Media and conflict

Deeply moving and concise statement by Yanis Varoufakis October 8, 2023 The Nobel “Peace” Committee should have rewarded Julian Assange for his long service in fighting wars – by revealing how they are master-minded and fought with no connection to official explanations and narratives. It would then also have done something for the freedom of expression and human rights – including this hero’s right to live in freedom. But the NATO Norway Committee consists – in violation of the wish of Alfred Nobel – of former parliamentarians (and not of experts in peace as he mentioned) and has, therefore, no wish or ability to reward dissidents in the West or people who devote their lives to fight also US/NATO wars – as did Daniel Ellsberg. Shame upon the Committee! And thanks from our hearts to both Julian and Yanis. Jan ObergTFF director and editor of The Transnational

It’s about fighting against evil/Putin/Hitler and fighting for democracy… NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg admits that Russia was motivated by NATO to invade Ukraine. Video creator Matt Orfalea shows how often we were told that the war was absolutely “not about NATO”… October 3, 2023 There is no need for an intro or comments to this short documentation of lies by high-level people and mainstream media. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic… Always help spreading this tag #NOTONATO, thanks!

A collection of relevant articles brought to you by The Transnational Foundation. When will the investigative reports come, if not after one year? Jan Oberg September 26, 2023 The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines had neither a photogenic character nor a death toll comparable with 9/11, 2001. It also did not provoke a German or Russian response in the vicinity of the totally out-of-proportion US Global War on Terror that has cost millions of innocent lives. That said, one could hypothesise that, as a destructive event and over time, this gigantic infrastructure destruction will have consequences for the international order as comprehensive as 9/11. Be this as it may, we’ve all noticed how this unique destruction disappeared very quickly from the media and has also not been mentioned in, say, statements from NATO, G7, G 20 or the EU. The world has also not heard anything from any formal...

Jerry Grey August 30, 2023 British born Australian Jerry Grey describes himself in this way on his YouTube Channel “Jerry’s Take On China”: “Over the last 18 years I’ve lived, worked, married, studied and now retired in China. I’ve travelled about 30,000 kilometres on a bike around China and there are only 3 mainland provinces I haven’t visited yet.I may not be an expert, no one is and anyone claiming to be certainly isn’t. However, I have opinions, I research facts and I won’t tell you lies on this, or any other channel.This is my China – the good (mostly) the bad (sometimes) and the Ugly (rarely, China is beautiful and so are the people).” By the way, Jerry Grey is a former police officer in London and has an MA in Cross-Cultural Change Management. He also writes articles – mainly about China – on Medium. In this short video...

Kristin Christman August 24, 2023 In this independent, personal essay about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., what he stands for, and the incredible smear and exclusion campaign against him, TFF Associate Kristin Christman has included all sources with titles, authors, dates, and links at the end of the article. They make it possible for the reader to understand how she arrives at her conclusions, although the details of each case are not elaborated on in the main text. A. Kennedy’s Attraction Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is running for US president. He is the son of Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968 during his campaign for the US presidency, and he is the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, assassinated in 1963. For many Americans, Kennedy’s candidacy kindles a glimmer of hope and pride in the United States for the first time in their lifetimes. The flimsy mainstream media coverage of...

Joint demonstration of the trade unions on May Day in Berlin under the slogan Unbroken Solidarity. Photography K.M.Krause via Reuters Anatol Lieven & George Beebe August 23, 2023 Demonizing Russian culture and people only makes peace in Ukraine harder to achieve and plays into Putin’s propaganda A deeply sinister and dangerous tendency has made its appearance in Western writing about the war in Ukraine. This is the extension of hatred for the Putin regime and its crimes to the entire Russian people, the Russian national tradition, and Russian culture. This tendency is of course bitterly familiar from the history of hostile propaganda, but precisely for that reason we should have learned to shun it. The banning of Russian cultural events and calls for the “decolonization” of Russian literature and Russian studies recall the propaganda of all sides during the First World War, which did so much to embitter that war and make its peaceful resolution...

Jan Oberg August 21, 2023 For Danish/Nordic readers, there is a Danish-language version here. The unity is as uncompromising as it is dangerous in its consequences. No Danish politician, diplomat, researcher or journalist dares to take on the role of the little boy in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes. Not even to get a debate going. About Denmark’s Ukraine/Russia/NATO policy. The government, parliamentary parties and media suffer from extreme groupthink – a well-known social psychological concept. Groupthink rejects any alternative expertise, information and interpretation, and gradually convinces decision-makers that they are on the only possible right course – and that everyone else is uninformed, stupid or – in this case – “Putinists.” Over time, groupthink leads to overconfident and catastrophic decisions because reality has been kept outside the group’s walls of infallibility, moral superiority and we-know-it-all for far too long. There is only one narrative here:...

Jan Oberg August 19, 2023 On August 19, 2023, it is 70 years ago that the US/CIA and others, with the assistance of their British peers, did one of its countless regime changes worldwide, namely in Iran: The U.S.- and UK-instigated, Iranian army-led overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favour of strengthening the monarchical rule of the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Here is Wikipedia’s detailed account of this shameful act. And with the exception of the years under the Shah’s rule, relations between the West and Iran have been utterly conflictual ever since, and every potential for cooperation has been squandered. The US has felt its usual exceptionalist privilege to harass the country decade after decade, telling it that it will never acquire nuclear weapons, which the US itself and Israel have plenty of – and which it’s doubtful that Iran ever wanted to acquire –...

Join Substack and TFF on Substack! Jan Oberg August 10, 2023 You’ve noticed that TFF is now active on three platform: • The foundation’s homepage: The Transnational (here) which is on WordPress (more about WP here); • “TFF 2 News” which is on Flipboard; • TFF on Substack: TFF • Transnational Foundation & Jan Oberg. It’s different kinds of audiences – readers and viewers – on each and, thus, only seldom do we publish the same post on two of them or all three. In this way, we reach more people than ever. Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters.[5] It allows writers to send digital newsletters directly to subscribers.[6][7] Founded in 2017, Substack is headquartered in San Francisco – according to Wikipedia. We’ve tested Substack, published energetically, and we are, after a couple of months, among the 15%...

Esther Brito Ruiz & Jeff Bachman August 10, 2023 War entails suffering. How and how often that suffering is reported on in the U.S., however, is not evenhanded. Take, for example, the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen in March 2015 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The media attention afforded to the crises reveals biases that relate less to the human consequences of the conflicts than to the United States’ role and relationship with the warring parties involved. In Yemen, the U.S. is arming and supporting the Saudi-led coalition, whose airstrikes and blockades have caused immense human suffering. Meanwhile in Eastern Europe, the U.S. is arming and aiding Ukraine’s efforts by helping to counter missile strikes that have targeted civilian infrastructure and to retake occupied territories where horrific killings have taken place. As scholars who study genocide and other mass atrocities, as well as international security, we compared...

Ger van Elk, Symmetry of Diplomacy, 1975, Groninger Museum   Alfred de Zayas   July 31, 2023   The blaming game has always been counter-productive. In the UN Human Rights Council, the practice is known as “naming and shaming”, as if the States engaging in “naming” would possess a higher moral authority over those “named”, and as if the assignment of blame could possibly contribute to an atmosphere conducive to dialogue and compromise.   Originally published at CounterPunch on July 25, 2023   Those who assign the blame would do better to look for root causes and, in any event, do some sweeping at their doorsteps, as China has told the US on repeated occasions[1]. I recall once the Chinese Ambassador saying in jest that he would send a couple hundred mirrors to the White House. This also reflects an idiom attributed to Confucius (551-479 BC) that “all will follow...

Is there such a thing: Nonviolent journalism? Of course, there is. It’s only that we live in a perverted militarist culture and era in which nobody questions the concept of war reporting – rampant everywhere – but in which most people would probably respond to “nonviolent journalism” with a: What? Those of us in the profession of peace have long known and cherished the theory and practice of peace journalism pioneered by TFF Associates like Johan Galtung, Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick. I don’t think it is a good term in the specific sense that journalists should never promote this or that value but report as honestly and multi-faceted what they see and hear. But its specific quality, in my view, is that peace journalism is about reporting the conflicts that violence and wars are rooted in – and not only the violence that most media wallow in today (and...