 And Frank is going to introduce our next speaker giving testimony as we continue to put the US Cold War on trial. Frank. Alright, thanks Rachel. Thanks Alice. It's my privilege to introduce Norman Solomon. Norman is the National Director of Roots Action and the author of many books including War Made Easy, How the Presidents and pundits keep spinning us to death. And it was made into a really important anti-war film narrated by Sean Penn and also Norman narrates it to one of my favorite anti-war films. Norman was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. And Norman is the founder executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, and here's Norman Solomon. Hey, thanks to everybody who's been making this wonderful commission event possible. I'm speaking on this topic. Why so many progressives joined in with the Russiagate frenzy which I would date to the last five years basically and it ain't over as we've seen in the last several days. I just saw in the chat a few minutes ago somebody wrote, Putin is no hero but Biden has no standing to call him a killer. I don't know that Biden has a theological background to pronounce whether Putin has a soul but that's sort of a side note. If you think about the last five years, just guesstimate how many airtime minutes on MSNBC Rachel Maddow devoted to Russiagate and talking about the evils of Russia, compared to the number of airtime minutes talking about the dangers of nuclear weapons and nuclear war. The study has been done but I would be sure that the ratio is thousands to one. And that tells us a lot about the US mass media coverage of issues between the United States and Russia, and really how badly extremely out of whack and dangerous. The coverage is the reality is I mean if we if we look at from 2016 to this moment. There is a vast number of people who call themselves progressives, including many who have described themselves as anti war peace oriented people who were to a very large extent on the Russiagate train. Villainizing the Russian government, villainizing Putin, blaming Russia for fundamental flaws in the 2016 election and in the lack of democracy in the United States. This has had profound and huge impacts that carry forward to this day and are very ominous and frankly could contribute to an eventual nuclear Holocaust. So I think it's very important to ask ourselves, how could so many progressives be on board with a line of propaganda that increases the chances of nuclear war. There's certainly a lot of factors there's not in my 10 minutes really enough time to really go go into them but certainly yes, there was sort of an enemy of my enemy is my friend counterpart where if Trump was doing X and war hawks like Adam shift why then because Trump was so awful, then people would start to identify with a war hawk, like Adam shift and not see the implications. And what are the implications I think that's a question that the admirers of Rachel Maddow and countless other great enthusiasts and media. These are implications that just are never or have rarely been explored to the endpoint. The endpoint is that what is the final foreseeable result of continuing to bang on the anti Russia drum and as the person who wrote in the chat said and I certainly agree you know Putin's no hero I'm not holding them up as some great peace advocate I think an examination the record shows the United States as Alice has pointed out in the last couple of decades United States has been much more at fault in escalating the nuclear arms race but you know put in no saint but that's not the point. The point is that Russian United States have more than 90% of the nuclear weapons on this planet. The point is that the endpoint the foreseeable endpoint of the Russia gate frenzy and all this anti Russia stuff that is over the top in the news media often, at least through silence aided and abetted by groups that say they're for peace and disarmament. I think that we move closer and closer to diplomatic rhetorical geopolitical and yes military conflict between United States and Russia. So it's like the equivalent of the CEO of a huge corporation that doesn't want to think past the next quarter or two. People who think well you know we didn't like Trump so we'll use this against Trump, and now it's well we've got to support Biden on all of this denunciation of Russia because well we support Biden makes no frigging sense at all. Moving into a mass media and political establishment gravy train that helps the military industrial complex to make the sale for more and more weapons keep the Pentagon military budget higher and higher. And that is the agenda, and we've got to make sure that not only do we not buy into it, but that in the days weeks and months ahead. Peace and disarmament and generally progressive groups, stop being part of that problem, either by somehow echoing the mass media now by the administration line, or by silence. I mean you can make a list of dozens and dozens into the hundreds of groups. National regional local that are peace oriented and sincerely we want to assume or trying to bring about disarmament and peace, and you can tell that list. And then assess how many of them challenged the Russia gate narrative that the Kremlin has been and continues to be this mortal threat to democracy implicitly more than the Koch brothers more than Wall Street more than the military contractors. I mean it's it's preposterous, and yet it's been ratified in effect, if not actively at least in silence by the vast majority of that list, you would have made of groups. So, you know, I'm very glad that me my colleagues at roots action.org we've been challenging that narrative from the beginning actively, as well as my colleagues at the Institute for Public Accuracy I know there are other groups that have been doing that actively in the last five years. There's a tremendous amount of work to do to in solidarity challenge, many activists and groups that even today are either agreeing with implicitly, or being silent about what the Biden administration is doing. There are other announcements, the saber rattling towards Russia and China. And so we've got not only Biden, who is saying, reaffirming his assessment, his theological assessment that Putin has no soul, but also that he's a killer, as though somebody who supported the Iraq war can go into thinking about being a killer. But we also have Anthony Blinken, who by the way was supported by some peace and disarmament groups quite avidly to be Secretary of State when he was nominated. He's going off and threatening China, going to Alaska and beyond to say that China is a huge threat. So as the same goes we, we've seen this movie before we know where it is headed, and word is headed. Unless we can avert it is further war further catastrophe, and unfortunately, a great possibility of thermonuclear war. And so I just want to close by saying that we have an opportunity to, as a saying goes, do a reset that maybe the last few days can be a useful shock to those who didn't want to talk about what was wrong with the Russia gate narrative didn't want to talk about the anti Russia frenzy, but we have to talk about it we have to challenge it, because that's what peacemaking is all about. Thank you so much, Norman, such important testimony and you know, leading to an action that tomorrow's Monday. Again, and if you weren't heard earlier. Let's contact Congress. I mean, you know this this Truth Commission is happening just at a time when heightened tensions awareness fear. So maybe you know it's time that we can say that we were at this webinar we can send the links to our representatives let them know that this isn't just. Now this is a pattern and we're now putting the Cold War on trial and showing the pattern of us aggression around the world. And if anyone is truly sincere about January six and fear as they are, you know in Congress that true, you know, fear. Then let's let them know that this is no accident. It's a pattern.