Bette’s ‘Speakeasy’ Registration with Monique Camarra

Please register for tomorrow’s ‘Speakeasy’ zoom forum with geopolitical analyst Monique Camarra, zooming in from Italy to discuss ‘soft fascism’ and the war in Ukraine - Sunday, May 21, 4 pm PT

***Speakeasy registration link found at bottom of post below the paywall***

I woke up to so many nice messages, thank you!

I am happily exhausted this morning, because sharing with you those vital quotes from Timothy Snyder’s Frontline interview felt very rewarding. That post is what inspired all the nice messages. I am happy to do this work, and very grateful when you share it with others. I will be feasting off what I learned from that interview for some time.

‘Into the Mists of Time’ - Words to Untrap Our Minds

Memories fade, ‘disappearing into the mists of time,’ but how our minds were trapped and how we untrap them is the thing. Timothy Snyder’s explanation of how we were bamboozled by propaganda to not see the 2014 invasion of Ukraine for what it was - war - is our failing. To not be prepared for it when our minds were trapped again in 2016 was our failing.

So here we are on the precipice of 2024, and what are we doing to protect the narrative from those who are lying on purpose - obfuscating for the criminal gang engaged in a massive cover up? Not enough. Many in the criminal gang - Rudy, Trump, Prince, Santos - are feeling the long arm of the law - but many in the GOP criminal gang are still freely radicalizing people in the hopes that they can run out the clock until Putin and his vatniks help them return to power with narrative warfare and chaos and destabilization events.

After I filed that post last night, I did some more research on how Russia’s 2014 invasion was covered and the lies are still predominant - words like ‘Russian-backed separatists’ are propaganda words. Russia manufactured crises and titushky mobs and invaded Ukraine and stole what wasn’t theirs, and the theft is ongoing.

As Snyder said in his Frontline interview:

What Russia was able to prove was that, no, as a matter of fact, we can invade a country, and we can make you think that it didn’t actually happen.

Russia invaded Ukraine and basically persuaded us that it didn’t actually happen.

While Russia was invading Ukraine, the most important thing that was happening in the minds of the West, not just Americans, were discussions about whether there’d been a coup in Ukraine or whether the Ukrainians are all Nazis, or maybe they’re all gay, or maybe they’re all Jews, depending on what social media you were following, right?

The Russians totally had our minds in a trap, and we were totally unprepared… they were paying attention to us, at least in the negative sense of knowing what our vulnerabilities were on social media.

So what we were not prepared for was the possibility that actually the ideas and the culture and the digital technology were not working for us. They were actually working for somebody else.

Once we’d been had in 2014… we should have been better prepared for being had in 2016.

So one of the lessons he learned is that you can mess with the American political mind, which he then applies in 2016.

It is my hope by doing this work you can better see narrative warfare as its being deployed, and warn your friends and neighbors.

The people do appear to be waking up and as Ruth Ben-Ghiat says, “Never underestimate the American people.”

I am very grateful that Bette’s community is a global community - empowering us to learn from each other’s experiences. Our ‘Speakeasy’ zoom forums have included such great minds as Craig Unger, Wes Clark Jr., David Pepper, Alex Alvarova, Dr. Ian Garner, Dr. Mia Bloom, and so many more - zooming in from countries all over the world to bring us intel to up our game.

Tomorrow’s ‘Speakeasy’ zoom forum will follow in that tradition as geopolitical analyst Monique Camarra joins us from Siena, Italy. Her EuroFile substack is a clearing house for vital news from Europe and the war in Ukraine. The co-host of Kremlin File, Monique is passionate about fighting fascism and exposing those behind the fascist networks. She is living in Meloni’s Italy - what Ruth calls ‘soft fascism’ - and will describe what that means to our audience. She also reports on the granular details of the Ukraine war - the most important event happening the world, she says - and has insights into Putin’s propaganda and disinformation machine, and can share with us Berlusconi and Trump comparisons.

As a researcher/analyst hyper focused on Russian capture, influence and information warfare in Italy and Europe, and how it affects geopolitical and security issues (kinetic-non-kinetic warfare) on the old Continent, please take advantage of this opportunity to ask questions of another great global mind.

Along with being an instructor at the Department of Communication at the University of Siena and co-host of Kremlin File and EuroFile@6 podcasts, she is also one helluva cool lady.

Paid members will find the registration link below the paywall. If you are not yet a member and would like to join us for our ‘Speakeasy’ zoom forums and weekly happy hours, as well as access all content (which is all paywalled after two weeks), please do consider becoming a member. Here is a link to a 20% discount off an annual membership for the first year.

And now, let me share with you the delightful singing of a northern mockingbird that has been crooning his heart out, since 5 am.

Registraton link for paid members below.💘