The same corporate outlets that most vocally profess concern over disinformation are the ones spreading it most casually. NBC's Assange report is the perfect case study.
I run a small social media site. I consider myself a Libertarian - conservative on financial issues, liberal on social ones. Before Trump, I watched CNN mostly, sometimes MSNBC. But something happened around the time Trump won election.
For starters, I was far more thrilled that Hillary lost than that Trump won. I didn't vote for either of them, didn't vote for Trump the second time, and wouldn't vote for Trump if he ran again.
I could not help but roll my eyes at the crap that was coming from CNN all day. I found it hard to believe that Trump and his campaign colluded with Russian agents or that Trump was a Putin puppet.
For disbelieving this narrative, I was somehow pegged to be a Trump supporter (on my own site). I posted the obvious Truths, and simply made the point that the most extreme accusations required a significant amount of proof. Somehow, I was defending Trump, yet I was defending the Truth.
My gripes all along were with the media. They lied to us for 4 years about Russia, Russia, Russia. The walls are closing in on Trump. The riots on Jan 6 were an insurrection unlike anything we've seen, yet: there were "anthrax" letters sent to members of congress and the White House during the Bush II administration, left wing groups literally bombed the congress in building in 1983, another bombing by similar left wing groups in 1971, etc. Not to mention D.C. was set on fire by violent protesters during the summer of 2020.
I'm no fan of republicans or democrats. I think democrats are evil and republicans are morons.
I think I share some of Greenwald's experience. He stands for the Truth, no matter how close to home it hits (he's a progressive/liberal, for real). We need the Media (tm) to be the 4th estate; their role is not to produce propaganda for party or government, but to challenge both to assure our elected leaders are kept honest. The press and our leaders are not honest, sadly.
“The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.”
[Elena Gorokhova, A Mountain of Crumbs (also attributed to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]
I am a Trump Republican. I subscribed to annual $50 subscription a few minutes ago.
In 2008, I believed there were WMD and Saddam Hussein was a threat to the US. In 2010 I thought Edward Snowden was a traitor for telling the US public that NSA was spying on us and Julian Assange had conspired to undermine US security and then....it became evident that the CIA-FBI-DoJ would an did conspired with the Clintons, the DNC and Corporates Media, broadcast, cable and print. including the NYTimes and WaPo to fabricate a crime of treason against the elected President with a totally fabricated "dossier".
I don't quite recall when I became aware of Glenn Groenewald, probably sometime in 2018 and i do recall Rush Limbaugh citing him with approval . I was surprised. Mr. Greenwald comes across as a decent and honest man as well as smart and well-informed.
Mr. Greenwald has been described as a "Leftist" although as I read him, I find there may be more common ground than I originally expected.. The US needs an honest policeman and Mr. Greenwald may be that providential policeman.
In any event, it does seem that Julian Assange is a political prisoner and the more that CNN and the Democrats lie about him, the more I am convinced that they fear what he knows and need to discredit and silence him.
All good to Glenn Greenwald and his family and we fear for the safety of Julian Assange.
It really is stunning how Democratic establishmentarians readily engage in the very behavior they claim motivates their outrage:
- Spreading fake news
- Ignoring science and the scientific method
- Blindly accepting authoritarian talking points
- Backing authoritarians and authoritarianism
- Dividing the population through rancid judgment and assumption
- Advocating for extremely harsh responses to basic human behavior
The list goes on.
The good news is that I think the number of dedicated partisans in the US has probably dropped to under 30%. Unfortunately, we'll never know that because...well...see above.
I write now not just because of this article but because of Glenn's overall body of journalism. So that everyone knows, I am a 76 year old retired, conservative trial lawyer from Missisissipi, who first learned of Glenn while he worked for The Guardian revealing the Edward Snowden revealations. Since then, I followed him, subscribed to The Intercept, now to his substack. It is my belief that when I go to my grave Glenn Greenwald will be the best investigative journalist in my lifetime. It is my sincerest belief that Glenn only reports true facts and not the BS we get from mass media. I am eternally grateful to him for reporting the truth and nothing but the truth
More often than not, the real motivation behind "we gotta censor because National Security, because Muh Democracy, whatever" is because the truth would prove highly embarrassing to people and institutions of influence and authority.
Most Canadians that I know actually and fervently believe all the lies about Assange, that he is a rapist, that he works for the Russians, and of course, he abuses cats.
CBC, our national broadcaster has gone from supporting Assange, to lying about him, to where they are today, completely ignoring his plight.
Before I was banned from Twitter I would ask them several times a week on Twitter, for years, "Why do you not report fairly on Julian Assange? ", and on like that. Of course they never replied to me.
Brainwashing is not too strong a word to describe what the media can do to most people.
Emails Expose Fauci, Collins Collusion To 'Smear' Anti-Lockdown Scientists
Authored by Phillip Magness via The American Institute for Economic Research,
From October 2-4, 2020, the American Institute for Economic Research hosted a small conference for scientists to discuss the Covid-19 lockdowns. Just four days later, Dr. Francis Collins, the retiring Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), would call the three of the scientists in attendance “fringe epidemiologists,” in a directive he sent to Anthony Fauci and other senior staff of his agency.
They were “fringe epidemiologists” because they had the temerity to ask whether the lockdowns of 2020 were effective. Those three, Martin Kulldorff of Harvard, Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, and Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford were simply doing what any good scientist would do: They were following the evidence.
They wrote the Great Barrington Declaration [GBD] as they parted company at AIER, posting it for all to see.
So why was Dr. Collins so intent on impugning these three scientists? It’s hard to know exactly, mostly because any scientist worth his salt should have been happy to see further research being done. That is, after all, how ignorance is replaced by knowledge. But Collins was clearly in no mood to replace his own possible ignorance with any kind of knowledge. He was pretty sure he knew all he had to know; and this is one of the most dangerous positions a scientist can take.
In an email obtained by AIER through a Freedom of Information Act request, Collins told Anthony Fauci, CCing Lawrence Tabak, Deputy Ethics Counselor at NIH, that he wanted “a quick and devastating published take down” of the Great Barrington Declaration’s premises.
The grand absurdity of all this is that while those in the media like Scarborough claim Assange has blood on his hands, and has put the interest of America, and it's military personnel in danger, the military industrial complex, as Ike defined them, are the ones who have the blood of millions of lives on their souls, and not for any honorable cause. They have engaged in illegal wars based on lies to further the interests of the US with no concern for the loss of lives which number in the millions and millions, or the destruction of whole countries. The CIA from it's inception after WWII until the turn of the 21st century toppled governments corrupted governments and their death toll is over six million. Assange is just their scapegoat. Joe Scarborough once referred to Trump as a ‘Fat Bastard’, a ‘Demagogue,’ ‘Mussolini-like’, well Scar... isn't fat, but he is a demagogue and will lie his way into millions, and popularity, by inciting people's emotions and prejudices with claims, but never factual information.
I can see what they are doing. Joe Biden said in order to convict Julian Assange they would have to prove he worked with Chelsea Manning to crack a code of a password of a government computer. It was already established that Manning had security clearance to download all the classified documents. Assange was trying to help her hide her identity, which is routinely done by journalists to protect their sources. Joe and Claire are appealing to the court of public opinion to bolster the false allegation Joe Biden claims he needs to prosecute Julian Assange successfully. False charges, false and misleading information fed to the public to cheerlead a false trial with a falsely decided conviction. False False False! Lies Lies Lies!
Excellent work by Glen Greenwald. Share this with everyone.
Sterling, per usual. Why I subscribe. One observation on the end commentary: MSNBC lies about Assange because that’s what its audience wants to hear, that’s true. But it also lies about Assange, and in the way that it lies about him, because its a lickspittle and is doing its part to prevent actual journalism from existing lest it comprise a threat to the corporate and government power it serves. It has a political agenda, too, in other words, whereas if one only attributes its motives to crowd-pleasing impulses (and by extension, financial interests), this hugely important propaganda function is missed even though it is more fundamental. Remember, MSNBC removed Donahue from the air when he became
critical of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, despite the fact that his ratings were high.
The Real Disinformation Agents: Watch as NBC News Tells Four Blatant Lies in a Two-Minute Clip
I run a small social media site. I consider myself a Libertarian - conservative on financial issues, liberal on social ones. Before Trump, I watched CNN mostly, sometimes MSNBC. But something happened around the time Trump won election.
For starters, I was far more thrilled that Hillary lost than that Trump won. I didn't vote for either of them, didn't vote for Trump the second time, and wouldn't vote for Trump if he ran again.
I could not help but roll my eyes at the crap that was coming from CNN all day. I found it hard to believe that Trump and his campaign colluded with Russian agents or that Trump was a Putin puppet.
For disbelieving this narrative, I was somehow pegged to be a Trump supporter (on my own site). I posted the obvious Truths, and simply made the point that the most extreme accusations required a significant amount of proof. Somehow, I was defending Trump, yet I was defending the Truth.
My gripes all along were with the media. They lied to us for 4 years about Russia, Russia, Russia. The walls are closing in on Trump. The riots on Jan 6 were an insurrection unlike anything we've seen, yet: there were "anthrax" letters sent to members of congress and the White House during the Bush II administration, left wing groups literally bombed the congress in building in 1983, another bombing by similar left wing groups in 1971, etc. Not to mention D.C. was set on fire by violent protesters during the summer of 2020.
I'm no fan of republicans or democrats. I think democrats are evil and republicans are morons.
I think I share some of Greenwald's experience. He stands for the Truth, no matter how close to home it hits (he's a progressive/liberal, for real). We need the Media (tm) to be the 4th estate; their role is not to produce propaganda for party or government, but to challenge both to assure our elected leaders are kept honest. The press and our leaders are not honest, sadly.
“The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.”
[Elena Gorokhova, A Mountain of Crumbs (also attributed to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]
I am a Trump Republican. I subscribed to annual $50 subscription a few minutes ago.
In 2008, I believed there were WMD and Saddam Hussein was a threat to the US. In 2010 I thought Edward Snowden was a traitor for telling the US public that NSA was spying on us and Julian Assange had conspired to undermine US security and then....it became evident that the CIA-FBI-DoJ would an did conspired with the Clintons, the DNC and Corporates Media, broadcast, cable and print. including the NYTimes and WaPo to fabricate a crime of treason against the elected President with a totally fabricated "dossier".
I don't quite recall when I became aware of Glenn Groenewald, probably sometime in 2018 and i do recall Rush Limbaugh citing him with approval . I was surprised. Mr. Greenwald comes across as a decent and honest man as well as smart and well-informed.
Mr. Greenwald has been described as a "Leftist" although as I read him, I find there may be more common ground than I originally expected.. The US needs an honest policeman and Mr. Greenwald may be that providential policeman.
In any event, it does seem that Julian Assange is a political prisoner and the more that CNN and the Democrats lie about him, the more I am convinced that they fear what he knows and need to discredit and silence him.
All good to Glenn Greenwald and his family and we fear for the safety of Julian Assange.
It really is stunning how Democratic establishmentarians readily engage in the very behavior they claim motivates their outrage:
- Spreading fake news
- Ignoring science and the scientific method
- Blindly accepting authoritarian talking points
- Backing authoritarians and authoritarianism
- Dividing the population through rancid judgment and assumption
- Advocating for extremely harsh responses to basic human behavior
The list goes on.
The good news is that I think the number of dedicated partisans in the US has probably dropped to under 30%. Unfortunately, we'll never know that because...well...see above.
I write now not just because of this article but because of Glenn's overall body of journalism. So that everyone knows, I am a 76 year old retired, conservative trial lawyer from Missisissipi, who first learned of Glenn while he worked for The Guardian revealing the Edward Snowden revealations. Since then, I followed him, subscribed to The Intercept, now to his substack. It is my belief that when I go to my grave Glenn Greenwald will be the best investigative journalist in my lifetime. It is my sincerest belief that Glenn only reports true facts and not the BS we get from mass media. I am eternally grateful to him for reporting the truth and nothing but the truth
More often than not, the real motivation behind "we gotta censor because National Security, because Muh Democracy, whatever" is because the truth would prove highly embarrassing to people and institutions of influence and authority.
The Assange case provides one of the most lucid examples of how morally bereft the so-called left has become. Pathetic.
Most Canadians that I know actually and fervently believe all the lies about Assange, that he is a rapist, that he works for the Russians, and of course, he abuses cats.
CBC, our national broadcaster has gone from supporting Assange, to lying about him, to where they are today, completely ignoring his plight.
Before I was banned from Twitter I would ask them several times a week on Twitter, for years, "Why do you not report fairly on Julian Assange? ", and on like that. Of course they never replied to me.
Brainwashing is not too strong a word to describe what the media can do to most people.
Emails Expose Fauci, Collins Collusion To 'Smear' Anti-Lockdown Scientists
Authored by Phillip Magness via The American Institute for Economic Research,
From October 2-4, 2020, the American Institute for Economic Research hosted a small conference for scientists to discuss the Covid-19 lockdowns. Just four days later, Dr. Francis Collins, the retiring Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), would call the three of the scientists in attendance “fringe epidemiologists,” in a directive he sent to Anthony Fauci and other senior staff of his agency.
They were “fringe epidemiologists” because they had the temerity to ask whether the lockdowns of 2020 were effective. Those three, Martin Kulldorff of Harvard, Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, and Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford were simply doing what any good scientist would do: They were following the evidence.
They wrote the Great Barrington Declaration [GBD] as they parted company at AIER, posting it for all to see.
So why was Dr. Collins so intent on impugning these three scientists? It’s hard to know exactly, mostly because any scientist worth his salt should have been happy to see further research being done. That is, after all, how ignorance is replaced by knowledge. But Collins was clearly in no mood to replace his own possible ignorance with any kind of knowledge. He was pretty sure he knew all he had to know; and this is one of the most dangerous positions a scientist can take.
In an email obtained by AIER through a Freedom of Information Act request, Collins told Anthony Fauci, CCing Lawrence Tabak, Deputy Ethics Counselor at NIH, that he wanted “a quick and devastating published take down” of the Great Barrington Declaration’s premises.
Entire article:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/emails-expose-fauci-collins-collusion-smear-anti-lockdown-scientists
\\][//
Seven minutes into the video and I'm already at, "Fuck these fucking cunts."
The grand absurdity of all this is that while those in the media like Scarborough claim Assange has blood on his hands, and has put the interest of America, and it's military personnel in danger, the military industrial complex, as Ike defined them, are the ones who have the blood of millions of lives on their souls, and not for any honorable cause. They have engaged in illegal wars based on lies to further the interests of the US with no concern for the loss of lives which number in the millions and millions, or the destruction of whole countries. The CIA from it's inception after WWII until the turn of the 21st century toppled governments corrupted governments and their death toll is over six million. Assange is just their scapegoat. Joe Scarborough once referred to Trump as a ‘Fat Bastard’, a ‘Demagogue,’ ‘Mussolini-like’, well Scar... isn't fat, but he is a demagogue and will lie his way into millions, and popularity, by inciting people's emotions and prejudices with claims, but never factual information.
On "Disinformation": Nobody can speak truth to power if power decides the truth.
I can see what they are doing. Joe Biden said in order to convict Julian Assange they would have to prove he worked with Chelsea Manning to crack a code of a password of a government computer. It was already established that Manning had security clearance to download all the classified documents. Assange was trying to help her hide her identity, which is routinely done by journalists to protect their sources. Joe and Claire are appealing to the court of public opinion to bolster the false allegation Joe Biden claims he needs to prosecute Julian Assange successfully. False charges, false and misleading information fed to the public to cheerlead a false trial with a falsely decided conviction. False False False! Lies Lies Lies!
Excellent work by Glen Greenwald. Share this with everyone.
Of course media wants to censor the internet.
If my ass was getting ripped apart across virtually its entire breadth, I'd be irritated too.
Sterling, per usual. Why I subscribe. One observation on the end commentary: MSNBC lies about Assange because that’s what its audience wants to hear, that’s true. But it also lies about Assange, and in the way that it lies about him, because its a lickspittle and is doing its part to prevent actual journalism from existing lest it comprise a threat to the corporate and government power it serves. It has a political agenda, too, in other words, whereas if one only attributes its motives to crowd-pleasing impulses (and by extension, financial interests), this hugely important propaganda function is missed even though it is more fundamental. Remember, MSNBC removed Donahue from the air when he became
critical of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, despite the fact that his ratings were high.
Fake news has always been the norm.
You know what I am tonkin a boat.