In case you missed it: On @DemocracyNow, Amy Goodman's guest shoots down her pro-Putin point

Democracy Now has been pretty good on Ukraine. Much better than I expected, to speak truthfully. Still, it can't seem to help slipping back to its tankie deviation now and again, such as on Friday, when it featured Vijay Prashad, or today, when Amy Goodman tried to slip a Kremlin talking point past Peter Zalmayev, director of the Eurasia Democracy Initiative, who is in Kiev now: 

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Zalmayev, let me ask you about the whole world’s reaction to what’s taking place. We definitely know about the U.S. and Europe. And, of course, you’re the director of the Eurasia Democracy Initiative. Thirty countries have sanctioned Russia. It’s mainly the United States and Russia. They represent 15% of the world’s population. Ninety-four countries voted to throw Russia off the U.N. Human Rights Council. They represent 24%, a quarter of the world’s population. The developing world has a different reaction to this, saying, “This is not our war.” What do you say to them? And how do you think this can be resolved? And bring China into this picture.

PETER ZALMAYEV: Well, I think you hit the nail on its head when you mentioned China. The sheer size of India and China, which are somewhat sitting on the fence, China less so — China is at least officially, you know, an ally of Vladimir Putin. India has, like, old Soviet-era ties with the Soviet Union, and now Russia as the successor state, so it has a mixture of pragmatic military interests and economic interests, and some nostalgia, as well. But if you take these two countries and their combined population of 2 billion people, this is how you arrive at the numbers that you quoted, 24% of the world body, those who voted to kick Russia off the council. So it’s a little bit misleading, because we’re only talking about two players, but they have — obviously, they’re humongous in size.

Frankly, what I find most troubling about this exchange is that Goodman was willing to take the position of two autocratic rulers as representing the majority world opinion without qualification. Is that what democracy looks like to her?

Clay Claiborne

19 April 2022

These are my other resent posts about Ukraine:

Is Putin's invasion of Ukraine a war of genocide? 27 March 2022

Does the "anti-imperialist" Left bear some responsibility for Putin's invasion of Ukraine? 14 March 2022

How to join the Ukrainian IT Army 6 March 2022

Vlad on Vlad: How Putin's views on Lenin shaped his decision to invade Ukraine 2 March 2022