Boycott All U.S.-Corporate Media!
Eric Zuesse
Image credit: Boycott the Mainstream Media
Now Twitter is just as corrupt as Google and Facebook and MSNBC and CNN and Fox and the Washington Post and The Atlantic and all the rest. Propaganda organizations all.
Caitlin Johnstone nailed it, on September 12th, under the headline “Have You Noticed How Social Media Purges Always Align With The US Empire?” and she opened:
Twitter has suspended multiple large Cuban media accounts for reasons the social media platform has yet to explain as of this writing, a move which journalist Dan Cohen has described as “the equivalent of silencing CNN, Fox, WaPo and NPR’s accounts” for that nation. The Union of Cuban Journalists has denounced the move as censorship.
Prior to that, on July 12th, she had headlined “Top Assange Defense Account Deleted By Twitter”, and she reported that, “One of the biggest Twitter accounts dedicated to circulating information and advocacy for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, @Unity4J, has been completely removed from the site. The operators of the account report that they have been given no reason for its removal by Twitter staff, and have received no response to their appeals.”
Four days later, she headlined “Twitter Restores Assange Activism Account In Response To Backlash”, and Twitter will probably do the same this time around, but what about all the times they do this against less prominent entities or voices than Cuba or Julian Assange?
Everybody knows — Google and Facebook even have help-wanted ads out for — America’s social media barons hiring censors to restrict what those ’social’ media (a.k.a. U.S.-imperialist propaganda-organizations) will allow from ’society’ (the billionaire-approved members of it, that is) to report.
And as far as the print and broadcast U.S. media are concerned, they all are peddlers of either the Republican National Committee’s propaganda-line, or the Democratic National Committee’s propaganda-line (each controlled by that Party’s billionaires, its mega-donors); and does it really make any basic difference whether one is seeing propaganda from Republican Party billionaires, or from Democratic Party billionaires?
Why isn’t the entire world now blacking-out those media — those agencies of the U.S. international-corporate empire?
Why aren’t China, and Russia, and Iran, and maybe even India, developing their own competitors against the U.S. billionaires’ media?
Okay, you might say, RT.com was already somewhat that (and more truthful than any of the U.S.-and-allied versions were), before the U.S. Government declared it to be a “foreign agent,” and yet the U.S. regime doesn’t do the same (in effect) banning against the BBC, or against other (U.S.-regime-allied) government-broadcasters.
But what’s especially needed, all over the world, are non-U.S.-regime competitors (Russian or otherwise), against Google and Facebook and Twitter, etc., and not only against the U.S. regime’s ’news’-media (NYT, CBS, CNN, NPR, or other).
When are those start-ups going to appear — and why haven’t they appeared already? Wouldn’t the competition be terrific for the public! After all: RT is ‘banned’ but still can be accessed.
The U.S.-and-allied ’news’-media propagandized the entire world to invade Iraq in 2003 on the basis only of U.S.-Government lies, and repeated that evil performance for the invasion of Libya in 2011, and of Syria in 2012 till today. Doesn’t anybody get it? Those ‘news’-media are the master fake-’news’ propagandists of all — now decade after decade!
Maybe some of America’s ‘enemies’ can produce alternatives that are far more trustworthy than the corrupt, lying, U.S.-and-allied, ’news’ and ’social’ media versions. Maybe they can all get together and try. And maybe, in the interim, everybody can just explore such non-U.S.-non-billionaires-controlled media as:
112 International
21st Century Wire
Alahed News
alalamtv.net
Aletho News
American Herald Tribune
Asia Times
BAS News
Caitlin Johnstone
CounterCurrents
Counterpunch
Covert Book Report
The Duran
The Energy Mix
ePravda.com
Eurasia Review
Eye on the Ties
GeoPoliticsAlert
Global Research
GrayZone.com
Greanville Post
intellinews.com
Interfax
Intrepid Report
Matt Kennard
Land Destroyer
Levant Report
The Liberty Beacon
Libyan War – The Truth
LobeLog
MintPressNews
MisionVerdad
Modern Diplomacy
Moon of Alabama
Craig Murray
Nation of Change
New Eastern Outlook
The New Humanitatian (formerly irinnews.org)
newsnet.fr
Off Guardian
One America News Network
Oriental Review
priceofoil.org
Public Intelligence
Russia Insider
Rusvesna.su
The Saker
Shoah.org.uk
South China Morning Post
SouthFront.org
Strategic Culture
Syria News
Tass.ru
TeleSur
Today Venezuela
https://www.tolonews.com
UAWire.org
VenezuelAnalysis
Vesti News
Washington Blog
Yenisafak.com
Zero Hedge
Here is another non-mainstream news report that, like Caitlin Johnstone’s, was published online on September 12th, and whose excellence demonstrates well the relatively trashy performance of U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media: Boeing Foresees Return Of The 737 MAX In November – But Not Everywhere
If one compares that with what’s being published in the mainstream press on the same issue, is there really any comparison, at all? And such excellence is routine for the anonymous writer of that blog.
Subscribers to U.S.-allied media are paying to have propaganda parading as ‘news’ fed to them.
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Totally agree with the gist of this article, except the topic had run its course years ago, and the churnalists & think tanks who keep milking their cash-cow might wish to earn their keep with a topic which might require some investigative inquiry..
The questions are endless, the horizon vast.. Quest into the unknown
While we’re talking about sources of info, does anyone have an opinion of Richard Seymour, the (erstwhile?) host of Lenin’s Tomb. LT used to be a very lively place about 15 years ago when Seymour was part of the SWP. But then there was some scandal involving a rape accusation which pretty much sunk the SWP. This seems to have been a mysterious incident since every time I tried to find out about it, it was all masked over in compulsively defensive language where no names were mentioned and everyone seemed eager to demonstrate their outrage. I felt shades of similar rape claims e.g. the Assange one. Of course I know I can’t just blandly assume it was all a fraud designed to inflict damage – and yet the effect was spectacular in that the SWP fell apart. Seymour himself left and seemed to drift between various projects. He also adopted a new tone of grim bitterness – even a sense of cynicism. Comments on LT dwindled and it seems to have ground to a standstill now. Does anyone have an opinion – or info – on this?
As in below, I’d appreciate it if there was feedback instead of just votes down. Do you think my comment is irrelevant? Are you standing up for Seymour? Do you hate the SWP anyway? Do you think there was truth in the rape allegations? Are you outraged that I should suggest the allegations may have been faked etc.
I also go to the World Socialist Web Site at https://www.wsws.org/
Granted that they can be aggressively partisan and always seem to ring off on that declaration of an imminent world wide worker’s movement. But I’ve found most of their articles to be credible.
I would appreciate it if, instead of just voting me down, people would explain why they don’t like the wsws. Do they think it’s a covertly finded party like Jacobin? Do they think it’s not to be trusted? Do they dislike the stridency? etc.
This my finger. My finger bad. He go naughty places and pick my nose. He worse than me. This my button finger. My button finger good. He poke button so I relax. He better than me.
Yeah I suppose that sums it up.
The bottom upside-down word in the picture of the tv is misspelled. Please fix it.
Information Clearing House informationclearinghouse.info is a very good source as well.
Such a 5-Eyes slant to global media, with no sign of knowing anything outside the tiny MSM / alt-media bubble..
For the author’s information, the other 190 countries have a life of their own, social media of their own, a national media of their own, with no interest in what he would consider important.
Stale, regurgitated articles about 5-Eyes hysterics works within a closed, parochial audience.
My button finger on a roll today.
Surprising that any of your fingers work for a jack-off like you..
Wow, look at all of the exceptionalists, scurrying out to boast of the superiority of their 5-eyes news topics ! Only topic in town.. Center of the Universe !!
I regularly read a lot of the above list. Sad to say, many of them often ask for donations and some report being close to not being able to continue without more reader support. It’s a shame there isn’t a central funding point for them with, perhaps, funds allocated according to the number of hits.
There are some excellent podcasts for those who don’t have time to sit and read, to mention a few: several from Sputnik, The Real News, the Duran, 21st Wire – all free to download and enough of this genre to listen all day if you were so inclined.
Erm, the last thing we should be recommending for these news blogs is a central online funding point because that would be the first thing targeted by The Powers That Be if the elites want to strangle them: cut off their financial support.
Most of these blogs and their supporters would not use such a funding point anyway. They already shun sites like PayPal.
After repeated blatant intrusion into my private Euro bank account by Pay Pal, I posted a warning on Bernie’s Moon of Alabama site..
Result: I am blocked from posting there, not that I did anyway..
Lesson: don’t fuck with Bernie’s cash flow. his ass-licking trolls will huff & puff
People – without exceptions – are not willing to wake up, yet. The degree of denial over what is done to the human mind – individually and collectively – knows no limits. It is incessant. And it shows its effects, that are widespread. Each and every ‘news’ serves a much deeper purpose than the emission of such news. It is not even improtant whether these news are factual, or fake. They exist to program the minds of the populations. Loud mouthes will proclaim that they are not susceptible to this programming – while they gobble it down like a fish – hook, line , sinker.
Since Edward Curtin writes here, too, I like to refer to his brilliant essay from 2018 about this manipulation. All you have to do is to replace the term ‘9/11’ with anything else you wonder about being ‘true’, or not.
Why I don’t speak of the fake news of 9/11 anymore
To add to the findings by Edward Curtin, I would like to point to a practice that has become widespread and has devastating consequences to the mind. It is the delivery of two contrary aspects at the same time. The following example (under the Fair Use Act) shall exemplify what I mean. Not sure if it works, as I am using an image hoster in order to show a screen capture.
<a href="https://ibb.co/48YN92L"></a><br /><a target='_blank' href='https://imgbb.com/'>make image url</a><br />
In case it dows not work: The article on RT was about ‘Google’ manipulating search results and meddling in the 2020 elections. The screen capture shows a part of the article with a link displayed at the bottom to ‘Follow RT on Google News’. The manipulation here is obvious. RT publishes an article about the manipulation of search results and at the same time advises users to go to ‘Google.com’.
In deeper psychology this is creating a conflict that the user is not per se aware of. It requires a lot of critical thinking to be impermeable to such manipulation. And it is global – it is everywhere a user accesses the internet, or ‘news’ in this matter. An article that bemoans the illegal activities of another website, but explicitly links to the website in question is deepest manipulation of the mind. Under constant exposure to this kind of manipulation, the user will lose its ability to separate fake news from factual news – as the presentation of such news is in itself a fake.
To givee a more bold example (without image): You are reading an article about gun violence and at the same time see an advertising for ammo. The key here is ‘at the same time’. This is damaging to the brain
and only people like the ‘Harley Guy’ on September Eleven will tell you that it’s perfectly normal and to be expected.
Ponder about that for a moment. With all the news about Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest et al – you are looking at the link buttons to these pages every time you read an article on the internet. Deepest manipulation of the mind a lá Bernays.
Well, I knew it would not work. Here is the link. Maybe that works.
Not about the 2020 election. Selected the wrong screen capture. But you get the idea. They did the same about the 2020 election.
Take it easy, Nottheonly1…
“People – without exceptions – are not willing to wake up, yet” ?
“Without exceptions” ?
Have you not woken up either then?
That doesn’t encourage one to read much further than the first line of your comment…
But I did, fortunately, read your interesting comment to the end, although I would say that in your gun violence example of cognitive dissonance, far from that being “damaging to the brain”, it is actually an excellent challenge for the brain. The question is what sort of brain (or mind) we are dealing with on such issues.
Crucial here is simply whether people decide they want to pursue the “wretched comfort” in their lives which Nietzsche railed against, or whether they feel motivated to acquire knowledge and wisdom.
You just can’t force people to be more intelligent or curious than they actually are, and, for some, even the effort of looking something up on Google is unutterably exhausting…
I have to admit that by far the highest percentage of my friends and acquaintances sees no greater purpose in life than “the pursuit of happiness”, to quote our American cousins, but against that we have the somewhat more inspiring words of a remarkable spiritual/moral teacher like Rudolf Steiner, who responded when asked by one of his socially-aware young students who were on a picnic one glorious sunny day, “Oh, why can’t we all just be happy?”:
His reply: “What if the purpose of life is not to be happy, but to work?”
Such questions point to a possible society where the emphasis is simply, and quite naturally, in an entirely different place from where it is today, and, from that change of emphasis, real inspiration for people to develop a deeper perception of what matters.
Yes. You are correct. Contending with all kinds of technical difficulties, my mind is not fully with what I wrote. It was not expressed properly. The missing part was that I was referring to those who are still sleeping – today. I also turned my auto correct off, because it would dismember at times what I wrote.
Why are so many people still sleeping? This was inspired by the same MSM that did not mention with one word that there is a study that points out that WTC 7 was demolished. While searching for this on MSM sites, I become aware of the contradictions that are woven in and go subliminal. The reader might simply not be aware. You could say “Of course they are not aware – other wise they would not expose themselves to the MSM.” Especially not what goes for ‘social media’.
Is it possible for those who consume MSM/social media, to detect the underlying currents that are built-in to manipulate the mind? Bernays was extremely knowledgeable when it came to the manilpulation of the mind. In its perfection, the targeted audience will not notice that they were programmed. This linguistic programming, also predictive programming goes undetected by those who are asleep. That’s where the danger lies. Germany showed to what extend it works.
Reformulating what I wanted to say, it should include the part of ‘no exception’ among those who do not see that they are asleep. Or worse, that deny that there is another view to the one they adhere to. The ‘willfulness’ part.
Rudolph Steiner. Friends of my parents who have already left the living, were relatives of Rudolph Steiner and had the entire library. Amazing. Such an insight into the doings of the Universe.
In regards to ‘work’, I have my own views. ‘Work’ in a material world is tied to matter. When one says that another ‘works hard’, one speaks about exterior work. And that is the predominant view in Western society. However, if there is someone who saves lives by paying attention to those in despair and ‘works’ beyond the physical pane, it is generally not really seen as ‘hard work’. Likewise, tending to plants and animals could be considered hard work, because of the exhaustion of the physical body. But it might not be perceived as such by the human who engages in such activity.
Again, there is drifting into other areas of the mind, because everything is connected to everything else. The manipulation of the masses to steer them away from their own well being towards an emptiness/vacuum in which they are vulnerable to the conditioning by the owner class.
A lot of truth in what you say there.
That’s really quite something to have the entire Steiner library … I understand he gave about 5,000 lectures during his relatively short life, and I have a good many of them printed out at home. The breadth of his own field of work is just stunning.
In that respect, R.S.’s definition of “work” obviously includes, along with thoroughly practical activity in the world, the fields of work upon oneself as an individual and work of a non-material kind, including the results of meditation and self-discipline in thinking habits, etc. etc.
Ultimately, his is a very optimistic view of the world, full of purpose and energy, although our current “leaders”, with their entirely materialistic view of everything, will see nothing there at all.
Most people understand the concepts of physical and intellectual maturity, but when it comes to anything which goes a little further into what one could call, “spiritual maturity”, people would rather keep their eyes blindfolded and their ears full of cotton wool.
“Likewise, tending to plants and animals could be considered hard work, because of the exhaustion of the physical body. But it might not be perceived as such by the human who engages in such activity.”
Tending to our cat is not physically exhausting, but it is very hard work. Because it’s a cat.
I had a bit of a scare when I saw “CounterCurrents” in the list of recommended sites since there is a similarly named site – which is a screaming fascist sewer. Just make sure you don’t put a dash between “counter” and “currents”.
Countercurrents is one of my ‘go too’ sites for really decent commentary George. It bemuses me tho, when I type in its name, up pops this loony neo nazi racist site run by Richard Spencer. Looks like we’re being trolled again here with all the down votes. Agree with your earlier comment also about thumbs down.
Thanks GP, I was a bit bemused about why anyone would vote down a question. I wonder if some of those votes are generated by software attuned to specific words and phrases?
I noted 3 of my comments further down this thread all got -14 down votes, including a very basic reply to AnneR. Obviously sites like ours that shine a light on the murderous evil of this Empire are always going to be monitored by the spooks, along with being subjected to the various trolls who visit here to ‘stir the pot’. I think Admin are looking into instigating a subscriber vote system?
Zuesse is spot on about the insufferable U.S. corporate media. It’s a nice list of alternative news sites for the most part. I wouldn’t include CounterPunch on it though, the editors are very anti-Russia to a suspicious degree. I used to think the Saker.is was good until he posted a nasty, bigoted anti-gay diatribe on Unz.com to get the right wing trailer trash audience whipped into a feeding frenzy. On a more positive note, Matt Blumenthal has been kicking butt on the Grey Zone. He recently published a great piece exposing the Jacobin website colluding with U.S. government regime change activists at their ‘Socialism 2019’ conference last July in Chicago-
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/07/06/dsa-jacobin-iso-socialism-conference-us-funded-regime-change/
Blumenthal documents in it how the U.S. State Dept is doing its very best to infiltrate socialist groups and orgs. A socialism conference where socialist countries like Cuba and Venezuela are not welcome and held in contempt. How American. btw Moon of Alabama is excellent!
Admittedly Eric Zuesse is writing from an American viewpoint but he also could have pointed out the BBC and British mainstream news media as equally corrupt and complicit in manufacturing propaganda. I’m sure the BBC shares news items with North American news media and has television and radio broadcasting outlets in many parts of the world using different languages so if anything the BBC is a more significant purveyor of propaganda and disinformation.
Likewise the Australian government-funded ABC and SBS (the latter also has advertising revenue) which are no more than Washington/Canberra (there is no difference) mouthpieces on foreign policy.
I appreciate your input on forums all over the place..
It seems more practical to begin with the 5-Eyes virus, & work our way out..
I was given a -14 here for suggesting that there is a wider world involved..
Believe me, the wider world doesn’t give a shit about the 5-eyes melodrama..
Best wishes from Eddie: Yunnan Province Cn
This sounds potentially very dangerous.
Whilst it has become clear over recent years just how slanted and downright censored much of mainstream media has become, it is very clear to me how slanted much ‘alternative media’ has become too. In a sense, this is a very old story, seen in the idea that people have always tended to take the newspaper that reflected their social position and outlook. The danger is that we only listen to stories that reflect our own predjudices, and in so doing we simply ignore important issues that do not figure in our own slanted world view.
And of course, whilst the story of television current affairs programmes in the US deliberately censoring news so as not to offend their advertisers is an old one, I do not know who funds the alternative news outlets proposed by Eric Zuesse, because funded they most certainly are. And is Eric Zuesse really trying to tell us that the alternative media doesn’t resort to censorship based upon ignoring stories that do not fit in with their readerships’ own predjudices?
So whilst I have a great deal of respect for Thierry Meyssan of Voltairenet and James Corbett of Corbett Report, I will continue to follow mainstream news too but rely upon that word that seems to be very much out of fashion nowadays: Discrimination.
@Kevin Morris: “but rely upon that word that seems to be very much out of fashion nowadays: Discrimination.”
It was ever thus: 19th century Truthers (they were known as Pro-Boers) found that, although the MSM spouted mainly propaganda for the regime, even the alternative Anti-Imperialist “Little Magazines” demanded an exhausting amount of discrimination if one wanted to extract something like the truth about Britain’s rape of the Free Afrikaaner Republics (Hilaire Belloc, The Free Press).
“Sit we never so high, we sit but on our own butt”. — Montaigne
It always amuses me that RT is never called RT in western media. It is always ‘Kremlin funded RT’ or ‘Kremlin mouthpiece RT’ or similar. It’s about time wester media were always labelled ‘GCHQ funded BBC’, ‘MI6 owned The Guardian’ etc., etc.
I read RT every day. I also have a good deal of respect for the Russian people and their president Vladimir Putin. But are you really trying to claim that RT isn’t Kremlin funded and doesn’t prevent views that are useful to Russia’s world view? And are you really trying to claim that the BBC is in fact GCHQ funded and the Guardian is MI6 owned?
Currently, funding of the BBC is frozen and the Guardian has been hard up for years and has under new ownership changed its stance to one that tends to be supportive of official viewpoints. It is a serious matter that because our news media is so badly funded, journalists no longer have the resources to resort to the sort of investigative journalism that they once did.
And the greatest weight that all our news media now must carry is Margaret Thatcher’s 1988 Official Secrets Act which removed the public interest defence and which at a stroke destroyed the ability of the press to call our governments to account. In the period leading to that shamefull Act, the liberal press was full of articles which stated ‘under the proposed legislation it would be illegal to print this story’.
Almost nobody ever mentions the 1988 Official Secrets Act now and the appalling influence it has had in the UK. Much easier to kick mainstream media into touch and resort to news reporting that is often as biased as the worst of our mainstream news reporting and which almost never reports other than that which we already believe to be the case.
@Kevin Morris: “1988 Official Secrets Act now and the appalling influence it has had in the UK. ”
This is an important point: that We the Sheeple allow authoritarian regimes like Maggie’s “Smack of Firm Government” to whittle away our right to Free Speech. Boycott is the weapon of the weak against the military force of a repressive regime; as in Captain Charles Boycott:
“the 19th Royal Hussars and more than 1,000 men of the Royal Irish Constabulary were deployed to protect the [Anti-boycott] harvesters. The episode was estimated to have cost the British government and others at least £10,000 to harvest about £500 worth of crops. ”
Are We the Sheeple really so weak that we have to boycott our own public media because a repressive regime made it a criminal offense to express the truth?
The Fraudian does indeed appear to be owned by the UK Ministry of Defence.
Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis, “How the UK Security Services neutralised the country’s leading liberal newspaper” (Daily Maverick.co.za)
There is a key here; learn to discern deceit so as not to let it run your mind – no matter who, where or how it comes. In order to grow in discernment from a true foundation, you may need to separate from that which separates, just as an addict needs to move from the social context of their addiction in order to grow new choices in place of old habits.
But more important is to actively align and act from a true appreciation. Joy or wholeness of connected being is the quality of awareness that can NOTICE the deceit which otherwise runs as a substitute to shift blame to something downstream.
When Tolkien’s ‘Sauron’ revealed his purpose within the crafting and use of subservient rings of power by taking them as his own – under their ‘master ring’, it was the moment of subjection to hollow and hateful enslavement or the relinquishment of their use. This played out in his book as a dramatic end of an Age to the birth of a new, but its key motif is of the relinquishing of a corrupt and divisive power – or indeed mind of the wish to take power for a private narcissistic fantasy set against relational being.
Narrative control, narrative identity, narrative continuity are all of the possessive identification that then implicitly fears loss of control, loss of self and loss of capacity to make sense or hold order as a self set apart from and over life – in judgement over over its own, and by extension others and world.
Nothing given power by the ‘Expressions of Life’ (that we each and all are) is powerless, and judgements set in fear operate the protection and extension of that fear.
Corruption is in the heart of allegiance to a false sense of identification that automatically invokes protection.
Corporate capture is not just a regulatory monopolism of a ‘power’ class, but the very nature of mind-capture by predatory ideas – ideas that actively undermine and take over the minds of those who are baited by reaction to engage them.
False thinking is not a power in itself – but has all the power that you are, when you give yourself to it. That is to say it sets you against your own life in the belief that your life has betrayed you. What could be a power over life but a hate justified in denial and death? The mind of doublethink as narrative overlay of self contradiction runs a false currency by which a false witness maintains and protects itself from exposure.
Learn to discern the true from the false in everything as a reclaiming of our first nature from a learned survival of conditioning under threat and division. The mind CANNOT be a reliable guide to the undoing of what it made. Discernment is of the listening within to the grace of noticing – that is inherent to being and not added or overlaid upon us.
The true is not at war with the false. The false is not defeated by attack. But the attempt to do so is to become the blind spot to the same hate we thought to cast out and eradicate.
Insofar as there is a war it is in the conflict of fear set against love’s awareness now. But seen truly this is a freedom to choose one and let the other go. That is the purpose of discerning the difference – not to better manage conflict, but to release it to the call to live our joy in life instead of our fear and grievance. This will mean owning our fear and grievance – but not as a damnation. Rather to let what truly belongs to us come home so that what doesn’t can find release.
Yes, technologism marketises and weaponises everything. So stop doing it in your own sphere of immediate responsibility – because this ‘mind’ is pervasive and invisible as the internalised structure of beliefs that are not truly honouring of who you are and what life is.
‘But what’s especially needed, all over the world, are non-U.S.-regime competitors (Russian or otherwise), against Google and Facebook and Twitter, etc., and not only against the U.S. regime’s ’news’-media (NYT, CBS, CNN, NPR, or other).’
Great idea. So why doesn’t this happen?
Could it be that for those who really rule the world, the people who are gathered in the club that George Carlin called ‘the big club’, that it is of utmost importance for them that their schemes are not interfered with by those who are not in the big club?
If this happens to be the case, how do you keep the non-members out? – Simple, by presenting them an endless stream of lies, and half truths, not letting them find out how the world really works, and thereby effictively preventing the non-members to ever interfere with what is really going on in the world.
So the only difference between US corporate media, Russian Media (RT), Chinese media (Asian times) and Iranian media (Press tv) is that they lie differently and that is what they do.
Use your own eyes, senses and gut feeling to understand what the world is about, will get you much further, than relying on the news. Criticasters (like Eric Zuesse)of the news are useful for this purpose, not because they know better than you how the world works (they cannot know better, since they are, similar to you, not members of the big club), but because they show how you can use your own eyes, senses and gut feelings more effectively and without bias.
Limited hangouts, like Snowden, Chomsky, Greenwald, can be useful to give one a gist of an idea who rules the world and how it is ruled, but remember that they are limited hangouts (their reasonings are nearly always based on some ideological background where the official enemy is also their enemy, like Russia, Trump, etc: for a current example on how this works read: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/snowden-spills-legendary-whistleblower-opines-spycraft-ai-and-being-suicided, where Snowden for instance claims that the only reason why these awful Russians haven’t thrown them in jail or somthing the like, is because he is such a famous person, who also only socializes with the ‘good’ English speaking people (Snowden: ‘I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional’) and who thinks that Obama was a much ‘better’ president (whatever that means) than Trump)
Other useful sites (some of them no longer posting news criticisms)
Ohtarzie
Lorenzoae
Jammerjoh (for those who can read Dutch)
I do try and boycott the Empire’s mouthpieces, especially here in Australia; however, occasionally I do have a slip, and find myself briefly looking at ABC or SBS news. Sigh.
Before long, I’m swearing at my TV and hitting the off button on my remote wondering why I turned the bloody thing on in the first place. Morbid curiosity? Grotesque fascination?
I know they are stenographers for Empire and Imperialism and the status quo. I know this – yet. Sigh.
Most of the list you supplied I already knew about Eric. Also appreciate your own work along with other truth tellers like The Saker, Caitlin Johnston, Bernhard at Moon Of Alabama, Max Blumenthal and co at The Grayzone, CJ Hopkins, Patrice Greanville, Paul Craig Roberts, Danny Haiphong and numerous others who shine a light on the murderous machinations of the Empire, and of its many crimes.
For now, at least we have high quality independent news sites to get our news from. For now. Perhaps I should throw away my TV?
Jerry Mander has written two books that were so forward thinking, in hindsight, regards television and social media . To the extent that I removed my final link with mainstream social media ( twitter) , and cancelled our tv licence earlier this year.
Four Arguments For The Elimination of Television.
In The Absence of The Sacred .
It’s not overstating things to say these two books have changed our lives (husband’s and mine).
Really recommend them Gezzah.
Appreciate your reply, and the book recommendations, thanks Jean. Don’t use social media at all, and yes, its way to easy to sit and stare at the TV. Better things to do!
However, a harder problem may be knowing which ‘other’ is your friend and which is your enemy. Then
with foreknowledge and intent…
My upvote was for the last sentence.
You’re right – its turning my brain to mush. Read a book or listen to music instead.
Gezzah, I threw away my TV years ago but it’s not a healthy situation. Like living in one of those U$ counties with poison in the public water supply. There was a time — before TB.Liar became Prime Minister of Britain — when foreigners who wanted to assure one another of the truth of a piece of news would say, BBC.
“There was a time…when foreigners who wanted to assure one another of the truth of a piece of news would say, BBC.”
So much for book larnin’. Perhaps said foreigners were unaware that ‘Perfidious Albion’ was a synonym for ‘Great Britain’?
Eric…..the gigantic omissions of the Corbett Report, Paul Craig Roberts and Media Lens….need to be addressed. These are worthies of top 10 status. Please add them to the list.
A useful list. Also try Yandex as browser. I switched to Yandex because Google, Firefox & DuckDuck were downgrading Truther sites on their search priorities, and were taking me by longer and more circuitious routes to find SyrPer & OffG. Yandex found theme instantly.
I’ve been really disappointed with DuckDuck as an alternative to many mainstream browsers, so will give Yandex a whirl and see how it performs.
I too, started with DDG, (due to Alphabet inc.’s HRC bias, back in 2016, before the elections) and like you, I found it has become progressively worse & worse and more time consuming sifting through the propaganda first, to find what was required. I also loaded Yandex, back then, for the reason that it has the ‘Best Cyrillic Translator’ and objectivity, in that direction. But, Chris, this year I downloaded Brave browser (with Qwant integrated) as well, to obviate ‘google DDG & safari’ confusion and I have to tell you that their claims to be TWICE as fast, are true, and with far less BS mixed in …
Try Brave Chris, it works excellently at the moment, for balanced results.
Brave & Yandex …
I’ve tried Brave twice, on two different devices but it won’t load crosswords and other puzzles so have had to abandon it. Still happy with DDG and Yandex.
Thank you Tim for the thumbs up on Brave, will check it out and see if I can lose much of the crap I’m never actually searching for.
“Try Brave Chris, it works excellently at the moment, for balanced results.”
Every silver lining has its cloud.
I switched last week after it bbecame apparent that DDG is just another tool for the owner class. I do screen captures of all the shit I encounter. It is disgusting. So, Yandex turns out to be the same crap coming from further east. Just do a comparative search with all available search engines and look at the ‘loading elements’ to accept the bitter truth that it is all manipulated and tailored to each user search via AI. It’s game over for sure. We need to boycott the internet like people on the streets stopping business as usual.
Reveal and not conceal:
What is SyrPer? (i searched online and found things unrelated to news)
Clarity, which Search Engine did you use? Might I suggest you type “SyrPer” into Yandex? (Or into Brave, as Tim suggested). Also try typing “OffG”. Let us know if the straight answer does not immediately appear on the top Link.
https://startpage.com/ —a highly configurable (by settings or by a personally customized URL) search engine combined with an optional anonymizing proxy for every returned link. Not a browser. Uses Google intelligently, not exclusively, doesn’t kiss its butt.
Lots of other good sites, Consortium News, Media web, Electronic intifada, George Galloways MOATS, weekly news programme, The Canary, Pox Americana. In fact think it would be a brilliant idea if we were to compile a list. I regularly get asked where I get my news from, I dont read newspapers any more… Lets do it.
Marilyn’s idea is really good. Could Off-G have a special page, maybe part of the home-page, which sets up this list, and allows commenters to propose additions to it as perceived – after discussion – to be worthy?
OffG used to have a sidebar of links to alternative news sites, but this seems to have been dropped. Such lists are always controversial anyway, as the present discussion shows.
Boycott All U.S.-Corporate Media!
Acting along the same line, Hollywood must be on top of the list to be ignored/blocked/boycotted.
– Never step into a movie theatre unless it is specifically Hollywood-unconnected venue
– Close down any webpage talking about any Hollywood related matter
– Skip over any paragraph that mentions any Hollywood related news
– When your colleagues brag about any Hollywood crap, ignore them or better, feel pity for them as they have nothing of better value to talk about, and try to change the subject
If you’re looking for a replacement activity, try going deeper into classical music (or planting herbs in your garden).
If you’re not doing any of the above, you’d better get your act together and shake up your routine a bit.
Getting into classical music or doing a spot of gardening are both recommended if you’re out to clear your mind of the MSM sludge.
A long departed family friend who was a printer at a reactionary corporate ‘news’paper (until his actions in support of better pay ended his employment) was fond of saying that Beethoven gives you strength!
His compositions are – based on findings in regards to ‘healing harmonies’ – audible medicine.
Whenever things get too much to bear, I click on the ‘Led Zeppelin’ playlist that contains all of their works. On ‘shuffle’. It won’t take long and the mind calms down again. Music is much more that lovely sounds. Fela Kuti once even stated that “Music is the weapon of the future.”
It helps if you refer to that place in California, and to all of its output too, as Hollyshite. People always know at once what you mean. And it underlines the cesspit nature of the place graphically. I use it at all times, even amongst pearl-clutcher snowflakes. Also, for years now, I’ve operated a personal total boycott on ALL its output. Never seen any for a long time. Not a whit the worse for that abstention.
Actively, one should block all these Controlled Corporate Media websites. This can be done by using the operating system on your computer and/or by using an add-on to your browsers.
And, by doing so, you WILL have more time and sanity to live your life.
Not very clever, if you block some of these websites, and continue to pay your subscription fees to some of Mr Murdzoch’s companies.
I do not believe in blocking these because I feel it is unwise to not wanting to know how the ‘enemy’ ticks. Do not ever spend a dime with them, though, read the teasers. We liked the National Geographic but when we read that Murdoch Jr. had acquired it we did not renew. Same with daily newspapers here in AUS where Murdoch owns 70%. Spiegel is not what they were after Bertelsmann took a grand share. Never spend one cent – only read what’s for free. Find free news on topics through search engines; companies etc issue lots of information which does not mean feeding the dragon.
Use search engines in a way that is unorthdox. Do you think there could be a link between Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Fink? Never heard anything, but let’s take a look! Out comes this teaser:
George Capen on Twitter: “Who else was in Paris last weekend …
https://twitter.com/george_capen/status/1062062357709373441Anonymous View
12 Nov 2018 … The private jets of at least these three were there: Tom Barrack (Trump’s Inaugural Chairman) Larry Fink (CEO BlackRock) Jeffrey Epstein.
(access to text with auth only. Isn’t that interesting!)
“I do not believe in blocking these because I feel it is unwise to not wanting to know how the ‘enemy’ ticks”
Sure, but rest assured, you’ll always know how the enemy ticks because the air is full of it nowadays. Also, guaranteed you’ll have more time to do more interesting things if you block the likes of the daily mail and everything to do with MSN and its associated websites.
TruePublica (UK) and New Matilda (for Australian readers) are also useful sites.
Learning is a biological process that responds to experience. Education is a bureaucracy. Biologically processed information becomes knowledge when it is stored in a form that can be retrieved in response to an appropriate demand. I often hear, that you are what you eat..exchanging eat for experience: your thinking reflects what you experience ( false, misleading and mind control directing propaganda, feed 24/7, is often designed to impose an information environment that allows the MSM to produce experiences that mold your thinking).
In the old days, a media was obliged to give equal time to both or all sides of political commentary. In my opinion. alternative media are rapidly replacing main stream media; but alternative media have encountered strong resistance from Economic Zionist. Alternative media is placed at a disadvantage because it does not rely on advertising, because it does not have access to the technology that main stream media has, and because main stream media enjoy monopoly powers over the means to publish (copyright and patent) and access to information which are locked behind the gated walls of monopoly powers. So that alternative media and its users often must to pay to get information freely available to the mainstream media.
Beside control of content, MSM generally control the distribution of content. Any content that reflects on the friends or partners of MSM is denied by the EZ, and any content that trashes an opponent is promoted.
EZ allows no competition, take no prisoners, and either takes from others their opportunities or destroys those others and decimated their resources, infrastructures and ability to recover or compete.
Capitalism, free for all economic competition, requires a fair and just referee, so that no monopoly power can develop and so that the economic environment in which capitalist compete remains fairly competitive and completely free of monopoly powers and bias. When governments fails to referee the economic environment, monopolism catalyzes the transformation of capitalism into economic zionism.
When those who lead and direct governments become the partners of certain economic players, and refuse to maintain monopoly free economic environments; government becomes the sponsors of monopolies (they write laws to enable patents, copyrights, and to deliver massive government contracts to insiders, and deliver public resource and service franchises to privately owned entities, etc.). In time, these bias develop and produce fewer entities with more and more power. Those with the power begin to eliminate all would be competition, they engineer information environments to accommodate private party developed propaganda, and they deny would be competing entrepreneurs access to markets and financing, thereby forcing the entrepreneurs to contribute their entrepreneurial expertise to the service and for the profit of those who already hold the monopoly powers.
So EZ is in actuality a pathology that that develops from uncontrolled and unregulated capitalism. EZ results when control of governments is turned over to and partnered with monopolist. “Monopoly free, highly competitive, economic environments are no longer maintained. Without dedicated government oversight, capitalism, democracy, human rights, and fairness in quality of life for all to be relatively equal completely disappear.
Thank you for the article
Thanks Eric. Haven’t seen some of those. I would add The Canary, The Real News Network, Black Agenda Report, Truthdig (with some reservations), The Intercept (with more reservations), Truthout, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), Empire Files,…
Good call, Black Agenda Report is an excellent news resource.
Towards the end of your excellent piece, you missed the “Zeitgeist Project” from that list, Eric.
Agreed. But how can you possibly miss out Consortium News and Jonathan Cook?
Zero Hedge is NOT censorship free as they banned my commentary one month after The Duck bullied his racist way into the White House with billions in borrowed money from Deutsche Bank which is equally as insolvent as The Duck is and that’s why you will never see his tax returns.
Zero Hedge is NOT an unbiased website and they promote Orange Jesus Cheeto-head-in-chief as one might expect the most deplorable in society also support The Duck and his racism. Bottom line is that ZH is a great website for Finance & day trading but they are by no means honest or even reliable when it comes to The Duck or his psychotic behaviour that is completely unhinged.
I do email the Tyler(s) at ZH with commentary for various subject matter but I have been banned outright on ZH for merely stating the facts of The Duck’s unhinged narcissistic rage run amok.
And I was banned in less than one month of The Duck’s poorly attended inaugural narcissistic ranting of how he was going to ‘make America late again’ with his abject racist hate.
MOU