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Propaganda

The White Helmet Controversy

By Rick Sterling for True Publica – Unknown to most people, the White Helmets brand was conceived and directed by a marketing company named “The Syria Campaign” based in New York. They have managed to fool millions of people. Walt Disney might have made a great movie about this: unarmed volunteers fearlessly rescuing survivors in the midst of war without regard to religion or politics. Like most other “true life” Disney movies, it is 10% reality, 90% fiction.

How Pentagon Paid PR Firm +$500 Million For Top Secret Iraq Propaganda

By Crofton Black and Abigail Fielding-Smith for The Bureau of Investigative Journalism -The Pentagon gave a controversial UK PR firm over half a billion dollars to run a top secret propaganda programme in Iraq, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can reveal. Bell Pottinger’s output included short TV segments made in the style of Arabic news networks and fake insurgent videos which could be used to track the people who watched them, according to a former employee.

How The FDA Manipulates The Media

By Charles Seife for Scientific American. It was a faustian bargain—and it certainly made editors at National Public Radio squirm. The deal was this: NPR, along with a select group of media outlets, would get a briefing about an upcoming announcement by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration a day before anyone else. But in exchange for the scoop, NPR would have to abandon its reportorial independence. The FDA would dictate whom NPR's reporter could and couldn't interview. “My editors are uncomfortable with the condition that we cannot seek reaction,” NPR reporter Rob Stein wrote back to the government officials offering the deal. Stein asked for a little bit of leeway to do some independent reporting but was turned down flat. Take the deal or leave it.

Syria: False Claims In Western “News”

By Moon Of Alabama for Information Clearing House - The White House and State Department are miffed that Syria and Russia are cleaning up their Jihadis in Aleppo city. There is a false claims evolving in western "news" that the current Aleppo operation led to the breakdown of the ceasefire agreement. Two points on this: 1. The ceasefire did not "break down". It expired after a previously agreed period. Both sides did not agree to a prolongation. 2. The most important ceasefire point was the physical separation of al-Qaida and other U.S. proxy rebels. The U.S. was unable (or unwilling) to fulfill that point. The main priority in Syria, according to the document, is the demarcation of territory controlled by Daesh and al-Nusra Front terrorist groups and territories controlled by Syrian rebels.After the end of the ceasefire the U.S. and its subaltern allies are flooding Syria with new weapons

Far-Right Runs With ‘Outside Agitator’ Lie Spread By CNN

By Adam Johnson for FAIR - This case offers a perfect example of why uncritically allowing police union officials to make unsourced assertions on national TV, and then repeating them as facts, is not a good idea First, it’s important to note that Burnett even muffs her sourcing; by citing a “Charlotte police sergeant,” she ignores the fact that he’s a union representative, and that union representatives are not operating in their capacity as police officers or spokespeople for the department.

Selling A Lifetime Subscription To The Politics Of Fear

By Osama Husseini for Posthaven - Dana Milbank, a columnist for the paper, popped up at Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein's news conference that focused on climate change. After Stein noted that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have gotten billions in free media, he chimed in: "Dana Milbank with the Washington Post segment of the corporate media. I have a conundrum I want to present to you. I could write about today and others could report here about what an important issue climate change is.

Are People Of United States Being Propagandized For War With Syria

By Rick Sterling for Global Research - In early August Dennis Ross and Andrew Tabler opined in the NY Times about “The Case for (Finally) Bombing Assad”. Dennis Ross is a favorite Clintonite. In her book “Hard Choices”, Clinton described how she asked Dennis Ross to come to the State Department to “work on Iran and regional issues”. NY Times regular Nicholas Kristof made his pitch for war against Syria. According to the self-styled humanitarian, we need “safe zones” as proposed by Clintonite Madeline Albright and retired General James Cartwright. That is risky but “the risks of doing nothing in Syria are even greater”.

Major Political News Media Sell Interviews At Conventions

By Lee Fang for The Intercept. For high-rolling special interests looking to make an impression at the presidential conventions next month, one option is to pay a lot of money to a media outlet. Lobbyists for the oil industry, for instance, are picking up the tab for leading Beltway publications to host energy policy discussions at the convention, including The Atlantic and Politico. And for the right price, some political media outlets are even offering special interviews with editorial staffers and promotional coverage at the convention. The Hill newspaper, which is sponsoring events at both the RNC and DNC, offers sponsors “a turnkey and custom experience,” including a “Thought-Leader Luncheon” moderated by The Hill’s editorial staff and the luncheon sponsor, who also gets to “curate a list of participants from politics, government, media and industry.”

School Board Bans Climate Change-Denying Materials

By Shasta Kearns Moore for the Portland Tribune. Portland, OR - In a move spearheaded by environmentalists, the Portland Public Schools board unanimously approved a resolution aimed at eliminating doubt of climate change and its causes in schools. “It is unacceptable that we have textbooks in our schools that spread doubt about the human causes and urgency of the crisis,” said Lincoln High School student Gaby Lemieux in board testimony. “Climate education is not a niche or a specialization, it is the minimum requirement for my generation to be successful in our changing world.” The resolution passed Tuesday evening calls for the school district to get rid of textbooks or other materials that cast doubt on whether climate change is occurring and that the activity of human beings is responsible.

Dark Money Group Attacking CFP Bureau

By Libby Watson for the Sunlight Foundation. Since it formed in 2011, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has been under siege from financial institutions. Senate Republicans tried very hard to stop it from functioning at all, and since then they’ve tried to “tighten the leash” on the agency. Nearly five years since it officially opened, a new dark money group is taking aim at the agency — and no one has any idea who's behind it. Protect America’s Consumers is a 501(c)(4) group that incorporated in November 2015. Its registered agent is North Rock Reports LLC, located at the same address in Warrenton, Va., as the law firm Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky. According to Politico, “The firm specializes in untraceable pressure groups for conservative causes.” I

How Neocons And Liberal Hawks Lie To Sell Wars

By Derek Royden for Nation of Change. In the lead up to the first Gulf War in 1991, the world was shocked by congressional testimony from a young woman named Nayirah, who said she was in a Kuwait Hospital when Iraqi troops arrived. She broke down describing the looting she said followed, claiming the soldiers had killed premature newborns by taking them out of their incubators and leaving them on the cold floor. There was just one problem with this testimony that wasn’t discovered until later: it wasn’t true. The tearful story was given by the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the US, who later admitted she hadn’t been at the hospital at all. The spectacle was planned by PR firm Hill and Knowlton, who earned over $10 million to sell the citizens of the US and allied countries on a campaign to “liberate” the despotic (but oil rich) monarchy.

‘Corruption’ As A Propaganda Weapon

By Robert Parry for Consortium News - Far too often, this sort of “journalism” is just a forerunner to the next “regime change” scheme, dirtying up or delegitimizing a foreign leader before the inevitable advent of a “color revolution” organized by “democracy-promoting” NGOs often with money from the U.S. government’s National Endowment for Democracy or some neoliberal financier like George Soros. We are now seeing what looks like a new preparatory phase for the next round of “regime changes” with corruption allegations aimed at former Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Correcting Propaganda: Ecuador, China, Indigenous & The Amazon

By Stansfield Smith for Counter Punch - The end of January a news article appeared, “Ecuador To Sell A Third Of Its Amazon Rainforest To Chinese Oil Companies,” and has resurfaced again and again on the internet. Posted on progressive websites such as Reader Supported News, Daily Kos, “The PeoplesVoice.org,” “ThinkGlobalGreen.org,” the story often comes with maps of the affected area, and include pictures of indigenous peoples living peaceably with nature or protesting against oil drilling.

Misinformer Of The Year: The Center For Medical Progress

By Olivia Kittel for Media Matters - Conservative media figures and their right-wing political allies thought that this was the year they could finally achieve their decades-long goal of destroying Planned Parenthood's reputation and ability to provide health care to millions of Americans. Since July, the previously-unknown anti-choice group Center for Medical Progress has released a series of dishonestly edited videos that falsely accuse Planned Parenthood of illegally selling "baby parts." Long-standing opponents of the organization's mission used those deceptive videos to generate congressional hearings...

Thomas Paine, Recycled Propaganda, White Power & COP21

Eleanor Goldfield for Occupy.com. On Act Out this week, let's use some common sense and talk about the rights of man. Next up, Recycled Propaganda, pure white low life scum, grab a seat at the middle east dinner table and from Paris to the globe, climate change can be slowed, if we make it so. But first, life is meaningless – like a blank page so get a brush, a crayon, a pen and paint your way.

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Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

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Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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