MEDIA SCUM

RAMIN MAZAHERI—This lack of effort at self-reflection is very typically American even within their own society – if America’s leaders will push a McCarthy-era Russophobia wave for three years just to avoid honest discussion of the failures of the Democratic Party and “democracy with American characteristics”, then why should we expect those leaders to be honest about Iraq?

ANDRE VLTCHEK—The monstrous crimes against humanity somehow get covered (described), but the information becomes twisted and manipulated to such an extent, that readers and viewers in all parts of the world end up knowing close to nothing about their own suffering, and/or of the suffering of the other.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—The mass media’s stone-dead silence on the OPCW scandal is becoming its own scandal, of equal or perhaps even greater significance than the OPCW scandal itself. It opens up a whole litany of questions which have tremendous importance for every citizen of the western world; questions like, how are people supposed to participate in democracy if all the outlets they normally turn to to make informed voting decisions adamantly refuse to tell them about the existence of massive news stories like the OPCW scandal? How are people meant to address such conspiracies of silence when there is no mechanism in place to hold the entire mass media to account for its complicity in it?

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—Fortunately for us, In The Now and journalist Dan Cohen have stepped up to the plate and put together a concise, easy-to-follow video on both Twitter and Facebook  explaining the OPCW scandal in a way that enables anyone to familiarize themselves with the story in seven minutes. This article exists solely to draw attention to this excellent resource.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—On Christmas Eve PBS aired a bizarre segment on the death of James Le Mesurier, the former military intelligence officer who founded the extremely shady propaganda construct known as the White Helmets. The segment makes relentless, ham-fisted appeals to emotion, even attempting to associate the White Helmets with Armistice Day using wistful camera pans over poppy flowers and misty war memorial art exhibits…