Tag: propaganda

What Has Been Asserted Without Evidence May Be Dismissed Without Evidence

We’re being bashed in the face with western propaganda about the Ukraine situation with increasing forcefulness. Every day now we’re seeing things like “analysts” claiming Putin definitely wants a large-scale war, very familiar-looking puff pieces about Ukrainian guerrilla freedom fighters based on claims by anonymous intelligence sources, think pieces on why Americans should all care about Ukrainian freedom from Kremlin tyranny, and, of course, a lot of entirely unsubstantiated assertions about what Russia is doing.

Despite the British government’s evidence-free claim that Russia was planning to install a puppet regime in Ukraine being debunked within hours and then shown to be a US intelligence claim dishonestly packaged as a British one days later, mass media outlets still to this day repeat the allegation like it’s a real thing. Despite the entirely unevidenced US government claim that Russia was plotting to stage a false flag attack in eastern Ukraine failing to prove true in subsequent weeks, US Senator Bob Menendez went on CNN over the weekend and declared that this false flag which never actually, physically happened was grounds to sanction Russia effective immediately.

The US political/media class is just saying whatever it wants about what Russia is doing and planning to do with no regard for facts or evidence. Nothing is too cartoonishly hysterical; in fact the more clickbaity and attention-grabbing the better. They feel free to scattergun these outlandish claims willy nilly all over our information ecosystem because five years of Russia hysteria have taught them that they will suffer exactly zero professional consequences when they are proven wrong, and that they will in fact see their stars rise as a reward for advancing the interests of the US empire.

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What Could Go Wrong? Millions of US Kids to Be Taught in School Which News is “Fake”

NewsGuard, a controversial service that ranks news sources read by clients online based on how trustworthy it considers them to be, will soon be available for free to millions of schoolchildren in the US.

The New York-based company signed a licensing agreement with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the second-largest teachers’ union in the country, making the service available to members and their students, the two said this week.

AFT President Randi Weingarten called the deal a game-changer when it comes to helping kids, “particularly our middle, high school and postsecondary students, separate fact from fiction.”

She called NewsGuard “a beacon of clarity to expose the dark depths of the internet and uplift those outlets committed to truth and honesty rather than falsehoods and fabrications.”

The service was launched in 2018, when the position that Big Tech should openly censor information that it deemed undesirable was not as pervasive in the US as it is today. NewsGuard ranks thousands of news sources with a “street light” color code, and puts a nutrition label-like explanation on each one to explain the score.

The service comes in the form of a browser plug-in and costs $2.95/month, except for users of Microsoft Edge, since Microsoft licensed it to be a built-in feature of its browser in 2019.

NewsGuard claims to be apolitical and to apply a rigorous process when assessing the integrity of news outlets. After its launch, skeptics, however, questioned the abundance of people linked to the US government among its advisory board.

One of them, Richard Stengel, who served under Barack Obama as the Department of State’s public affairs chief, said on the record that state propaganda was fine and that all nations subjected their citizens to it.

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‘This was literally in The Simpsons Movie’: Biden administration roasted for getting Tom Hanks to narrate a video

President Joe Biden’s administration is being mocked online after using Hollywood actor Tom Hanks to defend the federal government, a scenario that already played out in the 2007 animated comedy hit The Simpsons Movie.

In an exclusive report on Thursday, Axios revealed that the celebrity A-lister would help mark Biden’s first year of his presidency by appearing in a “video promoting a recovering, resilient America.”

“The video is narrated by Tom Hanks, who was part of Biden inaugural festivities, and features cameos by everyday Americans—a UPS driver, a Teamster from Michigan and a bed-and-breakfast owner in Wisconsin,” Axios writes.

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MSNBC Reporter Quits; Admits Network Is ‘CIA Propaganda’

Arkin recently blasted NBC News along with MSNBC news in an email for “becoming captive and subservient to the national security state, reflexively pro-war in the name of stopping President Donald Trump, and now the prime propaganda instrument of the War Machine’s promotion of militarism and imperialism.”

Thanks to the collapse of the Russian collusion hoax, relentlessly pushed by mainstream media for the last three years, millions of ordinary Americans are slowly waking up to the fact the mainstream media does not always tell the truth.

But the lies did not begin with the concocted theory that President Trump was colluding with the Kremlin. The mainstream media has always pushed disinformation on behalf of shady government agencies with the purpose of manipulating society. It’s why the mainstream networks were created in the first place.

According to William Arkin, the spooks in the mainstream media are in a stronger position than ever before. Indeed, “the national security establishment not only hasn’t issued a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength,” and “is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism.”

Another great quote comes to mind here,

“The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government, which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states and nation . . . The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both parties . . . [and] control the majority of the newspapers and magazines in this country. They use the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of office public officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government. It operates under cover of a self-created screen [and] seizes our executive officers, legislative bodies, schools, courts, newspapers and every agency created for the public protection.” (source)– Mayor of New York City from 1918-1925

CollectiveEvolution reports: Arkin has worked with NBC and MSNBC since 2016, and it’s great to see that he’s leaving due to the fact that these outlets have become nothing but the “central propaganda arm of the CIA, the Pentagon, and the FBI.”

This network alone consists of former CIA, NSA and Pentagon officials as news analysts. MSNBC host and former Bush-Cheney Communications Director Nicole Wallace is one of multiple great examples.

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Military Officers: To Combat ‘Disinformation,’ The Government And Its Big Tech Buddies Should Tell You What To Think

Four military officers who describe themselves as “researchers” at the Army’s highly respected Cyber Institute have published an article that adds to the growing concern about the ongoing politicization of the military. Published by the military’s National Defense University (NDU), their article purports to analyze the dangers of misinformation and disinformation and to advise the Biden administration about how to counter it.

The article’s authors all are military officers and at least two are professors at West Point. They say their article “is written in response to the Capitol insurrection.”

Ironically, the article is itself misinformation. That this misinformation is published by military officers associated with two highly prestigious institutions, the NDU and the Cyber Institute, makes it all the more inappropriate and dangerous.

The article attempts to address a real and dangerous issue: how mis- and disinformation can endanger national security. Preparing for and combatting disinformation is a complex issue that involves disciplines from sociology and psychology to highly technical cyberwarfare issues.

The difference between misinformation and disinformation is generally understood to be a matter of intent; disinformation is intentionally and maliciously deceptive. Disinformation is as old as warfare itself; only the techniques vary. The U.S. military has been practicing and studying it and related disciplines for many years. Misinformation has been a staple of military operations since the days of the Trojan horse and Sun Tzu.

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