Talking Bag

PICKING PAUL JAY'S BRAINS

After chewing it over I have to say I like Jay's brains.

I often link to The Real News Network.
Paul Jay is their senior editor. 

In this interview he discusses not only their coverage of Jeff Sessions and the Trump-Russia connection controversy, but their approach to news coverage in general.

Real News Doesn't Side with Russian or American Oligarchs

(TheRealNews.com)

"We're more interested when it comes to the Trump-Russian connection into how deeply do the financial shenanigans go with the Trump-Tillerson, the now Secretary of State who was at ExxonMobil. There are deep ties to the fossil fuel industry in Russia. There looks like there's some big play that's going to go on there. I think for quite a while the Western oil companies, and Western finance, have not liked Putin's kind of nationalism where he defends certain areas of the Russian economy, and keeps them under Russian oligarch hands. Now, again, it's for Russian oligarchs. It's not for the Russian people. But still, there's a fundamental principle of US foreign policy. You must submit. They don't like any country that doesn't submit to US American strength. And the fact that Putin could push back in Syria, the fact that Putin can even push back in Russia, in terms of protecting certain areas, the Americans don't like.

Now, there looks like Trump smells like there is some kind of deal going on here with the Russians. And part of it might be good for people, if it does reduce tensions, if it reduces potential military conflict, well, that's good for people.

On the other hand, if this is going to be some kind of rape of Russian resources and some deal to enrich Russian oligarchs, and American and Western oligarchs, then we'll say that, too. See, we don't have a partisan horse in this race. We see this as a fight between two different sections of the global oligarchy, if you want. And for the people's interests, one, we should understand what's really at stake here, and two, for the people's interests, we want to get rid of the oligarchy. We want to get rid of the American oligarchy, get rid of the Russian oligarchy, and have, well, people keep claiming of democracy, well, let's have some real democracy.

So, our approach is we have no problem critiquing any section of the oligarchy, and we don't need to pick a side of one oligarchy against the other. And some of the people on the left are picking the Russian oligarchs, and having rose-colored glasses about who Putin and the Russian oligarchy are. I think there's pretty good evidence that people, journalists have been killed in Russia, dissent is being quashed. We interviewed a Russian economist named Buzgalin. He calls Russian capitalism “Jurassic capitalism” because it's so obvious and brutal and banal how the wealth of Russia has been accumulated in a tiny handful of hands. A tiny number of hands.

So, we'll say that, too. We don't need to be on one side or the other, because we're on the people's side. We're not on the oligarch's side."