Max Blumenthal

  • SOURCE:  Wikipedia, 2020

  • COMMENTARY (BuriedTruth).  While the autobiographical statements on theGrayZone.com (founded by Blumenthal) paint a glowing self-tribute,

    based on internet content it appears that Blumenthal -- an infamous anti-Zionist racist -- is little more than a disinformation-spewing troll.

    It is a defining characteristic of disinformation that some degree of truth is intermixed with falsehoods (e.g., this) -- thus giving the illusion of validity ("Hey, that's true!) while linking nonfactual material and assertions to that factual material. In the former case ("truth"), the provenance of that material can be traced back to authoritative sources; in the latter case (disinformation), that deceptive content serves as the origin source for those falsehoods. While trolls likely have some agenda, their true underlying intentions remain known only to themselves.

    Refer here for more on Max Blumenthal and his rants.


    Max Blumenthal (born December 18, 1977) is an American journalist, author, blogger, and filmmaker. He was awarded the 2014 Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Notable Book Award for his book Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel (2013). Blumenthal has written for The New York Times, The Nation, and Al Jazeera English, among other publications. He was formerly a writer for AlterNet, The Daily Beast, Al Akhbar, and Media Matters for America, and was selected as a Fellow of the Nation Institute. Blumenthal established The Grayzone in December 2015 and continues to edit and write for the website.

    As of 2019, Blumenthal has published four books. His first, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party (2009), made The New York Times bestsellers list that year. He contributes regularly to the Russian outlets Sputnik and RT [see also note eej5Xaix in my raw file].

    Background

    Blumenthal was born on December 18, 1977, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Jacqueline (née Jordan) and Sidney Blumenthal. His father is a journalist and writer who later served as an aide to President Bill Clinton. Blumenthal graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999 with a B.A. degree in history.

    Career and affiliations

    Blumenthal joined Lebanon's Al Akhbar newspaper in late 2011, primarily to write about Israel-Palestine issues and foreign-policy debates in Washington, DC. When he left the publication in mid-2012 in protest of its coverage of the Syrian Civil War, he wrote that it "gave me more latitude than any paper in the United States to write about ... Israel and Palestine" and that "In the end, Assad will be remembered as an authoritarian tyrant." He ended his association with Al Akhbar in June 2012, considering the newspaper to have a pro-Assad editorial line led by Amal Saad-Ghorayeb.

    Blumenthal formerly contributed weekly articles to the AlterNet website, serving as a senior writer from September 2014. While working for AlterNet, he heavily focused on the Middle East while occasionally covering domestic US issues, such as corporate media consolidation, the influence of the Christian right, and police brutality.

    Blumenthal has broadcast on RT.com (RT, formerly known as Russia Today) on many occasions. In December 2015, during an all-expenses paid trip to Moscow, Blumenthal attended RT's 10 Years On Air anniversary party attended by President Vladimir Putin, then-Lieutenant General Michael Flynn of the United States and English politician Ken Livingstone.

    In an interview with Tucker Carlson on FOX News in November 2017, Blumenthal defended RT against "the charge that it's Kremlin propaganda." Blumenthal has also contributed on multiple occasions to Sputnik.

    Blumenthal founded The Grayzone website a month after his visit to Moscow. Gilbert Achcar wrote in an October 2019 article for New Politics magazine that along with the World Socialist Web Site, Blumenthal's Grayzone has "the habit of demonizing all left-wing critics of Putin and the likes of Assad by describing them as 'agents of imperialism' or some equivalent."

    Blumenthal's articles and video reports have been published by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, The Nation, The Huffington Post, Independent Film Channel, The Real News, Al Jazeera English, and the Columbia Journalism Review.


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