Wherein a former Soviet spy becomes a solid American citizen with the help of a kindly FBI agent, and Li Na, a new Chinese celebrity tennis star repudiates her Chinese ties.
EYE ON THE MEDIA | PATRICE GREANVILLE, editor in chief
[dropcap]W[/dropcap]ith the rebirth of the Cold War as a result of Washington’s provocations and pursuit of global hegemony, the whores in the American media, always parroting the State Dept./Congress and White House line, are once again busy denigrating China and Russia, the only remaining major powers capable of standing up to the Great Bully without fear of immediate invasion or annihilation. CBS, one of the great engines of mass disinformation in the US media constellation, has been doing its part, as this episode of 60 Minutes (aired last August 30th) abundantly proves. Even at this point, after many decades of exposures of government and media chicanery and criminal complicity by the people’s press, it’s chilling to watch how insidious and (to the mass audience) persuasive they can be.
Unrelenting memes
Students of American disinformation are familiar with the central fact of US propaganda: the system never lets up. Its propaganda mission on behalf of US capitalist/imperialist dominance—at home and abroad—in reality a matter of class not national interest, comes before anything else. This is a simple, unwritten rule that no aspirant to fame and riches in the American journo universe can afford to ignore. The likes of Charlie Rose, Norah O’Donnell, Leslie Stahl, Chuck Todd, Wolf Blitzer, John Dickerson, Bill O’Reilly, and the rest of their careerist ilk, learn the rule early and embrace it with vigor, while, as we may expect, emphatically (and indignantly) denying its existence. This bias permeates all mainstream media, and certainly makes itself felt even in so-called prestige shows like 60 Minutes.
SPECIAL NOTE FROM OUR BEIJING CORRESPONDENT
ADDING THE MISSING CONTEXT TO THE STORY, WHAT 60 MINUTES INTENTIONALLY LEFT OUT.
Dear Gang,
I don’t know what to say about Li Na. She is not the first superstar to have been abused as a youngster and surely won’t be the last. Beethoven’s father beat him so much on the head, it probably caused his deafness. The Jackson 5 children were all tormented by their father. Andrei Agassi’s dad was supposedly a cruel piece of work. So, I can understand her rebelling against all that torture. The fact that it was caused within China’s state system of athlete development is immaterial, as the aforementioned examples clearly show. There are many sadistic coaches and mentors out there. Yet, their crucibles of cruelty can create a lot of greatness, albeit at a terrible psychological price for the prodigies.
While 60 Minutes tries really hard to make it an anti-China piece, Li Na and her husband said they are moving back here to live and work. I think that says everything and the hate-China narrative falls apart. If they are living and working here, they will have to pay taxes like everybody else, although she has maybe negotiated a deal for taxes on her overseas endorsements.
Former Houston Rockets superstar, Yao Ming, routinely shouts out his homeland, in spite of his ridiculous wealth. Yao also never asked for Chinese tax relief. He pays what the system requires and still lives like royalty.
—JEFF BROWN, Beijing
NOTE: The first video posted packs both the segment with Barsky—the former Soviet agent—and one on Misty Copeland, African American ballerina. The Barsky segment is shown here complete. If you choose this video, consider the Copeland part a bonus. It is obviously only the Barsky segment that concerns us. The video below (#2) is just the Barsky segment. However, be sure to click on the > button to start the show. Video #3 packs both the Barsky and Li Na segments, but due to a technical peculiarity shows the image in a constricted screen. Note that the Li Na part, anchored by multimillionaire celebrity correspondent Leslie Stahl begins at approximately 20:43. Finally, Video #4 is a preview of this show.
VIDEO #1
https://youtu.be/yCbVxApkCgI
VIDEO #2
VIDEO #3
As CBS veteran celebrity journo Leslie Stahl warns us in passing (with more than a touch of venom in her voice) that Li Na comes from a “state-run sports system”, the young celebrity is remarkable, “not just because she won two grand slams, but because she stood up to the Chinese authorities to win some freedom.” Ah, freedom, the great talisman of American propaganda. The elixir to put American minds to sleep and eyes blind to all forms of brutal tyranny and injustice committed by the US and its vassal states. Fact is, Li Na, like many opportunists before her, simply sold out to the capitalist dream of unlimited materialism, thereby rejecting her debt to the Chinese system which nurtured her, while hiding behind the the philosophical banner of “individualism”, one of America’s most deeply embedded delusional beliefs.
https://youtu.be/idtcn7QRbmY
VIDEO #4
