Category: Propaganda

Caitlin Johnston: The Trouble with ‘Western Values’ is that Westerners Don’t Value Them

The Australian blogger/journalist Caitlin Johnston encourages her readers to reproduce and circulate her writing free of charge. Regular readers of this blog will know that I cite Ms. Johnston regularly.

Here is one of her recent articles pointing out the hypocrisy pervading so much of Western — read American — foreign policy. The piece is titled “The Trouble with ‘Western Values’ is that Westerners Don’t Value Them.”

The anti-democratic actions that Ms. Johnston discusses are bipartisan in nature. Both parties are equally guilty. Both Democrats and Republicans are in lock-step in their calls for censorship and the silencing of anyone who criticizes and opposes US foreign policy.

When was the last time you saw a major news network host a guest critically analyzing the war in Ukraine, explaining how the USA provoked Russia’s attack and why Russia will eventually win?

Here is Caitlin’s article:

Have you ever noticed how those who shriek the loudest about tyranny in foreign countries are always the same people calling for the censorship and deplatforming of anyone who criticizes the western empire?

It’s a ubiquitous mind virus throughout western society. Anyone — and I do mean anyone — who aggressively and consistently criticizes the foreign policy of the US and its allies in front of a sizeable audience gets branded a Russian agent by empire apologists, and this consensus is accompanied by the steadily growing opinion that Russia’s operatives and useful idiots should be banned from western platforms.

Defenders of the western empire won’t admit to wanting all empire critics silenced, but that’s what you get when you combine (A) the fact that they view everyone who criticizes the empire with sufficient aggression as a Russian agent with (B) their opinion that those given to Russian influence ought to be censored. Whenever I criticize the foreign policy of the western empire I get its apologists telling me I’d never be allowed to criticize my rulers like that if I lived in a nation like Russia or China, when they know full well that if it were up to them I wouldn’t be allowed to criticize the western empire here either. They are the same as the tyrants they claim to despise.

The trouble with “western values” is that westerners don’t value them. They think they value them, but all that reverence for free expression and holding power to account with the light of truth goes right out the window the second they see someone saying something that sharply differs from what their rulers and their propagandists have told them to think. Then they want that person silenced and shut down.

In truth, the most forceful critics of the western empire actually embody these western values infinitely more than empire apologists do. It is the critics of empire who value free speech and holding the powerful to account. It’s the brainwashed bootlickers of the US-centralized empire who are calling for censorship and shouting down anyone who directs fierce oppositional scrutiny toward the most powerful people in the world.

People tell me “Move to Russia!” or “Move to China!” depending on what aspect of the empire’s global power agendas I happen to be criticizing at the moment, and I always want to tell them, no, you move to Russia. You move to China. You’re the one trying to suppress dissent and criticism of the powerful. I’m the one who is living by western values as they were sold to me and demanding normal scrutiny of the most powerful empire that has ever existed. You don’t belong here.

In school we are taught that our society values truth, free speech, equality, accountability for the powerful, and adversarial journalism, then we grow up and we see everyone rending their garments because institutions like CBS News or Amnesty International let slip one small report which doesn’t fully comply with the official line of our rulers. We see Russian media banned and censorship protocols expanded to the enthusiastic cheerleading of mainstream liberals. We see astroturf trolling operations used to mass report and shout down those who scrutinize the establishment line about Ukraine on social media. We see Julian Assange languishing in Belmarsh Prison for the crime of unauthorized journalism.

It’s obvious with a look around that the “western values” we’re all told about are not actually terribly common in the west. Look at the west’s major media platforms and they virtually never platform anyone who is meaningfully critical of the real centers of power in western civilization. Look at western governments and they continually dance to the beat of oligarchy and empire regardless of how people vote in their supposedly free democratic elections. Look at the internet and it’s actually very difficult to find authentic criticisms of imperial power unless you already know where to look.

Some of us bought into those western values we were taught about in school, but it’s not the people you’ve been trained to expect. It’s we marginalized outsiders who are adamantly opposing censorship, propaganda and the empire’s war on the press while continuously working to shine the light of truth on the mechanisms of power from the fringes, while we are being yelled at and accused of treason by mainstream sycophants who have far more in common with the autocrats they claim to oppose than with the western values they purport to uphold.

Enough Already with the Royal Family

The Harvard history professor, Maya Jasanoff, has written three books about the British Empire. Over at the Washington Post, she has published an

Professor Maya Jasanoff

article discussing the recent coverage of the death of Queen Elizabeth II. It is titled, “Mourn the Queen, Not the Empire.”

Similar articles can be written — actually, many have been written already — about the long history of the American Empire.

Below is an excerpt (all emphasis is mine):

“The end of an era” will become a refrain as commentators assess the record-setting reign of Queen Elizabeth II. Like all monarchs, she was both an individual and an institution. She had a different birthday for each role — the actual anniversary of her birth in April and an official one in June — and, though she retained her personal name as monarch, held different titles depending on where in her domains she stood. She was as devoid of opinions and emotions in public as her ubiquitous handbags were said to be of everyday items like a wallet, keys and phone. Of her inner life we learned little beyond her love of horses and dogs — which gave Helen Mirren, Olivia Colman and Claire Foy rapt audiences for the insights they enacted. . .

. . . What you would never know from the pictures — which is partly their point — is the violence that lies behind them. In 1948, the colonial governor of Malaya declared a state of emergency to fight communist guerrillas, and British troops used counterinsurgency tactics the Americans would emulate in Vietnam. In 1952 the governor of Kenya imposed a state of emergency to suppress an anticolonial movement known as Mau Mau, under which the British rounded up tens of thousands of Kenyans into detention camps and subjected them to brutal, systematized torture. In Cyprus in 1955 and Aden, Yemen, in 1963, British governors again declared states of emergency to contend with anticolonial attacks; again they tortured civilians. Meanwhile, in Ireland, the Troubles brought the dynamics of emergency to the United Kingdom. In a karmic turn, the Irish Republican Army assassinated the queen’s relative Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India (and the architect of Elizabeth’s marriage to his nephew, Prince Philip), in 1979.

We may never learn what the queen did or didn’t know about the crimes committed in her name. (What transpires in the sovereign’s weekly meetings with the prime minister remains a black box at the center of the British state.) Her subjects haven’t necessarily gotten the full story, either. Colonial officials destroyed many records that, according to a dispatch from the secretary of state for the colonies, “might embarrass Her Majesty’s government” and deliberately concealed others in a secret archive whose existence was revealed only in 2011. Though some activists such as the Labour M.P. Barbara Castle publicized and denounced British atrocities, they failed to gain wide public traction.

Click here to read the entire article.

Prof. Cornel West Explains the Complicity of American Media in Israeli War Crimes

Though I can’t agree with his theology, I can’t help but have the deepest admiration for Dr. Cornel West. He was denied tenure at Harvard because of his outspoken defense of the Palestinian people suffering under Israeli apartheid.

In this clip from Middle East Eye, he explain the complicity of US media in covering up Israeli war crimes.

Two Different Perspectives on the Shooting of a Palestinian Journalist

Here is an exercise in seeing the difference that “framing” makes in the way different “authorities” can tell the same story to very different effects.

The first clip below is from an Israeli national news program. You will hear a conversation about yesterday’s fatal shooting of the Palestinian journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh. Listen and make a few mental notes on what you hear.

What is emphasized? What are the guest’s primary concerns? What do you think is omitted from this discussion?

The next clip is from the alternative news site Democracy Now. Amy Goodman talks with Dr. Rashid Khalidi, the Edward W. Said professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University.

You will notice that professor Khalidi’s way of framing of the shooting is very different from Dan Perry’s framing in the Israeli clip.

Make some mental notes. What is Khalidi’s emphasis? What does he discuss that you did not hear in the previous interview? What did Mr. Perry discuss that you do not hear about from Khalidi?

How can you account for these differences?

A number of issues strike me as very important.

First, notice how Mr. Perry frames the issues in terms of competing media narratives, or battling storylines. He laments that fact that, in his opinion, Israel is currently “losing” the media battle to the Palestinian version of the story.

Personally, I do not believe that he has a basis for his lament, although his focus of the public’s perception of Israel — quite apart from what actually happened — is typical of what you will hear from Israeli representatives.

Second, I also hear Perry repeat the characteristic lament over “Israeli victimhood”; my words, not his. For the Israeli propaganda machine (yes, I know, I am letting my own framing show itself at this point), Israel is always under attack; Israel is always the innocent victim; any and all accusations made against Israeli behavior are inevitable examples of the world’s eternal hatred of the Jews.

This victim mentality is an essential component of political Zionism.

Third, I do agree with Perry, however, when he criticizes the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, for refusing to cooperate in a joint enquiry into the shooting. This is a foolish move on his part, which will hopefully be overturned quickly.

Fourth, notice the alternative framing offered by professor Khalidi. He describes this shooting as another in a long line of murderous incidents illustrating the brutality of Israeli settler-colonialism — a perspective with which I happen to agree.

Naturally, Mr. Perry never raises this settler-colonial perspective because the majority of Israelis refuse to see themselves in this light. This is not surprising, however.

All throughout history, colonizers have always tried to whitewash their

Filling a mass grave with frozen Lakota bodies after the massacre at Wounded Knee (1890)

crimes, in one way or another. Guilt is always laid at the feet of those who have been colonized. The settlers were bringing civilization to eradicate the barren wilderness and to bring enlightenment to primitive people.

Both the bloodshed, the shirking of responsibility, and the political rhetoric  in Israel-Palestine are no different. This is why the two video clips above offer such divergent analyses.

The frozen body of Spotted Elk, leader of the Sioux band slaughtered at Wounded Knee in 1890

Think of the 17th to the 19th century settlement history of the United States. The white, European settlers commonly, almost universally, framed themselves as the innocent victims of Native savagery.

To the white mind, the Indians were always the senseless aggressors. Every

settler storyline began at the moment the Indians appeared threatening or attacked,

Spotted Elk’s village at Wounded Knee prior to the cavalry’s attack. Government authorities feared the Lakota enthusiasm for the new Ghost Dance ceremonies might lead to rebellion

unjustly, inexplicably. Rarely did anyone discuss what the settlers had been doing to the Natives beforehand.

White settlers also never lacked a noble justification for their latest betrayal.

Modern Israel is the last settler-colonial state in this world of ours, and we are seeing the same colonial distortions of history working themselves out in Israel-Palestine today.

Israel’s airwaves provide the final frontier of media battles over “competing narratives.” Israel, and its many Zionist sympathizers, tell their stories from the settlers’ perspective.

Frozen, dead bodies and burned teepees are all that remain after the soldiers attack at Wounded Knee

Palestinians, on the other hand, tell their stories from the Native perspective. The Palestinian narrative, whether or not it “wins” the nonstop media battle, explains how a powerless, conquered people continue to be abused by their conquerors, conquerors who hold the power and always carry the biggest weapons.

Gideon Levy Reminds Us that Israel Makes It a Habit to Shoot and Murder Palestinians

Israeli journalist, Gideon Levy

Gideon Levy’s recent article in the Israeli daily, Haaretz, is titled, “Is Blood of Iconic Journalist Redder than Blood of Anonymous Palestinians?”

In the wake of yesterday’s murder of Shireen Abu Akleh by the Israeli military, Mr. Levy recalls the numerous innocent Palestinians who have also been murdered recently in the West Bank.

Ms. Abu Akleh is not an outlier. Rather, her circumstances are characteristic of Israel’s ongoing colonial atrocities. The Palestinians are a subordinate, oppressed, occupied people. Israel holds all the power.

Below is Mr. Levy’s article (all emphasis is mine):

Al Jazeera reporter, Shireen Abu Akleh

The relative horror expressed over the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh is justified and necessary. It is also belated and self-righteous. Now you’re appalled? The blood of a famous journalist, no matter how brave and experienced she was – and she was – is no redder than the blood of an anonymous high school student who was traveling home in a taxi full of women in this same Jenin a month ago when she was killed by gunfire from Israeli soldiers.

That is how Hanan Khadour was killed. Then, too, the military spokesman tried to cast doubt on the shooters’ identity: “The matter is being examined.” A month has passed, and this “examination” has yielded nothing, and never will – but the doubts were planted, and they sprouted in the Israeli fields of denial and suppression, where no one actually cares about the fate of a 19-year-old Palestinian girl, and the country’s dead conscience is silenced again. Is there a single crime committed by the military that the right and the establishment will ever accept responsibility for? Just one?
Abu Akleh seems to be another story: an internationally known journalist. Just this past Sunday a more local journalist, Basel al-Adra, was attacked by Israeli soldiers in the South Hebron Hills, and no one cared. And a couple days ago, two Israelis who attacked journalists during the Gaza war last May were sentenced to 22 months in prison. What punishment will be meted out to soldiers who killed, if indeed they did, Abu Akleh? And what punishment was given to whoever decided on and carried out the despicable bombing of the Associated Press offices in Gaza during the fighting last year? Has anyone paid for this crime? And what about the 13 journalists who were killed during the Gaza war in 2014? And the medical personnel who were killed during demonstrations at the Gaza border fence, including 21-year-old Razan al-Najjar, who was shot dead by soldiers while wearing her white uniform? No one has been punished. Such things will always be covered by a cloud of blind justification and automatic immunity for the military and worship of its soldiers.

Even if the smoking Israeli bullet that killed Abu Akleh is found, and even if footage is found that shows the face of the shooter, he will be treated by Israelis as a hero who is above all suspicion. It’s tempting to write that if innocent Palestinians must be killed by Israeli soldiers, better for them to be well-known and holders of U.S. passports, like Abu Akleh. At least then the U.S. State Department will voice a little displeasure – but not too much – about the senseless killing of one of its citizens by the soldiers of one of its allies.

At the time of writing, it was still unclear who killed Abu Akleh. This is Israel’s propaganda achievement – sowing doubts, which Israelis are quick to grab onto as fact and justification, though the world does not believe them and is usually correct. When the young Palestinian boy Mohammed al-Dura was killed in 2000, Israeli propaganda also tried to blur the identity of his killers; it never proved its claims, and no one bought them. Past experience shows that the soldiers who killed the young woman in a taxi are the same soldiers who might kill a journalist. It’s the same spirit; they are permitted to shoot as they please. Those who weren’t punished for Hanan’s killing continued with Shireen.

But the crime begins long before the shooting. The crime starts with the raiding of every town, refugee camp, village and bedroom in the West Bank every night, when necessary but mainly when not necessary. The military correspondents will always say that this was done for the sake of “arresting suspects,” without specifying which suspects and what they’re suspected of, and resistance to these incursions will always be seen as “a breach of order” – the order in which the military can do as it pleases and the Palestinians cannot do anything, certainly not show any resistance.

Abu Akleh died a hero, doing her job. She was a braver journalist than all Israeli journalists put together. She went to Jenin, and many other occupied places, where they have rarely if ever visited, and now they must bow their heads in respect and mourning. They also should have stopped spreading the propaganda spread by the military and government regarding the identity of her killers. Until proven otherwise, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the default conclusion must be: the Israeli military killed Shireen Abu Akleh.

“The US Could Have Prevented This War,” by Caitlin Johnstone

Naturally, the American media continue to pump out false information about the origins and continuation of the war in Ukraine.

Remembering and reminding people of recent history does not make anyone a “Putin-puppet.” In fact, such facile and feeble accusations are a principle indicator that the accuser, without anything more substantive to say, is actually another US government stooge furthering the American party line.

Below is an excerpt from a recent post by the Australian journalist/blogger Caitlin Johnstone. She nails all the relevant issues with precision and accuracy.

Everything she says and documents has been maligned by one US news outlet or another as “Russian propaganda.” That, my friends, is a lie.

But, then, lies are a mainstay of all propaganda, including American propaganda, which is being manufactured fast and furious by the corporate media these days.

A few members of the Nazi Azov battalion which is now part of the Ukrainian military. They have successfully battled the Russian-Ukrainian population of the eastern Donbas region to a standstill. Much of the destruction presented by American media as the result of Russian actions is actually the work of these Russia hating neo-Nazis, who have always been violent ethic-nationalists fighting for a “pure” Ukraine.

The article is entitled “The US Could Have Prevented This War Just by Protecting Kyiv From Nazis.” I encourage you to click on the title above, read the entire article including the highlighted links for background and source information.

Here is the excerpt:

As we hydroplane toward the brink of nuclear armageddon while Bono and the Edge play U2 songs in Kyiv, it’s probably worth taking a moment to highlight the fact that this entire war could have been avoided if the US had simply pledged military protection for Zelensky against the far right extremists who were threatening to lynch him if he enacted the peacemaking policies he was elected to enact.

To be clear, what we are indulging in here is entirely an act of fantasy. In imagining what would have happened if the US had pledged to protect the Ukrainian government from an undemocratic violent overthrow at the hands of fascists instead of waging a horrific proxy war, we are imagining a world in which the US government acts in the highest interest of all instead of working continuously to dominate the planet no matter how much madness and cruelty it needs to inflict upon humanity. A world in which the US hadn’t been taking steps toward the orchestration of this proxy war for many years.

With that out of the way, it’s just a simple fact that for a fraction of the military firepower the US is pouring into Ukraine right now, it could have prevented the entire war by simply protecting Ukrainian democracy from the undemocratic impulses of the worst people in that country.

When he was asked by The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel last month what he thinks is preventing Kyiv from signing a peace agreement with Russia, John Mearsheimer, whose analysis of this conflict has been prophetic for many years, replied as follows:

I think that when Zelensky ran for president he made it very clear that he wanted to work out an arrangement with Russia that ended the crisis in Ukraine, and he won. And what he then tried to do was move toward implementing the Minsk II agreement. If you were going to shut down the conflict in Ukraine, you had to implement Minsk II. And Minsk II meant giving the Russian-speaking and the ethnic Russian population in the easternmost part of Ukraine, the Donbas region, a significant amount of autonomy, and you had to make the Russian language an official language of Ukraine.

I think Zelensky found out very quickly that because of the Ukrainian right, it was impossible to implement Minsk II. Therefore even though the French and the Germans, and of course the Russians were very interested in making Minsk II work, because they wanted to shut down the crisis, they couldn’t do it. In other words, the Ukrainian right was able to stymie Zelensky on that front.

When Mearsheimer says that the Ukrainian right was able to stymie Zelensky, he doesn’t mean by votes or by democratic processes, he means by threats and violence. In an article last month titled “Siding with Ukraine’s far-right, US sabotaged Zelensky’s mandate for peace,” journalist Aaron Maté wrote the following:

In April 2019, Zelensky was elected with an overwhelming 73% of the vote on a promise to turn the tide. In his inaugural address the next month, Zelensky declared that he was “not afraid to lose my own popularity, my ratings,” and was “prepared to give up my own position – as long as peace arrives.”

But Ukraine’s powerful far-right and neo-Nazi militias made clear to Zelensky that reaching peace in the Donbas would have a much higher cost.

“No, he would lose his life,” Right Sector co-founder Dmytro Anatoliyovych Yarosh, then the commander of the Ukrainian Volunteer Army, responded one week after Zelensky’s inaugural speech. “He will hang on some tree on Khreshchatyk – if he betrays Ukraine and those people who died in the Revolution and the War.”