Skip to content

Propaganda

New York Times And Israel Smear Slain Palestinian Medic

June 11, 2018 By Donald Johnson, James North and Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss , ,
The New York Times today printed a long article giving credence to Israeli claims that Razzan al-Najjar, the young medic killed by an Israeli sniper a week ago, was not innocent. The article takes at face value Israel’s desperate efforts to taint the young woman, whom the army has previously maintained it killed by accident. The first paragraph announces the Times’s service to Israel: "The Israeli military published a brief video on Thursday aimed at showing that a Palestinian medic killed by Israeli forces last week was not the neutral health care worker she has been portrayed as." The article parrots Israeli hasbara, or propaganda, about al-Najjar: that in a video interview of the medic that the Israelis passed along she described herself as a “human shield.”

The Propaganda And Economic Attacks On Venezuela Continue After Election

June 8, 2018 Roger Harris, Popular Resistance , ,
When I read the Foreign Policy article referenced in the first paragraph I was amazed at the how many false myths could be contained in one article. Then I saw the author was José R. Cárdenas who was the acting assistant administrator for Latin America at the notorious regime change agency, the U.S. Agency for International Development in the George W. Bush administration. He's also worked for the right-wing American Enterprise Institute and the Organization of American States, which the US uses as a cover to control Latin America. So, he is well-steeped in anti-Venezuela regime change propaganda. Cardenas was working on Latin American issues during the US-backed 2002 US-backed coup of Hugo Chavez. I was very pleased to see Roger's article because Cárdenas and his propaganda needed to be pointed out.

The New York Times And The Murder That Wasn’t

June 4, 2018 Andre Damon, Wsws.org , ,
On Tuesday, the right-wing Ukrainian regime reported that Arkady Babchenko, a Russian journalist living in Kiev and a vocal critic of the Kremlin, had been shot dead in his apartment building. Kiev immediately pointed the finger at Moscow, with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroysman declaring that “the Russian totalitarian machine” was responsible for the journalist’s murder. Within minutes, the news flashed across the globe, becoming a lead story in major news outlets in Europe and the United States, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian and the BBC. The Mighty Wurlitzer of American propaganda began belching vast amounts of hot air. In every report, the announcement of the murder was accompanied with the conclusion that the Russian government was behind it: that is, the US media outlets announced a murder mystery and its solution simultaneously.

Russiagate: Spooks Spooking Themselves

June 1, 2018 Daniel Lazare, Consortiumnews.com , ,
As the role of a well-connected group of British and U.S. intelligence agents begins to emerge, new suspicions are growing about what hand they may have had in weaving the Russia-gate story, as Daniel Lazare explains. With the news that a Cambridge academic-cum-spy named Stefan Halper infiltrated the Trump campaign, the role of the intelligence agencies in shaping the great Russiagate saga is at last coming into focus. It’s looking more and more massive.  The intelligence agencies initiated reports that Donald Trump was colluding with Russia, they nurtured them and helped them grow, and then they spread the word to the press and key government officials.  Reportedly, they even tried to use these reports to force Trump to step down prior to his inauguration.

Propaganda Killing Kills Propaganda – First The Skripals, Now Arkady Babchenko Come Back From The Dead

June 1, 2018 Staff, Moonofalabama.org , ,
But the case was murky. Babchenko was critical of all Russians who did not protest against the Russian involvement in Syria and Ukraine. When the TU 154 with the Red Army Choir crashed and 92 artists died, Babchenko said that it did not bother him. In his eyes those too were guilty people. That did not make him any friends. When he moved to the Ukraine he was just as cynical towards the people and the Ukrainian government. He raised harsh accusations against the Ukrainian President Poroshenko. Many common people hated him, many issued threats. After his murder was announced and everyone had had time to "blame Russia", contradicting tales of how the murder happened emerged.

The Real Venezuela Is Not What You Think

May 30, 2018 Daniel Kovalik, Post-gazette.com , , , ,
I just returned from observing my fourth election in Venezuela in less than a year. Jimmy Carter has called Venezuela’s electoral system “the best in the world,” and what I witnessed was an inspiring process that guarantees one person, one vote, and includes multiple auditing procedures to ensure a free and fair election. I then came home to the United States to see the inevitable “news” coverage referring to Venezuela as a “dictatorship” and as a country in need of saving. This coverage not only ignores the reality of Venezuela, it ignores the fact that the U.S. is the greatest impediment to democracy in Venezuela, just as the U.S. has been an impediment to democracy throughout Latin America since the end of the 19th century.

Media Delegitimize Venezuelan Elections Amid Complete Unanimity Of Outlook

May 24, 2018 Alan MacLeod, Fair.org , , ,
However, Western media have taken an entirely different outlook to the proceedings, unanimously presenting them as seriously flawed, at best, and at worst a complete sham presided over by a dictator. The New York Times (5/20/18) presented the election as “a contest that critics said was heavily rigged in his favor,” Huffington Post (5/21/18) christened it “a vote denounced as a farce cementing autocracy in the crisis-stricken OPEC nation,” while NPR (5/21/18) stated: Nicholas [sic] Maduro has easily won a second term, but his main rivals have refused to accept the results, calling the polling fraudulent—a view shared by the United States and many independent observers.

U.S. Media Whitewashes Gaza Massacre

May 17, 2018 Joe Lauria, Consortiumnews.com , , ,
As Israel killed more than 50 Palestinians in cold blood protesting the American embassy move on Monday, U.S. corporate media failed to accurately report what happened in Gaza, once again meekly protecting the government line. Typical of the mindset of corporate media reporting on what happened in Gaza on Monday as Israeli soldiers killed more than 50 protesting Palestinians, is this tweet from CNN. It says: “Death toll rises to at least 52 people during clashes along the border fence between Israel and Gaza, Palestinian officials say. More than 2,400 people have been injured.” CNN’s new slogan is “#FactsFirst.”

CNN’s Iran Fearmongering Would Make More Sense Coming Directly From Pentagon

May 10, 2018 Adam Johnson, Fair.org , , ,
Why doesn’t CNN Defense Department reporter Barbara Starr just leave CNN and instead work directly for the Trump DoD? On Tuesday, hours after President Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran deal (formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), Starr (5/8/18) rushed to publish an anonymously sourced and transparently propagandistic press release for the Trump administration and Pentagon. Wouldn’t it be easier if Starr just skipped the middleman and just worked for the DoD? In her 513-word piece, “US Officials Growing Increasingly Concerned Iran Could Attack Israel,” Starr mindlessly repeated “concerns” by unnamed US Department of Defense and Israeli Defense Force officials that Iran might directly attack Israel and/or Israeli positions in occupied Syria—something that has never happened in recorded history: There are increasing concerns Iran is on the cusp of an attack against Israel, several US military officials told CNN.

Facebook Begins Ranking News Sites By Trust And Combating “Propaganda” During Elections

May 5, 2018 By Aaron Kesel, Activistpost.com , , , ,
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated Tuesday that his company has begun to implement a system that will rank news organizations based on trustworthiness while suppressing content that doesn’t fit in that metric, CNET reported. Zuckerberg said that Facebook has gathered data on how its users perceive news brands by asking them to identify whether they have heard of certain publications and if they trust them. “We put that data into the system, and it is acting as a boost or a suppression, and we’re going to dial up the intensity of that over time,” Zuckerberg said. “We feel like we have a responsibility to further break down polarization and find common ground.”

Georgia Police Used Fake News From Militia To Plan For Nazi Rally, Emails Show

May 5, 2018 Staff, Unicornriot.ninja , , , ,
Newnan, GA – Emails obtained by Unicorn Riot through a public records request to the Coweta County Sheriff suggest that law enforcement relied on false ‘alt-right’ posts in their planning for an April 21, 2018 rally by the neo-nazi National Socialist Movement (NSM). The NSM ended up only drawing about 30 supporters but were met by several hundred anti-racist counter-protesters. Most media coverage of events in Newnan focused on the police response, which included over 800 officers who aggressively attacked and arrested antifascists, at times directly threatening protesters with assault rifles at point blank range. Evidence shows that the heavy-handed tactics used by Newnan police on April 21 were motivated in part by disinformation, created and shared by members of a far-right militia, which law enforcement had accepted as fact.

May Day: An American History Coverup

May 1, 2018 Eleanor Goldfield, Artkillingapathy.com , , ,
60 years ago, President Eisenhower proclaimed May 1st Law Day. According to the American Bar Association, it was to be “a national day set aside to celebrate the rule of law.” Even compared to the more frivolous holidays, this one seems particularly arbitrary. How does one celebrate Law Day? By high-fiving a lawyer? For once not crossing the street on red even though the coast is clear? The truth is, no one celebrates it. And even for those who first constructed and proclaimed it – celebration wasn’t the point. Rather, the point was to cover up and malign those who demanded justice over an oppressive and violent law and order. With this new day proclaimed, the powers that be could spray-paint “Commie” on the fight for worker’s rights so that all who labor here fall in a capitalist line, afraid of being thought unpatriotic if they demand justice.

Just When You Thought “Russiagate” Couldn’t Get Any Sillier …

April 25, 2018 Thomas Knapp, Counterpunch.org  , ,
April 20 is cannabis culture’s high holiday, and  the Democratic National Committee celebrated it with fervor this year: Blaze up, get silly, file a bizarre lawsuit accusing the Russian government, Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and transparency activist group WikiLeaks of conspiring to steal an election. The suit confirms that after more than a year, special counsel Robert Mueller still hasn’t amassed the evidence required for a successful criminal prosecution, requiring proof “beyond a reasonable doubt.” A civil suit lowers that bar to “a preponderance of the evidence.” But even that’s a long shot. The only credible evidence produced so far implicates only the Trump campaign, not the other two defendants, and only to the same extent that it likewise implicates the Clinton campaign.

Unpersons

April 24, 2018 William Blum, Williamblum.org , ,
One reason it’s so easy to get an American administration, the mainstream media, and the American people to jump on an anti-Russian bandwagon is of course the legacy of the Soviet Union. To all the real crimes and shortcomings of that period the US regularly added many fictitious claims to agitate the American public against Moscow. That has not come to a halt. During a debate in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, candidate Ben Carson (now the head of the US Housing and Urban Development agency) allowed the following to pass his lips: “Joseph Stalin said if you want to bring America down, you have to undermine three things: Our spiritual life, our patriotism, and our morality.”

Executive Who Oversaw Iraq ‘Black Ops’ Hired To Produce Anti-Qatar Propaganda

April 24, 2018 By Jessica Purkiss and Abigail Fielding-Smith, Mintpressnews.com , , ,
The former CEO of propaganda producer, Bell Pottinger USA, was given over $500,000 to produce a six-part film linking Qatar with global terrorism. Aveteran of Pentagon propaganda operations was hired last year by a Dubai-based company to create a film accusing Qatar of links to terrorism, the Bureau can reveal. Charles Andreae, whose firm Andreae & Associates was contracted to produce the film, used to work for PR firm Bell Pottinger. Whilst at Bell Pottinger, he helped oversee a $500 million contract with the Pentagon to run top-secret influence operations during the Iraq war. The latest contract underscores growing concerns about foreign influence campaigns in the heart of Washington. While much focus has been on Russia’s role in the US elections, Persian Gulf countries have also been spending large sums of money pushing their agenda to President Trump’s administration.
«12345678910»