Max Blumenthal

Max Blumenthal

Max Blumenthal is the founder of The Grayzone. He is married to Anya Parampil.

Max Blumenthal has been a writer for The Nation and the author of Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party, which was published in September 2009. Blumenthal is a "Puffin Writing Fellow" at the Nation Institute and a research fellow for Media Matters.

Max Blumenthal Shares Deirdre Linder Video

Max Blumenthal X Post dated March 17, 2024 features Deirdre Linder

On March 17, 2024, Max Blumenthal shared a video of Deirdre Linder bashing Joe Biden for the United States perceived support of Israel.

Referenced by Chay Bowes

Chay Bowes addresses the United Nations Security Council

From an X Post dated July 4, 2023 by Chay Bowes:

"Western Client Media attacked @MaxBlumenthal and I for challenging the forever War cult

Denying the reality of their doomed escapade in #Ukraine to target us, as they did those that challenged them on #Iraq and #Afghanistan

Here's my speech in full"

Judging Freedom

Andrew Napolitano You Tube Screenshot dated March 29, 2024

Andrew Napolitano's show "Judging Freedom" has featured (most are regulars) Dennis Kucinich, Tony Shaffer, Kyle Anzalone, Aaron Mate, Phil Giraldi, Scott Ritter, Ray McGovern, Alastair Crooke, Gerald Celente, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Matthew Hoh, Douglas Macgregor, Anya Parampil, Larry C. Johnson, Patrick Lancaster, Alastair Crooke, John Mearsheimer, Karen Kwaitkowski, Jeffrey Sachs, Phil Giraldi, Kevin DeMeritt, Matthew Lohmeier, Craig Murray, Max Blumenthal, Bill O'Reilly, Ron Paul, Ron Unz, Mike Benz, Scott Horton, Michael Rectenwald, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Matthew VanDyke, Lionel, Jacob Hornberger, Jack DeVine, and others.

Max Blumenthal on Liam Cosgrove

Walker Bragman Tweet dated Oct 5, 2023

Max Blumenthal on Liam Cosgrove dated Oct 7, 2023

On October 7, 2023, Max Blumenthal posted:

"When I met Liam, he was just a young reporter looking to get his work published in a shrinking industry. He left Epoch bc they wouldn’t let him do hard hitting antiwar journalism and he’s proven himself ever since.

After The Intercept journalist Walker Bragman disparagingly posted a thread on X about Liam Cosgrove history writing for "right-wing dark money", Max Blumenthal responded

"You'll see Liam Cosgrove grilling State Dept & Pentagon spox in the briefing room about the deceptions and waste of the Ukraine proxy war, and confronting GOP candidates about their calls for war with China.

You'll never see Walker because he's soying around in his Brooklyn social anxiety chamber fantasizing about lockdowns and smearing anyone who gets in the way of the Biden White House's online censorship schemes.

I'll take Liam over Walker any day.

RFK, Jr. Debate with Max Blumenthal on Israel

Liam Cosgrove claims RFK, Jr. lied

The Grayzone's Liam Cosgrove calls RFK, Jr. a liar

Liam Cosgrove claims Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. lied for not debating anti-Israel activist Max Blumenthal after stating he would on the Jimmy Dore show. In the video attached on X, Liam Cosgrove had a discussion with Stefanie Spear, who serves as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s communications director Stefanie Spear.

Rage Against the War Machine

Rage Against the War Machine Promotional Flyer

Rage Against the War Machine was a protest held on February 19, 2023 organized by the Movement for a People's Party and the Libertarian Party against US intervention in Russia's attack on Ukraine. Max Blumenthal was a speaker listed on the Rage Against the War Machine website.

No to the New Cold War

Twitter advertisement for No to the New Cold War Zoom Meeting

Max Blumenthal was a featured speaker at an anti-American, pro-China event called No to the New Cold War, which is affiliated to Code Pink and the ANSWER Coalition.

From their website as of July 25 2020:

"This event will see some leading analysts from China, the US, Britain, India, Russia, Canada, Venezuela and Brazil come together to discuss how to counter the New Cold War."

"The New Cold War: A Canadian perspective"

Canadian Peace Congress, April 22, 2021.

The New Cold War: A Canadian perspective Sunday, April 25 @ 12 Noon (Eastern).

The discussion will focus on the escalating ‘Cold War’ against China and the Russian Federation being engineered by the U.S. and its imperialist allies, including Canada. Some of the panelists will address the specific role of the Canadian government and ruling circles in this imperialist offensive, in particular highlighting the Meng Wanzhou case, the recent resolution adopted by the Canadian parliament accusing China of “genocide” in Xinjiang, the imposition of new sanctions against both China and the Russian Federation, etc. But we also want to set these developments in the global context of imperialist ambitions, and of course the growing danger of war.

Moderator Kiran Fatima.

• Vijay Prashad – Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, and Chief Correspondent for Globetrotter;
• Margaret Kimberley – Senior Editor of Black Agenda Report, and Coordinating Committee member of the Black Alliance for Peace;
• Max Blumenthal – award-winning journalist and editor-in-chief of The Grayzone;
• Omar Latif – Canadian trade union activist and member of the Communist Party of Canada;
• Bahman Azad – Executive Secretary, U.S. Peace Council, and NGO representative of the World Peace Council at the United Nations; and
• Elizabeth Rowley – leader of the Communist Party of Canada.

Venezuela

Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil spoke about Venezuela at a United Nations Human Rights Council session in Geneva on March 19 2019.

Max is the son of Sidney Blumenthal who worked at a high level in the Bill Clinton White House.

Aggressive Progressives

Max Blumenthal appeared on a show "Aggressive Progressives" at The Young Turks hosted by Jimmy Dore with Steve Oh. The inaugural show was dated August 28, 2016. Guests/hosts included Stefane Zamorano, Ron Placone, Malcolm Fleschner, Graham Elwood, Abby Martin, Mike Prysner, Max Blumenthal, Amy Vilela, James Cromwell, Pramila Mallick, Judah Friedlander, Randy Abreu, Jordan Chariton, Dave Dayen, Michael Lighty, David Hildebrand, Norman Soloman, Denis Kucinich, Nomiki Konst, Krystal Ball, Graham Elwood, Michael Wood, Michael Tracey, Greg Palast, Kshama Sawant, and Cenk Uygur.,,,

'Putin's Useful Idiots'

From an article titled "Putin's Useful Idiots" published in the New York Times dated April 28, 2014 by a member of the "Eastern Europe left" Slawomir Sierakowski:

Western intellectuals have long had a soft spot for Russia. Voltaire, the French teacher of tolerance and a great friend of Catherine the Great, said that he would gladly move to Russia, though only if its capital were Kiev, not icy St. Petersburg. Johann Gottfried von Herder, the German philosopher of enlightened nationalism, dreamed that he would obtain earthly glory as the “new Luther and Solon” for an as-yet-unspoiled Ukraine, which he would transform into a “new Greece” within the Russian empire.

And in the last century intellectuals like André Gide, Pablo Neruda and Jean-Paul Sartre all stumped for the Soviet Union as what Lenin allegedly called “useful idiots,” apologizing for its monstrosities long after the rest of the world recognized them.

To those in the Eastern Europe left — myself included — who know Russia better than most, such naïveté has long been a source of chagrin. And yet it continues, even today, as many American and Western European intellectuals do all they can to minimize the dangerous aggression by Vladimir V. Putin.

Writing in The Nation, the Russia scholar Stephen F. Cohen argued that Mr. Putin was largely blameless for the conflict in Ukraine, that he had tried to avoid it but that the West had forced his hand. In Mr. Cohen’s eyes, the West has unnecessarily humiliated Russia by inviting countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary to join NATO.

Ukraine, he wrote, is part of Russia’s sphere of influence, so why can’t we just accept Mr. Putin’s proposal that Ukraine be federalized, with neutrality guaranteed in a new constitution?

Mr. Cohen’s defense of Russia’s sphere of influence overlooks the question of whether the countries that fall within it are there by choice or coercion. Ukraine is willing to be in the Western sphere of influence because it receives support for civil society, the economy and national defense — and Russia does nothing of the kind.

Mr. Cohen and others don’t just defend Russia; they attack the pro-democracy activists in Ukraine. Another American pundit, Max Blumenthal, described the Euromaidan movement as “filled with far-right street-fighting men pledging to defend their country’s ethnic purity.”

True, such people were present at the square, but they were marginal figures, and slogans about ethnic purity never gained popularity. Yes, generally speaking, Ukraine has its skinheads and its anti-Semites and even serial killers, pedophiles and Satanists. They are not present in smaller or larger numbers than in any other country, even in the most mature European state.

In one particularly egregious passage, Mr. Blumenthal writes about how the “openly pro-Nazi politics” of the Ukrainian political party Svoboda and its leader, Oleg Tyagnibok, “have not deterred Senator John McCain from addressing a Euromaidan rally,” nor did it “prevent Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland from enjoying a friendly meeting with the Svoboda leader this February.”

That distorts how these things work. A whole range of Western political leaders traveled to Euromaidan, and virtually all of them were photographed with Mr. Tyagnibok. For better or worse, Svoboda was part of the coalition of parties behind the Euromaidan movement, and they had agreed to support one another. Americans would behave exactly the same way in a similar situation.

Strangely, Western intellectuals seem unbothered by anyone who notes the similarity between their pronouncements and Russian propaganda. Indeed, they dismiss such charges out of hand. Zoltan Grossman, who teaches at Evergreen State in Olympia, Wash., writes that it is “wrong and irresponsible to assert that the presence of fascists and Nazis in the new government is merely Russian propaganda.”

For Dr. Grossman, inconvenient details are less important than the fact that Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of the far-right organization Right Sector, had been appointed deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.

That sounds ominous, until you realize that Mr. Yarosh is not formally a member of the government, and that in February he met with Israel’s ambassador to Ukraine and gave public assurances that Right Sector intended to fight all instances of anti-Semitism, xenophobia and chauvinism.

What naïve American intellectuals say free of charge, the canny Gerhard Schröder, the former German chancellor, says for 250,000 euros a year as a board member of Gazprom, the Russian oil giant. Mr. Schröder, the German father of “Gazprom socialism” — a new subspecies of limousine liberalism — has repeatedly embarrassed Berlin by supporting Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

He isn’t alone — another former chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, has likewise sung Russia’s praises of late, as has Günter Verheugen, a prominent former European Union commissioner.

What drives these men? Is it a case of poorly conceived pacifism? An eruption of remorse for war crimes carried out against Russians, so many years ago? Or the Stockholm syndrome of a victim fascinated by his executioner?

Obviously, they are entitled to their opinions. But in speaking out this way they are doing great damage to Germany’s postwar government, built on a commitment to democracy and national self-determination, everything that is currently under attack by Mr. Putin.

The irony is that by standing beside Russia and pointing fingers at fascist phantoms in Ukraine, Western intellectuals are aligning themselves not just with the autocrat in the Kremlin, but the legions of far-right parties across Europe that have come to Russia’s defense, among them Hungary’s Jobbik, Vlaams Belang in Belgium, Austria's Freedom Party, Italy’s Lega Nord and the French Front National. Who says Russia needs propaganda? It already has its useful idiots.

Slawomir Sierakowski is a sociologist, a founder of the Krytyka Polityczna movement and the director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Warsaw. This article was translated by Maria Blackwood from the Polish.

External links

• Max Blumenthal's website
• Blumenthal's blog posts at The Huffington Post
• Blumenthal's Facebook Page
• Story Archive at AlterNet