Former Russian double agent seriously ill in Salisbury.

SPG said:
TIN Foil or what....

A free press is a fundamental to our way of life (although they do need to be reigned in), Russia is mess, thing is if we didnt have a putin then it would be a bigger mess.
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You managed point 2 and 4 in the same reply :). And possibly number 5.

You my friend have been severely propagandized.
 
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jpaul said:
THE fancy bears https://www.fancybear.net/ yes ? (such a release would prove they are not under state control)
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Oops. I thought "fancy bear" was just your quirky way of meaning Russia lol. Thanks for clarifying.

Don't really have an opinion on the fancybear.net and whether they are under state control. But it would not surprise me for states to be involved or even fully controlling, certain hacking groups like that one.

I think the UK side has also said they will release the report in a few weeks/months*, so it doesn't look like something that will require hacking for the public to read it (although that wasn't your point).

* At least this was quoted by a newspaper, can't remember which.
 
stopper said:
And you are totally right.
Even here the media is controlled by the government. Maybe not at company level like RT is, but Ofcom still control what the BBC and all other news outlets are allowed to publish.
Anyone who thinks British media is not biased is a complete tool, or any other media for that matter.
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It's not just "state owned" media outlets it's also corporate owned media outlets too. The funny thing is they all pretty much report the same information just told in slightly different ways. The trick is repetition.

“Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.” - Noam Chomsky
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The Propaganda Model

The propaganda model seeks to explain media behavior by examining the institutional pressures that constrain and influence news content within a profit-driven system. In contrast to liberal theories that argue that journalism is adversarial to established power, the propaganda model predicts that corporate-owned news media will consistently produce news content that serves the interests of established power.

First introduced in 1988 in Edward S. Herman’s and Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, the propaganda model argues that “the raw material of news” passes through five filters that ultimately shape the news audiences receive. These filters determine what events are deemed newsworthy, how they are covered, where they are placed within the media and how much coverage they receive.

The five filters are as follows:

Concentrated ownership, owner wealth and profit-orientation of the dominant mass-media firms. Corporate media firms share common interests with other sectors of the economy, and therefore have a real stake in maintaining an economic and political climate that is conducive to their profitability. They are unlikely to be critical of economic or political policies that directly benefit them.

Advertising as primary source of income. To remain profitable, most media rely on advertising dollars for the bulk of their revenue. It is therefore against the interests of the news media to produce content that might antagonize advertisers.

Reliance on information provided by “expert” and official sources. Elites have the resources to routinely “facilitate” the news-gathering process by providing photo-ops, news conferences, press releases, think-tank reports and canned news pieces that take advantage of the news media’s need for continuous and cheap news content. Business leaders, politicians and government officials are also typically viewed as credible and unbiased sources of information, jettisoning the need for fact-checking or other costly background research. This filter was clearly demonstrated during the run-up to the 2003 Iraq War, when the U.S. news media took official pronouncements at face value, refusing to investigate their veracity or accuracy.

Flak as a means of disciplining the media. Flak refers to negative commentary to a news story that can work to police and discipline journalists or news organizations that stray too far outside the consensus. Flak includes complaints, lawsuits, petitions or government sanctions.

An external enemy or threat. Manifesting as “anti-communism” during the Cold War period when Manufacturing Consent was originally published, this filter still operates, particularly in the post-9/11 political climate. This filter mobilizes the population against a common enemy (terrorism, energy insecurity, Iran…) while demonizing opponents of state policy as insufficiently patriotic or in league with the enemy.

The propaganda model suggests that corporate media ultimately serve to “manufacture consent” for a narrow range of self-serving élitist policy options. It allows us to understand the institutional pressures that ultimately color how activists’ causes and actions are covered. By understanding the limits of “objectivity” and the contradictions within corporate-sponsored journalism, we can develop media tactics that take advantage of these contradictions while also bypassing the filters of the corporate press, and directly appealing to the public through alternative forms of media. As Herman himself suggests, “we would like to think that the propaganda model can help activists understand where they might best deploy their efforts to influence mainstream media coverage of issues.
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Robert Fisk: Syrian war of lies and hypocrisy
https://www.independent.co.uk/voice...syrian-war-of-lies-and-hypocrisy-7985012.html

Has there ever been a Middle Eastern war of such hypocrisy? A war of such cowardice and such mean morality, of such false rhetoric and such public humiliation? I'm not talking about the physical victims of the Syrian tragedy. I'm referring to the utter lies and mendacity of our masters and our own public opinion – eastern as well as western – in response to the slaughter, a vicious pantomime more worthy of Swiftian satire than Tolstoy or Shakespeare.

While Qatar and Saudi Arabia arm and fund the rebels of Syria to overthrow Bashar al-Assad's Alawite/Shia-Baathist dictatorship, Washington mutters not a word of criticism against them. President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, say they want a democracy in Syria. But Qatar is an autocracy and Saudi Arabia is among the most pernicious of caliphate-kingly-dictatorships in the Arab world. Rulers of both states inherit power from their families – just as Bashar has done – and Saudi Arabia is an ally of the Salafist-Wahabi rebels in Syria, just as it was the most fervent supporter of the medieval Taliban during Afghanistan's dark ages.

Indeed, 15 of the 19 hijacker-mass murderers of 11 September, 2001, came from Saudi Arabia – after which, of course, we bombed Afghanistan. The Saudis are repressing their own Shia minority just as they now wish to destroy the Alawite-Shia minority of Syria. And we believe Saudi Arabia wants to set up a democracy in Syria?

Then we have the Shia Hezbollah party/militia in Lebanon, right hand of Shia Iran and supporter of Bashar al-Assad's regime. For 30 years, Hezbollah has defended the oppressed Shias of southern Lebanon against Israeli aggression. They have presented themselves as the defenders of Palestinian rights in the West Bank and Gaza. But faced with the slow collapse of their ruthless ally in Syria, they have lost their tongue. Not a word have they uttered – nor their princely Sayed Hassan Nasrallah – about the rape and mass murder of Syrian civilians by Bashar's soldiers and "Shabiha" militia.

Then we have the heroes of America – La Clinton, the Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, and Obama himself. Clinton issues a "stern warning" to Assad. Panetta – the same man who repeated to the last US forces in Iraq that old lie about Saddam's connection to 9/11 – announces that things are "spiralling out of control" in Syria. They have been doing that for at least six months. Has he just realised? And then Obama told us last week that "given the regime's stockpile of chemical weapons, we will continue to make it clear to Assad … that the world is watching". Now, was it not a County Cork newspaper called the Skibbereen Eagle, fearful of Russia's designs on China, which declared that it was "keeping an eye … on the Tsar of Russia"? Now it is Obama's turn to emphasise how little clout he has in the mighty conflicts of the world. How Bashar must be shaking in his boots.

But what US administration would really want to see Bashar's atrocious archives of torture opened to our gaze? Why, only a few years ago, the Bush administration was sending Muslims to Damascus for Bashar's torturers to tear their fingernails out for information, imprisoned at the US government's request in the very hell-hole which Syrian rebels blew to bits last week. Western embassies dutifully supplied the prisoners' tormentors with questions for the victims. Bashar, you see, was our baby.

Then there's that neighbouring country which owes us so much gratitude: Iraq. Last week, it suffered in one day 29 bombing attacks in 19 cities, killing 111 civilian and wounding another 235. The same day, Syria's bloodbath consumed about the same number of innocents. But Iraq was "down the page" from Syria, buried "below the fold", as we journalists say; because, of course, we gave freedom to Iraq, Jeffersonian democracy, etc, etc, didn't we? So this slaughter to the east of Syria didn't have quite the same impact, did it? Nothing we did in 2003 led to Iraq's suffering today. Right?

And talking of journalism, who in BBC World News decided that even the preparations for the Olympics should take precedence all last week over Syrian outrages? British newspapers and the BBC in Britain will naturally lead with the Olympics as a local story. But in a lamentable decision, the BBC – broadcasting "world" news to the world – also decided that the passage of the Olympic flame was more important than dying Syrian children, even when it has its own courageous reporter sending his despatches directly from Aleppo.

Then, of course, there's us, our dear liberal selves who are so quick to fill the streets of London in protest at the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians. Rightly so, of course. When our political leaders are happy to condemn Arabs for their savagery but too timid to utter a word of the mildest criticism when the Israeli army commits crimes against humanity – or watches its allies do it in Lebanon – ordinary people have to remind the world that they are not as timid as the politicians. But when the scorecard of death in Syria reaches 15,000 or 19,000 – perhaps 14 times as many fatalities as in Israel's savage 2008-2009 onslaught on Gaza – scarcely a single protester, save for Syrian expatriates abroad, walks the streets to condemn these crimes against humanity. Israel's crimes have not been on this scale since 1948. Rightly or wrongly, the message that goes out is simple: we demand justice and the right to life for Arabs if they are butchered by the West and its Israeli allies; but not when they are being butchered by their fellow Arabs.

And all the while, we forget the "big" truth. That this is an attempt to crush the Syrian dictatorship not because of our love for Syrians or our hatred of our former friend Bashar al-Assad, or because of our outrage at Russia, whose place in the pantheon of hypocrites is clear when we watch its reaction to all the little Stalingrads across Syria. No, this is all about Iran and our desire to crush the Islamic Republic and its infernal nuclear plans – if they exist – and has nothing to do with human rights or the right to life or the death of Syrian babies. Quelle horreur!
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Its great when people just dump links/videos into a thread without even bothering to engage in discussion - just post stuff and then ask questions about the stuff they've posted.
 
Sorry chaps just feel the need to bring a little balance to these parts, you may not agree with it but least I brought you something to ponder while the media is whipping up a storm.
 
Doobedoo said:
Sorry chaps just feel the need to bring a little balance to these parts, you may not agree with it but least I brought you something to ponder while the media is whipping up a storm.
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Years ago the anti-tinfoil hat brigade and CT police would be out in droves on here telling you how stupid and small minded you are.

I wonder what happened to them? :o
 
All sides engage in propaganda. And there is good and bad propaganda, or maybe evil and less evil. And there is more overt or more covert. That's a pretty obvious acknowledgement. But here's my thoughts:

When we meet someone, we don't tend to show them the worst about us but rather the best about us, even though there is a "worst about us". But we don't "admit it" to the other. Or at least not to everyone. So even in personal human relations it exists, let alone at state level. Sometimes you find someone special, or meaningful, to whom you are also special or meaningful, and the element of propaganda dissipates into a more genuine balance of the good and bad. You see their bad but also see their good, and they see your bad but also see your good. And these people become your friends instead of people you don't really trust. Only at that point, with the two people (or two sides) conscious of their own capacity for evil, and willing to forgive the odd occasion of evil, can the propaganda battle become a nice conversation, "high speech" (regardless of grammar), where both decide that yes, this is how it is, good and evil, and it's in our mutual interest to choose to be good rather than evil. Remove the beam from thine own eye and all that.

Something to consider in the West v East debate is - which side (meaning reporters, TV people) seems happiest doing it right now? Because the human spirit element (that values truth and freedom) comes into it then. Compare the entertaining and engaging performances of the Russian ambassador to the UK who even sat down the reporters at the embassy, to watch video of Tony Blair lying his eyes out, to the stuffy "talk down" performances of US and UK politicians. That ambassador has me in stitches frequently.

Which side is throwing civilized behaviour out of the window in this present context? Russia, for poisoning the Skripals, only if you throw away your own civilized behaviour, and presume them guilty without giving the defence a chance to present their case. 36 hours? With scarcely any information? Really? Their answer to the ultimatum was "no to the first and we need more info on the second", and the UK government dishonestly claims they did not answer, because the ultimatum was foolishly dressed as a "this OR that"? They've only just received the OPCW report a few days ago, for goodness sake, and already there could be something interesting to deal with regarding it. This is not over, not by a long shot. There are many unanswered questions and there is so much secrecy, appropriate in some instances, questionable in others. Making assumptions without evidence, weakens your position incrementally. And if you are foreign minister or prime minister, it also weakens your country's standing in the world's perception. The initial impatient, arrogant display of "strength" or "superiority", becomes weakness.

In essence, that is why Russia is winning this propaganda war, and winning over sceptics. Not because of armies of Russian bots which may or may not exist, and which would be remarkably well coded to reason, compared to something like "how's the weather in Moscow, comrade?" which makes you hope it is a bot and not an actual person less able to reason than a Russian bot.

If you presume their innocence until found guilty, you will see them exemplifying their will for the propaganda to die down, and for both sides to be able to have that genuine conversation. It doesn't mean they aren't guilty, but they are winning the propaganda war and showing how to do it. Whereas the UK government, in refusing to admit their own capacity for evil, and arrogantly claiming there is "no doubt", "no alternative explanation", is being intrinsically dishonest and losing the propaganda war. This doesn't mean the UK state apparatus poisoned and kidnapped the Skripals, either. But they are not acknowledging that they have the capacity to do it, and to crisis manage it, given it happened on home soil. Not acknowledging their own capacity for evil, which I touched upon earlier, and which is essential when it comes to being genuine and trustworthy. A calm and serious, "we could do it but we did not do it," would be far more convincing propaganda than "preposterous, Russian playbook, traitorous", when most of the British public knows full well that both Russia and Britain (and even others) are capable, and also because this posture is committing the fallacy of not being conducive to a good relationship.

Some people believe that the government ought to be trusted "because it is the government" which isn't an argument. But do they see anyone in government that they can say, hand on heart, they can trust? If you do, no blame. That is your true perception even if subjective. But if you don't, then it is a sin to your own perception, to disregard your own conscience and to complicitly believe the government, without questioning, just because they tell you to.

In fact, the very act of calling something propaganda while not acknowledging your own, is propaganda in itself. It is also a half-truth.

FWIW.
 
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Doobedoo said:
He explains his reasoning in that interview I posted a little while back.

Did you watch it or were you put off because it was on RT?
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I watched it and it was ridiculous, which I commented at the time.

How you could take that as "The Truth" is beyond me.

Litvinyenkos Dad said:
Putin is a nice man, he wouldn't do anything that nasty
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Sound reasoning there, backed up with plenty of empirical evidence :rolleyes:
 
Freakbro said:
I watched it and it was ridiculous, which I commented at the time.

How you could take that as "The Truth" is beyond me.



Sound reasoning there, backed up with plenty of empirical evidence :rolleyes:
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And I did ask you what do you actually know about Putin other than what you hear from the media.

Now ask yourself have the CIA ever been involved in stuff like this before, would they also have the capability to do something like this?
 
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