It has been clear for some time that western powers have been pushing an agenda to demonise the Russian leadership, who have stifled the west’s plunder of the Middle East, via their intervention in Syria to assist with the defeat of the west-backed ‘rebels’ (jihadists).
We feared a Hillary Clinton presidency, particularly because of her desire for a 'no-fly-zone' in Syria, thus making direct conflict with Russia almost inevitable.
Now that it’s more obvious to all that we’re on this course towards possible calamity, thanks to Trump seemingly renaging on his earlier anti-interventionist stance in Syria and becoming Hillary 2.0, (or perhaps it's all 'liberal' Macron's doing and Trump is being truthful in his public calls for withdrawal?), ‘MSM’ has suddenly started reporting on the extreme seriousness of the situation in Syria, with direct conflict between two nuclear powers closer than it is has been since the height of the first Cold War.
It’s as though these ‘MSM’ journalists are unable to report anything other than the obvious. Why is this? Is it because of the constant McCarthyite climate that we have - meaning that doing so; to actually question the system whilst it heads in the direction of disaster, rather than waiting until we’re on the brink of catastrophe, sees them condemned as anti-western, conspiracy theorist, Kremlin bots? I know from first hand experience on Twitter that if you speak out against imperial war and against the ‘right’ of the west to ‘police’ the world, you‘ll be attacked as though you are a genocide-loving devil. Imagine what it is like for journalists/politicians to speak out against these things?
Unfortunately it’s the nature of ‘MSM’ - they are a corporate media; a business, reliant on profit. They must be careful not to offend, and not to question the prevailing view too much and end up smeared as radical conspiracy theorists, or getting something wrong and having their reputations ruined. So self-censorship becomes necessary. Integrity is impossible. Corporate media journalists inevitably end up a herd of self-serving careerists. Generally only those with a certain ideology - those eager or willing to serve power and maintain the status quo - will reach the ‘top’ of the profession. This is Noam Chomsky’s theory of the ‘Manufacturing of Consent’. (See this interview in which Chomsky puts the BBC’s Andrew Marr on the spot).
And of course, the corporate media is owned and influenced by a handful of plutocrats, some of whom benefit from war and our hurtle to hell, via vested interests in oil rights in the Middle East, for example. (But surely even they don’t want nuclear war with Russia..?!).
It is abundantly clear that corporate media is not keeping the public informed, so it is essential that we citizens become wise to this media system and that we all grow a backbone and spread awareness ourselves. Thankfully this is happening, thanks to social media - hence all the establishment attacks on social media lately.
I just hope to God that Jeremy Corbyn, a man who clearly understands how the media operates as a propaganda machine to uphold the neoliberal and imperial status quo, holds out and doesn’t succumb to the current McCarthyite climate and to the bloodlust of the spineless sheep who make up both political parties and the ‘MSM’.
The debate as to whether or not we should intervene more in Syria is really a debate between those who continue to support, (or be apologists for), the unipolar world order dominated by the militarism and neoliberalism of the west... and those who want a different (multi-polar) world based on a genuine respect for international law and human rights.
Given that our latest intervention, in Syria, would literally involve becoming al Qaeda’s air force, and potentially lead to direct conflict with a nuclear armed country, I’m hoping that many are increasingly moving towards the latter option? Please god.
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