Follow-Up Open Letter to New York Times Editors

by Stephen Lendman

A January 2013 open letter to New York Times editors was this writer's most widely ever read article.

Touching a raw nerve. Showing increasing numbers of people fed up with managed news misinformation rubbish.

Wanting what Times and other MSM scoundrels don't deliver. Real news, information and analysis.

On issues mattering most. Domestic and geopolitical. Things affecting ordinary people's lives and welfare directly. At the most perilous time in world history.

Out-of-control US policies make global war possible. Madness if happens. The role of the media is to inform. Fully and accurately.

Telling people what they need to know. Especially on issues mattering most. What's more important than war and peace?

America's imperial marauding. Destroying the world one country at a time. Or in multiples. Making the world safe for monied interests.

Fundamental freedoms disappearing in plain sight. US democracy in name only. Unprecedented wealth disparity.

Extremes of super-wealth and growing abject poverty. In the world's richest nation. Fake economic recovery. Protracted Main Street Depression conditions.

Inviolable international, constitutional and US statute laws. Ones bipartisan complicity in Washington consistently spurn.

Supporting wealth, power and privilege exclusively. Letting popular needs go begging. With full MSM support. The Times America's lead instrument of state propaganda.

Violating core journalistic ethics. Calling professional integrity the cornerstone of journalism's credibility. Stressing public trust, accuracy and truth.

Not according to Times' standards. Refusing to hold US political leaders accountable. Supporting their worst policies. At the expense of peace, equity and justice.

Putin-bashing is Exhibit A. Irresponsible by any standard. No world leader has done more for world peace. None match his commitment.

None more supports mutual cooperation among all nations. Or more respects international law inviolability.

Times editors, correspondents, and contributors bash his best efforts. Mock his responsible geopolitical leadership.

Polar opposite Obama's war on humanity. Contempt for fundamental rights. Governing under a police state apparatus. Repeating one Big Lie after another.

Why don't Times editors explain? Telling readers what they need to know. Supporting right over wrong. Instead of commentaries like "Putin's War of Words."

Wrongfully accusing him of annexing Crimea. Ignoring his accommodating near Crimean unanimity to return to Russia. Reversing a historic mistake.

Citing examples of what it called "strong language to inspire nationalist support at home and encourage pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine."

Selecting statements out of context. Ignoring his responsible policies.

Irresponsibly saying his state of the nation address included "the same aggrieved angry tone he has often adopted in his public pronouncement since the Ukrainian crisis erupted in March."

It erupted in November 2013. Instigated by Washington. Billions of dollars spent planning it. Longstanding US color revolution strategy.

Toppling Ukraine's democratic government. Installing fascist putschists. Illegitimate by any standard.

Instituting hardline rule. Denying fundamental human and civil rights. Transforming Ukraine into America's newest colony. Plundering it for profit.

Selling off its state enterprises at fire sale prices. Mandated by IMF diktats. Including paying bankers first. Mass layoffs. Wage freezes or cuts. Eliminating social justice entirely.

Granting Western corporations unrestricted market access. Corporate-friendly tax cuts. Tax increases on ordinary Ukrainians.

Prohibiting democratic rights. Harsh repression against resisters.
Imposing enormous hardships on impoverished Ukrainians. Waging war on their own people. Confronting Russia irresponsibly.

Letting shadow bankers run Ukraine's economy. According to economist Jack Rasmus. One from America. Another from Europe.

Appointing US citizen/Horizon Capital CEO Natalie Jaresko finance minister. Lithuanian Aivaras Abromavicius with "ties to Swedish and German investment banks" new economics minister.

Jaresko a former State Department official. An early 1990s US embassy in Ukraine economic section chief.

Head of Clinton's Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF). A $150 million initiative. Promoting US and other Western investments. In newly independent Ukraine.

Profiting at the expense of ordinary Ukrainians. Earning millions of dollars in fees.

Rasmus called her finance minister role "a unique position to indirectly funnel the most lucrative Ukraine investment opportunities and Ukraine company acquisitions to her Horizon Capital private equity firm."

She'll stay on as Horizon CEO while strip-mining Ukraine for profit. While serving as its finance minister.

Making millions of dollars by being in the right place at the right time. At the expense of ordinary Ukrainians. She and Abromavicius functioning as "Western economic viceroys," said Rasmus.

John Helmer calls himself "the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia. The "doyen" of Russia's foreign press corps. A longstanding "Russian specialist."

A political science professor. An advisor to various governments. Saying a US federal court in Colorado began proceedings against Jaresko.

On charges of lying to the State Department. Violating US passport laws. After misleading a Ukrainian court in September.

Getting it to issue a judgment on her behalf. Despite no legal authority to do so. Helmer cited Jaresko's former husband, US citizen Ihor Figlus.

Accusing her in district court of "manipulating the State Department with 'rulings obtained in a foreign country whose judicial system is widely recognized by the Government of the United States as being deficient and corrupt.' "

Pertaining to securing a passport for their 10-year-old daughter. Deceiving a Kiev judge. Getting him to believe she's a Ukrainian citizen. Not an American.

Preventing Filgus from participating in proceedings regarding his own daughter. Getting the court to rule in violation of Ukrainian law. "(W)hich it could apply in this matter," said Helmer.

Saying the way Jaresko handled things bears directly on her credibility as Ukrainian finance minister. Helmer quoted "a European investigator close to Ukrainian dealmaking," saying:

"What counts now is what sort of counterparty Jaresko makes in big-money deals."

"What does the record of what she has done to manipulate the Ukrainian judge and her contacts at the US Embassy in Kiev tell you about what she will do to the Ukraine's creditors?"

"If the US judge (detects) a smell" of impropriety, bankers may "reach for their nose masks." Or should.

Why don't Times editors report this? Or other major issues needing explaining. Suppressing important information instead.

Featuring Big Lies. Irresponsible Putin bashing. Mocking hard truths he explains.

Including justifiably accusing Washington of supporting "dubious" groups ranging from "open neo-fascists to Islamic radicals."

Why don't Times editors tell readers about Obama's Ukrainian friends? Abhorrent ones.

Xenophobic, ultranationalist, anti-Semitic, hate-mongering neo-Nazis. Representing mob rule. In Europe's heartland. Bordering Russia. Threatening regional peace.

Supported and encouraged by Washington. Armed with lethal weapons. Supplied by Washington. Other NATO states. Used against their own people.

Harassing, beating, terrorizing, abducting and murdering independent journalists. Russian ones most vulnerable.

Times editors irresponsibly accused Moscow of creating Ukrainian crisis conditions. Invading its territory. Arming Donbas defenders.

Involvement in downing MH17. Threatening war on its neighbor. Intending to annex part of its territory. Various other spurious accusations.

Based on Big Lies. With no credible proof supporting them. Longstanding Times policy. Suppressing what's most important.

Using its global reach irresponsibly. Betraying its readers in the process. Proving all the news it claims fit to print is a Big Lie.

Substituting managed news misinformation rubbish for hard truths. On issues mattering most.

Times editors consistently on the wrong side of history. Don't expect them to explain.

Or report accurately because it matters. Or serve reader interests responsibly. Or publish all the news fit to print for real.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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