Special Report: Crossing a line from recklessness into madness, The New York Times published a front-page opus suggesting that Russia was behind social media criticism of Hillary Clinton, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
For those of us who have taught journalism or worked as editors, a sign that an article is the product of sloppy or dishonest journalism is that a key point will be declared as flat fact when it is unproven or a point in serious dispute – and it then becomes the foundation for other claims, building a story like a high-rise constructed on sand.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
This use of speculation as fact is something to guard against particularly in the work of inexperienced or opinionated reporters. But what happens when this sort of unprofessional work tops page one of The New York Times one day as a major “investigative” article and reemerges the next day in even more strident form as a major Times editorial? Are we dealing then with an inept journalist who got carried away with his thesis or are we facing institutional corruption or even a collective madness driven by ideological fervor?
What is stunning about the lede story in last Friday’s print edition of The New York Times is that it offers no real evidence to support its provocative claim that – as the headline states – “To Sway Vote, Russia Used Army of Fake Americans” or its subhead: “Flooding Twitter and Facebook, Impostors Helped Fuel Anger in Polarized U.S.”
In the old days, this wildly speculative article, which spills over three pages, would have earned an F in a J-school class or gotten a rookie reporter a stern rebuke from a senior editor. But now such unprofessionalism is highlighted by The New York Times, which boasts that it is the standard-setter of American journalism, the nation’s “newspaper of record.”
In this case, it allows reporter Scott Shane to introduce his thesis by citing some Internet accounts that apparently used fake identities, but he ties none of them to the Russian government. Acting like he has minimal familiarity with the Internet – yes, a lot of people do use fake identities – Shane builds his case on the assumption that accounts that cited references to purloined Democratic emails must be somehow from an agent or a bot connected to the Kremlin.
For instance, Shane cites the fake identity of “Melvin Redick,” who suggested on June 8, 2016, that people visit DCLeaks which, a few days earlier, had posted some emails from prominent Americans, which Shane states as fact – not allegation – were “stolen … by Russian hackers.”
Shane then adds, also as flat fact, that “The site’s phony promoters were in the vanguard of a cyberarmy of counterfeit Facebook and Twitter accounts, a legion of Russian-controlled impostors whose operations are still being unraveled.”
The Times’ Version
In other words, Shane tells us, “The Russian information attack on the election did not stop with the hacking and leaking of Democratic emails or the fire hose of stories, true, false and in between, that battered Mrs. Clinton on Russian outlets like RT and Sputnik. Far less splashy, and far more difficult to trace, was Russia’s experimentation on Facebook and Twitter, the American companies that essentially invented the tools of social media and, in this case, did not stop them from being turned into engines of deception and propaganda.”
New York Times building in New York City. (Photo from Wikipedia)
Besides the obvious point that very few Americans watch RT and/or Sputnik and that Shane offers no details about the alleged falsity of those “fire hose of stories,” let’s examine how his accusations are backed up:
“An investigation by The New York Times, and new research from the cybersecurity firm FireEye, reveals some of the mechanisms by which suspected Russian operators used Twitter and Facebook to spread anti-Clinton messages and promote the hacked material they had leaked. On Wednesday, Facebook officials disclosed that they had shut down several hundred accounts that they believe were created by a Russian company linked to the Kremlin and used to buy $100,000 in ads pushing divisive issues during and after the American election campaign. On Twitter, as on Facebook, Russian fingerprints are on hundreds or thousands of fake accounts that regularly posted anti-Clinton messages.”
Note the weasel words: “suspected”; “believe”; ‘linked”; “fingerprints.” When you see such equivocation, it means that these folks – both the Times and FireEye – don’t have hard evidence; they are speculating.
And it’s worth noting that the supposed “army of fake Americans” may amount to hundreds out of Facebook’s two billion or so monthly users and the $100,000 in ads compare to the company’s annual ad revenue of around $27 billion. (I’d do the math but my calculator doesn’t compute such tiny percentages.)
So, this “army” is really not an “army” and we don’t even know that it is “Russian.” But some readers might say that surely we know that the Kremlin did mastermind the hacking of Democratic emails!
That claim is supported by the Jan. 6 “intelligence community assessment” that was the work of what President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called “hand-picked” analysts from three agencies – the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation. But, as any intelligence expert will tell you, if you hand-pick the analysts, you are hand-picking the conclusions.
Agreeing with Putin
But some still might protest that the Jan. 6 report surely presented convincing evidence of this serious charge about Russian President Vladimir Putin personally intervening in the U.S. election to help put Donald Trump in the White House. Well, as it turns out, not so much, and if you don’t believe me, we can call to the witness stand none other than New York Times reporter Scott Shane.
Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses UN General Assembly on Sept. 28, 2015. (UN Photo)
Shane wrote at the time: “What is missing from the [the Jan. 6] public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the agencies’ claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack. … Instead, the message from the agencies essentially amounts to ‘trust us.’”
So, even Scott Shane, the author of last Friday’s opus, recognized the lack of “hard evidence” to prove that the Russian government was behind the release of the Democratic emails, a claim that both Putin and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who published a trove of the emails, have denied. While it is surely possible that Putin and Assange are lying or don’t know the facts, you might think that their denials would be relevant to this lengthy investigative article, which also could have benefited from some mention of Shane’s own skepticism of last January, but, hey, you don’t want inconvenient details to mess up a cool narrative.
Yet, if you struggle all the way to the end of last Friday’s article, you do find out how flimsy the Times’ case actually is. How, for instance, do we know that “Melvin Redick” is a Russian impostor posing as an American? The proof, according to Shane, is that “His posts were never personal, just news articles reflecting a pro-Russian worldview.”
As it turns out, the Times now operates with what must be called a neo-McCarthyistic approach for identifying people as Kremlin stooges, i.e., anyone who doubts the truthfulness of the State Department’s narratives on Syria, Ukraine and other international topics.
Unreliable Source
In the article’s last section, Shane acknowledges as much in citing one of his experts, “Andrew Weisburd, an Illinois online researcher who has written frequently about Russian influence on social media.” Shane quotes Weisburd as admitting how hard it is to differentiate Americans who just might oppose Hillary Clinton because they didn’t think she’d make a good president from supposed Russian operatives: “Trying to disaggregate the two was difficult, to put it mildly.”
Couple walking along the Kremlin, Dec. 7, 2016. (Photo by Robert Parry)
According to Shane, “Mr. Weisburd said he had labeled some Twitter accounts ‘Kremlin trolls’ based simply on their pro-Russia tweets and with no proof of Russian government ties. The Times contacted several such users, who insisted that they had come by their anti-American, pro-Russian views honestly, without payment or instructions from Moscow.”
One of Weisburd’s “Kremlin trolls” turned out to be 66-year-old Marilyn Justice who lives in Nova Scotia and who somehow reached the conclusion that “Hillary’s a warmonger.” During the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, she reached another conclusion: that U.S. commentators were exhibiting a snide anti-Russia bias perhaps because they indeed were exhibiting a snide anti-Russia bias.
Shane tracked down another “Kremlin troll,” 48-year-old Marcel Sardo, a web producer in Zurich, Switzerland, who dares to dispute the West’s groupthink that Russia was responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine on July 17, 2014, and the State Department’s claims that the Syrian government used sarin gas in a Damascus suburb on Aug. 21, 2013.
Presumably, if you don’t toe the line on those dubious U.S. government narratives, you are part of the Kremlin’s propaganda machine. (In both cases, there actually are serious reasons to doubt the Western groupthinks which again lack real evidence.)
But Shane accuses Sardo and his fellow-travelers of spreading “what American officials consider to be Russian disinformation on election hacking, Syria, Ukraine and more.” In other words, if you examine the evidence on MH-17 or the Syrian sarin case and conclude that the U.S. government’s claims are dubious if not downright false, you are somehow disloyal and making Russian officials “gleeful at their success,” as Shane puts it.
But what kind of a traitor are you if you quote Shane’s initial judgment after reading the Jan. 6 report on alleged Russian election meddling? What are you if you agree with his factual observation that the report lacked anything approaching “hard evidence”? That’s a point that also dovetails with what Vladimir Putin has been saying – that “IP addresses can be simply made up. … This is no proof”?
So is Scott Shane a “Kremlin troll,” too? Should the Times immediately fire him as a disloyal foreign agent? What if Putin says that 2 plus 2 equals 4 and your child is taught the same thing in elementary school, what does that say about public school teachers?
Out of such gibberish come the evils of McCarthyism and the death of the Enlightenment. Instead of encouraging a questioning citizenry, the new American paradigm is to silence debate and ridicule anyone who steps out of line.
You might have thought people would have learned something from the disastrous groupthink about Iraqi WMD, a canard that the Times and most of the U.S. mainstream media eagerly promoted.
But if you’re feeling generous and thinking that the Times’ editors must have been chastened by their Iraq-WMD fiasco but perhaps had a bad day last week and somehow allowed an egregious piece of journalism to lead their front page, your kind-heartedness would be shattered on Saturday when the Times’ editorial board penned a laudatory reprise of Scott Shane’s big scoop.
Stripping away even the few caveats that the article had included, the Times’ editors informed us that “a startling investigation by Scott Shane of The New York Times, and new research by the cybersecurity firm FireEye, now reveal, the Kremlin’s stealth intrusion into the election was far broader and more complex, involving a cyberarmy of bloggers posing as Americans and spreading propaganda and disinformation to an American electorate on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. …
“Now that the scheming is clear, Facebook and Twitter say they are reviewing the 2016 race and studying how to defend against such meddling in the future. … Facing the Russian challenge will involve complicated issues dealing with secret foreign efforts to undermine American free speech.”
But what is the real threat to “American free speech”? Is it the possibility that Russia – in a very mild imitation of what the U.S. government does all over the world – used some Web sites clandestinely to get out its side of various stories, an accusation against Russia that still lacks any real evidence?
Or is the bigger threat that the nearly year-long Russia-gate hysteria will be used to clamp down on Americans who dare question fact-lite or fact-free Official Narratives handed down by the State Department and The New York Times?
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
Most definitely a collective madness driven by ideological fervor.
I’m glad that there are people like Robert Parry who have the time and willingness to sift through trash like the NYT or we wouldn’t know what kind of evil they’re up to. Robert’s been around the block, as they say. He knows, and has done and is still doing, the kind of reportage the world needs. When someone like him bites into a Scott Shane pile of crap, he’s going to know it’s a piece of crap, but in a way that many of us can’t. I try to keep up with events and do a fair bit of reading, and might have also immediately seen that it was vile fake news, but I could never have taken apart Shane’s fake news the way Robert Parry just did.
Surveillance, as Julian Assange points out, is here to stay. Then there’s the simple, terrifying killing of free communication – Parry’s neo-McCarthyism – that started up when Google et al decided that it had to protect fake news and attack those who didn’t go along with it. The avalanche has started. Looked at another way, There’s too many like those who own and feed the NYT, and those who work for it and have chosen to get the slave’s mark of the wild beast of corporatocracy, who, not being content with pace of the McCarythyism, want to speed things up. They are just a happy part of the ‘no information revolution’ that Eric Schmidt et al have launched. They don’t need to fire off shotguns in the avalanche prone area, here, but they do anyway. Just in case.
I think possibly you have gone mad Mr. Parry!!! It is NOT Russian hysteria!!
What I find so interesting about the NYT’s reduced journalistic standards is that it has been largely counter productive to what its apparent aims are. All through the campaign I kept thinking that Trump acts out like a toddler in need of attention because he knows the media will cover it, and the more times his name is out there, the more accumulated media coverage, the more likely people are to recognize his name and vote for him. As the adage goes, no publicity is bad publicity.
Yet, the New York Times reported on tweets when it couldn’t get a comment (when did this become a journalistic norm?). A tweet is not a policy or even a policy proposal. All these controversial statements he made during the campaign wound up headlines. “Trump Claims Obamacare Failing, (fact checked).” So they engaged in two things I find journalistically dubious. First, to just put one of Trumps unfounded claims in the headline, then taking up an obvious adversarial position on a political issue. This is why Trump’s base has been successful labelling it “fake news.” First of all, it is because its quoting a false statement straight off the bat, and secondly it reduces itself to oppositional attacks.
A better headline, “How Are Obamacare Markets Fairing?” Then objectively report the good, the bad and the ugly of it in the article. No need to even engage with Trumps false claim, no need to bring him into it at all. Address the claim by looking into what is working and what isn’t and offering a conclusive analysis.
BUT, the editors liked the ratings as much as Trump likes the attention, so good luck changing anything.
“Crossing a line from recklessness into madness, The New York Times published a front-page opus suggesting that Russia was behind social media criticism of Hillary Clinton” – Parry’s subhead along with title itself are florid examples of clickbait journalism. Rhetorically they float an allegation which goes entirely unaddressed in the body of the article. From Parry’s text we glean only that the New York Times has become a cynical excrescence of the hegemonic State. No excursion into lay psychiatry is necessary to explain old-fashioned down-home red-baiting.
For more on NYT distortions of reality, find an especially egregious example at:
http://www.fccj.or.jp/number-1-shimbun/item/984-the-truth-about-tankman.html
Absolute Madness. I stopped reading the NYT some time ago along with watching CNN. We so few people relatively speaking control so many corporations under a huge umbrella of holding companies, how can one continue to fall for the memes spewed when so many have been proven wrong?
as I predicted …
Foreign Policy: The Pentagon Is Spending $2 Billion Running Soviet-Era Guns to Syrian Rebels
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/12/the-pentagon-is-spending-2-billion-running-soviet-era-guns-to-syrian-rebels/
“anti-Islamic State groups in Syria” = Al Qaeda brand name du jour
yes, I think we’re pretending these arms are all going to the noble Kurds… but really it’s just money-laundering i.e. cash-substitutes for whomever … as Al Nusra sold “freedom fighting” arms to ISIS … they’re probably paying their soldiers in AK-47s. … capitalism, private enterprise … the world is our battlefield … fortified hell-hole coming soon to a neighborhood near you. Funny how the Mosul story vanished …
Are we allowed to wonder how, after 6+ years of war in Syria and 14+ years of war in Iraq, that the Kurds are somehow in need of 2 billion dollars worth of more weaponry?
You seem unaware that Washington very much depends on the Kurds to keep the fires of destruction and chaos going in that part of the world. I recommend checking Stephen Gowans and Sarah Abeds’ two respective blogs for information on all of that. Here’s a link to one blog post by Gowans. It’s not shortened because I’ve been made aware that shortened links can be problematic (hijacked or made to redirect, as well as more easily tracked by trouble-makers):
https://gowans.wordpress.com/?s=The+Myth+of+the+Kurdish+YPG%E2%80%99s+Moral+Excellence
Oh Susan, Susan, Susan. I suspect you found that bag of meth that slipped into the couch. First off. This is ,,,The Alcoholic Republic. A book Read it.. Not Reddit. . Investigate. As a practicing, functional ( Irish Catholic and lightweight/beer drinking) alcoholic I can only say it’s better than prescription medication and what happened when it got banned? THATZ RIGHT> DEPRESSION. Secondly, If contractors in Denver can’t find heavy equipment operators its because they are working elsewhere raping the planet using really big machines. Mexicans , etc. are working and they are savvy and they do not throw away their money . This is integral to the entire construction boom that’s happening . A large percentage is called Day Labor and there are other ways to deliver cash and bonuses, True a lot goes to Mexico and elsewhere in remittances but I know many Brown skins and YO I hablo Espanol como si fuera un nativo They aren’t running and they will have the same benefits as everyone else down the line since they are paying the majority into SSI right now. Rich and business, small business, do not pay taxes and either do their accountants. If they did they couldn’t offshore their money so what would be the point? Come on, get with it. The working class (Mexicans,Central Americans, white trash and blacks pay taxes) and then state and county governments swoop up taxes that pay for services. The Roads well that;’ gasoline taxes and it’s mostly workers paying that too disproportionately. Don’t forget Israel when you talk about Kurds They have dumped Hundreds of millions into Iraq Kurdistan and the Barzani family. We do not control the Kurds and either do the Barzanis , Thats something you might read in the NY Times,. Kurds have a racial myth like Serbs, Germans, Israel, etc. WE are not in control. WE are renters. Anti Virus …Intelligence plants… Backdoor Trojans …. Kazpersky Kasmerzski it all Bullshit. But Coyote Walking on air? I have seen it. The joke is not on Coyote, the joke is on us when we doubt what we all know is true and then Coyote shits out wire grass, at least according to American Indian seers, and he figures it out then disappears again.
Before the mujahadeen, the Kurds were McCain’s designated good-arab freedom fighters … I’ve been wondering just how much of a full court effort will be made to “give them statehood” before McCain’s demise … Last headline I saw, western powers were urging the “referendum” on independence be shelved as too divisive (gee, ya think?) and potentially dangerous.
“How we’re going to screw the Kurds this time” has been a drinking game since before GWI (we were funding and arming their little anti-Saddam insurrectionist movement even then — in part in reward with their long term cooperation with Israel)
What I don’t know is the current “state of the union” between and amongst Kurds given our heavily promoted Rojava project … and, of course, just how far Erdogan will and/or can go to thwart exactly that “independence” we keep pretending we can promise them (and/or whether they believe us).
Susan, voltairenet,org has a recent and very informative 3 part essay on the Kurds which echo your comments.
Are we allowed to wonder how the noble Israelis are always in need of billions of dollars worth of more weaponry?
$3.8 billion a year will buy a lot of pink umbrellas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6FBfAQ-NDE
Healing the collective madness,
turbocharging the shadowy world of Depeche Mode cover bands…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZpJj_ZGI3M
Yes, I’ve lost track of what the “moderates” are being called now.
I was startled when reading Eric Lichtblau’s “The Nazis Next Door” and he reported how American officials wanting to get Nazis to work for them (as did others, like the Soviets), came up with the label of “ardent” Nazi, which implied that being a Nazi is not so bad. Of course, then that gave ill-intentioned authorities the power to simply decide that Wernher Von Braun, Arthur Rudolph and hunreds of other Nazis were good Nazis. He has a chapter titled “Minor War Crimes,” because good Nazis might have commited war crimes and therefore it was necessary to think in terms of good and bad war crimes as well. The more things change…
Yes Arby, I’m old enough to remember that classic cliché…”but Hitler did some good things…he built the autobahn”!
The best efforts of the fake “journalists” at Bellingcat and their “First Draft” propaganda coalition parthers in the mainstream media cannot forever conceal the obvious reality:
The so-called “Syrian uprising” never existed, and the US and its allies continue directly arming, aiding, and abetting Al Qaeda in Syria.
Al Qaeda continues to infest territory in northwest Syria, sustained with arms acquired with NATO complicity, and supplied via logistical routes leading directly into the territory of NATO-member state Turkey.
The U.S. now appears to be preoccupied with creating “safe havens” for Al Qaeda.
Geopolitical analyst Tony Cartalucci concludes:
“As Syrian forces reach the Euphrates River, breaking the siege of the eastern Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor, Damascus and its allies, along with the state sponsors fueling the militancy that has consumed Syria for the past 6 years, are putting in place their final pieces as the endgame approaches.
“Syrian forces having already retaken the northern city of Aleppo and as they continue securing Syria’s southern border with Jordan and Iraq west of the Euphrates, leaves the mainstream militancy backed by Washington, its European and NATO allies, as well as its Persian Gulf partners all but defeated.
“Remaining is the northern city of Idlib. It has become the final destination for militants as they flee or are evacuated under government-brokered deals from other contested areas across Syria. The city and much of the surrounding countryside link directly to the Syrian-Turkish border where militants are still receiving supplies, weapons, and reinforcements from NATO territory.
“With the nature of Western-sponsored militants now fully exposed and with Russian and Iranian forces present on the battlefield and deeply invested in Damascus’ victory, it is all but inevitable that virtually everything west of the Euphrates will return to Damascus’ control.
“Political attempts to preserve Idlib as a militant stronghold will be difficult considering the overt terroristic nature of the groups holding the city, including those operating openly under the banner of Al Qaeda. […]
“US policymakers have – since the conflict began in 2011 – sought to divide Syria and carve out ‘safe havens’ that could be used to perpetuate instability and seek regime change in Damascus over the long-term once immediate regime change failed to materialize.
“For the US – the prospect of carving out territory west of the Euphrates now looks very unlikely. Even attempts to grab territory south of Damascus along the Syrian-Jordanian and Syrian-Iraqi border appear to have failed. However, east of the Euphrates with America’s Kurdish proxies, permanent and sizable ‘safe havens’ are much more likely. […]
“In the next several weeks and months, how far the Syrian military goes and how sustainable its gains are before reaching the limits of its tactical and strategic reach will determine for certain just how tenable US designs are to permanently balkanize the country.
“Attempts to drive wedges between Damascus and its Russian and Iranian allies are underway – particularly with Israeli strikes inside of Syria and attempts to portray Russia as beholden to Israel. The use of Israel as a provocateur to pressure Damascus and divert political, financial, and military capital away from critical battles will continue.
“Attempts are also underway to alienate Syria’s Kurdish minority as much as possible to poison any attempt by Damascus to offer a more attractive future than serving as American proxies toward balkanizing the nation.
“Finally, attempts to isolate Syria and its allies from the international community also continue – particularly with repeated accusations of chemical weapon use. Despite a lack of success in using this tactic, the United States – through the United Nations – has repeatedly accused Syria of using chemical weapons in an attempt to justify a broader conflict directly with Damascus.
“In addition to the pivotal battles and lightning campaigns unfolding across Syria’s territory, analysts should expect to see tense diplomatic maneuvering on all sides as the endgame approaches.”
Syria: As the Endgame Approaches
By Tony Cartalucci
https://journal-neo.org/2017/09/12/syria-as-the-endgame-approaches/
I can think of no more fitting repudiation of all Clinton stands for than today’s roll-out of the Sander’s Medicare for All Plan
To answer your closing question: it is part of a co-ordinated campaign to censor all speech that challenges the neoliberal globalists narratives.
there are moves afoot to totally ban Kapersky lab products in the USA …. after American computer companies (a few years back) were found to have installed backdoors and potential malware in their products … yes, we’ve gone mad …
Elswhere Trump’s FEMA pick just took himself out of the running when his resume was found to have falsified data … too stupid to live … like the rest of his talent stable apparently.
Another home-run by America’s premier investigative reporter, Robert Parry. Thanks.
The author is quick to accuse others of shoddy journalism is this very shoddy piece. He seems to be working overtime to ignore the obvious and well-establish pattern of Russian use of dirty trips and disinformation. He ignores Facebook’s admission that they had identified hundreds of fake accounts linked to Russia and $100,000 of advertising designed to skew US public opinion. Given how hard Facebook tried, initially, to deny it had been used in this kind of operation. This is not mere speculation: Facebook has all the tools to ascertain where its users come from and where they operate out of. The author dismisses as merely an assumption that Russia was behind the DNC hack. You may not take what the U.S. Intelligence community comes up with as gospel truth but when there is unanimous consensus among virtually all branches of intelligence that something happened, you need to take it very seriously and not just write it off as unproven assumptions. Parry, in his effort to seem like a courageous, hard-eyed skeptic, seems like a Putin dupe.
“unanimous consensus among virtually all branches of intelligence”
you should read this site more often. there were some pretty good articles of how fallacious this statement is.
Alexander, “….that something happened”? is not good enough. Don’t believe this “unanimous consensus among virtually all…..”
If they say otherwise they might have a job to lose, you understand. The last sentence of yours you better cut out and frame it
somewhere hidden…..You may also consult Jullian Assange and Craig Murray about this mysterious DNC hack
Commenter “Alexander Stille” employs the standard propaganda troll pattern: a volley of calumny and illogic that ends with “seems like a Putin dupe”.
What “Alexander Stille” calls “Facebook’s admission” was little more than a Facebook post and a “White Paper” that presented no verifiable evidence ttps://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/facebook-and-information-operations-v1.pdf
The claim “Facebook has all the tools” is not evidence, and Facebook has presented no evidence.
Of course, there’s still no evidence that Russia was behind the DNC hack.
With Consortium News consistently pointing out the obvious, it’s 24/7 propaganda troll Whac-A-Mole in the comments.
Thanks for your clear and logical exploration of a dangerous corruption in America’s thinking. I remember Joe McCarthy all too well.
The NYT has become primarily concerned with three subjects: Women, LGBT, and Hillary. Rather than reporting on these “issues” they have taken an almost hysterical stance on them, to wit, promoting them and denigrating the resistance and resistors to their position. If one looks at the makeup of the NYT journalistic staff it seems that they, too, have been changed to represent those three social/political positions on a personal basis. Their inventions to back up those personal roles smack of the inventiveness of our Laurel & Hardy superspies at our superspy headquarters, the CIA and its fellow “intelligence” agencies. I certainly have no bone to pick with women, homosexuals and such, or with rabid followers of Hillary, but when America’s prime SMS medium puts almost everything they cover into doubt, because of those predisposition, then we are all in trouble. And we ARE all in trouble.
The next question is more complex. Why has the NYT, once one of the prime sources of real news in the world, become that way, because of what (advertisers are too easy an answer) and because of who?
i dont actually see anyone ,any movement or any political party in the USA offering any answers at all as the fist of fascism tightens…..
even a genuinely democratic revolution must fail because the election system itself is rigged…..i used to believe that Americans who claimed that the Govt were after their guns to render the population docile were fantasising…..no longer
No political party can offer solutions because the parties are all bought, and the mass media are all owned, by oligarchy.
There is irony in American’s “embracing” socialism (a century late) at this point of end-stage capitalism … when, unsurprisingly, the tax base derived from increasingly underemployed and underpaid workers is shrinking (see also the graying of America and the decades old/evergreen “crisis of entitlements” (pensions and social security) — at a time when European nations are considering a universal stipend to deal with the same job shortage(s) that have Americans working multiple jobs and still being impoverished …
Don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows … the American bubble is decades behind Europe and not just wrt to “doubting” climate change and evolution … yuppers, some new “middle ages” have been looming for a long time … as America under Trump, pulls up its drawbridges and contemplates shutting down alternative media sources to keep our pesky “foreign influences undermining our democracy” (whose democracy? our democracy? surely you must be kidding)
under-reported is the already “crisis level” lack of workers resulting from the demonization of “illegal aliens” — crops being left in the fields unharvested and new construction behind schedule due to lack of heavy labor and construction skilled workforce … Apparently here in Denver, they have opened up a construction labor skills training course
http://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/02/colorado-massive-shortage-construction-workers/
All those illegal workers using other-people’s SSN# are paying into benefits they will never receive … paying sales and other taxes as they spend their income on living expenses…. Republican math skills have always ignored these facts as they paint immigrants as parasites.
“the American bubble is decades behind Europe”…unfortunately, too many Europeans bought into the American free market myth before the bubble burst and their banks have imposed a callous austerity, especially on Europe’s southern tier. That, and the migrant crisis threatens the stability of what are some very progressive welfare institutions. I don’t think the universal stipend will(or should) ever get off the ground, especially where you see cuts in government services and public employment. However, I do think public employment and a decent living wage is the best answer and hopefully the Europeans, will once again show leadership in this direction, but first they have to get the neoliberal monkey off their backs.
but, as with alcoholics, the first step is admitting there’s a problem … which most Americans really haven’t figured out least of all politicians who would never dare admit such a thing ….
It’s an appalling state of affairs … the cognitive dissonance is overwhelming and “should” be crippling …. the media is essential to the creation of “the facade of normalcy”… as the American military daily directly violate Geneva and other conventions and aid and abet similar (often even worse) act by our allied offenders
On topic, I’ve noticed the NYT is directly regularly pandering to the 1% on its front page … beyond the longstanding “what will $1 million buy in Tuscon?” real estate porn (now usually around $2.5 million, because $1 million gets the 1% a tear-down for the kids’ starter home)
interesting “factoid” from today’s John Batchelor Podcast with Stephen Cohen … apparently Russia is the #2 destination for refugees (after Germany) because there’s plenty of work of the low skilled / heavy labor variety … the Russian muslim demographic is exploding due to this and the very high birth rates within the (various) native and longstanding Muslim communities … I’m trying to remember, 13%? Russia too is in need of young male bodies willing to toil in the sun, rain and wind …
Sounds like an African exodus is about to eclipse the MENA western interventionist war zone millions (some of which may be reversed if peace is allowed to breakout). I still haven’t unclenched from last week’s “on the brink of nuclear war” … but I read that both Russia and Germany are interested in working with the Koreas for an end to that conflict … and Russia, China and Iran have been in ongoing discussions wrt to the future of Afghanistan (with Pakistan and India mentioned from time to time) …
America is — more and more — Thanks Trump! — being slowly eased away from the various negotiating tables … having nothing constructive to add to the proceedings Yemen and Qatar may go beyond some Saudi/American fall from grace and influence … Venezuela and others are increasingly talking about leaving the “petrodollar” exchange for the yuan … we’ll certainly see…. la di dah, la di dah (Annie Hall reference)
“as with alcoholics, the first step is admitting there’s a problem”…but it won’t be long before the music stops and the folks that rely on MSM business news find themselves without a chair. Have you ever noticed MSM business news never reveals the global picture except how some activity abroad might affect the Dow Jones? The Russians and Chinese are buying up gold to back up their currencies. Dollars can be recycled as toilet paper once we switch to a digital currency but what will we have to back it up? …and who will want to hold our debt?
bobH – yeah, it’s like wiley coyote walking on air before he realizes he’s off-the-cliff and about to take a really really big fall.
There was a fascinating documentary on PBS about 20 year ago, wrt to the — was it singapore??– financial crisis wrt how things nearly went buST
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/hi/story/
I need to go back to that thrift store that I saw — and didn’t buy — the book last week … A real eye-opener on just how close we came then to “global meltdown” putting 2008 into stark contrast (the full story of which remains to be told — which is (of course) why prosecutions were too dangerous to consider, dangerous transparency involved in prosecution — can’t risk that — like “terrorism” — better if the sheep stay dumb — doncha know )
The lawless Corporatocracy will not lose because it can use rule-breaking in order to ensure that the people never free their captured electoral system. The chains are strong that bind it. The voting machines (owned by rightwingers) that fudge vote tallies, the buying of politicians (Citizens United), dark money (in which we can’t see who is buying the country), and orgs like ALEC, where politicians and CEOs mingle and decide on the laws that CEOs want and so on make the captured electoral system a big boat that we (well ‘you’, since I’m Canadian) the people cannot turn around so as to steer it to safety. Indeed, We have already hit the iceberg of fascism and, with McCarthyism and surveillance and Critical Infrastructure Protection and securocratic warfare (Jeff Halper – “War Against The People”) kicking into gear, the people everywhere are under water, drowning and will find no human saviours to save them.
What a propaganda piece, gone is journalism, gone is credible reporting and balanced opionnating, just crass garbage writing, who is paying for this? Can’t be gratuitous, there has to be a game and a meta game and I think it is this: “Trump is not only the Manchurian candidate but was made successful by the Manchurians through cheating”, wow, this is how far they are willing to go…they are threatened badly and likely to escalate to something even worse such as “Putin is calling the shots from the Kremlin”, mark my words, they almost said it when the original team was there, the deep state is unhappy and losing power and they don’t like it and they and their handmaidens will say or do anything to intimidate Trump or even bring him down….we are building towards a constitutional crises and they won’t stop escalating until they have it. The mark of an imperial attitude of hubris and inflation, they have no ides of march, they go forever, polluting every pond and every lake of knowledge in a Soros moment in the twilight of Empire and hopefully the return of the Republic.
the real reason trump is president is that obama made fun of him at a roast. trump wanted revenge by undoing everything obama did. what most people dont know is that putin wrote all of obama’s jokes!
I favor the Obama – Trump conspiracy notion myself, though I’d limit the statement to saying that Obama was trying to “sting” Trump into becoming the Republican Candidate. With the rap sheet the Hillary Democrats must have had on Trump, how could she possibly not have trounced him?
Yesterday I read that the Presumptive POTUS Hillary was so sure of herself on election night that she hadn’t even written a speech she’d give in the event she lost the election. Everyone – even people like myself who despised the horrid woman – had resigned themselves to the election of the warmongering *****. I’d bet my $5 bill to your penny that Trump hadn’t written a victory speech, either.
I’ve also read that Bill Clinton urged Trump to run. Who knows what other “backdoor” approaches were made to recruit Trump? One other thing I noticed was that the Corporate Media made the Republican Primaries a breeze for Trump.
Losing to a hand-picked opponent must be really hard for the Butcher of Libya to take. I sure hope that’s how it feels to her, for I’ve now got to endure that “hand-picked opponent”.
God willing, the imposition of Trump will be the final legacy of Hillary, the worst major candidate I”m aware of in US history.
Trump didn’t write victory speech’s?The MSM made Rep primaries a breeze?Please.
BELLINGCAT COMMEMORATES 9/11 BY CELEBRATING AL QAEDA
Bellingcat celebrated the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by publishing “The Battle for Manshiyah: A Victory in 100 Pictures” by Gregory Waters.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017/09/11/battle-manshiyah-victory-100-pictures/
Waters is the newest author on the “Bellingcat Investigation Team”. A brief paragraph notes that Waters “writes for The Week in Review and publishes his research on Twitter”.
In fact, Waters’ main gig is publishing on the UK-based openDemocracy website funded by George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.
Waters “research” for Soros mainly consists of efforts to convince readers that the numerous Al Qaeda rebrands in Syria have magically transformed into something other than the notorious international terrorist group.
Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat have been laundering Al Qaeda and Islamic State terrorist media blasts for years, so Waters fits right in on the “Team”.
In addition to openDemocracy and Bellingcat, Waters’ publishes his “research” on Twitter “with focus on regime losses and opposition fronts”.
Waters also writes for “The Syrian Civil War”, a subreddit (Reddit community online) that has been cited by TIME, Business Insider, USAToday, and Brown Moses blog since 2013.
Waters contributes to “Syrian Civil War: The Week in Review”, the subreddit’s online publication, which has a distinctly pro-“opposition” stance that belies claims that it supplies “real, unbiased news about Syria”.
Waters’ September 11th article for Bellingcat chronicles “the day-to-day events of the three-month rebel offensive to capture the al-Manshiyah neighborhood of the southern Syrian city of Daraa”.
In fact, the March-June 2017 terrorist offensive in Daraa was mainly conducted by Al Qaeda forces, and Waters’ article relies almost entirely on information from Al Qaeda affiliate media outlets.
DARAA: BIRTHPLACE OF THE TERRORIST ASSAULT ON SYRIA
Let’s start by examining the actual history of the armed conflict in Syria. This vital contextual information is always absent from Bellingcat and mainstream media articles about the Syrian conflict.
Armed conflict in Syria began in the city of Daraa in March 2011, when hidden gunmen opened fire killing both civilian protestors and police. (The scenario was repeated in the Maidan Square in Kiev, Ukraine in February 2014).
Daraa is barely six kilometers from the Syrian border with Jordan, where CIA Special Activities Division teams and US military operations had been deployed from the beginning of the terrorist assault on Syria in 2011.
The US government has been covertly funding the Syrian opposition since 2006. The CIA trained anti-Syrian government forces in Jordan and Turkey at facilities run with the cooperation of the Jordanian and Turkish governments.
The CIA facilitatied the flow of arms from Libya to Syria. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, the UK (United Kingdom) helped the CIA smuggle thousands of weapons and millions of ammunition rounds to Syrian opposition forces in 2012.
Operation Timber Sycamore, a classified weapons supply and training program run by the CIA, supplied assault rifles, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank guided missiles, night vision goggles, pickup trucks, and other weapons.
In 2013, President Barack Obama provided secret authorization for the CIA to arm the Syrian opposition forces.
Hundreds of millions of dollars were pumped to dozens of militia groups fighting alongside Al Qaeda forces,and many of the U.S. supplied weapons ended up in the hands of the Al Nusra Front, a rebrand of Al Qaeda in Syria.
Following the Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat mold of fake “independent investigative journalism”, Walker never mentions “Al Qaeda” directly.
Walker’s article focuses almost exclusively on “open source” pictures and online statements published by “opposition group al-Bunyan al-Marsous”.
In fact, al-Bunyan al-Marsous is the latest mask of Al Qaeda terrorist forces operating in Syria.
AL QAEDA’S HIDDEN HAND
Al Qaeda has long sought to mask its hand in the Syrian conflict and build broader support for its terrorist cause. Despite claims of “setbacks” such as the rise of Islamic State (itself a rebrand of Al Qaeda in Iracq and Syria), Al Qaeda has gained tremendous ground in Syria.
Despite a purported attempt by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi of Islamic State to dominate the terrorist forces, Al Qaeda succeeded in building the largest terrorist force in its history.
In June 2016, Brett McGurk, the Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Al Nusrah Front “is now Al Qaeda[‘s] largest formal affiliate in history” and has “direct ties to Ayman al Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden’s successor.” US officials estimated that Al Nusrah’s ranks swelled to 10,000 or more fighters.
It was a Al Nusrah-led coalition that swept through the province of Idlib in early 2015 to give the terrorists their largest base of operations to this day. Al Qaeda’s leaders and allies hope to build an Islamic emirate in Idlib.
In July 2016, Al Nusrah rebranded a Jabhat Fath al-Sham (JFS). Its leader claimed to have disassociated from Al Qaeda in a move was designed to sow confusion in the media around the globe.
Then, in January 2017, Jabhat Fath al-Sham again changed its name and merged a few other groups to become Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), or the “Assembly for the Liberation of Syria.”
Al Qaeda in its guise as Hayat Tahrir al Sham has spearheaded several assaults against Syrian government forces.
In February 2017, Hayat Tahrir al Sham launched a complex raid on Syria’s military-intelligence service in the city of Homs, just 20 miles or so from Al Shayrat airfield, using its “inghimasi” squads of suicide bombers.
Hayat Tahrir al Sham suicide bombers drove vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) into key regime-controlled locations early in battle of Daraa.
THERE IS NO “MODERATE OPPOSITION” IN SYRIA
Al Qaeda as Hayat Tahrir al Sham further masks its identity by fighting as part of a “common military operations room” with terrorist groups operating under the Free Syrian Army (FSA) brand.
The FSA is a collection of loosely affiliated armed insurgents at this point and has no uniform, nationwide chain-of-command. Other insurgents fight under banners that make them ideologically closer to Hayat Tahrir al Sham (Al Qaeda) than to “the West”.
There is no reason to think that Al Qaeda as Hayat Tahrir al Sham can be separated from the rest of the Syrian “opposition” forces, which are fractious and (with few exceptions) have repeatedly refused to abandon the terrorists in Hayat Tahrir al Sham, even when they made their allegiance to Al Qaeda well-known.
Al Qaeda’s military offensive in Daraa, lavishly “chronicled” by Gregory Walker of Bellingcat on September 11th, just happened to occur at precisely that the United States was staging its Eager Lion war games right across the border in Jordan.
Note that the main CIA training facility for Syrian “opposition” forces is located at the Al-Zaatari camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, a mere 50 kilometers drive from Daraa.
First launched in 2011, the Eager Lion military exercises conducted by Jordan and the United States in May 2017 were the largest ever. About 7,400 troops from more than 20 nations took part. Participating countries included Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Greece, Poland, Pakistan, and Australia.
US and Jordanian officials said the maneuvers included border security, cyber-defence, and “command and control” exercises to bolster coordination in response to threats including “terrorism”.
“Joint efforts and coordination and the exchange of expertise … are needed at the time when the region is facing the threat of terrorism,” Jordanian Brigadier-General Khalid al-Sharaa, who headed the exercise, told reporters.
US Major-General Bill Hickman, deputy commanding officer for the American army in the region, said this year’s Eager Lion exercise – the seventh so far – was “the largest and most complex to date”.
Hickman said the highlight of the 2017 war games would be that “for the first time ever a global strike mission” conducted by “two US Air Force B-1B bomber aircraft” – a long-range multi-mission bomber.
Two years ago, the US announced its intent to increase overall US assistance to Jordan from $660m to $1bn annually for the 2015-2017 period.
Jordan is a key partner in the US-led coalition battle against ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq.
Yet the US and Jordan were conspicuously unconcerned about Al Qaeda forces fiercely battling only a few miles away in Daraa.
““Now that the scheming is clear, Facebook and Twitter say they are reviewing the 2016 race and studying how to defend against such meddling in the future…””
So the NY Times proposes something with no (or very thin) evidence and refers to that something in an editorial, and Facebook and Twitter use this to start censoring their users’ pages and posts…Intended all along? Tail wagging the dog? Smells very familiar. In fact, you can see this sort of thing all the time – the Bush II crowd were masters at this.
I agree, FB does not want run fun afoul of the deep state and her handmaidens as the bonanza is too big to forfeit for any reason but I do appreciate that FB does not want to become the culprit and be seen as the cause of Hillary’s failure in any way, so they make the right noises and the propagandists at the NY Times are thrown a bone to leave FB alone. The fake news element is so strong in this piece it should be taught as a case in point for how to destroy journalism and replace it with manufactured news.
The main purpose of the NYTIMES is to promote Israel which is a racist apartheid terrorist state unfortunately supported by our craven politicans.
I find RT much better reading and very funny when it pokes fun at our compromised government.
I think that those last few politically oriented , impressionable minds tuned out during the Sanders campaign. Preaching to the Choir is dangerous when nobody wants to hear it, let alone sing along anymore. The NY Times isn’t relevant any more. Their OpEd page is pig slop. It’s not worthy of nailing up to the Outhouse Wall just in case the old Sears Catalog finally gets used up entirely. On the positive side, if you do need the NY Times to wipe your butt in a pinch rest assured that they use soy based ink now and it probably won’t give you prostate cancer if you only use it once or twice.. So, maybe the Times can finally be of some use after all.
Jumped the shark. Jumped the couch. One of Hillary’s guys has also suggested that Bernie too conspired with the Russians.
As they make total fools of themselves, this is what it looks like to auger in to their world of excuses.
Here’s an article talking about Adam Parkhomenko’s tweets, who’s still on Hillary’s payroll.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/09/top-hillary-clinton-advisor-suggests-bernie-sanders-colluded-russia-primary/
All I can say is these sore Hillary losers are losing even more credibility with these Bernie allegations (there’s that word), and next these Hillary cranks will claim Putin influenced all 538 Electoral votes. Hillary you want to know ‘What Happened’? You loss. You fixed the primaries, and you lost the Democrates chance to retain the White House. You ran your campaign spouting the same nonsense voters were trying to escape, and you loss. Hillary, don’t take it personal, but nobody likes you. It’s not because your a woman, but it’s because you are disingenuous, and you lie. Sorry, but as the saying goes, cheaters never win.
We might note that there was much talk for a decade or so of the financial collapse of traditional news outlets, including the Times, under the pressures of competition from the Net.
The dominance of Net sources and Net culture has become far more obvious. With the cries of “fake news” as they get scooped and undercut over and over, the insistence of commercial media on self-awarded legitimacy has gotten shrill. And yet these large institutions that were collapsing a decade ago and more have in some form remained, despite their shrinking customer base and prestige.
One need not speculate: they have another source of money over and above traditional advertising and sales. One may speculate who that is and what service is sold, but the field of possibilities is limited:
* The party must have the money.
* The services must be something that the Times and similar are doing.
* The party must be at least somewhat happy with the services as rendered.
For whatever reason(s), the Times consistently published rot about the Sanders campaign, predicted Clinton as a clear winner, refused to acknowledge the content of the Clinton and Podesta and DNC emails, whether despite or because of its largely criminal nature–not just with respect to the
It would be way over-simple to imagine that the take-away here should be that “the press was in bed with the Clinton campaign” or somesuch, although a good deal of collusion did become quite clear, not just with respect to the child sex and trafficking issues that begged for further investigation, but especially for the campaign contributions from five foreign governments that might have been far more directly determining of policy.
It seems that what we have here is probably a group of businesses and related associations with particular political agenda, and that they exercise a sort of top-down control over the Times, possibly very directly, but quite likely rather because they are a source of both funds and news stories–of a certain type.
In 1989, Chomsky and Herman identified 5 filters for news: owners, advertisers, sources, vocal audience, and ideology. If there is little money from ads and the audience is leaving though not left, owners and advertisers are reduced as factors. What can potentially remain strong are sources. And, in some cases, sources may have a motive to advertise. We know that this has long gone on between the CIA and various post-colonial countries. I see no reason to imagine that this does not happen here, though that by no means needs eliminate other factors.
The traditional news media, including large broadcast and one-to-many print sources, are no longer reasonable or viable sources of accurate information; nor are they clear representatives of any really identifiable point of view.
How long has it been since The New York Slimes has had any credibility? I gave up on NYT when the Republicans branded it as a “liberal” newspaper. When was it liberal?
I got no less than 3 notifications from NYT on the fake facebook posts. I would like to get a look at just one of these posts that Scott is so sure is from Boris and Natasha. I know I posted my displeasure with HRC numerous times and I am not a useful idiot of the Kremlin.
Nicely done. Sadly, people will be quoting the NYT article for awhile to come, never mentioning its flaws, and counting on people not reading your critique of it or its flaws generally.
I’m convinced that the NYT and Washington Post are CIA controlled papers. Read at your own risk!
Every day I get an email from Amazon with the “most read” story from the Washington Post. The more I try to unsubscribe, the more junk emails I get. I’ve never bought anything on Amazon!
If that ever happens to me I’ll redouble my efforts to reduce my purchases from them.
When a crime is committed — a lower-level, not national stakes crime such as mass murder — someone gets arrested, and the media dutifully says that person “allegedly” committed the crime, or is the “alleged” criminal. A recent example is the white-supremacist in Charlottesville who deliberately smashed his car into a crowd of people, killing a young woman and injuring several other people. He was immediately caught and arrested in an event witnessed directly by scores of people. Yet the Washington Post, NYTimes and others always say that he “allegedly” drove his car into that crowd or similar constructions, always saying that he was the “alleged” driver. That’s the journalistically correct thing to do, because he hasn’t been convicted. Yet in all references, the NYTimes, Washington Post and virtually all other main-stream media refer to Russian interference as though it were real and proved — never ever saying “alleged Russian interference”.
see, even you proved your own point.
“who deliberately smashed his car into a crowd of people”
we don’t even know if this is the case but has been reported as fact from the beginning.
the only reason i question this is the lack of coverage regarding the driver. there were reports the first day about him. they were recycled endlessly on the web for only a couple of days. nothing since as far as i can see. this does not fit the pattern of “hate crime perpetrators”. the pattern is to keep profiles of the “hater” in the news every few days, then every few weeks. reports of how this person would be navigating the justice system, quotes from lawyers involved, or even lawyer pundits on tv.
“A recent example is the white-supremacist in Charlottesville” even this is a weaponized term. i found this out reading about the events at ruby ridge in the 90’s. randy weaver has stated on numerous occasions that he was never a white supremacist and was only flirting with the ideas of white nationalism before the events ending with the death of his son and wife. i will offer that after the media constantly labelled him a white supremacist, it did seem to stop after his trial ended.
NY Times like its partner the WaPost are producers of Big Lies that then get recycled as fact. During the election campaign, millions of voters denounced HRC for the extremely evil person she is–voters, not Russian trolls–with many accurately concluding Trump was the lesser evil–before most of the leaks, which just provided more evidence justifying that conclusion.
These very intelligent people, also dont realize that propaganda is the lifeblood of the State and the primary instrument in which we are governed. The stakes are very high for the State and it acts accordingly.
I have found that until someone is personally impacted by the propoganda, they won’t change their views no matter how much information they are given, i.e. the Vietnam war is not a problem until one received their draft card. This is because the lies focus on affirming values like patriotism, love for your neighbor, belonging, not facts which are less relevant. The problem with very smart people is that they never believe they can be fooled; they don’t realize how sophisticated the propoganda is here.
i agree with you 1000% percent….
“The problem with very smart people is that they never believe they can be fooled; they don’t realize how sophisticated the propoganda is here.”
i have watched with amazement for years at this phenomenon. when trying to explain this to my “smart” friends, i use this analogy.
“independent films are like nascar for smart people”. i find this makes them think a bit more than telling them outright how they tend to eagerly eat up propaganda.
there is a great movie called “deprogrammed”. it’s a documentary about the man who almost single handedly came up with the process of how to deprogram people who had been in cults in the 1970’s. he was not a highly educated man himself. the part of the film that jumped out at me was when he stated that the people hardest to deprogram were well educated people of higher means.
Yes it has and is now officially the tool of the Democratic Party that supports Hillary Clinton!!
“One of Weisburd’s “Kremlin trolls” turned out to be 66-year-old Marilyn Justice who lives in Nova Scotia…” A Canadian posing as a citizen of the United States? Now, that really must be a first.
How would it be if nobody even called them out on this?
Parry usefully reminds us at one point in the above article of the use of a new hypothesis to deflect critical scrutiny from a more basic, original one – in this case, the supposed Russian hack of the DNC, now almost always reported as a flat fact. This has been a basic pattern in media reports for many months. “We know that Russia hacked the DNC and provided the e-mails to Wikileaks, so the issue we’re investigating is only whether the Trump campaign actually colluded with Russia’s covert influence efforts or not” – or words to that effect. I wonder if the new level of extremism in the use of this principle in stories like this one in the NYT reflect the new challenges to the Russian hack thesis – specifically the forensic evidence that Guccifer 2.0 was deliberate disinformation to falsely implicate Russia in the DNC leaks Wikileaks was about to release, as well as the info that Sy Hersh revealed about Seth Rich having indeed been in contact with Wikileaks and offering them information, citing an internal FBI report. This new evidence raises the stakes, and so would explain the need to put out claims of an increasingly insane character as a diversion.
The NYT has not gone mad – they have gone corrupt. The reporters read from the approved script, or are fired and replaced. And their propaganda is indeed effective: I think half the people I know are completely convinced that Putin hacked the 2016 US election.
I would suggest that one problem is the consolidation of the mainstream press into just six or so major entities (thank you Bill Clinton), many of which have other interests. I would propose that undoing Bill Clinton’s legacy, and perhaps going further by preventing a news agency from being owned by a corporation with other interests (think Amazon, which among other things has a half-billion dollar contract with the CIA, owning the Washington Post), might go a long way to clean this up.
The short answer is yes. As The Establishment struggles to hold on to the old paradigm, in the face of the new emerging paradigm, they grow increasingly insane. The changing of the ZeitGeists is never easy for the Old Ways.
Yes, I think this is it. No matter how much anti-Trump, pro-Clinton “support” they give her popularity remains worse than his … and single-payer and the Bernie-contingent are — in fact — making gains … and even in such perilous times, the “resistance” (like BLM) appears largely clawless and poorly organized … “apres moi, le deluge, but first, dinner reservations …”
I’m quite confident that all will be well. Much is said about the end of the World, but I just see the playing out of the end of The Old Ways, being replaced by New Ways. I’m sure Neanderthals also went through this, as the last tens-of-thousands laid about lethargically, lamenting the end of The Old Ways 30 or 40 thousand years ago, as The Ice Age familiarities were coming to an end (without help of AGW, just good, old-fashioned, changes in Cosmic Energies and the Sun’s active response to this increase in Energy).
Yes, the issue is their diminish power to control the narrative … they’re like your parents or some teacher who cannot comprehend that in fact you are grown up and can (and will) think for yourself.
I was curious if Clinton’s new book would even mention the “server scandal” and / or issues wrt to pay to play at the State Department … both of which had much more impact in strengthening the “crooked Hillary” meme …
I think her biggest mistake (after installing that server with the intent of avoiding regulation-mandated transparency) was in not immediately “fessing up”, taking full responsibility and getting the matter settled
I never considered it likely that there would be anything other than exoneration, but her responsibility deflecting, investigation prolonging foot dragging convinced me she — most importantly — had learned NOTHING, and certainly not humility. See also more seriously (and thus off-limits in these neoliberal times) pay-to-play … which received from Clinton a truly damning silence … worthy of the original House of Cards …
I’m hopeful some investigative reporter will give us a status report on “The Clinton Foundation” … last seen folding tents in anticipation of Clinton’s election victory. I think the “lack of update” speaks volumes wrt to the collusion between the media and the “powerful” be they ever so humbles, be they ever so corrupt.
Sirota’s a must read these days — that corruption we suspected was seeding like dry rot under neoliberalism — voila — is front and center — much like ongoing out of control police brutality after 3 years of Black Lives Matter “consciousness raising” — something is very rotten in Denmark, Hamlet’s got nothing on the USA 2017…
@ ” the Bernie-contingent are — in fact — making gains …”
I’m not seeing that, at least in terms of change actually achieved. James Petras’ view of Bernie still rings true to me. http://www.globalresearch.ca/democratic-party-primaries-progressives-as-political-contraceptives/5490884
And see my missive on lesser evilism. https://relativelyfreepress.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-lesser-of-two-evils-is-still-evil.html
Single payer is — unpredictably (against all odds) — gaining tangible support from up-and-coming Democrats … “Our Revolution” (Sanders) appears to be plodding along, while the DNC’s “the Resistance” is flailing … still trying to create an identity.
I’m comfortable with people labeling Sanders is a sheepdog, placeholder, “faux opposition” …
His “popularity” scores rise above the “quagmire” .. Zizek warned that as the usual political fixes fail (see Clinton’s “chicken soup for the soul” status quo promise) … politicians will nonetheless cling to the rituals of very-publicly tweaking same … recognizable being preferable to new, innovative much less “revolutionary” …
He has a new video on how populism actually can be used to reinforce the status quo by simplifying conflicts to a binary … white hats v. black hats — anti-fa versus neo-nazis. … I’ll link in next post to avoid “moderation”
I think it’s this one ….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbmvCBFUsZ0&t=689s
which — for me — linked the deliberate grounding of the Clinton campaign on unapologetic polarization …. “us” good guys versus “the despicables” …
I’m (parenthetically) concerned that the antifa in fact represent and pander to ever-popular “all-American” vigilantism … that faux-crisis created when it is claimed that “somebody gotta do something” even if it’s illegal and violence … because … it’s the Janus face of White (“we’re losing”) Supremacy
Nuf.
Response to Susan Sunflower (below) : Many thanks for your succinct summation of the Antifa movement.
Today on Counterpunch there’s a lengthy apologia for Antifa. The justifications are pretty scary !
(to me at least).
Regarding the Clinton us v them approach, that has been their modus operandi at least since MonicaGate
and reflects the paranoia lurking in Hillary’s mind. (At that time, it was ‘the vast right-wing conspiracy’).
And remember, she puts ALL of us in ‘baskets’ ! Not just the ‘deplorables’. Lovely, I always wanted to be a
basket case.
There is so much pageantry involved in the news … the “frenzy” over the statues is a good example, echoing the demands for the resignation of college presidents a few years ago … I’m all for removing the statues, I think they send very bad and conflicting messages to young people, particularly children (even if, compared to the rest of the world, modern America’s lack of public “art” and other “intellectual” or historical infrastructure is stark).
All these “symbolic” victories … and the Justice Department has decided not to bring charges against the (locally acquited) Freddie Gray murderers. … and the pile of dead bodies and lists of unindicted police officers quietly grows … and no actual “articulated demands” are made, around which political action “might” coalesce.
We regularly still “celebrate” the Civil Rights movement, now 50 years after it’s more than 50-years-too-late victory. We are so busy trying not to lose the ACA, we forget that it “succeeded” (such as it is) at a time when more and more employers were dropping healthcare coverage and in many places (particularly poor uninsured areas) healthcare itself was facing bankruptcy and closures … (cough, it was also a bailout) … but look shiny gay marriage, and non-gendered bathroom accomodations !!! oh, and from what I’ve gathered there’s likely to be a revolting and regressive “loss” wrt to the baker who would like to refuse to make gay marriage themed wedding cakes…. how big the uproar will be other that crucial issue.
Besides RT and Sputnik, Global Research from Canada also offers hard data.
And how do we know who is behind FireEye?
“The New York Times. The Agency’s relationship with the Times was by far its most valuable among newspapers, according to CIA officials. From 1950 to 1966, about ten CIA employees were provided Times cover under arrangements approved by the newspaper’s late publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger. The cover arrangements were part of a general Times policy—set by Sulzberger—to provide assistance to the CIA whenever possible.” Source:http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php?t=1&cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjc18y&refsrc=email&iid=23334dcfea4043fb8707bb968f20237f&uid=19309349&nid=244+272699400
What I find so baffling is that the conspiracy theories about Russia get more and more stupid. No evidence has ever been shown for it, but the original story about “Russian hacking” at least made some sense. Secret services are probably among the organizations that are quite good at hacking, and Russia is among the countries that probably have quite large and sophisticated secret services, so if hacking played a role somewhere, it could be a conceivable hypothesis that Russian secret services might be involved until more is known.
Of course, the details do not really add up for the “Russian hacking” story. There is hardly anything for which very sophisticated hacking was required (e.g. something comparable to Stuxnet) – sending phishing mails with ready-made software is hardly very difficult, there are many indications (including statements from people close to Wikileaks) that it was a leak by an insider, and it is, of course, contradictory if it is claimed, on one hand, that the attacks were so sophisticated that a secret service of a large country must have been involved and, on the other hand, alleged Russian involvement is identified on the basis of alleged stupid mistakes these sophisticated agents made – setting up their system with the name of the founder of the KGB in the metadata, using Russian language settings, using a Russian mail provider (though with the domain of its English-language version) for the return address of their phishing mails… Still, the idea that Russian (like American and other) secret services might in principle be involved in cases of hacking is not in principle absurd.
But now, it becomes more absurd. At least $1.2 billion was spent on Hillary Clinton’s campaign and about $650 million on Donald Trump’s capaign. Now, we are supposed to think that Russia added $100’000 or $150’000 to all this money and that this had a significant influence?
Of course, again, there is no real evidence for an involvement of the Russian state. There are, of course, fake accounts, but people use fake account for many reasons. Some use Russian language settings – but the Russian secret service would hardly do so, and I suppose if they really wanted, they would not even have to use fake accounts, but would have some contacts in the US who look innocent. But that is not the main point here. Just this idea that many rich Americans spend millions of dollars on the campaigns of both sides, but somehow a hundred thousand dollars makes a big difference is so absurd.
Also this idea that Russia was behind targeted social media messages – so, it is now supposed that Russians somehow know much better which messages are effective among different groups of US voters? Certainly, there are Russian spies who have studied the US quite well, but usually, they probably rather study people who are influential in government, the military or the US secret services, not normal US voters. Of course, they might have tried to hire American campaign specialists, but why should they do so when interest groups in the US both in favor of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump already throw large amounts of money at such specialists in order to improve their tailor-made campaigns?
What this idea that within the vast sea of campaign activities and campaign money before the US election a minute part was allegedly directed by Russia is probably meant to say is that this minute part (which is not even proven) somehow makes the whole campaign illegitimate (and that is, of course, what some of those who don’t like the outcome of the elections want). But when we think about it a bit more, this idea rather says that Americans are extremely stupid and Russians vastly superior. We are supposed to think that Americans spent about 2 billion on the whole on the election campaign, but Russians have such a vastly superior view of the mind of American voters that $100’000 or $150’000 of strategically placed campaign money has a noticeable effect. So, we should think that Russians are intellectually so vastly superior that they understand the minds of American voters so much better than US specialists that they can place their money so well in strategically ideal campaign that it has an effect that is hundreds or thousands of time greater than US campaign money?
Perfect answer!
It’s a shame that articles have to be published like this over and over again. To try to train someone to spot fake news… Very difficult but we have to keep trying. Keep up the good work!
Robert missed a further problem with the NYT article. The Facebook claim of Russian Facebook accounts was debunked within scant hours after its publication by Moon of Alabama. The Facebook claim was apparently a very poorly done attempt to divert media attention from a new report about fraudulent Facebook advertising claims. http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/09/facebook-claims-russia-nonsense-to-divert-from-its-fraudulent-ad-sales.html
The laughable Facebook statement includes more than enough information about how shoddily its study was done to make it inadmissible evidence in any court of law. https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/09/information-operations-update/ (There’s no “there” there.)
Here is an excellent video showing how Robert Parry has been as “mad”, “sloppy”, or “dishonest” as any journalist as any from the New York Times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3caIG0SMHXE
Chuck Jines,…Yes, it is an EXCELLENT video and I would recommend everyone to watch it. But No, Robert Parry has NOT “been as “mad”, “sloppy”, or “dishonest” as any journalist as any from the New York Times.” He simply made a serious mistake that could easily have been made at that time because on the surface the prospect of an “inside job” appeared preposterous. Nevertheless, the evidence of David Ray Griffin remains convincing. Although it’s not hard to believe that Dick Cheney is evil enough to have brought down Bldg. 7( which evidently contained compromising evidence of his collusion with the oil industry to extort taxpayers), I tend to believe the Bush administration’s tight relations with Saudi Arabia unwittingly allowed Al Qaeda operatives to mine the buildings with explosives. Anyway, it’s a scenario that I suspect Parry has grown to regret dismissing outright.
Very nice job Bob. Glad someone called this out for its dubious sourcing. Which did not prevent it from being picked up in the blogosphere, e.g. TPM.
$100,000 is nothing to what Hillary spent. 1.2 Billion and she still lost.
Great read. Thank you.
I was an avid, loyal reader of the New York Times. No longer.
The paper is less than a former shadow of itself.
Boycotting the NYT’s.
Really, the state of US journalism is quite bad.
I watch RT and read Sputnik I find them OK, it’s just news from their point of view nothing special really. They handle all the Russia gate stories with a bit of humor which seems to deflect some of it. But for real and really good journalism and a presentation of divergent views CGTN is the best hands down.
Try spending some time watching CGTN panel and discussion programs they bring on people with views hostile to China regularly, including hard line Neoliberal and Indian (during the recent border dispute they had Indian spokespeople on daily arguing India’s position) guests.
Everything is upside down these days.
About twenty years ago, I subscribed to the NYT because I thought their goal was to report the truth to their readers. It took me about a year to figure out that they filtered all the news through a zionist prism that turned reality inside-out. If you relied on the NYT for your news, you would come away thinking that the Palestinians were persecuting zionists and not the other way around. So I cancelled my subscription and started seeking non-fake news elsewhere.
According to many accounts, Netanyahu has his panties in a big bunch over Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. support for ISIS terrorists. While proclaiming his undying support for zionism, Trump quietly pulled the rug out from under the zionist/neocon scheme to destroy Syria.
Is it possible that the players just got played? (The neocons and zionists were so confident that Madam “no-fly zone” was going to serve Assad’s head to them on a platter. Now it looks like they might get Bibi’s head on a platter instead. Is it any wonder that the propaganda mill at the NYT has gone into overdrive?)
About a year ago or less, I saw an article by a right wing professor which commenced with the taken for granted reality that Russia invaded Crimea, which I saw repeated in US articles hundreds of times. I tweeted him (he has a huge following), quoted him and asked him is he was ‘mad’. He immediately replied for all to see that I was an obvious Russian agent. Some of his more astute followers commented that by my accent (that made me laugh – an accent on Twitter) it was obvious that I was a drunken Irishman. At least they took the moment to discern my location. Even my own niece (American neo-liberal) retorted after a response to a family circulated email that she forgot to remove the family’s Kremlin agent from the circulation. This was, I presumed, tongue in cheek, but one repeats such nonsense often enough, even as satire, and minds change. It’s a very strange era to live in.
Don’t feel bad Terence, did you know I am Putin’s buddy? Does Putin know I am his buddy? Because of my disgust with Russia-Gate I’m not only Putin’s buddy, but I’m a Trump supporter too. We live in a strange age, where if I wish to be trolled all I need to do is write something bad about Hillary, or write something leaning to Trump’s defense of these Russian involvement allegations, and bingo I’m a Putin apologist or I’m a Donald Trump racist.
Civility has left the building. If it isn’t mean spirited, then it’s not a political debate. No one listens to my laundry list of Trump complaints I have, but these critics are sure to jump my bones if I show any doubt to Russian interference in our American voter schemes. The one thing I do know, is most often I’m the only one at the table who has read almost all of Vladimir Putin’s speeches for over the last two years, but dare I say it for I will be accused of being a communist. Yeah, my critics still believe Russia is the USSR, and I’m going to hell, because I support the homophobic Russians.
Stay with us Terence, we’re all crazy, so please join us lunatics and we will all have some fun talking nonsense. Joe
Perhaps this is a sign of their desperation, is all they have is discredited Hillary telling tales of a discredited Russian hacking story 6 months after a full court press spin. It took years after 9/11 to even question the Bush/Chenney/Rumsfeild axis of evil in polite company.
Wonderful article Robert! As someone pointed out, this is the funding season folks. If you want to have this web site and Robert able to continue with his stellar job, then donate! This article is a good example why. Do we really want to be left with the likes of the NYT and the Wash. Post as our source for news? Other smaller papers mostly take their cues from these two papers. The group think is getting ever more powerful.
Ps what is Ben menashi’s situation?
Why do you ask?
Excellent critique of the NY Times and US journalism in general. Thank you!
Continuous great and valuable work Bob Small check in mail.
“Has the NYT Gone Collectively Mad?
Darn tootin’ it has. I use a facebook alias, just to streamline posting across venues. Otherwise I have no use for facebook. What’s my birth date, it asks? Sure, why not? Would you like my SSN and bank accounts too? Oh, used inaccurate info to criticize a coup d’etat in Ukraine or supporting sadistic salafists in Syria? Guess you’re on Putin’s payroll, eh?
We’ve descended into a true Orwellian nightmare of the human condition. Never in my wildest dreams did I think such madness possible in America.
Not many comments here about Facebook; folks, you need to understand that Zuckerberg and his fellows are whores. Put your money down and you get to push your propaganca; put enough money down and Facebook staff will even help you, including how to target specific audiences. The idea of ‘social media’ as the unbiased one to one, one to many and many to one connection is a dangerous fallacy. The ‘tech revolution’ is simply the latest move in the war on the independence and freedom of the human mind.
It has not gone “collectively mad.”
It seems to be collectively pushing a particular war-mongering agenda to totally discredit Putin.
This is working, also with very intelligent, educated people.
For example, this weekend I was the guest of such a person, in Cambridge, Mass., who mused at length at the “mistake” Putin had made by going this route to influence the American election, and thereby alienating the very people who might have been his allies within the government. (!!) .
I said that this Russia-gate business was balderdash, cooked up by Trump enemies or who knows what part of the Deep State, to tie Trump’s hands and make it impossible to reduce tensions with Russia.
She agreed with the hand-tying part, but didn’t “get” that this was the point, and it was not Putin’s doing, but the doing of red-blooded Yanks here at home.
She pointed with her index finger at exactly this headline, wordless refuting what I had just said. As if to say, but chapter and verse are right here. I hadn’t read the story but could surmise about what it said, and its reliability. I said nothing, because I was her guest. Pretty upsetting though. So many educated Americans and others get their news from the NYT, and they have learned NOTHING from the WMD lies. It is beyond me how they can still trust the Times at all in any matters of national politics or policy.
They are not educated, they’re indoctrinated.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the United States’ principal spy organization, reportedly invested in FireEye and numerous other companies involved in social media data mining and surveillance technologies.
In February 1999, the CIA chartered the first government-sponsored venture capital firm, dubbed In-Q-Tel (IQT).
In-Q-Tel uses CIA-supplied funds to make strategic investments in startup companies developing technologies that are of interest to the CIA.
The cybersecurity firm FireEye was founded in 2004 with venture capital provided by Sequoia Capital. Subsequent funding rounds included top investors including Goldman Sachs and In-Q-Tel (IQT).
In March 2014, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that FireEye provided services to the CIA. FireEye subsequently claimed that it “never provided unique intelligence to any government agencies”.
In 2014, FireEye released a report focused on a “threat group” it refers to as APT28 that allegedly targeted privileged information that would likely “benefit” the Russian government.
In-Q-Tel often invests in companies with international operations, vicariously and unnecessarily exposing the CIA and larger U.S. government to foreign entanglements.
In July 2017, FireEye admitted that one of its researchers based in Israel had several of his online accounts hacked by unknown parties. The firm quickly claimed that the breach did not appear to involve any company systems.
In addition to FireEye https://www.sequoiacap.com/company-story/fireeye-story/ , Sequoia Capital has invested in over 250 companies including such as Google, which also was initially funded by the CIA’s In-Q-Tel. Google has been an enthusiastic promoter of the evidence-free “Russian hackers” conspiracy meme.
In June 2017, Sequoia Capital teamed up with Mossad, the national intelligence agency of Israel. to launch a new technological innovation fund. The project’s stated aim is to take advantage of “Israel’s start-up atmosphere” to ensure the Mossad and IDF retain technological superiority.
Sequoia Capital’s new fund’s website describes it as seeking to “strengthen both start-up companies and the Mossad’s knowledge base”. The funds executives issued a call for proposals in the technology areas of encryption, big data, text analysis.
In the realm of US cyber security, there is growing “foreign entanglement” between CIA seed-funded technology companies and Israel, potentially giving the Israelis access to US government and corporate data.
This certainly represents a much greater national security concern than the fictitious “Russian hackers” that inhabit the feverish imaginary of Washington and the US media.
Lede? should the word not be “lead?”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lede
the great adam curry of no agenda did the math that mr. parry or mr. shane did not.
turns out, according to his reading of the fees associated with this advertising that appears on facebook that it was for 6000 ad views.
out of a population of 300 million.
let that sink in. no wonder the times neglected to report this.
I suppose I must once again object to the title of an essay. What the NYT is doing is quite deliberated and cold-blooded and the outfit is very probably following a script.
Every now and then the RT site enjoys dragging out a 2014 confrontation between the AP’s Matt Lee and a blond bimbo spokeswoman at the State Department.
“State Dept spokeswoman accuses AP’s Lee of ‘buying into Russian propaganda’”
Merely questioning the Official Story caused the woman to accuse Lee of being a stupid Russian puppet.
h**ps://www.rt.com/usa/185632-lee-ap-propaganda-harf/
What was the background of spokeswoman Marie Elizabeth Harf?
She started out at the CIA, then on to the State Department, and is now “a political commentator for the Fox News Channel.”
What a fine career path. Like the author at the NYT, this woman can sniff out the way the wind is blowing.
I’m scared.
“…a key point will be declared as flat fact when it is unproven or a point in serious dispute – and it then becomes the foundation for other claims, building a story like a high-rise constructed on sand.” Much of the online media marketed to liberals have maintained the same strategy. When readers dispute any of the allegations, pointing to contradictory evidence, etc., they are dismissed as “Russian bots.”
substitue some other subject matter for the “russian collusion” canard and see what happens in relation to the above paragraph…..
Could this be where Trump remembers hearing about Palestinians celebrating the attack on the WTC which was not given any credence by the MSM?
They were really celebrating the release of some Palestinian prisoners from Zionist jails.
Another great article by Mr. Parry. We do truly live in Orwellian times. What is seldom mentioned is that the NDAA of 2012 made it legal for the government to use propaganda on the American public. They prefer to call it Stratcom.
http://www.businessinsider.com/ndaa-legalizes-propaganda-2012-5
I know I’m pretty much a “Heinz ’57” American, but I don’t think I’m even part Russian. However, by this NYT article’s definition, I must be a Russian troll. Then of course by Shane’s definition, so are about 98 pct. of the commenters on this site. Onward comrades!
If I’ve got any Russian ancestors they must be a LONG ways back. Perhaps somebody has set up a secret bank account for me in Switzerland for the negative things I’ve said about Queen Hillary. It’s a darned shame nobody notified me of any such arrangement – if in fact it exists.
Now what would be the exchange rate for rubles to dollars…….
Hey Skip Rachel was on that ‘Russian trolling thing’ about a week ago. I’ll admit sometimes I watch about 20 minutes of Russiaphobe Rachel, just to remind myself of how screwed up our media hopelessly is, and then I come here. One persons ‘troll’ is another comment posters ‘advocate’, or so it goes.
I found a site where they are fighting against trolls. I’m not for passing any more laws, we have too many laws already, but here is a site you might find interest in, if you have had it up to your eyeballs with trolls.
http://anti-troll.org
My problem with trolling is how should we respond to diverse opinion? I mean we all can’t think alike, can we? So where is the line drawn? I know harassing isn’t acceptable in a debate, nor is making up facts, but again when is it okay to be different? I just try, like all hell, to keep it polite. I’m not always right, and I’m certainly not the smartest kid in this class, so whether trolling or strolling all I can say, is keep it cool.
Okay Skip down the road, later. Joe
Don’t be so modest, Joe…you’re a paragon of civility and a cornucopia of wisdom! By the way, I very much enjoyed your Croesus anecdote in a comment on a previous article. Keep up with the historical references!
Well thank you BobH. I will carry your words with me, and remember what you said, as my self esteem weakens when I do battle with the worlds critics, or are they trolls?
I’m glad you enjoyed the clip mentioning Croesus. I particularly liked how that excerpt pointed to how the U.S. arrogantly ignores the rules and laws of the same institutions that the U.S. created, or had played a part in the institutions formation. Sadly this illustrates how bad the mindset in Washington has devolved into a mass of paid off legislators who jump to their special interest benefactors command, and the world suffers all the more for it.
Thanks again BobH, a compliment coming from you is well appreciated. Joe
Hi Joe-
I guess I’m a babe in the woods. I had no idea that trolls could be capable of real- life stalking. I’ve never done “facebook”, and this site is pretty much the extent of my online commenting. I have no problem with diverse opinion either, but I do have a problem with trolls like Michael Kenny, who spout the same MSM BS that has just been successfully refuted by the article, and then refuse to engage at all with their fellow commenters. In his case, it is either extreme arrogance, or he is being paid to do just what he does. And as always, thanks for your advice on civility. I know I have a ways to go.
I’m not a Facebook person either. I’m like you, I post comments here, and sometimes on occasion at another couple of sites, but almost exclusively here is where I vent my opinions. Yeah I’m not sure what motivates people like Michael Kenny, but he is our resident troll, or so it seems. Also you are a gentleman with your style of approach when commenting, so no excuses are necessary. As always good to correspond with you Skip. Joe
The NY Times is CIA swill in its rawest form. It does however have value, for lining the bottom of parrot cages and puppy dog kennels.
It is clear that this “Melvin Redick” is in reality actor Vin Diesel who starred as the popular hero Richard B. Riddick.. You can bet that a sexist macho man like that would panic at the prospect of a strong woman being elected President.
I refuse to read either the New York Times or the Washington Post these days, as the level of propaganda gives me hives. Did Mr. Shane’s article happen to reference the (at least) cool million David Brock got from the Clinton campaign to hire people to go on social media (with fake accounts, if need be) to post PRO-Hillary stuff? Because so far, that small gem of fact seems to be missing from the coverage of this “bombshell” I’ve seen so far.
Great article. The group-think is scary. There is little questionning by segments of the public on conjured up NYT stories like these. And no, the Russians didn’t pay me to write this.
If they’re not going to pay you could you kindly pass my name onto them I could a little cash now again;)
I get accused of that a lot in lame stream media comments.
satire
What part of Russian interference and Trump collusion is unsupported?
Please provide the links that show proof of Russian interfearance. Spelled wrong for a reason and fun
jo6pac…
My own misspellings are due to sloth and my own “rushing”
(pun intended) stupidity.
I have been intrigued by a subscription to RT and perhaps
SANA (Syria) as well. I use a shared computer and in
our age of suspicion still worry about what might be found…
I remember all-too-well former “ages of suspicion” when
some left their jobs, my Dad deserted Washington, DC but
he survived,,,until his death!).
Donate to consortium! I cannot. I have only $9.81 in
my bank account. Next year….
—–Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
All of it.
All of it. To date, not a single shred of hard evidence has been presented to the public in support of the contention. Instead, the corporate media has hammered the subject, basing their content solely on reports from the ever-popular “source close to the investigation” or whatever, on what seems like an hourly basis to the point those inclined to want to believe Hillary-as-victim now accept as proven what hasn’t been.
Absence of evidence. For those who are more well-informed about both Putin and contemporary Russia, notions about some sort of Putin/Trump “collusion” defy all logic. Just how chummy are Trump and Putin? Shortly after Trump took office, we saw the alarming build-up of US/NATO troops near the Russian border. (This came as no surprise to Putin.) The international community sees this as a potential US (Trump) provocation of war against Russia (Putin) — not a gesture of friendship. Now add in the recent (Trump) sanctions on Russia, viewed by the world as economic warfare — not an indication of Putin/Trump partnership.
What is really weird is that last week, the media collectively agreed to rerun the allegations that were first launched in January, and were subsequently proved false.
And what are the facts that support your statement?
Here are facts, the documented facts of the ziocons’ criminals projects against the Middle East and the ziocons’ disloyalty to the interests of the US citizenry at large: http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=neoconinfluence&startpos=0#amid1982perlefeith
Why don’t we go to the source?
Wow, just got to the 1970s. This is a great resource.
For those who didn’t click through, History Commons presents voluminous, heavily hyperlinked summaries of events linked to source materials in timeline format. It’s an invaluable research resource for the topics they cover. To see what topics are covered click the “Timelines” tab in the site navigation bar. Example: 7194 items in the Complete 9/11 Timeline. You can also click on hyperlinked names and other topics as you browse, which displays everything they’ve got on those names or topics, again in timeline form. There’s a phenomenal amount of work that’s been put into that site. Those folks are deserving of your donations.
98% of successful prosecutions rely solely on circumstantial evidence?
If that is true, it is very scary.
Because the evidence codes, criminal codes, and procedural rules were written by the government to favor the government and are interpreted in a pro government manner during trial and on appeal by government employees [judges.] “Coutrooms are places were the ending is written beforehand and everything that takes place is mere vaudeville.” Charles Bukowski
“Questions should be asked that are being censored here at CN.”
I don’t understand what you are saying there.
Can you please elaborate?
Roy, if you’re speaking of the Obama White House’s “intelligence community assessment” on alleged Russian efforts to hack the U.S. election, the only evidence it offers is that of motive and opportunity, which falls well short of what we lawyers would be allowed to use in court without more. Example, all my adult life I have had motive and opportunity to rob banks, but I never have and no one has ever accused me of it. I suggest you read the report yourself rather than just repeating what you’ve heard someone else say. It’s woefully short: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
Since your name is the designation for a rainbow, I would hope to could share some light, even refracted, on what you may think is a common “censoring here at CN”
To roygbiv that comment was a made.
Note to self, don’t type on the phone if at all possible. Too many typos, oops.
Roy G Biv is a zionist troll.
When did you quit beating your wife?
“golden” is a zionist troll.
The answer to the question, “Has the NYT Gone Collectively Mad?”, is unequivocally, “Yes”. Scott Shane, the editors, the whole bunch of them. Ditto their main competitor, the Washington Post.
We have a great opportunity to study propaganda and how it achieves groupthink. Its been going on for decades. As far as I can see, only individuals can try to break out of the miasma and think for themselves. It no longer seems possible for the general population. So, think for yourselves, learn how to think critically, learn about the history and methods of propaganda.
Generally, since I have limited time, I don’t even bother with MSM at all nowadays. I look at the headlines in Google News so I can keep up with the gist of what they are purveying, but the content is completely predictable, so i don’t go further. I don’t have TV, but I look at what is on offer at the gym (half a dozen channels), get the gist in a few seconds, then look aside and start designing lightweight bridges in my mind. A much better use of my time!
When I get back, I look at this site, Naked Capitalism, Global Research, RT and a few others to get a sense of what is really happening and what is really important in the rest of the world, plus the English editions of media in particular countries I’m interested in (for example, Kenya and Venezuela, at this moment).
Then I go for a walk in the beautiful countryside nearby…
If you put via google or Bing a search request for Global Research you can’t even find a site reference. Apparently, Google’s diabolical coding schemes have been already implemented to prevent this non-paid Russian troll from finding a direct reference to what he has been missing in his non-American attacks at his homeland. Shame on me!
I’ve noticed this as well. It’s now very difficult to get a link to GR, thanks to our internet friends. May be worth trying a different search engine.
@ “If you put via google or Bing a search request for Global Research you can’t even find a site reference. ”
Comes up as the first hit on Google for me. https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=global+research&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Yes, agreed. Damn the paper to the bird cage. Never buy it or read it. It is the devil’s spawn
What do you have against birds?
“Has the NYT Gone Collectively Mad?”, is unequivocally, “Yes”. Scott Shane, the editors, the whole bunch of them. Ditto their main competitor, the Washington Post.”
Actually, a much simpler explanation can be found in the pockets of Scott Shane and the editors. They work for money. Don’t expect honesty, decency, dignity from this ziocon scum. There is a reason they are called the presstitutes.
Not only mad, but diabolical.
I suggest also chekcing out the Vineyard of the Saker.
Interesting reports generally not to be found elsewhere.
Also, The Duran—Alexander Mercouris. One of my favorites.
Informationclearinghouse, Antiwar and Russia Insider are worth a look as well. All on the Washington Composts blacklists, so they must be OK.
Next time, before you go to a walk in the nearby countryside, I would suggest to add one more source to your daily (and sometimes ‘not daily) reading: Information ClearingHouse’s “ICH Newsletter” by going to http://informationclearinghouse.info and adding your email address so you can get the newsletter. This newsletter always includes R.Parry’s articles and others that are equally valuable to get the real news.
I have a friend that I shared a similar article with the other day. He’s a Harvard Law man I used to work with at the Public Defenders. He went on to Insurance Defense and just retired very wealthy and we lunch often. He’s got his and wants to hang on to it but he’s generally a lefty on most social issues. His reply to my email was ” Parry’s a conservative, check his twitter account”. I’m not sure but me thinks, objection, counsel failed to respond to the question asked. Most of my friends treat me the same when it comes to this site and I don’t really get it.
They like to read the NYT like I used to but they aren’t as offended or don’t believe this information to be any more accurate so their precious NYT’s hymen remains intact. I would hate to think I”m being fooled by another journalist but I”m getting frustrated. Anyone care to share why they choose to trust this site?
I stumbled on to it, have liked the content and found it to be consistent with what I consider good journalism and accurate reporting. Not sure what else really matters, but my friends still addicted to MSM aren’t biting. Without the obligatory ad hominem attack, what am I seeing that my friends aren’t? Please be nice, this is an honest inquiry. And I don’t find conservatives any more dishonest than liberals, I just don’t like them as much personally for whatever reason. I don’t call someone a liar because they disagree with me. And when you think about it, the sheer stretch of such a conspiracy to deceive would be enormous. What keeps us coming back here?
Hi Michael,
Whatever else may happen in your life, I strongly suggest you keep Consortium News on your radar for as long as you can.
For the past 32 years I read the NYTimes and the Wall Street Journal..daily.
After the absolutely catastrophic Iraq debacle they “lied us into”, not only are they now “suspect” newspapers in my mind (and with good reason)..I truly believe their owners should all be serving time in federal prison.
How pernicious is it to deceive hundreds of millions of Americans into murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent iraqi people who never attacked us…and never intended to ?….
Really….I mean does it get WORSE than that ?…..Does it ?
It is a supreme tragedy for our entire nation they are not all in federal prison for defrauding every one of us…. into war.
Robert Parry is one of the most authentic journalist around today.
if you care about “reality”,….if the facts mean anything to you….Consortium News is a must read….
In the past nine years I have been a reader, I have never found an article published at this site not worthy of my consideration.
“Consortium News ” is truly first rate ,blue ribbon journalism …..of the highest caliber…
if integrity matters to YOU, at all…..keep reading it.
it will not steer you wrong.
If I thought it would…… in any way ,shape or form, I would let you know.
” How pernicious is it to deceive hundreds of millions of Americans into murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent iraqi people who never attacked us…and never intended to ?….
Really….I mean does it get WORSE than that ?…..Does it ?”
Yes! Totally ignoring and sidelining those who couild see through the lies from the get-go, including very standard issue Americans such as me. Could see through Powell. Could see t hrough the drumbeat for war. Could see that all fo these folks, and Judith Miller and the NYT and etc. etc. were LYING. And we and 14 million people worldwide could not influence events at all. That is, IMO, even worse than the lying. Discrediting the truth-seers and the truth tellers.
And, please, send in a donation!
There is a poster which shows the effect of various drugs on people, before and after.
The first 3 show before and after shots, of people ravaged by heroin, cocaine, LSD.
The 4th shows the effect of the MSM.
The “before” shot is a group of normal people. The “after” shot is a flock of sheep.
Hi Mike — I used to read/subscribe to a print magazine that Parry published in the early/mid ’90s because it had some good criticism of the prevailing conservative views but from a relatively ‘moderate’ POV ( ie; no ‘proletariat unite’ or ‘workers unite’ type of vibes). I easily transitioned to this website. Like ‘alexander’ above, what cinched it for me regarding the credibility of Parry was the 2003 Irag War debacle. I read the articles published here regarding the questions about that episode during the run-up and I thave to admit I was slightly skeptical as to their importance at the time — I thought their importance might be exaggerated. But when virtually ALL of Parry’s articles/viewpoints were later grudgingly conceded by the major media — AFTER 100’s of thousands of Iraqis had died — I came to trust his judgement even more. If the MSM has no major problem shilling for the right-wing war-lovers and their war-crimes, why would I expect them to ever SINCERELY approach reporting from a humanistic perspective on other topics?
I recall when I first came across consortiumnews how I spent a weekend reading over every category of interest that was available on this site, and then I became a regular reader. I checked out the archives, and not only did I read the articles, I read the comment section, as well. I remember how I had wished I had discovered this site back when Bush did his Iraqi surge. The articles proved to be correct with the passage of time, and the comment posters were right on with their opinions, so much so that I was thrilled to find such thought provoking conversation to the point that I joined in on the discussion on many an essay. I suggest Michael you read some pass articles, and read the comment section, and then maybe you will discover what I did.
All of what I said should not over shadow any praise of Robert Parry’s genius at investigative reporting. Reading Robert Parry is always made easy, by Parry’s style of always linking his topic of interest to previous facts of whatever it is he is speaking too. In other words Parry keeps a disciplined focus on the ‘true’ narrative of the story at hand.
I also must mention Michael in this day and age of journalistic McCarthyism we should appreciate what we have here at consortiumnews while we still have it, and learn from this site what we may still be able to learn, while the police state clock ticks away.
Good luck Michael. Joe
Just go over to the archives. There you will find a chronicle of every news story that was buried by the main stream press over the last twenty years. Parry has published books and written so many news worthy stories that the main stream media failed to publish that upon looking over the span of his insightful coverage with investigative rigor that one cannot help but conclude that there is indeed a vast conspiracy to keep us all in the dark and filled with propaganda.
The coverage of the October Surprise which denied Carter his dreams to free the Hostages in Iran culminating in special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh’s book titled Firewall which corroborates Mr. Parry’s investigations into the Iranian arms deal. He ties this in with Iran Contra which was where he ran afoul of the group think in the main stream media. He was ostracized and formed Consortium News.
We keep coming back to it because we all recognize it collectively if not in every case is the unvarnished truth.
Investigative journalism in the main stream media is dead. The main stream media has become a ratings driven purveyor of titillating salacious distortion which in an obsequious way shields the machinations of the powerful establishment Washington insiders by concocting stories (like the Russian hacking of the recent election) to hide the true motivations it has to maximize profits truth be damned.
It is a very dangerous development and Mr. Parry is rightfully distraught over it. When journalistic standards fall by the wayside to enable a carnival sideshow to manipulate us all for the benefit of their parent corporations in order to maximize profits we have entered the age of corporate propaganda.dominating the news.
We know this to be true. The rise of opinion news stories which attempt to sway consumers of news to believe falsehoods based on assumptions and opinion rather than facts has become pervasive. Pundits on the right and left have given up the notion of honesty and moderation and have become prostitutes selling their spun stories to their target audience for the sole purpose of driving ratings.
This has real repercussions in the political sphere as well. The effect of media spin can be seen in election results and these effects are used by the main stream media to sell us the politicians who will benefit their bottom lines.
This is observable most clearly in Supreme Court nominees who are billed as conservative strict constructionists and social conservatives who support conservative social wedge issues which are the parsing tools used by conservatives to sway potential conservative voters more to the conservative side. Meanwhile, the other facets of the nominee’s ideals are ignored. What we end up with are justices who are friendly to business interests to the point of making decisions which benefit corporations and harm the general public. Deregulation, rollback of long standing reforms, elimination of laws which prevent undue corporate influence in elections, anti labor laws, pro discrimination laws, relaxed finance laws etc have become a hallmark of the recent Supreme Court.decisions.
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see what is right in front of your eyes but you do need to suspend belief in a main stream media which while repeatedly assuring you it is fair and balanced is the exact opposite of that.
Dear Micheal, I think the 1st sentence of your last paragraph says as clearly as anyone can why people like and trust this site. And if Parry is conservative, it would be because he is “conserving” a way of reporting that is at least 50years old, such as reporting on Mi lai (misspelled I’m sure) and the Pentagon papers. So, please, conserve away. The liberals sure ain’t worth shit, clintonated as they are.
I believe your friend’s reaction was due to the many pro Trump anti-real left comments that sometimes occur on this site after an article. I myself enjoy reading the pieces here but rarely come by simply because of the high level of far right anti-Semitics who post. I understand your friends concern all too much. I’ve always found their articles to be fair and well written. Not so much some of the comments. A few of the posters must have wandered in from Brietbart thinking they had found kindred spirits.
FYI I am anti-Zionist, anti-war and a socialist.
I read in this excellent source of information from this very writer that any headline ending withg a question mark can be usually summed up with a negative. This would seem to be one of the exceptions, things have really taken a turn for the absurd.
The NY Times was Hillary’s #1 cheerleader all last year. As a subscriber I couldn’t help but notice how biased they were, including ignoring Bernie Sanders as much as they could. So this latest propaganda comes as no surprise to me.
Bob,
Your point early on that very few Americans watch RT is well taken. Perhaps if they did their perspectives might change, despite the standard view that it is “just a propaganda organ” of the Kremlin’s. I mention this because in their Victory Day celebration May 9th this year, RT created a really wonderful aerial view of the hundreds of thousands somberly walking through Red Square with placards of photos of their grandfathers, who were part of the 27.5 M Soviet people (mostly Russian) lost in the years 1941-45. It is a little difficult to stage such a mass outpouring of respect (and grief) so that we can conclude it is probably a part of the genuine Russian soul on display here. Of course we need not be reminded that our President urged the NATO boycott of the 70th Anniversary in 2015 of this Great Patriotic War conclusion ending the threat of Hitler’s Fascism throughout Europe. It’s a pity we can’t bring ourselves to even say thank you. The RT piece is worth the watch (I think 15 min.) even if it is “propaganda”.
The 70th Anniversary parade was amazing to watch. Isolated Putin had the Presidents of China and India on either side, whose soldiers also marched in the parade. The ‘March of the Immortals’ (the people carrying pictures of relatives killed in WWII) was joined by Putin. He had some security of course, but was conversing with ordinary citizens around him. I’m sure American viewers would be stunned by that.
Or, in 2015 there was this footage of Muslims in Moscow celebrating Eid al-Fitr in front of the newly opened Grand Mosque. I don’t know how many thousands of worshippers are packed on those streets, but a lot. Just watching this is mind-blowing. It is unimaginable that such a thing could happen in New York, and it is not as if Russia has not suffered from Islamic extremists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfKq57aBqac
Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia are constantly destroying war memorials to Soviet soldiers who fell in WW2 and desecrating their graves. At the same time Latvia and Estonia hold large annual celebrations to honour people who fought for Hitler in the SS and committed atrocities against Jews and other people.
Russia liberated Auschwitz but was banned by Poland from attending ceremonies there.
From what I have learned, 27 + million dead humans from the Soviet Union in WW2. Soviets won the war in Europe. USA won in the Pacific, that’s another story.
Bastard Truman (lackey) and the beginning of where we are today started with our BETRAYAL of Russia and her fellow states (Soviet Union) fighting against fascism. All bankrolled by Wall Street.
Today in Ukraine humans are digging up mass grave sights of the slaughtered – probably most from WW2, Einsatzgruppen Nazi times. No doubt there are many from Stalin times. Looking for gold or maybe just to desecrate them. Baba Yar anyone. Or maybe it’s just another lie I’m being told which makes me lose whatever faith I never had left for humanity or news sources.
CN, MoonOfAlabama, Globalresearch.ca, ZeroHedge, are the only places I can find information about the current state of hell which I think might be true.
I fear that the world is preparing for Barbarossa 2.0.
If I were a believer, I would say God help Russia. And God help us all.
We now have UPA 2.0 OUN-B 2.0 in Ukraine.
I think Project Paperclip has been a success and Allen Dulles is smiling upon that which he has created.
Don’t you know that had it not been for European volunteers the Bolsheviks
would have taken the whole of Europe. Imagine the blood bath that would have been.
Germany never wanted war with the west. Babi yar was a lie. No mass graves were ever
found.
Germany not wanting war with the West is like saying that I don’t want to kill someone via DUI while I proceed to drink and then drive.
Germany was hell-bent on taking Russia’s oil so that it could then control everything. Yes, no interest in pulling in the West because Hitler was led to believe that the US (West?) wanted Russia stomped as well. Gee, didn’t we see a modern version of this very thing (Iraq and Iran war- both sides were egged on and armed by the US)?
The oligarchs who own the NYT are enemies of the American people who are pimping for a war with Russia. These people should be in prison for crimes against humanity. Because they are rich enough to own a newspaper does not give them the right to publish lies that may cost the lives of millions. These oligarchs are truly among the most evil people on Earth today.
There are 2,300 billionaires in the world. Just 8 of them own more than the bottom 50% of humanity, 3.6 billion people.
In the US, the top 0.1% own more than the bottom 90%, 300,000 more than 300 million.
About 6,000 of the super rich own and control the US. In the UK the figure is 5,000. In South America all the wealth and power is monopolised by 58 families.
Wealth and power are constantly being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. This is the classic monopoly situation described by Karl Marx 160 years ago of how capitalism destroys itself.
But if you belong to this class you can do whatever you like, commit whatever crimes you like, with complete impunity.
This will continue until capitalism finally destroys itself.
Yet it would be optimistic to predict that it will self-destruct. It will weaken itself with wars, recessions, and corruption, but it will retain strength in propaganda, surveillance, oppression, and the militant pseudo-patriotism of the deluded and the opportunists. I fear that its destruction will be one of the most costly revolutions in history.
How Americans of any description can fall for these stories shows the pitiful level of understanding, resistance to bulls..t, interest in real life and important issues with impact on us all in the allegedly “educated” population we are told actually read the NYT. There are two million subscribers, I am told! How can they continue to swallow the endless lies and innuendos? Have they no life? No intelligence ?(I mean brains, not information, by that word). The US MSM seem intent on misinforming the public and making life into a dangerous “reality show”, with all adversaries/enemies/evildoers like Russia ready to give their time and skills helping to make the USA look incompetent and foolish, which needs no help at all from outside.
After decades of believing it to be a great newspaper, I stopped reading the NYTimes after the Iraq WMD deception. It’s too bad it still has so much undeserved respect.
These days I actually read RT … it’s biased but much less than the NY Times.
All news is biased. Critical thinkers look for the biases to analyze them. But when it comes to the NYT one only has to look at the print to see that the fish wrap is prejudiced for war.
also read DW.DE and REUTERS.COM
The very worst is the BBC, because it has that added loathsome veneer of arrogance, that not even the NYT can match.
Steve, I do too and to my surprise I know several other couples who want to know WTF is going on who also read it, or connect to the tv shows. Our media tells us virtually nothing about what is happening in the rest of the world- it’s 24/7 gossip about Trump every day. RT at least gives a passing stab at what is happening – at least in Europe, not quite so much for Asia. I agree that although they are biased toward Russia, it is much less than our media, which leaves out any news that does not glorify the mother country.
Agreed. I too read RT and Sputnik News. They are well sourced, so that speeches or the transcripts of press conferences quoted in an an RT article or OpEd will be linked directly from the article. In contrast, if Putin or Lavrov deliver a speech, the NY Times will ignore it- or misreport it, sometimes egregiously, but will never link to the source text. And, as Bob has demonstrated so often, the Times frequently fabricates facts out of whole cloth, and then keeps repeating the fabrications, even after they have been discredited.
For foreign policy and domestic politics, it’s become a wretched tabloid, but if you want to survey the cultural scene of New York City, it’s not bad, though not nearly as good as it was 40 years ago.
Same here. I live in Europe. Used to read the NYT and the Post while in the States in the sixties. In Europe the MSM is not only biaised BUT SO leftist at least in France that there no use wasting time perusing it! I also rely on RT.
Freedom of the press is only for those who own one. I forget who said that.
Ditto that
Hello SteveK9. Me too.
They believe it because they never see or hear any opposing views from the MSM. They don’t know there are others ways to interpret events. For the most part, they don’t read Consortium News or other internet only outlets that put this stuff into context. And they are not political junkies. They are not going to search out alternative viewpoints. That’s the problem. There are enough people presenting a more balanced view to set the record straight, but their work never gets to where it has to in order to force a real debate among the mass of voters, not just those motivated enough to look for it.
Well put.
Alternative views are out there.
Of course, not all alternative views are the same.
But even alternative views from, say, the alt right have some perspectives or question stuff that needs to be questioned, even if the answers are not clear or even the “right” ones.
Well said,
What we need is a reason they are doing this. I mean there must be some incredibly urgent requirement to spend so much endless time endlessly creating grand fabrications and wild exaggerations hyping the stories about the election being hacked by the Russians.
“The Lady doth protest too much” from Shakespeare.
In this case it is the Old Grey Lady, the New York Times which protests too much.
You need to look at what they don’t report to see what they are trying to protect and what they do report to see what BS they are trying to divert your attention away to.
In this system, there are prime motivators just as like in a real crime. There is the money motive and the desire to steal as much as possible but not get caught.
I think a little research into two largely under reported Supreme Court decisions, Citizens United vs. FEC and McCutcheon vs FEC
Check out what the media company’s CEOs were saying about the primary season.
Is anyone talking about gerrymandering at the NYT?
The “liberal” target of the likes of Rush Limbaugh is more of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The reason is that Russia-gate is Israel-gate: the DNC was caught taking bribes from Israel to give them money and fight wars for them in the Mideast to steal more land and resources. So they must find a country to accuse of manipulating US elections to cover up their manipulation of US elections. The NYT is owned and operated by zionists primarily to promote the zionist agenda.
Exactly. The public needs to learn that the MSM is controlled by criminals, and so cannot be trusted. For that they need just such a concise story with clear players and motives.
And they need a link to solid and compelling evidence. A brief history with blacked out information, richly documented with reputable links for those who want to go deeper, is in
“War Profiteers and the Roots of the War on Terror”
http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com
There is a layer of the so-called “educated” population, which wants to believe they are the enlightened among us. They read the NYT, listen to NPR and watch PBS, thinking they are getting all the information they need to know. They are out of touch with the realities that the majority of the world faces and are really dangerous people.
I think they could be referred to as the despicable bourgeoisie.
Great comment. It’s the despicables vs. the deplorables!
Yeah–either way we lose!
Nancy, that is sooooo true. I had a nice old liberal fart offer me his NYT as he was leaving his table next to me at a very hip breakfast joint. His tweeds and ’50’s sports car cap spoke volumes. I said, not on your life–they lied us into Iraq. He looked at me like I had dog shit on my shoe and left. And these are what’s left of my beloved Hippy radicals. Sigh.
Good for you! These people need to be awakened from their stupor.
Those are israeli/zionist sayanim trolls tactics.
Exactly so.
“Facing the Russian challenge will involve complicated issues dealing with secret foreign efforts to undermine American free speech.”
Israel has been sabotaging America’s free speech on the topics of Israel and US foreign policy in the Middle East for decades. That’s why Americans are unaware of Israel’s true history, its crimes and atrocities, its domination of American politicians, and the American press. The NYT is Israel’s lead propaganda organ. Israeli control is unraveling, and they are getting more and more desparate.
e.g. “Senator Cantwell, are you listening?”
http://mondoweiss.net/2017/09/senator-cantwell-listening/
Yes, we should by all means hug Israel all the more harder for their involvement in the 1967 USS Liberty Attack, and we should certainly acknowledge our thanks for our having once employed Johnathan Pollard so as he could spy on us for dear old Israel. Now, go ask your next door neighbor if they had ever heard of either the USS Liberty or Johnathan Pollard, and then go ask yourself if our MSM is a responsible news information source that we can rely on.
What Senator Cantwell is doing, to me is against everything American freedom is said to be. Also, by making it illegal to boycott Israel what other precedents may come of this censorship enforcement? Talk about slippery slopes.
Shouldn’t the Dancing Israelis (seeing as we just passed through another anniversary) also be noted?
Yes, and you just did, thanks.
Yes, the zionist NYT has found that an old-fashioned format and careful ignorance engineering fool millions who have no way to evaluate sources, and just one or a few sources. Once more Mr. Parry provides an essential counterpoint to the mass media propaganda.
Those who would like to petition the NYT to make Robert Parry their senior editor may do so here:
https://www.change.org/p/new-york-times-bring-a-new-editor-to-the-new-york-times?recruiter=72650402&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink
While Mr. Parry may prefer independence, and we all know the NYT ownership makes it unlikely, and the NYT may try to ignore it, it is instructive to them that intelligent readers know better journalism when they see it. A petition demonstrates the concerns of a far larger number of potential or lost subscribers.
I am engaged in hurricane recovery in Florida and will comment less often for a while.
It’s NOT Russia seeking to criminalise Free Speech in the USA and destroy the First Amendment in regard to the BDS movement. And they have already succeeded, in France, in criminalising all criticism of Israel as that mythical, omnipresent, Evil-‘antisemitism’.
SCRUTINY BASED ON KNOWLEDGE & EXPERIENCE
What is written about in the NYT is important because in our
political “discourse” (if it can be called that) it is considered
as “fact”. (Our “discourse” is a managed “discourse” by
all sides. That includes the placement of articles
(above or below the fold?) and so forth. And, of course,
what is left out entirely.)
What we read is not “fact” however and most know that already.
Like everyone else, NYT plays to its base. FOX plays
to its base. The magazine of a labor union plays
to its base. You would never expect to read articles
which cite evidence or perspectives which undercut
any of the time worn (and too often outworn) faiths
and illusions of the labor movement.
(Incidentally, I am reading once more the central
chapters in Gabriel Kolko’s book, MAIN CURRENTS
OF MODERN AMERICAN HISTORY which do that.
Kolko’s critique made him no friends in the US labor
movement nor indeed in the progressive
movement as a whole. (Kolko has two Chapters on
labor and the second is of particular note here.)
[After the death of his wife Joyce, Gabriel Kolko
took his own life—according to the rules— in
the Netherlands. He left us a body of work which
challenges many of our cherished myths. When
he errs, it is our personal obligation—as readers—
to note that and understand Kolko and ourselves
that much better.]
Criticism of NYT is all-too-often warranted.Thanks
to Robert Parry for bringing its prejudices and fabrications
to our attention.
—Peter Loeb, Boswton, MA, USA