America First or IDF First? …
By Gilad Atzmon | January 25, 2017
Haaretz reports today that “Jared Kushner’s name was removed from a website of a group raising money for Israeli army.”
A week ago the American president promised the American people that from now on America will come first, but it seems as if for Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner, the Jewish state and its army are a priority.
Kushner is expected “to play a major role in drafting Middle East policy in the new administration,” but can a Zionist Jew who raises money for the IDF be a peace broker for the Middle East? I’ll let you ponder over that one.
Apparently, the FIDF is a New York-based non-profit that raises tens of millions of dollars a year to support a wide array of educational and social programs that benefit Israeli soldiers and their families. Kushner’s name appeared on the FIDF website as a member of the national board until just two days ago. A day after Haaretz submitted questions about his continued involvement on the board to both the organization and to a spokeswoman for the Kushner family, his name was suddenly removed.
It is worth noting that although Kushner’s name was removed from the FIDF’s website, it is as yet unconfirmed whether he is still linked to this body by any means.
Earlier this week, when asked whether Kushner would continue to sit on the FIDF board while serving in the U.S. administration as a senior adviser to the president, a spokesman for the organization said: “As a matter of policy, FIDF does not respond to requests for information about donors, including donors who are or were members of its board.”
The Protected, Privileged Establishment vs. The Working Class
By Charles Hugh Smith | of two minds | January 23, 2017
Meanwhile, back in reality, household income for the bottom 95% has declined while the owners of capital and their privileged, protected servants in the Establishment have gorged themselves on private wealth.
As noted yesterday in The Collapse of the Left, the working class has finally awakened to the Left’s betrayal and abandonment of labor in favor of the protected privileges of the elitist Establishment. I also described the Left’s Great Con:
To mask the collapse of the Left’s economic defense of labor, the Left has substituted social justice movements for economic opportunities and security.This has succeeded brilliantly, as tens of millions of self-described “progressives” now parrot the Great Con that “social justice” campaigns on behalf of marginalized social groups are now the defining feature of Progressive Social Democratic movements.
This diversionary sleight-of-hand embrace of economically neutered “social justice” campaigns masked the fact that social democratic parties everywhere have thrown labor into the churning propellers of globalization, open immigration and neoliberal financial policies–all of which benefit mobile capital, which has engorged itself on the abandonment of labor by the Left.
Meanwhile, the fat-cats of the Left have engorged themselves on capital’s largesse in exchange for their treachery. Bill and Hillary Clinton’s $200 million in “earnings” come to mind, as do countless other examples of personal aggrandizement by self-proclaimed “defenders” of labor.
But it isn’t just the Left’s fat-cats who have feathered their own nests while denigrating the Working Class with arrogantly contemptuous scorn: the entire protected, privileged “liberal” elitist Establishment has responded with a very illiberal outrage that their protected, privileged skims and scams might be endangered by an uprising of the loathed and ridiculed Working Class that they reckoned would remain safely cowed and conned.
As noted yesterday, the only moment in recent history in which the Wall Street-cartel-state strongholds of privilege, wealth and power (i.e. owners of capital) felt threatened by political insurrection by disenfranchised labor was The Great Depression of the 1930s.
With the first iteration of global debt-based capitalism in near-collapse (systemic bad debt was not written off, lest the big banks’ insolvency be recognized), owners of capital and the political class reluctantly swallowed modest social-democratic reforms that gave labor enough of the pie to stave off revolt / revolution (as noted by Arshad A. on my Facebook thread).
Just as Marx had predicted, this crisis of global-debt-cartel-state capitalism was the result of internal contradictions built into all forms capitalism dominated by capital and the state that protects and serves capital.
Now we face another crisis of the current iteration of global-debt-cartel-state capitalism, also the result of internal contradictions–not just financial, but cultural, energy-based and political contradictions.
The privileged, protected elitist Establishment reckoned the social-welfare programs of the 1930s and the Left’s Great Cons would keep the disenfranchised Working Class permanently cowed and conned. If welfare (now called “disability,” “crazy money”, etc.) and the distractions of “social justice” campaigns didn’t keep the Working Class fragmented and powerless, then the ceaseless drumbeat of arrogant dismissal and disdain aimed at any Working Class resistance would do the trick.
Any Working Class individual who recognized that globalization, open immigration and neoliberal financial policies were the propellers dismembering the Working Class economically and disenfranchising the Working Class politically was immediately labeled with the worst that “liberal” privileged, protected elites could spew: you’re racist, Luddite, backward, etc.–in other words, you’re not a rootless Cosmopolitan who loves your servitude to capital and the state like us.
Since the Left has masked its abandonment and betrayal of the Working Class with “social justice” speech acts, the worst insults the Left can dish out are those that suggest opposition to the Left’s social justice campaigns.
Self-identified “Progressives” are fine with the destruction and disenfranchisement of the Working Class, as long as the politically correct speech acts praising the Left’s Great Con are being uttered.
The self-serving, privileged, protected “liberal” Establishment is enraged that the Working Class is no longer following the script, i.e. remaining cowed, conned and fragmented. Like every other disenfranchised group, the Working Class has essentially zero choice of representational leadership, as the machinery of governance, finance and the mainstream media are all controlled by the privileged, protected elites of the Establishment.
So it boiled down to: choose more disenfranchisement and cowed servitude to “liberal” Elites, or vote for Trump. There was no other choice, so the Working Class voted for Trump as their only option other than surrender and servitude.
This rejection of their “betters” script has enraged their “betters,” who now demand the destruction of their proxy voice (Trump) and their rebellion. The Establishment’s war on Trump is beneath the surface also a war against a Working Class that has finally had enough of its arrogant, hubris-soaked, self-serving, privileged, elitist “betters” of the Establishment.
If the Establishment had deigned to offer a radical-Left leader who correctly called out the American carnage that is the Working Class experience of the globalized, open-immigration neoliberalism that has so enriched the owners of capital and their “liberal” apparatchiks, then the Working Class may well have voted for the radical-Left truth-teller.
Alas, the Left ground down any opposition to “we ‘earned’ $200 million” Hillary Clinton and her corrupt coterie of self-serving elites. Having beaten down, stripmined, insulted, denigrated, scorned and exploited the Working Class (whose “proper role” is to provide cannon fodder for the Elites’ neocon Permanent War), the privileged, protected Establishment (like every other elite that suddenly finds its entitled dominance challenged) is in a full-blown fury: how dare the Working Class not accept our self-serving rule! We are entitled to rule! How dare they!
Meanwhile, back in reality, household income for the bottom 95% has declined while the owners of capital and their privileged, protected servants in the Establishment have gorged themselves on private wealth.
Here’s what’s happened as the Left and its armies of privileged fake-Progressives threw the Working Class overboard in favor of serving capital on the First Class deck:
What will it take to shift the balance of power decisively in favor of labor? My guess is the downward mobility of another 10 or 20 million people who currently reckon themselves “middle class” into the unprotected, disenfranchised ranks of the Working Class will do it.
1000s demand change of national day in Australia
People participate in an “Invasion Day” march in Sydney, Australia, January 26, 2016.
Press TV – January 26, 2017
Tens of thousands of protesters have staged rallies in major Australian cities to demand a shift of the date of the country’s national day because, according to them, the current date marks the start of an era of injustices suffered by Australia’s disadvantaged Aborigines.
Demonstrators took to the streets of Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth on Thursday, demanding that the date of Australia Day, January 26, be changed as it celebrates the arrival of white settlers and the beginning of indigenous suffering and massacre.
The day marks the anniversary of the arrival of first British colonists and the so-called First Fleet of British ships in the country more than two centuries ago, in the year 1788.
Referring to the day as “Invasion Day,” many of the participants in the demonstrations were wearing black, yellow, and red, the colors of the aboriginal flag.
“I’m here to commemorate all the aboriginal people who were murdered during the first stage of settlement,” a protester said.
Hundreds of others also staged a sit-in protest outside the Parliament House in the Australian capital of Canberra.
New South Wales State police said that a 20-year-old man had been arrested and a police officer and protester had sustained injuries during the Thursday rallies in Sydney although the demonstrations were mostly peaceful.
Delivering a speech in Melbourne, Ian Macfarlane, a former minister who retired from politics last year, suggested that Australia commemorate March 1, 1901 as its national day. The date was when a newly-created Australian federal government took over many of the functions of the six British colonies that preceded it.
“It’s about healing a wound, drawing a line, getting on with the really important issues facing our indigenous communities,” he said.
Aboriginal Australians have long been subjected to genocide, forced permanent removal, dispossession, racial discrimination, and the destruction of their land.
Australia PM rules out date change
Reacting to the protests, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he did not support a change of the date of Australia Day.
“Everyone is entitled to a point of view, but I think most Australians accept January 26 as Australia Day,” he said.
“It is a day where we celebrate the rich diversity of all of our cultures — from our First Australians… to the new citizens, migrants who come from such diverse range of countries,” Turnbull said.
Aborigines comprise three percent of Australia’s population. Australia’s nearly 700,000 indigenous citizens rank near the bottom of almost every economic and social indicator for the country’s 23 million people.
Give war a chance: Murdered MP’s report backs UK military intervention
RT | January 26, 2017
War should always be an available option for Britain, according to a report initiated by murdered Labour MP Jo Cox and finished by a former military intelligence officer-turned-Tory backbencher.
Due to be launched on Thursday by former prime minister Gordon Brown at the Policy Exchange think-tank, the study titled ‘The Cost of Doing Nothing’ seeks to recondition Britain’s ability to intervene militarily in the affairs of other nations.
Although the report was first begun by the late-Jo Cox, who was murdered by a far-right extremist in June of 2016, the study was finished by Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat and Cox’s parliamentary colleague Alison McGovern.
Tugendhat was a colonel in British Army intelligence and served a number of operational tours in Afghanistan and Iraq before becoming an MP.
The report warns that the UK has become bogged down in anti-interventionism because of the unpopularity of failed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It warns against a “selective reading” of history, while arguing that “successful” examples like Sierra Leone and Kosovo should be examined in more depth.
The authors also try to argue that, as the report’s title suggests, the cost of inaction in places like Rwanda, and more recently Syria, should be taken into consideration.
In an accompanying piece published in the Telegraph, Tugendhat writes that his experience as a soldier and Cox’s as an aid worker gave them particular expertise on the subject.
“The UK has at times swung towards non-intervention but the long view shows clearly that Britain has done better, both for ourselves and the wider world, when we have championed international law, human rights, the international community, and the responsibility to protect the most vulnerable,” Tugendhat argues.
He insisted that “Britain is a positive influence in the world” and that to “remain an effective ally, we must be prepared to engage, cooperate, and keep military intervention as a legitimate foreign-policy option.”
The report was quickly rubbished by the Stop the War Coalition (StWC).
“The Chilcot Report and recent Parliamentary Committee Reports on Iraq Libya and Syria have all concluded that the interventions were disastrous,” the group said in a statement.
“All of the countries recently attacked by British armed forces are now failed states,” it stressed.
The anti-war group also pointed to public opinion.
“The majority of the British public have grasped these facts and the obvious truth that bombs can under no circumstances be humanitarian instruments,” the coalition said.
“Polls show most oppose existing and future wars and wish to see a shift towards a foreign policy based on mutual respect, negotiation and diplomacy.”
Kremlin Warns against US Syria Safe Zone Plan, Says No Contact Made Yet with WH
Al-Manar | January 26, 2017
The Kremlin warned on Thursday against a US plan for safe zones in Syria, saying such move should be thoroughly considered.
Asked to comment on a draft executive order that President Donald Trump is expected to sign this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, underlined the importance to “thoroughly calculate all possible consequences” of the measure.
He noted that “it’s important not to exacerbate the situation with refugees.”
While suspending visas for Syrians and others, the order directs the Pentagon and the State Department to produce a plan for safe zones in Syria and the surrounding area within 90 days.
Meanwhile, Peskov said that direct contacts between the White House and the Kremlin have not been established since President Donald Trump took office.
“Contacts at the level of the administrations are not taking place at the moment, there haven’t been any yet, such contacts are yet to be established,” Peskov told a conference call with reporters.
“Routine diplomatic work is underway, our embassy in Washington is functioning, they are in constant contact with their counterparts in the State Department.”
Over 2,600 Militants Laid Down Arms in Syrian Wadi Barada Valley – Russian MoD
Sputnik – 26.01.2017
Over 2,600 militants have laid down arms in Syria’s Wadi Barada valley, which supplies the Damascus province with drinking water, Col. Alexander Blinkov, a spokesman for the Russian Center for Syrian reconciliation, said Thursday.
According to Blinkov, civilians in the area continue receiving humanitarian aid, including food and medicines.
“People living in the Wadi Barada river valley are returning to normal life. The first stage of a complex reconciliation plan for this district is currently being implemented. Over 2,600 people have already settled their status by now. Those militants, who have refused to lay down arms, are leaving for the Idlib province with their families under the supervision of the Syrian authorities,” Blinkov told reporters.
At the same time, militants, who have refused to join the ceasefire and found shelter in highland areas, continue shelling nearby districts and villages, Blinkov added.
The Syrian capital gets most of the water from springs in the Wadi Barada valley. Water supplies were drastically reduced in late December. The problem of the Wadi Barada area, controlled by the opposition, was one of the stumbling blocks at the talks in Astana, Kazakhstan.
EU expands task force aimed at combatting alleged Russian propaganda
RT | January 25, 2017
An EU agency, East Stratcom, will receive an influx of cash and personnel to fight what the West calls Russian propaganda news, Deutsche Welle reports. The decision to give the controversial body a boost comes ahead of 2017 elections in several European countries.
The task force, which was formed as part of the European External Action Service (EEAS) in early 2015 to tackle what the EU sees as Russian propaganda, will now receive extra resources, Germany’s Deutsche Welle (DW) reported, citing a spokesperson for the EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
So far, there are 10 people working for the agency, DW said, explaining that they are searching for what they believe to be fake news and then writing “disproof” statements.
Despite the fact that the origins of the stories are “very hard to trace,” as DW suggests, and “whether Russia is behind them is hard to tell,” EU officials have decided to reinforce the organization ahead of upcoming elections in key European states this year, citing fears of external meddling.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is alleged to be facing a heightened Russian disinformation campaign ahead of the German elections this year, AFP reported. Citing its source at East Stratcom, AFP said that the task force had found Merkel to have already been under increasing attack last year. The same source alleged that upcoming elections in France and the Netherlands could also be externally targeted.
Meanwhile, an MEP told RT that the organization battling the perceived Russian threat “is not credible.”
Stelious Kouloglou, an MEP for the Greek ruling center-left Syriza party, said: “It’s a weapon of psychological welfare, it’s a weapon of propaganda, so it’s not credible to me both as a journalist and as a European deputy.”
Just to blame somebody else for the problems Europe faces “is very bad for Europe,” the Greek politician said. “Europe is going in the wrong direction, and it’s not Moscow’s fault,” Kouloglou told RT. “We don’t look at our problems and just blame others, play the blame game,” he added.
“If Trump won, it’s not because of the Russian intervention, whether it was real or not. Trump won because he exploited the mistakes that have been made by the American oligarchy, by the 1 percent of those who are getting richer, although 99 percent of the population of the US are getting poorer. The same direction Europe is going. So, we can’t blame somebody else. If we do that, it will be a fatal mistake and the extreme right will profit from that. We have to address the real problems Europe is facing,” Kouloglou said.
In November, the EU Parliament debated and then voted on a resolution that sought to establish measures “to tackle Russian and Islamic State propaganda.” The controversial non-legislative document called for the EU to “respond to information warfare by Russia,” which was placed alongside propaganda by the Islamic terrorist group. RT was cited as one of the alleged propaganda “tools,” with the resolution authors claiming Moscow has an influence on media markets and societies in the EU and other countries.
Google, Facebook purge ‘fake news’ sites
RT | January 25, 2017
Under increased scrutiny for supporting the spread of false and misleading news, Google and Facebook are taking steps to purge networks of several hundred fake news sites.
On Wednesday, Google announced it had reviewed some 550 sites since its policy changes, permanently banning nearly 200 published sites and temporarily cutting off another 140 sites from the company ad dollar source, according to Variety.
Among the typical culprits was a conspiracy blog that appeared as the first item found for the search “who won the popular vote,” which suggested Donald Trump had won the popular vote. Another was a made-up story about President Barack Obama supposedly seeking a third term.
Google regularly weeds out advertisers for false and misleading claims, but the search giant has now booted publishers off its ad network for fake news.
The company responded to criticism that it supported fake news by changing its Adsense policy, prohibiting sites that “misrepresent, misstate, on conceal information about the publisher, the publisher’s content, or the primary purpose” of the site from using Google ads for monetization.
An annual report of ad violations shows that Google took down 1.7 billion ads for various policy violations in 2016, including 17 million ads for illegal gambling, 5 million payday loans and 80 million misleading or shocking ads.
The company declined to release a list of the banned sites.
Facebook also announced it is overhauling its “trending topics” box, as part of its effort to curb fake news.
Beginning on Wednesday, its software will track only topics that have been covered by a significant number of credible publishers.
“If just one story or post went viral, it wouldn’t make it into the trending as it might previously,” Will Cathcart, a Facebook vice president of product management told the Wall Street Journal. “It really takes a mass of publishers writing about the same topic to make the cut.”
Facebook will take into account how long a publisher has maintained a presence on the social network.
The trending feature appears in a box on the right side of the Facebook page.
The change, however, will do little to affect what is reflected in users’ newsfeeds. In December, Facebook had fact-checking groups flag stories if they were false, which would then be demoted in the news feed.
Another popular social media company, Snapchat, is embracing the fake news challenge. In a redesign rolled out Wednesday, the company will restrict publishers from using images or headlines in Discover that lack editorial value. The Discover channels, which were introduced last summer, are a grid of tiles that are scrollable by users.
Future plans will be an age-gating tool to prevent minors from seeing inappropriate content on the Discover feed.
Democrats Attack Trump from the Right
By Margaret Kimberley | Black Agenda Report | January 25, 2017
There are many indications of the deep systemic crisis now confronting America and the world. The fact that Donald Trump was elected president when neither his party nor any of the elites wanted him is just one piece of evidence. The bizarre passivity from Democrats after their party’s colossal failure is another. These people who are loath to point out the extent of the Democrats’ disintegration do little else but repeat the many reasons they don’t like Trump. Increasingly they use Russophobia and what was once the language of the right wing to do it.
The crisis of legitimacy has turned the world upside down. People who call themselves progressives are engaged in a contest to see who can blame Russia when the failings come from their own leadership. This columnist witnessed participants in anti-Trump inaugural protests carrying signs attacking Vladimir Putin and blaming him for the election outcome.
The evidence of Russian interference in the elections is based on the flimsiest evidence. It is far more likely that an insider gave the Democratic National Committee emails to Wikileaks. Trump’s call for dialogue with Russia is a reasonable one that should call progressives to question why they cling to the war party when they say they want peace. Instead they join in helping the Democrats to excuse their debacle. In so doing they support a very dangerous effort to expand American hegemony against another nuclear power.
Democrats are eager to embarrass themselves in the Russophobic frenzy. A California state legislator is sponsoring a bill that would require schools to teach children that the Russian government interfered in the election. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) have joined in sinking to new depths of stupidity and uselessness.
Barbara Lee, the only member of Congress to vote against war in Afghanistan after the September 11th attacks, is now among those pointing fingers at Russia. She opposed the Electoral College certification of Trump’s victory based on a belief in the findings of the “intelligence community.” This new phrase was chosen deliberately to make the institutions that deprive millions of people of their human rights seem more like a neighborhood block association. Her colleague Elijah Cummings was equally idiotic. “If we don’t respond now the Russians will attack us again.” It is sad to watch Maxine Waters, once among the most progressive members, as she blathers on that Putin and Trump “wrap their arms around each other” and are “in the bed together.” She says that Putin is responsible for “killing innocent children in Syria” when the United States instigated that humanitarian disaster and Russia may bring it to a close.
The orders from the discredited Democratic leadership are clear. Everyone parrots the same foolish words. All repeat that “seventeen intelligence agencies” confirm Russian interference and use the phrase “intelligence community” as if they were hypnotized cult members. Such is the degree of irrelevance now afflicting Democrats from the leadership down to the rank and file.
Democrats are no longer interested in action, demands or debate. They treat their party as if it is a religion to be worshipped and not as a political force that is supposed to deliver what they want. It is astounding that Hillary Clinton raised $1 billion and lost because she failed to gain an additional 77,000 votes in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Even more astounding is the fact that Democrats won’t call her or the rest of their leadership to account for their stunning and ignominious failure.
The years of marketing spin and acquiescence to Democratic Party corruption have brought the leadership and members to a new low. Having given up their power to the likes of Clinton, Obama and another Clinton, Democrats have rendered themselves mute. The Obama team’s famous marketing acumen turned into a poison. The era of being able to fool all of the people all of the time had ended but the Democratic Party persisted in thinking they could use the same thin gruel and win again.
Instead, a reality television star found a way to touch the nerve of millions of desperate people. If the Democrats acknowledged that most Americans have a yearly income of less than $31,000 or that national student loan debt totals an astronomical $1 trillion they may have seen Hillary Clinton inaugurated instead of Trump. But they failed and won’t admit it. Now their members have chosen to let them off the hook by spinning tall tales of Russian espionage. They no longer even pretend to care about the issues their constituents do, and that is why Hillary Clinton isn’t the new president.
The members of the CBC have now proven themselves to be the worst of the lot. Years of capitulation to corporate interests and to Barack Obama have killed black politics. The anti-Russia mutterings are proof of their irrelevance. But they should not just be ignored. They must be taken on and called out because they are most likely to fight our efforts at self-determination and revolutionary change. The best that can be said about their sad performance is that they have exposed themselves as dupes and traitors. It is always a good thing to see the truth, no matter how sad it may be.
Margaret Kimberley can be reached at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.
RT Fending Off Attacks in Fight Without Rules
By Alex GORKA | Strategic Culture Foundation | 25.01.2017
The access of RT (Russia Today), a Russian state-funded media company, to its Facebook page was partially blocked by the social network. The ban would have coincided with President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20. The pretext was a copyright complaint about an Associated Press (AP) video stream of Barack Obama’s press conference on RT’s Facebook page on January 18. The ban, initially set to last until January 21, was lifted on January 19. RT has a sizable Facebook presence, with 4.1 million likes.
This is the first time that Facebook has ever blocked the content of any media outlet from appearing on the service. No other news outlet has been punished by Facebook in a manner like this.
The event is part of a broader picture. A few hours after the Facebook ban, RT claimed that some users had complained about not being able to see news from the broadcaster on other social media platforms. It was corrected later. Dataminr, a news-alert service partly owned by Twitter, has terminated its contract with the broadcaster. RT has received a request from YouTube to show that its employees were not among the individuals sanctioned by the US over Ukraine.
RT appears to come under attacks coming from all sides. The journalists and university professors in the United States who have appeared on RT television have been blacklisted. Last October, the National Westminster Bank informed RT that it would no longer have the broadcaster among its clients. The bank provided no explanation for the decision. «They closed our accounts in Britain. All of them. ‘Decision not to be discussed’. Long live freedom of speech!» RT’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said on her Twitter account.
The US intelligence report on Russia’s alleged hacking issued this January says «RT — as well as Sputnik, another Russian government–funded English-language propaganda outlet — began aggressively producing pro-Trump and anti-Clinton content starting in March 2016. That just so happens to be the exact same time the Russian hacking campaign targeting Democrats began». The authors of the paper affirm that «During the 2016 campaign, RT aired a number of weird, conspiratorial segments — some starring WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange — that cast Clinton as corrupt and funded by ISIS and portrayed the US electoral system as rigged».
The idea to use soft power for political ends has been glorified in the West, becoming part of all foreign policy concepts. Freedom of speech has always been extolled, any attempts to curtail it have been slammed. Now the West is losing the battle to the Russian outlet offering its own opinions and it is ready to go to any length in an effort to reverse the trend, including outright pressure.
RT challenges the West’s hegemonic grip on shaping and controlling the global media agenda. The broadcaster is popular with Western audiences because it offers a refreshingly different perspective. The RT broadcasting is called «propaganda» simply because it says something different.
Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media, culture and communication at New York University, believes that US media are a «disgrace» and the quality of published material is «embarrassingly low». According to him, «we have a system that’s owned and dominated by a handful of huge corporations».
RT has provided independent journalists and professors a chance to make detailed arguments often contradicting the views expounded by Western mainstream media. Remember how the US and UK «pro-establishment» outlets defended the idea of military intervention in Iraq? That’s life. Governments are prone to employ strategies of manipulation to shape public opinions.
Alternative sources of information are the only way to shape impartial views. One has the right to choose news sources. Useful insights and information may be gained from a variety of the media outlets and RT is the one.
Until now RT has fended off the attacks. It has mustered broad support, including in social networks. The AP has not openly accused RT of running a pirated live-stream of outgoing President Barack Obama’s final speech. Nothing was said openly. Facebook has not responded to RT to explain why the restrictions have been placed on its account. YouTube’s request on sanctioned RT employees was said to be not politically motivated. But it’s not the end. The pressure will grow stronger to threaten the very same values the West has sworn to protect.
For instance, the human rights situation in America evokes concern serious enough to be addressed by media independent from the US government. For instance, Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, asked for Russian citizenship accused of being a Russian agent for speaking his mind fearlessly. In particular, in an appearance on RT Mr. Roberts dared to support Senator Bernie Sanders for president.
Many hold an opinion that an information war is being waged. But even wars have certain laws to abide by but RT appears to be engaged in a fight without rules.
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Does Kevin Barrett Seek to “Absolve Islam of a Terrible Crime”?
The Kevin Barrett-Chomsky Dispute in Historical Perspective – Last part of the series titled “9/11 and the Zionist Question”
By Prof. Tony Hall | American Herald Tribune | August 28, 2016
Amidst his litany of condemnations, Jonathan Kay reserves some of his most vicious and vitriolic attacks for Kevin Barrett. For instance Kay harshly criticizes Dr. Barrett’s published E-Mail exchange in 2008 with Prof. Chomsky. In that exchange Barrett castigates Chomsky for not going to the roots of the event that “doubled the military budget overnight, stripped Americans of their liberties and destroyed their Constitution.” The original misrepresentations of 9/11, argues Barrett, led to further “false flag attacks to trigger wars, authoritarianism and genocide.”
In Among The Truthers Kay tries to defend Chomsky against Barrett’s alleged “personal obsession” with “vilifying” the MIT academic. Kay objects particularly to Barrett’s “final salvo” in the published exchange where the Wisconsin public intellectual accuses Prof. Chomsky of having “done more to keep the 9/11 blood libel alive, and cause the murder of more than a million Muslims than any other single person.” … continue
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