Bette In the News: Growing the Pro-Democracy Intelligentsia
My new intervu on Thom Hartmann; the film I executive produced—Kherson: Human Safari—directed by Zarina Zabrisky, screens at Munich Security Conference 2/12; Zarina joins us Tues; plus Unger on RadPod
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Bette In the News — Growing the Pro-Democracy Intelligentsia
Thank you to everyone who supports this boutique magazine. You give me wings.
Couple of items: I was invited back to The Thom Hartmann Program this week to talk about my latest series, Spot the Op.
I explained that I launched the series as a way to bring the newly ‘truth curious’ up to speed on how the fascist playbook is being deployed. I also want our veteran readers to have easy step-by-step posts to forward to their networks. Here is the second Spot the Op:
And here is the interview clip with Thom:
We are being socially engineered on a mass scale with the combination of zombie armies and age-old techniques, and I will keep informing our community to the best of my ability.
‘Separatist’ Zombie Armies
As always, I spend time prepping in advance of each interview, and I wanted to share some of my notes with you, because they include a summary of salient points, as well as important insights from my sources: in this case, Ukrainian historian Tetiana Boriak, and political philosopher Dr Michael MacKay.
Notes for Thom:
Spot the Op: ‘Separatist’ Zombie Armies, my new series
This is about picking off democratic nations one by one.
START HERE: Divide and Conquer is one of the oldest military tricks in the art of war — it’s a strategy to gain power by weakening the target.
If you can break a nation into factions, you can overthrow that nation.
So all the talk you hear about separatists is just cover for invasion.
It’s Trump calling Canada the 51st state; it’s Putin dismissing Ukraine as its own independent country.
So how does it work…
If I may, I’d like to start with a personal story: my dad was born in Czechoslovakia, in an area known as Sudetenland. When Hitler came to power, he said he wanted to bring the Germans in that area back to Germany, and Neville Chamberlain famously appeased Hitler, with his Peace in Our Time speech in 1938, with the Munich Agreement. 11 months later, Germany invaded Poland. You can’t appease dictators. And ‘peace’ for murderous leaders means plunder, total domination.
So fast forward to today, and see that Russia has adopted that fascist trick of divide and conquer — through funding quote unquote ‘separatist’ movements. The term, ‘Russian-backed separatists’ is a propaganda term.
Dictators have a whole different incentive structure — they can just lie on a scale that is unthinkable to a democratic people.
The campaigns are made to look organic: pro-Russian forces really don’t like their democratic countries, and they demand to be annexed.
Russia did this in Georgia
Russia did this in Czechoslovakia
Russia did this in Ukraine, before the full-scale invasion
Russia helped fund the Brexit campaign
And an investigation of mine from 2022, proved that CalExit, the operation for California to be divided into two countries to secede from the US, was a Russian funded operation.
How do we know that? The person spearheading the movement lived in Russia — least surprising of all is that Nigel Farage and Arron Banks, collectively known as the Bad Boys of Brexit, were involved in CalExit, working with GOP operatives.
It’s really sinister stuff.
MAGA MAPLE
And now you have the ‘MAGA Maple’ movement, the push for Alberta to separate from Canada. We see Trump operatives pushing that — my Canadian sources say the movement is small and fringe, but that’s where the Zombie Armies come in…
ZOMBIE ARMIES
As I said on your show last week, Thom, the West was very wrong to dismiss the power and potency of online campaigns to manipulate the minds of citizens in democratic nations — using free speech to amplify fringe movements. In the case of Alberta, they’ve had a movement to secede for a long time, but it had no power until now, when Trump’s goons are meeting with them.
INFILTRATION AND ACCELERATION
Also keep in mind — organic movements are infiltrated and accelerated by Russia…
So let’s say you do have some disgruntled Canadians and disgrunted Californians and disgrunled Brits, that makes it even easier for Russian operatives to come in with their money and backing and say: we’ll help you separate from the very bad federal government letting all those immigrants in or whatever sells to the populace.
THEY FAIL
CalExit failed a decade ago but it had 53 chapters in California, and we know that the Russians will keep trying. And now of course, with Trump in office, doing the bidding of Putin, the pressure will come from the White House, which functions as a Russian troll farm with paramilitaries and nukes.
1000s OF OPERATIONS
What’s really important to note is Russia funds thousands of operations across the West, but they only need a few to succeed to weaken a nation — until the West is willing to admit it’s at war with Russia, it’ll be people like me and you and our allies fighting this war, and that’s not enough…
We are losing the information war, because we needed our military to defend us, not independent journalists, it should never have been on our shoulders.—hsc notes
Better to Reign In Hell — notes from Dr. Michael MacKay
“Putin doesn’t want what separatists want. Genuine separatists want to be masters in their own house by breaking away from the central government. But Putin wants to demolish the entire house — the one built by the local people when they formed the central government in the first place.
Russians never build – they destroy. Whatever might be positive and humane in a separatist movement the Russians eliminate when they take it over. Russians have a nihilistic approach to political life. Nihilism is the belief nothing is of any value -– there is only will to power.
Putin agrees with Satan in Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’: ‘Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.’ Putin manipulates others – including separatists – to harm his enemies. He doesn’t bother trying to get people to help him or Russia because that takes too much work; Putin knows it is far easier to inflame hatred and engender destruction.”—Dr. Michael MacKay for Bette Dangerous
Russia’s Horrible Chekist Past — notes from Tetiana Boriak
“Russia replicates itself with the crimes being unable to comprehend its horrible bloody Chekist past. And is solving the Ukrainian question with the available at a certain point of time and already familiar tools: blood, terror, murder, change of demographic component + information warfare, now moving to a new level of a cognitive one.
Terrifying material on Epstein. I am shocked for the third day. The remainder of the world I used to trust and rely upon has vanished. How to be part of the global community where such things were possible? And this community is now solving the fate of my country whose people are murdered by hundreds of thousands by another international criminal group. No answer.—Tetiana Boriak for Bette Dangerous
Really important stuff. So grateful to have this readership to share it with. Please share with your networks and help grow the pro-democracy intelligentsia.
Kherson: Human Safari at the Munich Security Conference
Many of you will recall the Bette’s Happy Hour we had in 2023, where war correspondent Zarina Zabrisky invited us to help fund her film, Kherson: Human Safari. Members of the Bette community stepped up, and ultimately, I ended up as an executive producer on her incredibly important documentary about Russia’s terror campaign in the southern Ukraine port city, Kherson. Zabrisky, who directed and produced the film, which has now been screened all over the world, is well into directing the film’s sequel.
I am thrilled to announce her film has been selected by the MSC Cinema Series at this year’s Munich Security Conference.
KHERSON: HUMAN SAFARI tells the full story of Kherson since Russia’s 2022 invasion: occupation, resistance, liberation, the dam flood, and the ongoing attacks where drones are used to hunt civilians in what locals call a “human safari.” Since its June 2024 release, the film has screened in 23 cities across 10 countries, earned an 8.6 on IMDb, and received endorsements from United24, the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and members of the US Congress. It was recently screened on Capitol Hill. It’s been covered by Le Monde, Deutsche Welle, Times Radio, and others.
There will be a panel discussion following the film. You can watch the film for free, and learn where you can help Kherson directly here: www.khersonhumansafari.com
Save the Date
Zarina Zabrisky will be with us on Tuesday, February 10, 1 pm Pacific, at a special Bette’s Happy Hour, with loads of updates. Look for an invite to that event this weekend. All new content is free at Bette Dangerous, but to join our community events, please consider taking out a paid membership.
Unger on RadPod
Thank you to everyone who attended our three-part Speakeasy series with New York Times-bestselling author and investigative reporter Craig Unger, as well as those of you who showed up for our Epstein bombshells meet up with Craig on Tuesday. If you missed those events, RadPod just dropped a new interview on Thursday with Unger on how US citizens spent billions of dollars bailing out Jeffrey Epstein . Have a listen here:
Lastly, a heartfelt thank you to those of you who contributed to Nigerian reporter Philip Obaji Jr.’s Gofundme. It’s more important than ever to support independent investigative reporting.
Have a listen to RadPod’s interview with Philip here:
Thank you to everyone who supports this project.
Onward and upward.
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