War by media and the triumph of propaganda

Written on December 8th, 2014 in politics Comments Off

Published on ZNet (first on TeleSUR english), by John Pilger, Dec 6, 2014.

Why has so much journalism succumbed to propaganda? Why are censorship and distortion standard practice? Why is the BBC so often a mouthpiece of rapacious power? Why do the New York Times and the Washington Post deceive their readers?

Why are young journalists not taught to understand media agendas and to challenge the high claims and low purpose of fake objectivity? And why are they not taught that the essence of so much of what’s called the mainstream media is not information, but power?  

These are urgent questions. The world is facing the prospect of major war, perhaps nuclear war – with the United States clearly determined to isolate and provoke Russia and eventually China. This truth is being turned upside down and inside out by journalists, including those who promoted the lies that led to the bloodbath in Iraq in 2003.

The times we live in are so dangerous and so distorted in public perception that propaganda is no longer, as Edward Bernays called it, an “invisible government”. It is the government. It rules directly without fear of contradiction and its principal aim is the conquest of us: our sense of the world, our ability to separate truth from lies.

The information age is actually a media age. We have war by media; censorship by media; demonology by media; retribution by media; diversion by media – a surreal assembly line of obedient clichés and false assumptions.

This power to create a new “reality” has building for a long time. Forty-five years ago, a book entitled The Greening of America caused a sensation. On the cover were these words: “There is a revolution coming. It will not be like revolutions of the past. It will originate with the individual” … //

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John Pilger: on his website; on en.wikipedia; on World People’s Blog.

Links:

NASA Pluto probe wakes up after 9-year slumber in space, on Russia Today RT, Dec 7, 2014: The New Horizons spacecraft has come out of hibernation mode in anticipation of rendezvous with Pluto and its moons. The spacecraft will be exploring the Solar System’s most famous dwarf planet for six months starting the observation phase in January …;

Stunning NASA image reveals surface of Saturn’s Titan moon, on Russia Today RT, Dec 6, 2014 [PHOTOS]: New images from NASA have captured the beautiful golden reflection of the sun on the polar sea of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. It is the latest image from a collaborative four year mission studying the Saturnine system …;

Cash transfers can work better than subsidies, on The Hindu, by GUY STANDING, Dec 6, 2014;

Utopia meets Politics / Utopie trifft Politik, on BIEN, by André Coelho, Dev 5, 2014: In Germany, the unconditional basic income (UBI) idea has been around for years, through political activists. However, its application seems utopian, thundered from critics all around the political spectrum. The author enumerates arguments against the UBI, while defending its merits;

The endgame of the US Islamic State strategy, on Al-Ahram weekly online, by Nicola Nasser, Dec 4, 2014: The Islamic State is not only convenient but also vital to US-Israeli strategy to keep Arabs separated from their strategic depth in their immediate Islamic proximity;

Pandemonium in Nigeria, on Al-Ahram weekly online, by Gamal Nkrumah, Dec 4, 2014: There has been chaos and confusion in the Nigerian cities of Kano and Maiduguri as Boko Haram carried out a series of suicide bombings;

Egypt: Redrawing constituencies, on Al-Ahram weekly online, by Gamal Essam El-Din, Dec 4, 2014; A new draft of the electoral districts law seeks to pave the way for parliamentary polls;

Food banks are not enough, on The Star, by Bryan Charlebois, Toronto, Dec 1, 2014;

Indonesia still performs virginity tests on female police job applicants – HRW, on Russia Today RT, Nov 18, 2014: Indonesia’s practice of subjecting would-be female police officers to virginity tests is discriminatory and a form of gender-based violence, that has to be stopped, Human Rights Watch says …;

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