PRESIDENT MADURO—The true nature of the brutal, despicable psychological media campaign, conducted by imperialist powers against Venezuela, has been demonstrated by serious investigators of the information. Of all the news published about Venezuela in U.S. and European media, 98% is negative. They are silent about our guaranteeing food for the people, as if bodies like the FAO had not recognized this. They make no mention of our distributing some 14 million toys to boys and girls in poor families. They say nothing of our provision of 2.5 million homes. They omit the fact that almost all of Venezuela’s population has access to quality medical assistance free of charge. We do not deny the problems in our country. On the contrary, we face them, discuss them with our people, and are determined to solve them. If the U.S. wants to help us, they can start by not being hypocrites.
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The US War on Freedom of the Press
DAVID W PEAR—Western governments, particularly in the English-speaking countries, have cowed freedom of the press. According to a ranking of press freedom, “based on an evaluation of pluralism, independence of the media, quality of legislative framework and safety of journalists” by Reporters Without Borders, the five eyes countries are ranked as follows for press freedom: New Zealand (8), Canada (18), Australia (19), United Kingdom (40), United States (45). These rankings are a disgrace to countries that claim to be democratic, free and exceptional.
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The Fetishization of the Corporate Media
CJ HOPKINS—Being neither a respected journalist nor a believer in the existence of an “independent press,” I am under no such constraints. Because I’m not trying to get or keep a job, or maintain a “respectable” reputation, I’m free to call a spade a spade and a bunch of horseshit a bunch of horseshit. I am also free to describe “journalists” like Leopold, Luke Harding, Craig Timberg, Franklin Foer, and many of their corporate media colleagues (not to mention TV clowns like Rachel Maddow) as the liars and rank propagandists they are.
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More defiance define Gilets Jaunes “Acte 10” (Videos)
The video below is an eloquent document about the clashes of Gilets Jaunes with the police. The anger of the demonstrators is obvious, there’s pent-up frustration with a regime they perceive as deaf and dumb to their interests or the institutions of genuine democracy (sound familiar?). The video —a collage of various clashes and possibly different dates—focuses on a great deal of violence, but Gilets Jaunes “acts” (as they call them) are mostly peaceful. Do not—despite these images—yield to the notion the Gilets are a bunch of irresponsible “casseurs” (guys just out to break senselessly everything in sight). Their cause is just. But notice as well that these are people who are not easily intimidated. There’s something to be learned from the French here, in how they tell the ruling cliques that they won’t be taken for granted.
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MSM Begs For Trust After Buzzfeed Debacle
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—The mass media, including pro-Trump mass media like Fox News, absolutely deserves to be distrusted. It has earned that distrust. It had earned that distrust already with its constant promotion of imperialist wars and an oligarch-friendly status quo, and it has earned it even more with its frenzied promotion of a narrative engineered to manufacture consent for a preexisting agenda to shove Russia off the world stage.
The mainstream media absolutely is the enemy of the people; just because Trump says it doesn’t make it untrue. The only reason people don’t rise up and use the power of their numbers to force the much-needed changes that need to happen in our world is because they are being propagandized to accept the status quo day in and day out by the mass media’s endless cultural engineering project.
Yellow Vests, Class Struggle and Spontaneous Revolution
GAITHER STEWART—Do rabid protesters-hooligans undermine their own movements by devastating shops and burning cars? Or do undercover agents do the dirty work to sully the name of the protest movement? For secret services of the world know how to use the “strategy of tension” and false flag operations: secret agents burn ten cars and blame it on protesters and then crack down on the whole movement. Secret agents were at work in Berlin in 1933: “Burn the Reichstag in Berlin, blame it on a Communist and establish the Nazi dictatorship.”
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The ISIS attack: Reporting the news from within the exceptionalist Bubble
PATRICE GREANVILLE—The clamor about four Americans recently killed in Syria reeks of infantile petulance: what do you expect when you send soldiers into battle zones? Some professions have built-in risks. Ask any firefighter. Yet this response—used, as noted elsewhere, to make Trump walk back his promise to get the US troops out of Syria—is only too typical of American discourse. The ugly fact is that for a variety of reasons, none too healthy or honorable, the American people have been conditioned to believe in fighting endless wars with practically no casualties, or a ratio of losses so absurdly small when compared to the enemy’s that every casualty is mourned indignantly, as if the targets of American meddling had no right to inflict any punishment on our legions.
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War Whores Scramble To Say Syria Attack Means Troops Must Remain (Annotated)
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—MSNBC’s deranged intelligence analyst Malcolm Nance topped everyone as usual with a babbling nonsensical post about how US troops were killed in Manbij because there were no US troops in Manbij, proving that Assad and Putin may have allowed the attack to happen, which proves Trump is a Russian asset.
“The moment Russia and Assad took over patrolling Manbij on Trump’s go ahead we get hit with suicide bombers for the first time. It’s possible Russia/Assad let the attack happen. Trump’s treachery on this matter now kills our special operators. #RussianAsset,” Nance tweeted between huffs of paint thinner.
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Media vermin never sleep: Cheap jokes as vectors for a nuclear Armageddon
PATRICE GREANVILLE—We know by now that faux rebel satirists like Colbert are really smooth and stealth warmongering disinformers, having perfected the craft of seamlessly injecting imperial messages into their streams of “harmless” jokes. I don’t find that funny at all. Further, strictly on comedic terms, Colbert does not deserve the pantheon because his routine is not based on truth, the essence of which allows comedy to acquire genuine greatness.
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Guardian Reports More “Good News”, Kids are Dying in Venezuela
DAVID W. PEAR—The Lima Group’s members are Argentina, Brazil, Canada (?), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay and Peru. Most of the members of the Lima Group are disqualified from judging anybody else, because of their own miserable records on democracy and human rights. Most of the members of the group are rightwing governments. Leftwing governments were left out purposely, except by accident. Canada should not even be a member. The Lima Group is for the most part mafia states, and they are doing the enforcement work for their USA godfather.
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Markos Moulitsas and the Daily Cult: the Nadir of Journalism; the Death of Activism
TEODROSE FIKRE—The Daily Kos quickly became the Drudge Report of the left, claiming to receive over 2.5 million unique visitors a day, it is one of the most powerful political blogs in the world. In reality, Moulitsas was a rank opportunist who saw an opening to the be Rush Limbaugh of the left.
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Covert British Military-Smear Machine Moving into US
MARK AMES- MAX BLUMENTHAL— The Smith Richardson Foundation has funded a who’s who of the neoconservative movement, from hyper-militaristic think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute to the Institute for the Study of War. “To say the [Smith Richardson] foundation was involved at every level in the lobbying for and crafting of the so-called global war on terror after 9/11 would be an understatement,” wrote journalist Kelley Vlahos.
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For What It’s Worth: The Yellow Vests and the Left
JIM KAVANAGH—That ideological formation sets the American working class up for capture by the two proudly capitalist parties—today, by Trumpian right-wing faux populism through which working-class anger is eaten by the reactionary Republican party; yesterday and tomorrow, by kindler, gentler, “we’re capitalist and that’s just the way it is” Clintonism, through which working-class anger is euthanized by the Democratic party.
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Syrian “Threats” & “Israeli” Actions: Rhetoric vs. Reality
ANDREW KORYBKO—Nobody – least of all the Syrians – should have been surprised that Russia stood back and “watched the fireworks” since Moscow is allied with Tel Aviv and has no intention whatsoever of risking World War III for the sake of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), let alone its Hezbollah and IRGC partners, when its military mandate in the country is strictly to fight international terrorist groups and not defend the host state from conventional outside aggression.
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‘Strategic Threat’ To Israel – Progressives Lose Fear Of Speaking Out On Palestine
MoA—The real problem for the Zionist lobby is even larger. If the civil rights movement follows Davis and Alexander and actively supports pro-Palestinian positions, it will influence the political position of the Democratic party and the general position of the United States towards Israel. Democratic candidates that are ‘progressives except for Palestine’ or like Kamala Harris more AIPAC than J Street, will become unelectable. Sure, it will take some years to take effect. But it’s a sea change.
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Disunity Of U.S. Commmand Lets Afghan Rebels Win The War
MoA—Earlier today a raid on a military training center for the National Security Directorate, the Afghan CIA offshoot, killed some 200 forces. (See main image above). The attacking rebels used a U.S. made armored Humvee to drive into the compound and exploded it. An infantry unit followed and shot up the survivors. Many successful raids on outlying security posts and police checkpoints are no longer mentioned in western media. The Afghan government has stopped providing casualty numbers. U.S. foreign policy thinking on Afghanistan is as inept as ever.
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