New York Times Helps Marco Rubio Push Persecution Of Antiwar Leftists by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!
(2023-08-12 at 21:58:48 )

New York Times Helps Marco Rubio Push Persecution Of Antiwar Leftists by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

Citing a recent McCarthyite smear piece by The New York Times, Senator Marco Rubio published a letter on Wednesday that he had sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland calling for the investigation of American leftist antiwar groups, claiming they are "tied to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and operating with impunity in the United States."

Mr. Rubio listed nine organizations that he said should be investigated "for potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act." Included in Senator Rubios blacklist of suspected Chinese foreign agents is the renowned peace activism group Code Pink, which has been drawing attention to the destructiveness of United States warmongering, militarism and economic warfare for decades.

"According to the New York Times, many progressive organizations have received funding from Neville Roy Singham, a leftist United States citizen who lives in Shanghai and has ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)," Rubio writes. "Yet, none of the entities tied to Singham have registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The United States must enforce its laws more fiercely in the face of foreign adversaries who abuse our open system to advance their malign interests."

Mr. Rubios letter is just the latest in the rapidly escalating push within the United States government to use FARA to persecute antiwar activists, Chinese nationals in the United States, and those deemed insufficiently hostile toward China. As Amanda Yee recently observed with Liberation News:

"Under Biden, FARA has been invoked to target Black liberation activists like the African Peoples Socialist Party for criticizing United States involvement in the Ukraine war and Chinese American hotel worker and organizer Li Tang "Henry" Liang for advocating peaceful relations between the United States and China."

McCarthyite NYT hit piece on leftist groups in the United States including codepink, suggesting they are Chinese assets, prompts Marco Rubio to call for investigating them. Neocon attacks on dissenting voices are bipartisan.-Aaron Maté (aaronjmate) August 9, 2023

It is worth taking a close look at the New York Times piece referenced by Mr. Rubio, because the ridiculousness of its arguments and the hypocrisy it accidentally exposes are worth drawing attention to!!

First of all we should point out the irony of an outlet like The New York Times publishing an article accusing anyone of being involved in propaganda!!

The New York Times has supported every United States war and has been run by the same wealthy family since the late 1800s, and it has an extensive history of peddling McCarthyite red scare propaganda throughout the years!!

It has been singled out consistently and aggressively by critics of United States propaganda like Noam Chomsky for its unique role in setting the agenda for news reporting throughout the western world in a way that benefits the information interests of the United States empire.

The article in question is titled "A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a United States Tech Mogul," and it ultimately amounts to nothing more than a report saying "uh, hey, there is a rich guy who likes China."

Despite the complete emptiness of its claims, the article took no fewer than eleven people to write (Mara Hvistendahl, David A Fahrenthold, Lynsey Chutel and Ishaan Jhaveri are credited as authors, Joy Dong, Michael Forsythe, Flavia Milhorance, Liu Yi and Suhasini Raj contributed reporting, and Susan C Beachy and Michelle Lum contributed research).

This platoon of journalists could have been out doing real investigative journalism on real issues like poverty in the United States or the victims of Washington,D.C.s drone wars, but instead they were put toward research on an American millionaire named Neville Roy Singham, whose sole offense appears to be throwing his wealth around in support of China and communism instead of the United States empire and capitalism.

NEW: How an America tech mogul - and American nonprofits - fund a global network that pushes Chinese propaganda.-David Fahrenthold (Fahrenthold) August 5, 2023

Despite the articles ominous tone and the self-congratulatory grandiosity of its eleven co-reporters, the claim that Mr. Singham is actually an agent of the Chinese government is studiously avoided!

The authors use sleazy phrases like "Singhams ties to Chinese propaganda interests" and report that he has done communisty things like calling people "comrade" and writing in a notebook with a hammer and sickle on it, but at no time do they actually attempt to dispute Mr. Singhams forceful assertion that he has no ties to the Chinese government. All they do is say he has used his money to promote support for China and communism, and then try to frame that as a dark and suspicious thing using tone and insinuation.

"I categorically deny and repudiate any suggestion that I am a member of, work for, take orders from, or follow instructions of any political party or government or their representatives," Mr. Singham told the Times via email. "I am solely guided by my beliefs, which are my long-held personal views."

No attempt is made to refute Mr. Singhams claim in the article. As far as the actual data in their reporting is concerned, Mr. Singham is just some rich American using his money to promote values he supports in the same way rich Americans do every single day!!

The only reason it is framed as malevolent is because he is doing it in support of a country the United States government does not like and an ideology the United States government does not approve of. Which only makes sense if you are a propagandist for The New York Times or one of their brainwashed rabble of victims.

The Times notes that Mr. Singham is married to Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans, which you would think would be taken as a very clear sign that Mr. Singham is sincere in his opposition to United States imperialism rather than acting as a secret agent of the Chinese government!!

But this marriage is bizarrely framed as making Mr. Singham more suspicious instead, with lines like "Ms. Evans declined to answer questions about funding from her husband" appearing in the text as though receiving funding from ones spouse would be some kind of damning revelation.

With the new Cold War, we have entered a new era of McCarthyism.

This Red Scare paranoia is similar to its last iteration in the 1950s: that Chinese "foreign agents" are infiltrating United States government and society to advance the enemys interests.-Party for Socialism and Liberation (pslnational) July 11, 2023

Contrary to Mr. Rubios insinuations, The New York Times was actually forced to admit in its own reporting that despite the ominous and conspiratorial tone of the article, no FARA violations could be found in Mr. Singhams activities:

"None of Mr. Singhams nonprofits have registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, as is required of groups that seek to influence public opinion on behalf of foreign powers. That usually applies to groups taking money or orders from foreign governments. Legal experts said Mr. Singhams network was an unusual case."

The reason legal experts said Mr. Singhams case is unusual when it comes to the question of foreign agents registration is because Mr. Singham is not a foreign agent!

He lives in China, but he is a United States citizen. He gives money to organizations which support China, but there are no laws against that. He shares an office with a Chinese media company and appears to give them money, but there is no law against that either. The "legal experts" in question were probably New York Times lawyers telling reporters they can not falsely accuse United States citizens and their associates of being foreign agents on no basis whatsoever.

Mr. Rubios letter states that "many of the organizations Mr. Singham financially supports are linked directly or indirectly to the CCP," but there is no indication in the reporting that any Singham-funded organization is tied to the Chinese government and operating as a foreign agent in the United States.

Mr. Rubio and his McCarthyite buddies at The New York Times use the fact that Singham funds both Chinese and American institutions to falsely insinuate that there are unregistered Singham-funded Chinese government agents operating in the United States, but that claim is not actually put forward as a fact in the New York Times piece, because it is not a fact.

What is reported is that Mr. Singham funds Chinese organizations in China and American organizations in America, both of which are perfectly legal things to do.

The New York Times reports that Mr. Singham associates with Chinese people, promotes information that serves the interests of the Chinese government, supports communism, opposes United States imperialism, and has an antiwar activist wife. What The New York Times does not report is one iota of information that Mr. Singham or the organizations he supports have broken any United States laws.

NEW STUDY: 85% of the think tanks cited in articles about United States military support in Ukraine have received funding from Pentagon contractors.-Kenneth P. Vogel (kenvogel) June 1, 2023

While Marco Rubio and The New York Times frame Mr. Singhams activities as something sinister and subversive, from all evidence presented he is actually just playing by the same rules that wealthy Americans have been playing by for generations. They both criticize Singhams funding of a think tank called Tricontinental which puts out commentary and analysis from a Marxist perspective, when other United States plutocrats openly pour vast fortunes into think tanks all the time - the only difference is that United States plutocrats tend to favor think tanks which support United States imperialism and capitalist exploitation.

One of the most depraved things that happens in the United States today is the way war profiteering corporations and plutocrats are allowed to fund immensely influential warmongering think tanks, which then go on to influence the thinking of government policymakers in support of war and militarism.

Media outlets like The New York Times routinely cite these war profiteer-funded think tanks as experts on foreign policy and international affairs without ever disclosing this immense conflict of interest to their audiences; a recent study by the Quincy Institute found that 85 percent of the think tanks cited in the mainstream press when reporting on the war in Ukraine were funded by war profiteers like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman.

That is considered perfectly fine and normal in the United States, but a wealthy American funding organizations that want peace and economic justice is viewed by empire managers and the imperial media as an incendiary scandal.

According to all facts in evidence Mr. Singham is not doing anything different from the rich Americans who buy up media outlets and fund think tanks in order to advance their personal agendas, but because his personal agendas involve opposing the United States empire and spreading socialist ideas it is seized on as evidence that gasoline needs to be poured onto the fire of McCarthyite hysteria in Washington,D.C.

If you look at the facts of this case you quickly see that they expose nothing nefarious about Code Pink or anyone else Mr. Singham supports, or indeed about Singham himself!!

What they expose is the fact that the entire mainstream political-media class is pointed at war, death and destruction across both sides of the pretend partisan divide, and will attack anyone who tries to stand in the way of the worst impulses of the imperial machine!!

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Ah, the Buddha Ms Caitlin speaks the truth!!! - Cousin Lucky