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Will NPR Now Officially Change Its Name to National Propaganda Radio?

Edward Curtin

Back in the 1960s, the CIA official Cord Meyer said the agency needed to “court the compatible left.” He knew that drawing liberals and leftists into the CIA’s orbit was the key to efficient propaganda.

Right-wing and left-wing collaborators were needed to create a powerful propaganda apparatus that would be capable of hypnotizing audiences into believing the myth of American exceptionalism and its divine right to rule the world.

The CIA therefore secretly worked to influence American and world opinion through the literary and intellectual elites.

Frances Stonor Saunders comprehensively covers this in her 1999 book, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA And The World Of Arts And Letters, and Joel Whitney followed this up in 2016 with Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers, with particular emphasis on the complicity between the CIA and the famous literary journal, The Paris Review.

By the mid-1970s, as a result of the Church Committee hearings, it seemed as if the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. had been caught in flagrante delicto and disgraced, confessed their sins, and resolved to go and sin no more.

Then in 1977, Carl Bernstein wrote a long piece for Esquire – “The CIA and the Media” – naming names of journalists and media (The New York Times, CBS, etc.) that worked hand-in-glove with the CIA, propagandizing the American people and the rest of the world.

It seemed as if all would be hunky-dory now with the bad boys purged from the American “free” press. Seemed to the most naïve, that is, by which I mean the vast numbers of people who wanted to re-stick their heads in the sand and believe, as Ronald Reagan’s team of truthtellers would announce, that it was “Morning in America” again with the free press reigning and the neo-conservatives, many of whom had been “converted” from their leftist views, running things in Washington.

So again it is morning in America this September 6, 2019, and the headline from National Public Radio announces the glad tidings that NPR has named a new CEO. His name is John Lansing, and the headline says he is a “veteran media executive.” We are meant to be reassured.

It goes on to say that Mr. Lansing, 62, is currently the chief executive of the government agency, The USn Agency for Global Media, that oversees Voice of America, Radio and Television Marti, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, among others.

We are furthermore reassured by NPR that Lansing “made his mark in his current job with stirring defenses of journalism, free from government interference.”

The announcement goes on to say:

Lansing has earned an advanced degree in political agility. At the U.S. Agency for Global Media, Lansing championed a free press even as leaders of many nations move against it.

‘Governments around the world are increasingly cracking down on the free flow of information; silencing dialogue and dissent; and distorting reality,’ Lansing said in a speech he delivered in May to the Media for Democracy Forum. ‘The result, I believe, is a war on truth.’

He continued: ‘Citizens in countries from Russia to China, from Iran to North Korea, have been victimized for decades. But now we’re seeing authoritarian regimes expanding around the globe, with media repression in places like Turkey and Venezuela, Cambodia and Vietnam.’

So we are reassured that the new head of NPR, the chief of all U.S. propaganda, is a champion of a free press. Perhaps NPR will soon enlighten the American public by interviewing its new head honcho and asking him if he thinks Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, by exposing America’s war crimes, and Edward Snowden, by exposing the U.S. government’s vast electronic surveillance programs of its own citizens, deserve to be jailed and exiled for doing the job the American mainstream “free press” failed to do. What NPR failed to do.

Perhaps they will ask him if he objects to the way his own government “interfered” in the lives of these three courageous people who revealed truths that every citizen of a free country is entitled to. Perhaps they will ask him if the U.S. government’s persecution of these truthtellers is what he means by there being “a war on truth.”

Perhaps they will ask him if he thinks the Obama and Trump administrations have been “distorting reality” and waging a war on truth.

Perhaps not. Of course not.

Don’t laugh, for the joke will be on you if you listen to NPR and its sly appeal to “liberal” sensibilities. If you are wondering why we have had the Russia-gate hoax and who was responsible (see/hear Russia expert Prof. Stephen Cohen here) and are now involved in a new Cold War and a highly dangerous nuclear confrontation with Russia, read Lansing’s July 10, 2019 testimony before the House Appropriations Sub-Committee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs: “United States Efforts to Counter Russian Disinformation and Malign Influence.”

Here is an excerpt:

USAGM provides consistently accurate and compelling journalism that reflects the values of our society: freedom, openness, democracy, and hope. Our guiding principles—enshrined in law—are to provide a reliable, authoritative, and independent source of news that adheres to the strictest standards of journalism…

Russian Disinformation. And make no mistake, we are living through a global explosion of disinformation, state propaganda, and lies generated by multiple authoritarian regimes around the world. The weaponization of information we are seeing today is real. The Russian government and other authoritarian regimes engage in far-reaching malign influence campaigns across national boundaries and language barriers.

The Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation machine is being unleashed via new platforms and continues to grow in Russia and internationally. Russia seeks to destroy the very idea of an objective, verifiable set of facts as it attempts to influence opinions about the United States and its allies. It is not an understatement to say that this new form of combat on the information battlefield may be the fight of the 21st century.

Then research the history of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Voice of America, Radio and Television Marti, etc. You will be reassured that Lansing’s July testimony was his job interview to head National Propaganda Radio.

Then sit back, relax, and tune into NPR’s Morning Edition. It will be comforting to know that it is “Morning in America” once again.

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Deschutes
Deschutes
Sep 16, 2019 1:54 PM

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/09/15/voice-america-npr-new-ceo-lansings-glass-house

Here is a great Laura Flanders piece detailing the military psy-op background of NPR’s new Minister of Propaganda, John Lansing. From the above-linked article-

“The high dudgeon ill-suited a man who, as he spoke, oversaw an empire of federally-funded influence campaigns with origins in Cold War US psy-ops: The Voice of America, Radio y Televisión Martí, and Radio Free Europe, as well as Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and Radio Persia. According to Yasha Levine at Pando, when Lansing took the reins of this holding company, which was then called the Broadcasting Board of Governors, it had a budget of $721 million, reported directly to the Secretary of State, and was managed by a revolving crew of neocon and military think tank experts, including Ryan Crocker, former ambassador to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria.”

So now this vile VOA windbag John Lansing can take his experience propagandizing for regime change abroad and use the same tactics on naive American listeners. “Oh, but NPR is public! They are funded by their listeners after all, so you can trust them”. Doh! :-0 :-\

milosevic
milosevic
Sep 9, 2019 7:51 AM

Back in the 1960s, the CIA official Cord Meyer said the agency needed to “court the compatible left.” He knew that drawing liberals and leftists into the CIA’s orbit was the key to efficient propaganda.

Right-wing and left-wing collaborators were needed to create a powerful propaganda apparatus that would be capable of hypnotizing audiences into believing the myth of American exceptionalism and its divine right to rule the world.

The CIA therefore secretly worked to influence American and world opinion through the literary and intellectual elites.

Noam Chomsky and the Compatible Left, parts 1 — 4

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Sep 10, 2019 12:08 AM
Reply to  milosevic

Milosevic… Brilliant link, thank you for this. Never even heard of that site, just read Part 1 then, will read rest tonight.

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Sep 10, 2019 5:12 AM
Reply to  milosevic

Excellent! Cheers M. I note couple of Anarchist sites I used to regularly look at often feature an article penned by Mr Chomsky, or an interview with him. They also are fans of the Kurds in Syria, without mentioning who else is supporting them. As I said…. Used to regularly look at them. No longer. Gatekeepers everywhere, aye.

milosevic
milosevic
Sep 10, 2019 5:55 AM
Reply to  Gezzah Potts

Gatekeepers are EVERYWHERE.

For a particularly striking example, see how many “anarchists” you can find who will acknowledge that the 9/11 event was a US government operation. The state is the root of all evil, but in this particular case, for no particular reason, they must be telling the truth, even though all available evidence indicates otherwise.

How do you suppose that result was brought about? What is the actual consciousness of such people, as opposed to their ultra-radical pose? Where do they get it from? It’s kind of horrifying to even think about it.

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Sep 10, 2019 7:47 AM
Reply to  milosevic

No need for any argumentation M. My eyes finally opened to Chomsky and co a few years back. Always highly suspicious of Mz Goodman right from the get go. Won’t go near her website or podcasts period. You’ve given me lots of reading – The Rancid Honeytrap blog looks excellent, plus that 4 part Chomsky takedown I started this morning. Cheers…

Jen
Jen
Sep 9, 2019 12:11 AM

If the NPR changes its name to National Propaganda Radio then the BBC ought to change its name as well.

“British Brainwashing Corporation” rolls off the tongue pretty easily.

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Sep 8, 2019 11:30 PM

NPR?
Nurturing Psychopathic Regimes.

RobG
RobG
Sep 8, 2019 10:39 PM

The left in the West has now all but been destroyed.

Articles like this are smoke rising from the funeral pyre.

wilmers 31
wilmers 31
Sep 9, 2019 5:42 AM
Reply to  RobG

I would prefer not to use left or right because there are only appropriate or not appropriate solutions.

An interesting example is the only days old demand to start building social housing again in the Australian State of Victoria. Why? because recidivism is rising and rising, becoming too expensive and only giving released prisoners a roof over their heads will stop them from being homeless in the streets and going back to (more expensive) prison.

That would have been called a leftist solution but it is not – it is to save money by keeping people out of the prison system and hopefully even having jobs, as opposed the unsightly and unhygienic existence of living on the footpath.

I think it’s next year that we can celebrate 40 years of waiting waiting for trickle down.

Toby Russell
Toby Russell
Sep 9, 2019 8:50 AM
Reply to  RobG

I’d like to echo what wilmers31 added. In the end, ideologies don’t really matter. What works is what counts, in that it delivers healthy outcomes that stand the test of time: long-term time. Crapification-consumerism fueled by endless growth is but one manifestation of an ideology that cannot work, whether implemented with a ‘right-wing’ or ‘left-wing’ flavour. Let’s not be divided and conquered and fall into hopeless victimhood as if we’re powerless, devoid of free will, etc.

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Sep 8, 2019 10:05 PM

Just to remind readers of this Off-G classic as well – the Propaganda Multiplier.
https://off-guardian.org/2019/03/08/the-propaganda-multiplier/

Lansing says ‘Citizens in countries from Russia to China, from Iran to North Korea, have been victimized for decades. But now we’re seeing authoritarian regimes expanding around the globe, with media repression in places like Turkey and Venezuela, Cambodia and Vietnam.’ – I suppose the corollary (implied by this claim) is that US media is a bastion of free expression rather than a vehicle dedicated to recycling corporate bilge?

As the 2 links below indicate;
[1] Wiki and Assange released more information into the public domain about government corruption than the rest of the western media put together (despite a massive resource disparity), and
[2] western media is a breeding ground for ignorance judging by the woeful standards that emenate from the vast majority of ‘news’ or current affairs programs.

wilmers 31
wilmers 31
Sep 9, 2019 5:46 AM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

The Turkey development I sort of monitored. Erdogan was absolutely furious when Sisi came in in Egypt and was allowed to behave like a pharao but he had to obey democratic restrictions and could not behave like the khalif!!! He changed that. Had Sisi not been installed in Egypt, Turkey would be different today.

Drupo
Drupo
Sep 8, 2019 8:21 PM

“Liberal” sensibilities for NPR is only a joke.

Deschutes
Deschutes
Sep 8, 2019 6:59 PM

In 2002 in the run up to the Iraq war, NPR regularly interviewed a defense ‘analyst’ named Robert Scales to sell the war to the wary U.S. public. They interviewed him 67 times–never revealing he was the founder of Colgen, an American defense consulting company which was part of the Pentagon’s military analyst program. To wit-

“NPR and the Pentagon’s Military Analyst Program
In April 2008, David Barstow from the New York Times revealed that in early 2002 the Pentagon military analyst program had been launched by then-Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke. The idea was to recruit “key influentials” to help sell a wary public on “a possible Iraq invasion.” Former NBC military analyst Kenneth Allard called the effort “psyops on steroids.”[1]

One of the 75 analysts mentioned in Barstow’s original story was Robert H. Scales Jr., who appeared on programs for both NPR and Fox News programs. Barstow noted that Scales, “whose consulting company advises several military firms on weapons and tactics used in Iraq, wanted the Pentagon to approve high-level briefings for him inside Iraq in 2006.’Recall the stuff I did after my last visit,’ he wrote. ‘I will do the same this time.'”[1] In 2003 Scales co-founded a “defense consulting company” Colgen, which boasts that it is “America’s Premier Landpower Advocate”.[2]

A little over a week after the New York Times story ran, NPR Ombudsman, Alicia C. Shepard, wrote in her blog that when the story broke “emails began flying trying to assess the damage and determine how to proceed. NPR waited until Wednesday on Talk of the Nation to first discuss this issue publicly. The Bryant Park Project followed up the next day with two pieces on how the media was ignoring The Times’ story.”[3] Shepard noted “since February 2003, he has been on NPR 67 times, most often (28 appearances) on All Things Considered (ATC). The latest was March 28, when he gave ATC listeners an assessment of the fifth anniversary of the war … Only once in December 2006 was Scales’ relationship to Colgen mentioned.”[3]

Shepherd disagreed with the suggestion of a number of NPR listeners who wanted the media organization to stop doing interviews with Scales. “Rather than toss Scales off the air and lose his practical and scholarly knowledge of the Army, in the future NPR should always be transparent and identify him as a defense consultant with Colgen. NPR’s audience can evaluate what Scales says through that lens. NPR should also append a note to each archived Scales’ appearances that indicates he is also a defense consultant with Colgen. What also is needed, and I believe NPR will now begin doing, is a more careful vetting of all experts before they go on air,” she wrote.[3] NPR have developed new guidelines for “vetting guests” which state “Ask the guest if he/she has any conflicts of interest. You can modify the question to be more descriptive; any financial, political, personal or other conflicts of interest. In some cases, the appearance of conflict of interest obvious to some, may not be obvious to the guest. For example, has the guest made any trips paid for by an organization having an interest in this story?” [4]”

Source-
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Public_Radio

Deschutes
Deschutes
Sep 8, 2019 6:08 PM

NPR is a fine example of how the U.S. intelligence agencies have over many decades now infiltrated what passes for ‘progressive’, ‘liberal’, or ‘left leaning’ news outlets. NPR strictly promotes an obedient pro-U.S. government regime change narrative. NPR has, since at least the 1980s been deceiving American liberals, manipulating news on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela and other issues of the day. And now they hire this John Lansing guy, a total government propaganda narrative control stooge. Imagine my shock. My brother is a clueless “liberal” NPR supporter: “You say they are propaganda? You don’t know what you’re talking about, they are listener funded”. NPR has annual fundraisers where they appeal for donations. By the time of the Persian Gulf war in 1991, I knew they were government propaganda, as they never would cover the anti-war demonstrations and instead gave H.W. Bush and the military most favorable coverage and promoted their narrative. I mean, how can ‘public’ news outlet that has the utterly vapid, corporate sell-out Cokie Roberts from Fox News on it as a correspondent!? LOL!

More on how much NPR sucks ass below!-
https://www.greanvillepost.com/2019/08/20/npr-mocks-cancer-survivor-in-drumbeat-of-syria-propaganda/

And here-
https://www.greanvillepost.com/2019/08/11/npr-shreds-ethics-handbook-to-normalize-regime-change-in-venezuela/

Take a minute out of your busy day and send NPR a quick message to let them know how much they suck ass 🙂

Capricornia Man
Capricornia Man
Sep 9, 2019 12:57 AM
Reply to  Deschutes

NPR’s reporting on Venezuela would seem to be on much the same level of disinformation as that of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (a publicly funded body). Equally unethical (or possibly worse) is ABC’s Radio National’s rancidly one-sided beating up of the fake “antisemitism crisis” in the British Labour Party.

nottheonly1
nottheonly1
Sep 8, 2019 4:08 PM

National Propaganda Radio?i

Can one love a typo?

Lansing has earned an advanced degree in political agility.

Translation: Lansing is a mean MoFo that dedicated his life to twist the truth.

‘Governments around the world are increasingly cracking down on the free flow of information; silencing dialogue and dissent; and distorting reality,’ Lansing said in a speech he delivered in May to the Media for Democracy Forum. ‘The result, I believe, is a war on truth.’

This MoFo does not even know how shame is spelled. Most shameless is not sufficient to describe this perverted propaganda peddler. I wonder what kind of silencing dialogue the MoFo is talking about? Maybe this one here, where the U.S. Regime is silencing dissent in the most egregious way – by denying friends of dissenting folks entry into the land of the fake free?

USAGM provides consistently accurate and compelling journalism that reflects the values of our society: freedom, openness, democracy, and hope. Our guiding principles—enshrined in law—are to provide a reliable, authoritative, and independent source of news that adheres to the strictest standards of journalism…

Sure. Unfortunately for these pathetic twats, they are utterly lousy at their Orwellian tripe. Only the most gullible and indoctrinated people would fall for their lies.

Generally, I really appreciate how polite Edward Curtin is. It creates an aura of sophistication that is soerly missed in today’s journalism dealing with the dark ages that have come upon us. I would not be so polite when it comes to NPR. They have turned into the ‘Nazi Propaganda Radio’ in my irrelevant opinion. When I pointed this out in 2016 on the ‘Pussyhat Central – Common Dreams’ I was banned for making the connection of the Clinton-DNC having gained full control of the NPR of that day.

Now I will admit that I have even supported – as one of those often mentioned ‘listeners’ – NPR in the past. That past ended with the death of Daniel Schorr and the last broadcast of ‘Car Talk’ in Hawai’i. Since I could not remember Daniel Schorr’s name, I was searching for it on DDG. Under all kinds of search terms – nothing. Then I realized that DDG would offer me Glenn Beck as ‘famous news analysts’ together with Ann Coulter and Karl Rove. I did a few other searches to this effect and sure enough – the results were limited to the worst of the worst in what goes nowadays for ‘journalism’ in the U.S.

As a shining example of depravity, ‘wikipedia’ – or should I write CIApedia? – showed how scrubbing of people with integrity from the public memory is done. There is no more hope on this side of the screen, that any of the outlets – especially NPR, who do reach most of the bourgeoisie – will reddem themselves and cease to spread the official lies and narratives that serve exclusively the owner class.

Thank You for letting us know about the deepening of the Bernaysian news reporting on NPR. If I would end up on a remote island and the radio that survived with me would only play NPR, I would throw it to the sharks.

Richard Steele
Richard Steele
Sep 9, 2019 3:15 PM
Reply to  nottheonly1

I’m fortunate in the fact that my local NPR station still runs repeats of old “Car Talk” episodes. So I still tune in one hour a week. Needless to say, I do not contribute money to them.

jonny
jonny
Sep 8, 2019 3:59 PM

ive been calling it NeoCon Public Radio for awhile now

mark
mark
Sep 8, 2019 1:56 PM

We desperately need a new mechanism to protect us from all this evil disinformation.
Perhaps we could call it the Ministry Of Truth.
With wide ranging powers for the Thought Police.

const
const
Sep 8, 2019 6:41 PM
Reply to  mark

The problem with “to protect us” statement is that us is not defined..
The problem with “we could call it” statement is that we is not defined..
You are not alone in attaching your self to the mainstream as if all in the masses were like minded persons, congruent in fit, within the confines of your meaning.. but the problem is the 8 billion persons who constitute the masses have been divided and sorted into one of the 206 human containers( nation states) and then divided again by political party, and then redivided again by any of a thousand different things.

But there is one commonality that survives it all.. human rights are superior to nation state rights.. humanity is connected but its been programmed to hate the person of the other. I suggest that appeal to connectedness of humanity, could centralize the power inherent in the masses to exercise their human rights.

Humanity, and human rights are superior to nation state and nation state rights The nation state survives at the pleasure of humanity, when the nation state no longer serves humanity, humanity has the power to destroy and remove it. Fully informed humanity does not need a leader, its needs a bureaucracy to study and present ideas and to develop proposals, but humanity itself, has the right to self determination, and such ideas and proposals must be submitted to full human audience for discussion and majority rule approval.

Human rights are superior to nation state rules and the leaders of the nation states as well as to any other authoritarian structure. Structures which issues law, develops rules or exercise authority over humans, all exist only so long as humans permit such to exist.

Human rights at the basic level includes, but is not limited to, the right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, the right to travel into and between territorial boundaries without fear of prosecution or abuse, the right to self-determination and the right to full disclosure from all who exercise authority, gate opportunity or access, propagandize to or program any human in any boundary defined container (nation state, kingdom, system of governance, political party, or for/against organizations of whatever kind).

The common bond is DNA, its expression produces a morphologically-malleable psychologically-tunable physiologically-capable human who develops into a differentiated person in response to the experiences to which the human is allowed to engage. Ones own society (that system of human containers) tries it best to control the development of such human. Societies, governments, families, etc impose GPPD ( gating, propaganda, programming, and sub container division (groups within groups)) and gate allowed, ordered, or selected experience, in order to shape that morphologically-malleable, psychologically-tuned physiologically-capable human into a behaviourally controlled, command directed responder to the voice of container authority. A child born to a Jewish family in NYC is exchanged at birth with a child born to a Shea Muslin family on the same day and time in Tehran. The exchange families each raise the child of the other to age 25.. The two swapped children will not know the language of their parents, and will probably hate each other; not because either has done anything to the other, but because, the society of each, developed that hate and used programming and propaganda to polarize the two swapped humans. The process is called polarization.

davemass
davemass
Sep 8, 2019 1:48 PM

Yes, a sad day when the BBC parrots the Yankee crap…

AnneR
AnneR
Sep 8, 2019 1:41 PM

Thank you, Mr Curtin, for this less than uplifting item of information which only further confirms my opinion about the state and corporate-funded (not that NPR *ever* declares itself as such) US radio broadcaster equivalent of the BBC.

One only has to listen to what they report, how they report on an item (which words used: e.g. “regime,” “rebels,” “protestors/demonstrators”), what they do NOT report on, no matter how heinous (e.g. IDF killings and maimings of Palestinian demonstrators, detentions and interrogations of Palestinian children, Zionist settlers burning of Palestinians fields and crops, destruction of their houses) to know that NPR and its sister propaganda organ PBS are the “voice” of America’s corporate-capitalist-imperialist elites and their chums in the MICC alphabet soup of agencies…

On this same track, over on the BBC’s World Service yesterday a.m., the newsreader happily adverted that the BBC was joining with DARPA (and Mossad given the links the internet behemoths have with both) – more usually known as Google, FB, Twit etc – to prevent the dissemination of “disinformation” and “misinformation.” This is so heartwarming to learn – the totally state-funded (via taxpayers, the majority of whom are not within the ruling elites but who have no say over what, how and why this or that is broadcast) BBC (also with a global presence akin to VoA etc.) will be hard at work preventing us plebs from being able to access really truthful news. Can’t have that, can’t have the worldview, the propaganda of the corporate-capitalist-imperialist elites ignored while we all might have a chance to find out the real story, the truth or at any event the other side of a given item of news, another perspective. Ho No.

Interestingly, or more truthfully in keeping with their real function, the BBC newsreader, after having just informed us of their work on our behalf – keeping us free of dis-misinformation, then went on to tell us about the Adrian Darya’s being just two nautical miles from Syria – “in breach of EU sanctions.” Never has the BBC mentioned, whenever they have reported on anything to do with the Adrian Darya business, the fact that non-EU countries do *not* have to abide by EU rules. If that doesn’t come under dis-misinformation, I don’t know what does. (Completely in keeping, too, with their reportage on Hong Kong but that’s another story.)

Capricornia Man
Capricornia Man
Sep 9, 2019 1:09 AM
Reply to  AnneR

In relation to your last paragraph, lying-by-omission is routine in “public” broadcasters.

John Thatcher
John Thatcher
Sep 9, 2019 10:10 AM

“Lying by omission is routine in public broadcasters”.Yes,and has been so for as long as I can remember.What has changed I think,is the willingness of “public” broadcasters to routinely blatantly lie.

AnneR
AnneR
Sep 9, 2019 11:53 AM

Capricornia Man – I am aware of this and have been for many years if not decades. Omission and commission (i.e. repeating the same lies over and over, using the same derogatory and untrue/inaccurate terms deliberately to denigrate, to push a particular agenda, e.g. Russia did it – you name the current item) are full bore propaganda tools and have been employed, exploited by our own state-funded/controlled media for decades, since their inception, no doubt.

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Sep 8, 2019 1:04 PM

A Ha! Saw this fine essay earlier today on the Dissident Voice site, and wondered if it would be posted here. And no, I have zero intention of listening to NPR, or its equivalent here in Australia. Id rather listen to Death Metal while running my fingers down a blackboard thank you very much. Yes, we could name names of those Liberal Lefty types in ‘alternate media’ who are in fact gatekeepers for Imperialism.
Who among you reading this knew that Media Bias Factchecker site (who funds these people? Are they a CIA front? Are these stupid questions?) regards the fine, conscientious people here at OffGuardian as engaging in Russian propaganda and conspiracy theories! True. They’ve listed a whole lot of anti neoliberalist anti imperialist sites under the banner of Conspiracy Theory.
The more sites like this that speak truth to power, and shine a light on the parasitical scum plundering the Planet; and destroying entire countries, the more we will be smeared and attacked along with similar truth telling sites. No doubt cyber attacks will worsen.
And whistle blowers like Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Jeremy Hammond will still end up in jail, while Empire mouthpieces like NPR and ABC and BBC are held up as shining examples of the West’s free Press. Yeah, and up is down and red is green.
And just to repeat his name again, check out Udo Ulfkotte and his book exposing all this. Everything’s like a surreal facade.

mathias alexand
mathias alexand
Sep 8, 2019 4:56 PM
Reply to  Gezzah Potts

Media bias Factchecker says MSM is wonderfull.

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Sep 8, 2019 11:56 PM

Who is Dave Van Zandt indeed…. Whenever I type in an anti establishment or anti imperialist site, MBFC is almost always in the first 4-5 search results.

Jeremiah
Jeremiah
Sep 8, 2019 12:37 PM

Ed Curtin is one of the writers that makes OffG a go-to site for me.

BigB
BigB
Sep 8, 2019 11:12 AM

The Apocryphal Twain: “If you do not take in information from the Spectacular media-cultural industrial complex: you at least have the chance of a degree of autonomy and intellectual truth. If you do take in information from the Spectacular (NPR) …forget it.”

The Apocryphal Plato: “Those who tell the narrative lies rule the world …via mind capture and control”.

The Apocryphal Orwell: “”In a time of universal deceit: to tell the truth, to arrive together at the truth, is revolutionary act”.

[Which was mostly Antonio Gramsci that said that].

Question: if they do not need us to consent – or at least be passively and hedonically distracted – why bother? When supposedly there is no money and ideological austerity is the new world order: there seems to be plenty of capital for perception management, surveillance capitalism, Big Data, and actively applied psychological means of behavioural change …operantly conditioning us with microprogrammed schedules of a consumable and commodified pleasure principle …under the subliminal unconscious threat of pain (broadly, of not being able to access the commodified pleasure principle).

Shopping, war, racism, environmental crisis, psychological crisis (the opioid pandemic; etc); the advertorial and PR propagandic narrative control are all part of the same nexus and perpetual redux of Capitalist Realism. It has moved on a bit from MLK’s day when the Unholy Trinity was the “giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism” (war). Now we have a mass of converging and cascading interlinked crises bearing down on us. That’s the real progress of Capitalist Realism.

What has not changed is that we still have a moral obligation to disobey the unjust rule of law that requires such massive manipulation into a Society of Control …where the only available freedom is the pseudo-pleasure reward of consenting to shopping, war, and racism. If freedom is only ever the perceived freedom to consume someone elses freedom …then freedom is the deference of invisibilised suffering and pain. In this zero-sum bio-physical reality: to have and to be is a function of someone else’s Otherised and relativised not having and non-being. No wonder they have to invest so much in the character masking cover story. The system is a narrative Lie.

“Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Boundaries are illusions. The part is the whole. What affects one directly affects all indirectly. Arriving at the truth together is the last revolutionary act. The struggle to decouple from the cultuaral inculcation of the Lie goes on.

Letter form a Birmingham Jail: 1963.

https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

Richard Steele
Richard Steele
Sep 9, 2019 3:27 PM
Reply to  BigB

And to paraphrase Emerson, circa 1876: “They shouldn’t say things. What they are stands over them the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what they say to the contrary.”

Capricornia Man
Capricornia Man
Sep 8, 2019 10:49 AM

The degree of psychological projection from the US ruling elites is breathtaking, although familiar.

Apparently, it is only regimes “we” don’t like which suppress the “free flow of information”, engage in propaganda, disinformation and so on.

The US position would presumably be that its treatment of Assange, Manning and Snowden has nothing in common with those nefarious activities.

Lansing and others should take a look at a country like Australia where almost the entire “mainstream” media have backed the one side of politics in one federal election after another. Murdoch owns 70 percent of the print media. Is a “free election” even possible in such an environment?

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Sep 8, 2019 9:41 AM

Sorry – meant this

Tim Jenkins
Tim Jenkins
Sep 8, 2019 10:20 PM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

That was painful, Harry, excruciating reminders of skin crawling: especially for a nation who has now got a statue of that dumb ‘noname-woman’s’ dad, in Sofia, just last year, a not so ‘sweet’ memory and sick reminder of her family ties to CIA MIC Mafia Drug Dealers, as highlighted again this week by Dilyana Gaytandzhieva in new Serbian findings of connectivity to Great Britain in the Paperchain, just to add to the Woodrow Wilson in Plovdiv, this year … a central bank celebration of mathematical-IJUTS !

I’m banking on the fact that if three of those 5 women were shot with silencers @dawn, nobody would be more the wiser, nor interested, no loss publicly recognised, especially after just a few days of more important events, elsewhere: and a week later, we’d all be saying…
“oh yeah, that nut-job ignoramus, ‘tragic’, crash test dummies … and for my next trick, ”
I’m starting a derivative investment fund that predicts & speculates on not just the Weather, like Enron 1997, nonono, my fund is a blockbuster barometer on the fortunes of Dumbed Down TV personalities & Weather Girls …
any takers for CNN’s Kate Bolduan?

Will she have a job as a weather girl, or won’t she and sorry Harry, but no more takes on future high fives with… S’Meg, sister Meghan, sorry all bets are off, other than a bullet from the barrel of a smoking gun ! ”
🙂

milosevic
milosevic
Sep 9, 2019 7:46 AM
Reply to  Tim Jenkins

Are you a disinfo bot? Surely only a bot could write such abject nonsense. Perhaps more automatic text-generation research is required, before bots like you are actually effective agents of disinfo.

Tim Jenkins
Tim Jenkins
Sep 11, 2019 9:53 PM
Reply to  milosevic

Have you really got no sense of humour, nor sense of what went wrong in societal media developments, beginning even before WW2 …

Jesus wept, Milosevic, take a long walk & grab some fresh: seriously. Life on the Balkans, since the 90’s onwards, has been seriously TOUGH !

And quite clearly you seem to know fuck all about Dilyana Gaytandzhieva’s most recent revelations from the Serbian Arms producer, whose name begins with a ‘K’. However, given your dipstick mentality & dumb accusations i’ll leave you to research that for yourself… Like a I said, take a long walk and may I add,
off a short pier !

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Sep 8, 2019 9:40 AM

On the other hand a snapshot of the US MSM illustrating how igornace is a virtue rather than a handicap.

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Sep 8, 2019 9:37 AM

Jimmy Dore hands the MSM it’s arse on a plate – enjoy.

Henry Wilson
Henry Wilson
Sep 8, 2019 9:22 AM

the B B C & other U K media outlets are becoming mere E U propaganda outlets

Yarkob
Yarkob
Sep 8, 2019 10:40 AM
Reply to  Henry Wilson

becoming?