Thereafter, the Guardian turned into basically state-controlled media/propaganda mouthpiece. They champion imperialism, warmongering, rampant neoliberalism, and they publish what the five eyes briefs instruct them to, unquestioned and unedited as “news”. Even the Guardian’s columnists, which traditionally in a newspaper are the countervoice to the editorial line, are now thinly veiled court jesters of the state. It’s one endless barrage of state propaganda masquerading as independent news media.
"Court jesters of the state". An apt description, Kudjoe.
The Guardian's double dealing in the matters of Julian Assange was enough to never let this whore of a rag near my inbox again.
This was the most outrageous attempt by any publication to fulfil its new found subservience to the almost fully subscribed media / propaganda deal in my lifetime. They are still making half-hearted overtures on Assange's behalf. Far too late. They are well past their 'Use by Date'. If you cannot attach the values of credibility, honestly and trust to a publication, it has no value at all and absolutely no chance of recovery.
They can never be trusted again and lead the charge as the most untrustworthy organisation in the world, yes, even compared to the US whores like CNN and The New Your Times.
And that is really saying something
I have placed their dirty double dealing on the same level as the Israeli owned US President Johnson with his recall of the supporting aircraft trying to save the USS Liberty from attack from Israel in 1967, together with the assassination of JFK by people he trusted, that worked for his country, and who owed him their loyalty.
Big government and big corporations are now indistinguishable. You cannot separate CNN from the CIA. You cannot separate Google from the NSA. You cannot separate Pfizer from the FDA.
Mussolini’s definition of fascism as the inextricable intertwining of government and corporate power is now reality. We are ruled by selected—not elected— legislators, by spymasters and secret police, by suits in corporate boardrooms, and by the Davos ruling class and their Ivy League toadies.
The role of media is to conduct an information war not only against Russia (or China or Iran), but against every critical thinker, against the very act of free thought, to repeatedly rape the human mind.
Democracy does not exist. How can democracy exist if the electorate is thoroughly propagandized and if all the truths that matter are classified?
Voting machines are black box computers with secret proprietary operating systems that untraceably produce pre-determined results that have nothing to do with a simple count of ballots.
The open-air concentration camps of the Palestinians serve as the ideal model of social organization. The open-air concentration camps in which we live—nation states—differ from those of the Palestinians only by size.
Our spouses, relatives, friends and neighbors are pod people.
“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” — Goethe
What's been built now is no different than what has been built in human civilization in the past, an unaccountable ruling class, and the rest, we serfs. The only real difference is now we have a more sophisticated propaganda media. This is a cyber-feudal age.
Agree. The unfortunate part is one can find valuable psychological wisdom and humanitarian values in the major religions, parallel with the use of said religions for political purposes. But you often have to separate the wheat from the chaff. Why I dislike some of the black and white thinking of today's secularists, and the almost fanatical animosity toward any religion (by some). It's not one or the other, like any system of thought, philosophies - one can find flaws or incompleteness, but also some valid truths.
Matt Taibbi’s article today exposing "Hamilton '68" is most instructive.
The process is as old as the hills. Sheriff Buford is a law enforcement official of Puddlewack County when it comes to arresting civil rights activists on bullshit charges, but a private citizen when he's attending the KKK Konvocation.
Was there ever a time when the media during a war, or build up to war, ever really challenged the powers that be? I remember during the build up to the Iraq war there were a few who were on Larry King. Joe Wilson challenged the yellow cake BS, but the CIA I think outed his wife as a CIA agent for his honesty. Scott Ritter was making the rounds and saying there were no weapons of mass destruction, and I think they got him too. Today they wouldn't allow people to go on TV and contest the lies of the good old USA. I don't recall any American newspaper challenging what the Obama administration did in Ukraine unless it was shrouded in propaganda. I don't think journalist feel safe in relating the truth, and I'm not so sure Americans even want to hear it. I think the left wing media also did themselves in during the Trump years. There is a very good video on the Grayzone with Mate and Blumenthal and commentary on what the hell happened to Amy Goodman and I think it was Max who said she sucked. I think many of the left so hated Trump no longer practiced independent journalism and they turned off many in their audience in defense of everything the democrats did. So now gratefully there is Substack.
Phil Donahue was the most popular host on television. He got fired for questioning the Iraq war and was never invited back by anyone. I suppose that taught TV hosts a lesson they never forgot.
Geraldo Riviera, of all people, in the runup to the Second War On Iraq.
And yes, Geraldo was cast into Outer Darkness as a result. All of his other sins and omissions were ignored for years and he was even rewarded. It was when Geraldo he started questioning the things that matter to the people that matter that he was punished.
Loved this comment; beautifully written, especially this part: "Voting machines are black box computers with secret proprietary operating systems that untraceably produce pre-determined results that have nothing to do with a simple count of ballots."
A pundit wrote a book in 2004 called, "They Can't Cheat If It Isn't Close." Well, he was wrong, because all they have to do is shut down the system for anywhere from 12 hours to 12 days (like in Arizona 2022) and manufacture enough ballots to "win."
The way out of this trap is for the middle class to take responsibility for the shitty state of their nations, and to stop sitting down and expecting someone else to give us peace, prosperity, and honest elections.
John Pilger, yes. Just finished listening to Max Blumenthal report that Pilger told him that fake left alternative media Democracy Now! stopped having him on because one of their funders, the Lannan Foundation, didn't like him. Link: https://twitter.com/TheGrayzoneNews/status/1618310099860328448
The supposed left in the US are all throwing off the cloak and unabashedly championing warmongering. I mean these are people who have never championed the cause of poverty reduction or inequality reduction or even public education, to the degree that they champion warmongering.
So no surprise, they now cast out Pilger. He can’t be bought, or bowed. And is therefore of no use to them.
Years ago I used to watch Democracy Now! regularly. Even donated to the org. I even recall watching a young and upcoming Aaron Mate on the show. But wow, these last few years (or has it already been near a decade?) the show took a turn for the worse. Bought into the Russia gate propaganda - and in many cases, pushed the Establishment lines of propaganda without serious pushback - which should be the real task of good journalism.
Hell, CBS News published a report on corruption in the Ukrainian military a few months ago. This should be something like "Newsflash! Water! Is Still Wet!" but instead CBS were forced to issue a sniveling, cringing apology.
Thank you for this excellent review of mainstream (and left-leaning) journalism's downward trajectory. The views published in 2014 would be stark heresy today. The tsunami of propaganda that arrived in early 2022, together with the broad success of that propaganda in persuading Americans that Russia is a hell-gate swarming with bloodthirsty demons, demonstrate the strategy of hybrid warfare. In which it is as important to keep control of public opinion as it is to control battlefield territory.
There has been war propaganda going back a long time (think Randolph Hearst) but what we're experiencing today, with the application of social media, sophisticated algorithms for audience targeting, and machine learning tools to refine the propaganda along the way -- this is something radically new. I've seen plenty of propaganda in my 68 years, but what I've see in the past year is truly astonishing. Newspapers that used to allow some space for dissent are now closed up tighter than a vault. And there is no distinction between news reporting and opinion; everything that should be simple news is saturated with opinion (anti-Russia, naturally). And what's astonishing is that 99.44% of the readers are eating it up like ice cream.
Caitlin, keep up the good work. Because we are in a dark place now.
Excellent article, as always. It also shows how many prefer to being sheep, lambs to the slaughter, when it comes to information.
But then again, how large a proportion of the population has the ability to garner the necessary information, given that many have to work two jobs, long hours, and if they are married, both work?
The current economic situation seems to me apt to continue this trend, to keep people too tired to get the information, and too tired to care. The movie Gladiator, where the senators talk about the "Roman masses" hit the nail on the head, when they noted that the Roman Emperor bringing back the games in the coliseum would keep people distracted. The same now, with sports, and media entertainment.
More importantly, those colossal games transmitted Roman values through emotional investment and performance. One could say the same about the modern Olympics as a bread-and-circus for the Westphalian empire, or any other high culture.
This is vitally important work, so please keep focused on it. When people are exposed to this, they get it and get pissed off.
There is no better illustration or validation of the features of Orwell than how the media has erased prior coverage on Ukraine and completely not only ignored or revised, but re-written history.
The amazing thing is that it's all right out there in the open - they haven't yet learned how to completely memory hole reality and history - and yet it is still ignored and denied.
One big problem, though, is that, to my generation, Orwell was a hero. To this generation, he's unknown or some privileged white guy.
‘The rumor that raced through Washington last week of an atom bomb someplace in the city being readied for the next terrorist atrocity had a familiar ring to me.
In late July 1961, President Kennedy, just back from the grim Vienna summit with Khrushchev, asked me to dinner in Palm Beach. After daiquiris and Frank Sinatra records on the patio, his three guests and I gathered around the table for fish-in-a-bag, a White House recipe. Between lusty bites, Kennedy told the story of Khrushchev's anger over West Berlin, the island of freedom in the Soviet empire's East Germany. "We have a bustling communist enclave just four blocks from the White House," I noted, meaning the Soviet embassy. Kennedy paused, fork between plate and mouth, and said, "You know, they have an atom bomb on the third floor of the embassy." Aware of JFK's love of spy stories, I said something like, "Sure, why not?"
No, Kennedy continued, it was his understanding that the Soviets had brought the components of an atomic device into the building in inspection-free diplomatic pouches and assembled it in the upstairs attic. "If things get too bad and war is inevitable," he said, "they will set it off and that's the end of the White House and the rest of the city." I laughed. Still suspending his bite of fish, Kennedy said, "That's what I'm told. Do you know something that I don't?" No sign of mirth. The conversation moved on.
Five years ago I was lecturing in Staunton, Va., and retold the story. In the question session, a man in the audience rose and said, "You may not believe that story about the bomb in the attic, but I do. I worked for 25 years at the Defense Intelligence Agency, and that was our understanding." And now I can hear Kennedy asking again, "Do you know something I don't?" ’
They've been under that thumb for at least four decades. What-his-face Gloria Van Der Bilt's son has been with the CNN since day one, and everybody knows he's a CIA sock puppet.
Edit: Anderson Cooper was the name I was looking for.
If you have been learning about Ukraine from the mainstream media only since the invasion, then you will conclude that ONLY Russia is responsible for this war because the Western mainstream media has been trying to erase the history of Ukraine since after the invasion.
There have been numerous historical incidents, as Caitlin points them out, when the Western media reported what would be considered “Russia propaganda” today. For example, many media organizations in the West had no problem calling out the Nazi ideology of the Azov battalion or reporting that the US had a big role in making the 2014 Maidan coup successful, but if you dare highlight these things today, you would be called a “Russian agent.”
If you think that the only trustful source for the global news is the Western media, then considering checking out what it had to say about Ukraine prior to the invasion.
I ALSO HAVE THE NEWSLETTER CALLED "THE GREAT AWAKENING" WHICH TALKS ABOUT THE CRISES WE COLLECTIVELY FACE. CHECK IT OUT.
We go into frenzies about cancelling people with basically evil ideas - because one opinion is as good as another - or, at the least, we must be forbearing because it can be the case of diamonds among the shit...or something. But free speech, in fact, belongs to the monied, which are consonant by some coincidence or miracle, with the powerful. This element can turn lies into truth, , and they do it all the time. I mention "miracle" because to construct actual Nazis and supporters in Ukraine as good and in fact more worthy in their objectives than are the Russians - does take some kind of black magic. Only actual democracy can counteract this sad truth. But we don't have it.
The decline of the Guardian, which I actually used to enjoy reading at the time of the Seamus Milne article cited, is emblematic of the changes that have taken place in our Western societies more generally over the last ten years. Thank God the independent media, and voices like Caitlin’s, have sprung up to fill the gap and continue to speak the truths that used to be sayable in the mainstream press, but are sayable no longer. I think the turning point for the Guardian was probably when Alan Rusbridger was paid a visit by the secret police with hammers to smash up every last one of his hard drives. To think that we say we live in the “free world”. Not free for us propagandized serfs, that’s for sure.
I gave up on US media a long time ago. Then The Guardian was subverted. Next was Democracy Now! Truthdig was shut down. Then The Intercept went bad. I felt that I noticed a pattern....
I suppose Substack has low enough circulation as to escape Their notice. We'll see how long that lasts.
For those who were alive during the war in Vietnam, imagine how much longer the war could have been continued if the CIA had had, back then, near total control over the media that it has today. I'm guessing the CIA learned some valuable lessons about media coverage in the mid-1960s, and they have worked assiduously to ensure they will never lose total control over the entire media landscape, like they did back then.
You don't have to guess anymore. Ex-CIA John Stockwell said exactly this. "We learned a lot of lessons during Vietnam. So did They, but they weren't the same lessons we learned." Hence the disappearance of the independent war correspondent.
John also said, "never once did we tell the truth. Never once did we say, let's tell the truth this time just to cross them up." Back then they weren't allowed to plant stories in the USA. So they would plant them overseas where the US media might copy them. I am told that this changed under Obama and they now may operate everywhere.
Here’s what you need to know about the Guardian:
June 2013: Snowden revelations published
https://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/nov/01/snowden-nsa-files-surveillance-revelations-decoded
Feb 2014: Guardian’s Computers based in by agents of the UK govt, prompted by instructions of Langley
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/01/edward-snowden-gchq-visit-guardian-destroy-computers
Dec 2014: Guardian editor who dared to publish Snowden revelations is sent packing:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/dec/10/alan-rusbridger-stand-down-guardian-editor-in-chief
Thereafter, the Guardian turned into basically state-controlled media/propaganda mouthpiece. They champion imperialism, warmongering, rampant neoliberalism, and they publish what the five eyes briefs instruct them to, unquestioned and unedited as “news”. Even the Guardian’s columnists, which traditionally in a newspaper are the countervoice to the editorial line, are now thinly veiled court jesters of the state. It’s one endless barrage of state propaganda masquerading as independent news media.
Simple as that.
I clicked on the second link, and it's by Luke Harding--a key liar against Assange, so I wouldn't trust anything he said or wrote.
Lord knows that Luke Harding is a lying shit. So treat it as an admission against interest.
This cat knows how to read the news. May you always have Greenies and fresh water.
"Court jesters of the state". An apt description, Kudjoe.
The Guardian's double dealing in the matters of Julian Assange was enough to never let this whore of a rag near my inbox again.
This was the most outrageous attempt by any publication to fulfil its new found subservience to the almost fully subscribed media / propaganda deal in my lifetime. They are still making half-hearted overtures on Assange's behalf. Far too late. They are well past their 'Use by Date'. If you cannot attach the values of credibility, honestly and trust to a publication, it has no value at all and absolutely no chance of recovery.
They can never be trusted again and lead the charge as the most untrustworthy organisation in the world, yes, even compared to the US whores like CNN and The New Your Times.
And that is really saying something
I have placed their dirty double dealing on the same level as the Israeli owned US President Johnson with his recall of the supporting aircraft trying to save the USS Liberty from attack from Israel in 1967, together with the assassination of JFK by people he trusted, that worked for his country, and who owed him their loyalty.
I felt the same when Elizabeth Warren hosed Bernie Sanders. Traitors are worse than ordinary enemies.
Big government and big corporations are now indistinguishable. You cannot separate CNN from the CIA. You cannot separate Google from the NSA. You cannot separate Pfizer from the FDA.
Mussolini’s definition of fascism as the inextricable intertwining of government and corporate power is now reality. We are ruled by selected—not elected— legislators, by spymasters and secret police, by suits in corporate boardrooms, and by the Davos ruling class and their Ivy League toadies.
The role of media is to conduct an information war not only against Russia (or China or Iran), but against every critical thinker, against the very act of free thought, to repeatedly rape the human mind.
Democracy does not exist. How can democracy exist if the electorate is thoroughly propagandized and if all the truths that matter are classified?
Voting machines are black box computers with secret proprietary operating systems that untraceably produce pre-determined results that have nothing to do with a simple count of ballots.
The open-air concentration camps of the Palestinians serve as the ideal model of social organization. The open-air concentration camps in which we live—nation states—differ from those of the Palestinians only by size.
Our spouses, relatives, friends and neighbors are pod people.
“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” — Goethe
Have a nice day.
What's been built now is no different than what has been built in human civilization in the past, an unaccountable ruling class, and the rest, we serfs. The only real difference is now we have a more sophisticated propaganda media. This is a cyber-feudal age.
And weapons that could destroy the ecosystem of the planet for decades...
The kings don't care, they'll just move into their climate controlled bunker mansions or colonize Mars. (or so their aspirations seem to be)
Autocracies in the past used religion as their propaganda agency. It was equally effective though more labor intensive.
Agree. The unfortunate part is one can find valuable psychological wisdom and humanitarian values in the major religions, parallel with the use of said religions for political purposes. But you often have to separate the wheat from the chaff. Why I dislike some of the black and white thinking of today's secularists, and the almost fanatical animosity toward any religion (by some). It's not one or the other, like any system of thought, philosophies - one can find flaws or incompleteness, but also some valid truths.
Matt Taibbi’s article today exposing "Hamilton '68" is most instructive.
The process is as old as the hills. Sheriff Buford is a law enforcement official of Puddlewack County when it comes to arresting civil rights activists on bullshit charges, but a private citizen when he's attending the KKK Konvocation.
Was there ever a time when the media during a war, or build up to war, ever really challenged the powers that be? I remember during the build up to the Iraq war there were a few who were on Larry King. Joe Wilson challenged the yellow cake BS, but the CIA I think outed his wife as a CIA agent for his honesty. Scott Ritter was making the rounds and saying there were no weapons of mass destruction, and I think they got him too. Today they wouldn't allow people to go on TV and contest the lies of the good old USA. I don't recall any American newspaper challenging what the Obama administration did in Ukraine unless it was shrouded in propaganda. I don't think journalist feel safe in relating the truth, and I'm not so sure Americans even want to hear it. I think the left wing media also did themselves in during the Trump years. There is a very good video on the Grayzone with Mate and Blumenthal and commentary on what the hell happened to Amy Goodman and I think it was Max who said she sucked. I think many of the left so hated Trump no longer practiced independent journalism and they turned off many in their audience in defense of everything the democrats did. So now gratefully there is Substack.
Phil Donahue was the most popular host on television. He got fired for questioning the Iraq war and was never invited back by anyone. I suppose that taught TV hosts a lesson they never forgot.
Phil, Donahue, and I forgot all about that. Thanks for reminding me, and I it was MSNBC. A good reminder of how disgusting that channel is.
Geraldo Riviera, of all people, in the runup to the Second War On Iraq.
And yes, Geraldo was cast into Outer Darkness as a result. All of his other sins and omissions were ignored for years and he was even rewarded. It was when Geraldo he started questioning the things that matter to the people that matter that he was punished.
Thanks, I didn't realize that.
Loved this comment; beautifully written, especially this part: "Voting machines are black box computers with secret proprietary operating systems that untraceably produce pre-determined results that have nothing to do with a simple count of ballots."
A pundit wrote a book in 2004 called, "They Can't Cheat If It Isn't Close." Well, he was wrong, because all they have to do is shut down the system for anywhere from 12 hours to 12 days (like in Arizona 2022) and manufacture enough ballots to "win."
The way out of this trap is for the middle class to take responsibility for the shitty state of their nations, and to stop sitting down and expecting someone else to give us peace, prosperity, and honest elections.
John Pilger, yes. Just finished listening to Max Blumenthal report that Pilger told him that fake left alternative media Democracy Now! stopped having him on because one of their funders, the Lannan Foundation, didn't like him. Link: https://twitter.com/TheGrayzoneNews/status/1618310099860328448
The supposed left in the US are all throwing off the cloak and unabashedly championing warmongering. I mean these are people who have never championed the cause of poverty reduction or inequality reduction or even public education, to the degree that they champion warmongering.
So no surprise, they now cast out Pilger. He can’t be bought, or bowed. And is therefore of no use to them.
Years ago I used to watch Democracy Now! regularly. Even donated to the org. I even recall watching a young and upcoming Aaron Mate on the show. But wow, these last few years (or has it already been near a decade?) the show took a turn for the worse. Bought into the Russia gate propaganda - and in many cases, pushed the Establishment lines of propaganda without serious pushback - which should be the real task of good journalism.
"Bought into the Russia gate ..." or was it bought to sell it.
Hell, CBS News published a report on corruption in the Ukrainian military a few months ago. This should be something like "Newsflash! Water! Is Still Wet!" but instead CBS were forced to issue a sniveling, cringing apology.
I've seen more self-respect in a whipped dog.
Thank you for this excellent review of mainstream (and left-leaning) journalism's downward trajectory. The views published in 2014 would be stark heresy today. The tsunami of propaganda that arrived in early 2022, together with the broad success of that propaganda in persuading Americans that Russia is a hell-gate swarming with bloodthirsty demons, demonstrate the strategy of hybrid warfare. In which it is as important to keep control of public opinion as it is to control battlefield territory.
There has been war propaganda going back a long time (think Randolph Hearst) but what we're experiencing today, with the application of social media, sophisticated algorithms for audience targeting, and machine learning tools to refine the propaganda along the way -- this is something radically new. I've seen plenty of propaganda in my 68 years, but what I've see in the past year is truly astonishing. Newspapers that used to allow some space for dissent are now closed up tighter than a vault. And there is no distinction between news reporting and opinion; everything that should be simple news is saturated with opinion (anti-Russia, naturally). And what's astonishing is that 99.44% of the readers are eating it up like ice cream.
Caitlin, keep up the good work. Because we are in a dark place now.
Excellent article, as always. It also shows how many prefer to being sheep, lambs to the slaughter, when it comes to information.
But then again, how large a proportion of the population has the ability to garner the necessary information, given that many have to work two jobs, long hours, and if they are married, both work?
The current economic situation seems to me apt to continue this trend, to keep people too tired to get the information, and too tired to care. The movie Gladiator, where the senators talk about the "Roman masses" hit the nail on the head, when they noted that the Roman Emperor bringing back the games in the coliseum would keep people distracted. The same now, with sports, and media entertainment.
More importantly, those colossal games transmitted Roman values through emotional investment and performance. One could say the same about the modern Olympics as a bread-and-circus for the Westphalian empire, or any other high culture.
The complete capture of western journalism by the 'intelligence' agencies has been truly detrimental to freedom for the world.
This is vitally important work, so please keep focused on it. When people are exposed to this, they get it and get pissed off.
There is no better illustration or validation of the features of Orwell than how the media has erased prior coverage on Ukraine and completely not only ignored or revised, but re-written history.
The amazing thing is that it's all right out there in the open - they haven't yet learned how to completely memory hole reality and history - and yet it is still ignored and denied.
One big problem, though, is that, to my generation, Orwell was a hero. To this generation, he's unknown or some privileged white guy.
11.12.2001 – By Hugh Sidney – Time Magazine
‘The rumor that raced through Washington last week of an atom bomb someplace in the city being readied for the next terrorist atrocity had a familiar ring to me.
In late July 1961, President Kennedy, just back from the grim Vienna summit with Khrushchev, asked me to dinner in Palm Beach. After daiquiris and Frank Sinatra records on the patio, his three guests and I gathered around the table for fish-in-a-bag, a White House recipe. Between lusty bites, Kennedy told the story of Khrushchev's anger over West Berlin, the island of freedom in the Soviet empire's East Germany. "We have a bustling communist enclave just four blocks from the White House," I noted, meaning the Soviet embassy. Kennedy paused, fork between plate and mouth, and said, "You know, they have an atom bomb on the third floor of the embassy." Aware of JFK's love of spy stories, I said something like, "Sure, why not?"
No, Kennedy continued, it was his understanding that the Soviets had brought the components of an atomic device into the building in inspection-free diplomatic pouches and assembled it in the upstairs attic. "If things get too bad and war is inevitable," he said, "they will set it off and that's the end of the White House and the rest of the city." I laughed. Still suspending his bite of fish, Kennedy said, "That's what I'm told. Do you know something that I don't?" No sign of mirth. The conversation moved on.
Five years ago I was lecturing in Staunton, Va., and retold the story. In the question session, a man in the audience rose and said, "You may not believe that story about the bomb in the attic, but I do. I worked for 25 years at the Defense Intelligence Agency, and that was our understanding." And now I can hear Kennedy asking again, "Do you know something I don't?" ’
As mentioned by another commenter, they have been under the thumb of the security services since the Snowden leaks: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-09-11-how-the-uk-security-services-neutralised-the-countrys-leading-liberal-newspaper/
They've been under that thumb for at least four decades. What-his-face Gloria Van Der Bilt's son has been with the CNN since day one, and everybody knows he's a CIA sock puppet.
Edit: Anderson Cooper was the name I was looking for.
If you have been learning about Ukraine from the mainstream media only since the invasion, then you will conclude that ONLY Russia is responsible for this war because the Western mainstream media has been trying to erase the history of Ukraine since after the invasion.
There have been numerous historical incidents, as Caitlin points them out, when the Western media reported what would be considered “Russia propaganda” today. For example, many media organizations in the West had no problem calling out the Nazi ideology of the Azov battalion or reporting that the US had a big role in making the 2014 Maidan coup successful, but if you dare highlight these things today, you would be called a “Russian agent.”
If you think that the only trustful source for the global news is the Western media, then considering checking out what it had to say about Ukraine prior to the invasion.
I ALSO HAVE THE NEWSLETTER CALLED "THE GREAT AWAKENING" WHICH TALKS ABOUT THE CRISES WE COLLECTIVELY FACE. CHECK IT OUT.
https://awakes.substack.com
We have always been at war with Eastasia doncha know
Manufacturing Consent Media
"Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play"
"It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion"
Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda
We go into frenzies about cancelling people with basically evil ideas - because one opinion is as good as another - or, at the least, we must be forbearing because it can be the case of diamonds among the shit...or something. But free speech, in fact, belongs to the monied, which are consonant by some coincidence or miracle, with the powerful. This element can turn lies into truth, , and they do it all the time. I mention "miracle" because to construct actual Nazis and supporters in Ukraine as good and in fact more worthy in their objectives than are the Russians - does take some kind of black magic. Only actual democracy can counteract this sad truth. But we don't have it.
The decline of the Guardian, which I actually used to enjoy reading at the time of the Seamus Milne article cited, is emblematic of the changes that have taken place in our Western societies more generally over the last ten years. Thank God the independent media, and voices like Caitlin’s, have sprung up to fill the gap and continue to speak the truths that used to be sayable in the mainstream press, but are sayable no longer. I think the turning point for the Guardian was probably when Alan Rusbridger was paid a visit by the secret police with hammers to smash up every last one of his hard drives. To think that we say we live in the “free world”. Not free for us propagandized serfs, that’s for sure.
I gave up on US media a long time ago. Then The Guardian was subverted. Next was Democracy Now! Truthdig was shut down. Then The Intercept went bad. I felt that I noticed a pattern....
I suppose Substack has low enough circulation as to escape Their notice. We'll see how long that lasts.
For those who were alive during the war in Vietnam, imagine how much longer the war could have been continued if the CIA had had, back then, near total control over the media that it has today. I'm guessing the CIA learned some valuable lessons about media coverage in the mid-1960s, and they have worked assiduously to ensure they will never lose total control over the entire media landscape, like they did back then.
You don't have to guess anymore. Ex-CIA John Stockwell said exactly this. "We learned a lot of lessons during Vietnam. So did They, but they weren't the same lessons we learned." Hence the disappearance of the independent war correspondent.
John also said, "never once did we tell the truth. Never once did we say, let's tell the truth this time just to cross them up." Back then they weren't allowed to plant stories in the USA. So they would plant them overseas where the US media might copy them. I am told that this changed under Obama and they now may operate everywhere.
Funny, I keep reading and hearing about how things under Obama changed for the worse. Odd how that theme keeps recurring.
Now the CIA works inside media, and probably writes/approves every word that's said or written.
Allegedly the law was changed under his administration. I tried to read that law but couldn't understand it.