Media and conflict

China 1983 © Jan Oberg, Oberg PhotoGraphics Documentary with Lawrence Robert Kuhn January 6, 2021 When the history of the 21st century is to be written, there is no doubt that the story of China’s eradication of poverty – i.e. lifting about 700 million people out of it – will be seen as a milestone, a turning point for humanity. China’s poverty rate fell from 88 per cent in 1981 to 0.7 per cent in 2015, as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms. On November 23rd 2020, China announced that it had eliminated absolute poverty nationwide by uplifting all of its citizens beyond its set ￥2,300 (CNY) per year, or less than a dollar per day poverty line. This result has been achieved within just four decades, after Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping declared the...

By Regan Durkin The Global Press Coalition for Peace, GPCP, in Washington kindly turned to me and asked me to speak with them for a longer podcast. GPCP is a rather young but very innovative civil society organization that focuses on how the media deal with conflicts, war and peace – and how it can be done better. I warmly recommend that you visit and look around. Their focus is so very important. I was very grateful for being given this opportunity since its podcasts seem to have a rather wide audience in the United States in particular. The conversation was initiated and the podcast recorded by Regan Durkin and the whole thing was a very pleasant experience. Here is how she has introduced me on their homepage: “Join us as we discuss with Dr. Jan Oberg, Founder of The Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research, diving into the...

On November 7, 2020, I wrote a comment on my Facebook Profile that stirred some comments: “Led by CNN and other US media, including Fox News, most Western media now declare Biden the next US president. Is there not some kind of institution in a democracy that shall officially declare who is the winner?It seems they want to appear ignorant about the serious constitutional crisis that is around the corner as Donald Trump is not going to accept this result.We are in for very interesting times…” As you see, there are three elements in this comment. Let me go through them: Here is how the final results of the elections should be announced: “Since the mid-20th century, on January 6 at 1:00 pm before a Joint Session of Congress, the Vice President opens the votes from each state in alphabetical order. He passes the votes to four tellers—two from the...

Photo: The Liberation of Aleppo December 2016 Collage © Jan Oberg Ben Norton October 26, 2020 Western government-funded intelligence cutouts trained Syrian opposition leaders, planted stories in media outlets from BBC to Al Jazeera, and ran a cadre of journalists. A trove of leaked documents exposes the propaganda network. Originally published on The Grayzone, September 23rd, 2020 Update (September 29, 2020): A few days after this article was published, the authenticity of these leaked materials was indirectly confirmed by the British government, which reported that hundreds of Foreign Office documents detailing its Syria propaganda operations were hacked in an alleged cyber attack. Leaked documents show how UK government contractors developed an advanced infrastructure of propaganda to stimulate support in the West for Syria’s political and armed opposition. Virtually every aspect of the Syrian opposition was cultivated and marketed by Western government-backed public relations firms, from their political narratives to their branding, from...

Here is ABC News report about it. Washington-obedient mainstream media have made little or no mention of it, Washington Post being an exception. On October 6, 2020, we discussed the proposal in the UN on PressTV. The basic idea is expressed here – “26 countries urge Western sanctions lifting to ensure an effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic.” And here the link to the discussion. In passing, you may note that Iran’s PressTV is on the urmedium platform. Google-owned YouTube has unilaterally and without any explanation close down its channel there quite some time ago. The reason? Probably a) because of its being there could be judged (far out) as a violation of the sanctions we talk about here, b) because the West is clamping down on everything that is in the receiving end of or problematizes Western/US policies. Normally that sort of thing is considered censorship and a tool...

Idag, den 7. september 2020, i London starter en retssag, som får betydning for den frie presse i vesten i fremtiden. Sagen drejer sig om journalist og stifter af mediet WikiLeaks – Julian Assange – som er tiltalt for overtrædelse af den amerikanske spionagelov i forbindelse med at indhente og offentliggøre fortrolige militære- og diplomatiske dokumenter. Retten i London skal tage stilling til, om Julian Assange skal udleveres til USA til retsforfølgelse og potentielt 175 års fængsel. Men hvorfor har denne retssag betydning for hele den frie presse i vesten og for vores danske demokrati? Sagen og historien om Julian Assange og WikiLeaks er lang og kompliceret, og de fleste danske medier ser ud til at have opgivet at følge den til dørs. Men jeg vil forsøge at opsummere sagen kort, og forklare hvorfor den er relevant for dig som borger i Danmark. Demokrati bygger grundlæggende på at flertallet af...

Gregory Shupak August 20, 2020 Corporate media are laying the ideological groundwork for a new cold war with China, presenting the nation as a hostile power that needs to be kept in check. Mitt Romney (Washington Post,  4/23/20) says “Covid-19 has exposed China’s dishonesty for all to see.” The Washington Post (4/23/20) ran an article by Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, the second sentence of which said, “The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed that, to a great degree, our very health is in Chinese hands; from medicines to masks, we are at Beijing’s mercy.” America, in this conception, is under Chinese domination, a tyranny that’s evidently imposed not only by the Chinese government, but by Chinese people generally. Originally published by FAIR on May 15, 2020 here Details like the US having more than 21 times as many nuclear warheads as China, or the fact that it’s the US dollar and not...

In times of fake and omission – not to speak of deliberate deception and lies – society’s very foundation is shaken: What can we believe? Who can we trust? What is reliable and truthful information – and how do I know? Tragically, substantial knowledge with complex reasoning about our complex world and its problems has been overwhelmed by marketing, smart soundbites, tweets and ignorance. Diversity has been substituted by uniformity, political correctness and, more recently, the awfully destructive cancel culture and its close companion, self-censorship. People read less, and less and less the long argument – such as (good) books about global problems. Perhaps because we think we are so busy? Whatever the reason, the attention span has shrunk and many have a comfort zone the size of a pinhead. It bodes ill – no matter the kind of social body in which this disease takes root. It spread like...

Some may remember way back when US President Obama said that the US had now isolated Iran. The only problem was that on the very same day, some 130 leaders from the Non-Aligned Movement, NAM, were meeting in Tehran. The more the US withdraws from international treaties, imposes sanctions, threatens wars and otherwise antagonizes the rest of the world, the more that rest will search – and find – new partners and create a future world order that is not Western- or US-dominated. That’s what Iran is now doing. After sanctions since 1979, verbal harassment, a broken JCPOA (nuclear deal), accusations of being the world’s leading supporter of terrorism, maximal pressure policies, threat of massive war, bombings, liquidation of a top government representative, infiltrations and much else – why on earth should the leaders in Tehran (no matter what you may think about them and their policies) continue to seek...

Another tragic turning point for the – falling – West as civilization. Its moral irresponsibility is expressed by its roaring silence on this crystal clear and gross violation of international law and evil done to the Palestinian people for decades. It can be seen as a particularly nasty, nationalist form of a victim psychology à la Sigmund Freud’s Wiederholunszwang and Alice Miller’s repetition compulsion – you project onto others today what was done to you earlier. Add to that exceptionalism (like the US), state formation through ethnic cleansing (like the US), a belief in being a Chosen People (like the US), being an extremely militarist, over-armed and nuclear power (like the US) and seeing enemies everywhere without the thought that your own behaviour may create some of them – leading to constant fear/paranoia – and you have most of a recipe for self-destruction (like the US). Two leading countries, with...

June 10, 2020 Jan Oberg The horrific police murder of the black American George Floyd is, of course, not the first, neither will it be the last. Fortunately, it has set in motion significant protests not only in the United States but around the world – on top of the Corona Crisis. And it has created an opportunity for people to do symbolic acts such as taking a knee, criticising President Trump’s Bible Show after he had – classical dictatorship-style – used violence on peaceful demonstrators, etc. And people posted black images on Instagram. These are individual protests in response to an individual being killed in a single event. They are very human, noble and understandable, indeed, necessary – as markers that enough is enough. But where will it go from that first reaction? The comprehensive perspective To approach and answer, read carefully this statement by Martin Luther King, Jr.:...

May 18, 2020 Steven Youngblood When asked to describe Mahatma Gandhi, most would say he was an Indian independence leader, human rights defender, and spiritual guide. However, “People don’t think of him as a journalist” even though “he was a journalist from an early age, and died as a journalist.” Originally posted on The Peace Journalist magazine, published by the Center for Global Peace Journalism on February 6, 2020, here This is according to professor, historian, and author Rajmohan Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. Professor Gandhi was the featured speaker at a program titled “Gandhi: The First Peace Journalist,” held at Park University on Aug. 26. The evening began with a presentation by Gandhi documentarian, Cynthia Lukas, about Gandhi’s background as a journalist. Gandhi was a prolific journalist and editor who was well-known in India for his articles stressing social justice in such publications as Indian Opinion, Young India,...