John Pilger is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, and author. Read his full biography on his website here, and follow him on Twitter: @JohnPilger.
Marshall McLuhan’s prophecy that “the successor to politics will be propaganda” has happened. Raw propaganda is now the rule in Western democracies, especially the U.S. and Britain.
On matters of war and peace, ministerial deceit is reported as news. Inconvenient facts are censored, demons are nurtured.
But is this new? It is more than a century since Edward Bernays, the father of spin, invented “public relations” as a cover for war propaganda. What is new is the virtual elimination of dissent in the mainstream.
The great editor David Bowman, author of The Captive Press, called this “a defenestration of all who refuse to follow a line and to swallow the unpalatable and are brave.”
He was referring to independent journalists and whistleblowers, the honest mavericks to whom media organizations once gave space, often with pride. The space has been abolished.
Neo-fascists play an important official or tolerated role in US-backed Ukraine.
The war hysteria that has rolled in like a tidal wave in recent weeks and months is the most striking example. Known by its jargon, “shaping the narrative,” much if not most of it is pure propaganda.
The Russians are coming. Russia is worse than bad. Putin is evil, “a Nazi like Hitler,” salivated the Labour MP Chris Bryant. Ukraine is about to be invaded by Russia—tonight, this week, next week.
The sources include an ex-CIA propagandist who now speaks for the U.S. State Department and offers no evidence of his claims about Russian actions because “it comes from the U.S. Government.”
The no-evidence rule also applies in London. The British Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, who spent £500,000 of public money flying to Australia in a private plane to warn the Canberra government that both Russia and China were about to pounce, offered no evidence.
Antipodean heads nodded; the “narrative” is unchallenged there. One rare exception, former prime minister Paul Keating, called Truss’s warmongering “demented.”
At a press conference earlier today, Interim Chief Bell said, “The secured area includes almost 100 checkpoints that will have police presence to ensure that those seeking entry to that secure area for a unlawful reason, such as joining a protest, cannot enter the downtown core.”
The Charter ensures that Canadians are free to peacefully assemble, to express their ideas, to gather to discuss them and communicate them widely to other people, including vigorous political dissent. These activities are basic forms of individual liberty. They are essential to the basic functioning of a democratic society like Canada. In Canada, people are free to discuss matters of public policy…
Germany and France, countries that together with Russia mediate in the internal Ukrainian conflict, condemned this Friday the attacks on residential areas on the line of separation between the forces of the Government of Ukraine and the militias of Donetsk and Lugansk, in the east of that country.
“We condemn the use of heavy artillery and indiscriminate shooting against residential areas in clear violation of the Minsk Agreements,” German and French Foreign Ministers Annalena Baerbock and Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a joint statement. to which Sputnik had access.
Russia opens criminal case after reporting shelling from Ukraine | February 19, 2022 … a large number of refugees are fleeing from Ukraine’s Donbass to Russia to escape a possible war. http://www.china.org.cn › 19 › content_78059643
The violations of the ceasefire, they added, cause extreme concern.
The representatives of Donetsk and Lugansk denounced that the Ukrainian Army is bombing Donbas with heavy weapons, deliberately violating the 2020 agreements. The use of heavy artillery, they added, points to the preparations for a military solution to the internal conflict that since 2014 has faced the Government of Kiev and Donbas regions.
First refugees from eastern Ukraine arrive in Russia — RT …First refugees from eastern Ukraine arrive in Russia Hundreds of people have arrived in Rostov Region following an evacuation order The first group of refugees from the Donbass region have arrived in Russia following an evacuation order made by the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk authorities ahead of an anticipated …
Ukraine’s Defense Minister, Alexei Reznikov, for his part, denied the bombings and stated that President Vladimir Zelenski advocates a political and diplomatic solution to the internal conflict.
This same Friday, the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, announced the evacuation of women, children and older adults to Russia in the face of the imminent offensive by the Ukrainian Army.
In a video message he warned that Ukraine’s president, Vladimir Zelensky, would soon order his generals to invade Donetsk and Lugansk.
The situation is aggravated in Donbas by the tons of weapons that the United States and other NATO countries sent to the Zelensky government.
Since April 2014, Ukraine has carried out a military operation against the militias in Donbas, where the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics were proclaimed, in response to the violent change of government that occurred in February of the same year.
The Minsk Agreements, signed in September 2014 and February 2015, laid the foundations for a political solution to the conflict, but so far have not led to the cessation of hostilities that to date have left more than 14,000 dead, according to UN estimates.
Alemania y Francia, países que junto con Rusia median en el conflicto interno ucraniano, condenaron este viernes los ataques a las zonas residenciales en la línea de separación entre las fuerzas del Gobierno de Ucrania y las milicias de Donetsk y Lugansk, en el este de ese país.
«Condenamos el uso de la artillería pesada y los disparos indiscriminados contras las zonas residenciales en una clara violación de los Acuerdos de Minsk», indicaron los ministros de Exteriores de Alemania y Francia, Annalena Baerbock y Jean-Yves Le Drian, en un comunicado conjunto al que Sputnik tuvo acceso.
Las violaciones del alto el fuego, añadieron, causan una extrema preocupación.
Los representantes de Donetsk y Lugansk denunciaron que el Ejército ucraniano está bombardeando Donbás con armas pesadas, infringiendo deliberadamente los acuerdos de 2020. El uso de la artillería pesada, agregaron, apunta a los preparativos para una solución militar del conflicto interno que desde 2014 enfrenta al Gobierno de Kiev y las regiones del Donbás.
El ministro de Defensa de Ucrania, Alexéi Réznikov, por su parte, negó los bombardeos y afirmó que el presidente Vladímir Zelenski aboga por una solución política y diplomática del conflicto interno.
Este mismo viernes, el líder de la autoproclama República Popular de Donetsk (RPD), Denís Pushilin, anunció la evacuación de mujeres, niños y adultos mayores a Rusia ante la inminente ofensiva del Ejército ucraniano.
En un videomensaje advirtió que el presidente de Ucrania, Vladímir Zelenski, daría próximamente la orden a sus generales para que invadan Donetsk y Lugansk.
La situación se agrava en Donbás por las toneladas de armas que Estados Unidos y otros países de la OTAN enviaron al Gobierno de Zelenski.
Desde abril de 2014 Ucrania lleva a cabo una operación militar contra las milicias en Donbás, donde se proclamaron las repúblicas populares de Donetsk y Lugansk, en respuesta al violento cambio de gobierno ocurrido en febrero del mismo año.
Los Acuerdos de Minsk, suscritos en septiembre de 2014 y en febrero de 2015, sentaron las bases para una solución política al conflicto, pero no han derivado hasta ahora en el cese de las hostilidades que hasta la fecha han dejado más de 14.000 muertos, según las estimaciones de la ONU.
OCTOBER 21, 2021. GRACE EBERT What begins with a calm morning filled with stunningly bright sunlight quickly morphs into a short film of existential crises and the life-altering implications of climate disasters. Directed by Frédéric Even and Louise Mercadier with production by Papy3D and JPL Films, “Sororal” is a profound stop-motion animation that follows three sisters […] […]
It has been pretty common every summer to see roofs peeking out of the water at the Lindoso reservoir in northwestern Spain.
If it was an especially dry summer, parts would appear of the old village of Aceredo, submerged three decades ago when a hydropower dam flooded the valley.
But never before has the entire skeleton of the village emerged in the middle of the usually wet winter season.
With nearly no rain for two months and not much expected anytime soon, the ruins of Aceredo are dredging up a mix of emotions for locals as they see the rusted carcass of a car, a stone fountain with water still spouting from it and an old road leading to what used to be the local bar.
In the last three months of 2021, Spain recorded just 35 percent of the average rainfall it had seen during the same period…
A screenshot from BBC video. “What do the couriers want? What is the gig courier model?”
Prices are rising in Turkey and people have had enough. The leader of a Turkish opposition party recently tweeted he won’t be paying inflated electricity bills following January price hikes on basic commodities. At the same time, shop owners have been posting their electricity bills on shop windows calling for help, fearing bankruptcy. Meanwhile, scores of couriers, factory workers, and grocery store employees have been protesting across the country demanding minimum wage increases amid soaring inflation rates. For…
A newly discovered document from March 1991 shows US, UK, French, and German officials discussing a pledge made to Russia that NATO will not expand to Poland and beyond.
wikipedia
Its publication by the German magazine Der Spiegel on Friday proves Moscow right and NATO wrong on the matter.
The minutes of a March 6, 1991 meeting in Bonn between political directors of the foreign ministries of the US, UK, France, and Germany contain multiple references to “2+4” talks on German unification in which the West made it “clear” to the Soviet Union that NATO will not expand past the eastern borders of Germany.
“We made it clear to the Soviet Union – in the 2+4 talks, as well as in other negotiations – that we do not intend to benefit from the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe,” the document quotes US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Canada Raymond Seitz.
“NATO should not expand to the east, either officially or unofficially,” Seitz added.
A British representative also mentions the existence of a “general agreement” that membership of NATO for eastern European countries is “unacceptable.”
$ 1,200 Billion 'Defense' budget https://t.co/rdY3DcqsYn vs the $ 67 Billion of Russian military expenditure !https://t.co/4N4vSkAkID. Maybe try to explain to your kids how to deal with a schoolyard bully.
“We had made it clear during the 2+4 negotiations that we would not extend NATO beyond the Elbe,” said West German diplomat Juergen Hrobog. “We could not therefore offer Poland and others membership in NATO.”
The minutes later clarified he was referring to the Oder River, the boundary between East Germany and Poland. Hrobog further noted that West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher had agreed with this position as well.
The Free 