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Some Basic Flaws in the Western Media
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In countries like the US, Canada and the UK, with almost all the major media being strongly Right-Wing, the media are the preferred platform to settle disputes, and for the government or partisan self-interest groups to sway public opinion on political and social issues. In China, there would never be a mass media campaign by "Republicans against health care", who would mount a huge media offensive to turn all Chinese against their own best interest. The Chinese media do not serve these kinds of partisan political or social interests as is done in the US. More than this, there is something truly pathological in the American psyche when dealing with events of government wrong-doing, of great illegalities or genuine evil, through the media. Americans seem so hyped by jingoism about their "free speech" and "freedom of the press" that they seem incapable of understanding the difference between reporting an event and acting upon it. Take the Kent State Massacre as an example, where State Troopers opened fire on retreating students and shot many in the back from 100 yards away, and where the courts either refused to try the troopers or ruled that they acted in self-defense. Americans like to bring up China's "Tiananmen Square Massacre" - an event fabricated by the Western media in which nobody died - but when confronted with their own "student massacre" - which really did happen - almost all will tell you that it was faced openly, widely discussed in the media, and therefore "America is a free country with a free press and effective rule of law" - or some such nonsense. Most Americans appear to be genuinely oblivious to the fact that "open discussion" in the media is not the same as actually dealing with an issue or punishing the perpetrators of a great crime. It is apparently sufficient that the event is widely discussed in the media - after which the entire matter is allowed to quietly die. The war on Iraq was promulgated entirely on lies, on fabricated events intended to demonise Iraq and justify the invasion of a sovereign country that had done nothing to the US and was not a threat. But to most Americans, this was all fully discussed in the media, so they and their country have received full absolution for all the crimes committed and the nearly one million civilian Iraqi deaths - half of whom were children. All of the US government torture facilities - Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Baghram and scores of others - remain open and active and, by all government accounts have not changed their behavior in the slightest. But most Americans will tell you that they are a "free country" and have great respect for "freedoms and human rights". And nothing needs to actually change, nor does anyone need to be punished - because it's all been so widely discussed in the media and "we all know about it". Americans seem to believe that if they all "know all about it" and it's been covered widely in the media, nothing else is necessary. The only important thing is that "we're free to talk about it". I am aware of no other country that suffers from this particular social pathology - and this is pathological, no question about it. In a bizarre way, totally disconnected from reality. When I arrived in China, the news reporting format was one of the first things to draw my attention. There was something different, unusual; the reporting seemed somehow stilted, a bit barren, reserved, perhaps cautious. I had difficulty assessing it. My first thought was that the government controlled perhaps not only content but method - the way news was reported. But it slowly dawned on me that I had simply become inured to the rampant opinion-based Right-Wing journalism in North America, and the absence of this in China made articles seem somehow "empty". But they weren't empty of news; they were empty of the opinions, hypotheses, conjectures and judgments, that in the West are seemingly always inextricably mixed with fact. When I now read Western papers, I realise that sometimes an article contains 3 facts, 2 conjectures, 1 false hypothesis, 6 moral judgments 1 dozen (often) baseless opinions and at least 12 unfounded accusations, all following a coherent agenda. Often, the reported "news" is intended to push us to the far Right and (in the case of Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya) prepare us for yet another "war of liberation". Far too often, it is impossible to find honest reporting, especially on important issues. We have a saying that truth is the first casualty of war, but it seems that truth has now become dispensable, that journalism has become "perception management" for the benefit of imperialism or political power. News in the West is all too often driven by Right-Wing ideology, in part because the dominant Western countries are strongly Right-Wing, and in part because much of the major media is owned, controlled, managed and staffed, by the far Right-Wing - predominantly Jews and other Zionists. It is rare to find balanced and even-handed coverage. I know that some will want to cry "anti-Semitism", but stating the factual ownership and management of media conglomerates is hardly incitement to condemn a race of people. Rather, it serves to highlight the political concentration of media power, given the virtually identical political agenda across this group. And that agenda clearly embraces Zionism, corporatist capitalism, US hegemony and the New World Order. We can't dismiss an industry's political agenda by calling detractors names or by trying to tar them with some kind of conspiracy-theorist brush. This is the source of many differences between China and the West, and the root lies in religion. China does not have the Judeo-Christian stem cells to tell them (a) I am morally righteous because God is on my side and (b) I must either convert or kill anything that is different from me. It is the Judeo-Christian fog permeating Western culture that forces everything into the dichotomy of good-bad, right-wrong. It is also that religious underpinning that leads the West to seek out, and even thrive on, conflict. The "winner-loser" syndrome in politics, law and so much else, stems from this "moral" religious foundation. Right & Wrong, Good & Bad, Winner & Loser, are synonymous with "Innocent - go Free and Prosper" versus "Guilty - Punishment by Hanging". This is also the root of the huge difference between the law in China and the West - they serve a different purpose. It is only the Right Wing that believes "God is on my side" and "I am RIGHT", and that's why they're dangerous. War is one of the best ways to prove that you're right. If you win, then by definition you were right, and righteous, and God really was on your side. Not only that, but you get to rewrite history. Sick but true. China has no such handicap with Confucianism, which entreats, suggests, encourages, but does not condemn or punish. That's the reason China is tolerant to a fault, seeks harmony instead of conflict, does not try to impose its government or economic system on anyone else. China does not see itself in terms of being "morally right" and the West as "morally wrong" - but the US and the West do precisely that. China has a war with someone on the basis of, "You invaded me, you S.O.B.". The West has a war on the basis of, "God wants me to invade you so Exxon and BP can have your oil". So far as the media are concerned, this is the reason China reports news as news. Failing the moral judgments, opinion is scarce; and the search for harmony and avoidance of conflict removes the desire to criticse and take sides. The Judeo-Christian religion is supposedly based on tolerance, understanding, forgiveness; "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", "let he who is without sin cast the first stone", "look to the shard in your own eye before criticising the mote in your neighbor's eye" . . . But that's the God of Christianity - and of Judaism, too. The religion is an entirely different matter. It is the Christian and Jewish extremist Right-Wing that parades in the streets with signs of Saddam Hussein reading, "Hang the son of a bitch". That's not the God talking; it's the religion. It's the extreme Right-Wing Jews in Israel that claim: "It's God's will that we kill all the Palestinians". In truth, the Chinese are far better "Christians" than many Christians and Jews. If you're a tpyical Westerner you may doubt my claims made in defense of China, because you know in your heart that "all governments lie". Well, maybe they do, but not all media in all countries lie. The media in many Western countries lie constantly, but not in all countries - only in the strongly Right-Wing nations where the media are controlled by Right-Wing Zionist groups that are on the Imperial World Order agenda. You may want to scream at this, but it's true. The unmatched leader for dishonest media is the US; second is the Right-Wing media in the UK. Third and Fourth places go to Norway and Sweden, and there are days when these two little Nobel war-mongers tie for First Place. Japan is in Fifth place while Canada and Australia are tied for Sixth. That's most of the list. Italy doesn't do that, nor do many other European countries. Nor does China. Stop telling yourself that "everybody does it", because everybody doesn't do it. Your country does, yes, but it is only your Imperial Exceptionalism telling you that if you do it, everyone does. Again, everyone doesn't. Get used to it. Contrary to (probably) overwhelming popular opinion, propaganda does exist in the West - and on a grand scale - but is never identified as such, being instead cloaked by the ubiquitous opinion-based journalism we now consider normal. And of course the reason much of the Western media has resorted to this format is to push the ideological messages dictated by the agenda. One of the clearest examples would be the US demonisation of Iraq prior to the invasion, a clear agenda to condition US public (and world) opinion for the fake war of liberation. Saddam was a monster, having gassed and slaughtered perhaps hundreds of thousands of his own people. Iraq was a "breeding ground" for Al Qaeda, was developing nuclear weapons, had tried to purchase yellow-cake Uranium from Africa, had mobile biological weapons vehicles (and labs, too) constantly on the move. And much more. In the end, all of these claims proved to be false. No evidence was ever found of mass killings, Iraq was in fact 180 degrees opposite Al Qaeda and had no love whatever for that group, the nuclear weapons program had long been abandoned, the Uranium purchase was proven false as were the biological weapons claims. But the propaganda did its job; the American people were all onside for invading Iraq, apparently oblivious to the real purposes, which were several: Iraq was invaded, Saddam was captured and hung, the oil supply was secure, the dollar was reinstated and the headquarters are operational. Mission accomplished. Americans, and seemingly almost everyone, are apparently oblivious to the fact that the US presence in Iraq is permanent, and was planned from the beginning. There will never be a withdrawal of US troops, in spite of US claims to the contrary. The US "embassy" in Baghdad is the largest such facility in the world, larger than the Vatican city and far more secretive. It comprises 104 acres and will have a staff of 12,000. For an embassy? Why would the US build its largest embassy - and the largest of any in the world - in Iraq? The answer is that it is not an embassy. It is the Middle East Headquarters of the American Empire. Here is a link to a report by Global Research that provides more detail: Read Here You can find many more such reports. The US also has built more than 30 enormous military bases in Iraq that were meant from the start to be permanent; there will never be any troop withdrawals from these bases. Several hundred smaller ones will be vacated, but Iraq has become a permanent military colony of the US. There is no avoiding that obvious conclusion. But refer again to the media coverage that preceded the invasion - the demonisation of Iraq and its leader. That was purely and simply US government propaganda designed to turn public opinion in favor of their political and commercial hegemonic agenda. And it was done with the full compliance of the US and much of the Western media, which again is largely staunchly Right-Wing, Zionist and corporatist. It isn't that the US government must control the media or force compliance with the agenda; the media are already on the same page, sharing all aspects of that agenda. And so it doesn't go unsaid, all threats to Israel are also gradually removed by this liberation of the unwilling by the (mostly) unwilling. It is Israel that wants Iran destroyed, hence the constant demonisation, the propaganda that bombing Gaza to rubble is really defending Israel against Iran. Here is something else you really should read. It's an editorial on Saddam Hussein and Iraq that provides much historical background leading up to the first Gulf war and the subsequent invasion. It most likely contains many facts you won't know, and certainly many that were never reported by the Western or US media. Let's Take a Look at Iraq: Things are not Always What They Seem. You may have seen the video created by the US military of the pulling down of the statue of Saddam from the public square in Baghdad. But you may not have seen the original, that displayed a wider field of view. The original video showed US troops clearing the square, closing it off with tanks, bringing in heavy cranes, tying ropes around the statue while instructing some Iraqis to appear to pull on the ropes while the heavy equipment toppled the statue. And for icing, the US military introduced several hundred confused Iraqis, ordered to cheer on command as the statue fell. The video was presented to the gullible US public (and not only the US) as the Iraqi people spontaneously welcoming the downfall of their leader and cheering their "liberators". But it was all just a fake, made-for-TV moment. If that isn't US government propaganda, I can't imagine what would be. Here are two further articles you should read, to help all of this register. One involves Jessica Lynch, the US Iraq heroine-who-wasn't, in another made-for-TV moment - an event totally fabricated, filmed and distributed by the CIA and the US military for the gullible and simple-minded. Jessica Lynch The other involves Pat Tillman, another US Iraq hero who planned to return home, team up with Noam Chomsky and tell the truth about the Iraq war. His reward was to receive 3 bullets in the forehead by his own comrades, "friendly fire" in a totally non-combat situation. His own mother is on record as believing he was killed as a preventive measure to silence him. The US military hid the truth for as long as possible, then attempted to forestall the blowback by painting Tillman as a hero who was killed in an intense battle - which was later proven to have never existed. Pat Tillman The situation is the same with Libya. Demonising the man and the country in preparation for regime change as punishment for disobeying the Empire. It's nothing more than that. Saddam was hung for trying to replace the US dollar as the world's petroleum reserve currency, and Khaddafi made the same mistake. Even worse, Khaddafi threatened to nationalise the Libyan oil industry, possibly depriving the US and Western Europe of some oil supplies but, and much worse, threatening the obscene profits of the US, French and UK oil companies. That's why the US, France and the UK are the only ones in this current "coalition of the willing"; it was their commercial interests at stake. The destruction of Libya has nothing to do with Khaddafi as a person, nor with his method of government, and certainly not about saving civilian lives. In fact, nobody cares about any of these things, especially not about the Libyan people; it's all about money and obedience. In truth, the "liberators" of Libya have already killed far more civilians than was ever claimed for Khaddafi. If Khaddafi cannot be pushed out, Libya will be partitioned. The US, France and the UK will take the half of the country with all the oil and the production and distribution facilities, and Khaddafi can have the sand in the other half. That's the price you pay for the disobedience and the heresy of wanting to control your own country's resources. Plus, they confiscated more than 60 billion dollars of Libya's overseas investment assets. But admit it. You hate Khaddafi. You believe he is mad, slimy, a brutal dictator, a murderer who deserves to be deposed. Everything you have been told about Libya, and most of what you believe about Khaddafi, are untrue - but even incontrovertible facts and proof would be unlikely to change your mind. That's the power of propaganda. Here is an informative editorial on Iraq and the events leading to the "no-fly zone" that became a full-scale illegal invasion. It should be required reading. Let's Take a Look at Libya:Things are not Always What They Seem. A last simple item for you to consider about Libya and US government propaganda - Viagra for the masses. The entire US government, from Obama and Hillary Clinton down to the clerks, and all the media, repeatedly claim Khaddafi has been issuing Viagra to his troops so they can rape more women. As proof, we have photos and video of rebel soldiers holding store-fresh packs of Viagra - supposedly taken from totally burnt-out tanks. And then we have the woman who did a survey (during a war) of abused women. 1,300 questionnaires sent out, 1,200 returned and all 1,200 women claimed to have been raped. When the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch tracked down the woman and asked to interview some of the victims, well the woman had unfortunately "lost touch" with all of them. After all, there's a war on. That is US government propaganda, demonising a man and a country to convince the gullible and simple-minded that the invasion is about 'protecting civilians' when it really is about killing the man who won't let them steal the resources of his country. "When a war is being presented as a humanitarian endeavor, that means that the lie has become the truth." Michel Chossudovsky Iran and North Korea are next. Two more wars and invasions on the horizon. And Pakistan may join them, as will a large number of small countries in the Middle East and North Africa. It's all part of the plan for the New World Order. It's Imperialistic, Zionist, corporatist - and it's evil. Many in the West are fond of criticising China for censorship or for restricting media coverage of "forbidden" topics, but are apparently unaware that their countries suffer from the same condition. For example, in 2011 Saudi Arabia is having a banner year for beheadings, these executions having increased by about 70% over the prior year. Did you know that? This information didn't appear in the US press or the Western wire services because criticism of Saudi Arabia is not part of the agenda and is one of the forbidden topics. Also in 2011, a Saudi judge advertised for a doctor to perform spinal surgery on a man, for the purpose of destroying his spine and leaving him crippled for life. The man had apparently caused a traffic accident that left another man with a damaged spine and the judge determined the appropriate punishment was "an eye for an eye". Did you read about this? No. It's not on the agenda. Let's look at India, with its abominable caste system that condemns hundreds of millions to a life of poverty and hopelessness, a country with many quaint folk customs like widow-burning, worshipping cows, where gang rape by a village council is still an appropriate punishment for a disobedient woman. A country where millions of children with distended bellies lie all day in the streets, where child labor of 12-hour days is common in every city, where child slavery is ubiquitous - the children having been sold by their parents into a hopeless indentured lifetime of unpaid work and no hope. You don't read about it because it isn't part of the agenda. But you hear dozens of bad things about China every week, because that IS on the agenda. Consider the current status of Hawaii's struggle for independence, for example, or the "liberation" of Panama from Columbia, among others. Factual news of this kind never appears in the US or other Western media - it is absolutely off-limits, even for history books in most cases. You don't read about these things in your newspapers or see them on your TV news because some countries are "on our side" and criticism of them is not on the agenda. Stories on these topics will be refused for publication, and such repeated efforts by reporters will lead to unemployment. Criticism of Israel is also one of the forbidden topics and definitely not on the agenda. Some news is reported if it's a major issue that cannot be buried, but the framework is heavily circumscribed and critical judgments or opinions or moralising are generally not permitted. Almost all information about the savage brutality conducted by the Jews in Israel toward the Palestinians is totally blocked. One must leave North America to learn anything real about this horrid human tragedy. In 2010, the streets in many European cities were filled with protesters, tens of thousands in each of many cities across Europe, protesting against Israel's attacks on Gaza, particularly the use of phosphor bombs on schools where hundreds of children were being burned to a crisp. In the US in 2011, public buses in the City of Seattle carried huge billboard signs of protest against Israel's savagery toward the Palestinian people - especially Israel's war on children, ads which were paid for by common citizens. To my best knowledge, the information appeared nowhere outside of Seattle; the Zionist news media suppressed all of it. It didn't appear in the NYT or on CNN or Fox News, the Economist, the National Post. Criticism of Israel is one of the forbidden topics. Israel is heavily protected by both its US sponsor ("partner in crime" would be more accurate) and by the Jewish and Zionist-owned corporate media groups that heavily censor all news about Israel and permit almost no commentary, and certainly no moralising about the racist savagery of Zionism. Even more, enormous international coordinated efforts are being made to "sanitise" Israel's image abroad, involving Israel itself, all embassies and consulates worldwide, all Jews in government in other countries - especially the US and Europe, much of the diaspora, all Jewish and Zionist media groups, organisations like B'nai Brith, the Jewish American Congress and many more. The Jewish lobby is alive and well, and extremely powerful. The sole purpose is to suppress all unfavorable publicity about Israel, a large part of the Zionist, corporatist, hegemonic, New World Order agenda. The appropriate conclusion, if you're a Westerner in a Right-Wing country, and whether you like this or not (and you won't), is that your government is letting you see the news they want you to know, and censoring all the news they don't want you to know. This is propaganda, the defrauding of a public, on an immense scale. To become aware of it, you need to regularly monitor publications and media in one or two dozen countries. Then, evenutally, the reality will dawn on you. With persistence, you will eventually see things as they really are or, more accurately, the difference between they way they are and the way your government wants you to believe they are. And to repeat, it is only in the Right-Wing, Zionist, corporatist countries with corresponding media where these measures are prevalent. If you live in one of these places, you are brainwashed. But please don't take my word for it; pay attention to the foreign media and see for yourself. In the light of all this, you might want to ask yourself: Who are the brainwashed? Who are the uninformed and ignorant? Who has the more muddled picture of the world as it really is? Is it the Chinese or the Westerners? And of course in all of this, you (if you're a Westerner) are being conditioned by your media every day - about China. Some things that you read about China, like the lax manufacturing standards of some companies, are true. But most of what you are fed by your media is Western government propaganda - the demonisation process - where the US and other Right-Wing governments, and virtually all of the media, are on the same page. Just as with Iraq and Libya, it doesn't have to be true; it just has to be believeable. And perhaps the real tragedy is that by now we all know our governments lie, often on an obscene scale, but somehow we no longer mind. It should not pass without being said that Right-Wing political ideology can dominate only through dishonest propaganda. The Right could never win an election or gain support for their agenda, in any county, without lying. The agenda is so unconscionable that if it were to see the full light of day, the Western democracies would be having their own "Jasmine Revolutions". George Bush senior is on record as having stated, "If the people knew what we were doing, they would hang us in the streets." That's the power of Western (mostly US) government propaganda. You can see it in every country. Just look. And so we don't lose sight of one of the main points of this editorial, this kind of thing does not happen in China. Again, the Chinese are neither bigoted nor racist, and do not demonise any people for any reason. The Chinese people do have deep resentments toward Japan for the invasion and atrocities committed during the Second War, but you will never see either the Chinese government or the Chinese media publishing hate speech about Japan or the Japanese people, disguised as news. It simply does not happen. To return to Page 1: News and Propaganda, Truth and Fiction Click Here. To continue to Page 3: Who is Good, and Who is Not? Click Here. | |||||||||||