Patrick Armstrong's latest blog below reporting in his own humour how the Western media have become like the media in the bad old USSR days. AS he says, "most Soviet citizens were far more sceptical about their home media outlets than any of my neighbours, friends or relatives are about theirs". And it's this craziness of group-think about our media (who most of us know lies through its teeth anyway) that needs its bubble bursting (imo). https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2019/01/19/back-to-the-ussr-how-to-read-western-news/
I also list below the writers three suggestions for people to navigate their way through the BS and propaganda of our media: 1). Read between the lines 2) Notice what they're not telling you 3) Most of the time you'd be correct to believe the opposite But read his article where more detail and examples are provided in support of these three suggestions. In the last analysis people have to learn what Soviet citizens learned during the old days: you can't trust what you're being told so develop your own tools to be properly informed.
I agree to some extent but given some of the rhetoric and bias demonstrated in this article, it's just another part of the same problem. There is also the core issue with this kind of commentary where they presume the bias in the media (real and imagined) is caused by some deep political or social influences (because that’s how they operate) when it’s really much simpler than that. The mainstream media (and a lot of the “alternative media”) will report whatever makes them the most money. Rocking the boat (for good reasons or bad) is rarely profitable.
Please detail to what bias you are referring? I understand your second point and agree to a certain degree (the CNN case for example) but there is clear media propaganda and factual misrepresentation on a variety of foreign policy and war / defence that almost certainly derive from a combination of think tanks, corporate rice bowls, concentrated media ownership (corporate and wealth based) and factions in government entities etc.
Looking at his list of "facts", it's pretty obviously pro-Russian and some of the phraseology gets quite rhetorical ("frightening number of well-armed nazis", "US and its minions"). They're perfectly entitled to be biased in favour of Russia of course, but it's somewhat contradicts the purported point of the article. There is plenty of misrepresentation, I just don't think it's anything like as conspiratorial and organised as you (and many others) suggest. The think tanks and other partisan political forces will push out reports and press releases with the information they want to put out (true or not) in formats they know the media can quickly and easily pick up and publish. The media are more than happy to use that quick, easy and, significantly, free copy without bothering to check any of the details.
Classic denial, avoidance, demonization of the other response !! It is interesting how similar this is to the reaction/ behavioral patter of religious zealots (under the influence of sophisticated mind control) when they come across information that conflicts with deeply held belief.
It is true western media often report news inaccurately, especially international news, but I think the reasons are more about profit and the bottom line than they are sinister. They don't have the staff or can't be bothered verifying media releases from their sources, government departments, agencies etc... makes them easy to manipulate. I find that checking local news outlets in a country will often tell you what is really going on... but you'll have to check a few... for instance on Syria you'll have to check, Israeli, Iranian, Turkish Russian, US and Kurdish news outlets. If they all agree then you know you're good, but most of they time they all have their own spin on the topic and you'll have to check for motive.... yeah ridiculous isn't it... but most places are not war zones and not nearly as tedious. It also means you have to specifically go looking and few people are prepared to or have the time to do that. Basically you have to do the media's job for them...
Assad may now be fairly popular in what remains of the Syrian population since he,Iran,Turkey the USA and Russia have killed or driven out all those who wanted his overthrow.
I thought that perhaps was what you meant. Clearly, you haven't checked him out have you. He used to be an intelligence analyst for the Canadian military and NATO specialising on the Soviet Union (see HERE). He is not pro Russian but someone who (like me, in fact) find our Western media and the wedded neocon political class abhorrent and wishes to bring common sense and a bit of honesty back into the equation. Nor is he is not alone in that. There are many old Western cold warriors who have blogs and write on similar subjects and I often post their articles here (for example, Col. Pat Laing, a former US Green Beret and CIA intelligence analyst and Alastair Crooke, a former senior officer of Britain's MI6). On the matter of what you term rhetoric (well armed Nazis / US and its minions). I recommend on the former you check out the Azov Brigade (HERE). On US minions a whole lot of political reading would be necessary to get up to speed and there is a vast amount of it available. Newspapers and TV news programmes are the very worst educational material in that regard imo. Misrepresentation? Yes, lots of that but there is a great deal of propaganda too. A lot of it. And it is important to understand that it is very active and that it is aimed at you, the domestic public; winning hearts and minds... In the UK check out articles on the Integrity Initiative, a government funded covert propaganda unit that also has targeted the US. On the media and think tanks I think you misunderstand or are unaware of what is the symbiotic relationship between neocons and the media.
It doesn’t really matter who he is or what his intention was. What he wrote clearly came across as biased and more than a little rhetorical, whether he meant it to or not. I don’t believe that is the best way to approach a topic like this if his motives are truly positive as you suggest. I didn’t deny the underlying facts, I just said terms like “frightening number” and “minions” (along with the choice of “unreported facts”) shifted from reporting facts to expressing opinion. I know. That’s why I’m challenging your posts. I’m totally aware of connections between politicians of all kinds and various media organisations but I’ve not yet been convinced of a general widespread conspiracy with a focused political motive as you suggest. I hear lots of accusation and speculated but very little actual evidence of that level of influence specifically. Indeed, I’d go as far as to suggest that accusations of that level of conspiracy is actually part of the propaganda it purports to be opposing. Once you’ve demonised the media as a whole, you can dismiss anything they report out of hand, regardless of its actual legitimacy.
Of course it matters. It informs you why he does what he does. And he is free to approach the subject in the way he chooses; there is no set way of protesting the bloody awful state of affairs we now live in. He has chosen to do so with a bit of dry humour, irony and a tongue in cheek approach. Well, he's retired and a blogger now and presenting his views. Much like, for example, Ray McGovern and those former members of the US intelligence community who are members of VIPS. It's a perfectly reasonable thing to express one's opinions when you're retired. If you know about the Integrity Initiative and its USA association, why are you challenging my posts? Colour me curious. Ah, so you consider yourself free to engage in "expressing opinion(s)" without factual backing but not the retired blogger you wish to attack? That sounds awfully like a double standard and a hiccup of hypocrisy. On the media there have been many excellent journalists who have stepped into the realm of independent reporting and thereafter written report after report about the sorry state of affairs of our biased corporate media. One of my favourites was the late Robert Parry. Perhaps your problem - I regard it as a little naive - is that you are not widely enough read? As for myself, I am a retired journalist and have zero doubt about how power and wealth influence significant rock-the-boat stories and effect editorial decisions. I've seen strong factual stories with supporting evidence spiked by one news outlet after another - and not because the story or the evidence was doubted either. It was simply rice-bowl decisions at work.
I was being a little flippant there (hence the smilie). You just appeared to be seeing bias in everyone else’s opinions but not your own (I’m happy to admit it, though I’m biased against largely the same people you are, just to a different extent). I never said he isn’t free to express his opinions, only that you should present it as that and not the unvarnished neutral facts implied by your OP. And again, I don’t deny in the slightest that kind of bias and self-serving decision making within the media. What I am denying is the implication that it is part of an singular organised policy by groups of powerful people actively working together in the shadows. It just appears to be exactly the same kind of stuff that goes on in every other industry and sector I’ve been involved in, it’s just that most of them don’t have the same public-faced aspects to be noticed.
I think that the word 'bias' to describe western mainstream media is way too weak. 'Outright lies' would in many cases be much better.
Okay, but the writer makes it very clear why he is blogging these days. I saw the smiley and appreciate it btw. I think one needs to read Armstong regularly to better understand his viewpoint. I'll try to sum it up. Back in the day he was an intelligence analyst he (and intelligence analysts in general) wrote what they could prove or at the very least support with evidence combined with logic and critical thought. Post 1990, the politicians and nations they worked for have shifted away from facts and are now dominated by war rhetoric and propaganda. In the last six years this has become far, far worse. I believe it resulted from the decision of Obama to invoke HR 750 (HERE) and ban the law not to propagandise against the American public. Then there was 2016 election that led to a further sharp increase in anti-Russian propaganda as a consequence that the deep state's chosen gal lost. The DNC began spinning furiously that this was the fault of the Russians and it has become Russophobia ever since - knowingly supported by the media. Armstrong (amongst others) is trying to rebalance this. On the "single organised policy by groups of powerful people working in the shadows". Yes and No. We need to separate out foreign policy from other sectors. Foreign policy is the particular backyard of the neocons/neoliberals. They wrote the manual on it (HERE). The key to their thinking, post the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact was simply stated as follows: "Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power." The US was providentially presented with the possibility to become friendly with Russia and to also develop a stable world based on peace and trade. They choose not to. They wanted to dominate the world and impose their rules upon it. This has resulted in perpetual war. It was a no brainer that this would be the result. On industry and sector. You'll not find that concentration of power or thinking in any business or sector that you find in the foreign policy area. It certainly is not "single" and arguments / debates do take place, but the preponderance of power and policy remains unaltered - no matter who gets into the White House or what the people want or vote for. Lastly: For my sins, prior to being a journalist I was an international bank executive specialising on financing weapon exports. I experienced many things that subsequently shaped how I see and understood the world. I have spent the last 30 years researching and understanding this cloaked world of power and how it functions in the shadows. PS, apologies for being so wordy. I wanted clarity.
I’m rarely sold on complaints of how everything was better back in our day and all these new people are terrible, especially without any concrete basis. The article you link there seems to offer a much calmer and balanced overview than your statement would imply. Couldn’t it be that the claims the ruling would lead to more propaganda within the US is itself propaganda? ”Deeps states chosen gal”? And you don’t do propaganda, really? Of course the party that lost pushed out all sorts of reasons for that (some more rational than others). The media will run with whatever will attract the biggest readership, which will be based on how alarmist over how realistic the story is. ”Neocons/neoliberals” (which is surely contradictory in itself)? That was apparently an internal government policy document, the keyword being internal. Not necessarily a smart policy but I’m sure if similar leaked from pretty much any government at any time it would be similarly embarrassing. I’m not sure what that proves. Sure, powerful people use their power to retain their power. They’ll be acting against each other as often as together though. This seems to be moving steadily away from the implications of the OP about unified propaganda from the media. I don’t think we disagree all that much in direction here, just and bit over extent and change and some of the language used to present the situation.
Some things were better back "then" many things were worse. One example is, for me, the media which is now largely appalling. But to be clear, it was never excellent but there was some semblance of attention to accuracy and the purpose was more on informing the public than is the case now. Foreign Policy journal is always written in a calm and measured way - that's it's "house style". But your interpretation of the article is not my interpretation of it. The content speaks of propagandising the American public and subsequently I think this can be shown to have happened. I don't have any problem with that description' I think it clearly reflects the actualite of the situation. However, I don;t agree with your analysis of the media being simply carnivorous in terms of sales / readership. While the latter is true (hence my earlier CNN reference), the media is fundamentally a mechanism to control group-think. Ed Herman's book Manufacturing Consent demonstrates this very clearly. I'm not quite so taken with labels as you appear to be... But then I suspect that you know very well that neoCON and neoLIBERAL as used has little to do with those two generally understood terms. Other than that I think the doctrine sets out what the US neocon establishment set out to achieve post the Soviet Union: world domination. Bonaparte would be jealous don;t you think? Well, our discussion is straying away into areas other than the central thrust of the OP, so this should not come as a surprise. Secondly, I don't agree with you that they'll act against each other as often as not. The fact is that they have established many mechanisms over the decades to ensure consensus is maintained for their long term project (here I am only speaking of foreign policy matters btw). The Atlanticist Bilderberg Conferences being one (which btw was kept almost completely secret by the media until the 2000's - one well known Financial Times journalist back in the day was sacked on the spot for daring to write - rather tamely - about them). Then there is the Trilateral Commission (co-ordinating America-European-Japanese elites). Domestically the CFR is the granddaddy which was founded on the principles of Britain's Chatham House and as its sister organisation to co-ordinate the Anglo-American sphere. Ditto the Pilgrim Society. Perhaps. On the other hand, perhaps I've been at this longer than you have?
So, American media are supposed to be like that of the USSR because they don't report Russian disinformation?
Western media today is similar to the old USSR in terms of propaganda. In many ways worse, because the average Soviet citizen knew they were being lied to and that state media was a joke. In the US and Western Europe people are content to be lied to and proapgandized by their media. Example 1: https://www.express.co.uk/news/weir...ganism-46-b-russian-army-secret-weapon-russia The only hypnotism going on in that story is directed at the readers. Example 2 https://apnews.com/bb25d1a5a0624ab489fa2e0ea24a0888 And US State Department travel advisory for US citizens travelling to Cuba: https://travel.state.gov/content/tr...al-Travel-Country-Information-Pages/Cuba.html But then... to a clash of symbols the NYT earlier this month revealed the actualite - it really was crickets...: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/science/sonic-attack-cuba-crickets.html I could provide further example (Russia attacked US power grid etc). I suspect only you and a few others here would need them though. But feel free to continue to believe in fantasy faery stories from Disney News if that's your penchant.
