Briefing wars on Ukraine

The Guardian is briefing that Russia has already put in place a plan to stage a “false-flag” operation in Eastern Ukraine. Apparently they already have special force assets in place to attack “Russian forces in Eastern Ukraine” in order to blame Ukraine and use this as a pretext to “stage an attack”. CNN carries the same story.

Both outlets attribute the story to an unnamed “US official”. We are not even told what department they work in. No source for the intelligence is given; the anonymous official simply says “We have information…”

Firstly; this shows the media working hand in glove with the US State Department to wage an information war. Since information wars are an integral part of war we see here the Guardian and CNN essentially taking part in war preparations on behalf of the State Department. Of course; actual journalism would be asking questions; who is this anonymous official? Why are we being used to disseminate this information in this way? What is the source of the information? But, no. The Western media is the PR arm of the war machine and fulfills its role by simply transmitting this information as required rather than questioning it.

Continue reading “Briefing wars on Ukraine”

The media and democracy

The media this week has provided a very good example of how we have “managed consent” in the UK.

The media – across the spectrum – has had article after article about Boris Johnson having broken the lockdown laws which his government had just made by having parties in Downing Street. It is a dramatic and salacious story. Of course it matters that the Prime Minister of the country is not a cynical liar who makes laws for the people and breaks them himself. But, ultimately, this is a story about one man. He can go and be replaced with another (or a woman). It will make no difference to policy.

Continue reading “The media and democracy”

Rand Paul shines

Rand Paul as well as being on the button on the science of the pandemic is also someone to learn from when it comes to being clear and articulate and not giving way to anger or annoyance even when debating with evil.

Respect.

Another one:

Notice how Dr Fauci comes armed with a personal attack on Rand Paul (which backfires).

What is impressive about Rand Paul is that he is able to respond to this ambush that he is somehow responsible for some crazy wanting to kill Dr Fauci in a clear, calm and reasoned manner. I like the second part of this clip the most – Rand Paul calmly, and from a medical and scientific viewpoint, questions the absurd and dangerous policies of vaccinating children and of not recognizing natural immunity. He also puts into the public domain the fact that the existing vaccines barely work to stop transmission of Omicron (which makes mandating them for the healthy even more insane).

The level of journalism in the UK

This is the Guardian’s world affairs editor:

«Few if any diplomatic observers expect a quick deal to resolve the crisis this week, and the opposite – a complete breakdown – is possible. It should quickly become apparent whether Russia is interested in negotiating over its proposals or whether they were designed to be rejected, creating a pretext for a war that Putin has already decided on.»

How on earth does he know that Putin has already ‘decided on war’? (He thinks it is a binary; either Russia is interested in negotiating or they looking for an excuse for war). This is simply a phantasy which has gripped the political-media classes in the last week. As usual they repeat their assumption/tale a few times and soon it becomes a self-evident truth to them.

Russia will “invade” Ukraine if Kiev attacks Donbass in violation of Minsk. They have said so. Everything else is conjecture and the fact is it is highly unlikely that Russia would just up and ‘invade’ Ukraine. A basket-case of a country where millions in the West and centre despise them. What would they do with a conquered Ukraine?

But they’ve repeated this stuff about Putin being about to invade a sufficient number of times for them to have hypnotized themselves into thinking it represents reality.

More likely is that the Kremlin is not expecting to get most of their demands met and will change their posture accordingly. It also means they are not responsible if the crackpots in Kiev try something believing that the US will back them.