Omitted media

Pool photo by Alexey Druzhinin By Gordon M. Hahn September 4, 2019 From former spooks to libertarian-conservative talk show hosts to leftists and liberals various theories have been put forward as to why and how Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to ‘destroy Americans’ confidence in democracy’ and ‘sew chaos across American and the world.’ In short, Putin ultimately seeks to destroy faith in democracy and sew chaos in the United States and thereby weaken America and its ability to promote democracy abroad. The US will no longer be ‘that shining city on a hill’, as US late President Ronald Reagan eloquently put it. Originally published on Gordon M. Hahn’s official website August 30, 2019 here The same is said about Russia’s supposed support for ultra-nationalist groups, even though that ‘support’ is nothing more than a limited overlap of interests and views. Never mind that Russia has good relations with numerous...

Photo: Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Credit: rferl.org Why Barr’s investigation is important and should be encouraged. By Stephen F. Cohen June 7, 2019 It cannot be emphasized too often: Russiagate – allegations that the American president has been compromised by the Kremlin, which may even have helped to put him in the White House – is the worst and (considering the lack of actual evidence) most fraudulent political scandal in American history. We have yet to calculate the damage Russiagate has inflicted on America’s democratic institutions, including the presidency and the electoral process, and on domestic and foreign perceptions of American democracy, or on US-Russian relations at a critical moment when both sides, having “modernized” their nuclear weapons, are embarking on a new, more dangerous, and largely unreported arms race. Originally published by The Nation Rational (if politically innocent) observers may have thought that when the Mueller report found no...

M. K. Gandhi on democracy The jaws of power “The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.” John Adams, (1735-1826) According to the Nuremberg Principles, the citizens of a country have aresponsibility for the crimes that their governments commit. But to preventthese crimes, the people need to have some knowledge of what is going on. Indeed, democracy cannot function at all without this knowledge, What are we to think when governments make every effort to keep their actions secret from their own citizens? We can only conclude that although they may call themselves democracies, such governments are in fact oligarchies or dictatorships. At the end of World War I, it was realized that secret treaties had been responsible for its outbreak, and an effort was made to ensure that diplomacy would...

Et forkert klik på ”del” ikonet på Facebook skal fremover give en staf på op til 12 års fængsel, hvis det står til den danske regering, fremgår det i et nyt lovforslag. Det afhænger selvfølgelig af omstændighederne. Eller rettere af en bestemt omstændighed. Den hedder Rusland. Forestil dig, at du har en kritisk holdning til NATO, og du læser en nyhed på Facebook eller Twitter, som du synes er værd at dele med dit netværk. Du deler nyheden. Det viser sig, at nyheden er fabrikeret af den russiske efterretningstjeneste, der har haft til hensigt at påvirke den offentlige debat i Danmark. Nu skal du forklare retten, at du ikke bevidst ifølge lovforslaget har forsøgt at påvirke ifølge ”den almene opfattelse af NATO-samarbejdet negativt”. Lykkedes du ikke med det, kan du se frem til op til 12 års fængsel, hvis du delte nyheden det under et valg. Ovenstående er desværre ikke...

  By Farhang Jahanpour September 26   Last year I wrote that Trump’s speech at the UN General Assembly was perhaps the worst speech ever delivered from that podium, certainly by a Western leader. This year he surpassed himself. Why is there no rule to say that someone who openly violates the basic norms of the United Nations continuously threatens other countries in contravention of the UN Charter’s Article 2.4 condemns internationalism and multilateralism advocates a narrow nationalism/patriotism (to make America great again) stops funding the UNESCO condemns the International Criminal Court (ICC) and threatens its officials withdraws from UNRWA withdraws from the Paris Climate Accord withdraws from the UN Human Rights Commission withdraws from the UN Security Council-based nuclear deal with Iran (JCPOA) etc. – can not automatically expect to remain a member of the UN world body that is in charge of those organisations and advocates those principles...

  By Gordon M. Hahn August 31, 2018 As the West has turned more and more to Soviet/Russian methods of the ‘big lie’ in order to advance democracy and its interests, the Russia-West propaganda war had produced a post-fact world in which disinformation comes to be believed by its purveyors. Both sides, forgetting the previous disinformation and lies from the most recent crisis of the day, reiterate their previous claims as part of the reason for believing the next series of disinformation and lies surrounding the current crisis of the day. This process of propaganda plague has filled the fake news on both sides of the Atlantic since Georgia through Syria, Ukraine, Syria, Skripal, Syria again. Russia has its RT and state television; the US has RFERL and state-tied mass media across the West. To be sure, the West has a problem with promoting a united message with messy changes...

    290475″ data-end=”1530428399″> Take a look at the short video below that Facebook suddenly sends me today, Saturday June 30, 2018 about my being so important for communities and how great Facebook is at creating a community feeling worldwide. Many thanks, I guess I am supposed to say. Well, I don’t. First, I detest these – I assume, artificial intelligence-based – videos where everything is soooo filled with stock photos, stock happy children, all dancing and having a gooood stock time and the stock music is just mechanical sing-along kitsch…OK, just had to let it out! Second, Facebook has destroyed the worldwide reach TFF and I had until about a year ago – thanks to their “algorithm”, political interference and tracking. We’re basically – that is, 90% or so – reaching only people in Denmark, Sweden and other Nordic countries and the rest outside. All the people I interacted...

US military intelligence agencies have influenced over 1,800 movies and TV shows By Tom Secker and Matthew Alford Published by INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a crowdfunded investigative journalism project for people and planet. Support INSURGE to keep digging where others fear to tread. Tom Secker and Matthew Alford report on their astonishing findings from trawling through thousands of new US military and intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents reveal for the first time the vast scale of US government control in Hollywood, including the ability to manipulate scripts or even prevent films too critical of the Pentagon from being made — not to mention influencing some of the most popular film franchises in recent years. This raises new questions not only about the way censorship works in the modern entertainment industry, but also about Hollywood’s little-known role as a propaganda machine for the US national security apparatus. • • When...

  We must end this Russophobic insanity   By Jack F. Matlock, Jr. June 4, 2018 That saying – often misattributed to Euripides – comes to mind most mornings when I pick up The New York Times and read the latest “Russiagate” headlines, which are frequently featured across two or three columns on the front page above the fold. This is an almost daily reminder of the hysteria that dominates our Congress and much of our media. Originally published by The Nation on June 1, 2018, here The New York Times, of course, is not the only offender. Its editorial attitude has been duplicated or exaggerated by most other media outlets in the United States, electronic and print. Unless there is a mass shooting in progress, it can be hard to find a discussion of anything else on CNN. Increasingly, both in Congress and in our media, it has been...

By Adam Johnson FAIR Originally published by FAIR on April 18, 2018 here “Only…with the departure of the Assad regime, will it be possible to ensure that Syrians do not suffer more atrocities,” the Washington Post (4/14/18) editorialized.     A survey by FAIR of the top 100 papers in the US by circulation found not a single editorial board opposed to Trump’s April 13 airstrikes on Syria. Twenty supported the strikes, while six were ambiguous as to whether or not the bombing was advisable. The remaining 74 issued no opinion about Trump’s latest escalation of the Syrian war. This is fairly consistent with editorial support for Trump’s April 2017 airstrikes against the Syrian government, which saw only one editorial out of 47 oppose the bombing (FAIR.org, 4/11/17). The single paper of dissent from last year, the Houston Chronicle, didn’t publish an editorial on last week’s bombing. Seven of the...

  In the U.S., carrying out military interventions abroad has undermined freedom at home   By Christopher J. Coyne and Abigail R. Hall   Originally published by Stanford University Press blog here The Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal continues to be front-page news. According to current reports Cambridge Analytica obtained private Facebook data, which it used to send pro-Trump material to targeted Facebook users. These reports have been met with outrage in Washington, D.C. The Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation and U.S. senators have called for Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO, to testify in front of Congress. Calls by Congress for increased oversight to prevent private companies from surveilling people are extremely ironic given that they themselves recently renewed a section of the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which allows for the warrantless surveillance of Americans. Issues regarding the appropriate use of government surveillance are also at the center of...

    On March 17, 2018, New York Times posted “How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions.” Here is the background as covered by Washington Post. Here is an in-depth undercover investigation by Channel 4 News that reveals how Cambridge Analytica secretly campaigns in elections across the world. Bosses are filmed talking about using bribes, ex-spies, fake IDs and sex workers.     Jan Oberg comments We’ve heard a lot about Russian meddling in the US Presidential election process. We hear daily media stories of just how brilliant Russia’s performance is in the ongoing media/propaganda war. This documentary is deeply disturbing because it reveals the utter decay in business and political ethics that now influence elections processes in what was supposed to be democracies. It seems plausible to me that the pointing of fingers at Russia – which of course also use media manipulations – is a kind...