BILLY BOB—Episode 44 of Blowback: Exposing Imperial Decline with special guests Regis Tremblay and Ian Kummer. The panel discusses the role of alternate media voices in pushing back against the pervasive brainwash, and memorialises the loss of John Pilger, one of the most dedicated anti-imperialist journalists and political documentarians of our time. Documentarian and antiwar activist Regis Tremblay speaks about his own radicalisation, and his eventual relocation to Crimea, Russia.
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BRIAN BERLETIC—Israeli military operations have exceeded in duration, scale, scope, death, and destruction, previous incursions into Gaza in 2008-2009 and 2014
• Israel is pacing its military operations, making this longer-term campaign possible in terms of arms and ammunition
• Israeli losses continue to mount, however the true nature of the fighting is difficult to discern
• Militants in Gaza have published inconclusive footage of attacks on Israeli armored vehicles failing to show the full aftermath and whether or not the vehicles were even hit at all, damaged, or destroyed
• Without more information about the nature of the fighting, it is difficult to draw conclusions about how sustainable Israeli military operations are and thus what outcome may emerge. -
JOHN PILGER—A powerful and timely investigation into the media’s role in war, tracing the history of embedded and independent reporting from the carnage of World War One to the destruction of Hiroshima, and from the invasion of Vietnam to the current war in Afghanistan and disaster in Iraq. As weapons and propaganda become even more sophisticated, the nature of war is developing into an electronic battlefield in which journalists play a key role, and civilians are the victims. But who is the real enemy?
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EDITOR—Content like this, featuring images of terrible suffering by Palestinians in the latest clash between Gaza and Israel highlights the shameless hypocrisy of the West as it applies selective empathy to the media coverage assigned to this immense tragedy. We don’t see ppl crying on the mainstream media when it’s Palestinians. We don’t see Dana Bash, Anderson Cooper and their ilk tearing up over these images. What we do see is how effectively they bury such material.
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EDITOR—Brian Berletic, editor of The New Atlas, has spent decades studying not just the ugly manifestations of the Western imperialist disease, but also its anatomy, especially its colossal machinery of soft power, comprising a multitude of mutually reinforcing institutions: powerful legacy media, new social media, think tanks, Hollywood movies and the rest of pop culture, television, false flag events, human rights outfits playing propaganda roles, intel disinfo experts, and even supposedly incorruptible places like international criminal courts. Covering the whole world, this is a formidable tool of empire to bend people and countries to its will. In this outstanding video, Brian applies his insights into this topic to the tragic events in Palestine.
