Tim Mak would do well to stop regurgitating standard Western propaganda about Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine’s government is NOT democratically elected. The last such government was overthrown in a US-led coup. Russia is fighting a defensive was, not a war of aggression, as anyones with a decent sense of history knows. Zelensky is merely a US/EU stooge.
The conflict on the ground is a US proxy war to weaken Russia in which Ukrainians are merely cannon fodder.
Tim Mak is a hero for his current work on Ukraine, and linking it to Taiwan, despite the troll's posts. He is also a remarkable book author--see "Misfire Inside the Downfall of the NRA", which was prescient in raising the issues brought forward by the NY State Attorney's General Office which has just successfully obtained a very satisfactory judgement after a multi-year investigation and trial. Go Tim. Pulitzer stuff.
Obviously, were he not considered a useful propagandist by the government in Kiev, Mak would not be permitted to "report" from there or anywhere else under its control. Were he suspected of anything like "balanced reporting", he'd be out like a shot, or simply shot. John Pilger was a real independent journalist. Mak is neither independant nor real. It's likely he's financed by Soros and/or employed by a Western intelligence agency.
This is the second "Substack Reads" I've received by email and the second I've found to "reek" of mainstream propaganda. Many readers like me have turned to Substack seeking an alternative to just such a thing. I won't receive any more of it, as I'll now cancel my subscription to "Substack Reads" and go back to reading real independant journalism on Substack.
Of course no mention of the elephant in the room: what is the realistic victory/win condition for Ukraine? They had plenty of funding and infrastructural support for last summer's counteroffensive, which got nowhere. They spent over a year training those troops, many of whom are now dead or severely wounded. Even if we could send them a similar package, which is in doubt in itself, who would fight with it? The most gung ho Ukrainians already enlisted and are either dead, wounded, or barely holding the front together currently. So any offensive forces would have to come from conscripts, and there might not be enough of them to spare to set aside to train for a counteroffensive. And on the equipment side, NATO productions is anywhere from flat to slightly up. So the idea of some giant weapons package in 2025 is a fantasy.
Meanwhile, even according to pro-Ukraine sources, just about every major armament that Russia needs is going up in production. Russia outproduces all of NATO in artillery, and that doesn't even count their procurement or Iranian and North Korean weapons. And on the manpower front, again according to even pro-UA sources, Russia's military is significantly larger than it was in 2022. Their enlistment is going strong because of the high salary they offer.
So what is the endgame? Just grind Ukraine into dust and hope that it attrits Russia enough where they can't feasibly threaten NATO? In that case stop pretending like you give a shit about Ukraine.
Strange the interview didn’t even touch on the elephant in the room. A well-documented genocide currently being perpetrated on Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Ukie propagandist. Like the world is not already flooded with them. At least he gets to witness the fall and destruction of Ukraine and maybe open his eyes to just how this war was really caused.
Tim is a stealth advocate for his own personal positions. He has tried to add some “street cred” by joining the army, which is quite fashionable for the political left now.
Here is a Tim quote straight from substack, its indicative of his idea of competence.
Tim:
The great thing about being a journalist is you don’t personally have to be smart or knowledgeable about anything. You just have to ask people the right questions and then rely on other really smart people—lean on their smarts and their intelligence. It’s one of the great things about journalism.
And so, you know, it’s just been a natural extension of that idea to reach out to people like Ryan McBeth, who’s been a really smart person on military hardware and technical capabilities in warfare. Or Alexander Vindman, who’s super-knowledgeable about what’s happening at a political and bureaucratic level, both in the United States and in Ukraine.
Irrelevant. You need to understand WHY Russia felt the need to enter Ukraine. essentially, Zelensky asked for it by allowing himself to be used by the US to threaten Russian sovereignty. This goes back to 1991. Try to keep up and not tell half a story.
There's Ukraine, and Taiwan. The same kind of reporting needs to be there in Gaza. 1300 people, or more, or less, I don't have the exact number in front of me died when Hamas struck. Since then, at least 30,000, again, more or less, without the exact numbers in front of me, have died in Gaza. More than that have been displaced. Women, children have died. This isn't about how Gaza matters more than Israel by comparison. It is about how what happened in Israel doesn't justify what's currently happening in Gaza. There's justifiable retaliation. And there's proportionality. Anymore than the Holocaust was somehow justifiable. And If jews could rightfully see how wrong the holocaust was, they should also be able to see just how wrong what is happening in Gaza is as they attempt to finalize any future attempts by Hamas to do what was done to 1300, at the expense of thousands of innocent people in Gaza.
In the Philippines, along those same lines, there's currently a struggle over sovereignty in the Southeast China sea, with the Chinese. That's been largely off the radar lately. There's discussion about foreign ownership of property and of foreign conservatorship of higher education as well as the import of rice from Viet-nam where filipinos once taught the vietnamese how to grow rice and now they're importing rice at a higher cost than it would cost to grow it domestically. Rice is life in the east. In China, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam and elsewhere.
China, if they can help it, would just as soon, not fire a shot to accomplish their political aims.
Mostly, under the radar that's what's happening now as the war in Ukraine continues.
In Israel and in the Philippines, and elsewhere while we look inward to the next election and whether or not we will show the resolve necessary to assist in getting these problems fixed or off the table to the delight of authoritarians everywhere abroad and domestically.
We alone are not the answer. But, it takes an "at long last, have you no decency", McCarthy moment for that to begin to change.
And, reporters can be the front line in that effort as they have been historically. They've gotten it wrong before and they've gotten it right. This is their chance.
The future, it has been suggested, isn't just about the awe of what lies ahead or before us. It is also about how it looks from street level.
Spot on. Not just that it's happening, the getting it right or wrong, but, how does it look on the ground - in Ukraine, in Taiwan, in the Philippines, in Israel, in Gaza and elsewhere.
Or we can just leave it up to Corporations, Politicians and Evangelists to give us the the self serving perspective which hasn't really ever served the interests of the people on the ground nearly as well. "Spotlight", and the Catholic church - I'm looking at you. Migrant children in cages - I'm looking at you - Stephen Miller. The oil industry - I'm looking at you.
The air we breathe, the water we drink, the land we'd like to call our own, and the labor that goes into it daily are all assets we owe ourselves to be at least as mindful of as the narrow interests of those stated above.
Tell the stories of those most immediately affected - wherever it happens.
I have long since cast off the shackles of the government propaganda training I received as a child. Missiles in Cuba, evil Russia; didn't tell us the reason we had to Practice hiding from nuclear fallout by hiding under our desks, how absurd it all was, was because US had installed missiles in Turkey aimed at Russia and Russia called that bluff.
They rely on these current generations that have been public school indoctrinated. Dont think Theywon't draft!! They want this bad.
Tim Mak would do well to stop regurgitating standard Western propaganda about Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine’s government is NOT democratically elected. The last such government was overthrown in a US-led coup. Russia is fighting a defensive was, not a war of aggression, as anyones with a decent sense of history knows. Zelensky is merely a US/EU stooge.
The conflict on the ground is a US proxy war to weaken Russia in which Ukrainians are merely cannon fodder.
Tim Mak is a hero for his current work on Ukraine, and linking it to Taiwan, despite the troll's posts. He is also a remarkable book author--see "Misfire Inside the Downfall of the NRA", which was prescient in raising the issues brought forward by the NY State Attorney's General Office which has just successfully obtained a very satisfactory judgement after a multi-year investigation and trial. Go Tim. Pulitzer stuff.
Obviously, were he not considered a useful propagandist by the government in Kiev, Mak would not be permitted to "report" from there or anywhere else under its control. Were he suspected of anything like "balanced reporting", he'd be out like a shot, or simply shot. John Pilger was a real independent journalist. Mak is neither independant nor real. It's likely he's financed by Soros and/or employed by a Western intelligence agency.
This is the second "Substack Reads" I've received by email and the second I've found to "reek" of mainstream propaganda. Many readers like me have turned to Substack seeking an alternative to just such a thing. I won't receive any more of it, as I'll now cancel my subscription to "Substack Reads" and go back to reading real independant journalism on Substack.
Of course no mention of the elephant in the room: what is the realistic victory/win condition for Ukraine? They had plenty of funding and infrastructural support for last summer's counteroffensive, which got nowhere. They spent over a year training those troops, many of whom are now dead or severely wounded. Even if we could send them a similar package, which is in doubt in itself, who would fight with it? The most gung ho Ukrainians already enlisted and are either dead, wounded, or barely holding the front together currently. So any offensive forces would have to come from conscripts, and there might not be enough of them to spare to set aside to train for a counteroffensive. And on the equipment side, NATO productions is anywhere from flat to slightly up. So the idea of some giant weapons package in 2025 is a fantasy.
Meanwhile, even according to pro-Ukraine sources, just about every major armament that Russia needs is going up in production. Russia outproduces all of NATO in artillery, and that doesn't even count their procurement or Iranian and North Korean weapons. And on the manpower front, again according to even pro-UA sources, Russia's military is significantly larger than it was in 2022. Their enlistment is going strong because of the high salary they offer.
So what is the endgame? Just grind Ukraine into dust and hope that it attrits Russia enough where they can't feasibly threaten NATO? In that case stop pretending like you give a shit about Ukraine.
Strange the interview didn’t even touch on the elephant in the room. A well-documented genocide currently being perpetrated on Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Yep Tim Mak, just another western propagandist pretending to be a journalist.
I’m sorry- you lost me at Alexander Vindman.
Ukie propagandist. Like the world is not already flooded with them. At least he gets to witness the fall and destruction of Ukraine and maybe open his eyes to just how this war was really caused.
Tim is a stealth advocate for his own personal positions. He has tried to add some “street cred” by joining the army, which is quite fashionable for the political left now.
Here is a Tim quote straight from substack, its indicative of his idea of competence.
Tim:
The great thing about being a journalist is you don’t personally have to be smart or knowledgeable about anything. You just have to ask people the right questions and then rely on other really smart people—lean on their smarts and their intelligence. It’s one of the great things about journalism.
And so, you know, it’s just been a natural extension of that idea to reach out to people like Ryan McBeth, who’s been a really smart person on military hardware and technical capabilities in warfare. Or Alexander Vindman, who’s super-knowledgeable about what’s happening at a political and bureaucratic level, both in the United States and in Ukraine.
Be safe, be careful. The SBU targets journalists who speak the truth. God protect you.
Whao. An independent propagandist. How novel smh.
Irrelevant. You need to understand WHY Russia felt the need to enter Ukraine. essentially, Zelensky asked for it by allowing himself to be used by the US to threaten Russian sovereignty. This goes back to 1991. Try to keep up and not tell half a story.
There's Ukraine, and Taiwan. The same kind of reporting needs to be there in Gaza. 1300 people, or more, or less, I don't have the exact number in front of me died when Hamas struck. Since then, at least 30,000, again, more or less, without the exact numbers in front of me, have died in Gaza. More than that have been displaced. Women, children have died. This isn't about how Gaza matters more than Israel by comparison. It is about how what happened in Israel doesn't justify what's currently happening in Gaza. There's justifiable retaliation. And there's proportionality. Anymore than the Holocaust was somehow justifiable. And If jews could rightfully see how wrong the holocaust was, they should also be able to see just how wrong what is happening in Gaza is as they attempt to finalize any future attempts by Hamas to do what was done to 1300, at the expense of thousands of innocent people in Gaza.
In the Philippines, along those same lines, there's currently a struggle over sovereignty in the Southeast China sea, with the Chinese. That's been largely off the radar lately. There's discussion about foreign ownership of property and of foreign conservatorship of higher education as well as the import of rice from Viet-nam where filipinos once taught the vietnamese how to grow rice and now they're importing rice at a higher cost than it would cost to grow it domestically. Rice is life in the east. In China, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam and elsewhere.
China, if they can help it, would just as soon, not fire a shot to accomplish their political aims.
Mostly, under the radar that's what's happening now as the war in Ukraine continues.
In Israel and in the Philippines, and elsewhere while we look inward to the next election and whether or not we will show the resolve necessary to assist in getting these problems fixed or off the table to the delight of authoritarians everywhere abroad and domestically.
We alone are not the answer. But, it takes an "at long last, have you no decency", McCarthy moment for that to begin to change.
And, reporters can be the front line in that effort as they have been historically. They've gotten it wrong before and they've gotten it right. This is their chance.
The future, it has been suggested, isn't just about the awe of what lies ahead or before us. It is also about how it looks from street level.
Spot on. Not just that it's happening, the getting it right or wrong, but, how does it look on the ground - in Ukraine, in Taiwan, in the Philippines, in Israel, in Gaza and elsewhere.
Or we can just leave it up to Corporations, Politicians and Evangelists to give us the the self serving perspective which hasn't really ever served the interests of the people on the ground nearly as well. "Spotlight", and the Catholic church - I'm looking at you. Migrant children in cages - I'm looking at you - Stephen Miller. The oil industry - I'm looking at you.
The air we breathe, the water we drink, the land we'd like to call our own, and the labor that goes into it daily are all assets we owe ourselves to be at least as mindful of as the narrow interests of those stated above.
Tell the stories of those most immediately affected - wherever it happens.
Thanks
Seems like there's a typo. You spelt Kyiv wrongly. Please correct.
Outstanding.
I have long since cast off the shackles of the government propaganda training I received as a child. Missiles in Cuba, evil Russia; didn't tell us the reason we had to Practice hiding from nuclear fallout by hiding under our desks, how absurd it all was, was because US had installed missiles in Turkey aimed at Russia and Russia called that bluff.
They rely on these current generations that have been public school indoctrinated. Dont think Theywon't draft!! They want this bad.