Listen now (105 min) | Legendary investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, tells us all about the story he broke that describes in great detail how the U.S. blew up the Nordstream pipelines in a covert “act of war” against Russia. Plus, Mickey Huff, of Project Censored joins us to speak to Ralph about the state of the so-called “free press.”
To understand the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, one must understand German politics and the German economy. The relationship between the US and West Germany/Germany may seem quite harmonious as compared to, say, the relationship between the US and Russia, but these pipelines have been very important for Germany and they have long caused a strained relationship between Germany and the US. Even ignoring Russia’s rôle in matters, there have been a lot of corrupt figures, actions, and proposed actions between Germany and the US as it relates to the Nord Stream pipelines. Perhaps the most visible figure in this is Gerhard Schröder, the former chancellor of Germany from 1998-2005 and member of the same Social Democratic Party as the current German chancellor, Olaf Scholz. Schröder has (is?) on the board for Nord Stream and Gazprom. The SDP and other German politicians have tried to distance themselves from and discredit Schröder since the invasion of Ukraine, but it seems the discrediting is only happening because something bad happened.
One must understand German culture and their economy to get a better picture of matters. Under pressure from the US after WWII, West Germany developed a capitalistic export economy which proved to be the backbone of German economic recovery and, eventually, German power internationally and within Europe. I won’t get into great detail about this here, but Germany followed an approach of ordoliberalism as opposed to the neoliberalism which has come to dominate in the US, UK, and most of the rest of western Europe. Ordo- and neo-liberalism are related concepts, but with some slight differences. While countries such as the US and UK have de-emphasized their export economies to some degree while favoring the financial sectors instead, which manifests itself via outsourcing and such, Germany, like Japan who was in a similar position after WWII, has remained more on the export economy track. The need to maintain the export economy means Germany needs to have favorable trade deals with the rest of the world and they also need access to cheap energy to fuel their factories.
This is why, corruption and all, Germany and Germans have strongly supported the Nord Stream pipelines. At least as of 2021, Germans from all over the political spectrum overwhelmingly supported the pipelines. The US has not taken such a charitable view. It was only a few years ago that both major US parties, but especially Republicans such as Sen. Ted Cruz, very loudly spoke against the Nord Stream 2 just as there was opposition to Nord Stream 1 some years earlier. This was a major news topic in Germany as there were questions if the US’s talk of sanctions had to do with security, and whether the US should even have such a strong voice in European matters, or if the US was simply trying to strengthen their position economically and in terms of global power. Even early in Biden’s presidency, it was not clear whether Biden would push for sanctions over Nord Stream 2, but for whatever reason, Biden relented even with bipartisan pressure. Perhaps Biden and Blinken wanted to use the pipeline as some kind of negotiation tactic with Russia and Germany, it is hard to say.
The real issue, it could certainly be argued, with the destruction of the pipelines, whomever did it, is not about the relationship between the US and Russia/Ukraine, but rather the relationship between the US and Germany and the EU as a whole. Given Germany’s cultural affinity for their export economy, they are increasingly conflicted about recent US foreign policy. Conflict with Russia cuts Germany off from cheap energy...Russian and otherwise. Conflict with China risks severing trade ties with one of the most important areas where German businesses sell their products. On the other hand, Germany has historic defense ties with the US and going against the US’s foreign policy wishes seems untenable.
If Mr. Hersh’s report is correct, or even if it is mostly correct, the US has certainly asserted their hegemony over Germany and, as a result, Europe itself. European pushes for diplomacy and resolutions to conflicts concerning Russia and China will not be tolerated unless the US supports such actions. This is why this situation is potentially such a major issue. The issue isn’t tension between two historic rivals, US and Russia, as much as it is tension between two countries with one of the strongest alliances in the world, the US and Germany. The ramifications of this may not be felt immediately, but it may well be felt in the next couple of decades. By then, I suspect we’ll know more about what happened with the pipelines. People in the US may not care so much, but I suspect Europeans will be more sensitive to the issue just as they were more sensitive to the Nord Stream controversies before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
While I know discussion of Mr. Hersh’s report will dominate the comments section this week, Mickey Huff deserves credit for bringing a lot of good information to the discussion. Some weeks back, I made a comment here at the RNRH Substack page about an independent report from the BBC about the BBC’s own coverage of economic matters. One of the conclusions, to simplify things, is that the BBC’s reporters lacked knowledge to challenge the narratives coming from corporate economists who the BBC often have on TV, the radio, and their website (without equal coverage from those with dissenting voices, but the BBC report didn’t address that so much). This lack of knowledge leads to biases as the reporters cannot ask or challenge what comes from the corporate economists. Of course, this may not just be an economics issue. It can be an issue with anything that requires specialized knowledge such as public health, public safety, global affairs, and so forth.
My question to Professor Huff is that even if reporters have the latitude to ask legitimate questions, do the reporters have the knowledge to ask the relevant questions in so many different areas such as economics, public health, and so on? I suppose the context of this question is that corporate media will prefer corporate experts, but do the reporters have the knowledge to question what these corporate experts claim or will the reporters have no choice but to accept it since they lack the skills to question it?
In summation, I did enjoy this episode of the RNRH. The extra long wrap-up segment is a treat. This was almost like two episodes in one.
What about the censorship right here on the Radio Hour?
Five years worth of comments disappeared with the switch to Substack.
Over seven years of Ralph ignoring One Demand. A brief mention as a listener question does not qualify as having the discussion of One Demand that Ralph said on Washington Journal (10-24-2018) he would have me on the Radio Hour to discuss.
Steve using the strategy Mickey Huff mentioned of making it about the person instead of the idea to avoid addressing a difficult question as Steve did in the comments on the Populism-the Good Kind episode.
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The idea that we should use legislation to reclaim some of the air time that the media get for free is not going to get any farther along in the next 25 years than it did in the last 25 years.
What we need to do is take advantage of the free air time by forming our own media conglomerate of television, radio, newspapers and internet to buy up/start up this media by selling shares to a non-profit corporation for one hundred dollars a share. These shares could only be sold for one hundred dollars as the purpose of owning the shares is to own the media. The shares could only be owned by American citizens and no one person could own more than ten shares.
Just 6-7% of the 150 million 2020 voters investing in one share would total 1 billion dollars to fund this conglomerate that would provide 24 hours a day of of this air time that ordinary citizens would control.
If started now it could be operating by this time next year. Much faster than another 25 years of getting nowhere as the best case scenario.
Legislation to reclaim a few hours of air time will not be passed for the same reason legislation to get the big money out of politics will not be passed- the big money legislators will only pass legislation that primarily benefits the big money interests and the big money interests have no interest in having such legislation passed.
The only way to pass such legislation is to first replace the big money legislators with small donor legislators. The problem has to be solved before legislation to solve the problem can passed.
Letter writing and demonstrations have been adapted to by the big money interests and will not work as they did 50 years ago as long as citizens keep voting for the big money candidates.
Citizens need to use One Demand to demand small donor candidates and enforce that demand with our votes.
If we start now it can begin to be effective in 2024 and have a greater effect with each subsequent election cycle.
And if we also start the media conglomerate now there will be at least one news source providing information on One Demand to citizens that the current media (including the RNRH) do not and will not provide.
I love your podcast Mr Nader! What to say about the NYT reporting: "A pro-Ukrainian group may have carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year, intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggested"?
Sy, you said Russians think of Ukrainians as subhumans. Imagine, I've been Russian my whole 70 yrs and I've never witessed this, not even from my Ukrainian grandmother that thought the Ukrainian language sounded funny. Maybe you made shit up sbout Nordstream too?
Off topic: Can you do something about the program's music? It's awful. Yes, I get it --- the words are important. So what? The music and voices are awful. It's an intrusion.
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who's been on your show multiple times, was on The Source two days ago. When asked if Hersh could be trusted, he answered "absolutely".
Yes, of course, international terrorism, destroying critical infrastructure publically is nowadays totally legit, aproved by the Western majority of the UN. Confessing to an act of war, a crime, on TV does not lead to a waterboarding stay in Guantanamo anymore! Blowing up gas pipelines and bragging about it is a new normal. Pretty democratic, pretty degenerate, huh? Ah ah ah, those United Satanic America values!
I've added Ralph's latest to my blog post on this crime.
https://kevinhester.live/2023/02/23/world-war-three-chronicles-part1/
To understand the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, one must understand German politics and the German economy. The relationship between the US and West Germany/Germany may seem quite harmonious as compared to, say, the relationship between the US and Russia, but these pipelines have been very important for Germany and they have long caused a strained relationship between Germany and the US. Even ignoring Russia’s rôle in matters, there have been a lot of corrupt figures, actions, and proposed actions between Germany and the US as it relates to the Nord Stream pipelines. Perhaps the most visible figure in this is Gerhard Schröder, the former chancellor of Germany from 1998-2005 and member of the same Social Democratic Party as the current German chancellor, Olaf Scholz. Schröder has (is?) on the board for Nord Stream and Gazprom. The SDP and other German politicians have tried to distance themselves from and discredit Schröder since the invasion of Ukraine, but it seems the discrediting is only happening because something bad happened.
One must understand German culture and their economy to get a better picture of matters. Under pressure from the US after WWII, West Germany developed a capitalistic export economy which proved to be the backbone of German economic recovery and, eventually, German power internationally and within Europe. I won’t get into great detail about this here, but Germany followed an approach of ordoliberalism as opposed to the neoliberalism which has come to dominate in the US, UK, and most of the rest of western Europe. Ordo- and neo-liberalism are related concepts, but with some slight differences. While countries such as the US and UK have de-emphasized their export economies to some degree while favoring the financial sectors instead, which manifests itself via outsourcing and such, Germany, like Japan who was in a similar position after WWII, has remained more on the export economy track. The need to maintain the export economy means Germany needs to have favorable trade deals with the rest of the world and they also need access to cheap energy to fuel their factories.
This is why, corruption and all, Germany and Germans have strongly supported the Nord Stream pipelines. At least as of 2021, Germans from all over the political spectrum overwhelmingly supported the pipelines. The US has not taken such a charitable view. It was only a few years ago that both major US parties, but especially Republicans such as Sen. Ted Cruz, very loudly spoke against the Nord Stream 2 just as there was opposition to Nord Stream 1 some years earlier. This was a major news topic in Germany as there were questions if the US’s talk of sanctions had to do with security, and whether the US should even have such a strong voice in European matters, or if the US was simply trying to strengthen their position economically and in terms of global power. Even early in Biden’s presidency, it was not clear whether Biden would push for sanctions over Nord Stream 2, but for whatever reason, Biden relented even with bipartisan pressure. Perhaps Biden and Blinken wanted to use the pipeline as some kind of negotiation tactic with Russia and Germany, it is hard to say.
The real issue, it could certainly be argued, with the destruction of the pipelines, whomever did it, is not about the relationship between the US and Russia/Ukraine, but rather the relationship between the US and Germany and the EU as a whole. Given Germany’s cultural affinity for their export economy, they are increasingly conflicted about recent US foreign policy. Conflict with Russia cuts Germany off from cheap energy...Russian and otherwise. Conflict with China risks severing trade ties with one of the most important areas where German businesses sell their products. On the other hand, Germany has historic defense ties with the US and going against the US’s foreign policy wishes seems untenable.
If Mr. Hersh’s report is correct, or even if it is mostly correct, the US has certainly asserted their hegemony over Germany and, as a result, Europe itself. European pushes for diplomacy and resolutions to conflicts concerning Russia and China will not be tolerated unless the US supports such actions. This is why this situation is potentially such a major issue. The issue isn’t tension between two historic rivals, US and Russia, as much as it is tension between two countries with one of the strongest alliances in the world, the US and Germany. The ramifications of this may not be felt immediately, but it may well be felt in the next couple of decades. By then, I suspect we’ll know more about what happened with the pipelines. People in the US may not care so much, but I suspect Europeans will be more sensitive to the issue just as they were more sensitive to the Nord Stream controversies before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
While I know discussion of Mr. Hersh’s report will dominate the comments section this week, Mickey Huff deserves credit for bringing a lot of good information to the discussion. Some weeks back, I made a comment here at the RNRH Substack page about an independent report from the BBC about the BBC’s own coverage of economic matters. One of the conclusions, to simplify things, is that the BBC’s reporters lacked knowledge to challenge the narratives coming from corporate economists who the BBC often have on TV, the radio, and their website (without equal coverage from those with dissenting voices, but the BBC report didn’t address that so much). This lack of knowledge leads to biases as the reporters cannot ask or challenge what comes from the corporate economists. Of course, this may not just be an economics issue. It can be an issue with anything that requires specialized knowledge such as public health, public safety, global affairs, and so forth.
My question to Professor Huff is that even if reporters have the latitude to ask legitimate questions, do the reporters have the knowledge to ask the relevant questions in so many different areas such as economics, public health, and so on? I suppose the context of this question is that corporate media will prefer corporate experts, but do the reporters have the knowledge to question what these corporate experts claim or will the reporters have no choice but to accept it since they lack the skills to question it?
In summation, I did enjoy this episode of the RNRH. The extra long wrap-up segment is a treat. This was almost like two episodes in one.
Glass houses, Ralph.
What about the censorship right here on the Radio Hour?
Five years worth of comments disappeared with the switch to Substack.
Over seven years of Ralph ignoring One Demand. A brief mention as a listener question does not qualify as having the discussion of One Demand that Ralph said on Washington Journal (10-24-2018) he would have me on the Radio Hour to discuss.
Steve using the strategy Mickey Huff mentioned of making it about the person instead of the idea to avoid addressing a difficult question as Steve did in the comments on the Populism-the Good Kind episode.
-------
The idea that we should use legislation to reclaim some of the air time that the media get for free is not going to get any farther along in the next 25 years than it did in the last 25 years.
What we need to do is take advantage of the free air time by forming our own media conglomerate of television, radio, newspapers and internet to buy up/start up this media by selling shares to a non-profit corporation for one hundred dollars a share. These shares could only be sold for one hundred dollars as the purpose of owning the shares is to own the media. The shares could only be owned by American citizens and no one person could own more than ten shares.
Just 6-7% of the 150 million 2020 voters investing in one share would total 1 billion dollars to fund this conglomerate that would provide 24 hours a day of of this air time that ordinary citizens would control.
If started now it could be operating by this time next year. Much faster than another 25 years of getting nowhere as the best case scenario.
Legislation to reclaim a few hours of air time will not be passed for the same reason legislation to get the big money out of politics will not be passed- the big money legislators will only pass legislation that primarily benefits the big money interests and the big money interests have no interest in having such legislation passed.
The only way to pass such legislation is to first replace the big money legislators with small donor legislators. The problem has to be solved before legislation to solve the problem can passed.
Letter writing and demonstrations have been adapted to by the big money interests and will not work as they did 50 years ago as long as citizens keep voting for the big money candidates.
Citizens need to use One Demand to demand small donor candidates and enforce that demand with our votes.
If we start now it can begin to be effective in 2024 and have a greater effect with each subsequent election cycle.
And if we also start the media conglomerate now there will be at least one news source providing information on One Demand to citizens that the current media (including the RNRH) do not and will not provide.
You are better than this, Ralph.
“We always saw...”
“Everybody knows...”
“It’s a famous notion...”
Yet, still no actual proof.
Only suppositions that support (fill-the-blank)’s propaganda.
Hope you also have the arguments debunking his claims, as well, to widen the debate.
I love your podcast Mr Nader! What to say about the NYT reporting: "A pro-Ukrainian group may have carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year, intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggested"?
Where are the written transcripts?
Have you asked most people?
Sy, you said Russians think of Ukrainians as subhumans. Imagine, I've been Russian my whole 70 yrs and I've never witessed this, not even from my Ukrainian grandmother that thought the Ukrainian language sounded funny. Maybe you made shit up sbout Nordstream too?
They sound like a troop of zombies.
Off topic: Can you do something about the program's music? It's awful. Yes, I get it --- the words are important. So what? The music and voices are awful. It's an intrusion.
I initially read the headline as, “Nordstrom,” and that was confusing.
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who's been on your show multiple times, was on The Source two days ago. When asked if Hersh could be trusted, he answered "absolutely".
Yes, of course, international terrorism, destroying critical infrastructure publically is nowadays totally legit, aproved by the Western majority of the UN. Confessing to an act of war, a crime, on TV does not lead to a waterboarding stay in Guantanamo anymore! Blowing up gas pipelines and bragging about it is a new normal. Pretty democratic, pretty degenerate, huh? Ah ah ah, those United Satanic America values!
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/nutzie-u-crane-z-sob-pow-x-planed
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/usa-united-satanic-america
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/defund-ukraine-fund-nicaragua-err