Center for Citizen Initiatives

Bringing Russian and American citizens together in Peace since 1983.

Another Assessment of V.V. Putin

Dear Friends of CCI,

Four years ago, in utter devastation, I wrote a piece putting together what I had personally experienced about Vladimir Putin and what others who had experience with him had told me. Why?  Because he was clearly the #1 focus of the sabotaged Sochi Olympics and the fierce Maidan Revolt which was supported by outside forces against Russia and Putin.

Today we face the potential of WWIII due to this insane “enemy-making” being waged against Putin and Russia. When, if ever, will our people wake up and demand radical change in the U.S. military policy toward Russia––and the world for that matter? My answer:  ONLY when enough of us speak out for our common future. “How can we REVERSE this perilous situation in which we find ourselves?”

Putin isn’t the problem, friends. The problem is the projection of our own “shadow” on Putin and Russia. More on this to follow.

The article below was my pondering four years ago about this situation––and the tragic consequences that could result. It is even more relevant today than then.

Sharon (signature)
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

April 21, 2014

Russia Report: Putin

Friends and colleagues,

As the Ukraine situation has worsened, unconscionable misinformation and hype is being poured on Russia and Vladimir Putin.

Journalists and pundits must scour the Internet and thesauruses to come up with fiendish new epithets to describe both.

Wherever I make presentations across America, the first question ominously asked during Q&A is always,  “What about Putin?”

It’s time to share my thoughts which follow:

[Continue Reading]

Robert Parry-America’s Greatest Investigative Journalist Passes Away – Read his son’s eulogy

Dear Friends,

Through the past several years, I’ve repeatedly sent you Robert Parry’s articles. He was preeminent in his field. He received Harvard’s I.F. Stone Award for Investigative Journalism amid other national and international awards and honors in his field.

After exposing President Reagan’s Iran-Contra scandals in the 1980’s, the New York Times and other mainstream media would no longer hire Parry. True to his noble belief that journalists should protect the public from abuses of power from unscrupulous powerful officials and their cohorts, he began exposing each administration’s subterranean schemes to subvert law and order around the world. He has been totally committed and absolutely fearless over the decades.

His son, Nate, has written a touching eulogy below. He tells how he and his family got behind Robert after he was closed out of his chosen field. You will love this noble human interest story and appreciate recalling the long string of abuses of power he exposed to the world. I had forgotten a number of them, perhaps you have also?

I am so grateful that Parry leaves behind a pack of excellent investigative journalists who have been able to hone their skills and careers under his wing at his “Consortium News.” They will help fill the void he leaves behind.

Please consider a contribution annually to Consortium News to assure that this extremely important organization continues its vital work now that he has departed.

Below is the eulogy from his son Nate:

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/01/28/robert-parrys-legacy-and-the-future-of-consortiumnews/

All the best,

Sharon (signature)
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

Stephen Cohen – Modern-day Paul Revere

Dear CCI Friends,

The best informed and recent “Paul Revere-like national crier,” is Professor Stephen F. Cohen, a world-renown U.S. – Soviet/Russia historian. Once again Cohen amasses the facts available regarding the pseudo-fake news that blames Russia for every ill that Democrats and most Republicans have leveled at Vladimir Putin.

All of this in order to cover their own bad judgments and covert actions. If you have time to only scan the first five paragraphs, please do so; better yet, read it all. It is vitally important that as many Americans as possible understand what is going on.

All the best,

Sharon (signature)
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

Consortium News

The Scary Void Inside Russia-gate

Despite a lack of evidence at its core – and the risk of nuclear conflagration as its by-product – Russia-gate remains the go-to accusation for “getting” the Trump administration, explains Russia scholar Stephen F. Cohen.

By Stephen F. Cohen  December 15, 2017

The foundational accusation of Russia-gate was, and remains, charges that Russian President Putin ordered the hacking of Democratic National Committee e-mails and their public dissemination through WikiLeaks in order to benefit Donald Trump and undermine Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, and that Trump and/or his associates colluded with the Kremlin in this “attack on American democracy.”

As no actual evidence for these allegations has been produced after nearly a year and a half of media and government investigations, we are left with Russia-gate without Russia. (An apt formulation perhaps first coined in an e-mail exchange by Nation writer James Carden.) Special counsel Mueller has produced four indictments: against retired Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s short-lived national-security adviser, and George Papadopolous, a lowly and inconsequential Trump “adviser,” for lying to the FBI; and against Paul Manafort and his partner Rick Gates for financial improprieties. None of these charges has anything to do with improper collusion with Russia, except for the wrongful insinuations against Flynn.

Instead, the several investigations, desperate to find actual evidence of collusion, have spread to “contacts with Russia” — political, financial, social, etc. — on the part of a growing number of people, often going back many years before anyone imagined Trump as a presidential candidate. The resulting implication is that these “contacts” were criminal or potentially so. [Continue Reading]

Rethinking Putin: A MUST! Article and Video

Dear Friends,

Professor Stephen F. Cohen, America’s leading scholar of Russian history––both the Soviet era and today’s emerging Russia––brings to bear in this 25-minute video, his knowledge and thinking about Vladimir Putin as a leader at home and abroad.

Cohen’s perspectives are very different from the routine demonization of Putin that we encounter so often in our U.S. political-media establishment.  His “Rethinking of Putin” may help all of us to think more clearly about U.S.-Russian relations since 2000 and, of course, today.

https://www.thenation.com/article/rethinking-putin-a-talk-by-professor-stephen-f-cohen/

I’m interested, given what has been gleaned by other sources about Putin, how does this analysis fit in for you?

Sharon (signature)
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

Sign up for Stephen Cohen’s News Site- ACEWA

Dear CCI Friends,

I suggested that you get on the JRL list, which some of you report that you have! Thanks!!

I’ve also had a number of respondents ask for sites or lists that cover what the mainstream media is not covering. So I have another list for you.

This is the American Committee for East-West Accord, ACEWA. This site was created to delve into U.S. – Russia issues that don’t appear in the mainstream media. ACEWA was initiated by Professor Stephen F. Cohen of Princeton and New York University who is recognized as one of the eminent world historians and scholars on Russia. You might check the ACEWA website for their Board of Directors, most of whom are names known to the American public …. with only one exception – I am the only citizen activist on the board.

Look up ACEWA at eastwestaccord.com and get on their list. They usually post up to five articles a week.

Let me know if you find their points of view congruent with your interests.

All the best,

Sharon (signature)
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

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