Tag Archives: Mainstream Media

Why America’s Major News-Media Must Change Their Thinking

Posted on by
Reply

By Eric Zuesse

Source: Strategic Culture Foundation

America’s ‘news’-media possess the mentality that characterizes a dictatorship, not a democracy. This will be documented in the linked-to empirical data which will be subsequently discussed. But, first, here is what will be documented by those data, and which will make sense of these data:

In a democracy, the public perceive their country to be improving, in accord with that nation’s values and priorities. Consequently, they trust their government, and especially they approve of the job-performance of their nation’s leader. In a dictatorship, they don’t. In a dictatorship, the government doesn’t really represent them, at all. It represents the rulers, typically a national oligarchy, an aristocracy of the richest 0.1% or even of only the richest 0.01%. No matter how much the government ‘represents’ the public in law (or “on paper”), it’s not representing them in reality; and, so, the public don’t trust their government, and the public’s job-rating of their national leader, the head-of-state, is poor, perhaps even more disapproval than approval. So, whereas in a democracy, the public widely approve of both the government and the head-of-state; in a dictatorship, they don’t.

In a dictatorship, the ‘news’-media hide reality from the public, in order to serve the government — not the public. But the quality of government that the regime delivers to its public cannot be hidden as the lies continually pile up, and as the promises remain unfulfilled, and as the public find that despite all of the rosy promises, things are no better than before, or are even becoming worse. Trust in such a government falls, no matter how much the government lies and its media hide the fact that it has been lying. Though a ‘democratic’ election might not retain in power the same leaders, it retains in power the same regime (be it the richest 0.1%, or the richest 0.01%, or The Party, or whatever the dictatorship happens to be). That’s because it’s a dictatorship: it represents the same elite of power-holding insiders, no matter what. It does not represent the public. That elite — whatever it is — is referred to as the “Deep State,” and the same Deep State can control more than one country, in which case there is an empire, which nominally is headed by the head-of-state of its leading country (this used to be called an “Emperor”), but which actually consists of an alliance between the aristocracies within all these countries; and, sometimes, the nominal leading country is actually being led, in its foreign policies, by wealthier aristocrats in the supposedly vassal nations. But no empire can be a democracy, because the residents in no country want to be governed by any foreign power: the public, in every land, want their nation to be free — they want democracy, no dictatorship at all, especially no dictatorship from abroad.

In order for the elite to change, a revolution is required, even if it’s only to a different elite, instead of to a democracy. So, if there is no revolution, then certainly it’s the same dictatorship as before. The elite has changed (and this happens at least as often as generations change), but the dictatorship has not. And in order to change from a dictatorship to a democracy, a revolution also is required, but it will have to be a revolution that totally removes from power the elite (and all their agents) who had been ruling. If this elite had been the nation’s billionaires and its centi-millionaires who had also been billionaire-class donors to political campaigns (such as has been proven to be the case in the United States), then those people, who until the revolution had been behind the scenes producing the bad government, need to be dispossessed of their assets, because their assets were being used as their weapons against the public, and those weapons need (if there is to be a democracy) to be transferred to the public as represented by the new and authentically democratic government. If instead the elite had been a party, then all of those individuals need to be banned from every sort of political activity in the future. But, in either case, there will need to be a new constitution, and a consequent new body of laws, because the old order (the dictatorship) no longer reigns — it’s no longer in force after a revolution. That’s what “revolution” means. It doesn’t necessarily mean “democratic,” but sometimes it does produce a democracy where there wasn’t one before. The idea that every revolution is democratic is ridiculous, though it’s often assumed in ‘news’-reports. In fact, coups (which the U.S. Government specializes in like no other) often are a revolution that replaces a democracy by a dictatorship (such as the U.S. Government did to Ukraine in 2014, for example, and most famously before that, did to Iran in 1953). (Any country that perpetrates a coup anywhere is a dictatorship over the residents there, just the same as is the case when any invasion and occupation of a country are perpetrated upon a country. The imposed stooges are stooges, just the same. No country that imposes coups and/or invasions/occupations upon any government that has not posed an existential threat against the residents of that perpetrating country, supports democracy; to the exact contrary, that country unjustifiably imposes dictatorships; it spreads its own dictatorship, which is of the imperialistic type, and any government that spreads its dictatorship is evil and needs to be replaced — revolution is certainly justified there.)

This is how to identify which countries are democracies, and which ones are not: In a democracy, the public are served by the government, and thus are experiencing improvement in their lives and consequently approve of the job-performance of their head-of-state, and they trust the government. But in a dictatorship, none of these things is true.

In 2014, a Japanese international marketing-research firm polled citizens in each of ten countries asking whether they approve or disapprove of the job-performance of their nation’s head-of-state, and Harvard then provided an English-translated version online for a few years, then eliminated that translation from its website; but, fortunately, the translation had been web-archived and so is permanent here (with no information however regarding methodology or sampling); and it shows the following percentages who approved of the job-performance of their President or other head-of-state in each of the given countries, at that time:

China (Xi)          90%

Russia (Putin)      87%

India (Modi)        86%

South Africa (Zuma) 70%

Germany (Merkel)    67%

Brazil (Roussef)    63%

U.S. (Obama)        62%

Japan (Abe)         60%

UK (Cameron)        55%

France (Hollande)   48%

In January 2018, the global PR firm Edelman came out with the latest in their annual series of scientifically polled surveys in more than two dozen countries throughout the world, tapping into, actually, some of the major criteria within each nation indicating whether or not the given nation is more toward the dictatorship model, or more toward the democracy model. The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer survey showed that “Trust in Government” (scored and ranked on page 39) was 44% in Russia, and is only 33% in the United States. Trust in Government is the highest in China: 84%. The U.S. and Russia are the nuclear super-powers; and the U.S. and China are the two economic super-powers; so, these are the world’s three leading powers; and, on that single measure of whether or not a country is democratic, China is the global leader (#1 of 28), Russia is in the middle (#13 of 28), and U.S. ranks at the bottom of the three, and near the bottom of the entire lot (#21 of 28). (#28 of 28 is South Africa, which, thus — clearly in retrospect — had a failed revolution when it transitioned out of its apartheid dictatorship. That’s just a fact, which cannot reasonably be denied, given this extreme finding. Though the nation’s leader, Zuma, was, according to the 2014 Japanese study, widely approved by South Africans, his Government was overwhelmingly distrusted. This distrust indicates that the public don’t believe that the head-of-state actually represents the Government. If the head-of-state doesn’t represent the Government, the country cannot possibly be a democracy: the leader might represent the people, but the Government doesn’t.)

When the government is trusted but the head-of-state is not, or vice-versa, there cannot be a functioning democracy. In other words: if either the head-of-state, or the Government, is widely distrusted, there’s a dictatorship at that time, and the only real question regarding it, is: What type of dictatorship is this?

These figures — the numbers reported here — contradict the ordinary propaganda; and, so, Edelman’s trust-barometer on each nation’s ‘news’-media (which are scored and ranked on page 40) might also be considered, because the natural question now is whether unreliable news-media might have caused this counter-intuitive (in Western countries) rank-order. However, a major reason why this media-trust-question is actually of only dubious relevance to whether or not the given nation is a democracy, is that to assume that it is, presumes that trust in the government can be that easily manipulated — it actually can’t. Media and PR can’t do that; they can’t achieve it. Here is a widespread misconception: Trust in government results not from the media but from a government’s having fulfilled its promises, and from the public’s experiencing and seeing all around themselves that they clearly have been fulfilled; and lying ‘news’-media can’t cover-up that reality, which is constantly and directly being experienced by the public.

However, even if trust in the ‘news’-media isn’t really such a thing as might be commonly hypothesized regarding trust in the government, here are those Edelman findings regarding the media, for whatever they’re worth regarding the question of democracy-versus-dictatorship: Trust in Media is the highest, #1, in China, 71%; and is 42% in #15 U.S.; and is 35% in #20 Russia. (A July 2017 Marist poll however found that only 30% of Americans trust the media. That’s a stunning 12% lower than the Edelman survey found.) In other words: Chinese people experience that what they encounter in their news-media becomes borne-out in retrospect as having been true, but only half of that percentage of Russians experience this; and U.S. scores nearer to Russia than to China on this matter. (Interestingly, Turkey, which scores #7 on trust-in-government, scores #28 on trust-in-media. Evidently, Turks find that their government delivers well on its promises, but that their ‘news’-media often deceive them. A contrast this extreme within the Edelman findings is unique. Turkey is a special case, regarding this.)

I have elsewhere reported regarding other key findings in that 2018 Edelman study.

According to all of these empirical findings, the United States is clearly not more of a democracy than it is a dictatorship. This particular finding from these studies has already been overwhelmingly (and even more so) confirmed in the world’s only in-depth empirical scientific study of whether or not a given country is or is not a “democracy”: This study (the classic Gilens and Page study) found, incontrovertibly, that the U.S. is a dictatorship — specifically an aristocracy, otherwise commonly called an “oligarchy,” and that it’s specifically a dictatorship by the richest, against the public.

Consequently, whenever the U.S. Government argues that it intends to “spread democracy” (such as it claims in regards to Syria, and to Ukraine), it is most-flagrantly lying — and any ‘news’-medium that reports such a claim without documenting (such as by linking to this article) its clear and already-proven falsehood (which is more fully documented here than has yet been done anywhere, since the Gilens and Page study is here being further proven by these international data), is no real ‘news’-medium at all, but is, instead, a propaganda-vehicle for the U.S. Government, a propaganda-arm of a dictatorship — a nation that has been overwhelmingly proven to be a dictatorship, not a democracy.

NYT: Don’t Be Progressive, Be a ‘Liberal’

Posted on by
1

By Jim Naureckas

Source: FAIR

A New York Times op-ed by political scientist (and former Bob Kerrey aide) Greg Weiner (7/13/18) may well be the New York Times–iest op-ed ever.

Its ostensible subject is why Democrats should call themselves “liberals” and not “progressives.” But in making that case, it hits most of the main points of the New York Times‘ ideology—one that has guided the paper since the late 19th century.

First and foremost, it’s a defense of the status quo. “The basic premise of liberal politics,” Weiner writes, “is the capacity of government to do good, especially in ameliorating economic ills.” But not too much good, mind you:  “A liberal can believe that government can do more good or less,” he stresses. Weiner draws a contrast with progressives: “Where liberalism seeks to ameliorate economic ills, progressivism’s goal is to eradicate them.”

So Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society is cited negatively as an example of “a progressive effort to remake society by eradicating poverty’s causes”—in the process supporting  “community action” and  financing the “political activism”—presented without explanation as a self-evident evil.  The explanation, presumably, is that the poor should remain passive as they remain poor, gratefully accepting the handouts that “alleviate” their plight, as “cutting checks,” as Weiner puts it, is “something government does competently.”

Coupled with this anxiety about “eradicating poverty’s causes” is the confident assurance that the truth is always somewhere in the middle. “Unlike liberalism, progressivism is intrinsically opposed to conservation,” Weiner warns:

Nothing structurally impedes compromise between conservatives, who hold that the accumulated wisdom of tradition is a better guide than the hypercharged rationality of the present, and liberals, because both philosophies exist on a spectrum.

Conservatives make better partners for liberals than progressives, because “one can debate how much to conserve.” But you can’t debate how much to progress, apparently: “Progressivism is inherently hostile to moderation because progress is an unmitigated good.”

In other words: Equality and justice, sure, but let’s not rush into things, is the “liberal’s” advice. He endorses “policies [that] develop gradually and command wide consensus—at least under normal circumstances.” (Progressives have an unnerving desire to “depress the accelerator.”)

Something that doesn’t change is the right wing of the left’s attraction to redbaiting. Weiner praises “the Cold War liberal who stood for social amelioration and against Soviet Communism,” a figure who “was often maligned by progressives.” Without coming out and accusing progressives of Stalinism, he describes progressives’ response to critics as “a passive-aggressive form of re-education,” one that “supersedes the rights of its opponents.” The example he gives of this is the “progressive indifference to the rights of those who oppose progressive policies in areas like sexual liberation”—an odd arena to cite, since the main “rights” that opponents of “sexual liberation” have demanded in recent years are the “right” of small businesses to discriminate against gay customers and the “right” to check the chromosome status of people who use public restrooms.

 

You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com  (Twitter:@NYTimes). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.

Freedom Rider: Syria and Press Propaganda

Posted on by
Reply

By Margaret Kimberly

Source: Black Agenda Report

“Trump protects himself with war as Democrats and the rest of the ruling elite support his militarism.”

It is difficult for Americans to find out what is happening in their country and around the world. That is because corporate media outlets have nearly complete control over what they see and hear and because those interests are closely allied with the state. The promise of the internet, the hoped for level playing field for communication and information gathering, is also under corporate control. It is now part of a well coordinated censorship effort and attack against left wing sites such as Black Agenda Report.

The lies which allowed the United States, France and Britain to attack Syria are presented without contradiction. The people with knowledge and expertise who can counter these narratives are disappeared from access to newspapers or television stations. The close relationship between the deep state, the corporate media, and the establishment elite at home and abroad continues without hindrance.

“British prime minister Theresa May refused to allow a parliamentary vote on the Syrian missile strike.”

Donald Trump may be labeled a fascist but he attacked Syria with the help of France and Britain. Apparently every leader of a “free world” country is also a fascist. They certainly behave that way as they trample on the rights of millions of people. Far from being the “civilized” nations that Trump referred to in his televised address, these three countries are among the most criminal that have ever existed. They all grew rich on the slave trade, indigenous genocides, the plantation economies in the Americas, and the theft of resources all over the world. Now they run roughshod over their own people. British prime minister Theresa May refused to allow a parliamentary vote on the Syrian missile strike and showed the hollowness of claims that hers is a democratic nation. The same can be said of her partners in crime.

France impoverished Haiti with nearly 100 years of theft, murdered Algerians in the streets of Paris and keeps its former African colonies financially dependent. Former president Nicolas Sarkozy took millions of dollars from Muammar Gaddafi and then had him murdered, just like a mob boss would do. Now they have connived with the help of press propagandists in all three countries to fool millions of people as they try to continue their gangsterish aggression against Syria.

“Sarkozy took millions of dollars from Muammar Gaddafi and then had him murdered, just like a mob boss would do.”

If even mediocre journalists were allowed to report freely on this issue the crime would be obvious. Consider the timeline of events. On March 4, former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter are poisoned with a chemical agent in Britain. The British government immediately blames Russia, which has no motive to harm a former spy they swapped eight years earlier. Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman arrives in London for an official visit on March 7. On March 12 French president Emmanuel Macron states that France will attack Syria if any chemical weapons are used there. The next day the Russian military claims to have evidence that a chemical attack will be carried out against Syrian civilians as a pretext for war. On March 16 France warns French journalists to leave Syria. Mohammed bin Salman arrives in Washington on March 19. On April 8 he goes to Paris for yet another official visit. That same day Saudi funded jihadist groups and the White Helmets, who were created by a British intelligence officer, claim that a chemical weapons attack occurred in the city of Douma. On April 14 the United States, France and Britain join in the missile strike.

“They have connived with the help of press propagandists in all three countries to fool millions of people.”

The aggressors are very transparent. The plot was carried out in the open. But because they have a compliant media behind them they have no reason to worry. No journalist asked why Sergei Skripal and his daughter are in effect held hostage and denied access to Russian officials as a treaty between the two countries demands. No one questions a strangely worded statement allegedly from Yulia Skripal but issued by the London Metropolitan Police in which she said she didn’t want help from her government or contact with her own relatives.

Why shouldn’t Mohammed bin Salman openly plan with presidents and prime ministers? Who will question him? The New York Times and MSNBC and the Washington Post and the BBC and AFP certainly will not. We will probably never know the name of the person or persons who poisoned the Skripals but common sense tells us that the intended murders were ordered by someone with a motive to create a pretext for war.

“The plot was carried out in the open.”

The actual air strike was limited because of back channel negotiations between these countries. The danger may look like Kabuki theater but no one should assume that the peril is over. The criminals in Washington, London and Paris may yet go too far and provoke a major hot war.

All three heads of state have their own concerns. Macron was put into power to kill off his country’s welfare state and any remnants of left politics. May is struggling with Brexit negotiations and cruel austerity measures that have made her so unpopular she actively avoids voters. Trump may be impeached but he protects himself with war as Democrats and the rest of the ruling elite support his militarism.

Regardless of individual rationales these three people pose a threat to the entire planet. They are aided and abetted by corporate media who act as scribes and present war propaganda as fact. The Nuremberg trials after World War II established that planning aggressive war is a crime and so is the propaganda that promotes it. May, Trump and Macron are guilty but so-called journalists are as well. The criminals could not commit their dirty deeds without their help.

 

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com . Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

On the Criminal Referral of Comey, Clinton et al: Will the Constitution Hold and the Media Continue to Suppress the Story?

Posted on by
Reply

Ray McGovern reports on a major development in the Russia-gate story that has been ignored by corporate media: a criminal referral to the DOJ against Hillary Clinton, James Comey and others, exposing yet again how established media suppresses news it doesn’t like–about as egregious an example of unethical journalism as there is. 

By Ray McGovern

Source: Consortium News

Wednesday’s criminal referral by 11 House Republicans of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as several former and serving top FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials is a giant step toward a Constitutional crisis.

Named in the referral to the DOJ for possible violations of federal law are: Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey; former Attorney General Loretta Lynch; former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe; FBI Agent Peter Strzok; FBI Counsel Lisa Page; and those DOJ and FBI personnel “connected to” work on the “Steele Dossier,” including former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente.

With no attention from corporate media, the referral was sent to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah John Huber.  Sessions appointed Huber months ago to assist DOJ Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz.  By most accounts, Horowitz is doing a thoroughly professional job.  As IG, however, Horowitz lacks the authority to prosecute; he needs a U.S. Attorney for that.  And this has to be disturbing to the alleged perps.

This is no law-school case-study exercise, no arcane disputation over the fine points of this or that law. Rather, as we say in the inner-city, “It has now hit the fan.”  Criminal referrals can lead to serious jail time.  Granted, the upper-crust luminaries criminally “referred” enjoy very powerful support.  And that will come especially from the mainstream media, which will find it hard to retool and switch from Russia-gate to the much more delicate and much less welcome “FBI-gate.”

As of this writing, a full day has gone by since the letter/referral was reported, with total silence so far from The New York Times and The Washington Post and other big media as they grapple with how to spin this major development. News of the criminal referral also slipped by Amy Goodman’s non-mainstream DemocracyNow!, as well as many alternative websites.

The 11 House members chose to include the following egalitarian observation in the first paragraph of the letter conveying the criminal referral: “Because we believe that those in positions of high authority should be treated the same as every other American, we want to be sure that the potential violations of law outlined below are vetted appropriately.” If this uncommon attitude is allowed to prevail at DOJ, it would, in effect, revoke the de facto “David Petraeus exemption” for the be-riboned, be-medaled, and well-heeled.

Stonewalling

Meanwhile, the patience of the chairmen of House committees investigating abuses at DOJ and the FBI is wearing thin at the slow-rolling they are encountering in response to requests for key documents from the FBI.  This in-your-face intransigence is all the more odd, since several committee members have already had access to the documents in question, and are hardly likely to forget the content of those they know about.  (Moreover, there seems to be a good chance that a patriotic whistleblower or two will tip them off to key documents being withheld.)

The DOJ IG, whose purview includes the FBI, has been cooperative in responding to committee requests for information, but those requests can hardly include documents of which the committees are unaware.

Putting aside his partisan motivations, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) was unusually blunt two months ago in warning of legal consequences for officials who misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in order to enable surveillance on Trump and his associates. Nunes’s words are likely to have sent chills down the spine of those with lots to hide: “If they need to be put on trial, we will put them on trial,” he said.”The reason Congress exists is to oversee these agencies that we created.”

Whether the House will succeed in overcoming the resistance of those criminally referred and their many accomplices and will prove able to exercise its Constitutional prerogative of oversight is, of course, another matter — a matter that matters.

And Nothing Matters More Than the Media

The media will be key to whether this Constitutional issue is resolved.  Largely because of Trump’s own well earned reputation for lying, most Americans are susceptible to slanted headlines like this recent one — “Trump escalates attacks on FBI …” — from an article in The Washington Post, commiserating with the treatment accorded fired-before-retired prevaricator McCabe and the FBI he (dis)served.

Nor is the Post above issuing transparently clever warnings — like this one in a lead article on March 17: “Some Trump allies say they worry he is playing with fire by taunting the FBI. ‘This is open, all-out war. And guess what? The FBI’s going to win,’ said one ally, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. ‘You can’t fight the FBI. They’re going to torch him.’” [sic]

Mind-Boggling Criminal Activity

What motivated the characters now criminally “referred” is clear enough from a wide variety of sources, including the text messages exchange between Strzok and Page.  Many, however, have been unable to understand how these law enforcement officials thought they could get away with taking such major liberties with the law.

None of the leaking, unmasking, surveillance, “opposition research,” or other activities directed against the Trump campaign can be properly understood, if one does not bear in mind that it was considered a sure thing that Secretary Clinton would become President, at which point illegal and extralegal activities undertaken to help her win would garner praise, not prison.  The activities were hardly considered high-risk, because candidate Clinton was sure to win.

But she lost.

Comey himself gives this away in the embarrassingly puerile book he has been hawking, “A Higher Loyalty” — which amounts to a pre-emptive move motivated mostly by loyalty-to-self, in order to obtain a Stay-Out-of-Jail card.  Hat tip to Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone for a key observation, in his recent article, “James Comey, the Would-Be J. Edgar Hoover,” about what Taibbi deems the book’s most damning passage, where Comey discusses his decision to make public the re-opening of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

Comey admits, “It is entirely possible that, because I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president, my concern about making her an illegitimate president by concealing the re-started investigation bore greater weight than it would have if the election appeared closer or if Donald Trump were ahead in the polls.”

The key point is not Comey’s tortured reasoning, but rather that Clinton was “sure to be the next president.”  This would, of course, confer automatic immunity on those now criminally referred to the Department of Justice.  Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men — even very tall men.  One wag claimed that the “Higher” in “A Higher Loyalty” refers simply to the very tall body that houses an outsized ego.

I think it can be said that readers of Consortiumnews.com may be unusually well equipped to understand the anatomy of FBI-gate as well as Russia-gate.  Listed below chronologically are several links that might be viewed as a kind of “whiteboard” to refresh memories.  You may wish to refer them to any friends who may still be confused.

2017

Russia-gate’s Mythical ‘Heroes’ June 6, 2017

The Democratic Money Behind Russia-gate Oct. 29, 2017

The Foundering Russia-gate ‘Scandal’ Dec. 13, 2017 

What Did Hillary Clinton Know? Dec. 25, 2017

2018

The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate Jan. 11, 2018

Will Congress Face Down the Deep State? Jan. 30, 2018

Nunes Memo Reports Crimes at Top of FBI and DOJ Feb. 2, 2018

‘This is Nuts’: Liberals Launch ‘Largest Mobilization in History’ in Defense of Russiagate Probe Feb. 9, 2018

Nunes: FBI and DOJ Perps Could Be Put on Trial Feb. 19, 2018

‘Progressive’ Journalists Jump the Shark on Russia-gate March 7, 2018

Intel Committee Rejects Basic Underpinning of Russiagate March 14, 2018

McCabe: A War on (or in) the FBI? March 18, 2018

Former CIA Chief Brennan Running Scared March 19, 2018

 

The New York Times takes on the social media “hordes”

Posted on by
1

By Andre Damon

Source: WSWS.org

Since late 2016, the New York Times, working together with the US intelligence agencies and the Democratic Party, has been engaged in a campaign to promote internet censorship in the guise of targeting “fake news” and “Russian propaganda.”

In waging this campaign, the Times’ motives are both political and pecuniary. Speaking for a ruling elite that sees the growth of social opposition on all sides and expects far worse, the Times has promoted censorship to remove opportunities for the working class to organize outside the framework of official politics.

In addition, the Times, for the most part a clearinghouse for staid and predigested state propaganda, is seeking to carve back market share it has lost to online publications that carry out genuine investigative journalism and oppose the lies peddled by the US government and media.

In recent months, this campaign has entered a new and malignant phase. Increasingly dropping the pretext of “Russian meddling,” the Times is now directly attacking its main target: the fact that the internet, and in particular social media, helps empower the population to access oppositional sources of news and have their voices heard in public.

Among the Times’ latest broadsides against freedom of expression is an article by its “State of the Art” columnist Farhad Manjoo headlined “For Two Months, I Got My News From Print Newspapers. Here’s What I Learned.” The piece, supposedly written as a first-hand account of a journalist turning off social media and only reading the news from print newspapers, is—in an unusually literal sense—a piece of lying propaganda from beginning to end.

As the Columbia Journalism Review pointed out, during the period in which he supposedly stopped using social media, Manjoo managed to post on Twitter virtually every day. “Manjoo remained a daily, active Twitter user throughout the two months he claims to have gone cold turkey, tweeting many hundreds of times, perhaps more than 1,000,” the Review pointed out.

Manjoo’s blatant falsifying of his own social media use is hardly the most sinister aspect of his piece. However, it expresses something essential about the Times’ notion of “reporting”: its writers feel they can say anything and get away with it, so long as their claims conform to the dictates of the establishment and the intelligence agencies whose interests determine what is and what is not reported in the US media.

The columnist’s dishonesty about his own activities provides much needed context for his article as a whole, which is little more than a long-form denunciation of a reading public that feels compelled to obtain its news from sources not massaged by the CIA-vetted hacks at the New York Times. In the process, Manjoo gives his unqualified blessings to the pronouncements of his own publication and castigates anyone who would question them as a member of an ignorant “herd,” whose opinions ought to be suppressed.

During his pretended sojourn into the desert of print media, Manjoo said he learned to value having the news spoon-fed to him by “professionals,” without having to worry about whether what he was reading was true or false.

As he puts it, “It takes professionals time to figure out what happened, and how it fits into context… This was the surprise blessing of the newspaper. I was getting news a day old, but in the delay between when the news happened and when it showed up on my front door, hundreds of experienced professionals had done the hard work for me.”

He continues, “Now I was left with the simple, disconnected and ritualistic experience of reading the news, mostly free from the cognitive load of wondering whether the thing I was reading was possibly a blatant lie.”

Here, we assume, the reader is supposed to heave a sigh of relief. How soothing not to have to think for oneself! The author’s surrender of his critical faculties supposedly did wonders for his health and general well being. Not only did he become “less anxious,” but he had the time to “take up pottery” and “became a more attentive husband and father”! Wonderful! And so much more wonderful if he hadn’t actually made up the story about his abstinence from social media.

Manjoo’s condemnation of critical thinking aside, the real core of the piece is a scathing denunciation of the public, which he describes as a “herd” and a “crowd,” and which, moreover, is empowered to express its rotten opinions by the sinister power of social media.

“Avoid social [media],” he declares. “Technology allows us to burrow into echo chambers, exacerbating misinformation and polarization and softening up society for propaganda.”

The statements posted by the “online hordes” are not “quite news, and more like a never-ending stream of commentary, one that does more to distort your understanding of the world than illuminate it,” Manjoo adds. “On social networks … People don’t just post stories—they post their takes on stories, often quoting key parts of a story to underscore how it proves them right.”

People are posting “their takes on stories!” The horror! Instead of just consuming the news as worked over by the Times, complete with big lies (“weapons of mass destruction”) and small ones (its technology columnist giving up Twitter for two months), social media allows users to critically examine the stories they read. In other words, the internet allows the public to bypass the monopoly of “professional” falsifiers and “gatekeepers” like Manjoo, Judith Miller, Thomas Friedman and the like.

The author’s only hope is that “the government” and “Facebook” will soon “fix” this problem. The clear implication is that once social media is “fixed,” the “herd,” “crowd,” and “hordes” will no longer be allowed to pollute cyberspace by questioning the pronouncements of the New York Times. Manjoo’s self-righteous pontifications, worthy of Polonius (if Polonius were also a liar), would be comical if they were not so ominous. Faced with a growing wave of social struggles, the ruling elite is preparing censorship on a massive scale. Having succeeded in dramatically reducing traffic to left-wing web sites, the technology giants and intelligence agencies are proceeding to the next phase: censoring all expressions of social opposition, in particular by the working class, on social media.

American Public Troubled by ‘Deep State’

Posted on by
Reply

By John V. Walsh

Source: ConsortiumNews.com

“Public Troubled by Deep State” is the headline that the Monmouth University Polling Institute tags to its recent poll.  Acknowledging that polling about the term “Deep State” is problematic because “few Americans (13%) are very familiar with the term ‘Deep State,’” the pollsters at Monmouth defined the term as follows for their interviewees: “The term Deep State refers to the possible existence of a group of unelected government and military officials who secretly manipulate or direct national policy.”

Then they asked whether such a group exists.

Monmouth reports the results as follows: “Nearly 3-in-4 (74%) say they believe this type of apparatus exists in Washington. This includes 27% who say it definitely exists and 47% who say it probably exists. Only 1-in-5 say it does not exist (16% probably not and 5% definitely not).”

These opinions do not follow a partisan divide. The report explains that belief in the Deep State’s existence “comes from more than 7-in-10 Americans in each partisan group, although Republicans (31%) and independents (33%) are somewhat more likely than Democrats (19%) to say that the Deep State definitely exists.”

This leads the director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, Patrick Murray, to volunteer: “We usually expect opinions on the operation of government to shift depending on which party is in charge. But there’s an ominous feeling by Democrats and Republicans alike that a ‘Deep State’ of unelected operatives are pulling the levers of power.”

In addition, there are some significant but not drastic racial and ethnic differences on this question. Says the report, “Americans of black, Latino and Asian backgrounds (35%) are more likely than non-Hispanic whites (23%) to say that the Deep State definitely exists.”

The report also asked about government surveillance of the citizenry and here again there is widespread concern: Fully 8-in-10 believe that the U.S. government currently monitors or spies on the activities of American citizens, including a majority (53%) who say this activity is widespread and another 29% who say such monitoring happens but is not widespread. Just 14% say this monitoring does not happen at all. There are no substantial partisan differences in these results.

This too causes the director of the Institute to be concerned.  “This is a worrisome finding. The strength of our government relies on public faith in protecting our freedoms, which is not particularly robust. And it’s not a Democratic or Republican issue. These concerns span the political spectrum,” says director Murray.

We can add to the concern about a manipulative unelected apparatus at work in the government the widespread distrust of the press summarized in this recent Gallup/Knight poll:

“*Today, 66% of Americans say most news media do not do a good job of separating fact from opinion. In 1984, 42% held this view.

“*Less than half of Americans, 44%, say they can think of a news source that reports the news objectively.

“*On a multiple-item media trust scale with scores ranging from a low of zero to a high of 100, the average American scores a 37.”

This paints a pretty grim picture of trust in both our government and our media.  Perhaps “Deep Media” should be a term added to “Deep State.”

But perhaps it is cause for optimism. It seems that people are waking up and thinking for themselves. This is, perhaps, good news for those who are trying to end U.S. wars being ginned up by the Deep State.

 

John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com

Spies, Lies and War Propaganda: The Making of Another Conspiracy Theory

Posted on by
Reply

By Timothy Alexander Guzman

Source: Silent Crow News

What is insane is how Western governments and the mainstream media (MSM) is that they can tell you that they have the proof that their enemies committed an act of war, or how they interfere in the affairs of other countries but cannot release the evidence due to national security issues or they just outright know in their gut instincts that their enemies did whatever it is that they did, and then they expect us to believe them. While we in the alternative media can show you mountains of evidence including government documents, photos, quotes from world leaders, reports and analysis from respected journalists and researchers from all over the world who represent the facts, yet we are called conspiracy theorists by the same Western governments and the MSM.

Russia is now accused of poisoning another former Russian spy, this time it’s Sergei Skripal (the late Alexander Litvinenko was the last victim) and his daughter Yulia who was living in the Salisbury section of the UK with a military-grade nerve agent produced by..drum roll, please… Russia! How convenient, especially during a time when the U.S. and its allies accuse the Syrian government of launching chemical attacks on civilians, but in reality (which has been proven time and time again) it was the US-backed terrorists or who they call the “rebel forces” who launched the chemical attacks. It’s amazing how Western governments and the MSM constantly link their adversaries to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). For example, The New York Times published an article on February 27th titled ‘U.N. Links North Korea to Syria’s Chemical Weapons Program’ suggesting that North Korea shipped supplies to Syria to produce chemical weapons due to an investigation by United Nations:

North Korea has been shipping supplies to the Syrian government that could be used in the production of chemical weapons, United Nations experts contend.

The evidence of a North Korean connection comes as the United States and other countries have accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons on civilians, including recent attacks on civilians in the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta using what appears to have been chlorine gas.

The supplies from North Korea include acid-resistant tiles, valves and thermometers, according to a report by United Nations investigators. North Korean missile technicians have also been spotted working at known chemical weapons and missile facilities inside Syria, according to the report, which was written by a panel of experts who looked at North Korea’s compliance with United Nations sanctions

O.K. So now North Korea is shipping supplies to help the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad to produce chemical weapons? What is interesting about the accusation is that The New York Times reviewed the report, but would not release it themselves. The authors and other members of the UN security council would also not comment on the report:

The possible chemical weapons components were part of at least 40 previously unreported shipments by North Korea to Syria between 2012 and 2017 of prohibited ballistic missile parts and materials that could be used for both military and civilian purposes, according to the report, which has not been publicly released but which was reviewed by The New York Times.

Neither the report’s authors nor members of the United Nations Security Council who have seen it would comment, and neither would the United States’ mission to the international agency. It is unclear when, or even whether, the report will be released

Of course they are not even sure if they would release the report to the public because it would most likely be criticized by the alternative media who would view it as a propaganda plot to demonize Kim Jung-Un. We can call The New York Times article for what it really is, and that is fake news. North Korea would not get involved in a Middle East conflict because it would not be in their interest, politically or economically. It would give the US and South Korean governments more reasons to threaten North Korea with a military strike if something like that was true, but it’s not. Kim Jung -Un does not have a relationship with ISIS and other terrorist groups who have been launching chemical attacks throughout Syria since the start of the conflict, the U.S. and its allies do. So it’s ludicrous accusation.

On March 12th, British Prime Minister Theresa May spoke at the House of Commons about the Skripal incident in Salisbury, UK:

It is now clear that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. This is part of a group of nerve agents known as ‘Novichok’.

Based on the positive identification of this chemical agent by world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down; our knowledge that Russia has previously produced this agent and would still be capable of doing so; Russia’s record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations; and our assessment that Russia views some defectors as legitimate targets for assassinations; the Government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible for the act against Sergei and Yulia Skripal

The case of Sergei Skripal is becoming another farfetched conspiracy theory just like the Alexander Litvinenko case. If you remember Alexander Litvinenko who allegedly drank a cup tea at a business meeting with two other Russians (who were charged with his murder) which contained a fatal dose of Polonium-210. The editorial director of Antiwar.com, Justin Raimondo wrote an article on the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko titled ‘The Craziest Conspiracy Theory of Them All: The British government’s report on the death of Alexander Litvinenko reads like a bad thriller’:

To those of us who grew up during the cold war years, it’s just like old times again: Russian plots to subvert the West and poison our precious bodily fluids are apparently everywhere. Speaking of poisoning plots: the latest Russkie conspiracy – and the most imaginative by far – was the alleged assassination by poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko , a former agent of the Russian intelligence services who fled to the West to become a professional anti-Russian propagandist and conspiracy theorist with a talent for the improbable. According to his fantastic worldview, the many terrorist attacks that have occurred in Russia have all been committed by … Vladimir Putin. Aside from championing the Chechen Islamo-terrorists who actually committed these crimes, Litvinenko’s stock-in-trade was an elaborate conspiracy theory in which he regularly accused Putin of blowing up Russian apartment buildings and murdering schoolchildren and then diverting attention from his own nefarious plots by blaming those lovable Chechens. Not very believable – unless one is predisposed to believe anything, so long as it casts discredit on those satanic Russians.

The conspiracy theory promulgated by the British government – and now memorialized in this official report – surpasses anything the deceased fantasist might have come up with. According to the Brits, Litvinenko was poisoned on British soil whilst imbibing a cup of tea spiked with a massive dose of radioactive polonium-210 – and, since Russia is a prime source of this rare substance, and since the Russians were supposedly out to get Litvinenko, the FSB – successor to the KGB – is named as the “probable” culprit.

Looking at the report, one has to conclude that they don’t make propaganda the way they used to: the certitude of, say, a J. Edgar Hoover or a Robert Welch has given way to the tepid ambiguity of Lord Robert Owen, the author of this report, whose verdict of “probably” merely underscores the paucity of what passes for evidence in this case

Raimondo made his case with a common-sense approach to the conspiracy theory:

To begin with, if the Russians wanted to off Litvinenko, why would they poison him with a substance that left a radioactive trail traceable from Germany to Heathrow airport – and, in the process, contaminating scores of hotel rooms, offices, planes, restaurants, and homes? Why not just put a bullet through his head? It makes no sense.

But then conspiracy theories don’t have to make sense: they just have to take certain assumptions all the way to their implausible conclusions. If one starts with the premise that Putin and the Russians are a Satanic force capable of anything, and incompetent to boot, then it’s all perfectly “logical” – in the Bizarro World, at any rate.

The idea that Litvinenko was a dangerous opponent of the Russian government who had to be killed because he posed a credible threat to the existence of the regime is laughable: practically no one inside Russia knew anything about him, and as for his crackpot “truther” theories about how Putin was behind every terrorist attack ever carried out within Russia’s borders – to assert that they had any credence outside of the Western media echo chamber is a joke. So there was no real motive for the FSB to assassinate him, just as there is none for the FBI to go after David Ray Griffin

To assassinate Litvinenko with a dose of radioactive polonium-210 in his cup of tea is an incredibly ridiculous allegation by both the British and American establishment. Another anti-Putin crusader is the Hudson Institute’s own senior fellow, David Satter who wrote ‘The Russian State of Murder Under Putin’ in 2016 and said:

It is now imperative not only for the West but for the future of Russia that the Litvinenko inquiry set a precedent for the objective international review of the cases of political terrorism in Russia. These include the bloody sieges at Moscow’s Dubrovka theater in 2002 and at a school in Beslan in 2004, the assassinations of journalists and opposition leaders and, above all, the deadly 1999 apartment bombings that helped bring Mr. Putin to power.

In the Litvinenko case, the alleged assassins, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, were accused by the British inquiry of slipping polonium-210 into Litvinenko’s tea. A radioactive trail was left all over London. Traces of polonium were found in Mr. Lugovoi’s hotel room, at a sushi restaurant where Litvinenko dined with the two men, and on the seat occupied by Mr. Lugovoi on a British Airlines flight from Moscow to London

Satter’s view concerning Putin’s killing machine apparatus that uses chemical weapons to silence its opposition is pure nonsense. There are many ways to murder an individual if they really wanted to, so why would they use ‘Novichok’ a nerve agent that can be traced back to Russia? Novichok was produced in the former Soviet Union and then in Russia until 1993.

So who would benefit from such an attack? Putin himself? not really, it would somehow benefit the Anglo-American establishment by continuing the demonization of the Russian government. Sergei Skripal, was a former Russian military intelligence colonel who was found guilty of passing state secrets to the U.K. and was sentenced to 13 years in prison back in 2006. If Putin really wanted Skripal dead, he would have had him executed while in custody. The Western powers including the U.S., the U.K., Germany and France want to maintain their “International Order” as Prime Minister May had mentioned in a statement she gave last Monday:

“The UK does not stand alone in confronting Russian aggression. In the last 24 hours I have spoken to President (Donald) Trump, Chancellor (Angela) Merkel and President (Emmanuel) Macron. We have agreed to cooperate closely in responding to this barbaric act and to co-ordinate our efforts to stand up for the rules based international order which Russia seeks to undermine”

So Who Could Have Possibly Poisoned Sergei Skripal and his Daughter?

On March 4th, 2018 Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a public bench by a shopping centre in Salisbury by a doctor and nurse who happened to be passing by (what are the chances that happening?). It was soon discovered by a medical staff at the Salisbury District Hospital that Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a nerve agent. They both remain in critical condition. Three police officers investigating the scene were also hospitalized. The poison discovered on the Skripal family was apparently ‘Novichok.’ According to a New York Times report titled ‘In Poisoning of Sergei Skripal, Russian Ex-Spy, U.K. Sees Cold War Echoes’ basically says Russia is the culprit:

With its echoes of stranger-than-fiction plots from the Cold War and earlier episodes from the Putin era, the case threatens to worsen the already tense relations between the West and a Russian government that has annexed Crimea, destabilized eastern Ukraine and propped up the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, all while being accused of disrupting elections and sowing discord within Western democracies.

“This is a form of soft war that Russia is now waging against the West,” said Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the British Parliament. British officials have accused the Kremlin of only one assassination on British soil in recent years, but the Russian government has been suspected of being behind numerous other mysterious deaths in Britain and elsewhere.

In Mr. Litvinenko’s case, the weapon is believed to have been a poisoned teapot later found to contain polonium 210, a radioactive isotope; his death was slow and agonizing

Russia along with several other nations are not following the globalist’s blueprint because they want their sovereignty respected and therefore it is seen by the West as a threat to its World Order. If the Russian agents did poison Sergei Skripal (which is obviously, a false accusation) with a deadly military-grade nerve agent that can spread throughout the Salisbury community and traced back to Russia, then they must be the most idiotic and most incompetent intelligence agency on planet earth. There is no evidence of the Russian government being involved in Mr. Skripal’s poisoning, in fact, it sounds like a false-flag attack by using Mr. Skripal to blame Russia. Any of the Western intelligence agencies including MI6 or the CIA could have obtained the nerve agent or something close to it in order to poison Skripal. It is also most likely that we would never find out who actually committed the crimes against Skripal and Litvinenko, but according to the West, its Russia. The Alexander Litvinenko story told by the British government and the MSM (in this case, BBC News) is like a bad thriller and so does the Sergei Skripal case. Both cases will most likely make it to the big screen in the future since many of films produced by Hollywood is based on propaganda against America’s enemies including Russia (many Hollywood films, especially since the Cold War usually portray Russia as the enemy) and recently, North Korea made it to the big screen with the 2013 film, ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ about a North Korean terrorist organization who takes over the White House (yes, another really bad thriller). Rest assured, the Sergey Skripal case as well as the murder of Alexander Litvinenko will most likely make its way to the big screen someday.

The UK government along with its Western partners are spreading far-fetched conspiracy theories, but the MSM will cover their lies and deceit and tell you that it is the alternative media who needs to be censored because we are the ones who are spreading conspiracy theories and fake news. The American and the British governments accused Saddam Hussein of having “weapons of mass destruction” which as we all know, was not only a lie, but a lie that destroyed Iraq. Sooner or later, the facts of the Sergei Skripal case will show the world who are the liars and the conspiracy theorists really are, and once again, the Anglo-American establishment and its MSM representatives would lose even more credibility. In my opinion, they lost all of their credibility a very long time ago.

Freedom Rider: Vladimir Putin and war propaganda

Posted on by
2

By Margaret Kimberley

Source: Intrepid Report

Vladimir Putin is blamed for everything that goes awry in Europe and the United States. In the United Kingdom his country was even blamed for bad weather as tabloid headlines screamed about icy Russian winds. The Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s Electoral College victory are said to be the result of Putin’s interference, even though the machinations of American oligarch Robert Mercer are most responsible for both outcomes.

When high level vitriol is shared by the corporate media and the American political duopoly and then repeated ad nauseum it is clear that the target will be subjected to more than mere slander. Such an attack carried out against a foreign leader is proof that the United States is ready for war by other means if not outright military conflict.

Russia has been a target ever since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. In its weakened state it was a victim of its own rapacious oligarch class and aside from having a nuclear arsenal was no match for its former rival. Bill Clinton openly dispatched operatives to meddle in the 1996 election and ensured that Boris Yeltsin kept the country ripe for plunder.

But in a supreme irony of history Yeltsin chose Vladimir Putin to succeed him. He took on the worst of the thieves and in so doing made himself an enemy of forces who hoped to pull his country apart. But he was not antagonistic to the United States. Libya might have been saved if Russia had used its United Nations Security Council veto against the no fly zone resolution in 2011. Only when the United States installed a fascist, anti-Russian government in Ukraine did Putin get the message that America should not be accommodated.

Putin stopped going along to get along but the American appetite for conquest is unstoppable. Syria is the place where Russia drew a line in the sand—and successfully, too. But the United States and NATO won’t admit defeat and continue the suffering of the Syrian people.

Now the drama surrounding the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergie Skripal in the U.K. has ensnared the Russian government. It is far-fetched to think that in the midst of an election campaign and the upcoming world soccer cup in Russia that Putin would decide to attack a former double agent he had allowed to go free eight years ago.

Prime Minister Theresa May is like her American counterparts: a liar and a violator of international law. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has a process for nations to request information from one another and they are given 10 days to do so. Instead, May demanded that Russia prove the unprovable, that it wasn’t responsible, and that it do so in 24 hours. She declared that Russia was “likely” responsible and expelled 23 Russian diplomats from the country.

Labour party opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn was little better. He did say that the government should actually wait for proof of Russian involvement in Skripal’s poisoning but he also indulged in an anti-Russian screed as he vented against authoritarianism, oligarchs and human rights abuses. Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman had just received a warm welcome in London from May, the royal family and the press. No one said a word about his genocide against the people of Yemen. But facts won’t get in the way of blatant war propaganda.

Putin has created a kind of madness on both sides of the ocean as politicians look for ever more bizarre ways to engage in Russophobia which is intended to damage his nation. Donald Trump’s appointment of Rex Tillerson as secretary of state was said to be influenced by Putin. Of course, everyone conveniently forgot that trope and now Tillerson’s dismissal is said to have been carried out on Putin’s orders.

Putin is even accused of being a racist. The Christopher Steele dossier, a creation of the Democratic Party and the ill-fated Hillary Clinton campaign, alleges that some on Putin’s staff used the “N-word ” in reference to Barack Obama. Any assertions in this dubious document are impossible to prove and it is unlikely that Steele’s second hand Russian sources reached into the Kremlin inner circle. This particular assertion comes from Michael Isikoff, a Steele partner in crime who dutifully leaked information which led to the granting of a FISA warrant and the Mueller investigation of Trump.

The creation of an all purpose villain is meant to cover up Democratic Party electoral failures, end the Trump presidency, and of course make the case for the American exceptionalism and interventions. Regime change, proxy wars, and imperial conquest are all very much a part of the anti-Putin hysteria.

But the Russophobes are playing a very dangerous game. The story of the poisoned man does not take place in a vacuum. While the public are distracted by a tall tale of Putin killing any Russian whoever died outside of that country, the very dangerous Syrian war continues. Lies about the Russian government should be taken very seriously. They are war propaganda and they are meant to get public support for military action against Russia and its allies.

The Skripal story is so murky that it will be difficult to ever determine culpability. But years of lies have had the desired effect. The public will believe anything about Putin and the Russian government no matter how ridiculous the charge. The American media are finally forced to report on the story of Robert Mercer’s Cambridge Analytica and the role it played in getting Trump an Electoral College victory. But the implications of a right-wing oligarch tipping the scales in our so-called democracy are ignored. Instead the New York Times reported on the Russian ancestry of a Cambridge Analytica staffer in a desperate effort to continue the dangerous charade.

Fifteen years ago this same government proclaimed that Iraq was the great danger and used the charge to make the case for war. Little has changed since. America excels at warfare and that is always preceded by propaganda.

In announcing new weapon developments Putin declared that mutually assured destruction (MAD) is not a thing of the past. If the U.S. and its allies were sane this would be a positive development. But they are not sane and every move and every charge brings the world closer to the precipice. The United States, not Russia, poses the greatest threat to peace and life on the planet. That must never be forgotten.

 

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.