Dear friends of the Russia & America Good Will Association (www.raga.org) and antiwar colleagues! An urgent announcement from Ed Lozansky, my friend and RAGA ally since last Millennium: Monday, May 21, 2019 from 6.00 to 8.00 PM To discuss the current state of U.S. - Russia relations and the text of the appeal for the urgent summit between presidents Trump and Putin to find the way out of the most dangerous security crisis facing both nations and the world. Opening of the International Chess Club at the Russia House. to offer chess lessons for the children during the day and place for the chess games, tournaments and socializing for adults after 6.00 PM. Extraordinary world events happened since the last RAGA Antidote 42 newsletter of March 27, 2018. Patrick Armstrong, a former Canadian diplomat, does a good job of keeping track of them https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2018/05/17/russian-federation-sitrep-17-may-2018/ VICTORY DAY. Red Square parade. Immortal Regiment in Moscow, St Petersburg, Sevastopol, Surgut, KERCH BRIDGE. Putin formally opened the road part. The “country that doesn’t make anything” has completed the longest bridge in Europe in two years. Newsweek, NYT and the Atlantic Council assure us it will fail and some random neocon wants Kiev to destroy it. Moscow has already thought of that.https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2018/05/17/russian-federation-sitrep-17-may-2018/ Russia vs USA relations are best understood in their global dimension. Israel Shamir, RAGA long-time associate and my friend makes it clear that the linchpin of those relations is Israel. His thinking is truly eschatological. "The Messiah Is Here" http://www.unz.com/ishamir/the-messiah-is-here/ ISRAEL SHAMIR • MAY 20, 2018 <<Perhaps the Jewish Messiah is already here...? All Jewish dreams and desires were fulfilled this mid-May. Well, almost all. Two great world power leaders competed in their benevolence to Jews, while ordinary Israelis had fun and exhilarating soft target practice shooting unarmed Gazans or at least cheering the sharpshooters. Iranians gnashed their teeth but did nothing. The US Congress deemed that the Poles should pay the Jews $300 billion in tribute. And an exceedingly obnoxious Jewish wench got the crown of the European art scene, accidentally ensuring that the new capital of Israel, Jerusalem, will be the location of a prominent international gathering next year. If you think that some of this benevolence should drip to you and that your lot should be somewhat better, think again. Nobody promised you a rose garden. The Jewish Messiah is good for the Jews, while non-Jews should just work harder and prepare for divine vengeance>>. Read more http://www.unz.com/ishamir/the-messiah-is-here/ Shamir is a former Soviet dissident who made aliyah to Israel. He is well versed in both Russian and Israeli affairs, though some may see him "tarnished" by his conversion to Christianity. But then let us hear "real Jews", American to boot. <<Dear W George--What an awful week. I will never get the juxtaposition of these two images out of my head - Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner et al “celebrating” the new US Embassy while the Israeli military kills 60 people in Gaza and wounds thousands. It’s never been more clear that change in US Israel/Palestine policy is only going to come from the grassroots. And it’s going to take a massive change right here in the US. We have to build a movement here to end the blank check the US gives Israel - militarily, economically, and diplomatically. >> The above letter to me (Vladislav Krasnov aka W George Krasnow) was signed by Rabbi Alissa Wise, Deputy Director of the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP. org), a grass-root organization of American Jews opposed if not the state of Israel than to the racist wing of its current Zionist leadership. I am glad to recommend the JVP for all Americans, including non-Jews.Jewish Voice for Peace is a national membership organization inspired by Jewish tradition to work for the justice, equality, and dignity of all the people of Israel/Palestine. Become a JVP Member today. Now let us hear Gideon Levy, an Israeli citizen, on the emergence of a neo-Nazi Israel 19/05/2018 The Israeli society has surrounded itself with shields, with walls, not only physical walls but also mental walls. I don’t want to get into it because it’s another lecture. But I’ll just give the three principles which enable us Israelis to live so easily with this brutal reality. Most of the Israelis, if not all of them, deeply believe that we are the chosen people. And if we are the chosen people, we have the right to do whatever we want. http://www.defenddemocracy.press/gideon-levy-on-the-emergence-of-a-neo-nazi-israel/ Now a short, good perspective on US culpability in the Palestinian Genocide perpetrated by the Jewish State of Israel (as they prefer to call themselves) from Professor Norman Finkelstein, the author of The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering. Norman was denied a tenure for speaking truth to the power of "Holocaust industrialists". Now Norman Finkelstein came up with the new book, “Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom.” The book has just been published as Israel is facing a possible International Criminal Court war crimes probe over its 2014 assault on Gaza, which killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, including over 500 children.Here he also challenges Israel's supporter Senator Chuck Schumer. Norman Finkelstein: The “Big Lie” about Gaza Is That The Palestinians Have Been the AggressorsAs to Jerusalem becoming an undivided capital of Israel, you may want to read my 2012 article "The World for Israel, or Jews for the World?" It was about a forum in Washington dedicated to the legacy of Rabbi Elmer Berger, one of the early American anti-Zionists. By W. George Krasnow, it published January 09, 2012 on the Antiwar site http://original.antiwar.com/krasnow/2012/01/08/the-world-for-israel/ There I wrote in 2011: "Zionist claims on Jerusalem as an exclusive capital of Israel have inflamed anti-Israeli and anti-American passions in all Muslim countries. It has helped the fanatical jihadists win the hearts and minds of millions of Muslims who came to mistrust their moderate and secular politicians for their failure to defend Muslim rights to Jerusalem, or Al-Quds, as sacred to their cultural tradition". I suggested it then and say it now that Jerusalem literally belongs to all humankind as the birthplace of the world's three major religions. It should be put under the jurisdiction of the United Nations, administered as a cultural treasure of the world, a place where Jews, Christians, and Muslims could live in peace, harmony, and brotherhood and thus inspire the rest of mankind to religious, racial, ethnic and cultural co-existence and co-operation. This article is also available in Russian "Израиль играет судьбой мира, иудаизма и еврейства. Памяти раввина Элмера Бергера". Автор: Владислав Краснов Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.) Senior Fellow, Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs, Brown University, made very sensible speech "U.S. Policy and the Geopolitical Dynamics of the Middle East" http://www.raga.org/news/us-policy-and-the-geopolitical-dynamics-of-the-middle-east-chas-freeman I immediately translated it into Russian for the benefit of Russian policy makers: "Политика США и геополитическая динамика Ближнего Востока. Наши прошлые ошибки и видение будущего" - Автор: Charles W. Freeman, Jr. Переводчик: Владислав Краснов (W. GeorgeKrasnow) http://www.raga.org/novosti/-charles-w-freeman-jr Another favorite American journalist of mine is Allan C. Brownfeld who in early l980s served as a member of President Ronald Reagan's transition team and made policy recommendations. I have admired his writing since the Old Cold War. Like myself, Allan has been a contributor to The Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation site (http://www.fgfbooks.com/AllanBrownfeld/aBrownfeld-bio.html). In fact, I have translated a number of his articles for the benefit of Russian readers, most recently the one on the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.http://perevodika.ru/articles/1196711.html Brownfeld also runs the ISSUES magazine of the American Council for Judaism. (http://www.acjna.org/acjna/articles_author.aspx). He just emailed to me his latest article that has not yet been posted.ISRAEL AT 70: A GROWING DILEMMA FOR AMERICAN JEWS . BY ALLAN C. BROWNFELD. Below are its most striking passages: <<As Israel celebrated its 70th anniversary in April, and American Jews wished it well, the fact is that it has become a divisive force in the community, repeatedly proclaiming itself a "Jewish state, while its 50-year occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and its blockade and isolation of millions of Palestinians in Gaza, shows it acting in a way that violates Jewish moral and ethical values.>> <<It is ironic that Jews, who have suffered oppression in many places at many times, would find themselves in the position of denying Palestinians basic political and human rights. Many in Israel are conscious of the dilemma they face. Bradley Burston, writing in Haaretz (April 4, 2018). declared, "In the case of Zionism, can the victims of anti-Semitism come to acknowledge their---our---own bigotry, our own ingrained prejudices, our own sense of superiority and entitlement, our own history of injustice to the minorities in their midst?" Israel at 70, Burston points out, is seeing the dramatic growth of racism and intolerance: "This is a country which...demeans and dismisses and conflates Palestinian lives...In Israel at 70, Zionism means a government of the racist, by the racist, for the racist".>> Brownfeld's attitude toward Israel is similar to those of Gideon Levy, Norman Finkelstein, Israel Shamir, Ambassador Freeman or Rabbi Alissa Wise. Jon Utley is the publisher of "The American Conservative" magazine. He has been RAGA ally and my antiwar friend since last Millennium. I am proud to have helped him find the grave of his father, a Russian Jew, summarily executed as a "Trotskyite" (he was not!) in Stalin's purges. by Jon Basil Utley, May 11, 2018 <<...Most recently we had cable news inundating us with stories of a new poison gas attack in Syria. The American Conservative has published a detailed analysis by former arms inspector Scott Ritter questioning the evidence, or lack of it, that the Assad regime initiated the attack.>> The FGF is a basically Catholic site devoted to the preservation of Western values, and I am proud to be one of its authors. Scott Ritter is also my friend since about 2004 when he exposed the hoax about Saddam Hussein's WMD and I wrote about him in RAGA newsletters. A few words of wisdom written in 2016 by Michael Brenner, Emeritus Professor, the University of Pittsburgh; a Senior Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, SAIS-Johns Hopkins (Washington, D.C.), about the decline of intellectual standards of US political elite who have surrendered to fantasies in their view of the world: <<"We can expect that whoever winds up in senior policypositions in a Trump administration ... will be encouraged by the tradition ofself-delusion that has become a feature of American thinking about its place inthe world. Think of the Middle East where just about everything that we havebeen doing since 2001 has been guided by a fantastic view of the region – fromIraq, to Syria, to Yemen, to Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Gulf, to Turkey,to Palestine and Israel. This tendency to divorce ourselves from reality so asto perpetuate myths of American omnipotence and superiority is also witnessedat the operational level".>> Now disturbing News from ZeroHedge Janitor Published on May 9, 2018 Ret. CIA Analyst Ray McGovern Brutalized By Police At Haspel Confirmation Ray has also been my friend and RAGA associate since I posted a story on the Veterans Today sitein 2011 when security guards used illegal man-handling techniques on Ray when he peacefully protested against Hillary Clinton's war-like speech. Now let "The Washington Post" get out of its usual russophobic mode and say something sensible. "How did the end of the Cold War become today’s dangerous tensions with Russia?" By Archie Brown May 4, 2018 Archie Brown is emeritus professor of politics at the University of Oxford and author, most recently, of “The Rise and Fall of Communism” and of “The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age.” <<...For Michael McFaul, in his vigorously argued political memoir, “From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia,” there is a “new ideological struggle . . . between Russia and the West, not between communism and capitalism but between democracy and autocracy.” As a generalization, that is unconvincing...it is hard to agree that the contemporary ideological struggle with Russia is one between democracy and autocracy. Russia has become substantially more authoritarian in the post-Soviet era than it was in the last years of the Soviet Union, but it retains far more freedom and elements of pluralism than were to be found in the pre-perestroika U.S.S.R.>> Newsweek attacks Ed Lozansky (and deserves the badge of honor from me) Lozansky, a former nuclear physicist who emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1976, is known in Russia policy circles as a mysterious, conservative figure. With analysts warning of a new Cold War, and as the Department of Justice and Congress investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, Lozansky’s efforts to promote Russia in Washington have drawn scrutiny from analysts and even allegations that he is spreading propaganda for the Kremlin. Sharon Tennison, another RAGA ally, reports that “Bottom-Up Diplomacy” is Working!!!April 20, 2018 BBC News. Published on Apr 16, 2018 Here is Lord West, former First Sea Lord, speaking to the BBC this morning, his thoughts on why he thinks the chemical weapons attack on Douma was a false flag. "Jimmy Carter Just Issued A Chilling Warning To Trump About Syria" by Tyler Durden/Fri, 04/13/2018 - 10:44 Former President Jimmy Carter urges President Donald Trump to refrain from launching an illegal military attack on Syria, warning of the serious dangers - including nuclear conflagration - that could result. "I pray that he would keep our country at peace and not exaggerate or exacerbate the challenges that come up with North Korea, in Russia, or in Syria," Carter told The Associated Press about Trump's recent threats. "I hope he realizes very profoundly as I did, and as other presidents have done," Carter continued, "that any nuclear exchange could involve catastrophe for all human beings." Even Paul Craig Roberts is alarmed "America Has No Unifying Moral Culture - It Will Lose a War with Russia", he wrote on Apr 5, 2018 "A country without a unifying moral culture is no longer a country. Yet, what pretends to be a country, the US, is being led into war against Russia, a real country. There is no chance whatsoever of the US prevailing in the oncoming war." "A recent poll of Americans showed that “74% think America is a dictatorship; only 21% think it’s not.” Perhaps Americans are more realistic about the government than about the ‘news’ media." http://theduran.com/russias-v-americas-records-on-democracy-and-on-whistleblowers-safety/ Which calls us back to Shamir's article: "Since that fateful May 9th day (when Netanyahu was just about the only foreign leader to stand next to Putin during the Red Square parade), Russian media has been treating Israel very cautiously", --observes Shamir. "Even the Gaza massacre didn’t bring many condemnations in the Russian media, though the Russian Foreign Office condemned this brutal act. The official state agency RIA reported that Israeli soldiers shot at “especially aggressive individuals”. The second (largest) state news agency TASS minimized its reporting about the massacre". Concludes Shamir with a powerful crescendo: "In short, the Jews overcame their problems by mid-May 2018, and emerged as a leading polity on the planet Earth, in perfect rapport with both superpowers and in control over mind of billions. The massacre of Gaza furnished the proof they can kill with impunity." Notice "control over minds of billions". It refers to the same phenomenon that Russia-Insider's Charles Bausman described in his article "It's time we drop the Jew Taboo" (http://www.raga.org/news/drop-the-jew-taboo). If we take into account that the number of people who read Russian has greatly diminished since the Old Cold War and is certainly many times smaller than those who use English, US MEGA Media has a field day to manipulate not just US government, but also the public opinion in the world. Many things can be done to reduce the manipulative power of MEGA-media. In 2014, on behalf of RAGA, I wrote a letter in defense of Net Neutrality.MY LETTER TO FCC, 7/1/2014 In my farewell letter to Barack Obama (TO: Mr. Barack Obama, POTUS. 11/18/2016. ) I suggested the need to "Start the legislative process for breaking up the corporate media conglomerates..." . For Donald Trump such a reform is even more urgent. As it happens, at about the same time "Radio Radonezh", an independent Russian Orthodox Christian station that serves 140 countries broadcast an interview with me on May 17, 2018 on the occasion of RAGA's 25th anniversary. It can be always retrieved from the archives. «Добрая воля» - об обществе российско-американской дружбы рассказывает его учредитель В.Г. Краснов 17 мая 2018, 19:00 http://radonezh.ru/radio/2018/05/17 Finally, I recommend to those nearby to enjoy the Summer by diving into the world of classical music which alone knows no religious, racial or political divisions. FESTIVAL BALTIMORE, June 3-17, 2018: CONCERTS |12 DAYS OF MASTERCLASSES UNIQUE LISTENING AND LEARNING EXPERIENCE AT UMBC's AWARD-WINNING EARL AND DARIELLE LINEHAN CONCERT HALL! ASIYA KOREPANOVA, piano DMITRII NILOV, percussion MARIA SUMAREVA, piano TCHAIKOVSKY: COMPLETE STRING QUARTETS Don't be surprised that about 50% of composers and performers have exotic, even BAROQUE, Russian names. All are approved by TSA Sincerely, W George Krasnow (http://wiki-org.ru/wiki/Краснов,_Владислав_Георгиевич) President, RAGA www.raga.org Peace and Justice to the World. миру мир и благоволение в сердцах From RAGA site: "We are an association of Americans who believe it is in the U.S. national interests to foster friendship with Russia on the basis of mutual Good Will and non-interference in each other's affairs. RAGA is a gathering of people who share common interests in Russia's history, culture, religion, economy, politics and the way of life. We feel that Russian people have made outstanding contributions to humankind and are capable of greater achievements. We envision Russia as a strong, independent, proud and free nation and as a partner in achieving peace in the world." |
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