Media

  Intro This short article documents how Facebook – in a non-dialoguing way – practices censorship. This and many other cases was a major reason that TFF launched The Transnational – a new multidimensional peace platform and try to push the debate about our issues out of Facebook and over to our own platform (hosted by WordPress.com) so that Facebook cannot influence over and above our heads, what it wants to disseminate and what not.    I come across an article that I find both worrying and trustworthy, “Google is helping Pentagon building AI for drones” in the Gizmodo online magazine. Like I do several times a day, I post it to Facebook (my profile, public figure page and TFF’s page), to Google+ and to Twitter. In one go, via a service called Sendible. About 30 minutes later this arrives:       I of course click “This isn’t Spam”...

  By Jan Oberg Right after the very heavy fighting about East Ghouta and the UN Security Council’s ceasefire resolution, Dr. Marcus Papadopoulos is given what must be perceived as a very rare opportunity by a mainstream media  – skyNews Australia – to present a completely different perspective. You do not have to agree with every word, the important thing is that you listen carefully to an obviously knowledgeable person who makes an interesting analysis totally different from the one you are usually presented with. In a few minutes he basically undermines, in a superbly clear and eloquent manner, the Western manufactured narrative that has been repeated to such an extent that, fortunately, more and more people begin to ask two set of questions: 1. Why is it that Western mainstream media’s coverage is so uniform – same angles, same words, same accusations, same images, same videos, same human stories?...

    By Sharon Tennison February 7, 2018 Friends and colleagues, As the Ukraine situation has worsened, unconscionable misinformation and hype is being poured on Russia and Vladimir Putin. Journalists and pundits must scour the Internet and thesauruses to come up with fiendish new epithets to describe both. Wherever I make presentations across America, the first question ominously asked during Q&A is always, “What about Putin?”. It’s time to share my thoughts which follow: Putin obviously has his faults and makes mistakes. Based on my earlier experience with him, and the experiences of trusted people, including U.S. officials who have worked closely with him over a period of years, Putin most likely is a straight, reliable and exceptionally inventive man. He is obviously a long-term thinker and planner and has proven to be an excellent analyst and strategist. He is a leader who can quietly work toward his goals under mounds of accusations and myths that have been steadily...

Fearology and medialised threat perception management that serves militarism   By Paul Rogers February 22, 2018 Is Russia a military threat to the west? A larger past and closer detail offer fresh light. Most analysts blame Vladimir Putin’s aggressive political stance for the renewed hostility between Russia and the western states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato). The deteriorating relationship has been evident for a decade and more. The fallout from Moscow’s interventions in Georgia / South Ossetia (2008), Ukraine / Crimea (2014), and Syria (2015), as well as its reported disruption in the United States presidential election (2016), are but the main episodes. Lesser ones include displays of military strength that attract wide coverage in the western media. Originally published by OpenDemocracy here. Before looking in more detail at the latter, it is worth offering a touch of historical perspective on great-power interference. In particular, at a time...

  By Stephen Kinzer February 18, 2016 The coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press. Reporting about carnage in the ancient city of Aleppo is the latest reason why.   Originally published by the Boston Globe here   For three years, violent militants have run Aleppo. Their rule began with a wave of repression. They posted notices warning residents: “Don’t send your children to school. If you do, we will get the backpack and you will get the coffin.” Then they destroyed factories, hoping that unemployed workers would have no recourse other than to become fighters. They trucked looted machinery to Turkey and sold it. This month, people in Aleppo have finally seen glimmers of hope. The Syrian army and its allies have been pushing militants out of the city. Last week they reclaimed the...

  Reuters, Vice and LA Times write about Israeli “retaliation.”   By Gregory Shupak February 21, 2018   Originally published by FAIR – Fairness And Accuracy In Reporting here Israel claimed that it intercepted an Iranian drone in Israeli airspace on Saturday, February 10; Iran denied that it had a drone there. Israel then bombed a Syrian airbase, saying it was the command-and-control center from which Iran had launched the drone. The Syrian government shot down an Israeli jet that had bombed the base, and Israel subsequently launched more airstrikes against Syria. Reuters (2/13/18) described the latter airstrikes as Israel having “retaliated” for the downing of its aircraft. Vice (2/13/18) too characterized them as “retaliatory”; the Los Angeles Times (2/11/18) did the same three times. These word choices wrongly imply that Israel was acting defensively, when it was Israel who fired the first shots in the weekend’s exchanges: These outlets...

Its allegations and practices suggest disdain for American institutions, principles, best interests, and indeed for the American people. Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian Studies and Politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) The nearly two-year-long series of allegations and investigations now known as “Russiagate” was instigated by top American political, media, and (probably) intelligence elites (mostly Democratic or pro-Democratic, but not only). What they have wrought suggests profoundly disturbing characteristics of people who play a very large role in governing this country. Cohen specifies six such barely concealed truths, which he and Batchelor then discuss. 1. Russiagate promoters evidently have little regard for the current or future institution of the American presidency. At the center of their many allegations is the claim that the current president,...

The time of the Clinton administration. There is a very good article with links and a PDF on OffGuardian here. It’s a mind-boggling story about how five Americans were tasked with influencing the election of Boris Yeltsin in competition with other candidates who, when they started working in Moscow, had much higher poll figures than he had. This was a couple of years after Bill Clinton had broken all important Western politicians promises to Mikhail Gorbachev to the effect that NATO would not expand “an inch” and started doing exactly that – a process that ended with the crisis and tension in today’s Ukraine. Fortunately, there are Western media that have told you quite a bit about US meddling in the elections and other political affairs of other countries: Huffington Post“The US has been meddling in other countries’ elections for a century. It doesn’t feel good.” Los Angeles TimesThe US...

82b7f244a4b771c73a0b601ec5″>Associated Press – right out of the Secretary of Defence’s own mouth. Newsweek picked up this – breaking – story but virtually no one else. Compare that with thousands upon thousands of articles throughout the Western press just parroting American officials’ statements, including President Trump’s when he found it appropriate in April 2017 to attack Syria with cruise missiles to teach “the regime” and its “dictator” a lesson for its alleged attack on Khan Seykhoun, stating that “there can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons.” Some of us thought it was a bit too early because there could be no dispute either about another, much more important, thing – namely that, at the time, there could not have been any evidence collected or analysed. TFF and its Associates has stated a few things about the media coverage of Syria in general and the chemical attacks in particular...

  By Jan Oberg Please see the short video below. Whatever you may think of Tucker Carlson and Fox News, this is an interesting documentation of Google’s indisputable, permanent violations of our human right to privacy. It is, of course, totally unacceptable and a war on freedoms and the right to live in peace. Please note that this test is done without a sim card and one of the phones is in airplane mode. And it anyhow knows anyhow everything about you. What are all these data, even the step out of car, used for? Oh, they say everywhere, to give you a better experience, to help and service you better and faster. Sounds great, right? But when did huge corporations ever do anything for you without getting something back? I say ‘No Thanks’ to surveillance capitalism and to human rights violating corporations. As citizens of formal democracies we do...

By Mike Whitney January 16, 2018   The Trump administration has settled on a plan for sabotaging the Iranian Nuclear deal that does not explicitly violate the terms of the agreement. Trump will continue to suspend sanctions, as is required under the terms of the deal, but at the same time, he will warn that if the agreement isn’t changed to meet his specific demands,  he will terminate it unilaterally. “If at any time I judge that such an agreement is not within reach, I will withdraw from the deal immediately,” Trump said. We can expect Trump to continue to issue these same threats in the months ahead as it helps to maximize the uncertainty as to whether the agreement will survive or not. As a businessman and investor,  Trump  knows that uncertainly is nearly as effective as sanctions when it comes to dampening foreign investment in the country’s businesses...

  By Jan Oberg • Message sent to Facebook in response to its blocking attempt and change of algorithm, both serious restricting my freedom of communication.   Blocking personal messages to friends Yesterday it was my birthday and roughly 500 people sent me thoughts, pictures and good wishes – also for the international peace issues I work for every day. Today I send a thank-you message to everyone of them (as replies to their messages on my profile, not through Messenger of on their profiles) – with a link to the new platform outside Facebook that we have felt was necessary to build – for the reasons I explain below. Here is the text of that standard message: “Thank you so much for remembering me ! 🙂 May I urge you to visit TFF’s new peace portal and magazine: / – look around and use Get the News on top...