I occasionally browse RT. In general, I don’t like the site. The editorial direction is to be wholly negative about the West and wholly positive about Russia. Since I am a Western person, it leaves me feeling that I am being made to feel a bit miserable. Still, it is noteworthy for picking up stories which the Western media block.
Here is one. Belgian Prime Minister, Bart De Wever, has called for the EU to negotiate with Russia, saying that the policy of isolation has failed. (Funilly enough, I was just thinking that just before I saw the article). This is what he said:
Since we are not capable of threatening [Russian President Vladimir] Putin by sending weapons to Ukraine, and we cannot choke him economically without the support of the US, there is only one method left: making a deal
I could not agree more. The policy of “I won’t talk to you” led by the two infants von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas is an embarrassment. Whoever thought that closing your ears and going “la, la, la I am right and you are wrong”, was the way to solve political, diplomatic problems?
But, what interests me here, is how this major policy contribution from the current Prime Minister of a founding member of the EU, and home to NATO’s European headquarters is being treated by the mainstream UK media. How do you think it is being treated? Yes, that’s right. Ignored. Blanked. Edited out. I did a Google search – noting that Google is already heavily biased in favour of the corporate-military establishment, (in which they themselves sit as an economic power and service partner), and Google can hardly find any coverage of this major development in Western media. The leading links are from media outlets in Syria, the Gulf, Kurdistan and Ukraine. (This often happens in fact; Ukrainian media reports these developments – obviously in a tone of shock – which are ignored by the Western media). You have to go to page 2 of the results to find a report on a minor European journal. I don’t see any of the main US or UK outlets on the first two pages.
And, this is how they manipulate public opinion. Quite deliberately. Consciously. In a planned way. At the editorial level. Which is linked to the intelligence services. The role of the media is, nominally, to faciliate public debate, linking policy makers to the public so that everyone can be involved in the debate. The reality, is that they stick to the narrow corporate-governmental line, (currently still focussed on ‘defeating’ Russia), and press this line into the brains of the public. It is, quite objectively speaking, even worse than Russian media.
Update
The Guardian did in fact cover this story – a day or two later. The headline of their piece is “Belgian PM condemned over call to repair relations with Russia to ease energy costs”. [1]
This is one of the standard patterns. When a senior figure says something which is adrift of the main approved narrative, the one dictated by the security establisment and the political and corporate figures close to it, they wait until the speaker has been criticised and then they publish the criticisms. As here, for example, where Belgian’s Foreign Minister was critical of “normalisation”, (incidentally Bart De Wever did not call for “normalisation”; he called for negotiations, not the same thing – so Jennifer Rankin is having to stretch her anti-quote a little to make it work in the way she wants). Comments are also included from Lithuania’s Foreign Minister who seems to believe in “having the sticks in our hands”, (hint: I can tell Kęstutis Budrys that Russia is not going to submit to ‘sticks’), and an unelected EU Commisioner, Dan Jørgensen, who told reporters it was important to continue to block Russian energy. It isn’t clear if he was responding to De Wever or not.
As I say; this is a standard pattern. Were they to run the initial story, about a European Leader calling for negotiations with Russia and saying the current policy has failed that would be big news. People might prick up their ears, and start to question the relentless pro-war narrative. But, they have to report it somehow; otherwise they lose their position as mainstream media. So, how are they going to solve this conundrum? The answer is; wait till they can assemble some criticism, and dirty up the speaker, “It is not the first time De Wever has set himself at odds with the EU mainstream. He was instrumental in blocking the EU’s use of Russia’s frozen assets to aid Ukraine, arguing that Belgium could be on the hook to repay the cash in the event of any legal action”; (i.e. he was one of the few sane ones in the room who declined to get involved in a gansgsterish grab of Russian money, because he didn’t want to expose his country to legal problems), – and then publish an article designed to make him look like a fringe nutcase. A very, very standard pattern.
We can note that Rankin and her media colleagues are going to find this increasingly hard to do. So far they have to dirty up Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, Fico of Slovakia and now the Belgian Prime Minister. A few more and the game-play of painting these people as the lunatic fringe is going to become quite hard to sustain.
Frustratingly, of course, for various reasons, it is Rankin’s propaganda which reaches millions while thougtful analysis such as you find on this site, reaches a few dozen.
Notes