US Empire Media Remembers Zelensky is Corrupt. Ask Not For Whom the Bell Tolls, Volodymyr.
And I'm shocked, shocked to see the Empire giving huge sums of money and arms to a corrupt regime!
All of the sudden, National Petroleum Propaganda Public Radio(NPR) has remembered that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been a corrupt SOB for a long time.
I digress to give a tip of the hat to Jimmy Dore for catching it for me, and I’ll link to his scathing line by line dismemberment of the NPR story below. If you don’t like Jimmy Dore, then you may choose not to watch it. If you like scathing anti-imperialist criticism that Mark Twain would enjoy, I think you’ll get a laugh like I did.
Anyway, the fact that Zelensky is corrupt is not news. This has been widely known since at least last year when the Pandora Papers came out. Al Jazeera ran a story on it in October 2021. The only thing that changed was the US Empire never reported on it after the Russian invasion began. Until now.
There’s nothing shocking about this. Nothing surprising. The US Empire always supports corrupt SOBs because they are the type of human beings who sell out their own people to American corporate and imperial interests. Decent people, or any kind of patriot who actually wants what’s best for his own people, are simply unsuited to the role of running dog lackey of the imperialist regime.
To wit, remember this guy?
Or how about this guy?
Or this guy?
Or this guy?
That’s Thieu, Diem, Batista and Noriega. Imperial puppets all. There are dozens of other examples in history since World War II. The list just keeps growing longer. Of these four, only Thieu escaped prison or death. All four have a lot in common.
All were notoriously corrupt and it was obvious both to their own compatriots or to any American journalist who bothered to talk to them. None could have risen to power in their countries without American support. None would have fallen from power had they continued to receive the level of imperial support to which they had become accustomed.
All of them were damned in the US press for corruption before that support was diminished or withdrawn. Their fates were exile, assassination, or military invasion and imprisonment by the US itself. The US leaders shrugged, and said they had it coming because they were corrupt or criminal and who really cared what happened to such morally unvirtuous people anyway.
The lesson here is simple. The US Empire doesn’t give any more flying fucks about its puppets than it does the people of the countries it exploits.
Maybe Zelensky and many Ukrainians think they are different because they are white or European. They could not be more wrong. The only color the US Empire’s decisionmakers care about is the green of the Almighty Dollar.
Zelensky has been portrayed in the US Empire press as this great, brave, patriotic champion of democracy and independence for his nation. A paragon of righteous virtue. Any aspersions cast upon him were dismissed as enemy propaganda, not so differently than the press treated any other American puppet during his time of imperial favor.
As soon as that favor is lost, the US government lets its people know, reluctantly, that the chosen imperial hero is flawed, corrupt, of questionable character, someone who cannot possibly lead his country any further in pursuit of the greater glory of the Empire. Someone who must go, slowly or quickly, violently or peacefully, depending on what suits the interests of American imperial managers the best at the time.
Volodymyr(hey, I can remember that by the phonetic Volo-dimmer), according to the Pandora Papers you and that wife of yours have a really posh place in Belize. My advice is to tap some small offshore account, pack you bags, and move there permanently and pronto.
Or you may end up like Diem.
Here’s the Dore video. Enjoy: