confucius says……...

During the months preceding the Russia-Ukraine war, the U.S. news media coverage replicated virtually all the deficiencies of its treatment of previous crises, especially the Persian Gulf War, the Balkan wars, the Iraq War, and Washington’s interventions in Libya and Syria. Once again there was a massive imbalance in on-camera interviews, op-eds, house editorials, and even straight news stories. A few advocates of realism and restraint did gain some exposure for their views. Likewise, a handful of media types, like Tucker Carlson and Glenn Greenwald, received attention (albeit usually hostile) in the establishment press for making the case that Washington’s actions, especially pushing NATO expansion eastward and establishing a cozy military relationship with Kiev, had contributed to the onset of a crisis. Nevertheless, such views were swamped by the usual tsunami of media accounts, this time insisting that Washington must maintain solidarity with “democratic” Ukraine and persist in an uncompromising stance toward Russia.

BY Ted Galen Carpenter

The coverage once again provided very little context regarding the underlying issues. Matters such as NATO expansion or the difficult, contentious Russia-Ukraine relationship were either ignored or treated in a way that confirmed Western and Ukrainian virtue and maximum Russian villainy. Journalists portrayed a complex situation as a stark melodrama, with all blame put on one side. Indeed, experts and pundits who even suggested that NATO’s policies had contributed to the current tensions were quickly smeared as siding with Putin, willingly circulating Russian propaganda or disinformation, or even as being outright Russian agents. Some of the architects of the new wave of smears were the same individuals who used similar tactics in the lead up to the Iraq War. Max Boot, Jennifer Rubin, and David Frum, for example, were all prominent alumni of that earlier campaign to silence dissenters, and here again they were hard at work branding critics of Washington’s Russia policy as disloyal.

Once the war began, the press coverage became even more defective. The overriding message in the media has been that the United States (and all Americans) must “stand with Ukraine” in the latter’s resistance to Russian aggression. The identification of America’s best interests with Ukraine is now nearly total, and it is infused with arrogant righteousness. Noticeably missing is the sense, once so powerful in U.S. foreign policy and our general discourse, that America’s interests often are—and rightfully should be—sharply distinct from the interests and objectives of any foreign country.

In his Farewell Address, George Washington admonished his fellow citizens that a nation “which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.” He added, with a passage that applies perfectly to the attitude of both U.S. officials and journalists regarding Ukraine: “Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification.” What has been so striking about the media coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war is the absence of such an attitude of detachment, realism, and prudence.

The coverage also conveys little sense of the various factors and events that had led to the conflict, including NATO expansion, the moves and countermoves between the West and Russia regarding Ukraine over the years, or the significance of the secessionist war in eastern Ukraine. Instead, the overall media message is clear and starkly simplistic: Vladimir Putin is an evil man and now a brutal aggressor. There were no other reasons for the war, and anyone who suggests otherwise is a tool of Russian propaganda. Ukraine is a bastion of freedom and democracy that is now under siege, and the West, indeed the entire global community, has a moral obligation to come to the country’s defense. The invasion is an indisputable repetition of Adolf Hitler’s rampage in the 1930s, and if the democratic powers do not halt Putin’s aggression in its tracks, he will not stop with territorial gains in Ukraine but seek to conquer other European nations, eventually plunging humanity into another world war. Indeed, his assault on Ukraine poses a potentially lethal threat to democracy throughout the international system.

Such shallowness has been most evident in the television coverage. American viewers are inundated with images of exploding shells from the invading Russian forces, sights of desperate, tearful refugees (mostly women and children) fleeing the invaders, and determined Ukrainian civilians arming themselves to defend their country. Because television is a visual medium that always tries to evoke emotions, much of that was to be expected. However, treatment of the Ukraine war has truly gone over the top. Providing a deluge of images showing traumatized civilian refugees adds little to anyone’s understanding of the conflict.

It hasn’t helped the media’s credibility that some of the material they telecast turned out to be fake. A widely circulated video clip of a Ukrainian girl verbally confronting Russian troops was actually a Palestinian girl confronting Israeli troops. Miss Ukraine 2015 was not, as claimed, taking up arms against the Russian invaders, unless she planned to use an Airsoft gun. The supposed martyrs of Snake Island, who allegedly were blown to smithereens after defying and cursing a Russian warship, turned out to be very much alive. Some images of aerial combat between Ukrainian pilots and Russian aggressors were from video games. Too often, the Western press served as a conduit for crude Ukrainian propaganda.

Worse than the emotionalism has been the media’s receptivity to (and often enthusiasm for) some of the most reckless policy options. When Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and others contended that NATO should impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, there was little pushback from either news personnel or guest experts on TV. The media were even out in front of the Biden administration, which ruled out a no-fly zone as too dangerous.

Some pertinent questions and objections from professional journalists should have been obvious. How would a no-fly zone be enforced? Would NATO forces really be willing to shoot down Russian planes violating the edict? If not, wouldn’t NATO look as though it made a meaningless, impotent threat? If the U.S. and its allies did shoot down Russian planes, were Kinzinger and other no-fly zone advocates making the highly doubtful assumption that Moscow would not retaliate? If the Russians did retaliate, how would the United States avoid being in a full-scale war against a nuclear-armed adversary?

The scrutiny of other potentially dangerous schemes, such as Washington and NATO sending Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to Ukrainian forces, was no better. There was considerable enthusiasm in the mainstream media for Warsaw’s proposal to send jet fighters to Ukraine so that Kiev could battle Russia’s air force on more equal terms. Only a few reporters raised questions about whether such extensive support might ultimately make the United States a de facto belligerent, with all the risks entailed in that status.

Sometimes, the total identification of prominent news personnel with Ukraine’s cause boiled to the surface. A notable case involved NBC’s chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel, who asked whether the West could just “watch in silence” while a huge Russian military column continued to roll toward Kiev. Both his tone and words, including the observation that “the U.S./NATO could likely destroy it,” implied a belief that the United States and NATO could not—certainly should not—remain on the sidelines as the column neared Kiev. Unfortunately, such reflexive hawkishness was typical.

Barely four days into the war, Glenn Greenwald observed, “It is genuinely hard to overstate how overwhelming the unity and consensus in U.S. political and media circles is. It is as close to a unanimous and dissent-free discourse as anything in memory, certainly since the days following 9/11.” If he was exaggerating at all, it wasn’t by much. The tiny number of experts who offered deeper and more nuanced views of the war, such as retired military officers Daniel Davis and Douglas McGregor, stood out because of their rarity. So too did the few outlets that featured them, principally Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News. It was an all-too-familiar pattern of homogenized, pro-activist messaging that continued the news media’s track record on international affairs over the decades.

Emotionalism and total identification with Ukraine and its cause have been the overwhelming features of how the press has handled the Russia-Ukraine war. According to the conventional wisdom in the media, it is not enough to denounce the Russian invasion for what it is—an ugly, brazen act of aggression. U.S. press coverage has gone well beyond that standard in its treatment of the war, and the overlap between the dominant media narrative and Washington’s official policy is massive.

That approach has produced two especially pernicious effects. One is that the crusading mentality has delegitimized even the most reasoned dissent about U.S. policy toward Russia. Karl Rove typified that approach in a prominent Wall Street Journal op-ed arguing that true Republicans should automatically “stand up for Ukraine.” Articles dismissing critics as “Putin apologists” or “Putin’s groupies” have become ubiquitous. The other effect has been to foment outright anti-Russia hysteria in the public. The atmosphere of intolerance has begun to resemble the anti-German sentiment in the United States during World War I.

Stifling dissent, being a catalyst for ethnic hatred, and cheerleading for a dangerous military crusade is not what the American people need from a responsible news media. Unfortunately, that is what they are getting yet again.

Ted Galen Carpenter is a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor at The American Conservative, is the author of Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy, forthcoming in July 2022

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-media-fumbles-again-on-ukraine/

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By Gus Leonisky at 6 May 2022 - 7:14am
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big bitch nina is watching you…...

Retired Australian diplomat Tony Kevin, in conversation with former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, says the West is unnecessarily determined to undermine Russia.

At an event last week [December, 2019] in Sydney, Kevin and Carr discussed how the West, led by the United States, has been on an aggressive campaign to destabilize Russia, without cause.

When Kevin said he returned to Russia after more than 40 years in 2016 he realized he “had to take sides” in the U.S.-Russia standoff when all Nato countries boycotted the Moscow celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

“I had to take a moral position that it is not right for the West to be ganging up on Russia,” Kevin says in his conversation with the former Australian foreign minister.

The New Cold War can traced back to a broken promise made to Moscow on Nato expansion eastward. “London and Washington are orchestrating a disinformation” campaign today against Russia, as the New Cold War has heated up over Syria, Ukraine, NATO troops on Russia’s borders and Russiagate.

Watch the hour-long in depth discussion which was filmed and produced by Consortium News’ CN Live! Executive Producer Cathy Vogan.

SEE THIS:

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/12/08/a-determined-effort-to-undermine-russia/

-------------------------

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. – The First Amendment to the United States Constitution

The Framers wrote the Constitution at a time when state churches were central to a nation’s identity. A state church gives an official answer to the most important questions about human existence. The First Amendment doesn’t (or shouldn’t) just stop the government from silencing us. It also implicitly bars the government from forcing us to accept an official view of reality. The Framers thought liberty of conscience was more important than unity of belief. This was a radical view then and remains so today. The First Amendment probably couldn’t be passed now.

Early in American history, the First Amendment was tested by the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Alien Act gave the president more power to deport potentially dangerous foreigners. The Sedition Act made it a crime to print or say “any false, scandalous, and malicious writing” about the government. President John Adams supported these laws because he wanted to prevent a war with France. Vice President Thomas Jefferson was so disgusted by the acts he proposed nullification. The acts’ unpopularity probably contributed to Jefferson’s victory in 1800. They expired, having never been examined by the Supreme Court.

The Court may get another chance. The Department of Homeland Security, now presiding over a wave of illegal immigration that has driven America’s foreign-born population to a record 46.6 million people, has set up a “Disinformation Governance Board.” It represents a new kind of Sedition Act. Among the foreign-born population is Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. During recent testimony before Congress, the secretary replied to three questions from black Congresswoman Lauren Underwood (D-IL).

First, she asked what DHS was doing about “white supremacists, [who, according to the intelligence community,] present the most lethal domestic violent extremism movement in the homeland.” The Secretary agreed that they were the “most lethal” danger.

Second, she asked about “mis-and-disinformation,” specifically foreign countries that “attempt to destabilize our elections by targeting people of color with disinformation campaigns.” The Secretary said fighting this was indeed a “critical effort.” Third, she asked for assurance that DHS would fight “mis-and-disinformation” for Spanish-speakers.

Secretary Mayorkas replied that DHS had “just recently constituted a misinformation disinformation governance board.” The goal would be to bring the “resources of the department together to address this threat,” because “the spread of mis-and-disinformation in minority communities” is especially bad.

Republicans, notably GOP Senate nominee J.D. Vance of Ohio and Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, slammed the board. “Rather than protecting our border or the American homeland, you have chosen to make policing Americans’ speech your priority,” wrote Senator Hawley. He said it should be dissolved. Many online mocked the Biden Administration’s “Ministry of Truth.” One Nina Jankowicz, who disgraced herself in song and whose pinned tweet promotes her book “How to Be a Woman Online,” will be Executive Director.

Republicans and even the left-libertarian Reason magazine have heavily criticizedthe new department, and the Biden administration seems embarrassed. The day after the Secretary’s testimony, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki seemed ill-prepared to explain the board’s purpose and had no information about Miss Jankowicz. “It sounds like the objective of the board is to prevent disinformation and misinformation from traveling around the country in a range of communities,” she said. “I’m not sure who opposes that.”

Many people do, not least because the Executive Director herself appears to be guilty of spreading misinformation. During the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, Nina Jankowicz was worried about “police aggression against protesters.” She suggested there was massive Russian interference in the 2016 election. She promoted Christopher Steele, author of a dossier with false information that prompted an FBI investigation into President Trump. She dismissed Hunter Biden’s laptop as a “Trump campaign product.” She later implied that American intelligence thought it could be a Russian influence operation. The Washington Examiner reports that her view was not supported by evidence.

The Biden Administration is making the situation worse. Secretary Mayorkas claimed Miss Jankowicz would be “absolutely” politically neutral, though he did concede, “I think we probably could have done a better job in communicating what it [the disinformation board] does and does not do.”

The fight against supposed misinformation has already begun. The DHS has resources, fact sheets, and infographics that tell you to rely on “official websites and verified social media for authoritative information.” This implies a government-sanctioned seal of approval.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, set up under Donald Trump within the DHS, publishes graphic novels about the war on disinformation. In one called Bug Bytes, “readers follow protagonist Ava, a graduate, who uses her wits and journalism skills to uncover a disinformation campaign set to damage Fifth Generation (5G) critical communications infrastructure in the United States.” She works to expose donors to “anti-vaccination groups,” notably by ambushing an online commentator who foolishly agrees to her request for an interview. She lures him in by telling him to “think of this as an exclusive opportunity to share your views with a wide audience.” Eventually, she uncovers that a man “tied to the anti-vaccination petition and links to foreign backers” was trying to burn down 5G towers.

Ava goes on to get a National Journalism Award, suggesting that DHS considers mainstream press an ally. Nina Jankowicz supports doxxers Brandy Zadrozny and Taylor Lorenz, who recently doxxed the Libs of TikTok Twitter account with help from a researcher who may have been funded indirectly by the German government.

What is this new board supposed to do? When asked, the Secretary waffled, but finally gave an answer:

[I]it works to ensure that the way in which we address threats, the connectivity between threats and acts of violence are addressed without infringing on free speech, protecting civil rights and civil liberties, the right of privacy. And the board, this working group, internal working group, will draw from best practices and communicate those best practices to the operators, [emphasis added] because the board does not have operational authority.

Who are “the operators?” The Secretary won’t say. In the article linked above, National Review suggests that it’s the social media companies, but seems puzzled about what DHS would tell them to do. We’re not. DHS already told us.

Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan under Donald Trump openly said in 2019 that the department pressures social media companies to censor people the agency doesn’t like. In 2021, the White House pressured social media companies to ban the “disinformation dozen,” who were allegedly spreading false information about COVID-19. How were these people identified? In a report from the “Center for Countering Digital Hate,” whose remit now apparently extends to medicine. The White House also pressured Spotify to do “more” about Joe Rogan when he questioned certain aspects of the government’s COVID-19 story. Former president Barack Obamarecently gave a speech calling for more social media regulation.

https://www.unz.com/ghood/a-contemptible-disinformation-governance-board/

[We remember Obama’s "truth" here]

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punching them in your own face….

By jose nino

Politicians thoroughly enjoy times of war. Periods of bellicosity are when the most power-hungry members of the political class indulge in their most depraved political fantasies. The Russo-Ukrainian War has been no exception to this trend.

Western politicians have been taking advantage of the largest conventional military conflict on European soil since World War II to crack down on civil liberties at home and drag their countries closer to an open conflict with a nuclear power. The domestic measures Western governments have pursued have been particularly breathtaking.

For example, the European Union has already banned Russian state media outlets such as RT and Sputnik for allegedly spreading disinformation. In the United States, which has stronger free speech protections, the assaults against freedom of expression had taken a more corporate hue. For example, Big Tech juggernauts such as Google have enthusiastically blocked channels receiving funding from Russia.

Even more egregious have been the actions of EU and North Atlantic Treaty Organization members such as the Czech Republic and Slovakia. These countries have criminalized any behavior that could be construed as being in support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Similarly, Latvia has created a police hotline where citizens can report individuals who manifest support for Russia’s military action in Ukraine. Several German states have pushed the envelope even further by prosecuting individuals who display the Z symbol connected to Russia’s military campaign.

The corporate press and governments are setting a startling precedent. The definition of “pro-Russia” content could be potentially broadened to attack antiwar activists and noninterventionists who are skeptical of Western countries trying to get involved in the Russo-Ukrainian war.

While the Russian invasion of Ukraine is horrific, there need to be honest discussions about this invasion and what led up to it. International relations scholar John Mearsheimer has talked about how US foreign policy moves such as NATO expansion helped create the conditions for the present great-power tragedy. For simply putting forth an alternative theory for what caused the present security crisis, Mearsheimer was nearly subjected to a struggle session by University of Chicago students, who adamantly refused to entertain the professor’s contrarian views.

Given the recent trajectory, it would not be a stretch to suggest that even realist critiques of Western foreign policy could be subject to social and political sanctions. The simple act of pointing out that the US’s geopolitical ambitions have played a significant role in creating the present instability could be treated as “pro-Russian” speech if deep state proponents have their way.

Dissidents getting punished for their antiwar views is nothing new in American history. Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs learned this the hard way during World War I. To make sure that America’s war effort went unchallenged, the Wilson administration passed the Espionage Act in 1917, followed by the Sedition Act in 1918.

These bills imposed harsh criminal penalties. On June 16, 1918, Debs gave a speech in Canton, Ohio, imploring attendees to resist the World War I draft. Debs’s actions eventually landed him in trouble with the law, and he was charged with ten counts of sedition. The socialist activist received a prison sentence of ten years and faced a lifetime of disenfranchisement.

It took a pardon from President Warren G. Harding, one of the presidents most pilloried by court historians, to finally get him out of jail, and Debs was released toward the end of 1921.

Later, during the Vietnam War, there were several cases of the FBI surveilling antiwar groups or even infiltrating them to hinder their effectiveness. As Randolph Bourne proclaimed in an unfinished manuscript, “War is the health of the State.” It remains so, as Western governments are working overtime to augment their power during a great-power conflict.

Self-proclaimed liberal democracies already showed their true colors during the covid-19 pandemic, when they treated their citizens like mere cattle to be poked and prodded by whimsical technocrats. Now, as the Russo-Ukrainian War rages on, they’re further manifesting their pent-up tyrannical desires.

An integral part of the West's unique value proposition is its respect for civil liberties, something countless societies have never enshrined in their governing documents. But now that has drastically changed. The haughty rhetoric coming from Western governments about being profreedom is vacuous at best when their actual behavior is observed.

The irony here is that the West has fallen down the classic “you become what you fight” path. The very Western countries that pound their chests about their exceptionalism are now morphing into the countries they rail against.

Politics is not without a sense of irony.

Reprinted from Mises.org.

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2022/may/20/the-russo-ukrainian-war-a-new-opportunity-for-demagogues-to-destroy-freedoms-at-home/

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By Gus Leonisky at 21 May 2022 - 9:09am
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