Propaganda, Censorship, Power, & Control — Inside the Submissive Void

Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. David Hume, “Of the First Principles of Government”, 1768.

Brief: The use of propaganda and censorship is more frequently associated with totalitarian, corrupt and/or despotic regimes, not modern democracies in the West. Yet the history of how western governments and their ever vigilant overlords in the media, financial and business spheres have controlled the political narrative of the time via these means is a long, storied and ruinous one, going back well before 1914. Along with serving the contemporaneous political objectives of its perpetrators as contrived, such activities often continue to inform our understanding, and cement our interpretation, of history. If as the saying goes, “history repeats itself”, we need look no further as to the main reason why. In this wide ranging ‘safari’ into the disinformation, myth-making, fake news wilderness—aka The Big Shill—Greg Maybury concludes that “It’s the narrative, stupid!”

Controlling the Proles

The following yarn may be apocryphal, but either way the ‘moral of the fable’ should serve our narrative well. The story goes like this: sometime during the height of the Cold War a group of American journalists were hosting a visit to the U.S. of some of their Soviet counterparts. After allowing their visitors some time to soak up the media zeitgeist stateside, most of the Americans expected their guests to express unbridled envy at the professional liberties they enjoyed in the Land of the Free Press.

One of the Russian scribes was indeed compelled to express his unabashed ‘admiration’ to his hosts…in particular, for the "far superior quality" of American "propaganda". Now it's fair to say his hosts were taken aback by what was at best a backhanded compliment. After some collegial ‘piss-taking’ about the stereotypes associated with Western "press freedom" versus those of the controlled media in the Soviet system, one of the Americans called on their Russian colleague to explain what he meant. In fractured English, he replied with the following:

‘It's very simple. In Soviet Union, we don't believe our propaganda. In America, you actually believe yours!’

As highly amusing as this anecdote is, it masks a disturbing reality—the Russian journo’s jibe doesn’t simply remain true now; that ‘belief’ has become even more delusional, farcical, and above all, dangerous. One suspects that Russian journos today would think much the same.

And in few cases has the “delusional”, “farcical”, and “dangerous” nature of this conviction been more evident than with the West’s continued provocations of Russia, with “Skripalgate” in Old Blighty (see here, and here), and “Russia-Gate” stateside (see here, here, and here) being prime, though far from the only, exemplars we might point to.

More

https://russia-insider.com/en/media-criticism/propaganda-censorship-power-control-inside-submissive-void/ri27509

West’s Relations with the (Terrorist) White Helmets Has Gone Stale

At long last, Western sponsors of the so-called “humanitarian group” White Helmets have woken up to the fact that their love affair with these pseudo-humanitarians is more damaging than beneficial, which in turn has invoked a number of problems.

The White Helmets which have been exposed as a propaganda operation launched by Washington and London to feed the international community fake videos depicting false-flag chemicals attack in Eastern Ghouta started experiencing its first difficulties last year when the White House decided to stop sponsoring them. For sure, their activities have been beneficial for the US as it provided Washington with a pretext to attack Syria, but then Washington has never had much concern over the well-being of its minions once they are no longer useful.

Even though US President Donald Trump would have a change of heart in mid-summer 2018, ordering the US State Department and US Agency for International Development (USAID) to allocate another 6.6 million dollars to sponsor their activities, at this point nobody doubts the provocative and untruthful nature of the reports released by the White Helmets.

A well-known British journalist, Vanessa Beeley has already exposed the ties between British intelligence and the White Helmets and through them, to the Jabhat Al-Nusra terrorist group. According to her revelations, the White Helmets branch in Eastern Aleppo was established by Abdulaziz Maghribi, who previously headed a local Al-Nusra-affiliated militant group. Further still, this individual had also been an armed member of the Turkish-backed Al Tawhid brigade which invaded East Aleppo in 2012

The ever growing awareness of the Western public about the deceptive nature of the White Helmets and their activities has rendered them useless in any future anti-Russian or anti-Syrian provocations. Therefore, Washington had to make some sort of decision about their future, musing over the possibility of turning them into a purely British local propaganda vehicle, as the group was created back in 2013 by a retired British serviceman, the head of the Mayday Rescue Foundation NGO – James Le Mesure, or scrap this project altogether. Under these circumstances it became clear even for Washington that it had to find much more credible partners on the ground to carry on its agenda.

As the number of Syrian towns under control of pro-Western jihadi fighters has been dwindling steadily, Jordan’s intelligence agencies in cooperation with Mossad launched a withdrawal operation, transporting a total of 98 White Helmets activists together with their family members to Jordan from southwestern Syria, on July 22, 2018. Some publications claim that they’ve evacuated 422 people, while others state that there was over 800 people transported in total. Initially, it was planned that those so-called activists would dwell for some time at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base before heading to a number of western countries.

Initially, it was announced that the resettlement of the White Helmets wouldn’t take more than 3-4 weeks, with the UK, France, Canada, and Germany claiming that they would be delighted to become a new home for those “brave souls”, but it’s been over a year now. No more than 300 out of the initial 800 have found their new homes, as reported by Reuters, but now the process of resettlement has come to a screeching halt.

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2019/07/31/neo-wests-relations-with-the-terrorist-white-helmets-has-gone-stale/