Tag: Propaganda

How Politicians Are Papering Over Social Problems Caused By Capitalism

The declines of U.S. capitalism and of its imperial position provoke fear among its mainstream politicians. Their response, in large part, has been to deny that any such decline is happening. These politicians do this partly by acting as though the U.S. remains in the globally dominant position it occupied in the second half of the 20th century. Thus, to maintain this illusion, they start wars in the Middle East, maintain military bases in dozens of countries, intervene in other countries at will and describe the U.S. as the global guarantor of peace, security, and democracy.

Yet these U.S. politicians also sense what the population feels: that decline of capitalism and U.S. hegemony is actually happening. So repeated denials, while comforting the citizens of the country, do not suffice to control popular opinion and thereby common sense.

Ukraine And US War Propaganda

The corporate media always carry water for the state, and they are never more dangerous than when the nation is on a war footing. Right now the United States government is sending weapons to Ukraine. One wouldn’t know that because of constant references to “lethal aid.” The euphemisms and subterfuge are necessary for a very simple reason. Everyone except the Washington war party knows that provoking war with Russia is extremely dangerous.

Joe Biden is picking up where he left off, as Barack Obama’s Ukraine viceroy. He and his incompetent foreign policy team have spun a tale about a pending Russian attack on Ukraine. In reality, it is the U.S. that is ginning up war by provoking the Ukrainians to start a fight that they can’t win.

Media Propaganda Russia Ukraine US Imperialism

NBC News Uses Ex-FBI Official Frank Figliuzzi To Urge Assange’s Extradition

Two of the television outlets on which American liberals rely most for their news — NBC News and CNN — have spent the last six years hiring a virtual army of former CIA operatives, FBI officials, NSA spies, Pentagon chiefs, and DOJ prosecutors to work in their newsrooms. The multiple ways in which journalism is fundamentally corrupted by this spectacle are all vividly illustrated by a new article from NBC News that urges the prosecution and extradition of Julian Assange, claiming that the WikiLeaks founder, once on U.S. soil, will finally provide the long-elusive proof that Donald Trump criminally conspired with Russia.

The NBC article is written by former FBI Assistant Director and current NBC News employee Frank Figliuzzi, who played a central role during the Obama years in the FBI’s attempt to investigate and criminalize Assange: a rather relevant fact concealed by NBC when publishing this.

Criminal Justice and Prisons Julian Assange Media Propaganda

Beijing’s Movie War Propaganda — And Washington’s

To coincide with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Communist Party, the powerful Chinese Central Propaganda Department commissioned a blockbuster film that depicts a US defeat in the Korean War.

Under fire from US bombs, the heroic People’s Army fights a brutal ground battle and emerges victorious. Brave Chinese soldiers are caught in a hellish landscape as air attacks riddle the earth all around them. A villainous US Gen. Douglas MacArthur, shot Nazi-style from a low camera, shakes his fist and shouts into a microphone, “I believe we will succeed!” Spoiler: He doesn’t.

This Chinese war entertainment opened the 11th Beijing International Film Festival and made audiences cheer as they flocked to theaters in China.

China Hollywood Propaganda Wars and Militarism

Government Action, Not Consumer Action, Will Stop Climate Change

Pointing the finger at individual consumers has been the default strategy of powerful corporations since the 1950s. Deflect blame for smog or litter or polluted waterways or carcinogens or gun violence away from manufacturers and onto John Q. Public. Make the issue about personal responsibility. “People start pollution, people can stop it,” said the famous crying Indian ad from the early 1970s, the brainchild of a can and bottle manufacturers trade group.

The strategy has worked like a dream because Americans prize personal responsibility. Ronald Reagan was speaking for many of us when he said: “It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”

Capitalism climate crisis pollution Propaganda

Why Is The US Fueling The November 15 Cuba Protests?

On September 20, letters began to arrive at eight Cuban municipal or provincial government headquarters announcing the holding of “peaceful” marches on November 15 by a group called Archipiélago. The motivation for these marches was a call for change. The letter was not a formal request to occupy the busiest streets of some cities in Cuba, but rather a notification by the group that they would do so and they also demanded that the authorities provide them with security for these marches. By virtue of Cuban laws and obsessive American support for the marches, the Cuban government denied permission for holding the protests.

Almost two months have passed since these letters were sent, but there are few indications that the march will take place in Cuba.

Cuba Propaganda US Imperialism Violence

The Four Layers Of Reality — And Why We’re Only Allowed To Talk About One

No matter which mainstream media segment you’re currently watching, I can promise you it’s not getting to the heart of any issue. By definition they only participate in surface level analysis. For example, there are three or four levels of reality we should be discussing when we talk about any United States election. And by “discussing,” I mean “screaming about,” and by “screaming about,” I mean “freaking out about.” So, let’s freak out – shall we?

Quick tangent – I got made fun of as a kid for “freaking out” or “spazzing out” all the time, but when you think about it — when you really think about it — shouldn’t we all be freaking out? When you look around and so few people are enjoying their lives and so many people are struggling or oppressed, and there are new and bizarre illnesses and viruses to worry about, and all of our so-called leaders are goddamn corrupt morons — shouldn’t we all be spazzing out?

Censorship Media Propaganda

Propaganda War Against China To Eradicate Socialism

Friends of Socialist China formed out of what we saw as a dire need to gather all information, original and otherwise, to counter the misinformation being spread about China. We didn’t include the word “socialist” in our title for gimmick or display but rather to send a firm message of respect and admiration to the Chinese people’s socialist path. In many ways, the propaganda war against China possesses a dual mission: the ramping up of a dangerous U.S.-led New Cold War against China and the demonization of the socialist mode of development.

We at Friends of Socialist China have identified an immense gap in the political development of progressive forces in the Western world. Progressive forces in the West reside in the most propagandized societies in the world when it comes to China.

China Propaganda Socialism US Imperialism

Chinese ‘Disinformation’ And US Propaganda

In Western media’s latest anti-China crusade, unsubstantiated allegations of a Chinese disinformation campaign—which the reports themselves admit have had little engagement on social media, and nonexistent impact offline—supposedly represent a very serious threat to the US.

FAIR (3/9/17, 11/29/17, 4/9/20) has repeatedly pointed out how governments like to decry “fake news” or “disinformation” to discredit sources of unfavorable information, or to use those nebulous accusations as a cynical pretext to outright censor perspectives they dislike. Corporate media reports of “bots” or fake social media accounts alleged to be from foreign governments (like Russia) that Washington dislikes are oftentimes themselves fake news.

China Media New Cold War Propaganda

HBO’s Anti-Maduro Propaganda Is Cruder Than Venezuelan Oil

HBO Max began streaming a documentary on September 15: A La Calle (“To the Street”). It portrays US-backed opposition leaders in Venezuela as pro-democracy heroes battling a brutal dictatorship—a total reversal of the truth. A Daily Beast article (9/13/21) promoting the film is headlined “Capturing Venezuela’s Descent Into Socialist Hell,” which succinctly conveys the film’s slant, and suggests why it found a big corporate platform like HBO Max, a subsidiary of AT&T‘s WarnerMedia.

From the trailer alone, it’s obvious that A La Calle depicts Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López as a noble democrat. That’s outrageous. López, a former oil industry executive, was one of the perpetrators of a US-backed coup in 2002 that briefly ousted the democratically elected president at the time, Hugo Chávez. A dictatorship under business executive Pedro Carmona killed 60 protesters during the two days it was in power.

Media Propaganda US Regime Change Venezuela

‘Uygur Tribunal’ Is A Lie-Maker

The so-called Uygur Tribunal is a lie-maker that has nothing to do with the law or the truth, it’s another farce aimed at discrediting Xinjiang, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said on Thursday. His comments come as the organization plans yet another round of smearing campaigns against China’s Xinjiang policy in what it terms as a second hearing.

Chaired by Geoffrey Nice, an infamous anti-China figure, the tribunal is largely funded by the World Uyghur Congress (WUC). On September 3, 2020, Geoffrey established a so-called independent people’s tribunal to investigate “ongoing atrocities and possible genocide” against the Uygurs, Kazakhs, and other Turkic Muslim populations.

One of the “experts” in the tribunal is Adrian Zenz, who has published several fake reports aimed at defaming Xinjiang, and the discredited Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Zhao said at a press briefing.

China New Cold War Propaganda Uyghurs

On Contact: The Corporatization Of Science

Science in the United States almost exclusively serves the interests of corporate and military power. Science historian Clifford Conner writes that the corruption of scientific endeavor exploded with the 1942-1945 Manhattan Project, the first “big science” venture, in which the government spent massively on developing the atom bomb. Science, from this point forward, became big business. Scientists are employed in “hypothesis-driven” research to promote the interests of the food industry, the tobacco industry, and the fossil fuel industry, attacking or silencing scientific studies that cast doubt on the claims of these industries. The result is a society awash in lies, many of them buttressed by bogus scientific studies carried out to reach the conclusions demanded by those who pay for the studies.

Corporatism Propaganda Science United States

China Has Every Right To Reject WHO’s Embrace Of Lab Leak Theory

Deputy of the National Health Commission Zeng Yixin asserted that China will not follow the World Health Organization’s (WHO) suggested plan to focus second phase research into the origins of COVID-19 on the lab leak theory. The remarks came at a press briefing held on July 22. Outlets such as CNN and Reuters reported on the development with a strong negative bias. Each report appeared to conclude that China was shirking its commitments to the international effort to uncover COVID-19’s origins.

China COVID-19 Propaganda World Health Organization

The Hypocrisy Of Washington’s Weaponization Of Protests In Cuba

On 11 July, Cuba saw thousands of demonstrators take to the streets in cities across the island. The protests are believed to have started in the Artemisa Province before spreading to neighboring Havana and further afield, including Cuba’s second-largest city, Santiago de Cuba. Press reports largely claim that protesters are motivated by shortages and the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Needless to say, the US government, its minions in the corporate-owned media, and, of course, the representatives of the Cuban-American exile brigade have seized on the protests to bolster their case for regime change and the continuation of coercive measures against the beleaguered Caribbean island nation.

Cuba Media Propaganda US Imperialism

Defense Of For-Profit Health Care Hasn’t Changed In Decades

This month marks the fifty-sixth anniversary of Medicare, signed into law by president Lyndon Johnson on July 30, 1965. The effects of the program were expansive and immediate: three years after its creation, some 96 percent of those sixty-five and older had hospital insurance, up from only 54 percent in 1963.

Today, despite decades of attempts to undermine it, it remains among the most popular of all government programs — vastly outperforming private alternatives in a huge survey recently published by the Journal of the American Medical Association. A June poll also identified high, and in some cases stratospheric, levels of support for various proposed enhancements currently being debated in Congress, including one which would lower the age of eligibility to sixty.

Health Care Medicare for all Propaganda Socialism

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