Coop Scoop: New Feature --Some Things to Read

A new feature: Reading and listening recommendations

March 18, 2022

Welcome to a new feature of the Coop Scoop. I’m offering an occasional list of posts and articles I think are worth your time and interest. Let me know what you think. I do not necessarily agree with all that is posted here as my intention is to broaden understanding and open debate.

The Guardian

How “Ukrainian bioweapons labs"myth went from Qanon fringe to Fox News

Thanks in great part to the nightly mantras from Tucker Carlson, and with some big assists from Glenn Greenwald, the Trumpist Right has been spreading a bogus story about supposed bioweapons development in Ukraine. There is no evidence to support the conspiracy theory and, yet, it has spread faster than Omicron. Read how the Guardian un packs the evolution of this false story.

The New Republic

The NATO story is much more complex than it seems.

An essay by two Eastern European experts on how some Americans do not understand the specific appeal that NATO had for ex-Soviet republics. An important read.

Open Democracy

A letter to the Western Left from Kyiv

Some American and European Leftists blame the US and NATO for inciting the war in Ukraine, defending to some degree or another Russia’s intervention. Here is a rebuke from Ukrainian socialists. Read it here.

Jacobin Radio

Suzi Weissman: War Motives and Anti-War Resistance

Suzi talks to historian-activist Simon Pirani about the political and economic motives for the Kremlin's war, as well as the ominous signs of Russia's conduct seen in previous conflicts in Chechnya, Syria, and the Donbas in 2014. Listen here.

Oliver Stone(d)

The Russian war is “defensive.”

Among the American lefties inclining toward or outright defending Russia, I find the case of Oliver Stone to be unique. He had already produced more than one pro-Putin documentary when he was adamantly denying a week before the invasion that any invasion would take place. Then he had to repent that position. And now he has taken a truly bizarre stance. He seems angry with Putin for smudging the image that had attracted Stone. And while he now condemns the invasion, he is strident in affirming that Russia somehow got tricked into this war by US imperialists and that the invasion is purely defensive. He seems to believe that the residents of the two pro-Russian statelets needed “saving.” Evocative of those who championed Sudetenland. Read his facebook post here.

And from others on Substack:

A Close Encounter With Nancy Pelosi

Putin Can't Get Lucky Enough to Win

Dissenting from the Orthodoxy of Dissent

Thanks for looking. Let mew know what you think!

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