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Radio War Nerd #270 — Cold War-2 Bloopers: Amnesty, Navalny & Zenz (Patreon)

Published:
2021-02-27 03:12:50
Imported:
2026-06
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Recorded: February 23, 2021

We look at the latest developments in the New Cold Wars fronts: the Russian Front, where Amnesty International de-listed jailed opposition activist Alexey Navalny from its hallowed "prisoner of conscience" pantheon; and the China Front, where an Evangelical loon named Dr. Adrian Zenz managed to become the sole western source for allegations that China is committing genocide and mass enslavement of its Uyghur minority. 

Total time: 1:43:02

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

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Google Hushabye Vally

Haven't listened yet and I have no clue why John Wayne Gacy is the cover art.

cointelbro

Because US Empire has become a murderous clown show?

Biwa-Boku-Boku

Except Zenz isn't the wellspring of all news about XInjiang here is some stuff talking about more accounts than just his https://wokeglobaltimes.com/xinjiang . I'm sorta surprised that you guys have done such a quick heel turn on Xinjiang despite having interviewed somebody who traveled there and saw the surveillance state. Not saying that there is a mass internment camp but certainly some bad things are going on there

Matthew Wood

Zowee- Zenz holds a masters from the university of Auckland- made me think again about the very visible anti-ccp groups in this city: sometimes mixing it in with the covid is a hoax movement, sometimes Falun Gong, sometimes cautionary liberal commentators

MD

The more outlandish claims come from zenz, but even the CCP’s numbers show a 50% year over year decrease in the birth rate in Xinjiang. There’s clearly something very bad going on.

Dan Bland

Agree that Zenz is a wacko and shouldn't be used as a source, but it's a massive mischaractarization to say he's the source for all XJ genocide news. Huge troves of primary documents have been published by ICIJ and NY

Dan Bland

*NYTimes; there's dozens of academics compiling personal accounts of experiences in the camps; and the satellite imagery of the destruction of religious sites is undeniable. Happy to provide links to this stuff, guys. Have been a big fan for a long time

Scorched Earth

Not to mention many first hand accounts of Uighurs who were able to escape China after being held in one of those “vocational training centres.” Those centres are usually surrounded by a high chain link fence with razor wire on top. Those must be some seriously unruly students in there. I would really hate to find out that my two favourite no-holds-bared journalists have been bought and paid for by the CCP. And yeah: what does serial-killer John-Wayne Gacy have to do with this issue?

grey

I dont get what RWN's objective here is. As other commenters have noted hes not 'the sole source' and there is plenty of evidence of the mass internment and oppression of uighurs.

Nicholas Levis

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the one-child policy for all China over more than two generations never applied to Uighurs. The new two-child policy applies to Uighurs as well as Han Chinese. This could be a factor in the drop in birth rates.

Nicholas Levis

Why does it need an "objective"? He's at the forefront of this story and is being fronted as the most important source by the U.S./EU media. Looking at him and the way he is deployed in the media doesn't entail any conclusions about the oppression of Uighurs.

Inglorious Bustard

Appreciate the thorough and hilarious dismantling of Zenz. Given the real abuses taking place in Xinjiang, it's somewhat head scratching why the Western media has granted the good doctor with primary authority on the matter. Maybe because there was no need to try any harder: as Mark masterfully illustrated in his discussion of the Western coverage of Yeltsin's 1993 coup, sloppy propaganda that exaggerates to the extreme seems to do the job just fine. Would be very interested in seeing you do a sober assessment of China's economic rise, their geopolitical ambitions, and relations with US. A pretty mainstream topic, but also a very important one to get right. And with the mainstream currently inundated by a great flood of Zenzian lunacy, a RWN take would be much appreciated.

grey

Probably because they say he is the 'sole source' when clearly hes not and then discredit the stated 'sole source' which obviously makes it look like theyre trying to discredit whats happening.

B. Carter

I reckon you can get away with just about anything on the assumption nobody will read your books.

B. Carter

Did you listen to the episode?

B. Carter

The real abuses only put China on parity with other US allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia as far as abusing particular populations go. But an alleged genocide is something that's morally actionable and non-hypocritical. You can get lots of people to care about genocide, but practically nobody will care about re-education camps. It'd be like expecting people to care about the US penal system.

Kyle Barbour

Is Mark's Bible review available to read somewhere? The original eXile site is paywalled. Thanks!

Inglorious Bustard

Good point that they plausibly need Zenz-level claims in order to allege genocide, which is maximally exigent and thus particularly useful. But much smaller scale abuses haven't historically stopped them from whipping up moral hysterias, and concerns of hypocrisy certainly haven't (see those US allies you mentioned). They could still pull out the ol reliable regime change playbook claims about "human rights abuses" by a "brutal totalitarian state", etc.

Dan Greene

I tried to find it on exiledonline but the search function appears not to be working

Dan Greene

You can disagree with their points but saying they are "bought and paid for by the CCP" is a downright lazy smear It's the CPC by the way

B. Carter

China is also way more powerful than the smaller offenders we've whipped up a frenzy over. Iraq didn't have nuclear weapons or a conventional military that could defeat the US on its own turf. China is unassailable in a way our typical targets aren't, so the only option if you're trying to destabilize them or check their rise is to gin up international pressure over genocide allegations.

Biwa-Boku-Boku

John and Mark haven't been "bought and paid by the CCP" . They're exercising, which is good and should be expected of people when looking at extreme claims. The problem lies in the fact that while Zenz is a nut, he's not the only person who has been looking at Xinjiang and I think there is a disinterest to criticize existing socialist countries when they do the same short sighted and bad things that we do. I don't really think talking about the police state in XJ is going to have much effect on either US or Chinese policy. China will probably continue with the plan since they've spent so much time on it, and the US government has shown in the past 20 years that it doesn't even really care about hearts and minds much anymore

Biwa-Boku-Boku

I did, and I think to Mark and John's credit they talked about that stuff at the end. Still as plenty of people have pointed out, Zenz pushes more outlandish claims ( with a clear right wing bent) and people focus on going after those while ignoring the stuff that people of highlighted about how crackdowns in XJ are following the same dangerous and counterproductive logic that the War of terror created

B. Carter

You're kind of missing the forest for the trees there. If all we could do was compare the draconian measures in Xinjiang to our own failure in the War on Terror then the United States doesn't have any leg to stand on. If we're trying to make China a pariah in the international community, then allegations of genocide are the only thing that matter from a Western foreign policy perspective.

Galerkin

Correct, he is not the sole source making false claims of genocide in Xinjiang. There are 1-2 more. What's your point?

Galerkin

No they don't put them in parity.

etienne

you can use the chrome dev tools to remove the paywall on the exile

kaicycle

Noted that as well. It's largely the same in Wellington, though probably to a smaller degree. Falun Gong seems to be real big here though.

Scorched Earth

I just finished listening to this podcast and I’m left scratching my head over what I’m hearing. Ok. Zenz is a loon. We get it. On that we can all agree. But as other posters have already pointed out, he’s not the only source of info on this topic. In fact, I never even heard of this guy before this podcast. While we certainly have to take whatever Zenz says with a few huge grains of road-salt, let us not forget that even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day. There is the Chinese document leaks given to ICIJ detailing allot of this stuff. And the ICIJ is a very reputable organization. But you fellows never even mentioned it. But more than that, there are numerous first-hand accounts from Uighurs themselves and their families. Do those count for nothing? But you guys never mentioned that either. Then there’s the significant reduction in birth rates in Xinjiang. That information came from the Chinese government itself. You don’t get those kinds of reductions by simply driving a few trucks loaded with condoms around Xinjiang and have some guy in the passenger seat toss them out to pedestrians on the sidewalk. I really hope I’m wrong about this; but I’m beginning to wonder if Mark and John have been bought off. The CCP has a well deserved reputation for paying off western journalists and other elites to make China look good. I’ve been following both of you for over 20 years since the eXile days. Please prove me wrong about what I’m thinking.

Animals in Motion

What do you want them to do? Show your their receipts to prove that the name Xi Jinping doesn't appear on the Patreon supporters? What nonsense. If you've been a listener for a while, you will notice this as what Mark and John often do, which is analyse why certain claims and issues get to the fore front of media coverage, while others don't. I don't see that as denying the abuses going on in Xinjiang.

calvin kilby

Over the last 20 years or so the uighur population has risen roughly 2.5 million. What genocide in history has ever resulted in an increase of the people it targets?

Kevin Walsh

Listening to the Zenz bit about the beasts of revelation, and I think it's hilarious that he starts off with heraldry for the lion and eagle, fudges it when it comes to the bear, and then abandons the whole idea of heraldry completely when it comes to the leopard. Presumably the Danes just didn't cut it as one of the four beasts.

PW

Thanks for the excellent book recommendation - The Great Robber Barons by Mathew Josephson. Available on Kindle but I don't recommend that version due to endless OCR errors. Got fed up and ordered a 1st run copy from 1932.

PW

A photo of a homicidal clown is its own reward.

xnfec

On Navalny, his comments about gun rights seemed odd but a while ago there was a series of comments in the UK about the same thing. The one I remember seeing was by Jacob Reece-Mogg. It seemed a super-weird thing to say and it stuck in my mind. Nothing ever came of it and I did not know what to make of it except to speculate that maybe there was some funding involved and the (presumably American) donors had a requirement to push guns in return for funding. Regarding China, I find almost impossible to form a coherent view of this simply because we have a media whose sole purpose seems to be to fling mud and to hope it sticks. Something is put in their hands and they fling it without examination. It may be mud, a rotten egg or a rubber ball. They will fling it and then hold their hand out for the next thing. It is almost like there is a new species of journalist being born. I can't bring myself to have feelings about photos taken from miles up. They could be anything. I saw excerpts of interviews on the BBC with possible victims of Chinese abuse. One of them was based in Istanbul. She may or may not be being truthful but I was immediately reminded of the Kuwaiti incubator babies. Particularly as the Turks were running a pipeline to Syria via Malaysia to feed Uighers into the Syrian conflict. There was a Kazakh lady too. I don't know enough about her story to be able to form an opinion. They may be being truthful but anyone watching the Kuwaiti incubator lady might be fooled by just going by her emotions. The whole thing led to the cancelling of CGTN in the UK and the cancelling of BBC World in China. Given that despite the various poisonings and accusations, RT is still allowed to broadcast in the UK it all seems a bit odd. They (RT) had a peculiar interview with an Armenian activist followed by a Turkish diplomat. All very proper and in line with the Ofcom rules for balance. This then highlighted the rules so we can see if the BBC don't follow them. I recently watched the Adam Curtis documentary. The last episode, which did seem rushed, referenced the Uighur situation. Curtis was careful to say "It is alleged". Why make that caveat? He would have nothing to gain by making it. He works at the BBC. If they had any hard evidence he would have been able to say "we know". I'm not saying there is nothing going on in China with the Uighers - there clearly is, but why is it more important or worse than the other stuff going on elsewhere. There is never any context. No-one mentions the Kunming bus station incident or the attack at the Erewan shrine in Bangkok. Is the Xinjiang situation objectively worse than what is going on in Syria with the Kurds? Or what Modhi is might be doing in Kashmir, allowing Hindus to buy up land in Kashmir to disappropriate the native Kashmiris (or so I've heard). What about Yemen? After a while, everything smells fishy. At the end of the day, no-one comes out of this with any credit at all. We pick and choose our hate figures in line with petty national interests and make use of whoever suits us when it is convenient to do so and with no regard for the consequences for those unfortunates caught in the crossfire. People who clearly don't care keep trying to trick us into caring. A thousand megaphones can't be wrong presumably. Mark and John at least try and explain what is going on and for that I'm grateful.

HungryRat

Really shouldn’t be by now, but can’t help being depressed by the number of imperial chuds out there who hungrily suck up the fug of propaganda being blasted in their faces. If you think China has a case to answer on human rights and the US, UK etc have the moral bonafides to prosecute it, you are a solid gold turkey.

Thomas Sankara

It’s too bad you can’t view a user’s comment history on Patreon, like Reddit. We might find that these are just state department accounts that can be ignored. Independent media is the one frontier they haven’t controlled yet, I think they will eventually be forced to throttle/censor Patreon

ymichaux

Lots of people here who believed in the lies about qadaffi, believed in the lies about syria, believed the lies about chavez & venezuela, yet refuse to learn anything, simply waking up every day as a newborn babe without any sense of history or criticism at all.

Kyle Barbour

How do you do that with the dev tools?

radiowarnerd

Thanks for this. Yes, we've never tried to say 'All is Well' in Xinjiang. In fact, look at all the episodes we've done and it would be hard to find any pattern of bias AFIK about China. We just check sources and when you do that, this one falls apart in a few seconds. It's downright unsettling.

Jim Vail

Those who disparage RWNs reporting on China follow a similar line of attacking Max Blumenthal, who has infuriated the state department because he has a following. Even Counterpunch is attacking Blumenthal calling out US imperialist lies because he neglects to equally report sympathy for the oppressed minority. US media backed the war in Iraq to take out evil Saddam Hussein. The crimes of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Gaddafi in Libya were dutifully reported in the US media and the US empire took action destroying both countries. Calling the kettle black (the emperor has no clothes) is what the 4th estate of power is supposed to do.

Matthias Höck

There was also the book from Gulbahar Haitiwaji which got a lot of press recently. I was hoping to get their take on it.

Richard Wood

Laugh out loud funny in places.

David Andrews

Living in Hong Kong, where most people are looking for any possible excuse to demonize the CCP, we hear a lot about the "genocide" in Xinjiang. Many people take it as an indisputable fact. Exposing Adrian Zenz as the main source of the Xinjiang reporting is very helpful to anyone interested in the truth. Thank you for exposing what a clown Zenz is. Unfortunately, most people seem to be much happier to believe the unverified or fabricated reporting as it fits their desired narrative. Something is happening in Xinjiang but nobody in the west knows what it is.