Russophobia: The News Media's Motivation
We know why the Military-Intelligence-Industrial-Complex wants a confrontation with Russia: To justify their outrageous military budgets.
We know why the Democratic Party establishment is pushing the "Scary Russia!" meme: To distract the public from their utter and complete incompetence and failure.
But why is the news media buying into it?
I was watching this Chris Hedges interview and Robert Scheer made a good point 10 minutes in.
Scheer makes the good point that the business model of the legacy news media has failed, and the alternative media via the internet is their undoing.
This is why "Scary Russia!" is linked to "Scary Fake News!"
Oh, sure. The government is motivated to crush the alternative media as well. You can't have people doing too much independent thinking.
Where the interests of the ruling elites and the interests of the news media meet is in the collapse of the public's trust in the mainstream news media.
If the people have absolutely no trust in the news media, then they can't be manipulated into supporting things like pointless wars and rigged elections.
That's dangerous for TPTB.
However, the news media doesn't need to be convinced into censoring the alternative media.
Then, in April ’17, Google implemented ‘Project Owl,’ ostensibly aimed at reducing the prominence of “fake news” in its searches. The program utilized “algorithmic updates to surface more authoritative content” (there’s some technonewspeak!) and to downgrade “offensive” material. In the weeks that followed, many leftist and progressive websites saw double-digit percentage declines in the traffic referred to them from Google searches. Among these were Alternet (-63%), Democracy Now!(-36%), Common Dreams(-37%), Truth-Out (-25%), The Intercept (-19%) and Counterpunch (-21%). The steepest decline was experienced by the World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org), whose search traffic fell by two-thirds.Some would argue that it’s only “censorship” when the government does it. However, in these days of digital dominance by a small number of entities with near monopolies, I think the discussion is different. As Thomas Knapp recently asked in CounterPunch, when it comes to social media, “When Does ‘Actively Working With the Government’ Become Censorship?” He writes:
At what point does ‘actively working with the government’ and ‘partnering with public authorities’ cease to be private, albeit civic-minded, market activity and become de facto government activity? Or, to put it differently, when does it cease to be merely ‘you can’t talk like that in my living room’ (exercise of legitimate property rights) and start becoming ‘you can’t talk like that, period’ (censorship)? My own answer: When Mark Zuckerberg starts using the phrase ‘actively working with the government’ as if that’s a good thing, we’re well into the danger zone.
Censorship is the opposite of journalism. Which shows just how desperate the MSM really is.
The mainstream media is fighting for its financial life, influence, and status.
The ruling elite are feeling threatened because their normal political messaging outlets suddenly don't work.
If something isn't done, the status quo will change.
Not surprisingly, both of them have turned to ham-fisted censorship and scaremongering.
Comments
Censorship Tsunami
That wraps the whole package up in a nice Christmas bow. The new normal for journalism:
Reporter violently arrested while trying to film Virginia Gov. hopeful Ed Gillespie at public event
https://thinkprogress.org/gillespie-virginia-arrest-reporter-25b31eaaa7b5/
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
And people say that we aren't living in a police state
I didn't hear the cop tell him that he was under arrest any time during that encounter. Throwing anyone on the ground just to place them in handcuffs should be a chargeable offense of assault and battery.
We've seen videos of cops doing this to teenagers. One girl had her jaw broken when she was slammed into the floor. In what world does this type of action go unpunished? Or should I say, what country?
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
I didn't hear the usual
"Stop Resisting!!" as 4 or 5 coppers pile on. Every one of those brown shirt futhermuckers should be locked up.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
And charged for assault
This has to be stopped somehow, but even if they somehow are charged, juries let them off. The cop who shot Walter Scott in the back after he ran from the cop was tried 3 times and twice the jury hung. One time it was 11-1. So one person saw no problem with the cop shooting a person who was not threatening the cop, but was just running away from him.
So it's not only needing to find a way to stop the out of control police, but to change people's minds that cops aren't above the law.
I wonder if people were aware that police departments are sending their cops to Israel to be trained by its military, would that make a difference?
But we saw how police brutality rose during Obama's tenure and he had no problem with so many cops getting away with shooting unarmed people, especially the unarmed blacks whose stories made the news.
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
Cartoon
Mike Flugennock’s political cartoons / sinkers.org
I think many of our ‘fellow citizens’ are so
damned scared of EVERYTHING that they’d rather give up their rights (and ours) in return fior a false feeling of security.
I don’t know where this idea of ‘safety’ comes from in some people’s minds. A police state is NOT safety or security. It is the direct opposite. But try getting that through half the population’s head.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
The security of the State itself
is of primary importance. Everything and anything will be done to preserve the State. The security of individuals living within it, is a purely secondary concern.
native
@native
Public safety doesn't seem to be of any concern at all - quite the contrary, where Non-Billionaire-Americans are concerned...
Edit: sorry about the double-post... noticed one of my traditional letter-typos just as I hit 'post' and thought I'd stopped it in time, considering the usual lag and non-posting happening so often lately.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
@native
Public safety doesn't seem to be of any concern at all - quite the contrary, where Non-Billionaire-Americans are concerned...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Media is also protecting the Clintons/DLC
It's not just about the Media itself, but about protecting the Globalist Elite Criminal Class (who own and control them).
---
That's why Dick Cheney can literally shoot a man in the face, and Hillary Clinton can literally sell away our own Uranium over to Russia for millions of dollars and they never see the inside of a Court Room (much less ever go to prison).
The Media is there to protect them and their class.
The Media is also there to take down anyone who might represent a threat to their power (Trump).
We do not have a 4th Estate in this Country, all we have is social media.
If it's not Trump/Putin/Manafort
It's Harvey Weinstein fall out 24/7.
You'd think that all the world's greatest problems had been solved.
I give up.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
It just gets more
fun by the day. Once "They" shut down the 'Net it's game over. But until then this just gets funner and funner. And, I hope I run into that lady in red.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Nope. When they shut down the net, it's Game ON.
The net only pacifies people as long as they are allowed to freely speak their mind and enjoy things they can't on tv.
Once that goes away... well, things will get rather interesting.
And I shall want to open a Cafe somewhere in Portland.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oySA2CGqa6Y]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Could be.
I was thinking even as I banged that out that shutting down the 'Net just might be the tipping point where average joes finally wake up. Then I came to my senses. But, yeah, you might be right. Maybe our only hope.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
The will not shut down the net--
just alter it and censor it in ways that are not so obvious to most. As gjohnsit's essay says, Google and others are already moving in that direction. Eventually it will be exclusively a tool to control the masses. You will still be able to watch cat videos, but RT will stream really, really slow and good look finding it in a Google search.
What's hilarious --
is that the patrons of the "new information reality," in media, libraries, education and so on, want to put everything on the Internet -- and then of course the Powers That Be want to have the option of killing the Internet. For the rest of us, then, our primary option is to create our own libraries -- physical libraries, with paper books.
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
RE: tech companies, part of the problem, or part of the solution
.... EFF
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Couldn't Agree More
I had the misfortune of watching MSNBC for a little bit today. So I found out that 300,000 videos of some youtube videos and $100,000 dollars in facebo-ok ads outdid Hillary's billion in campaign spending.
No showing of videos. No showing of ads. No showing any kind of rational cause and effect. Just 'Russia-linked.'
No concern of citizen's united and how that destroyed our democracy. No concern over the DNC/Hillary collusion to deny people a trusted election process.
It was all just a yelling and screaming at Russian-linked sites and how it is destroying our news and our democracy. Then they smuggly suggested THEY were a proper news organization.
Think progress say these are the Facebook ads
These are the Facebook posts Russia used to undermine Hillary Clinton’s campaign
This comes with a bunch of links, but I still don't see any proof that they turned the election to Trump. BFD if anyone saw the ads. People who take voting seriously aren't going to be swayed by someone's ads that they seemed to only place on Facebook and possibly twitter. Their minds are pretty much made up and we saw firsthand how telling people whose minds are made up the truth. Even when we had lots of evidence to back up our comments, they said we were spreading right wing talking points and often went as far as hr'd us.
Who clicks on most ads on a website? I don't, plus how many people don't even use Facebook?
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
So... Texas, huh.
I find it suddenly appropriate that I decided to make Texas the new Soviet style group in my future history. Clearly Russians only need to say a word to completely shift their allegiance from Hillary, Who has ALWAYS been so popular in Texas, To Trump...
This is happening way too much recently. I'm either psychic or just really, really good at making predictions about stupid people's talking points.
/snark
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
DK sent out a tweet on how Russia got the BLM
to go to certain places to protest against the police murdering other blacks. Good grief, that people would say something like this about people protesting against police brutality and murder shows how far from reality they have let this Russian propaganda take them from reality.
MsGrin posted this tweet in yesterday's EBs.
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
The $100,000 spent on
FB amount to a pimple on an elephant's ass compared to the $Billion Team HRC spent on getting Hillary elected. Yet another lame Russia-gate argument attempting to give Pootin and Russia all the credit for Hillary's Nov. smackdown. Again more fail.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
I know, right? This is so silly and yet people believe it
How many ads would $100,00 even buy and how could they have been more inspiring or work better than the many ads that billions should have been more effective?
I'm still bewildered by how many people have bought into this propaganda.
Imagine if Trump had lost the election and he was blaming Russia for his loss. Does anyone believe that that Hillary's supporters wouldn't be calling this insane and totally unbelievable?
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
Facebook Overcounts Users
I saw a similar story for American young adults:
Facebook says platform can reach 1.7m more young adult users than Aussie population
Because that's how they get paid for ads.
http://www.adnews.com.au/news/facebook-says-platform-can-reach-1-7m-more...
I couldn't find the U.S. story, but the Facebook count exceeded the young adult population. That doesn't include bots and fake accounts.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
Facebook Fake Count
Found it at the links over at Naked Capitalism:
And we all know it is not possible to delete a Facebook account. I send my Facebook notifications to spam for easy deletion.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/10/links-103117.html
And an internal link to an Oct. 6th Naked Capitalism article about Facebook's "reach inflation":
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/10/facebooks-fake-numbers-parsing-f...
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
A tweet in the
Twitter War I'm in claimed that those ads "reached" over 150 million people - more than actually voted. That doesn't mean any of those 150 million ppl read them, just that they were available to be seen, read. Now, personally, I don't recall seeing a one, so... not really sure how effective that $100,000 was. But, the Hill bots get wet knowing those ads "reached" 150 million ppl, think that that "proves" Hillary was robbed by the Russians. They won't be satisfied until Trump is removed and Hillary takes her rightful throne inside the Oval Office. Oh, and that not-a-Dem fuck, Bernie, burned at the stake for daring to stop Hillary.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Those ads may be thee best kept secrets.
Since all the gnashing of teeth of those ads, I have yet to see one of them. Either they are so powerful that anybody will become a Putin stooge and must never be seen, or they are so pedestrian that nobody with common sense would believe they swayed an election.
$100,000 versus 200,000 Dem primary voters purged from the rolls
So who really “hacked” the 2016 election process? You’d think a direct assault on the voter registry would rank among the most serious kinds of election tampering imaginable.
http://gothamist.com/2017/10/25/city_board_of_elections_admits_wron.php
It's also their comfort zone.
Going to press conferences and eating up the lies are the 9-5 of the news media. Book a few guests, back to the studio, film the story, and home in time for a long rest from the incredibly stressful day of being called lazy by the internet.
Hell even the roving reporters have press pens now. Won't be too long before they just film all stories in a Potemkin Village on a sound stage that can properly simulate all weather and social conditions.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Sure, but...
the whole industry getting shut down has to really scare some people.
When I say "scare" I mean it in the same way they used to broadcast scary commercials about marijuana that they knew were lies. When caught they shamelessly rationalized it because "pot is so dangerous".
I bet plenty of the people are rationalizing censorship and warmongering because the nation would be worse without our news media.
Robert Scheer
Haven't heard from that old grump in years.
Buried lede: 2016 27% up to 2017 34% Dems trust national NewsOrg
Buried lede: This from the survey graphic in the posting:
2016 27% up to 2017 34% Dems trust national NewsOrg
In other words: 7% of Dems (net of those moving in the opposite direction) dropped their distrust of MSM in response to MSM's Russia-gate dominated criticism of Trump Administration. Horrifying, although mitigated by:
1. the likelihood that Dems' distrust of MSM peaked in early 2016 in reaction to all the free publicity MSM gave to Trump, and
2. the certainty that any Bernie supporters who didn't distrust MSM by 2015 certainly did by 2016.
Scheer hit it on the proverbial head.
Before the Russiagate hysteria, Bill O'Reilly would without mercy mock Maddow's ratings. and she would reply in defense that basically the most shitty programs on television beat them both. Russia hysteria means big bucks for the media. And the censorship is meant to squash market competitors in terms of ideas.
Great post.
I agree with every reason you list of why the media is buying into the Russia Russia Russia thing. I would like to list yet another reason.
We have a multinational corporate sponsored political/media establishment that will NEVER admit they were beat by populists and nationalists.
Instead they will blame
The Russians.
Vladimir Putin.
Comey.
Racism.
Sexism.
White women.
Misogyny.
WikiLeaks.
Facebook.
Twitter.
Macedonian content farmers.
ANYTHING except populism and nationalism, because admitting that goes against the agenda of their multinational corporate sponsors.
The MSM will NEVER fully reveal the antiestablishment fervor in favor of populism and nationalism within the general electorate. That's yet another reason why they are so eager to jump on the Russia Russia Russia bandwagon.
I'm sure that silencing populist nationalist opinion is also involved in the effort to censor left-leaning social media.
Mike Taylor
Which engenders in me a bit of sympathy (gasp) for the Alt-Right
They’re being locked out of the national discourse just like we are, by the same people and economic actors, for essentially the same reasons: nationalism (jobs! wages! infrastructure!) and populism are taboo.
I wish our side were as clear as the Alt-Right is about goals, historical conditions, the need for organization, and the uselessness of having faith in any existing institutions or media channels.
It's uncontrollable incompetence
http://www.oftwominds.com/blognov17/kennedy-deep-state11-17.html
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
As a result of whatever change FB made,
C99 numbers for outreach have made a huge jump.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
It's a sensationalist story
"Russia hacked the US election". OK, start from the fact that the MSM has been bashing Russia for a long time. This was the strategy of the West from around about 2010 when it was clear that President Putin had not only revived Russia, but that it was thriving and growing and was acknowledged to have the second most powerful military in the world. The us threatened and then called in the marketing team. "How can we ruin Russia's reputation forever?" The "story" was evil aggressive Vladimir Putin's Russia. Ha, talk about psychological projection. The media bought into it like good boot licking slaves. Then the US sponsored violent coup in Ukraine went sideways. NATO did not get Russia's naval base in Crimea, and the Ukraine is a basket case, not even close to being able to be accepted as a member of the EU and NATO. Talk about anger in the administration, coupled with glee on the part of the MIC. Terrorism was a piss poor reason for huge defense budgets, but Russia!!! And the American public was a willing audience for the State sponsored Russophobia. Talk about titillating news, our evil enemy was threatening the West, our allies, and our Democracy. It's scary to see how this level of total bullshit could rise to the current level. It's total crap, Russia wants nothing more than to be our partners, to solve common problems, and to respect each other interests. That is way too much for the US political, economic and military oligarchs. Joseph Stalin believed that the Soviet Union could not survive open exchange with the West. We have now swapped places. The pity is that this is enormous opportunity lost. Russia could be America's best friend, and especially one who tells us when we are wrong. That is a real friend, not like the Sycophants in Western Europe.
If you want proof of this concept take a look and listen to Rachel Maddow. Her ratings soared when she starting bashing Russia. She has this obnoxious, I am right, you are wrong, my evidence ends the argument .. style. She is powered 100% by sensationalism and extreme Liberal arrogance. She also fits into the liberal angst that Hillary should have won and Trump is an imposter and must have cheated to beat the Almighty Queen Hillary The Great.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
The RT and Sputnik news networks have both
been doing a superb job of providing information to Western audiences, that would otherwise be unavailable, or difficult to obtain. This is anything but "fake news" -- rather it provides a highly credible alternative to the ubiquitous anti-Russian propaganda that Americans are normally fed -- by CNN and the like.
The cat is already out of the bag, and no amount of censorship or "information control" will be able to put it back in. But RT itself is far from being monolithic, and is subject to some of the same pressures that afflict Western media.
So that a political war is being waged both within Russia and external to it.
http://thesaker.is/what-is-really-wrong-with-russia-today-and-sputnik/
native
Trying to catch up...
What is "TPTB"?
Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!
Firesign Theater
Stop the War!
TPTB = “The Powers That Be” n/t
The Horrors of Independent Thought!!
Compensated Spokes Model for Big Poor.