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Propaganda

Israel’s Bombing Campaign Backed By Media Propaganda

Western corporate media outlets, including the BBC, CNN, and The New York Times, have been working overtime to justify Israel’s recent assault on Lebanon, which claimed the lives of approximately 600 people in a single day. These reports have repeatedly claimed that the Israeli strikes were targeting “Hezbollah positions,” an assertion that has been widely echoed without substantial scrutiny. Israel’s large-scale onslaught against civilian areas throughout Lebanon, which began on Monday, was covered by Western corporate media as “strikes on Hezbollah.” CNN’s story on the first day of the assault, after around 500 people had been killed across Lebanon, was titled, “Israeli Strikes Targeting Hezbollah Kill Hundreds Across Lebanon.”

The Empire Finds An African Enemy: African Stream In The Crosshairs

On Friday, September 13, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed a press briefing in Washington DC, as he has done many times before. The purpose of the briefing was to announce new measures to counter “Russian propaganda,” a pronouncement that was not out of the ordinary. The US has placed nearly 6,000 sanctions on Russia over the years, making a press briefing to announce the State Department’s latest Russian sanctions a normal and prosaic event. That is, until Blinken got to the main point of his briefing: Last week, our government revealed how RT launders information operations through unwitting Americans to covertly disseminate Kremlin-produced content and messaging to the American public. Today, we’re exposing how Russia deploys similar tactics around the world.

New York Times Repeats Government’s Evidence-Free Claim That Gaza Protests Are Part Of Iranian Plot

On September 4, the New York Times did something it has a long and sordid history of doing: laundering extremely loaded and consequential ​“U.S. intelligence” claims without providing an ounce of skepticism — or evidence. The report, headlined ​“Iran Emerges as a Top Disinformation Threat in U.S. Presidential Race,” begins with fairly boilerplate hand wringing about foreign influence operations, followed by authors Steven Lee Myers,Tiffany Hsu and Farnaz Fassihi casually tossing out a government claim that, by implication, has the effect of smearing hundreds of thousands of student protesters

Cold War II: US Congress Passes 25 Anti-China Laws In One Week

The US House of Representatives approved 25 anti-China laws in just one week in September: a clear sign that Washington’s new cold war is quickly heating up. The hawkish House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party proudly described these days as “China Week”, boasting that much of the legislation had “overwhelming bipartisan” support. NBC News noted that “many of the measures passed with bipartisan support at a time when viewing [China] primarily as a geopolitical rival is one of the few issues both Republicans and Democrats can agree on”. Cold War Two fervor is reaching fever pitch in the United States. CIA Director William Burns has referred to China as the “bigge[st] long-term threat”. The last two US secretaries of state, Democrat Antony Blinken and Republican Mike Pompeo, gave speeches specifically dedicated to demonizing China.

The Chris Hedges Report: The Origins Of Islamophobia

Since the turn of the 21st century, the world has become deeply familiar with the global “war on terror.” Framed by the West’s ostensibly patriotic and “civilized” political narrative that conveniently expands their national security power and geopolitical interests, it also pins Muslims as savage, and Islam as a barbaric religion of people that want nothing but the destruction of the West. This perception of Islam—and its followers—as wicked and violent, spread wide and far, especially in the United States, Great Britain and other allied countries. This doesn’t happen without the help of the media and influential public figures, who shape public opinion and reinforce stereotypes.

The True History Of How Hamas Was Created

Following the October 7 attack, claims began to surface suggesting that Hamas, the Palestinian group behind the attack, was funded by Benjamin Netanyahu to obstruct a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority and that Hamas was, in fact, a creation of Israel. However, Israel did not create Hamas, and this notion represents an exaggerated misinterpretation of historical events. So, where did these claims originate, and is there any basis for them? To fully understand the origins of these claims, we must look back to 1973 when Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, a Palestinian member of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded the Mujamma al-Islammiyah.

‘Vote Joy’ — A Delusion Of Nostalgia

Many commentators have attempted to describe the astonishing devolution of Democratic Party politics into sheer marketing: Kamala Harris as product, “new and improved” like a laundry detergent or a frozen dinner. Vanessa Beeley calls it “cartoon theatrics,” and it’s as good as I’ve seen. In two words the British journalist captures from a useful distance the infantilism of the Harris-for-president campaign and the Hollywoodization of American politics. I thought I’d seen everything in this line until a few days ago, but in this, the most unserious political season of my lifetime, it is incautious to make any such assumption.

Conditioning Americans For War With Russia

As the drums beat louder and louder about alleged threats from Russia, the Biden administration today blew perilous new life into the debunked and disgraced Russiagate disinformation operation. Russiagate seems too good of a weapon for the Democrats to give up. Its initial appearance, beginning in 2016, dangerously raised tensions with nuclear-armed Russia. But in the midst of today’s escalating crisis in Ukraine, a Russiagate repeat recklessly raises risk to insane heights. Here’s how The New York Times reported it today: Garland testified: “The effort in this case is to affect the preferred outcome of the presidential election. … the Director of National Intelligence has testified that Russia’s preferences have not changed from the preceding election.”

Palestine And The Degeneration Of Black Politics

For decades, most Black political commentary has expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people, but recently, a new phenomenon has appeared, particularly on social media platforms, which accuses all Palestinians of being anti-Black racists, and asserts that aligning with them is either of no use to Black people or even that it is detrimental to our own cause. Some of these individuals are Democratic Party operatives attempting to maintain Black voter loyalty as Israeli war crimes in Gaza remain a campaign issue. Others are of a right wing tendency which either supports U.S. imperialism or asserts that Black politics can and should stand alone, and that any talk of solidarity with Palestinians or other peoples is misguided.

Venezuela: Convince, Confuse, Co-Opt – ‘Three C’S’ Of War Propaganda

If we wanted to summarize the mechanisms of “cognitive warfare”, which aims to condition the brain through the manipulation of emotions, we could speak of the “three C’s”: Convince, Confuse, Coopt, consolidate fake news in the common perception. From the “witch hunts” against rebellious women in past centuries, to the construction of the “internal enemy” and the obsession against communism in the various modulations produced by the last century, imperialism has refined its propagandistic techniques, relying on the cult of the ephemeral and the “end of history”, multiplied by social networks in the current century.

Noa Argamani Blasts Israeli Media: ‘Hamas Did Not Injure Me’

Noa Argamani, the Israeli captive freed by an army operation that killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians, has lashed out at the media for misreporting comments she made about her time in captivity. “I can’t ignore what happened in the media in the last 24 hours. Things were taken out of context,” Argamani stated in an Instagram story posted to her account on 23 August. “I was not beaten and my hair was not cut. I was in a building that was bombed by the Air Force. The exact quote is: ‘This past weekend, after the shooting, as I said, I had cuts all over my head and was injured all over my body.’ I emphasize that I was not beaten, but injured all over my body by the collapse of a building on me,” Argamani added.

Israel Sought To Bypass Foreign Agent Law To Spread Propaganda In US

The Israeli government sought legal advice on how to bypass US federal law governing the spreading of propaganda among the US population by foreign states, an investigation published on 17 August by The Guardian in collaboration with journalists Lee Fang and Jack Poulson shows. US federal law requires the disclosure of foreign-backed lobbying campaigns, but leaked documents reviewed by The Guardian show the Israeli government sought legal advice concerning the law out of concern that Jewish and Christian Zionist lobbying groups working in coordination with the Israeli government would be required to register as foreign agents and disclose their ties to Israel.

CNN’s Fraudulent Analysis Of Fraud In The Venezuelan Presidential Election

In the quarter century of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, initiated by the election of Hugo Chávez and continued by his successor Nicolás Maduro, 31 national elections have been held. Invariably, the US-backed opposition claimed fraud in all but the two contests that they won. Equally unvaryingly has been the corporate press’s supporting and indeed embellishing of the claims of fraud as described below. The moment that Venezuela’s election authority (CNE in its Spanish initials) reported that incumbent Maduro had prevailed in the July 28 presidential contest over his nearest challenger, Edmundo González, howls of fraud were to be heard throughout the world’s corporate press.

United States Elites Fail To Sink Chinese Swimmers

US political and media elites tried but failed to sink the Chinese swimming team at the Paris Olympics. The Chinese swimmers performed well despite the increased stress caused by media-induced rumors of “Chinese doping”. And now, the tables are being turned as the US anti-doping regime is coming under increasing scrutiny and criticism. The media manufactured cloud of suspicion Just a few months ago the NY Times and German ARD media ignited the controversy with an “investigation” regarding an incident from December 2021. At that time, 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for a trace amount of the heart medication Trimetazadine (TMZ) during a swim meet for top swimmers from across the country.

How Sinclair Sneaks Right-Wing Spin Into Millions Of Households

With the presidential contest in full swing, the Sinclair Broadcast Group appears to be ramping up its right-wing propaganda again. While millions of Americans are subjected to the TV network’s electioneering, few know it. That’s because, like a chameleon, Sinclair blends into the woodwork. Turn on your local news and you may well be watching a Sinclair station, even though it appears on your screen under the imprimatur of a major network like CBS, NBC or Fox. Here in the DC area, I occasionally tune into the local ABC affiliate, WJLA. Its newscasters are personable, and I like the weather forecasts. But then I remember that WJLA is owned by Sinclair.
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