I have been so busy lately that I can keep writing sarcastic essays… I do need all my sarcasm to survive in the “environment” I am working on, doing extra hours nonstop, same as in any of the other two, or three mini-jobs I have. I am working seven days a week, 16 hours a day, in order to get as much money as possible and avoid having to choose between dying of hunger or dying of freezing… I suppose I will die of exhaustion; the good thing is I will be so tired I will hardly notice anything(1).
Because I am a recognized Putin-lover, Russian propaganda apologist, Ukraine hater, anti-democrat, racist, chauvinist, misogynist, fascist right winger(2). I am suffering a constant bulling. On the last months especially about all related to the “Russian-Agression-War” in the Ukraine, as they like to name it. A constant bombardment of comments, defamation, blame, offenses, and not-so-veiled insults, against me, from which I cannot reply or defend myself, because if I try to do, you see, this is a clear proof (for them) that I am everything they named me.
They justify this harassment by pointing out that, they just try to help me, correct me, bring me to the good way, rescue me from my wrong ways of thinking. Off course, they are in possession of the One-and-Only-Truth. And they use the MSM as if it were the Foundation of all their assumptions(3). News, analysis and essays of “renowned” western military analysts and organizations, retired generals giving their master speeches on TV debates or interviews(4).
On the other side they try to show me (apparently in good faith) how bad the things are for the Putinist Ruskies with videos of russian destroyed vehicles, russian casualties, russian brutalities… they are so ignorant that (they have no idea really) what they are trying to show me, it is just fake, or edited, or old and unrelated to the facts, or simply the opposite of what they think it is happening. They are not able to differentiate the combatants, or the equipment. Nor are they able to research, compare or look for other sources (All this requires time and effort) to confirm the news or clear the apparent disparities. Sometimes I just saw the same pics or videos days before, with more context, unedited, and as I said, they tell a different story.
Oh man! They are quite good believers of their “religion” and are just trying to convert me to their mindset and beliefs(5) which I see with utter disgust and contempt. Convert or be bullied non stop.
I am afraid of what tomorrow might bring, the bulling is going to be off the scale. Because I have read today that the russian army is going to retreat to the left bank of the Dniepr, abandoning the right bank (including the city of Xerson) in order to consolidate defense lines and create reserves for future offensive operations(6)… what a thread for the News, what a bonanza for Psyops, what a gold mine for Propaganda and Misinformation. I see rough days ahead.
I fear that tomorrow the crows are going to be awaiting to pick at my eyes, while saying “we told you so… bad, bad, bad boy”. But I will not falter. I will stand straight. I will keep using my gray muscle, observe and wait(7) because this SMO is a war in all but name, a small war inside a Big War. And I think they are all for a surprise sooner or later.
Do not ever forget the words of a wise man that lived long ago… “All warfare is based on deception”
I do have the great luck of living and working in Germany, where the burghers accept without a glimpse the 6 times increase in their bills of gas, 3 times increase in their bills of electricity and a rampant inflation of (officially) about 10%. I can only say that my cart at the supermarket with the usual things cost me now at least 50% more than last year… 10% inflation, yeah sure.
I couldn’t keep my mouth shut given the occasion in the past, specially when trying to point the inconsistencies of what they say, the dissonance of their ideologies, or simply inform people that you considered nice, friends or family… No more nice people for me, no more friends and I am not sure anymore I do have some family. I am just a f*cking pro-russian-orc for them all. If I die tomorrow, I better die in my grave, because nobody will bury me.
The degree of ignorance and intoxication is astounding. They believe everything they see or hear or read in the MSM. They swallow the narrative in full. Nobody questions anything no matter the discrepancies. The people in general are ideologically possessed, completely irrational, unable to have a normal discussion or simply accept that you have another opinion. Data and facts don’t matter anymore so long they contradict their learned (or imposed) narrative. A scientifical and rational approach to some questions is impossible under the circumstances, and considered witchery… trying to start one only produces at the minimum: hate and irate looks, at the maximum: violence and rage accompanied with foam in the mouth, to the point that sometimes I fear for my personal integrity. I am sure there should be rational people somewhere… but I haven’t been lucky so far.
What can I say, MSM feeds that only can be compared with cow manure, Institutes and think tanks with experts that wouldn’t be able to win a not-so-serious debate with a retarded village idiot; retired generals that should be better being taken care off on a nursing home for elderly persons, or military analyst that never served in any army, nor studied anything serious (I wonder why are they called military or analysts, that is some kind of oxymoron) and whose only informational sources are open ones of dubious reputation, third hand invented or regurgitated propaganda from psyops specialists from the deepest deeps of the “Deep State”
Yes, they are just zealots, fanatics of pseudo-religions be there Climatechangers, COVIDers, Greenpeacers, or believers in “Elf-Land-Ukraine” the paradise on Earth.
I have good news for you if you are interested in becoming a member, a believer. It is very easy, you have to start by switching off your brain, leaving it somewhere, and then forgetting where you left it. You wouldn’t need to think anymore, they will do it for you. Unfortunately, brain usage is a SIN in all those pseudo-religions, and severely punished if you are one of them.
the “Telegramverse” is boiling with this. A lot of Telegram channels are posting it as official declarations of Surovikin and Shoigu. I don’t know if it is true or not (I take all these channels with a bit of caution) or it is just a psyops from you-know-who referred in point 4)
I am not a religious man, but this is always appropriate: “The Truth will set us free” John 8:32
Establishment version: modern free market freedom, practised by freedom loving people, to freely create freedomaceous wealth everywhere! Woohoo!
Real World Translation: rigged system to funnel wealth from the poor to the rich by imposition of slave wages and debt servitude = economic enslavement of the 99%
Disinformation:
Establishment version: anything contrary to the “truthiness” narrative espoused by Western Mainstream Media Patriots. Is Israel an apartheid state? That’s disinformation!
Real World Translation: anything which portrays the AngoEuroZionist Empire in a bad light and their enemies du jour (Russia, China, Iran etc) in a neutral or favourable light. Absolutely nothing to do with truth or facts.
National Endowment for Democracy:
Establishment version: benevolent fund by the USA to promote rule by, for and of the ordinary people in foreign countries. Yay!
Real World Translation: CIA cutout to finance astroturf campaigns to destabilise foreign governments that do not bend to the US will, in order to install US puppet regimes that will funnel wealth to the USA.
US invasion of Iraq in 2003:
Establishment version: act of “liberation” to save the world from Saddam’s WMDs and bring democracy to the Iraqi people.
Real World Translation: WMD story was a fucking LIE, invasion was done to preserve the US petrodollar and control Iraqi oil assets and give massive contracts to US corporations. Killed more than a million Iraqis by 2010, so I guess you could say those Iraqis were “liberated” (from life).
Russian invasion of Ukraine:
Establishment version: unprovoked aggression by Russian dictator Vlad-the-Impaler Putin on 24 Feb 2022 because he is just plain crazy (also a vampire). So naturally the West needed to ban Russian cats and Tchaikovsky in response.
Real World Translation: belated response by Russian Duma (democratic parliament) to relentless aggression by the US/NATO since 2014 – including the murder of 14,000 civilians in Donbass, ie Russia was forced to intervene to protect Russian speaking Ukrainians from genocide by the US proxies. Also more than 30 bio-pathogen labs funded by the USA (by Victoria Nuland’s own admission) were discovered in Ukraine, so there WERE WMDs in-the-making in Ukraine.
International “Rules based order”:
Establishment version: even the USA cannot properly define WTF this crapulent term means.
Real World Translation: USA makes up their one-sided rules (to always benefit itself) and orders everybody else about, otherwise foreigners face sanctions or coups or assassination of their leaders or invasion. Nothing to do with United Nations International Law.
Far too many Newspeak and Doublethink terms to itemise here!!
Commenters can think of many more!!
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Speaking Truth is an act of Treason in an Empire of Lies.
Putin called the USA an Empire of Lies.
Who is the most prominent Truth speaker in the Empire?
Julian Assange – who is now being suitably punished for such Treason.
The fact that only 1% of Americans regard Russia as the US’ “most important problem” shows just how out of touch the Mainstream Media is with their targeted audience’s interests. That in turn adds credence to the speculation that they’re being ordered by their government to wage this unprecedented information warfare campaign against Russia despite it only being popular with a fringe minority.
The Mainstream Media (MSM) has been waging an unprecedented information warfare campaign against Russia for nearly half a year already, yet Gallup’s latest poll shows that literally only 1% of Americans consider it to be the US’ “most important problem” despite their government already sending Kiev tens of billions of dollars in their name as part of its proxy war against that Eurasian Great Power. This confirms that those Americans who obsess over Russia are a fringe minority.
The polling company also noted in their report that the 1% of those who consider Russia to be their country’s “most important problem” is a steep drop from March when 9% of them shared that opinion. This suggests that Americans were most powerfully influenced at the onset of the MSM’s anti-Russian information warfare campaign but have since grown numb to it, with domestic issues like inflation, dysfunctional leadership, and abortion being regarded as much more important by them nowadays.
That’s bad news for the warmongers in Washington who wrongly assumed that their targeted audience could continue seeing Russia as their country’s “most important problem” well into the summer. What seems to have happened is that their MSM proxies overplayed their hand and have thus dealt irreparable damage to their information warfare operations after 99% of Americans no longer really care all that much about the UkrainianConflict.
Absent a major provocation aimed at artificially manufacturing another false narrative fearmongering about Russia, it might very well end up being the case that this trend is irreversible. Simply put, the MSM shared too many claims about Russia too fast to the point that most people started tuning out after realizing that everything they were being told about what a threat it supposedly was to their country never ended up panning out.
Russia never attacked NATO, World War III didn’t break out, and no fearmongered nuclear apocalypse ever happened unlike what the MSM warned was about to happen. The Ukrainian Conflict remains contained and Americans quickly realized that they have much more important things to worry about like inflation, which nobody seriously blames Russia for. “Putin’s price hike” that Biden never tires of talking about hasn’t caught on and is widely mocked as intellectually insulting propaganda.
There’s probably nothing that the US Government can do to make its people care anymore since most probably wouldn’t bite the bait even if their intelligence services engineered a major provocation like was earlier predicted. This suggests that the Democrats can’t realistically campaign on the Biden Administration’s support of Kiev since 99% of voters don’t think that it addressed their country’s “most important problem”. To the contrary, a growing number consider it to be a money laundering operation.
The fact that only 1% of Americans regard Russia as the US’ “most important problem” also shows just how out of touch the MSM is with their targeted audience’s interests. That in turn adds credence to the speculation that they’re being ordered by their government to wage this unprecedented information warfare campaign against Russia despite it only being popular with a fringe minority. Building upon this observation, it can be concluded that American media isn’t as “independent” as it claims to be.
With a view to the future, it’s unlikely that the MSM’s obsessive smears against Russia will end anytime soon even though 99% of Americans don’t consider it their country’s “most important problem”. That’s because the US Government wants to falsely signal to its transatlantic vassals that their own people supposedly haven’t lost interest in this proxy war in the hopes that this lie will convince their leaders not to waver in their support of Kiev like American officials worry is already in the process of happening.
Like the author noted last week, “The Zelenskys’ Vogue Photoshoot Exposed What A Charade The Ukrainian Conflict Has Become” while Gallup’s latest poll just confirmed that observation with statistical facts that nobody can deny since that company is regarded as the world’s most reputable in its field. This “politically inconvenient” development proves what a failure the MSM’s US Government-managed information warfare campaign against Russia has been.
After some days of looking for my mind, and finally finding it yesterday afternoon … I think I lost it again today.
I was watching a YouTube video of how chicken meat and eggs are produced in a poultry farm with all the steps in between(1). They show the entire thing in that video. From the hatching of the chicks to the final packaging of the Meat and Eggs, etc. Quite interesting, so long you are not one of the wokefied, vegan-vegetarian-ecologist, mentally weak, politically correct, animal rights warrior “earth is better without humans” type.
Suddenly something made a connection in my head, about this process and the ZONE A.
I mean a connection between the hatching and raising of the Chicks, nurturing them, feeding them, keeping them Warm and comfortable, and some months later … ZACK! the industrial sacrifice of the chickens and their processing to… you know… make food to feed the persons that buy these poultry products.
At first I thought of the Ukrainian kids(2) that have been raised and fed like little chicks, with HATE of all Russian. In order to make them the desired anti-Russians that would be later, at the convenience of the Powers-that-be(3), used and industrially sacrificed in the altar of whatever goals, dreams, and desires those Powers have. It is happening now just before our eyes and happened many times in the past.
But seconds later, I realized that, here in the ZONE A(4), the general population… we are all chickens living in an Ideological Poultry Farm… they want us ignorant, without understanding, just eating their (ideological) feed(5) , growing with it, without any concern about what awaits us, isolated little egoist-narcissist chickens(6).
I said Ideological Poultry Farm because, you know, what they feed the chickens in there is well over 50% their own recycled shit.
You do not see a chicken asking himself about their situation, or about what they eat, about their expectations of life… they just eat, drink, poop, grow… till the last moment when they are slaughtered. Well, they can not. Little ignorant beasts.
I know who the managers of this farm are(7), I wonder just who are the owners… because they are going to use, then sacrifice and eat us all. For their own benefit.
There is always hope, but I never heard of any poultry farm where the chickens rebelled, and brought the Farmers to the stake…
This is why Zone A is doomed.
Oh look, there is my Mind… Hey! Stop There! Why are you running away?
A logical and very needed release and detox after suffering the constant bombardment of Ukrainian propaganda on the western media
I mean not only kids, but those unmatured, ignorant adults that have been brainwashed… that after all are just like little big Kids.
If you are reading this essay, on this site, you know whose “Powers-that-be” I mean… it’s a Hydra with many heads and many names. Such as the Three-Letters-Agencies, various Governments, and Institutions, the …(drums rolling)… Governing Elites, FIRE, the Liberal Intelligentsia, et cetera.
ZONE A, AKA “the International Community”
This “Ideology, Country, Person” (insert as needed) is good or bad…
You must buy/follow this “Product, Media, Narrative, Policy…” (insert as needed)
Eat this, do not think, do as we say, grow a little, do not resist, follow the line…
At first you might think sheep make a better comparison, but these are relatively advanced, intelligent and complex lifeforms. Compared to chickens… sheep are geniuses!
If you want an insight, look at the members of any Government in the Zone A.
Ed Note: I am reliably informed that the Featured (or feathered image), this one, has a depiction of our SmoothieX12, looking on with contempt. Enjoy figuring it out.
A MintPress News analysis found that in a single week Fox News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC ran almost 1,300 separate stories on the Ukraine invasion, two stories on the Syria attack, one on Somalia, and none at all on the Saudi-led war on Yemen.
KIEV, UKRAINE — We are living in dangerous times. All around the world, intense military actions are taking place. Last week alone, Russia launched a huge military invasion of Ukraine; Saudi Arabia carried out dozens of strikes on Yemen; Israel launched a wave of deadly missile attacks against Syria; and the United States restarted its bombing campaign in Somalia.
These four deadly incidents happened concurrently. Yet judging by media coverage, it is highly unlikely that many will even be aware of the final three. A MintPress News study of five leading Western media outlets found that overwhelming attention was paid to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while the others were barely mentioned, if at all.
In total, in the week between Monday, February 21 and Sunday, February 27, Fox News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC ran almost 1,300 separate stories on the Ukraine invasion, two stories on the Syria attack, one on Somalia, and none at all on the Saudi-led war on Yemen.
The data for the study was collected using the Factiva news database, which was then cross referenced with searches on the websites of the respective news outlets’ websites, and also checked against precise Google searches to generate a final total. A chart visualizing the disparity in coverage over those seven days can be seen below.
Credit | Alan Macleod
Collectively, the five outlets published 1298 stories about Ukraine, meaning each one printed at around one per hour on average over the week studied. FoxNews.com ran the most — 308 — roughly one every 30 minutes. However, there was little significant numerical difference between the outlets, whose front pages and editorial sections were all dominated by headlines about Ukraine. In contrast, only The New York Times mentioned the Somali strike at all, while The Washington Post was the only outlet to cover the attacks on Syria. Fox News, CNN and MSNBC did not cover any of the other nation-on-nation attacks at all.
The media gets around to opposing war
Despite repeated warnings, the attack on Ukraine still came as a shock to most in the region. On the eve of the conflict, only 42% of Ukrainians believed any attack was likely, with President Volodymyr Zelensky himself criticizing what he called a destabilizing Western “panic” over the possibility.
The Russian military has occupied significant portions of the country, capturing key targets. Yet it has also united the West against the action, drawing a sharp and apparently determined response. In addition to ejecting Russia from the SWIFT system of international payments, a number of NATO countries, including the previously more neutral France and Germany, have sent arms to Ukraine. Zelensky has also signed an application to join the European Union. Inside Russia, the government’s actions sparked protests nationwide, many of which were suppressed by the police.
A sign of how seriously the media took the story is the number of editorials both The New York Times and The Washington Post ran. Editorials are articles collectively written by the senior staff on issues deemed so important that the outlet must make its readers aware of their collective position — a position that guides future coverage. Three of the four editorials the Times ran that week were on Ukraine. Theydenounced Russian President Vladimir Putin for his “bewildering aggression” and his “xenophobic, imperial and misguided notion that Ukraine was inherently an appendage of Russia.” Meanwhile, the Post published six separate editorials on the subject, each condemning Putin and praising President Joe Biden for his leadership.
The total rejection of violence was refreshing to many. “So this is what it looks like when the corporate media opposes war,” wrote Jeff Cohen, founder of media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, going on to make the point that the press has stood firmly behind virtually all of the United States’ recent conflicts.
Invisible Yemen
In contrast, there was almost no coverage of the latest attacks by Saudi-led forces against Yemen — a campaign that has already created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. The years-long war has intensified of late, with January 2022 the worst month for civilian casualties since fighting began in 2014.
On February 21, Medecins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) reported that the Saudi Coalition bombed targets in Hajjah province in north-western Yemen, killing a number of civilians and injuring far more. Meanwhile, jets pummeled the coastal city of Hodeida. The next day, airstrikes and missiles hit residential areas in the provinces of al-Jawf, Marib, Taizz and Saada provinces.
On February 24, the day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Yemen was hit by 37 separate airstrikes across the country, primarily in Hajjah and al-Bayda. The next day, the Saudi Coalition also shelled Saada using heavy artillery, killing at least six civilians. Saada has been a center of the bloodshed for some time now. In January, the Saudis dropped a Raytheon laser-guided bomb on a detention center there, killing 91 people and wounding hundreds more.
This is just a taste of the violence, information about which is not easy to come by in the West. In a 24-hour period between Thursday and Friday, the Coalition is accused of violating the ceasefire agreement on 147 different occasions and locations.
These latest attacks were not covered at all by Fox News, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post or MSNBC. Yemen has never been a war that has interested American media. Indeed, on MSNBC, there has been more in-depth coverage of Ukraine in one week than of the Yemen conflict since it began in 2014.
This is despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of people have died, the UN estimating that the death toll reached at least 377,000 by the end of 2021. Furthermore, the United States is a direct participant in the violence. A recent MintPress study revealed that the U.S. has sold at least $28 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia alone, and provides training and support for Riyadh, both militarily and diplomatically, helping the Coalition to continue the bloodshed.
There was some coverage of Yemen in The Washington Post. However, it all centered around Yemeni aggression towards Saudi Arabia and its allies, who were presented as the victims. This included an article on how the U.S. is imposing new sanctions on the so-called “Houthi rebels” and a story about a low-tech drone attack on a Saudi airport, in which it also noted that “Fighting in the strategic city of Marib in past months has led to increased Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.” What the Post failed to tell readers is that Marib is not in Saudi Arabia or the UAE, but in Yemen – a fact that undermines the narrative about who is the aggressor. (Inside Yemen, many consider referring to the de facto government as “Houthis” as derogatory and delegitimizing what they see as a coalition of many different groups into the political party Ansar Allah, rather than a Houthi insurgency.)
Last week, the U.S. resumed its bombing campaign against Somalia, Africa’s second poorest
nation. Using a reaper drone, the military carried out an airstrike near the country’s capital, Mogadishu. The Tuesday strike also failed to make media waves, despite the military issuing a press release about it. The only outlet of the five studied to cover it was The New York Times, which released a story headlined, “U.S. Carries Out First Airstrike in Somalia Since August.” Far from condemning the act as bewildering aggression, as it had done with Putin, the subheadline immediately justified it, claiming that, “the strike targeted Al Shabab militants who had attacked allied Somali security forces.” Thus, a drone strike on a country on the other side of the world was framed as a necessary, defensive move. Indeed, the Times even included the phrase “collective self-defense” in reference to the strike. Two other news round-up articles in the Times mentioned the strike in a single sentence, linking to the story. That was the extent of the coverage.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to escalate its attacks on Syria. At around 1 a.m. on February 23, it fired missiles from the Golan Heights into Quneitra province in south-western Syria (Israel has occupied Syria’s Golan Heights since 1967). The next day, it launched a missile attack on Damascus, killing at least three soldiers who were stationed on the capital’s outskirts. As a way of justification, Israel claimed that the Syrian army had been working with Hezbollah, carrying out a leaflet drop across southwestern Syria publicizing the assertion. In recent weeks, the Israeli military has hit Damascus a number of times, its jets reportedly breaching both Syrian and Lebanese airspace to do so.
In these efforts, illegal under international law, Israel is helped by the United States, which supplies it with nearly $4 billion in military aid yearly. U.S. forces currently occupy significant areas of Syria, including the oil-producing regions in the northeast, and constantly coordinate actions with their Israeli ally.
The only outlet to cover these actions was The Washington Post. But even then, it merely republished two dry articles from the newswire service the Associated Press, adding no commentary or background. Thus, the attacks were treated as business as usual and worthy of almost no attention.
“First major war between civilized nations”
Although the disparity in quantity of coverage is stark, it is also important to note the huge differences in tone and outlook. Media is festooned with pictures of the targets of Russian aggression. For the first time, we are being invited to view the war from the side of the victim. Furthermore, the coverage is not dry and matter-of-fact, but emotive and full of outrage. This is virtually unheard of when reporting on Western wars, and is a conscious decision taken by those at the top.
Weeks after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, for example, the chairman of CNN sent a memo to all staff advising them in no uncertain terms to downplay the suffering of Afghans, stating that it “seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan.” Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange went to prison for releasing images of victims of U.S. wars. Yet Russia’s victims are front and center, with media even going so far as to approvinglyreport on Ukrainian civilians making and using Molotov cocktails on Russian forces.
This, for Palestinian journalist Mohammed El-Kurd, was a revelation. “It is insanely surreal to realize that mainstream news outlets — and settler politicians alike — possess the linguistic capacity to call occupation by its name. A capacity that is made staggeringly absent in the context of occupied Palestine, often under the guise of objectivity,” he said, adding:
‘Hypocrisy’ doesn’t describe this adequately. The appropriate word is psychosis. They live in a parallel universe where Europeans, who take up arms to defend their lands and families, are called resistance fighters but Palestinians doing the same damn thing are ‘terrorists.’ There is a separate set of rules for different people.”
War is terrible anywhere and everywhere but it is not more terrible just because it is in Europe.
For many, this disparity is simply about racism. “Ukraine is not the worst act of war since World War II. It’s not even the worst war going on right now,” wrote Sri Lanka-based journalist Indi Samarajiva, referring to Syria and Yemen; “It’s just the worst to happen to white people.”
Certainly, there has been a shocking amount of casually racist commentary on corporate media. “This isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European city where you wouldn’t expect that or hope that it’s going to happen,” said CBS News foreign correspondent Charlie D’Agata from Kiev.
Al-Jazeera English presenter Peter Dobbie made similarly Orientalist remarks, expressing his concern for wealthy Ukrainian refugees fleeing, while also demonstrating his contempt for poor non-white people in the same circumstances, stating:
What is compelling is that just looking at them, the way they’re dressed. These are prosperous, middle-class people, these are not obviously refugees trying to get away from areas in the Middle East that are still in a big state of war. These are not people trying to get away from areas in North Africa; they look like any European family that you would live next door to.”
Others made similar remarks. “It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed,” said Ukraine’s former Deputy Chief Prosecutor, David Sakvarelidze, while talking to the BBC, which did not challenge him on the statement. “The unthinkable has happened…This is not a developing, third-world nation; this is Europe!” exclaimedITV News reporter Lucy Watson in a tearful explanation as to why we need to help the refugees. “They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking,” wrote former Member of the European Parliament Daniel Hannan in The Daily Telegraph. “War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations. It can happen to anyone,” he added.
Summing up the orgy of casual prejudice was Daily Wire journalist Michael Knowles, who tweeted, “It just occurred to me that this is the first major war between civilized nations in my lifetime.”
The sheer number of media personalities expressing their shock at seeing “civilized” people in this predicament led a number of press associations from the Global South to release statements of protest.
“This type of commentary reflects the pervasive mentality in Western journalism of normalizing tragedy in parts of the world such as the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. It dehumanizes and renders their experience with war as somehow normal and expected,” wrote The Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association.
“The idea that war is a thing that happens in lands outside of the West is beyond myopic. It is a gross misrepresentation of the entirety of human history. People who are not white are not more innately prone and habituated to violence and suffering,” added the Foreign Press Association, Africa.
All comes down to whose ox is getting gored
While racism is clearly a factor in the coverage, it should be remembered that the bombing of Yugoslavia — a white nation comparable to Ukraine — was celebrated, not rejected. This was in large part because it was NATO itself that was the aggressor.
Media theory scholars have long argued that victims of Western aggression are largely ignored but those of the West’s enemies will be given center stage. In 1988, academics Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky developed their theory of worthy vs. unworthy victims in their book “Manufacturing Consent.” Together, they compared the coverage of two concurrent genocides, one in Cambodia (an enemy state) and one carried out by the Indonesian military (funded and armed by the U.S. government) in East Timor. While the savagery of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge became worldwide news, as the genocide in East Timor reached its peak, coverage fell to literally zero in major media outlets. This and other examples led them to conclude that both the quantity and quality of the coverage of atrocities is dependent almost entirely on two factors:
Who is the perpetrator
Who is the victim
If the perpetrator is our enemy, and there is political capital to be made from highlighting their crime, then the media will deem the victim “worthy” — especially if the victim is a pro-U.S. figure. If, however, you die at the hands of the U.S. or its allies, you can expect little sympathy or coverage from the media, especially if you are a Communist, Muslim, or any other designation that renders you unworthy of media attention.
In the Ukraine case, the perpetrator is an enemy state (Russia) and the victim is a pro-Western government seeking to join both the European Union and NATO. However, in the other three cases detailed here (Israeli strikes on Syria, Saudi attacks on Yemen, and U.S. attacks on Somalia), the aggressor is either the U.S. itself or its close allies, while the victim is an enemy actor. Hence the complete lack of coverage. Therefore, there will be few — if any — think pieces denouncing the U.S. for its barbarity, nor any calls to create a military alliance to counter Israel, or to take in hundreds of thousands of Yemeni refugees.
A NYT headlines circa 2003, left, and a NYT editorial from 2022
Turning the outrage tap on and off is a key way in which media manufacturers consent for U.S. foreign policy, hiding certain atrocities from our gaze and placing others on our screens. To be clear, Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine should, of course, be making headlines around the world, and victims should be mourned and perpetrators condemned. However, the vast qualitative and quantitative disparity between coverage of the attacks on Yemen, Somalia and Syria and the attack on Ukraine, which received almost 400 times the attention of the other three combined, is another stark example of how the media is outraged at war only when it wants to be.
While the Israeli attack on Syria and the U.S. strike on Somalia were relatively minor occurrences in comparison to Russia’s invasion, and could therefore be said to deserve less coverage, the continuing Saudi war on Yemen is not. And while the Ukraine attack is new, the beginning of the Yemen conflict received scant attention at the time. Furthermore, all three are a direct result of American policy and could be stopped immediately if the public were sufficiently aware and engaged, thus rendering coverage of particular importance to U.S. audiences.
Americans are united in rejecting Russia’s attack on Ukraine. A recent poll found that only 6% of the public consider its invasion justified, as opposed to 74% against. This suggests that if the media covered U.S. imperialism in the same way it covers its Russian equivalent, then those wars would end immediately. But they do not. And the Ukraine coverage underlines that this is a choice they are making every day.
This exercise in the very definition of doublethink is self-discrediting and intellectually insulting.
The subversive anti-Russian faction of the US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) is so desperate to provoke a Russian-Ukrainian proxy war that it’s now pushing speculation about Russia supposedly plotting to carry out a false flag attack comprised of crisis actors. State Department spokesman Ned Price shared this allegation without any evidence whatsoever during a press conference on Thursday, which prompted the Associated Press’ Matt Lee to immediately challenge him. The latter even compared Price’s speculation to “Alex Jones territory” during their unforgettable exchange that can be read in full here and which was summarized here.
The US had up until this point denied the very conceptual existence of false flags and crisis actors, having previously claimed that even discussing them is nothing more than a so-called “conspiracy theory” in spite of both having been objectively confirmed to exist throughout history. Russia’s prior efforts to preempt what it described as the US’ own false flag chemical weapons attacks in Syria were always met with scorn, condemnation, and even mockery by the American Establishment yet now that very same Establishment wants the world to blindly accept their own similar such claims about Russia. This exercise in the very definition of doublethink is self-discrediting and intellectually insulting.
To be absolutely clear, false flags and crisis actors are real, but not every claim thereof is true. The US government has no credibility on the international stage after fabricating evidence about Iraq’s “Weapons of Mass Destruction” and most recently denying the impending fall of Kabul to the Taliban until it actually happened, among many other examples that can be mentioned. Nobody should believe the US when it claims that Russia is plotting a false flag attack in Eastern Ukraine or even within its own territory according to Price and plans to even involve crisis actors who’ll pretend to be corpses. No such dramatic accusation can be publicly shared in any serious fashion within presenting factual proof.
It’s beyond arrogant for Price and his “deep state” backers to expect anyone to blindly believe their false flag and crisis actor speculation about Russia. It’s much more believable that the US itself is plotting what can be described as a reverse-false flag scenario whereby its intelligence agencies and/or their proxies within Ukraine’s either carry out their own false flag attack that they blame on Russia, or actually strike that country or Russian-friendly rebels in Donbass, but then describe any such footage as a so-called “Russian false flag with crisis actors”. After all, the US’ perception management (propaganda) capabilities are masterful and well documented so they shouldn’t be underestimated.
Another pertinent point to bring up is that Price made his accusation on the eve of the Beijing Winter Olympics’ Opening Ceremony that many had already expected the US to try to spoil in one way or another. President Putin is currently in the Chinese capital to attend this ceremony and meet with his counterpart. Considering this context, it’s very probable that the US is implying that it might move forward with the abovementioned reverse-false flag scenario in the coming days while the Russian leader is still abroad or at the very least wants this scenario to hang heavy over his head like a Damocles’ sword. Put another way, this is a psy-op against both the whole world and President Putin personally.
Be that as it is, this doesn’t mean that it’ll automatically succeed. The US already lacks credibility, let alone after making such a dramatic false flag and crisis actor claim about Russia without presently even a shred of factual evidence when publicly challenged by a seasoned reporter. In that event that anything resembling the scenario that Price shared ends up transpiring, nobody should doubt that such a sequence of events would actually be due to the US’ own reverse-false flag scenario and not whatever it baselessly accused Russia of. It remains to be seen whether that’ll even happen, but the very fact that Price brought up his warped version of this scenario suggests that the US is seriously considering it.
In connection with the so called summit for democracy to be held on December 9-10 at the initiative of the US administration, we consider it necessary to make the following statement.
The organisers and enthusiasts behind this strange event claim to lead the world in advancing the cause of democracy and human rights. However, the track record and reputation of the United States, Great Britain, and the EU member states in terms of respecting democratic rights and freedoms at home, as well as in the international arena, are, to put it mildly, far from ideal.
The evidence suggests that the United States and its allies cannot and should not claim the status of a “beacon” of democracy, since they themselves have chronic problems with freedom of speech, election administration, corruption and human rights.
The editorial policy of major Western media outlets is, in fact, controlled by the partisan and corporate elites. Well-oiled mechanisms for censorship, self-censorship and the removal of unwanted accounts and content from digital platforms are used to suppress dissent in the media, which represents a gross violation of the right to free expression promoted by the West.
Social media platforms controlled by US corporations are widely used for disinformation, propaganda and manipulation of public opinion. Mass electronic surveillance by intelligence agencies and the IT corporations that collaborate with them has become a reality of daily life in Western states.
About a year ago, during the election campaign in the United States, the world saw how the archaic electoral system of that country began to crumble. The existing vote counting mechanism has revealed itself to have many weaknesses. Millions of Americans question the fairness and transparency of the 2020 presidential election. This is understandable, because the way it was conducted and its outcome involved dubious practices such as gerrymandering, multi-week mail voting, and denying observers, especially international ones, access to polling stations.
Serious questions arise from the continuing reprisals of US authorities against protesters outside the Capitol on January 6, whom the US administration and aligned media openly call “domestic terrorists.” Dozens of people who disagreed with the results of the presidential election were sentenced to prison time which is disproportionate to their opposition activities.
While fashioning itself as the “global democratic leader”, the United States has for many years led the world in the number of prisoners (over 2 million people). Conditions in many penitentiary institutions degrade human dignity. Washington continues to keep silent about torture at the Guantanamo Bay prison. The US intelligence services pioneered the creation of secret prisons in allied states, a practice without precedent in the modern world.
Lobbying in the United States is, in fact, legalised corruption. Legislatures are de facto controlled by big business. Both within the country and internationally, they primarily defend the interests of their sponsors, such as private corporations, rather than the people, voters.
Against this backdrop, the democratising rhetoric coming from Washington is not only completely disconnected from reality, but is also utterly hypocritical. Before embarking on the path of “exporting democracy,” we urge our North American partners to first address their problems at home, and to try to overcome the deepening divisions in society on matters of ethics, values, and vision of the country’s past and future. Humbly admitting that US democracy is not perfect is clearly not enough.
Great Britain cannot position itself as a progressive democracy, either. That country is a comfortable home to organisations professing neo-Nazi ideology with rising incidents of racism and discrimination against ethnic and cultural minorities in many spheres of public life. There have been cases of British intelligence illegally gathering personal data of their own citizens, and police violence, including against peaceful demonstrators, has become commonplace.
The situation in the EU is no better. Brussels consistently ignores the legitimate rights and interests of ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking residents in the Baltic states, Ukraine and Moldova. It turns a blind eye to the mythmaking of the new EU member states in political history, where former Nazi henchmen who committed war crimes are proclaimed national heroes. Administrative suppression of dissent, aggressive inculcation of ultra-liberal values and practices that are destroying the Christian foundations of European civilisation have become commonplace in many EU states.
Claiming to be on the right side of ideology and morality, the United States and a small group of its allies have undermined confidence in themselves with aggressive actions on the world stage under the banner of “promoting democracy.” There were more than a dozen military interventions and attempts at “regime change” over the past 30 years. Provocative actions in the military-political sphere often flagrantly violate international law, and cause only chaos and destruction.
Recent history shows that military adventures with the aim of forced democratisation ended in bloody wars and national tragedies in the countries that fell victim to this policy, among them former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. All kinds of pretexts were used to unleash wars – the need to combat terrorism and WMD proliferation and “to protect civilians.”
Everyone remembers how after the military intervention of “the coalition of the willing” in Iraq in 2003, President George W. Bush on board the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier announced the victory of democracy in that country. What happened next is common knowledge. There are no precise statistics to this day but according to some estimates, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis perished before their time.
Despite spending enormous sums running into the trillions of dollars, the American mission in Afghanistan ended in complete failure. The chaotic exodus of Americans and other members of the US-led coalition from Kabul last August was the sad culmination of the “war on terror” that lasted more than 20 years.
Libya has still yet to recover from NATO operation to “protect the civilians”. For all the peculiarities of the former socio-political system in the Jamahiriya, Libya was a stable country that ensured decent living standards for its population. This ill-conceived military action led, among other consequences, to the uncontrolled spread of weapons and terrorists in the entire Sahara-Sahel region.
We can continue quoting examples revealing the hypocrisy at the core of this “summit for democracy.” But is it necessary?
Russia, whom our Western colleagues have accused of almost every mortal sin of late, is shaping its foreign policy in a different way. We do not impose our own development model on anyone. We respect cultural and religious identities of every nation as well as distinct qualities of their political systems. We also respect the right of every nation to detemine in an independent way its path of development. We are not going to dictate our world view to anyone. In the international arena, the rules we follow are the UN Charter #OurRulesUNCharter .
Russia strives to play a balancing, stabilising role in global politics. We uphold sovereign equality of states, non-interference in their internal affairs, non-use of force or threat of force, and peaceful settlement of disputes. We stand for international relations based on peaceful coexistence, cooperation and solidarity, equal universal security and fair distribution of the benefits of globalisation.
Russia is a world power with Eurasian and European roots to its identity. It does not chart its development trajectory exclusively in line with trans-Atlantic political, economic and cultural templates. We do not agree with the aggressive imposition of the so-called “new ethics” that are destroying moral standards upheld by traditional religions and respected by humanity for centuries.
Pursuing a non-confrontational and well-balanced foreign policy, we strive to create opportunities for the unimpeded development of all international players. We do not copy the example of the Western countries and do not intrude in their domestic affairs: if individuals living in these countries, or some of them, support the destruction of traditional moral and spiritual values, we merely regret this but nothing more than that.
We support dialogue between cultures, religions and civilisations as an important instrument for forming a unifying agenda and building up trust in relations between states and societies.
To resolve pressing problems, we urge all foreign partners not to engage in “democracy promotion,” not to draw new dividing lines, but to return to the compliance with international law and to enforce the principle of the sovereign equality of states, which is enshrined in the UN Charter. It embodies the foundation for a democratic world order that the US and its allies do not accept.
As humanity continues to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftereffects, the cooperation of all states on the basis of the principles of the UN Charter is needed now more than ever.
We will closely follow the “summit for democracy.”
Assad is back, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad returns to the world stage in defeat for US, win for its foes, is the title of Newsweek’s latest front-page post on Syria and the US’s 10.5 years of war of terror and war of attrition against the Syrian people.
Let’s not discuss the mainstream media article, to be honest, I didn’t even bother to read it, if it’s positive it means they came to their senses, highly unlikely, if it’s not it means they’re still in their same propaganda, highly likely, so let’s talk about why Assad is back and why the US and its cronies lost in Syria, aside from them telling their followers for more than a decade it was the Syrian people vs. Assad and not the US vs. Assad.
Yes, President Assad is back and you all failed, the more than 100 countries that combined their evil efforts to topple him and hand Syria over to Al Qaeda and other anti-Islamic Muslim Brotherhood radicals the likes of the Turkish madman Erdogan who serves Israel.
He’s back because the Syrians weren’t fooled with your plot and lies, they fought back for more than 10.5 years to defend their country at a very hefty price but they didn’t surrender and they’ll fight back for another decade if needed, except this time not anymore on their land only.
Assad is back because he stood up, stood tall, and earned his people’s respect and the respect of the free people in the world, not the Sheeple of the west who think they’re free just because they can talk bad about their politicians who continue to suck their lives dry.
He’s back because the Syrian people never believed the mainstream media lies; only fools and Sheeple would believe again those who lied before several times to justify the Pentagon wars, only fools would believe that over 350,000 Al Qaeda terrorists armed by the USA and its cronies, financed by all of NATO taxpayers’ money, and the Gulfies, are in Syria to protect the Syrian families from their own brothers, sons, fathers, and sisters of the Syrian Arab Army, only fools would believe that the Syrian Arab Army would drop chemical weapons and bombs on their own family members to protect the president while Al Qaeda with all its derivatives are sent to Syria to protect those families, I’m not sure what drugs those Sheeple of the west are on, what I’m certain of it’s whoever their dealers are they didn’t cheat them and provided them with some real mind-absenting stuff.
President Assad was offered tens of billions of dollars just to retire in a place of his choice, he was offered to rule the region unchallenged just to accept the US policies, which is against the interests of his own people, then they went to threaten him and his family, they managed to kill his brother-in-law and his top aides and some of Syria’s top officials including the Syrian defense minister, he didn’t flee, he kept showing up in his office, on the frontlines, and among his people, driving alone, yes, something none of those NATO leaders dares to do in their ‘democratic’ societies, and above all, while they were plotting Syria’s destruction he was planning for victory, and victory he achieved.
Yes, Assad is back and you have to deal with it.
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“Propaganda is to democracy what violence is to dictatorship” – Noam Chomsky
The sentence of the great American linguist offers a good starting point for these reflections that we intend to propose as inputs for a discussion as crucial as pressing. This is so because, according to experts in hybrid or Fifth-Generation Wars, the capacity to control consciences and hearts – or “minds and souls” to put it in a poetic form- has reached unmatched levels, unthinkable until a decade ago. The progress of neurosciences and political neuro-marketing has enormously increased the ability of the dominant classes and imperialist powers to control the beliefs, desires, and behavior of millions of people worldwide.
Demonize first, then kill
The revolutionary advances in Artificial intelligence, the “Internet of Things”, communications technologies (5G), along with the unprecedented penetration of Social Networks and the mass media, have created a new battlefield in which popular movements of national liberation will have to wage their struggles.
Unfortunately, this transition from conventional warfare to media and cyber warfare has only been recently acknowledged in its full effectiveness by the anti-imperialist forces, at a time it has been thoroughly used by the dominant powers of the international system, especially the United States government. Few examples would be more illustrative than the following to clarify our argument. At a hearing before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this century, a four-star general said that “in today’s world, the anti-subversive war is waged in the media, and no longer in the jungles or the decaying slums of the Third World.” Therefore, he concluded, “now the media and the social networks are our main operational theater.”
Both Fidel and Chávez were precociously aware that the media oligarchies constituted one of the most serious threats hanging over the future of democracies and anti-imperialist struggles. Indeed, their uncontrolled power and nefarious role in the calculated processes of “de-education”, alienation and brutalization of the citizenry, became formidable bulwarks against the advancement of the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist consciousness. Their complete abandonment of the journalistic function in favor of a propagandistic work also constituted a fortification to that end. This is proven day by day in Latin America by observing the news manipulation intended to cover up the crimes perpetrated by the Iván Duque regime in Colombia against peaceful protesters. This was also evident in the brutal repression launched by the Añez dictatorship in Bolivia, the acts of the Piñera government in Chile, and, today, the manipulation of the electoral institutes and the dominant circles to prevent the proclamation of Pedro Castillo as the new president of Perú.
The negative role of media is also patent in press operations intended to “iron armor” information that is not supposed to be known by the public. For instance, the open links between the successive “narco-governments” in Colombia and the cocaine cartels; or the corruption of the Macri government in Argentina as proved in the Panama Papers were all carefully concealed by the hegemonic media. Moreover, nothing is said about the unjust, scandalous imprisonment of Julian Assange, one of the heroes of press freedom on a global scale.
As the writings of the imperial strategists recognized, the media and, more recently, “digital networks” have been key players in the destabilization of progressive or left-wing governments around the world. Wherever the empire, through its own troops, its cultural mercenaries, and its local henchmen, decides to attack, the media immediately occupies the vanguard positions. The demonization of the adversary and his government – let’s say leaders like Nicolás Maduro, Evo Morales, Bashar al Assad, Saddam Hussein, Muammar al Gadaffi, and Vladimir Putin – is the first step. Then, their methodical defamation and the disinformation applied on a large scale through the press, television, radio, and digital networks become crucial weapons in creating the climate of opinion required to be able to apply naked violence against those rulers. The “artillery of thought” seeks the demolition of the attacked population’s defense mechanisms. The end goal is to confuse it and make it doubt the integrity or patriotism of its rulers by presenting them to the public opinion as wicked monsters and their governments as infamous “regimes”, depicting them as ferocious police states that violate the most basic human rights. Under this storm of misinformation and “fake news”, many people will be led to think that perhaps their attackers are right and really want to free the people from the sway of their nasty oppressors. Even more, it is aimed at making them think that the pretense of “changing the world” is nonsense; – a childish illusion to build the paradise on earth that could only result in falling in the inferno. Once the cultural defenses of society are “softened” (equivalent to the bombings that prepare the way for the frontal assault) and the media battering ram has pierced the wall of social conscience poisoned it with hundreds of “fake news” and “post-truth”, and demoralized or at least confused the population and the cadres of the anti-imperialist social forces, then the ground will be ready for the final assault. It is the moment in which the imperialist forces launch an all-out attack displaying the full capacity of their arsenal to give the shot of grace to their demonized enemies: Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gadaffi, for instance.
This is not only an account of the heartbreaking past but a description of today’s strategies that the US government applies worldwide. We should be aware of this and be prepared to start an adequate counter-offensive, and the broadcasting of the Al Mayadeen programs in English is a significant step in this direction.
استمرّ الغرب بتطوير نهجه بالاهتمام بالكلمة إلى جانب الطلقة، فكانت الحرب الإعلاميّة لا تقلّ أهميّة عن السلاح المستخدم في الحروب.
إنّ الكلمة في هذا الصراع هي من أمضى الأسلحة، كما أن المثقفين والمفكرين والكتّاب المؤمنين بقضاياهم جنود أساسيون.
متى سيدرك العرب أنَّ أهمية أيّ حدث تقاس بديمومة نتائجه وآثاره والقدرة على التأثير في الواقع من خلال هذه النتائج؟ ومتى سيكفّون عن التهليل والترويج، ويبدأون بتكريس الوقت والجهد لمراجعات حقيقية معمّقة وشاملة، تعزّز الصواب وتصحّح الأخطاء، لمنع الوقوع فيها مرة أخرى وتكرارها؟
من يتفكَّر في التاريخ الحديث للسياسات الغربية في المنطقة والعالم، لا بد من أن يصل إلى استنتاج مفاده أنهم يستفيدون من كلّ تجربة يخوضونها، ويتخذون القرارات التي تجنّبهم الوقوع في الأخطاء ذاتها مرة أخرى، وتمكّنهم من تحسين أدائهم في المرات القادمة.
على سبيل المثال لا الحصر، اكتشفت الولايات المتحدة إبان حربها على فيتنام أنَّ الإعلام الحرّ في حينه أدى دوراً مهماً في صناعة الرأي العام الأميركي والعالمي لمصلحة فيتنام وإيصال حقيقة جرائم العدوان الأميركي فيها إلى معظم البشر؛ فقامت بعد ذلك بتغييرات جذرية في البنى الإعلامية، من الملكية إلى المواضيع والأسلوب، وحتى إلى اللغة والجمل والصياغة، بحيث لم نشهد أيّ صرخة إعلامية حين احتلَّت الولايات المتحدة العراق في العام 2003 لأسباب واهية، بل قامت في هذه الحرب بتطوير سيطرتها الإعلامية، ليصبح الإعلام المسموح به هو الإعلام المرافق للقوات فقط، بحيث يحتاج أي خبر إعلامي لموافقة القائد العسكري الأميركي في العراق.
وقد استمرّ الغرب بتطوير نهجه بالاهتمام بالكلمة إلى جانب الطلقة، فكانت الحرب الإعلاميّة المضلّلة التي شنّها لتبرير قصف ليبيا، والعدوان على سوريا من خلال أدواته الإرهابية، والترويج للحرب على شعب اليمن، وهو ما لا يقلّ أهميّة عن السلاح المستخدم في هذه الحروب.
ولهذا كله، توقف الغرب وقفة مهمة، إذ تمكن الشباب الفلسطيني والعربي وأحرار العالم من كسر الاحتكار الغربي للإعلام خلال الهبّة الفلسطينية المباركة، واستخدموا الإعلام الجديد لإيصال حقيقة ما يجري إلى أرجاء الأرض، وكشف كذب الصهيونية والوسائل الإعلامية المماثلة لها، والتي اعتادت أن تكون الوحيدة التي توصل النسخة التي تريد عن الأحداث إلى عقول الشعوب وقلوبهم في البلدان الغربية، بحيث أصبح دعم هذه الشعوب لجرائم الكيان الصهيوني ضد الفلسطينيين أمراً مسلماً به لا يجرؤ أحد على تحديه.
حين خرج مئات الآلاف في الولايات المتحدة وبريطانيا وفرنسا وكندا وأستراليا يحملون الأعلام الفلسطينية، ويعبرون عن دعمهم للحق الفلسطيني ولشعب فلسطين في أرضه ودياره، دقّ ناقوس الخطر لديهم بأن إحدى أهم أدواتهم، وهي “التضليل الإعلامي”، تتعرّض لتحدٍّ غير مسبوق من قِبل من فَهِم الآلية وقرر أن يستخدمها لمصلحته حقوقه.
من هنا، يجب أن نقرأ أيضاً قرار السلطات الأميركية حجب مواقع قنوات “العالم” و”المسيرة” و”اللؤلؤة” و”فلسطين اليوم” و”نبأ” و”الكوثر” على الإنترنت، لأنَّ هذه القنوات هي قنوات مقاومة، وهي توضح الوقائع لجمهور المقاومة كي لا يكون ضحيّة للتضليل الإعلامي الغربي. لقد وصل قلق الولايات المتحدة إلى أنها اتخذت قرارات قضائية، واستولت على 33 موقعاً يستخدمها اتحاد الإذاعات والتلفزيونات الإسلامية، و3 مواقع إلكترونية يستخدمها “حزب الله”.
وفي الوقت الذي يُعتبر هذا العمل تقييداً صارخاً لحرية التعبير، وعملاً شائناً لكمِّ الأفواه غير المنسجمة مع الإرادة الأميركية، فإنّ هذا العمل يعبّر عن مدى القلق الذي يشعر به أصحاب القرار في الولايات المتحدة، وفي الغرب عموماً، من اتساع مساحة الفهم الحقيقي لما يقومون به من جرائم بحق الإنسانية، ودور الشبكات الإعلامية المقاومة والإعلام الجديد في إرساء أسس هذا الفهم المستحدث إلى حدّ ما.
كما يتزامن ذلك مع إعلاء صوت الإعلام الرسمي والخاص في الصين وروسيا، وتصدّي القيادات الصينية والروسية لكلّ تصريح ينطلق من الغرب، وتقديم الجواب المناسب له، وضمان نشر هذا الجواب في الفضاء الإعلامي الغربي. هذا كلّه يعتبر جزءاً لا يتجزّأ من تشكّل العالم المتعدّد الأقطاب، والوعي بأهمية امتلاك الشرق لصوته وأدواته، وأن لا يصل هذا الصوت إلى الدول المستضعفة فحسب، وإنما إلى الدول التي تمتلك أدوات التضليل والهيمنة وتشغّلها أيضاً.
وفي هذا الإطار، إنّ تصفية المقاوم العربي الشريف نزار بنات، والذي استخدم الكلمة والفكر سلاحاً ضدّ العدوان والمعتدين، تعتبر سابقة خطيرة ومشؤومة في أعقاب الهبّة الفلسطينية والمنجزات التي تتحقّق ببطء، ولكن باستمرار، من حيث إنارة درب الناس بالكلمة الصادقة المعبّرة عن الواقع، بعيداً عن النفاق الغربي وتلاعبه بالحقائق والوقائع والأسلوب والجملة والكلمة.
إنّ أكثر ما تأثّرتُ به لخسارة الشهيد نزار بنات هو ما قالته والدته المكلومة: “أعطوا الحرية للمثقفين؛ فنزار كان موسوعة، وحرام أن يموت هكذا”. في هذه الجمل، عبّرت هذه السيدة المقاومة، والتي ربّت نزار على المقاومة، عن حرصها على القضية وعلى فلسطين، رغم خسارتها الشخصيَّة لابنها، لكنها اعتبرته خسارة لفلسطين وللقضية، لأنه كان موسوعة.
كم هي نبيلة أولاً! وكم هي محقّة ثانياً! لأنهم في الحرب على امتلاك الصوت، يريدون تصفية الأصوات الحرّة والمنتمية في كلّ مكان، كما فعلوا دائماً، من ناجي العلي، إلى غسان كنفاني، إلى مئات الشباب المثقف المقاوم، وفي الوقت ذاته يحجبون المواقع ووسائل الإعلام.
لقد لفت نظري في مؤتمر الأمن الدولي الذي عُقد في سانت بطرسبرغ منذ أيام أنّ وزير خارجية الجزائر شكر روسيا على دعم سوريا في مكافحة الإرهاب. وفي المؤتمر ذاته، حذّر الرئيس بوتين من أنّ النظام العالمي يتمّ تقويضه، وأنّ محاولات البعض لتحقيق مصالحهم وتعزيز أمنهم على حساب أمن الآخرين مستمرةٌّ من دون رادع، بينما أكّد أنّ روسيا تحاول توسيع قاعدة التعاون الخلّاق بين الدول على أسس متساوية وبالوسائل السّياسية والدبلوماسيّة. وفي الأمم المتحدة، أكّد مندوب الصين، في وجه المحاولات الغربية لفرض فتح المعابر إلى سوريا، أنّ “تحسين الوضع الإنساني في سوريا يتطلّب جهوداً عالمية مشتركة ونهجاً شاملاً”.
إذاً، اليوم في المنطقة والعالم، وصلنا إلى نقطة يشعر فيها الغرب بأنّه يكاد يفقد سيطرته وهيمنته على منابع الثروات العربية التي ينهبها، من خلال قمع شعوبنا وتصدير أدواته الإرهابية، وهو يتحسّس بداية خلل في احتكاره التاريخي لإيصال الصورة التي يريد إلى أذهان الشعوب.
من ناحية أخرى، هناك يقظة صينية – روسية – إيرانية – فنزويلية – سورية – فلسطينية – جزائرية، تشمل عدداً كبيراً من دول العالم، ضاقت ذرعاً بالهيمنة الغربية، وقرّرت اجتراح الأساليب والسبل لإيصال صوتها إلى مبتغاه. نحن في مرحلة قلق شديد لدى القطب الواحد من فقدان هيمنته، وإدراك متسارع للأقطاب الأخرى بقدرتهم المؤكدة على بناء عالم جديد على أساس المصير المشترك والكرامة المتساوية لبني البشر.
إنّ الكلمة في هذا الصراع هي من أمضى الأسلحة، كما أن المثقفين والمفكرين والكتّاب المؤمنين بقضاياهم جنود أساسيون. علينا جميعاً الانتباه إلى محاولات الفتك بهم أو تشويه ما يكتبون وما يقولون لمصلحة القوى المعادية، فالعملاء المأجورون اليوم يعملون في الداخل والخارج، وقد يكون عملاء الداخل أكثر قدرة على إلحاق الأضرار بقضايانا. لا وجهات نظر في مسألة الحقّ والباطل، ولا وجهة نظر بين الانتماء والخيانة. المرحلة مرحلة حسم ووضوح وشجاعة على تسمية الأشياء والأشخاص بمسمّياتها، وعلى تأبّط الصبر والمثابرة والإيمان بالانتصار زاداً مستمرّاً لكلّ الشرفاء المؤمنين بقضايا شعوبنا المحقّة والعادلة. فلنُعِد للّغة مكانتها، وللكلمة المقاومة مكانها المشرّف، وللمثقفين المقاومين الدعم والاحترام والتقدير والمؤازرة في مهمتهم التاريخية النبيلة.
The West continued to develop its approach to taking care of the word alongside the shot, and the media war was as important as the weapon used in the wars.
The word in this conflict is the one who has spent the weapons, and intellectuals, intellectuals and writers who believe in their causes are essential soldiers.
When will The Arabs realize that the importance of any event is measured by the permanence of its consequences and its effects and the ability to actually influence through these results? When will they stop cheering and promoting, and start devoting time and effort to real, in-depth and comprehensive reviews that promote right and correct mistakes, to prevent them from falling back and repeating them?
Those who reflect on the recent history of Western politics in the region and the world must come to the conclusion that they benefit from every experience they experience, make decisions that avoid making the same mistakes again, and enable them to improve their performance in the coming times.
To name a few, during its war on Vietnam, the United States discovered that free media at the time played an important role in making American and global public opinion in Vietnam’s interest and communicating the truth about the crimes of American aggression to most people; The war is developing its media control, so that the permitted media is only the media accompanying the forces, so that any media news needs the approval of the U.S. military commander in Iraq.
The West has continued to develop its approach to taking care of the word alongside the shot, and the misguided media war it has waged to justify the bombing of Libya, the aggression against Syria through its terrorist tools, and the promotion of war against the people of Yemen, which is as important as the weapon used in these wars.
For all this, the West stopped an important pause, as the Palestinian and Arab youth and the free world were able to break the Western monopoly of the media during the blessed Palestinian gift, and used the new media to convey the truth of what is going on all over the earth, and uncovered the lies of Zionism and similar media, which used to be the only one that brought the version of events to the minds and hearts of the peoples in western countries, so that their support for the crimes of the Zionist entity against the Palestinians became taken for granted by no one dares to Challenged.
When hundreds of thousands of people in the United States, Britain, France, Canada and Australia came out carrying Palestinian flags and expressing their support for the Palestinian right and the people of Palestine in their land and homes, they sounded the alarm that one of their most important tools, “disinformation,” was subjected to an unprecedented challenge from understanding the mechanism and decided to use it for its own benefit.
Hence, we should also read the decision of the U.S. authorities to block the sites of the channels “Al-Alam”, “March”, “Pearl”, “Palestine Today”, “Akhbar” and “Kawtar” on the Internet, because these channels are channels of resistance, and they clarify the facts to the audience of resistance so as not to be a victim of Western media misinformation. The United States is concerned that it has taken judicial decisions, seizing 33 sites used by the Islamic Radio and Television Union and three websites used by Hezbollah.
While this action is a blatant restriction of freedom of expression, and an outrageous act of unconscionable mouths with American will, this action reflects the extent to which decision makers in the United States, and in the West in general, feel about the breadth of real understanding of their crimes against humanity, and the role of resistance media networks and the new media in laying the foundations for this fairly new understanding.
This also coincides with the raising of the voice of the official and private media in China and Russia, the response of Chinese and Russian leaders to every statement emanating from the West, providing the appropriate answer to it, and ensuring that this answer is published in the Western media space. All of this is an integral part of the multipolar world, and awareness of the importance of the East having its voice and tools, and reaching not only vulnerable States, but also states that possess and occupy disinformation and hegemony.
In this context, the liquidation of the Arab resistance, The Honorable Nizar Banat, who used the word and thought as a weapon against aggression and aggressors, is a dangerous and ominous precedent in the wake of the Palestinian donation and the achievements that are being achieved slowly, but constantly, in terms of lighting the path of the people with a sincere word expressing reality, away from Western hypocrisy and manipulating facts, facts, methods, sentences and words.
What was most affected by the loss of martyr Nizar Banat was what his grieving mother said: “Give freedom to intellectuals; Nizar was an encyclopedia, and he must die like this.” In these sentences, this resistance lady, who raised Nizar on the resistance, expressed her concern for the cause and Palestine, despite her personal loss of her son, but considered it a loss for Palestine and for the cause, because it was an encyclopedia.
How noble she is first! And how right she is again! Because in the war on the possession of sound, they want to filter free and belonging voices everywhere, as they have always done, from Naji al-Ali to Ghassan Kanafani, to hundreds of educated resistance youth, while blocking websites and the media.
I was struck at the International Security Conference held in St. Petersburg a few days ago that the Algerian Foreign Minister thanked Russia for supporting Syria in the fight against terrorism. At the same conference, President Putin warned that the world order was being undermined, that attempts by some to achieve their interests and enhance their security at the expense of the security of others continued unchecked, while stressing that Russia was trying to expand the base of creative cooperation between states on an equal basis and by political and diplomatic means. At the United Nations, in the face of Western attempts to force the opening of crossings into Syria, the Chinese representative stressed that “improving the humanitarian situation in Syria requires joint global efforts and a comprehensive approach.”
So, today in the region and the world, we have reached a point where the West feels that it is almost losing control and dominance over the sources of Arab wealth that it plunders, by suppressing our peoples and exporting its terrorist tools, and is feeling the beginning of a flaw in its historical monopoly to convey the image it wants to the minds of peoples.
On the other hand, there is a Sino-Russian-Iranian-Venezuelan-Syrian-Palestinian-Algerian vigilance, which includes a large number of countries in the world, fed up with Western hegemony, and has decided to go through the methods and ways to get its voice to its goal. We are in a period of great concern among the pole of the loss of its dominance, and an accelerated realization of other poles of their proven ability to build a new world on the basis of common destiny and equal dignity for human beings.
The word in this conflict is the one who has spent the weapons, and intellectuals, intellectuals and writers who believe in their causes are essential soldiers. We should all pay attention to attempts to kill them or distort what they write and what they say for the benefit of hostile forces, as the paid agents today work at home and abroad, and agents at home may be better able to harm our causes. No views on the question of right and wrong, nor a view between belonging and betrayal. The stage is a stage of determination, clarity and courage in naming things and people by their names, and on the patience, perseverance and belief in victory has continued to increase for all honest people who believe in the issues of our peoples that are right and just. Let us return to the language of its place, the word resistance has its honorable place, and the resistant intellectuals have support, respect, appreciation and support in their noble historical mission.
ROSTOV-ON-DON REGION, RUSSIA – JULY 15, 2019: Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers detain two members of a cell of the Islamic State terrorist organization (banned in Russia). Video screen grab/ Russian Federal Security Service/TASS
On April 9, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) thwarted a terrorist attack in the city of Simferopol, the capital of Crimea.
In a statement, the FSB’s Public Relations Center announced that two supporters of the Syria-based terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) –banned in Russia-, who were plotting an attack against an educational establishment with makeshift bombs, were detained.
“The Federal Security Service has thwarted an act of terrorism in the Republic of Crimea. Two Russian citizens (born in 1992 and 1999) were detained. Both are members of the international terrorist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (outlawed in Russia). They were plotting an armed attack with the use of makeshift explosive devices against an educational establishment in Simferopol,” the statement reads, according to TASS.
The two terrorists planned to leave for Syria in order to join the ranks of HTS via Ukraine or Turkey after carrying out the attack in Simferopol.
Components used in the making of makeshift bombs like shrapnel and explosives were found at the detainees’ homes. Furthermore, the detainees’ communication devices contained instructions for making explosives and explosive devices, and text and voice messages they had exchanged with emissaries of HTS to discuss plans for terrorist attacks.
According to the FSB, a criminal case was opened over assistance to terrorist activities, propaganda of terrorism and illegal making of explosive devices. The two detainees may also face charges of preparations for a terrorist attack.
Despite the MSM ongoing efforts to whitewash HTS and present it as a moderate party, the al-Qaeda-affiliated group continues to act as a terrorist organization.
Terrorists from HTS’ al Tawhid wal Jihad, which was led by Sirajuddin Mukhtarov, were behind the 2017 metro bombing in Russia’s Saint Petersburg. At least 15 people were killed as a result of the terrorist attack.
Recently, Russian officials revealed that HTS was training terrorists in its stronghold, the Syrian region of Greater Idlib, to carry out terrorist attacks in various Russian cities.
On February 26th, US President Joe Biden ordered a strategic strike on pro-Iranian groups on the border between Syria and Iraq.
It allegedly targeted a weapon’s shipment, caused massive damage, had casualties, the entire package.
US Air Force F-15 Eagle fighter jets dropped 7 GPS-guided bombs on the position. It was a “shot across the bow” and a sort of warning to Iran.
It was also at a very strategic location – somewhere that the Syrian Arab Army and President Bashar al-Assad had failed to consolidate power ever since 2014. So that an escalation is avoided with the Syrian government.
Syrian and Russian forces are not deployed where U.S. jets struck last night. They have not been there for nearly a decade.
This is, of course, hailed as a genius move, especially compared with former US President Donald Trump’s strikes on Syria.
In April 2017, Trump approved a Tomahawk cruise missile strike against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government after alleged chemical weapons were used to kill Syrian civilians. There is still no proof of that.
Fifty-nine Tomahawk missiles were launched from two US warships to destroy an airbase used the Syrian military.
One year later, Trump approved a second Tomahawk strike to destroy an alleged chemical weapons production facility. French and British forces joined in that effort, as well. U.S. warships in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf launched missiles into Syria.
The April 2018 strike marked the combat debut for the Virginia-class submarine. USS John Warner launched six Tomahawks from the Mediterranean into Syria.
And in what appears to be the crown difference, according to MSM, between Trump and Biden:
The Virginia-class submarine dove and prepared to sink any Russian warships should they take action against any U.S. Navy ships in the area including one that was acting as a decoy and didn’t launch missiles into Syria.
The decoy part has never been revealed, the time had come 3 years later.
Those two strikes in April of 2017 and 2018 were the first time the U.S. military has struck Assad’s forces in Syria after critics said Obama backed down from enforcing his red line on chemical weapons.
Still, Obama, carried out so many more strikes on various targets throughout the Middle East.
A better comparison for this week’s strike in Eastern Syria is when Trump approved the U.S. military to launch airstrikes in that same area in December 2019 when an American contractor was killed in a rocket attack in Iraq days prior.
What is the proper pronoun for the tomahawk missiles that Joe Biden launched at Syrians last night?
The entire MSM narrative regarding the strikes by Trump and Biden is this – Trump was willing to allegedly cause a large escalation, while Biden simply struck one of the most low significance locations, so as not to cause to any further issues.
The flag-bearer of Western influence and globalists in Russia, Alexey Navalny, has been sentenced to 2 years and 8 months in prison for grossly disregarding the terms of his suspended sentence.
The initial sentence was for 3.5 years, but he has already served a part of that term under house arrest. The absurdity of the situation is that his initial sentence was related to corruption – something he allegedly fights against.
Despite claims by MSM and Western diplomats that Navalny is subject to political persecution, his proven and known ties to Western Intelligence were not part of the case.
Just recently, on February 1st, videos were released online showing the joyful cooperation between Navalny’s team and foreign intelligence services. To put it plainly – Navalny’s team requested information from British Intelligence. It planned to employ that “dirt” to hinder Russia’s interests, both internal and external. His Anti-Corruption Foundation, furthermore, promised to work against Russian business, and to promote British companies. For that, these would be paid hefty sums when he, ultimately, somehow managed to come to power. To achieve that, Navalny’s people vowed to stage mass protests, spread propaganda and strike behind the scenes deals with the elites. It can’t be corruption, if it’s for a “good cause”, right?
As further evidence of this foreign support and pressure, at least 20 diplomats from various countries, including the US, made an appearance when Navalny’s case came up in the Moscow Court hoping to pressure the court in his favour thereby meddling in Russian internal affairs. The massive media propaganda campaign was also plain to see.
For proven in court criminal offenses involving embezzlement of funds on a massive scale, dozens of violations of the terms of his suspended sentence, contempt of court, his active and public work in the interests of foreign states against the Russian nation Navalny faced slightly more than 2.5 years in jail. For any neutral observer, this was an expected outcome and the only concern would be the soft punishment that he received. This can be partly explained by Russia once again showing itself to be a stronghold of tolerance and democracy and also by the fact that the decision of the court is related to the violations of the suspended sentence only and it did not review other ‘achievements’ of the anti-Russian clique operating under the Navalny brand.
Following the court decision, Western leaders and diplomats further publicly meddled in internal Russian affairs by calling for violence to demand the release of the self-proclaimed anti-corruption activist. This will also likely be used as a pretext for increasing pressure on Russia, including new sanctions. The remaining Western-funded network inside the country already tried to stage violent protests in Moscow and other big cities. Nonetheless, their attempts failed largely due to a low turnout and to the successful actions of the authorities. There are no doubts that foreign efforts in this field will continue as opponents of Russia need violence on the streets and casualties to push forward their destabilization campaign. At the same time, recent events demonstrated that the hardcore pro-Western opposition has close to no real support among the general Russian population. Therefore, help from Western special services will likely focus on creating pinpoint provocations to escalate the violence and to create some sacred sacrifice. If the government acts successfully to contain these provocations and avoid the escalation of violence, anti-Russian forces will likely focus on keeping up the pressure and some level of instability in the larger cities for the next months. A new round of major provocations can be expected in the runup to the Russian general election in September 2021.
Actions of the global establishment show that hopes for a ‘reconciliation with the West’ demonstrated by the ‘liberal part’ of the Russian elites are largely baseless. Therefore, Russia should be ready for the further confrontation with the so-called ‘Democratic world’, which has for a long time forgotten what the words ‘democracy’ and the ‘rule of law’ really mean.
Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.
Trump was somebody you could never support in a vacuum, only by comparison; there’s nothing wrong with a united Europe but not this American-penned, neoliberal version, so it’s clear why Britain chose Brexit; France has long been the West’s only hope, so it’s not fair to put the politically advanced, physically courageous, full of solidarité Yellow Vests in with this group, but all three here are certainly related.
I never supported Trump. What I support is the fight against fake-leftism, which is the perhaps the biggest threat to real leftism.
Many Anglophones now have no idea what I am talking about. That’s a problem.
There’s a problem when you Google such a hugely important concept like “fake-leftism” and Ramin Mazaheri has multiple hits on the very first results page: what on earth have Anglophones been talking – or not talking – about?
Fake-leftism is such a huge threat because we all know what the right-wing wants – they are totally clear about it, and that is at least respectable. It must be conceded that while some of their values (like rabid anti-socialism) have no merit at all, some of their other values are respectable and cannot destroyed any more than yang can destroy yin.
So in many vital ways fake-leftism is as big a threat to leftism as rightism because fake-leftists are right-wingers in disguise on some issues and totally deluded about what true leftism is on other issues – they distort, distract and undermine real leftism and thus are actually perpetually engaged in pushing things always to the right.
So spending time fighting fake-leftism is certainly just as vital as opposing right-wing forces. Unfortunately, there are enormous, tedious, ineffective reams of the latter and yet so little of the former that I am seemingly in the position to monetise the term “fake-leftism” with T-shirts and coffee mugs?
Let’s start in the opposite direction: what is fake-rightism?
It’s very interesting to listen to American fascist media. I am not referring to Fox News, nor even Christian conservative radio. The US has genuinely, openly fascist media you can find on the fringe, but I’m not going to give them free publicity by listing them.
As a daily hack journalist it’s my job to listen to everyone and quickly provide copy; and perhaps temperamentally I am simply lucky in that I can listen to people I disagree with without getting angry.
These American fascist media are full of unacceptable racism and hatred but still can provide some very unique takes on Trumpism, as Trumpism is a right-wing ideology which they naturally grasp more about than I do: For example, they actually assert that Trump lost because he betrayed his White Power base – which is to say that Trump lost because he was not racist enough – and the fact that the only group he lost votes from in 2020 as compared to 2016 was White men proves that. Considering how close the vote was, the idea should be considered, at least. However, I have and I find it insufficient and actually just more typically-Western “race and tribe and religious differences are everything” (we are talking about the analyses of racist fascists, after all) and actually mere identity politics (we are talking about the analyses of modern Americans, after all).
But something they said once stuck out for me: The Republican Party is the party paid to lose. That was funny because I was interviewing a Green Party candidate in my recent work in the US for PressTV and he said the same thing about the Democratic Party. We absolutely cannot draw a false equivalence between the far-right and the far-left (though, of course this is exactly what is done all the time in the know-nothing corporate Mainstream Media), but both are totally right.
That is very easy to explain, but nobody wants to explain it. I can explain it quickly, I just can’t get it published in any Mainstream Media, because the MSM does not want to promote clear political understanding as that would threaten the grip of the 1%.
The Republican Party is slightly watered-down Western fascism – which was never discredited by defeat in the US, unlike in Europe due to World War II. Modern Republicans are actually a “fake-fascist” party: they have rejected open racism (the apartheid of Jim Crow). This explains why you can find American fascist media openly rejecting both Republicans and even Trump – many modern Republicans have rejected a key pillar of fascism, after all – openly espousing racism and claims of racial superiority. American fascists also point out that Trump never built the Mexico wall, and that many Republicans encourage making the US less White via immigration – two more pillars of fascism which have gone unbuilt, so it’s no wonder genuine American fascists rejected Trump long before the Electoral College did.
Again, it’s not hard to explain, but who in the MSM takes American fascism seriously? The US MSM only wants to support the 1%, not to be intellectually rigorous, honest and willing to openly discuss American failures. Just look at how Russiagate was foisted on the US public from 2016-19 for proof of the latter.
At the very least I think we can agree that on the left wing (and probably the centre wing) of the Republican Party their racism and xenophobia is hidden – this runs contrary to fascism’s open racism. So to true American fascists people who do this would be labelled as “fake-fascists”.
Despite the clear accuracy of this logic the term of “fake-fascist” is – per a Google search – so unpopular that it also appears open to monetisation. But only a fascist would ever try to monetise everything, of course, and only a fascist would ever even try to denounce somebody’s fascism as “fake” or “insufficient”.
Yes, I promised to write about fake-rightism and gave you fake-fascism. I have a perfectly good answer to which allows me to move on: This is America, where fascism was never discredited and thus fascism is actually rampant (even if often a bit watered-down).
But what is the Democratic Party? It is fake-leftism
About this there is enormous, gigantic misunderstanding. It is so enormous that Google says that little old Ramin Mazaheri is a top exponent of what is the Democratic Party: It is a fake-leftist party.
Again, the far-right and the far-left are not at all, not at all, not at all the same, but political know-nothings, political-nihilists and lazy thinkers all like to claim that they are. So it’s important to briefly clarify why comparing socialists and fascists does not actually compare two extremes:
On the extreme left of the global spectrum of political thought anarchists occupy the furthest pole, with communists to the right of them, and then socialists to the right of them, and then centrists (combining elements of both left and right) to the right of them. Thus, socialism IS leftism and NOT far-leftism on the global spectrum of political thought. This is not up for debate – definitions are clear and accepted, and you are not allowed to make up your own if you want to talk among others without ruining the discussion.
Contrarily, the different national spectrums of political thought are indeed up for debate and are quite, quite mutable – merely look at how “Trumpism” clearly just become at least half of the Republican Party.
But the global political spectrum is almost totally immutable – it requires a stunning revolution in thought to upset it. One must concede that humans have thought about politics for a very long time, and that’s why it’s so hard to change the global political spectrum: what’s more to the left of anarchism, which posits that every person has total liberty and that nobody is in charge of anyone else? What’s to the right of totalitarian fascism, which has been most fully experienced by the victims in places like Apartheid South Africa, slave-owning states and Israel? Iranian Islamic Socialism was a huge, stunning revolution – many don’t know where to really place it on the global political spectrum – but it didn’t move the poles, right? Right.
So we know what things are on the global political spectrum when we see it, and the US Democratic Party is undoubtedly fake-leftist. We can argue about whether it is on the centre or right of the global political spectrum but it is definitely, definitely, DEFINITELY wrong to place it on the global political spectrum’s left.
So wrong it would be laughable if this issue of fake and real leftism were not so hugely vital.
Let’s unwelcome back the US fake-left’s return to power
I have written about this so much that even Google must acknowledge it, but I must admit I took some time off from writing about fake-leftism recently. I don’t think it was out of the boredom caused by repetition, but also because 21st century fake-leftism was deposed by Trump in the US, by Brexit in the UK and by the Yellow Vests in France – it became far more interesting to try and humbly publicly analyse these movements and why they arrived.
But with Biden’s ascension I realise I have to get back on the horse, because fake-leftism is back on the horse – it’s a huge threat to global leftism, after all, and one that goes totally, totally, totally unaddressed.
Part 2 of this article will remind us of just how right-wing the US Democratic Party is. This is perfectly obvious when what Joe Biden and his supporters actually believe are held side-by-side with the basic tenets of actual leftism. Because the West is so rabidly anti-leftist the basic, globally similar tenets of leftism are never openly discussed, and thus people get so very confused about what leftism is that they actually come to believe that Democrats are a “left” party on the global political spectrum. That’s absurd.
One last note, just to expand out this article as much as possible: In 2017 I supported Marine Le Pen for only the two weeks between Round 1 and Round 2 in France’s presidential election because I opposed Emmanuel Macron’s “fake-centrism”. Macron went on to wage incredibly fascistic violence against the Yellow Vests, extended the state of emergency for 2 years, closed down Muslim community centres, gutted longstanding French measures of economic redistribution and protection, and did many other things which would have caused an uproar…if they had been done by Le Pen. Macron was always a fake-centrist – he was also very far on the right, and the failure to call things by their proper names led to even worse long-term social disorder than if the repugnant Le Pen had won.
The repugnant Trump won in America, and so many great leftist-inspired movements absolutely dominated large swaths of Trump’s tenure: Black Lives Matter, #MeToo and a few others were not perfect, but mainly because in the US fake-leftism is so powerfully misleading and problem-inducing.
Let’s put aside Trump – perhaps only until 2024 – and focus on saying hello to the restoration of fake-leftism in the US.
The push by Western forces and those sympathetic to them to misportray Russia as a “rogue regime” after this summer’s Navalny incident is meant to pave the way for a more comprehensive sanctions policy against the Eurasian Great Power and intensify multilateral efforts to “contain” it.
The Western press has recently revived the debunked trope that Russia is a so-called “rogue regime” after the latest developments surrounding this summer’s Navalny incident. The self-described “investigative reporting” outlet Bellingcat and CNN recently published a joint report claiming that the FSB tried to poison the anti-corruption blogger, which is an unrealistic scenario to speculate upon and one which was condemned by President Putin during his year-end press conference as a provocation by foreign intelligence services. Nevertheless, this information warfare narrative persists and was given fresh coverage by former chess champion Gary Kasparov in the op-ed that he published at CNN on Friday about how “It’s time to treat Putin’s Russia like the rogue regime it is”. His piece deserves to be debunked in order to set the record straight and extrapolate his agenda for propagating it.
Kasparov shares a smorgasbord of accusations straight off the bat alleging that Russia is guilty of crimes ranging from assassinating political foes with chemical weapons to invading Ukraine and hacking the US. What he doesn’t mention, however, is that no evidence has been presented to conclusively prove Russia’s responsibility for those aforesaid assassination attempts. Regarding Ukraine, Kasparov leaves out the fact that Crimea reunified with Russia after a democratic referendum and that a real military invasion of that country by Moscow wouldn’t have manifested itself in limited skirmishes contained to Eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. Moreover, the chess champion omits the fact that Trump contradicted Pompeo’s claims of Russian complicity in the latest hack attack and actually blamed China instead. Evidently, these facts are too “politically inconvenient” for Kasparov to mention and thus had to be ignored in order to advance his weaponized narrative.
That narrative, it should be said, is one of paranoia and speculation. Parts of it read as a fever dream of a brilliant mind gone mad imagining that Russia’s security agencies are falling apart by the second despite he himself previously alleging that they’ve carried out such egregious crimes as the ones that he talked about earlier. This schizophrenic stance is explained away by his theory that President Putin simply doesn’t care anymore about how sloppy his international provocations have become because no meaningful consequences have ever followed. That’s yet another fallacy on Kasparov’s part since Russia has been victimized by an ever-intensifying sanctions regime since 2014. Still, he’s somehow convinced himself that the West is actually “appeasing” Russia by continuing to retain some limited relations with it of a pragmatic nature. These, he believes, must be immediately stopped and followed up by removing Russia from international institutions.
What he’s clamoring for is clear for any objective observer to see, and it’s a redoubling of the Western sanctions regime against Russia and an intensification of the multilateral efforts to “contain” it. Earlier attempts by some American officials to designate Russia as a so-called “state sponsor of terrorism” might receive a second life if Kasparov’s op-ed is coordinated with US intelligence officials to precondition the international public into accepting such a dramatic move. The incoming Biden Administration is chock-full of anti-Russian hawks so it’s quite possible that they might make swift progress in further worsening bilateral relations with Russia on that or some similar pretext. It should be remembered, however, that the entire basis for this scenario is the unquestionable assumption that Russia is responsible for everything that Kasparov and his allies claim, which is highly dubious to say the least.
Even so, it’s nowadays taboo for anyone to publicly challenge those accusations lest they be tarred and feathered as a “Russian agent”. The media-military nexus is operating perfectly insofar as coordinating their messaging to justify forthcoming provocations against Russia. The American people have been brainwashed into believing that Russia is one of their main enemies, with Kasparov’s comments on the latest Navalny development being used to reinforce that narrative. CNN published his op-ed in order to grant it maximum exposure at home and abroad, all for the earlier explained reasons. While his ravings are limited to the internet for now, they might soon have a real-life impact if the US runs with his claims to push through a new sanctions regime and other related “containment” efforts against Russia. This could even happen if Trump pulls off an upset and remains in office after 20 January considering his recent anti-Russian track record.
In conclusion, the only ones who gain by misportraying Russia as a “rogue regime” are the anti-Russian members of the US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) and their international allies like Kasparov who has a personal axe to grind against President Putin. Objectively speaking, Russia’s alleged “rogue” activity pales in comparison to the US’ actual rogue actions since the end of the Old Cold War, which include drone assassinations, Color Revolution coups, HybridWars, and several large-scale wars. That’s not to deflect with “whatabouttism”, but just to remind the reader of the global strategic context for the purpose of pointing out America’s blatant hypocrisy in this respect. Looking forward, the US’ anti-Russian information warfare campaign will only intensify and won’t ever stop until Moscow submits to Washington’s unipolar hegemonic demands, which won’t ever happen so the infowar is here to stay.
The United States corporate-dominated media has found that the easiest way to shape news coverage on the scores of legal challenges to the 2020 presidential election is to only report on them when the cases have lost.
After all, the more newspaper inches given to objective discussions of widespread voter fraud allegations equals the more chances an average American starts to think the election was rigged. This theory presumes that the average American is so docile and programmable that they have already completely forgotten the mainstream claims which dominated the previous four years: that the election was rigged (by Vladimir Putin).
Not reporting until a court rejects an integrity challenge also allows for a superior “I-knew-it-all-along” tone, combined with open accusations of lunacy on the part of the aggrieved party.
More than a month after the vote the party (Republicans) remains tremendously aggrieved: top pollster Gallup just reported that 83% of Republicans say that reports of Biden being the president-elect are not “accurate”. Yes, it’s an oddly-worded poll, but so many US wordsmiths have been purposely opaque since election day.
It’s always been easy to roll one’s eyes at the smug tone because such condescension will drop to the ground lack a bag of bricks with just one Supreme Court loss, after all.
Yes, the widespread US belief prior to November 3, 2020, was that their elections were poorly designed, poorly funded, poorly run, poorly counted and porous in many other ways besides, but I always thought the biggest post-election day challenge would be over the exact issue which has led to the totally unprecedented situation of states suing other states over accusations of ruining the election’s integrity:
Texas – now joined by Louisiana, Missouri and Arkansas – is suing the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin over mail-in ballots.
I’ll show that the US Constitution makes it clear their case should at least be heard by the Supreme Court. The state-on-state nature already takes the case directly to the top.
The Supreme Court always had to rule on the unprecedented expansion of mail-in balloting
What’s so interesting about “democracy with US characteristics” is how the nine justices of the Supreme Court are allowed to be so very, very removed from US society. They debate in private, they grant media interviews very rarely, they don’t have to say much in court (Justice Clarence Thomas went from 2006 to 2016 without publicly asking a question), nor do they even have to give public reasons for many of the momentous decisions they make (they just rejected a key vote fraud case in Pennsylvania with one sentence, but more accurately only one word: “denied”). It’s not the Holy See of Rome, but it’s close.
But it’s not close regarding the holiness, because what this unaccountable and unelected regime of nine holds sacred is merely the 18th century US Constitution, something which is currently losing lustre worldwide by the minute.
Some, not all, of these justices are Wahhabi-like in their insistence that the document is “dead” (and perfect in its deadness), in that it must be followed both to the letter and in the spirt of the bygone (allegedly golden) age in which it was written.
Given this ideological reality doesn’t it seem clear that executive branch orders by some governors, or even just their secretaries of state, to massively and controversially flood their states with mail-in ballots violated the US Constitution – even if these actions were approved by some in the judicial branch – because they often did not get legislative branch approval? Article 1, Section 4 of the US Constitution states: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature …”
Texas’ lawsuit thus asserts: “The four states exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to justify ignoring federal and state election laws and unlawfully enacting last-minute changes, thus skewing the results of the 2020 General Election. The battleground states flooded their people with unlawful ballot applications and ballots while ignoring statutory requirements as to how they were received, evaluated and counted.” The suit claims the vote in Texas was tainted by the vote in Pennsylvania, etc.
People may notice that Article 1, Section 4 does not talk about “Elections for President”, but the US elects their president by an Electoral College, not direct vote. It is regularly inferred that this clause also applies to the presidential vote, but it is actually addressed in Article 2, Section 1: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….” Again it’s the state legislature which decides how to decide to “appoint” (not “elect”) Electoral College “Electors”, and Article 2, Section 1 is cited in Texas’ lawsuit.
I wish I could find more good media reports on this case to better inform my opinion but – as I began – you just can’t find much objective journalistic discussion on the US voter fraud causes. No well-known anti-Trump media I saw ever even broached Article 2, Section 1 – even though it was named in the lawsuit – all they had was hysterical and completely unobjective denials that the Texas lawsuit doesn’t even attempt to make a coherent argument. And yet: the Supreme Court gave the defendant states less than 48 hours to respond to Texas’ lawsuit – by 3pm on December 10.
The suit also says the expansion made the vote insecure, but forget about all the alleged vote machine tampering, the purported “smoking gun” videos, the reported 1,000 testimonies making accusations of election malfeasance – all of that either has the evidence or it doesn’t. Maybe there was a huge conspiracy of voter fraud, or maybe there wasn’t. The nation’s top intelligence official, the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, just said that all issues of election fraud must be investigated and only then would we see “whether there is a Biden administration”. Will they all be properly investigated? This is America, so all we can say for sure is that no matter what happens America will insist that they are the spotless beacon the world should follow.
But the question of mail-in ballots – this enormous change to the US voting system which inspired seemingly thousands of complaints by Donald Trump on Twitter, as well as from many regular American citizens – this is the dispute which has the power to immediately invalidate the 2020 vote.
I say: yes, it should invalidate the vote – that is, if Americans want to follow the rules of the antiquated and fundamentally aristocratic American system.
America is not a modern democracy, nor is it accountable – don’t expect the Supreme Court to rule in favor of the outsider Trump
Yes, pro-Trumpers were wrong to wait until after the election – to see if their candidate lost – before bringing this suit, but who’s to say that elite Democrats wouldn’t have forced some of their own governors to do the same thing if Biden was the projected loser? How can judges rule on a case which was never brought before them? The bottom line is that checks and balances are what make democracy “democracy”, whether that democracy is Athenian, American, Chinese socialist or Iranian Islamic, and one person should not be able to change the fundamental nature of how elections are held, even if that person is a state governor or secretary of state, and even if a state judge says their change is ok.
Modern democracies have (at least) three branches for a reason, but it’s ok that mail-in ballots were often routed around the legislative branch?
(I often say Iranian democracy has revolutionarily created a “Supreme Leader branch”. I’d also say the massive influence of the internet/digital age gives more credence to making the unofficial “Fourth Estate” – the media – an official branch. What’s wrong with more than three branches, other than: But the bourgeois West doesn’t do it?)
The re-routing (and some state legislatures, such as Nevada, did approve a sweeping expansion to mail-in ballots) of democratic processes into the hands of one person should be seen as a continuation of what Western democracy truly is: liberal strongmanism. This process became out in the open with Dubya Bush’s phony war on Iraq and the Patriot Act, continued with the ignored anti-austerity elections in Greece, is part and parcel of Emmanuel Macron’s “rubber bullet liberalism” war on France’s Yellow Vests, and was seen in 2020 when some US governors essentially said: We want Trump out so badly that we’ll change the elections by fiat to do it.
(Corona was not a valid excuse in November, because by then 2020 had seen many nations successfully and safely hold elections.)
A coronavirus vaccine was announced just two days after Biden declared victory; after months of refusals – which have fiscally disemboweled the US lower classes – Democrats finally agreed to negotiate on their heretofore totally inflexible 2nd stimulus position as soon as the calendar turned from election November to December; Facebook, Twitter and the US mainstream media currently censor the average Republican’s election reflections as if these citizens were calling for a second Holocaust.
Those are not conspiracy theories but are listed to reveal how truly terrible and power-monging the political and cultural elite is in the United States. They overreach their power time and time again, no matter how negative the effect on their domestic public or the rest of the world.
Such persons wanted Trump out, and I’m not saying that they engaged in a massive conspiracy of election fraud to do so – I’m saying that they obviously changed the fundamental nature of the election to do so.
In the US states decide individually how elections are run, but there should have been formal legislative debate about any huge changes to the election format and not merely a gubernatorial order reflected upon in private by a judge. It was undemocratic political overreach in a nation full of people who have been conditioned to believe that the boss/CEO/president can and should be able to fire/personally enrich/sanction at will.
There are enough “strict constructionists” ,”originalists” or (as I call them) “American Salafists” currently on the Supreme Court to see the logic of Texas’ argument. However, I do not think the Supreme Court will find in favor of Texas – the power-holders in the US system are fundamentally anti-Trump, I think 2016-2020 has proven ad nauseam.
Trumpism was vindicated in a grassroots way – like it or not – on November 3rd, but there are no “Trumpist” judges in the top court. Who knows, maybe Trumpism will last long enough that one day there will be, but for now what all Supreme Court judges are is merely typical American conservatives. The idea that even though Supreme Court justices are the most untouchable persons in American society and yet they will bend over backwards to please Trump is, I think, a major (but common) fallacy.
It’s clear that the 2020 election was drastically changed (just look at how voter turnout suddenly was the highest in 120 years), and it’s clear that legislatures often did not fulfil their check and balance role, and it’s clear that “strict constructionism” was not something invented by Justice Anthonin Scalia but is an ideology which has been widely discussed since the very beginning of the American republic… all that will be thrown out to throw out Trump, I predict.
This article has not been pro-Trump or anti-Trump, it is reminding how very drastic the actions of anti-Trump power-holders in the US have been. They changed the nature of the 2020 vote, and they don’t want to admit that, and the Supreme Court is not likely to unconservatively ok a shocking, once-in-three-lifetimes reversal to the 2020 presidential vote – not because of the chaos and alienation it would cause among the 99%, but because American democracy is and has always been expressly designed to protect the elite, not the people/workers/lower classes.
By the way, the only presidential vote which ever mattered at all takes place in less than a week – the Electoral College votes on December 14th. I think this year’s general election on the presidential vote has provided a more interesting – yet legally meaningless – diversion than it normally does, don’t you?
Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.
The long-waited “European Democracy Action Plan” has finally been unveiled, but its proposal to sanction alleged purveyors of so-called “disinformation” is extremely worrisome because people (including EU citizens) might have their fundamental rights and freedoms violated if they’re punished for publishing and/or sharing content that’s been arbitrarily flagged as such, and the Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency’s ambiguity about whether this will be imposed against publicly financed Russian international media outlets like RT and Sputnik risks the possibility that their EU employees might be sanctioned for their professional affiliations too.
The EDAP’s Supposed Principles
The “European Democracy Action Plan” (EDAP) has just been unveiled, but instead of reassuring everyone about the bloc’s commitment to human rights in its fight against so-called “disinformation”, it dangerously risks violating them by proposing that alleged purveyors of such arbitrarily flagged information products be sanctioned. The document starts off innocuously enough by explaining the need to “promote free and fair elections and democratic participation; support free and independent media; and counter disinformation”, all of which it’s claimed will be done “in full respect of the fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the Treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as in national and international human rights rules.” Regarding the aforementioned Charter, they note how “media freedom and media pluralism” are “enshrined” in it. The EDAP also condemns the fact that “Smear campaigns are frequent and overall intimidation and politically motivated interference have become commonplace” when describing the threats to journalists’ safety, some of which they note are “even initiated by political actors, in Europe and beyond”, which “can lead to self-censorship and reduce the space for public debate on important issues.”
The Definition Of “Disinformation”
This makes it all the more surprising that the EDAP later goes on to propose sanctions against those who repeatedly spread “disinformation”, which they define as “false or misleading content that is spread with an intention to deceive or secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm”. Although they promise that this will be done “in full respect of fundamental rights and freedoms”, no transparent mechanism is suggested for explaining how they determine the offending individual’s intent for sharing supposed “disinformation”, nor is there any mention of an appeals process for those who are unfairly targeted for the same political reasons that the EDAP’s authors earlier condemned. The document notes that the experiences of the European External Action Service’s (EEAS) East Stratcom Task Force (which, while not mentioned in the text, is the combined foreign and defense ministry of the EU that also runs the defamatory “EU vs. Disinformation” portal which regards any non-mainstream “politically incorrect” viewpoint as Russian and/or Chinese “disinformation”) will play a role in this process, which is extremely disturbing because of how politically motivated that structure’s determinations are.
A Dystopian Task Force For Stifling Free Speech
The EEAS East Stratcom Task Force actually represents everything that the EDAP earlier said that it’s against. To channel the document’s own words, “Smear campaigns are frequent and overall intimidation and politically motivated interference have become commonplace” as evidenced by their hit piece in December 2019 against me personally and occasional “debunking” of OneWorld’s factually sourced analyses (which are personal interpretations of the facts and not representative of a “chain of command from the Kremlin” like they libelously wrote without any evidence whatsoever other than circumstantial speculation). Their labeling of the site as “being a new edition to the pantheon of Moscow-based disinformation outlets” proves that they’ve arbitrarily concluded that the intent of its authors such as myself is spread “disinformation”, which the EDAP defines as “false or misleading content that is spread with an intention to deceive or secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm”. I never had any such intent since the purpose in sharing my analyses is solely to stimulate “debate on important public issues”, which is a personal mission statement that’s actually in accordance with what the EDAP purportedly says that it wants to protect.
“EU vs. Disinformation” Or “EU + Disinformation”?
From my experience being defamed by the EEAS East Stratcom Task Force’s “EU vs. Disinformation” project, I have no confidence in its capabilities to make independent and accurate determinations but rather suspect that it’s a political instrument wielded by the EU’s foreign and defense ministries to intimidate those who share “politically incorrect” interpretations of “important public issues”. The EDAP says that its anti-disinformation proposals “do not seek to and cannot interfere with people’s right to express opinions or to restrict access to legal content or limit procedural safeguards including access to judicial remedy.” Nevertheless, my right to express my opinion is being infringed upon after my work was defamed as “disinformation” (importantly without anyone from that platform ever making an attempt to contact me beforehand even on Twitter despite them referring to my account there and thus being aware of it prior to the publication of their hit piece), and I have no access to “judicial remedy” after what they’ve done. Based on what the EDAP proposes pertaining to sanctions against alleged purveyors of “disinformation”, OneWorld, its media partners, myself, and/or the other contributors including those who are EU citizens might possibly have such costs unfairly imposed upon them.
Cracking Down On EU Citizens
Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova ominously told the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) “in an interview to coincide” with Thursday’s release of the EDAP that “sanctions will should [sic] follow the EU’s cybersanction regime, which was used for the first time this year to freeze assets and introduce visa bans on offenders — primarily Russian, Chinese, and North Korean citizens and companies — that have attacked the bloc.” Just as equally disturbing was that “she didn’t want to specify at the moment (whether Russian media companies such as RT and Sputnik can be targeted in the future), but added that ‘it can be governmental or nongovernmental actors, whoever will be identified, using very good evidence, that they are systematic producers or promoters of disinformation.’” This confirms what I feared when I read the EDAP, namely that individuals employed by those two companies (including EU citizens among them), as well as people such as myself dangerously defamed by the EEAS East Stratcom’s Task Force and others for allegedly being part of a Russian state “disinformation” conspiracy, might one day wake up to find themselves sanctioned by the EU.
EDAP’s Ambiguities Must Be Immediately Addressed
In order to sincerely abide by its stated principles to respect people’s freedoms, the EDAP must be amended to remove any ambiguities which could allow for the sanctioning of individual people, especially those who might even be EU citizens. After all, its “EU vs. Disinformation” “watchdog” functions more as a politically driven attack dog as proven by my personal experience of having been defamed by them (made all the incriminating on their part because no attempt was made to contact me for comment on the same Twitter account that they wrote about in their hit piece before publishing it). Everyone has the right to freely express their views even if they’re “politically incorrect”, and it’s practically impossible for a nebulous structure representing the entire bloc’s foreign and defense ministry to confidently determine someone’s “intention to deceive or secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm” whenever they publish, share, or tag someone under such arbitrarily flagged information products. Nobody can be confident in the EU’s ability to combat legitimate instances of “disinformation” when that defamatory label is casually thrown around with reckless abandon without considering the life-changing consequences that it could have for the victims like myself.
Media Literacy Is The Solution To “Disinformation”
The EDAP had it right near the end of the document when it proposed improving everyone’s media literacy like I earlier suggested over the summer after being victimized by a different defamation attack. Instead of violating people’s rights and especially those who might be EU citizens, the bloc should prioritize media literacy in order to cultivate a well-informed populace capable of arriving at their own conclusions about the various information products that they encounter. Falsely labeling something “disinformation” just because a government superbureaucracy like the EEAS can’t tolerate the fact that someone is peacefully sharing a dissident political opinion in line with their UN-enshrined human right to do so seriously discredits the bloc as a whole and raises questions about its stated intentions. Jourova herself said in a speech on the day that the EDAP was unveiled that “We do not want to create a ministry of truth. Freedom of speech is essential and I will not support any solution that undermines it”, yet that very same document that she was promoting does exactly that when it comes to my and others’ freedom of speech, especially those who are EU citizens whether casually involved in what’s wrongly described as “disinformation” or employees of foreign media companies.
Concluding Thoughts
Sanctions are never the solution to combating so-called “disinformation”, media literacy is, as the former is akin to the same state intimidation that the EDAP purports to be against while the latter is proof of confidence in people’s capabilities to independently arrive at their own conclusions. Only a “ministry of truth” would dare to sanction people, including its own citizens (however that would work out in practice despite potentially being illegal under the EU’s own laws since its people’s assets and freedom of movement can’t be seized/restricted without court order), for exercising their freedom of speech by sharing “politically incorrect” interpretations (analyses) of the facts. Quite hypocritically, some in the EU claim that Russia is a “dictatorship”, yet Moscow hasn’t threatened to sanction foreign media outlets, foreign commentators, and even its own citizens through asset seizures and/or travel restrictions for sharing views that contradict the Kremlin’s. In fact, judging by the EDAP itself and Jourova’s ominous hints in her interview with RFE/RL, it can be said that the EU will be much less democratic than Russia if it goes through with its “disinformation” sanctions proposal, thus turning the bloc into a modern-day Soviet Union when it comes suppressing freedom of speech and peaceful dissent.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 