in
countries like Vietnam or Nicaragua
where you had uh governments arising
from the you know the will of the
population the U.S tried to destroy
those societies by blaming the Soviet
Union as being behind everything and
we're seeing a similar Playbook today
that Russia is used as a boogeyman
whenever the U.S wants to try to control
a country and destabilize it and so
that's the function that Russia plays in
the current U.S imagination well when
someone descends from the prevailing
Orthodoxy the answer is to ignore them
uh to try to censor them or to dismiss
them in the case of you know a covering
uh the issue of Russia critically that
gets you dismissed as being an agent of
Vladimir Putin or something like that
but I think most people who aren't you
know card carrying mccarthyites can see
through that tell me do you think
it's a reasonable parallel the way that
the Ukraine issue is being covered now
is there another Aaron mate probably
working in the wings somewhere around
this Ukraine issue who is going to
replicate kind of what happened to you
well I mean I'm trying to replicate what
happened to me because I'm also trying
with Russia gate because I'm also trying
to offer factual coverage of a Ukraine
proxy war which I think is the most
dangerous issue in the world and I think
it's actually the outgrowth of the very
dynamics of russiagate because part of
the problem with Russia gate as I was
warning about pretty tirelessly for a
long time is that it was normalizing
this culture inside liberal politics in
the U.S that we should be stoking war
with Russia that we should be looking
down on diplomacy with Russia that in
accusing Russia of brainwashing millions
of Americans into voting for
Hillary and devoted for Donald Trump and
not voting for Hillary that that was
pushing an agenda that treats Russia as
this nefarious power that we can't
negotiate with and that's very dangerous
when you're talking about the world's
other top nuclear power and so I think
you can draw a direct line between
russiagate and the Ukraine war and I've
been trying to point out some of the
many facts that get overlooked in
discussions over Ukraine War uh the fact
that the war as horrible as it is it
didn't begin when Russia invaded there's
been a war going on in Ukraine since
2014 when there was a U.S back coup that
overthrew the government of Victor
Yanukovych and that set off a civil war
inside Ukraine in which Rebels backed by
Russia rose up against the new coup
government and the coup government was
backed by the U.S and rather than
pursuing peace and respecting a peace
deal that was reached in 2015 under
something called the Minsk Accords the
U.S is basically sided with Ukraine's
far right in undermining peace and
undermining any Prospect of Peace inside
Ukraine and I think put us on this path
and that coincides with a U.S record of
trying to bring Ukraine into NATO which
U.S officials have long warned
internally would be a very dangerous
step and also building up Advanced
Weaponry on Russia's border so for
example tearing up Arms Control treaties
so that the U.S can install missile
sites in Poland and Romania and all
these issues are in the background of
Russia's war in Ukraine and they're just
not discussed and by not discussing them
we foreclose any possibility of
diplomacy because for diplomacy to
happen these issues have to be addressed