A new initiative from Sibel Edmonds, James Corbett, Pepe Escobar and Peter B. Collins. We can sympathise about the limitations of being purely voluntary. Are donation-sponsored news outlets the answer? There’s surely arguments for and against.
SUPPORT OFFGUARDIAN
If you enjoy OffG's content, please help us make our monthly fund-raising goal and keep the site alive.
For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.
If anybody wants to support this ambitious 100% people-funded initiative towards real, independent investigative journalism without strings to parties, foundations, corporations, or advertisers, the Newsbud Kickstarter campaign has begun:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/141490519/support-a-100-people-funded-nonpartisan-online-new
it seems some of those posting here sound a little like the average God in that they want other gods to be in their own image. Yes Sibel does it too with Paul C Roberts. None of us has identical views on the world and some of us change our views, not just because we get less radical as we get older, but also because the orld situations around us change or we become aware of problems we never noticed before.
For my part I have never been a fan of what Putin does in his domestic politics but I am increasingly becoming aware that I am glad Putin has put the brakes on the lunatics in NATO and their cooperative and secretive plans to destroy any competitive economic regimes and to undermine the Nation states in favour of corporate control. All of this being hidden from their main enemy which is us.
Never before have our democratic systems been under such an attack by the people we vote for, who like Hitler create an enemy for us to fear to allow them to hide the truth from us under the security blanket, while at the same time they are prying into every corner of our lives and interactions and reducing our powers and rights as citizens.
We now have private companies listening to our phone calls and reading our emails. then there are the proliferation of uncontrollable and non accountable private armies destabilizing governments and slaughtering opponents mostly sanctioned and supported by our governments.
As Bob Dylan once sang:
But something is happening here but you don’t know what it is. Do you, Mister Jones ?
I am certain that the majority of Mr and Mrs Joneses and the Khans and Dietrichs and Chan’s do not know ‘what’ is happening here but they do know ‘something’ is happening that is making them uncomfortable and wary about the future. It is the role of the non corporate media to find out what is happening, who is doing it, why they are doing it and what it will mean for all of us if the instigators succeed. Mostly it is important we expose that something to as many people as possible.
I think it is critically important that those non corporate websites that are providing the real and important news and the aims of those behind these world events, work cooperatively to expose the power grab that is set to take our liberty and privacy and right to shape our own future away from us unless we can wake up our fellows around the globe. Lets not bicker over our interpretations in small matters but instead strive to discover and tell the truth about the fundamental issues we are all experiencing. By all means lets debate issues but let our discussions guide us to the truth not into pointless argument and disintegration.
Finally it would be great if we could between us work out a model of a modern, cohesive, cooperative, inclusive system of living based on equality and respect. I am personally sick of watching the world being divided up into haves and have nots, worthy and unworthy, powerful and powerless. I can imagine a fantastic world where we live in peace and in harmony with our planet. as somebody getting to the last years of my life I want friends not enemies. The quality of our lives depends on our relationships and right now my government (Australia) is not making the world a better place. i want that to change.
Thank you to the truth finders and the truth tellers and good luck to Newsbud, nsnbc international, Democracy Now, Levant Report, off Guardian, Intercept and many more worthy sites. Collectively you can transform the world.
Docket Pocket: Well I agree we need to do something about the Corruption but How ? #NewsBud http://docketpocket.blogspot.com/2016/01/well-i-agree-we-need-to-do-something.html?spref=tw
I should think the big problem with news outlets relying on donations is that eventually the donors come to dictate the news. After all, how different are regular “donations” from one source or a few sources from regular injections of funds from people who own the outlet?
And how did politicians come to act for the deep state? Though … donations.
This is what should be concentrating our minds, not noting whether “Newsbud” rhymes with “Rosebud” of Citizen Kane fame.
Those are precisely my concerns. Donors usually want something in return – that’s how American elections work. Companies and individuals make donations, and expect something in return.
Sibel Edmonds and James Corbett are ‘libertarians’. Hopefully Pepe Escobar won’t go down with that.
Hmmmmmm, Pepe Escobar’s latest article in Counterpunch has him quoting ‘libertarian’ favourites Jim Rickards and Jim Rogers.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/21/planet-of-fear/
Hm, I don’t know about Sibel. After the gratuitous mudslinging she and Corbett recently engaged in with respect to Paul Craig Roberts — and my politics do not exactly coincide with PCR’s although I do believe that he is sincere and honest and often well informed – I’m even less endeared to her and feel she is beginning to have an untoward influence on Corbett.
Together, they don’t seem to have much approbation for any view that would discriminate in favor of either Putin or Russian foreign policy even if, at least to mind, both represent an objective glimmer of hope — the only countervailing hope, really — in world otherwise dominated by an Empire whose ethos is inimical to life, human or otherwise.
Maybe Pepe will bring them around to seeing things a bit differently. But I won’t know because I’ll be getting my information elsewhere, like, here, for instance, or at Global Research, or from Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett and host of others whose ideological standpoint appears much more congenial to mine.
I also was hoping for a more nuanced take on Putin vis-a-vis Syria and Turkey from Sibel and James, but it is flat out inaccurate to say they engaged in “gratuitous mudslinging” at Paul Craig Roberts. That’s grossly unfair. What she said was that she has enormous respect for PCR and usually likes (and publishes) his stuff, but that she thought his coverage on Putin was too one-sided the other way — too much hailing him as an unadulterated hero, and the podcast showed a few supportive examples. Whether you agree with her point or not, it’s not an unreasonable case to make. It’s hardly gratuitous mudslinging.
I’ve seen quite a few people lately dismiss Sibel and her new venture based on a single example of an issue where they disagreed with her. In most cases it’s been this Putin thing. And as I’ve said, I see where she’s coming from but I also think Putin is playing some great chess right now in Syria and calling a few bluffs that seriously need to be called. More to the point, if you can find a commentator with whom you agree on every last point, that’s wonderful. In my experience, if I dumped people entirely based on a single disagreement, I’d have nobody left to listen to. So I’m forced constantly to calibrate and do my own critical thinking. It’s exhausting, but I haven’t found the alternative yet!
Gratuitous, maybe not, Jenune, yes, in my opinion.
“. . .and usually likes (and publishes) his stuff.” No. She actually comes out and says, in so many words, that she can no longer publish his stuff, not in good conscience.
The not so “nuanced” remarks about PCR begin some 23 minutes and forty seconds into the video, and you can go and listen for yourself.
Furthermore, Edmonds seems to hit and uphold every pro-US propaganda talking point about either Russian media or any other source of information that might be interpreted as coming off in favor of Russian foreign policy.
The failure in ‘nuance,’ here, in my opinion, is a wholesale lapsing into ‘ad hominem’ argumentation. But that is my opinion and thereby admitedly worth very little by any standard of objective measure, assuming such a standard could be said to exist.
There are so many good sources of information out there that scratching these two off my list will actually be an economy in my time.
My reaction is akin to Sibel’s in connection to Paul Craig Roberts: for something that he said, she can no longer in good conscience listen to him. And so it is with me.
Yep, that’s the video all right, good to know we’re at least referencing the same source material! 😉
Let me go ahead and transcribe the relevant part word for word: “I respect him, he writes magnificent articles, Paul Craig Roberts. And I’ve been so disappointed, I haven’t been able to publish any of his latest articles because every time I go there, he’s like, this messiah Putin, and the great Russian government. This guy was serving during the Cold War, during the Reagan administration, and now suddenly he even is engaging in Russia worship. And all I have to say is it’s been very hard to find material to republish at Boiling Frogs Post.”
In other words, it’s exactly as I described it. She respects him; he writes magnificent articles; she normally (re)publishes his stuff; but she thinks he goes overboard into Russia and Putin worship lately.
There isn’t a trace of ad hominem in this critique, let alone a “wholesale lapsing”.
I’m not trying to talk you out of your own personal choices of course, but fair is fair! I also don’t think if you criticize Russia or RT you’re automatically aligning yourself with US propaganda. I presume it’s obvious enough that she has spent most of her energies criticizing the US and its propaganda. She’s an equal opportunity curmudgeon, it seems to me. Grains of salt are needed as always, but she has been privy to some very useful information, continues to have good sources, and her integrity is, I think, unimpeachable.
I guess we are just not hearing the same video. That sometimes happens. And depending on what your favorite part of the video is to listen to, you get reasonable commentary, on the one hand, and not so reasonable commentary, on the other, eh.
Best to listen to the whole thing and then make up your mind.
Nothing ‘ad hominem?’ Really? I guess I need to have myself doctored.
Most troubling (& rarely mentioned) is Sibel’s pro-Erdogan stance. She claims he was a victim of US dictates. That would make him a puppet then. However Erdogan is still pursuing the overthrow of Assad. Sibel has also excused Islamist AKP policies like overturning the hijab ban and raising the drinking age. AKP as an Islamist political party represents the worst of ideologies. Erdogan has played the victim card while simultaneously being the aggressor.
What Sibel actually says about Erdogan is that he is deeply corrupt and deserves all the scorn he gets, yet even so is slightly better than some of his predecessors. I would respectfully submit that you are badly abusing even the most generous definition of “pro Erdogan” with your misrepresentation.
If, however, you find even this characterization of Erdogan troubling, you incur an obligation to defend his predecessors. Make an argument that actually addresses her argument.
I don’t agree with her on everything myself but I value her perspective and her integrity. And I do believe that a minimum standard of attacking somebody’s position is to a) understand it and b) represent it fairly.
His predecessors were in line with Ataturk and were secular. Erdogan is an Islamist, and the AKP party is guilty of supporting jihad in Syria. Did I miss something? Did Erdogan’s predecessors invade Syria by proxy?
Look, the main point here is that it’s grossly inaccurate, if not deliberate disinformation, to say that Sibel Edmonds is “pro Erdogan” or that she is “defending this Islamist scumbag”. You seem to be running off half-cocked based on an offhand ironic comment about him being slightly better compared to his predecessors on domestic Turkish issues — by which I’d guess she means labor rights, education, and health care, which are demonstrably areas he’s made improvements in.
The main points are, I think, these: 1) she despises the guy; and even more 2) she despises the hypocrisy of the US and its media, who until very recently were touting his regime as the “model democracy for the Arab world” until he ran afoul of the CIA’s pet Imam, Fethullah Gulen. And then all of a sudden it’s repression this and Yasin Al Qadi that, all valid critiques that had been known but not reported on for many years, and which in many ways implicate the US itself as much as Erdogan.
In short the interesting story isn’t Erdogan per se, and that hasn’t been Sibel’s focus except insofar as it serves as a lens through which to analyze the process of convenient myth-making and demonizing of foreign leaders based on the US’s shifting alliances and contingencies; or through which to analyze Great Game politics in the region.
You can search BFP up, down, and sideways for a defense of Erdogan. You’ll come up empty. What you will find is stuff like this:
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/01/18/turkish-pm-erdogan-the-speedy-transformation-of-an-imperial-puppet/
You’ve been listening to a diffrrent Sibel than I have. She does claim Erdogan is a puppet of the US but she in no way excuses him for that. She correctly notes he is fulfilling his own aspirations to power by doing it.
I’ve recently discovered Sibel Edmonds. The failed Turkish coup and her take on it brought me to her. (And I just bought a watched a lengthy but dynamite documentary title “Killing Ed – Charter Schools, Corruption And The Gulen Movement In America,” which I highly recommend. It reinforces for me that Sibel knows a thing or two about what’s going on.) I think she is right on about Turkey, which isn’t surprising since she’s Turkish. I’m not an expert in either Edmonds or Roberts, but – for what it’s worth – I’ve read more bad reports about Roberts than Edmonds. That doesn’t mean anything, really. But it’s still something. One must make up one’s own mind, after reviewing facts, which in this case means becoming familiar with the individuals who we are discussing. As for James Corbett, His world view seems much like my own. I am familiar with him – which isn’t the same as ‘expert in’ – from his sometimes linked-to videos on Global Research.
It’s not really a criticism, but I wonder whether Corbett isn’t shrill, which sort of means extreme. And I’m not accusing him of that. I’m only wondering and the reason might be that I have found Michel Chossudovsky to be shrill. (Although his small book called “Toward A World War III Scenario,” which was in choppy English, was solid reportage.) Or I thought he was being shrill. Maybe these people are just more blunt than I am, and I’m pretty blunt. If so, I don’t want them to adjust to me. I’ll adjust to them. Give me the truth any day.
I am still waiting for Sibel or anyone else who considers Putin a “bad actor” or “oligarch” to present the evidence. James Corbett tells us that anarchy is the real solution, not siding behind Russia as “that is what he NWO wants.” Is it really? I think the NWO would like to see th complete demolishment of the nation state as evidenced by NATO’s destruction of Libya. The NWO wants to see Russia destroyed, and that begins with fulfilling Erdogan’s vision of a neo-ottoman empire. How can anyone defend this Islamist scumbag and or his Zionist handlers?
Great initiative, but you seriously need to recognise that bloviating for an hour is not likely to win you many viewers. Leave the long form pontification to Limbaugh et al, and just get to the point
What’s so terrible about the name?
I dont think its terrible but rather short sighted. When/if it becomes a serious contender among news sources, it shouldnt be a “bud” but rather a mature mighty tree.
But that could be construed as pretentious. ‘Bud’ suggests that it can stimulate discussion and examination, and the issues or lessons can grow as a result. But, to be honest, Newsbud doesn’t grab me. But it’s only a name.
I will follow any site associated with Pepe – it just must be too good to miss
Reblogged this on Siem Reap Mirror.