Media war on reality

LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND LIBYA

Nearly everything reported by Western mainstream media about the Libyan civil war has been proved to be false — in particular the official claim that Gaddafi was “killed in crossfire while attempting to escape” from the devastated city of Sirte. Available evidence suggests that Gaddafi was in fact the victim of a barbaric war crime perpetrated by Nato and its surrogate forces in Libya. The media are just as culpable as those who actually pulled the trigger. The International Criminal Court, meanwhile, has failed to indict anyone in connection with the sordid affair …READ MORE


TRUTH HURTS, LIES KILL: THE PHONY WARS


As the immediacy of Obama’s quasi-liberal electoral promises recede, an older conservative ideology has reasserted itself. The rhetoric of of the American imperial age is back to normal. This because when the Western military and political elite plan interventions for ignoble reasons, as in Libya today, they always cloak the interventions in the rhetoric of “morality”. The idealist language of “spreading democracy abroad” is there to drive aggressive policies and promote phony wars that might otherwise lack public support. The conduct of foreign policy will, according to this rhetoric, keep evil at bay and erect the safeguards that protect Western civilization and Christian life. We are constantly fed Good-versus-Evil stories of NATO's moral clarity versus the moral confusion of the Other, the perceived truth of which rests entirely on the repetition of uncomplicated moralistic tales that make us feel superior, no matter what is actually going on out there in the real world. What we are left with is moral posturing and a total inversion of morality …READ MORE

THE BIG LIE: RISE OF THE MEDIA-MILITARY MATRIX


Marx’s words are truer today than they were more than a century ago, but that did not prevent controversy marking the appearance of Between the Lies when it was first published at the end of the Cold War. The liberal London Guardian newspaper complained the book "gave conspiracy theory a bad name" the socialist Morning Star described the work as an "unnervingly convincing analysis". You can now read the full text online and form your own conclusion. Stan Winer's book exposes a shameless symbiosis between capitalists — some selling information for profit, others selling weapons for profit and all depending on implicit approval of a fearful, angry or confused population. Part One of Between the Lies tells the story of how British public opinion was influenced in crossing the moral divide to support the mass destruction of civilians.

The wartime dynamics between secrecy, media, and public opinion are replicated in "peacetime", which is the theme of Part Two. This secret history of World War II and the Cold War is reminiscent of the sci-fi movie classic The Matrix, which portrays an artificial reality created by machines that can think. Humans are held captive as energy sources and wired in to The Matrix using cybernetic implants. They are kept in a coma-like state, totally unaware of the existence of the artificial reality they "live" in. Between the Lies reveals a similar state of shared hallucination: an illusory world that has been pulled over our eyes to blind us from the truth …READ MORE

EPITAPH TO AN AGE TURNED APATHETIC

The old French saying C'est la guerre — such is war — captures the notion that war is dirty and bloody, yet sometimes worth it. But that rings hollow today. For many people the very notion of a truth that is worth fighting and dying for has been called into question, and many have become increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of supporting a political cause, whatever that cause is officially described to be and then unquestioningly parroted by the media. Public mistrust has become institutionalised, a habit. It is all around us. People today find it difficult to believe in politics or in politicians, and many don't believe in anything much at all. People are disillusioned. This poses a far greater threat to the health of the Western society of nations than any weapons of mass destruction ever hidden allegedly in some obscure Third World country such as Iraq …READ MORE

NEW VILLAINS FOR OLD

Something both the "old" and the "new" South Africa have in common is the compulsion to invent history. The old Afrikaner nationalists did it by depicting the Great Trek into the interior as a triumph of good over evil, of heroic pioneers who brought the light of Christian values to a dark continent. Never mind the swathes of destruction they left in their wake. Next, a British army of occupation did much the same — when in reality it was imperialism and the lure of gold that drove them. Today, post-apartheid black nationalists have their own peculiarly romanticised version of history. They depict the ruling ANC party as having emerged heroically from a war of "liberation", which they "won". This mythical version of history neatly divides South Africans into "winners" and "losers", when in fact neither side emerged from the apartheid era with any clear and decisive victory. There were losers on both sides. The former rulers lost their privileges based on skin colour; and the ANC lost its radical potential by merely exchanging old villains for new …READ MORE

S AFRICA: WHOSE TRUTH WAS IT ANYWAY?

The man who trained and inspired an entire generation of talented performing artists during the darkest years of apartheid, and who became a household name in the black ghettoes, died a pauper. It was the price Gibson Kente had to pay for being dragged unwittingly into a cesspool of ideological infighting and internecine conflict. Kente’s house in Soweto was petrol-bombed and valuable documentation of nearly all his prolific work over a period of 30 years — a total of 32 musical plays — were destroyed in the ensuing blaze. This made it virtually impossibe to secure his heritage for future generations. But still, Kente's real-life story remains as remarkable — and more tragic — than anything he could ever have invented …READ MORE


WATCHING THE WACKY WORLD OF WIKIPEDIA

Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia that “anyone can edit”, has made the dumbing down of world knowledge easier, more direct, more anonymous and more insidious than ever before in the mass media. Ironically, Wikipedia is premised on the notion that editorial control of the encyclopedia is held by “editors” who affirm the values of freedom of information. Wikipedia tries to contrast itself plausibly with totalitarian regimes whose control of information is absolute; but Wikipedia has its own dark and secretive side. It can be degraded easily by intellectual frauds and rightwing cabals that form a power elite whose task is to censor politically charged topics, insert disinformation and remove dissenting views. Anyone who goes against the entrenched structures of the ruling elite will promptly find themselves banned and blacklisted. Behind it all is the key Google algorithm that elevates Wikipedia to the highest stature in online search visibility. Without Google, Wikipedia would achieve only a fraction of its reach; and the rapid ascent of the online encyclopedia would be vastly less important. It seems fitting that Google also happens to be the supplier of core technology for Intellipedia, a top-security online system where 16 agencies of the US intelligence community share information and collaborate, using the same software as Wikipedia …READ MORE

MEDIA-MILITARY MYTHMAKING: THE EARLY YEARS

If we are to understand the past with a view to explaining the influence of the mainstream media in the world today, then the South African Anglo-Boer War of 1899 to 1902 is a useful place to start. It provides an early example of the power of the Press to set the political agenda, and it exemplifies the dynamics that existed between secrecy, subversion, public opinion and the media, even before the advent of modern, high-speed mass communications technology. The circumstances surrounding the precipitation of the Anglo-Boer War were also a harbinger of conspiracy and cover-up in the corridors of power, which would find resonance in World War I, in war profiteering, and in the most important military operations of the 20th Century and beyond …READ MORE

TORTURED FRAGMENTS OF HISTORY

In April 2004 the world was momentarily shocked by televised photographs from Iraq´s Abu Ghraib prison showing hooded Iraqis stripped naked, posed in contorted positions, and visibly suffering humiliating abuse at the hands of amused American army prison guards. Official US Army statements attributed the practice to a temporary breakdown in "military discipline", thus avoiding any public suspicion that psychological torture as paraded before our eyes in the Abu Ghraib snapshots is actually the product of intelligence policies shaped in scientific design and secret application over a long period of time. Yet the practice of psychological torture, unsurprisingly, is only mentioned by the military when the other side is caught doing it, and so there remains wide public ignorance and a studied avoidance of this unsettling subject. Few people have been able to fit together the fragments of history and grasp the larger picture. Others simply don´t want to know. But as author Stan Winer explains, the practice of psychological torture, never openly acknowledged by the military and always conducted in secret, has been standard practice for at least half-a-century or more, and it is not only the Americans who have been doing it …READ MORE

SOME USEFUL LINKS

• James H Fetzer: Is Wikipedia Stifling 9/11 Truth?

• James Bacque: Why is Wikipedia Censoring Me?

• Wade Frazier: The Biases of Wikipedia — A Case History

• Michael Meacher: "The War on Terrorism is Bogus"

• Julian C Holmes: Washington Post and "Conspiracy Theories"

• Ian Sayers & Michael Kahn: The Great Conspiracy

• American-Buddha free online library

• Falsificators of history (World War II)

• Radical online books archive

• Worldwide writing worth reading

• More online books and articles…