The MSM Never Was Objective—and It Never Questioned Power, Either
Iain Davis
Photo by Nijwam Swargiary on Unsplash
In his excellent exposé of the recent decision by the Knight-Cronkite News Lab (KCNL) to advocate journalism that goes beyond objectivity, and in light of the report from the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) confirming that RussiaGate was fabricated nonsense, genuinely independent researcher, writer and filmmaker James Corbett made a number of very salient points.
As Corbett points out:
As a moment’s sober reflection will immediately reveal, the mouthpiece mockingbirds of the controlled establishment media have never been objective and they have no credibility to damage.
But there is far more to this particular psyop than merely covering up the inconvenient history of media. The new narrative, sold to us in this instance by both KCNL and the CJR, is laying the foundations for a transformation of the media landscape.
The establishment wants us to believe that our “trust” in journalism is a vital component of our democracy—and, moreover, that the state can determine which news media organisation is deserving of our “trust.”
In truth, if democratic principles really matter to us, it is essential that we never trust any “news reports” from any journalist or news provider. Democracy places a duty upon us to be fierce critical thinkers. We should never unquestioningly accept anything we are told.
Journalism Is Story Telling
Every mainstream media (MSM) and “alternative media” outlet presents narratives. They are in the business of telling stories, not simply presenting “objective” facts.
Good journalism expresses an opinion and then cites the evidence that informs it. Well written journalism does this within the engaging and intriguing narratives it weaves. But no journalism is free from the journalist’s own conformation bias, and the tenor of the story is often directed by the editorial policy and allegiances of the publisher.
Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh’s recent investigation, in which he exposes the likelihood that the US government was behind the destruction of the Nord Stream II pipeline, is only available via independent outlets and on his own Substack. Despite this apparently being a story of enormous magnitude, the MSM seems extremely reluctant to bring it to wider attention. You can read about it only in the so-called “alternative media.”
While some MSM outlets report the official denial of Hersh’s piece, none have lent it much credibility, and many have been quick to cast aspersions on Hersh himself. Yes, the old game of attacking the messenger while avoiding the content of the message.
It is fair to say, based on the Hersh article alone, that no one can really verify his revelations in specific regard to Nord Stream II. He presents no evidence other than anecdotal accounts from unnamed sources. But nowhere in the MSM does there appear to be any interest in pursuing the needed investigation that Hersh’s piece demands.
Thus, it remains a piece of fantastic journalism, most notably because the very specific references it makes to orders given and operations undertaken during the BALTOPS22 exercise can be investigated. Detailed questions can be asked of officials. The blanket denials of Hersh’s story and his precise allegations are nowhere near enough to discredit it.
Given all the circumstantial evidence that also points towards US and NATO aligned culpability, his journalism—a great story—adds real fuel to the fire. This is real investigative journalism. That the story he presents in part reflects his own perspective is irrelevant.
The MSM Was Never Objective
One of the MSM’s main criticisms of the so-called “alternative media” is that it can often be described as activist journalism. This allegation implies that the perspective of the alternative news journalist biases their reporting. But such a criticism is itself a deception, because all journalism reports from a perspective.
There are basic commercial reasons why objectivity doesn’t suit journalism.
Consumers of “news” don’t want to simply know what the facts are. They also want a steer on the broader implications of those facts. If that reaffirms their existing world view, all the better for sales. We all want to believe we are right and not be constantly reminded that we are probably wrong.
This is why very few Guardian readers also read the Daily Telegraph or Sun readers the Mirror, even when the presented “facts” are essentially the same. We pay for the perspective we agree with, not simply an objective reporting of the facts.
It is science, not journalism, that strives to achieve absolute objectivity in its pursuit of empirical facts. But the problem with scientific objectivity, beyond its corruption, is that it tends to introduce immense complexity and can be extremely boring to read. It doesn’t lend itself well to stirring up emotions or selling media content.
Other than a few obsessive researchers and the scientists themselves, few of us actually want to read highly technical and sterile scientific papers. We rely upon the journals and the MSM to tell us what the science says, wrongly assuming that their reporting of it is “objective.”
Our faith in the MSM places us in a vulnerable position, especially when it comes to the reporting of hard facts, such as those supposedly revealed by science. If those same alleged “facts” then become the basis for justifying government policy and/or our own decisions, then we had better be damn sure that our belief in the veracity of the story is well-placed.
The evidence that the MSM doesn’t even report the facts accurately is overwhelming. The CJR has exposed RussiaGate as the politically motivated nonsense it was. But this rubbish was relentlessly spewed out on both sides of the Atlantic for more than a year—alongside the equally baseless Skripal yarn—by a majority of MSM outlets. The obvious propaganda was designed to illegitimately demonise the Russian government.
The CJR report demonstrates that today’s Western MSM is a mass purveyor of mis- and disinformation. We are presently regaled with highly spurious Ukraine war propaganda. This is the culmination of the Russophobic Western MSM agenda that has been building for many years.
The scene has seemingly been set, and we have all been psychologically prepared for the current conflict. This makes it easier for us to imagine that the Russians are our enemy.
State propaganda partnerships with the MSM are nothing new. Three examples quickly come to mind:
- British military intelligence were feeding senior broadsheet correspondents “stories” for decades, long before the MSM made up tales about WMD in Iraq to convince the public to accept a fake casus belli for the Iraq War.
- The Church Committee formally exposed the “Operation Mockingbird” network in the US in 1975. The CIA had been manipulating the reporting of the US MSM for many years, feeding selected operative journalists intel that they then reported as “objective journalism.”
- The Mockingbird Operation PBSuccess employed public relations guru Edward Bernays to use the media to overthrow the Guatemalan government on behalf of the United Fruit Company in 1954.
While proven MSM disinformation operations and campaigns, such as these, have purportedly been assigned to the annals of history, disinfo activity is manifestly ongoing. If anything, state control of the MSM narrative for propaganda purposes has reached heights that even Bernays couldn’t have imagined.
State propaganda has been privatised. Governments channel taxpayers’ money to their global corporate partners, which in turn pay the MSM to produce the desired disinformation. During the pseudopandemic we saw whole teams of behavioural scientists at the World Health Organisation global governance level and in various nations states “use” the MSM to unethically deploy applied psychology and disinformation to tackle what the establishment and its MSM hypocritically called “the infodemic.”
When Spi-B—the team of behavioural change experts within the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE)—recommended that the UK government should “use the media” to increase “the perceived level of personal threat” to convince British people that they were living through a pandemic, contrary to the evidence of their own eyes, the MSM dutifully obliged. They launched numerous corporate backed terror campaigns upon an unsuspecting public.
We are constantly told by the political class that “press freedom” is an essential part of our democracy. If the MSM really were a pluralistic and free media, it wouldn’t be possible to “use” it for propaganda. There would be too many dissenting articles by investigative MSM journalists to maintain a single, uniform narrative across all outlets simultaneously. But it isn’t a pluralistic and free media and never was, so it is entirely possible for the MSM to be co-opted. What does this say about our alleged democracy?
The so-called “infodemic,” identified by the World Health Organisation as being “just as dangerous” as an alleged global pandemic, included any and all information that questioned the diktats of our “democratic” policymakers. The MSM attacked all dissent—literally without question—on the behalf of governments and intergovernmental authorities and their corporate partners.
The infodemic, according to the establishment, was prompted by the public’s questions about government policy, about “science” as reported by the MSM, and about data that revealed statistical manipulation. The infodemic was also prompted by the MSM looking askance at sceptical scientific papers shared by people who dared question the reported “science” as well as at the millions of people who raised their voices in mass protests. These protests were either ignored by the MSM or the protestors views were distorted and their peaceful demonstrations labelled “extremist.”
There was nothing remotely “objective” about any of this mainstream “news coverage.” Rather, in total obedience to the state, the Western MSM attacked informed opinion, ridiculed all questions and demonised individuals who did not comply. Not because there was any justification for doing so, but because that is the role of the MSM. Objectivity is nowhere in sight, nor has it ever been.
The MSM Has Never Questioned Power
The Knight-Cronkite News Lab (KCNL) goal is to create a “set of standards for trustworthy news.” Indeed, maintaining the public’s “trust” is the overwhelming fixation of the MSM and its government partners. We are urged to place our faith in those who evidently lie to us and suppress facts all the time.
At one point the KCNL noted:
As early as the turbulent 1960s, some younger journalists, especially investigative reporters, began to question what objectivity really meant if it did not challenge power, privilege and inequality.
Similarly, the CJR report on RussiaGate states that “primary missions” of journalism include “informing the public and holding powerful interests accountable.”
We are told that “holding power to account,” or watchdog journalism, is the core principle of journalism. Yet nowhere in the International Federation of Journalists Charter of Ethics or in the UK National Union of Journalists Code of Conduct is there any mention of this alleged principle.
The American Press Association’s (APA) Principles of Journalism does say that journalism must serve as an independent monitor of power. But this “principle” speaks more about defending journalists’ alleged legal “rights” than it does about exposing any wrongdoing:
Journalism has an unusual capacity to serve as watchdog over those whose power and position most affect citizens. The Founders recognized this to be a rampart against despotism when they ensured an independent press; courts have affirmed it; citizens rely on it. As journalists, we have an obligation to protect this watchdog freedom by not demeaning it in frivolous use or exploiting it for commercial gain.
The APA’s watchdog principle is supposedly protected by the government and its courts. It is not a “right,” but rather a permit bestowed upon American journalists by the establishment. This permit can be rescinded. The extent to which journalists in the US can question “power” is based solely on the protection that legacy journalism receives from the institutions it allegedly questions.
Demeaning something as frivolous is precisely what the MSM does when it labels people as conspiracy theorists, as science deniers or as COVID deniers. These attacks are rarely, if ever, based upon any exploration of the evidence. In fact, the labelling system itself is used to omit, obscure or “deny” the evidence.
All the APA’s principles mean is that certain subjects and certain kinds of evidence, characterised as “frivolous,” must not be reported by its members. What is or is not considered “frivolous” is entirely subjective. Given journalism’s legislative “protections,” it seems pretty clear what will be considered “frivolous.” A high degree of subjectivity, not objectivity, is the full extent of the APA members’ ethical commitment to “watchdog” journalism.
We only need look at the history we’ve discussed to understand that the news media barely and rarely holds power to account. Instead, the MSM is more frequently an extension of state and corporate power and is used to control the people through disinformation, omission and misdirection rather than to inform them and question power of their behalf.
This is not to say that good MSM journalism doesn’t exist. But, on those few occasions when MSM journalists do expose state crimes, they pay a terrible price for doing so. Julian Assange is among the small band of journalists who have dared to question power. He currently languishes in a British high-security prison precisely because he did so.
The MSM doesn’t question power when it deceives the public about chemical weapon attacks on behalf of the state. It isn’t holding power to account with its refusal to investigate, or even report, evidence of malfeasance in office. Its ignoring of state crimes can in no way be considered “watchdog freedom.” And it certainly does not act as any kind of watchdog when it simply reports whatever it is ordered to report by a centrally controlled global propaganda network.
We Are the Problem and the Solution
Social media has been lambasted for corralling its users into self-affirming information silos. While this is somewhat concerning, it isn’t anything new. The technological capability of social media to control opinion is an added dimension, to be sure, but the MSM has been doing exactly the same thing for more than a century.
Unfortunately, the MSM is able to propagandise us with relative ease. It does this partly by exploiting our own misconceptions. While we all seem to agree that the Russian and Chinese MSM are state propaganda, we Westerners, for some unknown reason, apparently imagine that our own mainstream media isn’t.
There is, however, a caveat with regard to this apparent gullibility. Research statistics show that there is a remarkable lack of trust in the MSM in the West. Notably, in the US “trust” in the news is as low as 26%. The UK fares little better, at just 34%. “Trust” in the news is higher in Scandinavian countries.
We only need have brief conversations with friends and family to realise that the propaganda does, in fact, work. But what explains this disconnect between our lack of trust in the MSM with our continuing willingness to believe what it tells us?
The answer lies in the greatest achievement of the Western MSM and the parasite class it serves: They have convinced us that our media is free and is pluralistic—this despite it never being true.
Consequently, it seems that while we are wary of spin and propaganda, we refuse to contemplate the likelihood that the MSM is out-and-out lying to us. Perhaps that is because we perceive the MSM as basically serving the public interest—even if we admit to ourselves that it bends the truth a little. Our scepticism does not extend as far as disbelief.
We therefore remain unable to reconcile our credulous acceptance of MSM claims about itself with the reality that we are being misled en masse by that same institution. Cognitive dissonance—the uncomfortable psychological sensation we experience when we hold two or more contradictory thoughts at the same time—may account for our irreconcilable beliefs.
In other words, we are caught between not “trusting” the MSM, on the one hand, and, on the other, our inability to accept the fact that virtually nothing the MSM tells us is true. The implications of this dichotomy are beyond anything we want to contemplate. As a result, we still believe that “the news” is our window on the world.
If you think about it, the idea that all the important global events of the day can be condensed into a single “newspaper” or a 30-minute “evening news” broadcast is quite ridiculous. Even if it were composed of honest, unbiased reports, which it seldom is, “the news” cannot provide us with anything approaching a reasonable understanding of what is actually going on.
Therefore, if we genuinely want to know what’s happening, we have to actively seek information and critically evaluate it ourselves. As James Corbett wrote:
Granted, the realization that all media is constructed for us by someone with an interest in making us believe something is not a happy one for most people. Instead, it is a deeply unpopular realization, because it means we can’t just switch on the evening news, switch off our brain, and expect some totally neutral journalistic saviour to come along and hand us “the news” from on high.
Like it or not, it is our responsibility to think critically about all information, no matter who relays it. This responsibility applies equally to the stories we are fed by the “alternative media.” This article should be read critically! It is, after all, just information that’s being passed along to you.
The Knight-Cronkite News Lab suggests that journalists should give their “readers, viewers, listeners and users valuable information that helps them make better decisions and lead better lives.”
Here, the new breed of MSM journalists, no more nor less objective than their predecessors, has been given the task of reporting “the news” from a value-driven perspective. The aim is to change us by making us “better” people. So what are the values the new breed of journalists are being taught to advocate?
KCNL tell us:
There is broad consensus today about the reality of climate change and the threats that it poses. That may well inform how many resources a newsroom devotes to reporting on the issue as well as any point of view its stories reflect. The same might go for opposition to systemic racism, say, or support for LGBTQ rights. [. . .] One value we believe is worth stating out loud is support for democratic institutions, which are under attack on multiple fronts. Trustworthy news is essential to sustaining a healthy democracy.
Herein lies the problem. Every one of these “values” serves global political agendas and dovetails neatly with government policy and, perhaps most notably, with global governance policy. That is to say, the MSM’s new values are exactly the same as their old values. Their “new” objective, just like the old objective, is to advocate for power, not question it.
Contrary to the KCNL’s claims, democracy is not founded upon our acceptance of whatever we are told by government “institutions.” Rather, it is predicated upon our ability not just to question the state but to limit it. Thus, KCNL’s contention that a “healthy democracy” is one where “democratic institutions” assert sovereignty over us is entirely false.
To point out that these institutions have no authority over us whatsoever is not to attack “democracy.” On the contrary, doing so defends “democracy.” But you will never hear that from the MSM. The MSM’s continuing mission is to maintain the lies that ensure we never realise this “truth.”
It is ironic that the MSM attacks their alternative counterparts for advocacy journalism and yet the MSM’s own apparent solution to the trust issue that preoccupies it is to itself emulate advocacy journalism. The difference? The alternative media is far more likely to advocate the questioning of power, while the MSM looks set to continue advocating for power.
Seeing as how the concept of “news” is, in and of itself, absurd, the suggestion that news should be “trusted” simply adds another layer of misdirection to this new MSM advocacy journalism. So, if our “faith” in the stories we are told is part of the problem, a solution is self-evident. We should abandon any notion of “trust.” We should invest our efforts in being “better” critical thinkers.
The “alternative” media outlet UK Column sums up this point nicely. It asks:
Why should I trust the UK Column? Put simply, you shouldn’t. The question of whether or not to trust a news organisation is a false choice. Making such a choice is promoted by government, the old media, and two new organisation types: the fact checker and the trust provider.
It disenfranchises readers, viewers and listeners. It is based on the principle that if you trust the media organisation you are visiting, there is no need for you to check the information they present. So we ask you not to trust us. Instead, view everything published here with a critical eye. Where possible, primary source material is made available for everything we publish: check it; make up your own mind.
In his previously referenced article, James Corbett provides a list of questions we should all ask ourselves whenever we encounter information offered by any source. We don’t need government or any other “democratic institution” to control information for us, nor we do need to be told what to think about it. We just need to think critically and answer these simple questions to our own satisfaction:
- Why is this media outlet showing us this report?
- What interest do they have in making us think a particular way about the issue presented?
- Can the information in the report be independently confirmed or triangulated from other sources?
- Whose viewpoint is being shown, and how is that viewpoint portrayed? Whose viewpoint is being excluded? Why?
- What language is being used to frame the issue?
- What does the report make us believe about the world?
- Are we in agreement with the report? Why or why not?
Ultimately, as ever, the choice is yours. You can gather information from any source you wish. If you want to know what the state wants you to believe and what behaviour it expects of you, then go to the MSM. If you want to explore broader criticism of government and its policies, then the more independent “alternative media” provides richer pickings.
Treat those two impostors just the same. There is honest, high-quality journalism in both. There is also propaganda to be found in both. Fortunately, if you answer James Corbett’s suggested questions, you’ll be able to spot the difference more often than not.
You can read more of Iain’s work at his blog IainDavis.com (Formerly InThisTogether) or on UK Column or follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his SubStack. His new book Pseudopandemic, is now available, in both in kindle and paperback, from Amazon and other sellers. Or you can claim a free copy by subscribing to his newsletter.
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.
The most important thing to know about the American media, the New York Times especially: it’s not directed toward those who are informed. It’s directed toward those who aren’t paying attention.
You can’t fight wars without the backing of the masses.
I studied the history of several major media groups in the North America market and, while I understand the basis for your viewpoint about governments role in propaganda deployment I learned that INDIVIDUAL ownership is actually the historical norm and it was never any less manipulative and deceptive than the current state of affairs.
Think along the lines of: Massive industrial enterprise moves into town, steals land, murders and runs off competitors and pollutes the whole local water, air, and soil system. Meanwhile before they even moved to the area they started two local newspapers, and an entertainment center.
Shocker! No public complaints to be heard.
Public Relations is a deep dark hole which we would all be better off not wasting time “discerning” as that in itself is a sad waste of resources. Defending ourselves by studying the kaleidoscope of evil is worthless because it will always slither onto the next trick the moment you think you’ve figured it out.
Let’s try to cultivate goodness instead. Make unique lives and livelihoods for ourselves. Perhaps by turning inward this way we will have more to offer those who have been forced to flee and start over. I know this does work. Our family is living it now and we have been welcomed by a diverse world, subculture I suppose, which has been there all along, ignoring the mindless infinite stream of words pouring from the idols and false gods of the day.
No one has ever possessed the power to manage individuals, just groups. Where no groups exist, they create them like cages. let’s stop falling for the same basic ploy.
You have to be extraordinarily discerning as to which publications you can trust for facts & always do the research yourself, too! So many state 1 thing & then down the road, turn it around in the opposite direction. Too many also don’t use real common sense to question the ‘stories’ in publications, either. I see this in the US all the time. Too many fell easily for the Covid/Jab Con Job Extraordinaire–without questioning. Millions got Jabbed 3 times & made their children get the Jabs! What is wrong with this picture–Everything!
Gotta laugh at all the alleged “anti-mainstream” commentators on OffGuardian pages. They profess to be anti-mainstream, whilst posting links to mainstream articles and presentations.
I got news for ya’s: Every time you enter a Guardian, CNN, MSN, NBC, or similar page, you trigger an advertising algorithm that tallies your visit and length of stay. These tallies determine how well the title captured an audience, and are forwarded to advertising agencies. Agencies that are NOT ON YOUR SIDE. Hello? Anybody home?
Please keep it to Bill Gates or Who or WEF. 💤
Keeps with the repetition of hypnosis…..
Conspiracy theory’s like freemasons in alt media or altmedia is infiltrated just upsets the many still hypnotize.
Rap artist if you believe the back story now turned Christian Conservative.
“State propaganda has been privatised. Governments channel taxpayers’ money to their global corporate partners, which in turn pay the MSM to produce the desired disinformation.”
everything in the state has been privatized that is why the state no longer has any power.. It cannot regulate the son and daughter offsprings the government created (corporations and NGOs). And that is the problem the people are not entitled to be informed of the conduct, plans or actions of anything privatized nor do the governed people have a veto (by voting) over who runs these criminal organizations called NGOs and corporations. and not even in view are the owners of the criminal organizations called NGOs and corporations.
“They launched numerous corporate backed terror campaigns upon an unsuspecting public.”
All campaigns are corporation invented. No one in government is inventive enough for these very well designed campaigns. Corporations want government to proxy the conduct of the corporate designed campaigns.
“Democracy places a duty upon us to be fierce critical thinkers. We should never unquestioningly accept anything we are told.”
Democracy does not exist. We should object every time that claim is raised. What exist is a few areas of things protected against government infringements; thse are just contractual promises made to make humanity thing it is governed by a democratic government. Promise governments make are never kept.
When will humanity demand its government become respondents only to the needs of those the governments govern?
The article lacks direction and conviction, but i like some of the facts it offers. .
Top comment, ’eman’… how Iain could write / type this much without to mention even one of the ‘Big Four’ operations that represent & feed both Corporate Media & Governmental goals,
is beyond me… talk about Amiss !
WPP. Preston Rabl & Sorrell, Openly declare their deeds, owning Hill + Knowlton
Strategies & Partners, who represent the W.H.O. and previously, Wars against Saddam Hussein,
Founded on Lies … talk about adrift ! F.y.i making waves
in the OCEANs of invitational Media-Hysteria, designed to ProfileU and your C.A.N.O.E.
<<>> Profile the Perpetrators !
Iain manages to write so much and never mention WPP once… incredible.
Talk about oversight, rendering this article Null & Void of Any Objectivity.!
How truly saddening in its’ naivety. Which is why people still ask, inc. Here@OffG,
“How come the world acted in Unison for once ? ”
Very easily answered, if you analyse after adequate
Research and think logically: all conducted by the big four
CEOs making waves and rewarding subservience…
After villifying any truly scientific mindcraft .
Everything written above the alt media does the exact same.
The WSWS comes clean on their definition of “Right Wing” with reference to the Australian Train family shooting:
“In fact, by this stage the extreme right-wing views of the Trains were clear. All of them were virulently hostile to COVID vaccinations. They were part of a broader far right milieu, whipped up by sections of the political and media establishment to act as a battering ram against coronavirus safety measures.”
Do you oppose Covid “safety measures” such as vaccinations? Then you are “Right Wing”.
Never ever in the real world has anyone I no been called rightwing for saying fuck off to the vaccine or refusing to wear a mask.
Only in this cyber world of lower stupidity does this happen.
Wow! What a scorching description of the Munich Security Conference
“Dantesque, ridiculous, a disgusting grotesque where an entire caste that has supported decades of invasions and crimes against humanity, has gathered under the slogan “To peace through dialogue” to make criminal warmongering proclamations and call for world war and destruction a country-civilization like Russia.
“We have had to listen to an infinity of nonsense and cocksuckers from the Borrells, Harris, Blinken, Scholz, Von der Brujen and other bunch of little characters who only stand out in contempt for the peoples they claim to represent. A disgusting circus of well-paid rich men at the service of the most sinister interests of Western corporations, a Monipodio courtyard full of madmen, morons, psychopaths and organized crime criminals arrogant with a moral supremacism that nauseates any human being.”
[Monipodio is Spanish for a group united for an illegal purpose.]
http://www.elespiadigital.com/index.php/noticias/historico-de-noticias/40073-2023-02-19-19-54-55
[They certainly seem bent upon denuding NATO of weapons]
Odessa has broadcast an investigation of arrival of radioactive waste from the United States at the port of Ilyichevsk on February 15-16 overnight.
[Apparently a dirty bomb on Ukrainian or Russian territory is planned as pretext to bring NATO fully at war, with her own planes, pilots & boots on the ground]
https://english.pravda.ru/world/155854-ukraine_provocation/
Meanwhile in only 8 days more than half a million Germans have signed a petition to send no more aid to Ukraine & to sue for peace.
Question is Can the German people stop this juggernaut? If not, please be aware that recently-passed laws reduce the US to a dictatorship of unimaginable proportion in the event of a declaration of war. Every piece of property & every bit of labor can be commandeered by govt.
—
As I commented earlier, a colossal amount of ammo is under Russian guard in Transnistria.
Do-gooder donor countries should be asked:
– Is the aid in kind?
– What are you doing to ensure it gets to those in desperate need?
– Did you contribute to creating the disaster?
– How many of your own people are homeless, hungry or sick?
“They certainly seem bent upon denuding NATO of weapons”
Apparently NATO’s shells are made in India (because no NATO country manufactures anything now except funny money and gender compliance officers) and India is decreasingly keen on selling them to NATO. The vitriolic articles that have started appearing in the MSM about Modi may not be entirely unconnected with this.
The Ukraine War sems at some sort of tipping point where either NATO gets involved more directly or the war ends. The NATO measures so far are mere window-dressing – the Western weapons’ systems are so enormously complex that Ukrainians can’t simply be dropped into the operating seats with a bit of training and they aren’t designed for the sort of war being fought in Ukraine.
Covid – Censored:
– Pathogen, disease unproven; symptoms differ by place
– Medical treatments dangerous
– Claim that jab stops infection, transmission contradicted seller and gov’t authorisation; later backtracked
– Changed definitions of case, pandemic, immunity, herd immunity, vaccine, fully vaccinated, cause of death (certification)
– Healthy persons have “harmful” microbes, likely to withstand them, e.g., med. staff
– Infection from respiratory disease requires >= 45 min. close contact; is low within “communties” (shops, restaurants, etc.); gov’ts failed to assess infection/resistance in population, evaded existing studies
– Testing for communal immunity was rare; herd immunity level required may be =< 20%; prevalence of immunity is 40-80 times “infections”; ~60% have T-cell immunity, some due to SARS
– Before jabs, excess deaths in most countries negligible despite withheld treatment; no mass graves; coincided with curfews; average global “CFR” just 0.23% similar to flu epidemic, PFR ~0.009%; almost all the critically ill/dead were aged >80, in badly polluted air, destitute, or had other severe illness
– 2 or more sharp rises in excess deaths in few places was unprecedented for any infectious illness.
– Some countries/provinces without restrictions, with low jab rate, had low “case”/death rate, incl. most of Africa.
– Unexplained declines in deaths from common causes
– Numerous experts rejected risk, projections, restrictions, test, treatment, jab, etc.
– Major demonstrations in many cities
– Crack-down on dissent, demonstrations
– Major conflicts of interest in contracts
– RF/digital comm. radiation incl. 5G roll-out: important symptoms match radiation injury
– Planning began long before 2020
– Diabolic history of vaccines and bio-warfare.
– Jab:
–most batches contained unexplained inorganic substances; some batches had visible contamination, graphene, magnetic material
–photos, videos under microscope, etc. showed fibres, crystals, self-assembling structures or bizarre changes (maybe hydrogel)
–spread all over body; WHO advised against drawing back plunger to check for blood to reduce risk
–promoter countries suffered sharp rises in “cases”, major injuries, deaths esp. among jabbed, with fall in victims’ ages
–hundreds of studies show the jabs are harmful
–immediate threat (from nano-lipids, etc.): anaphylactic shock, death
–short-term threat (from inorganic additives): transient magnetism, poisoning, death
–short- to long-term threat (from spike through clotting, auto-immune response): damage to ANY organ (incl. paralysis, dementia), death, still-birth
–short-/medium-term threat (from DNA damage to immunity): ANY new/relapsed infectious/other illness that may worsen rapidly, cause death
–medium-/long-term threat (from other DNA damage): death, infertility, birth defect
–boosters based on claim that immunity falls with level of antibodies; fall in antibodies after any infection is normal; T-cells, on-demand antibodies ensure future defence, but T- and B-cells are hard to measure
–global effort to (a) censor the major illnesses or deaths befalling the jabbed (b) deflect blame to “covid”, “long vovid”, “escape variants”, existing illnesses, delayed treatment, stress, “austerity”, weather
Covid fear-mongering:
– Restrictions and demands incoherent, vague, inconsistent, useless (unscientific), unjust, many even harmful; some tightened, loosened or even reversed; gov’ts exempted large enterprises, VIPs.
– MSM passed of colour illustrations as ECM photos of virus; wide range of sizes claimed (60-140 nm or more) is untenable.
– Ambulances had sirens on at all hours though not in service.
– Some gov’ts supported claims that covid was a bio-weapon.
– Blamed those who qestion/resist propaganda/jab for “covid”/jab harm/death.
– Claimed there was no immunity; initially, they acknowledged children were immune but warned they could infect adults.
– Claimed falsely before jab that some children/young adults were ill/dead.
– Suggested currency notes, coins, animals spread infection.
– Claimed hospitals were overwhelmed, whereas they reassigned/laid off staff, quarantined even “asymptomatic”/”exposed” staff, closed clinics/wards; flu overwhelms hospitals in temperate countries every winter.
– Treated flu as covid; WHO claimed flu disappeared globally c. 2020-04, reappeared c. 2021-11.
– Tested even patients with external injury or other severe illness, retesting even after death.
– Phone apps increased those quarantined.
– Included presumed “cases” incl. deaths at home.
– Included positive test any time up to weeks before death.
– Publicised cumulative “cases”, case/death spikes created through delayed reporting.
– Publicised “clusters”, “variants”, “next wave”, opaque/false forecasts, “new normal”, “virus” in sewers.
i voted thumbs up and thumbs down appeared.. what gives?
The displayed vote total updates when you vote, including other people’s votes. A2
And then there were two!
https://unherd.com/thepost/viktor-orban-accuses-germany-of-leaving-the-peace-camp
Viktor Orbán accuses Germany of leaving the ‘peace camp’
February 20, 2023
Photo Caption: Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister delivers his year’s annual assessment speech – which motto was “Peace and Security” – the during a government congress on February 18, 2023 in Budapest, Hungary.
By contrasting so markedly with the uncompromising rhetoric in Munich, Orbán’s speech was aimed at a domestic audience and designed to reinforce Hungarian perceptions that far-removed Western leaders are scheming to prolong the war in Ukraine at the expense of the wellbeing and long-term security of ordinary European citizens.
5 minutes ago, Orban was anti e.u.
Iain Davis, I’m sad to say, is one of the several living symptoms of OffGuardian’s having not yet entirely shaken off the muck of the left-liberal womb from which it emerged. There is very little that is entirely false in this article – but it produces a general impression of dishonesty (that “well-meaning” kind of dishonesty we all know so well from the Guardian and other leftist publications) because it carefully avoids posing the really interesting and relevant questions about the true facts that it records
Take this passage, for example: “Herein lies the problem. Every one of these “values” (climate change, anti-racism, LBGTQ rights) serves global political agendas and dovetails neatly with government policy and, perhaps most notably, with global governance policy. That is to say, the MSM’s new values are exactly the same as their old values. Their “new” objective, just like the old objective, is to advocate for power, not question it.”
As I say, this is not exactly untrue. The mainstream media expresses hegemonic values today in the 2020s as it did in the 1920s. But as I also said: the really interesting and relevant question is omitted: why have the values expressed both in the governmental and the media sphere so utterly different now than they were a hundred years ago? Anyone over fifty is keenly aware that The Guardian, say, was absolutey nothing like what it is today as recently as even thirty years ago. There is a hell of a difference between the knit-your-own-yoghurt coffee-circle that it was in the 1980s and the massed phalanxes of wind-turbine-sized loudspeakers, blasting out systematically recycled portions of The Narrative at volumes and rates of repetition designed to reduce brains to bleeding pulp, that it is today. The Guardian of the 1970s and 80s fell in fact, if I remember rightly, within the target range of early media critics like The Glasgow Media Group, who published such studies as Bad News and More Bad News around that time. The Guardian was on the “progressive-liberal” side, indeed – but it was childishly easy in those days to find expressions in The Guardian, or in the BBC, or in any “media of record” of the view that mankind exercises a sort of tutelage over Nature, that there are many persistently socially significant differences between races and that, if deviation from the heterosexual norm can be tolerated, this latter does remain the norm.
Why, then, the change? Why are The Guardian and the BBC today no longer content with anything other than mankind’s grovelling in the dirt before Gaia (or Greta), with obeisance paid to “wewuzkangs” fantasies of Roman Senates filled with negros in togas, with fire-hose streams of every kind of sexual deviation directed with limb-breaking pressure at anyone who might feel the slightest romantic inclination toward their respective opposite sex? Davis does not seem interested in this question. His (unspoken) answer to it is, if I have understood him correctly, that “a “Biblical’ attitude to Nature, an acceptance of difference and even hierarchy between races, and an acceptance of heterosexuality as a norm were the values of ‘power’ back then, and the MSM ‘advocated’ for them; today, the values of ‘power’ are humanity’s self-scourging with the rod of ‘the harm done to Mother Earth’, the absolute denial of the reality of race (combined, crazily, with the affirmation of it as a supreme reality), and a re-branding of heterosexuality as the quintessence of all perversion, and the MSM now advocates for these, because the MSM will make itself serviceable to ‘power’ regardless of the ends ‘power’ is pursuing at any given time.”
I don’t know if Davis is aware of this but the upshot of what he is doing here is cramming the new wine of our experience in the early 21st century – though an analogy with some more toxic liquid would likely be appropriate for what we are currently being forced to swallow – into some very old bottles.
“Governments channel taxpayers’ money to their global corporate partners, which in turn pay the MSM to produce the desired disinformation”
Here, we are suddenly thrown back a hundred years into the world of Lord Beaverbrook and Randolph Hearst, the old familiar Marxist picture-book fantasy – literally reproduced, I’m amused to observe, in the 1920s agitprop caricatures of “Daddy Warbucks” types with the standard-issue top hats, cigars and enormous epicene bellies with which Davis has chosen to illustrate the Substack article on “the Parasite Class” that he links to in the middle of this OffGuardian article – of “capitalists” accumulating wealth by extraction of “surplus value” from workers in the production of primary commodities such as gold or cement, using this wealth to buy media, and then using this media to manipulate the political system into creating conditions optimal for continuing the process of the extraction of “surplus value”.
This is indeed a fantasy. If it ever bore any relation to any reality, it certainly bears none to the reality that has come to face us these past thirty or forty years. The mass media of today are not serving any “corporate interest”. It is plainly the case, indeed, that in 2022 not even corporations are serving any “corporate interest”. We live in a world in which Apple and Google will gladly cheer on the looting of their own retail outlets and then go on to raise bail money for those few looters who may have been inadvertently arrested for it. No belly of anything even approaching Hearst or Beaverbrook proportions is to be found anywhere among those who preside over Facebook and Google and Twitter. These “power-brokers” resemble medieval monks more than they do cigar-puffing plutocrats and indeed the power that they broker is not now at any point ever brokered back into money: Like Orwell’s Inner Party members, the purpose of power, for them, is power itself. I doubt that a Mark Zuckerberg would be much bothered by a reduction of his income to a hundredth or a thousandth part of what it is now. His “treasure is stored up” somewhere else – and somewhere far more sinister.
Davis, I think, has little interest in even trying to grasp this. He is, as I say, “well-meaning” in his attempts at critical analysis of the situation that we find ourselves in. But his “good will” is too vainly and stubbornly bound to certain “critical” narratives that have no real bearing on this present situation – or that, worse, emanate from leftist milieux that massively contributed to creating it – for those concerned to take effective action against it to look on him with any more affection or appreciation than we do a Noam Chomsky. His is not a path that OffGuardian should be taking.
Alexander, so in a few words, could you just tell us what your opposing view is– rather than characterizing Iain’s. Just simply– what is your view?
“mankind’s grovelling in the dirt before Gaia”.
The new Questions for Corbett, while going over again how the IPCC operates, calls it making sacrifices to the weather gods which imo is spot on.
You must be reading another blog. Its a part of the new alt media network, which puts out 90% Christian Zion Conservatives talking points repackaged as Alternative from the mainstream. Which it isnt.
This song is 55 years old. Its a bit quaint, a lot has changed since then but mostly not for the better.
https://youtu.be/girnJH7tvpM
Oh, the link turns out to be one of the leading denizens of Laurel Canyon – what a surprise. The one whose father worked in a biological weapon and MK Ultra center and who regarded hippies and drug-taking with contempt.
They seem to be following some sort of Trickster archetype where one or two figures are allowed to speak some truth but in a way that most normies won’t take seriously. The 1960s had Zappa; the 1990s had Carlin; we get Elon Musk.
Zappa was more a San Bernadino type although he probable was aware of the whole Laurel Canyon scene (and eventually settled in Encino). He did think of himself as a serious musician (and is regarded as such by many classical music performers).
As for one’s parentage, its well known that a lot of California’s middle class of that era were working in defense, it was the major industry of the time in that state. You don’t get to choose your parents, though. My father, for example, was both a pre-WW2 communist and a post-war civil servant, the faceless bureaucrat who’s colored pencils dropped the flight path of the local airport right over your house. I have been neither — one’s vocation is not a hereditary disease.
I’m beginning to notice a generational trend to denigrate, to pull down and otherwise cancel figures from the past as being not pure enough for modern morals. Its probably been going on for some time and I suspect its an injected cultural trait designed to uncouple contemporary generations from their cultural backgrounds. This may seem new and exciting and maybe the modern thing to do but it feels like its the product of cultural injection designed to make people easier to manipulate.
This is extremely important subject matter.
People need to be taught how to read/watch/listen to news reports instead of choosing to trust an outlet. Also we need dedicated media watch outlets to pick apart news reports in terms of journalists principles, although not with a select group of self proclaimed experts but with crowdsourced criticism/analysis as is happening in comment threads here and elsewhere.
Given the crucial importance of the so called “free press” in any attempt at a democratic society, in Australia we should consider the ABC’s “Media Watch” to be the most important show on television. I haven’t watched it for well over ten years. It somehow never manages to see the wholesale bias that I see in every report and prefers to focus on plagiarism. Even if media analysts do their level best they are still suffering from hopeless subjectivity where their world view causes the core issues to fall outside of the goalposts of allowable discussion.
The MSM are ‘objective’ alright.
(From a business website):
‘In business, an objective refers to the specific steps a company will take to achieve a desired result.’
And here:
‘A business’ primary aim is to add value, which in the private sector involves making a profit. Strategic objectives or aims may include brand building, market leadership, expansion, or gaining a specific share of the market.
Objectives, if a company is losing money, may include laying off staff and closing some branches.’
The MSM is a business, FIRST and FOREMOST.
When Truth gets in the way of profits, it is dispensed with.
When Truth offends the sensibilities or the ‘objectives’ of the Ruling Class it is dispensed with.
Money rules. It always has.
Money is being tanked – it’s direct ownership and control of assets that matters now.
No. They rule us through money. Money is their means, not an end. If you doubt what I’m saying — or even just don’t understand — then studying the history of banking for a while.
TPTB: Gobble Gobble.
MSM: “Gobble Gobble”… Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble.
Social Media: Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble “Well you’re a dick” Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble “Are you assuming my Gender?” Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble “Ah yes but Americans are pricks!” Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble “Well – I’M OFFENDED!” Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble “OH FUCK OFF – YOU’RE A FAR RIGHT SYMPATHISER sympathiser!” Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble… Gobble… Gobble… “Idiocracy”…
TPTB: (HA! This is too easy. Anyway – carry on…)
Gobble Gobble.
MSM: … … … “and that concludes our coverage of worldwide carnage, catastrophe and death. Sooo thanks for joining us. And see you again in 10.”
Commercial: “Brought to you by PFIZER.”
MSM: “Welcome back. Reports are just coming in that Prince Somebody of Somewhere’s latest pamphlet, “A dummy’s guide to changing the oil of one’s Learjet” , has been knocked off the top-spot by his own latest tome – the children’s horror/autobiography/comedy/thriller: The Blue Twinkie – volumes 1 to 33; followed by Martha Swineyard’s compelling, “8 Billion ways to cook Bugs, Worms and other Undesirables.”
And in other news: Greta Thünberg is under fire again – this time it’s in the form of a class action by the world’s politicians for copyright infringement. They’re angered by Greta’s unauthorised use of the phrase, “Blah Blah Blah” on the world stage and are seeking damages of $300,000,000,000,000 from the public purse, in compensation.
Greta has yet to respond. But it might be something along the lines of, “How dare you!”
Gripping stuff.
And lastly: Tumpkin the pigmy hairless cat had it’s nail stuck in an ashtray today. Firefighters worked tirelessly for hours in an attempt to free Tumpkin and returned the poor feline, none the worse for wear, to their/there/if/but’s overwhelmed and relieved, non-nuclear family.
“It’s the patriarchy’s fault and all men are women!”, they said.
Nice.
Social media: “WAAAAAAAAGH – POOR GRETA!!! Gobble Gobble Gobble FREE BRITNEY!!! I LOVE CATS!!!WAAAAAAAAGH…” Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble “EGGS HAVE FEELINGS TOO – UNLESS THEY’RE HUMAN EGGS THAT HAVEN’T EVEN HATCHED YET!!!” “WAAAAGH WAAAAAGH!” Gobble Gobble “YEAH” Gobble Gobble… “Tell me Jimmy – have you ever seen a grown man naked?” “WAAAAAAAAAAAGHHH!!!” Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble…
“Surely you can’t be serious?”… “I am serious…. And don’t call me Shirley.” Gobble… “BIGOT!” Gobble…
Commercial: “Brought to you by PFIZER!”
The wealth of capitalist society presents itself as an immense accumulation of commodities, Marx observed. The commodification of living turns us into more or less passive consumers, while active production is progressively subordinated to mechanical processes in which we are functional cogs. The free market makes slaves of all who fall under its sway.
This goes for the marketplace of ideas. Knowledge is commodified just as surely as any item on store shelves. Students in higher (l)earning shop around for thought-things that provide them the most profitable opportunity as middle class managers monopolizing power of expertise over equipment of labor. By its very nature, news is produced in no small part for purpose of keeping people preoccupied with things far away so as to be less concerned with what’s happening in front of them.
Buyer beware. Yeah, right. When it comes to all the shit we’re served on a 24/7 basis, you’ve even less chance of getting to the bottom of information glut than of ever exiting a supermarket after studying all the listed ingredients, let along unlisted, of all that crapitalism serves up for food, for starters.
In yesterday’s feature, Ed Curtin says he was stunned to hear someone assert blessed ignorance of the Nord Stream ‘affair’. I’d be stunned at him taking so seriously the state of mind of someone routinely consuming news like National Propaganda Radio, were it not for the fact he professionally publishes thought-things on a regular basis, even if that amounts to a gossip column.
So what if the guy he’s making an example of hasn’t read Sy Hersh’s hard-hitting investigative journalism? What actual difference, if any, did his earlier bombshells like My Lai make, beyond chattering classes then performing their own versions of virtue signaling, or My Lie, while most of us are running on treadmills, faster and faster, just to stay in place?
If antiwar protestors then had waited around on revelations like the Pentagon Papers before rising up in resistance, they too would have been late on the scene. Maybe in effect if not design My Lai turned a war crime into another exception to the rule of war and its crimes against humanity on a systemic basis, beyond the scandal that’s for show.
What’s worth knowing? How do we keep our eyes on the prize? If, to mix up metaphors, the hare knows many things, and the tortoise only one, what will get us to our goals? What are our goals? That’s a question of value as well as knowledge that’s not reducible to data. Call it wisdom, as in Know Thyself. An ongoing feat that’s not accomplished without action, practice, working on a world of our own that presents a real alternative to the knowledge turned to power over us.
The body teaches us like no other source of knowledge ways of being present to our own lives inconceivable as thought-things. Which is why the point remains to change the world, not merely interpret it.
“The rabble are restless; there’s a shortage of Meat !”
“Well let them eat little billy gates Vat Goo !” – Marie Antoinette (aka George Mombiot)…
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/02/20/monbiot-we-must-end-our-dependence-on-farming/
GM’s buzzwords “precision fermentation”. ‘Precision’ – what a cuddly word. Makes it sound so Scientific… And “protein rich foods” – an advertisement slogan – Is that the same as ‘nutrient dense foods” ?
(Guess what GM’s initial stand for…)
“The power” owns the MSM..
“The power” owns the oppsite to MSM also.
“Consumers of “news” don’t want to simply know what the facts are. They also want a steer on the broader implications of those facts. If that reaffirms their existing world view, all the better….”
Confirmation bias. Applies to scientists and doctors, too.
That doesn’t explain those who break away from the mainstream of everything though.
We were more or less all brought up with the mainstream and then some opened their eyes and delved deeper. How come? What gave us this spark?
Doubt. It’s all about doubt and self doubt. Those who jump on bandwagons and the loud mouths who push to the front to lead have neither. Underpinning this doubt is thoughtfulness. We are more thoughtful, although the question of precisely why still remains.
In this BitChute video an x-CIA officer explains the difference between the deep state and the shadow government – and the role the MS media have always played in this set-up.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/zskZQDQF8BqM/
And the MSM will never stop drilling a narrative even they have to project.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/inside-the-unhinged-15minute-city-conspiracy-theory-sucking-in-gullible-australians/news-story/41e599d1686d954234e8198e24c22151
I am not a big fan of Doctors getting their PHD’s….give me a nurse anytime – yes they occasionally f’ck up too..but at least they volunteered to be a nurse when they were teenagers – both boys and girls, so their heart was in the right place.
This guy, is an internet star, who changed his mind…from promoting the jab…too well.. it might not be such a bright idea – don’t do it – but not medically qualified to give advice, with quite a nice subtle understated sense of humour.
He is a Doctor of Philosophy, but more importantly he is a Nurse.
As of January 2023, his YouTube channel had 2.65 million subscribers and over 598 million views. Early life and educationJohn Lorimer Campbell[6] grew up primarily in the Stanwix district of Carlisle
I am going for even more Vitamin D
https://alethonews.com/2023/02/20/vitamin-d-and-diabetes/
Tony
The granting of The Vote to the lower classes paralleled the growth of a popular Press via which to ‘educate’ them…
And if it hadnt been for the Sherlock Holmes stories how would young working men and boys learn how to behave like gentlemen, or absorb upper middle class values ? (Queen Victoria was a Big Fan)…
The shock of covid didn’t come from the realisation that the MSM lies. Any dissident with a brain always knows the MSM lies because the MSM serves the ruling interests.
However there has always been this assumption that, through decades of struggle, there has developed some room for dispute. This has been the general spiel percolating down through all those groups who consider themselves oppositional. They always assume there was something akin to a “breathing space” whereby at least a little bit of truth could peak through.
Needless to say, the media has been eager to play into this. It’s basically the same story as with those “Left” political parties e.g. the UK Labour Party which since its inception was supposedly a party “for the workers” i.e. to represent working class interests. And some of the denser Labour voters may have thought they were supporting a revolutionary party, not realising the obvious truth that the Labour Party existed precisely to stave off a revolution and doing this through keeping the whole system going only with the workers now supposedly having a voice in at the corporate table to guarantee them a bigger slice of the pie.
Such a segment is what is usually meant when people talk about communism or socialism. But all they are describing, i.e. the role of these “electable” Left parties, is that another face appears at the corporate board room table – a face allegedly standing up for the workers. Effectively, at best, the workers have, as it were, congealed into another executive in the discussions.
And this is the background for this notion of a media “opening up” to all views i.e. the “Left” voices in the media are like the union reps at the table. They are all part of the boardroom team. That the covid ploy should have been taken up by these “oppositional” voices is not in itself remarkable.
What is remarkable is that covid has been painted as a “Left” issue. And so, these “dissident” puppets are not merely agreeing with the more obvious bosses. These “dissidents” are supposedly sticking it to the bosses. While the bosses shriek, “Oh no! Stop these lockdowns! Ditch the masks! Who cares about the vaccines!”
The irony is that whereas previously the media theatre attempted to convey a struggle in which the Left side might win a victory that was genuine even though meagre, this time the Left is actually totally on the side of the ruling class. And the victory has had its components reversed i.e. on the one hand it is no longer meagre but extremely substantial but on the other it is not genuine at all. It’s a bloody huge victory …. for the ruling class!
Some points to consider for a real investigative reporter:
A) There’s nothing “obvious”. (Re Hersh’s opening statement on Democracy Now; “deconstruct the obvious”; 5:30)
B) Since the late 1980s Germany has had a policy of self-sabotaging its own energy security.
C) Who blew up Chernobyl and Fukushima?
D) Trump’s 2018 statement to the UN General Assembly:
Anything short of the above is a limited hangout.
—
Reporter Seymour Hersh on “How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline”: Exclusive TV Interview
Democracy Now!
Feb 15, 2023
When the Nord Stream pipelines carrying natural gas from Russia to Germany were damaged last September, U.S. officials were quick to suggest Russia had bombed its own pipelines. But according to a new report by the legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, it was the U.S. Navy that carried out the sabotage, with help from Norway. Citing a source “with direct knowledge of the operational planning,” Hersh writes on his Substack blog that planning for the mission began in December of 2021. The White House and the Norwegian government have since denied the claims.
Hersh joins us for an in-depth interview to discuss his report and says the U.S. decision to bomb the pipelines was meant to lock allies into support for Ukraine at a time when some were wavering. “The fear was Europe would walk away from the war,” he says.
Hersh won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for his reporting on the My Lai massacre. His reporting on CIA spying on antiwar activists during the Vietnam War era helped lead to the formation of the Church Committee, which led to major reforms of the intelligence community, and in 2004, he exposed the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq.
Seymour Hersh
Hersh damaged his credibility recently when he implied bin laden was actually alive in Abbotabad in Pakistan when marines or SEALS arrived and took him out. He thus reinforced MSM bullshit with those images of Obomber and Killary watching screens which supposedly showed the action.
The credibility of Hersh’s source seems more important in this case. Possibly the same source who’s approached another American journalist (via email) with similar evidence – John Dougan. Both seem pretty convinced by what they’ve seen (though people can be fooled).
https://sputniknews.com/20230216/new-corroborating-evidence-emerges-showing-us-trace-behind-nord-stream-blasts-1107514989.html
It’s a shame an article like this should be necessary in 2023, but necessary it is, people forget.
https://francesleader.substack.com/
Yes yes yes….but there are SO MANY examples of State Crimes Against Democracy that you could have used to demonstrate your point instead of the Hirsch article. I understand that it’s a current event…but one could argue that 9/11, JKF etc are also current events: Covid couldn’t have happened if 9/11 had been revealed. The neocons in charge of Nordstream 2 wouldn’t be in office if JFK had been revealed, etc.
In addition, it’s important to show that 9/11, as an example, is replete with demonstrably provable facts when compared with the Hirsch article. Readers here already know the big three: nano-thermite (proven by major universities), WTC 7 free fall (easily proven by a high school math teacher), and temperatures 1k degrees above jet fuel (proven by both USGS and NASA thermal imaging). For those who are recently red-pilled, Corbett has also done extensive research on this topic.
The images of “UA 175” merging with the South Tower are proof that the media are perhaps the main pillar of the bankster establishment. Those images were quickly assigned to the Memory Hole. The pulverization of the towers was almost certainly done using the tried and proven W54 sub kiloton variable warhead, four per tower, detonated in top down sequences.
National news outlets like “Russia Today”, “China Daily” and “DW” are generally trustworthy because what they are is written in large letters on the tin. They reflect their national interests and tend to follow the old BBC model of never publishing anything that can’t be factually verified. (Inconvenient stuff just doesn’t get presented, of course.)
Our regular news outlets operate like propaganda organs. They have a story to tell and a prevailing culture to promote and so everything presented from raw streams is selected and adapted to promote those goals. This approach to propaganda was promoted by Dr. Gobbells who during his tenure at the Nazi Propaganda Ministry fought running battles with traditional propagandists. Gobbells thought that open propaganda was a waste of time, it needed to be embedded into culture (and if it was done properly could even turn a profit (!)). The Ukraine war has really exposed just how bad things have become, not just because of the willful distortions and omissions in our media but the way that supposedly free and democratic societies are openly suppressing voices that question the Party Line.
You can get a reasonably accurate idea of what’s going on by just taking all the information at your fingertips and looking for things that intersect (i.e. roughly the same but maybe presented differently). After doing this for a bit you get to notice patterns which you can then apply as filters to what’s presented, enabling you to see behind the curtain, as it were. The trick is knowing when to stop, though. Its very easy — in fact it almost seems encouraged — to think of patterning which we call ‘conspiracy theories’. While in the absence of proof either way you can’t rule out whether or not a particular theory is true you can figure out what’s likely and what’s not based on history; overall, though, they’re best avoided since even if a ‘they’ existed in the classic CT sense it won’t do you any good to know this and, furthermore, you’re get automatically labelled as a nut. Ultimately, the enemy of any ‘them’ is a ‘well informed populace’ — knowledge blunts propaganda.
I would agree that RT is probably, in general, quite accurate in its reporting, but only because it defies Western governments by publishing truths that they would rather the media suppressed.
RT is hated by Western governments not because it is controlled by Putin, but because it is not controlled by them.
RT is accurate about the US and Europe. It’s total BS when it comes to reporting stuff inside Russia. The evaluation of former RT editor Riley Waggaman, whose work appears here at Off G quite often.
I watched RT News (in the US) every morning for a few years. I was horrified when it uncritically promulgated the bogus official narrative of the Megadeath Virus of Doom Scamdemic, and led its daily half-hour newscasts with ominous “COVID death counts” in screaming large font, with the sinister COVID Koosh Ball logo rolling around the screen.
I might’ve drifted back to it, but then RT was effectively banned and shut down in the US. I know it’s still accessible on Internet, but once I got out of the habit of watching I lost interest.
Anyway, it’s patently untrue that RT was/is accurate when reporting EU news. It’s always had its “hobby horses”, at least when reporting cultural stories. For instance, long before the term “Woke” emerged, RT editors jumped on stories about confrontations in EU countries involving non-traditional sexual identity, and especially relished reporting stories about depraved immigrants victimizing the EU populace.
I don’t know if Peter Oliver is still their German correspondent, but he used to ooze with palpable schadenfreude when reporting on immigrant-related contretemps, or conflicts involving troublemaking homosexuals, transexuals, and generally anyone who challenged Normal, Decent, Traditional-Values folk.
And RT gleefully flogged the fraudulent report of the 2015 “mob assault” in Cologne, amplifying the EU Establishment media claim that hundreds of women were mobbed and sexually assaulted during New Year’s Eve celebrations.
All that said, I still credit RT for supporting some authentic non-mainstream journalism and analysis. But its EU reporting must be taken with varying degrees of salt, depending on the topic.
I lived in Cologne for fifteen years, and I can assure you that the New Years’ rapes/robberies of 2015 were no fabrication of the German MSM — far from it. For days on end, the German MSM (including the local papers of record) deliberately ignored/suppressed the story. It was only because of the existence of the internet that people outside the city found out about it all, whereupon certain foreign news sources (such as RT) picked up the story, forcing the German MSM to (reluctantly) admit that the NYE celebrations in the city had been anything other than trouble-free.
Wow, I remember that rt report. European females as young as 14 love to dress up when going out thats one reason our lassies go out together going back 50yrs in large towns major cities. Many Americans may not be aware of that.,who may want to travel abroad in fact your being multicultural irresponsible.
Thx
It’s been all over the Kissinger Network !
Tucker Carlson says you should read this:
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream
Seymour Hersh
Feb 8, 2023
—
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/02/09/tucker_carlson_how_does_nato_stay_together_if_the_us_really_did_blow_up_the_nord_stream_pipeline.html
Tucker Carlson: How Does NATO “Stay Together” If The U.S. Really Did Blow Up The Nord Stream Pipeline?
Posted By Tim Hains
On Date February 9, 2023
FNC’s Tucker Carlson and “The Grayzone” reporter Aaron Mate look into a new investigative piece from legendary journalist Sy Hersh: How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline
Tucker Carlson pondered: “I mean, NATO is a coalition of European powers led by the United States. The United States just wrecked their economies. I don’t see how NATO stays together after this. But what do I know?”
—
https://twitter.com/jimmy_dore/status/1620681497362726914
Feb 1, 2023
Big Thanks to @TuckerCarlson for letting someone say this on TV. I would love to bring this message to @MSNBC @CNN @NPR @abcnews etc.. but they won’t have me. We’re going to have to come together to stop the war machine:
[2 min video extract]
—
Jimmy Dore Brings ANTI-WAR Message To Fox News
The Jimmy Dore Show
Feb 2, 2023
It’s rare to hear a genuine, full-throated anti-war message on American television, much less on Fox News, but Tucker Carlson’s audience heard that message loud and clear thanks to the latest appearance by Jimmy Dore. Jimmy called out the corruption, the warmongering, the deception and the profiteering as the U.S. military industrial complex and its lackeys in government and media push for war with China.
Jimmy and Americans’ Comedian Kurt Metzger discuss why Tucker is the only broadcaster open to sharing Jimmy’s anti-war message with his audience.
NATO. American public talk about their own just like anywhere else. Ask the French and Irish otherwise Coalition deployment. imo.
Most of us don’t have guns outside of the US. And speaking for myself, I am very happy with that.
So what will you do when come for you? Because they will.
You go first, we’ll go after you.
Dear Clive I live in South Africa (Natal South Coast) and I assure you that without the private firearms, we would probably have been overrun and be dead during our riots in 2021. Our community supplied our police force with ammunition as they ran out.
Believe me I saw what happened in the ‘mostly peaceful’ rioting in the US. The second American revolution is still to come. I am not sure how or what the outcome will be, but hope that the silly buggers who now claim to be liberals are finally sent packing.
Seems a fair assessment.
Depends on how you approach it. Corbett approaches this from a journalistic/reporting type of approach where he views each day’s new thing (Hersh’s story, chemical spills, mass shootings, Biden’s laptop, Trump’s secret papers, etc.) and how to decipher the truth about it. Thus, the tips on using the media.
While I agree with his simple questions relative to following the bouncing red ball, I don’t need to take the same approach. I already know the answers for the most part. When the scamdemic started, I like many others through our previous research, no doubt facilitated by the internet and the alternative media, knew immediately it was a scam and nothing has changed that. But when I saw Hersh’s article come out, I haven’t read a word, I haven’t even seen it. I don’t have to. I don’t have to ask simple questions about most of this stuff because IT DOES NOT MATTER. Why does Hersh’s story matter? What difference does it make? It’s not going to change anything. It doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know in the broader sense. I don’t care whether it’s true or not, whether Hersh is controlled opposition, or whatever. It makes no difference to me at this point. What does researching and analyzing about the recent chemical spills/train derailments do? I suppose having some on our team who research, analyze and report on these things is important, more and more people may catch on to the overall plot. And I have to give credit to those who do it and have done it because without them, I wouldn’t be in the place I’m at in my understanding of the world as it is. But what are we trying to do, find a smoking gun? Is a smoking gun supposed to be the basis for the revolution against those who control us?
Maybe for most of us, using these simple questions to view information points to a never-ending exercise of jumping from one thing to the next, distractions from the overall goal of what should be, “what do we do about it”. If all we do is analyze each new thing and try to figure out what is true and what is Memorex, then that’s all we ever do. There was a time when it was discussed that the internet and the “alternative” media would be our ticket out of this mess, a vehicle for organizing and spreading the truth. Seems to have changed, no one talks about organizing anymore, just trying to interpret the lies we’re given on a daily basis.
I know just how you feel. But the real problem is: how exactly are we supposed to ‘organize’ nowadays? Surely you don’t mean voting, right? And how would we go about staging a revolution nowadays? Or were you thinking of a James-Corbett-style alternative community? I’m not sure how that would work either!
Once you realize the full scope and dimension of the problem, you begin to realize that there really isn’t much we can ‘do’ about it, other than (perhaps) to hope is fails on its own. That is the dreary realization that I have come to, which is one reason why I have cut back on my blog-consumption over the last year or so.
Good questions. Personally, I don’t think voting will do the trick, but then again, we have to try to take over our political systems, or at least force them to hear our voices. Because, relative to the alternative community thing, been there, done that, I’m prepared. I grow my own, smoke my own, and know my way around. But I want justice, I’ve got grandkids, and I refuse to let them win while we hunker down and hide out. No way. I do continue to believe there are enough of us to organize a formidable political force. That’s why I keep saying it. That’s the only way imo. We certainly aren’t going to fight them with our pitchforks. I think we need to keep hope alive. I think if it’s possible to get 170 million people to vote for Joe Biden and Donald Trump, it’s possible for us to get 50 million people to say, hell, no, we won’t go! That’s the reason why I’ve increased my blogging comments recently and may go back to writing. I have an old blog now, called Global Revolution Center. Started that over ten years ago. Because that’s what I truly believe we need, a global revolution. And I say revolution in the most basic relative to change in power, not form the brainwashed form of storing the castle/crossing the Delaware thing. Haven’t posted on it in awhile, in fact, the last time was Mar 2020 I think when I said loud and unequivocally that the Covid-19 bs was a scam, but it can be found. I’m getting ready to start again, man, we can do it. Never give up against these bastards.
Debt is a Muzzle.
If we can’t organize in the 21st century with all the available modes of communication then we really are really a sorry lot.
What Matt McKinley aka Quantum Of Conscience calls “pissed-on breadcrumbs”.
No smoking guns, no wins or even just a satisfactory conclusion.
No endings but only traumatic starting points as new beginnings.
Just tired formulae, never authentic or original.
Many are passive,afraid and uncomfortable with protesting.It’s too physical,too contrived and embarrassing.Hiding behind the keyboard with a made-up name is more our style. Symptom of the times, sadly.The CIA is winning.
I think this article misses a key element of today’s journalism that gets lost in the bigger picture. That is that while some articles are outright fabrications for the purpose of propaganda and agenda. Other articles have some truth mixed with fabrications or agenda and propaganda.
For example. We are now seeing articles that critically assess masks and mandates and experimental injections, from the suspect MSM, and yet these articles cling to specific lies too. For example the Chinese Lab and bat soup story, the virus is real and not just the flu story, and the next PLANNEDemic.
While the Chinese Lab did in fact receive money and people from the USA. There is no factual evidence that the lab leaked anything, or that it comes from a bat. The USA has 100s of biolabs capable of similar issues, and yet the one lab is China is at fault. If the virus is real, the genetic material came from the USA. Americans working with a Chinese Biolab is treason and sedition.
While there are many claims about the virus, no one has ever provided real physical isolated and verified samples. The genome of the asserted virus is a computer extrapolated model from other extrapolated models. If Germ Theory was correct, we would all already be dead. See the Terrain Theory as a sceptical analysis of Germ Theory. Annually, in the USA alone, there are ~65 Mil flu cases, ~25 Mil hospitalizations, and ~.5 to 1 Mil deaths, due to complications caused by comorbidities. We didn’t see anything any different. The PLANNEDemic is nothing more than the weaponization of the seasonal flu, using a fear porn campaign for the purpose of trauma based mind control.
The MSM, and many Alt Media, ignore the in your face, and obvious, conspiracy by the rich and powerful, to create a technocratic dystopia. How is it that the most influential people, governments and people, can gather at a single location, every year, and yet we are lucky to see a single print or TV report of the same. How is it that personalities in the Alt Media get away without calling this for what it is. Regardless of what they speak about, think about, or otherwise agenda, the mere fact that these specific people are gathering meets the criteria of a conspiracy. They openly state what their plans are, as in they conspired and came up with a plan, and have slogans that make it perfectly clear that we the people are “useless eaters”, “free will is dead”, “population must be reduced”, “we must influence behavior”, “we can use catastrophes to force change” and “You will own nothing and be happy”. Then the reality that they are coordinating governments to act congruently, imposing “emergency” restrictions, across the world. Words and actions that cannot be denied, rationally.
That we have gotten this far into the empire of lies, makes it clear that we have an inevitable path leading to more pestilence, famine, war and death. As others have pondered, is Revelations a cyclical analysis TPTB use, instead of a singular event.
In the end it is a spiritual war of the people versus evil. The devil is literally in the details.
Good comment.
Unfortunately, Hersh’s story isn’t really credible either. An alleged highly secret mission in a time of near war isn’t going to bring the cooperation with a journalist of anyone involved in it or in the know, unless one of them happens to be a traitor, perhaps. But if that were the case, then Hersh might be guilty of that too, which of course he would not open himself to after the Assange and Snowdon situations. So we’re left with the conclusion, I’m afraid, that Hersh is being used to plant stories on the internet on the basis of his reputation, by western intelligence agencies that are getting desperate.
How do TPTB control the opposition? They lead it with controlled opposition.
It seems that many of the events we have experienced over the last, almost, 4 years, are a combination of TPTB laughing in our face, while at the same time committing criminal acts of sabotage, destroying nations, and acts of war, blatantly and overtly.
History having a similar beat and different rhythm. Rinse and repeat.
Good points. Though it should also be borne in mind that TPTB sometimes like this ‘revelation of method’, which has a tendency to make us all feel so very helpless. (See my above reply to Thomas L. Frey.) It seems to me that they keep the normies amped up with propaganda, while keeping us in despair with the truth — or at least part of the truth. (I’m sure there’s more we don’t know.)
Also comes down to levels of mind control the person has.
One can point out 50+ dodgy things U>K codswallop has done even down to
who set it up and how it was originally funded, Many who within that mind control will still go back and watch the daily downsyndrome show with Bullshit Brian and the other MIC shills selling ‘the commis are coming’ or what ever the latest nonsense is repackaged as trusted ALT media by this new bred of idiots.
James Corbett is also within that mindcontrol.
Do you have any real evidence that James Corbett is not being truthful and factual, and under mind control / controlled opposition?
Levels of mind control / enfluence? What are the levels and how do you measure this?
This is not to suggest I entirely disagree, however there are many truths that cannot be denied, regardless of a person’s degree of mind control or cognitive dissonance.
For example, when two consenting adults have an intimate relationship, that is supposed to be based on truth and loyalty, no one can deny that violating that contract is not good.
Who in their moral mind thinks that stealing is justified, just because the law says under 10k it basically isn’t really a crime.
Who in their moral mind thinks it is ok to kill another person, just because that other person made them mad, or they disagreed.
People, that are over all mentally healthy, even though heavily influenced by the system, know deep down in their heart, when they are committing a vile and heinous act against another person.
IF the justice system was functional on a basis of equal under the law and without corruption, then the avenue of legal ramifications.
In today’s world? I defer to the following:
“The most terrifying force of death, comes from the hands of Men who wanted to be left Alone. They try, so very hard, to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love. They resist every impulse to fight back, knowing the forced and permanent change of life that will come from it. They know, that the moment they fight back, their lives as they have lived them, are over. The moment the Men who wanted to be left alone are forced to fight back, it is a form of suicide. They are literally killing off who they used to be. Which is why, when forced to take up violence, these Men who wanted to be left alone, fight with unholy vengeance against those who murdered their former lives. They fight with raw hate, and a drive that cannot be fathomed by those who are merely play-acting at politics and terror. TRUE TERROR will arrive at these people’s door, and they will cry, scream, and beg for mercy… but it will fall upon the deaf ears of the Men who just wanted to be left alone.”
– Author Unkown
One thing I like about the Mockingbird media is that they’ve come to hold the public in such contempt that, sooner or later, they spell the agenda out:
https://dumptheguardian.com/books/2023/feb/20/the-big-idea-should-robots-take-over-fighting
Ah, so that’s what all these anti-police stories have been building up to? One or two of them might even have been real (although I very much doubt it).
prime directives:
kill
brutalise
extort
enslave
what could ever go wrong, bad robot, eh? ai?
Very well said, Iain. Respect!
With Congress refusing to raise the statutory debt limit, some are calling on the U.S. Mint to create a single platinum coin and then “sell” it to the Federal Reserve for $1 trillion. If the Fed, plays along, it would pay for the coin by waving its hands and typing “1,000,000,000,000” on an excel sheet – thereby conjuring the needful dollars.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/can-us-mint-fix-debt-ceiling-crisis-and-conjure-up-1-trillion-platinum-coin
The Seymour Hersh Nordstream-2 story has been all over Russian MSM for the past week or so (understandably). But not in Western MSM.
If ‘alternative’ means news, or perspectives, that are absent from a country’s (or a particular language’s) MSM, then it may include the MSM of another nation.
Likewise, the ‘alternative’ perspective in another country may be the MSM of our own country.
And then there are those in alternative news with a blanket rejection of all MSM. But they are often reliant on others within alt media to interpret the MSM for them.
But maybe it doesn’t really matter, since all alternative news represents a broadening of one’s perspective (more-or-less by definition, from the MSM). Which is generally a healthy thing.
“Main Stream Media” have (more or less) taken over the world via self-deception self-aggrandizement, and rabid deceit. I don’t belong to the world that the media whores specify. I live in a small town of less than 300 people.
I actually don’t give a shit about Russia-Gate or any other proscribed distraction. The media has become an over indulged child, stomping their feet and demanding undeserved attention. The media needs to go away and leave people the fuck alone.
I’m a Covid researcher – and I have long Covid. That’s why I have to be part of the fight against it | Stephanie Longet | The Guardian And this is another crackpot claiming a RAT said she had covid, after having three fucking jabs.
For the past 12 months the state controlled BBC and Guardian and all the King’s Hacks and all the King’s Stenographers in the MSM have been spewing out a torrent of infantile retarded gibberish about spectacular Ukrainian victories and enormous Russian losses that would make Baghdad Bob a model of veracity and reliability.
But the ever gullible British public with their little Ukrainian flags cannot be shielded from reality much longer, and the imminent debacle will shred whatever vestiges of credibility remain of the media and political BS artists in a way that even Iraq never did.
The only report I can find in the national UK MSM is one from ITN about how many people were arrested:
https://odysee.com/@ActualCoverage:e/rally-against-15-minute-neighbourhoods:5
The girl who asked how she’s supposed to get home safely if she visits her friend in a different zone and her parents can’t pick her up to drive her home isn’t being made into the new Greta Thunberg.
BTW this isn’t to say the MSM ignored it – the Fraud published two pre=emptive articles rubbishing the concerns as a far-right conspiracy theory.
It would work if we could design new ‘garden towns’ tastefully, from scratch, in wealthy parts of the UK where people can move jobs easily etc. But in a northern post industrial traffic jam wasteland, not a bloody chance. Interesting to see it forced on Oxford, where there is an invisible underclass.
Rally featuring Laurence Fox as main speaker 😂
about as credible as Laurence fox on shillbe news becoming this organic outspoken new hero for the woke right. 👁
The only real thing is, they all participate in a new moon ritual set up by the MIC media faking it as pseudo outspoken fake concern giving the real good people who are worried a bad name.
Which your also doing Edwoke by posting false’;intel.
‘Woke right’? Is that you, Ananda?
Very true, and for the last two decades there has been a real-time, social-emotional online feedback loop that provides the data required to ‘adjust’ the narrative.
It’s not so much about adjusting.
Every organisation with an agenda is not to be trusted. That covers all news and other agencies in the world.
Think for yourself, don’t trust
anyone.