Are you the problem?

  Is the Media the problem?  Or is it you?

 

Over and over again for many years, the "news" has misrepresented world events, which means that you cannot take "honest reporting" "for granted: or the most part, it just doesn't exist.  That lso means you  should you not take what you believe for granted because most of that is based on misinformation (aka "lies").

Never Happened

 

Is Putin a thug and a dictator?  Most assuredly not.  Are David Cameron or Barak Obama "thugs" and "dictators".  Ummmm...let me think.

And how about Syria's Assad?   Nope. Wrong again. Less so certainly than Barak, who has fewer excuses.

Is Assad Evil?  His people don't all think so. 

 

Why do so many think so?

Why do you think so?

The "Media" -- which includes Hollywood, of course -- is not about "truth" it is about selling us stuff and entertainment.  For any story to be entertaining we need heroes and villains.  Shakespeare 101.  And you pay to get into the theater.

 

The new Anti-Semiticism

In its defense, you can say that the Media is just responding to what the Collective Mind wants and once the System is in motion it is hard to stop.  Does the public brainwash the Media --or vice versa?  Takes two to dance. 

That aside, consider basic ethics.   

 If you uncritically accept the Media story -- or, if you prefer -- the tyranny of the Uncritical Middle which is public prejudice--  you are an accessory after the fact to murder -- in the same way that most people like to say the German public was. 

Yup, murder begins at home.

Below, some counter-spin.....

 

 The Illusion of Western News

Finian Cunningham

Multi-million-dollar advertising money has long been suspected as an unspoken filter for Western news media coverage. If the news conflicts with advertising interests then it is simply dropped.

(click to read the whole article ...)

 

Bashar Al-Assad Has More Popular Support than the Western-Backed “Opposition”: Poll

By Stephen Gowans

In the view of Syrians, the country’s president, Bashar al Assad, and his ally, Iran, have more support than do the forces arrayed against him, according to a public opinion poll taken last summer by a research firm that is working with the US and British governments. [1]
The poll’s findings challenge the idea that Assad has lost legitimacy and that the opposition has broad support.
The survey, conducted by ORB International, a company which specializes in public opinion research in fragile and conflict environments, [2] found that 47 percent of Syrians believe that Assad has a positive influence in Syria, compared to only 35 percent for the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and 26 percent for the Syrian Opposition Coalition.

(click to read the whole article )

  America’s “Dirty War on Syria”: Bashar al Assad and Political Reform

By Prof. Tim Anderson

It should go without saying that the internal political processes of a sovereign country belongs to the people of that country, and no-one else. Nevertheless, as Washington insists on a prerogative to determine who can or cannot lead another country, some background on Bashar al Assad and the political reform process in Syria might be useful.

We find little reasonable discussion of either, in western circles, after the Islamist insurrection of 2011. Instead, the wartime discussion descended into caricatures, conditioned by ‘regime-change’ fervour and bloody war, of a bloodthirsty ‘brutal dictator’ mindlessly repressing and slaughtering his own people. None of this helps sensible or principled understandings. Fortunately, there are a range of Syrian and independent sources that allow us to put together a more realistic picture. If we believed most western media reports we would think President Assad had launched repeated and indiscriminate attacks on civilians, including the gassing of children.

(click to read the whole article.)