The corporate media, Gaza and the death of television actor Matthew Perry

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the establishment media is an enabler of endless wars and illegitimate oligarchic power

Kevin Reed, David Walsh
WSWS.ORG

Editor's Note

I recall coming to the exact same infuriating conclusion as the authors when I first observed how the mainstream media—especially television— consumed inordinate amounts of time reporting on and memorialising Matthew Perry, properly classified in this article as a minor actor whose death could hardly match the world-historical genocide of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, with the full military, diplomatic and media support of the US government and its usual accomplices. This is a cultural critique whose main talking points should be embraced by the (true) left and widely shared on all available platforms. —PG
 
The corporate media, Gaza and the death of television actor Matthew Perry
First posted on 31 October 2023

Television actor Matthew Perry, best known for his portrayal of the sarcastic-cynical character Chandler Bing on the sitcom Friends, died on Saturday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 54 years old.

The actor was found unresponsive in a hot tub behind his house, according to law enforcement sources, who spoke to the Los Angeles Times.

 

Matthew Perry, 2013


While no drugs were found at the scene, sources told the Times, “prescription medications were recovered at the home and hence toxicology will be part of the investigation.” The Los Angeles County coroner’s office, which has deferred its findings pending further testing, will determine the cause of death.

Perry was nominated for several Emmy awards for his role in all 234 episodes of Friends (1994-2004) on NBC and for appearances as an associate White House counsel in the fourth and fifth seasons (2003) of the popular The West Wing political drama for the same network.

Perry, born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, in 1969 and raised in Ottawa, Ontario, spoke publicly for many years about his struggles with substance abuse and addiction. In a memoir published a year ago, Perry recounted that he became an alcoholic at age 14 and later became addicted to pain killers following a jet ski accident at age 28. At one point, he admitted he was taking 55 Vicodin pills per day.

The actor suffered many health problems caused by opioid abuse, including spending two weeks in a coma and undergoing 14 stomach surgeries. Perry explained he could not remember three years of his life while appearing on Friends. He also revealed he had had 15 stays in rehab and 65 attempts at detoxification. At one point during an emergency treatment, Perry’s family was told by hospital staff that he had a 2 percent chance of survival.

By all accounts, despite his serious illnesses, Perry was a decent and caring man who admirably dedicated himself and his estimated $100 million personal wealth to helping others with similar addictions.

In a 2022 podcast to promote his memoir, Perry said, “The best thing about me, bar none, is that if somebody comes to me and says, ‘I can’t stop drinking, can you help me?’ I can say ‘yes’ and follow up and do it.” Perry then added, “When I die, I don’t want Friends to be the first thing that’s mentioned. I want that to be the first thing that’s mentioned. And I’m gonna live the rest of my life proving that.”

While Perry’s demise is certainly tragic and shocking, it is not entirely surprising. He is one of a very long list of Hollywood and music industry celebrities who have met death as a result of alcoholism or drug abuse, or both. That phenomenon is so often part of the lifestyle or associated with the devastating ups and downs of stardom in the cruel, rapacious multi-billion dollar entertainment industry, which specializes in damaging human beings. Nothing is so destructive in American popular culture as success.

In this context, however, readers should consider critically the inordinate attention, airtime and front-page column inches given over by the corporate media to reporting on the life and death of Matthew Perry, who was, by any objective measure, a relatively minor figure in television acting.

The evening television news programs Sunday devoted a third or more of their time to Perry’s passing, with anchors reading somber, pretentious obituaries and “on-the-spot” reporters chiming in with superficial and predictable biographical details. The coverage was vast, omnipresent but thoroughly shallow, with the usual media combination of titillation and moralizing about such celebrity deaths. The emphasis given to the actor’s death seriously suggested that this was the most important development going on in the world this past weekend.

In the first place, this is a conscious attempt to black out the horrifying genocide and ethnic cleansing being conducted against the Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli military, with the enthusiastic support of the White House and Congress and every Western power. Moreover, the news media in the US is engaged in deliberately concealing the size and significance of the massive demonstrations occurring on every inhabited continent against the Israeli mass murder. The death of Matthew Perry, from the point of view of the American media, largely an arm of the Pentagon and CIA, came as a godsend—Here was something they could truly sink their teeth into!

The disproportionate attention paid to Perry was a transparent effort to divert public attention from one of the greatest war crimes committed since the end of World War II, a war crime being carried out in the manner of the Nazis. The political and media establishment is terrified of the widespread public opposition to the mass death and destruction and that opposition’s increasing depth and breadth within the population. The establishment is desperate to find ways and means of keeping the reality from reaching the public.

The news media is not interested in or capable of telling the public the truth about what is happening in Gaza, even though workers and young people are finding out about it anyway, especially through the social media activity of those not controlled by any state apparatus or “authoritative” news source.

There are other issues here as well. No doubt the great financial success of Friends, some of whose leading performers were talented, but which, in the end, was a banal and lazy series, resonates with the people who run the entertainment industry. They are perpetually obsessed with finding new means of packaging unchallenging material to the public in “unusual, edgy” ways. The dull and apathetic presented as sexy and hilarious—how can the Friends formula be repeated?

Many of those who run film and television belong to Perry’s generation. In some fashion, they identify with him, possibly what was weakest about him, or at least they are drawn to the drama of his life as a central and vital one. To such people, frankly, Perry’s story is more weighty and compelling than the death of 10,000 Palestinians and the threat to hundreds of thousands more.

Drug addiction is a mass phenomenon, but its association with wealth, privilege, boredom and having too much time on one’s hands, is not the story of opioid addiction in the working class and among the most oppressed. 

Again, we point to the appalling fact, which needs to be remembered, that in the midst of a bloody war awash with crimes of a world-historical character, major US television news programs and newspapers devoted much of their time and energy to treating the death of a minor television actor. To the extent that the mass murder in Gaza is not reported and exposed, the liars and scoundrels who own and run the media become the accomplices of the murderers.

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“Not Wanting” A Wider Middle East War, the U.S. Has Started One

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Edward J. Curtin, Jr
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Biden Sunak

The Biden and Sunak Show. Pomp and circumstance, and the constant flattery of the kept media cannot erase the fact these two men are imperial butchers. They belong before a Nuremberg tribunal.

You have to hand it to the U.S. and its henchmen for brazenness.  In order to protect their client state Israel and its genocide in Gaza, the U.S., together with the UK, have in one week launched air and sea attacks on the Houthis in Yemen five times, referring to it as “self-defense” in their Orwellian lingo.  The ostensible reason being Yemen’s refusal to allow ships bound for Israel, which is committing genocide in Gaza, to enter the Red Sea, while permitting other ships to pass freely.

To any impartial observer, the Houthis should be lauded.  Yet, while the International Court of Justice considers the South African charge of genocide against Israel that is supported by overwhelming evidence, the U.S. and its allies have instigated a wider war throughout the Middle East while claiming they do not want such a war.  These settler colonial states want genocide and a much wider war because they have been set back on their heels by those they have mocked, provoked, and attacked – notably the Palestinians, Syrians, and Russians, among others.

While the criminalization of international law does not bode well for the ICJ’s upcoming ruling or its ability to stop Israeli’s genocide in Gaza, Michel Chossudovsky, of Global Research, as is his wont, has offered a superb analysis and suggestion for those who oppose such crimes: that Principle IV of the Nuremberg Charter – “The fact that a person [e.g. Israeli, U.S. soldiers, pilots] acted pursuant to order of his [her] Government or of a superior does not relieve him [her] from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.” – should be used to supplement the South African charges and appeal directly to the moral consciences of those asked to carry out acts of genocide. He writes:

Let us call upon Israeli and American soldiers and pilots “to abandon the battlefield”, as an act of refusal to participate in a criminal undertaking against the People of Gaza.  

South Africa’s legal procedure at the ICJ should be endorsed Worldwide. While it cannot be relied upon to put a rapid end to the genocide, it provides support and legitimacy to the “Disobey Unlawful Orders, Abandon the Battlefield”  campaign under Nuremberg Charter Principle IV.

The Zionist project for a Greater Israel is doomed to fail, but as it does, desperate men like Biden and Netanyahu are intent on launching desperate acts of war.  Exactly when and how this expanded war will blaze across the headlines is the question.

With each passing day, it becomes more and more evident that Israel/U.S.A. and their allies do want a wider war.  Iran is their special focus, with Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen targets on the way.  Anyone who supports the genocide in Gaza, explicitly or through silence, bears responsibility for the conflagration to come.  There are no excuses.

And the facts show that it is axiomatic that waging war has been the modus operandi of the U.S./Israeli alliance for a long time.  Just as in early 2003 when the Bush administration said they were looking for a peaceful solution to their fake charges against Saddam Hussein with his alleged “weapons of mass destruction,” the Biden administration is lying, as the Bush administration lied about September 11, 2001 to launch its ongoing war on terror, starting in Afghanistan.  Without an expanded war, President Biden – aka the Democrats, since he will most probably not be the candidate – and his psychopathic partner Benjamin Netanyahu, will not survive.  It is bi-partisan war-mongering, of course, internationally and intramurally, since both U.S. political parties are controlled by the Israel Lobby and billionaire class that owns Congress and the “defense” industry that thrives on never-ending war to such an extent that even the notable independent candidate for the presidency, Robert Kennedy, Jr., who is running as an anti-war candidate, fully supports Israel which is tantamount to supporting Biden’s expanding war policy.

Biden and Netanyahu, who are always claiming after the fact that they were surprised by events or were fed bad advice by their underlings, are dumb scorpions. They are stupid but deadly.  And many people in the West, while perhaps decent people in their personal lives, are living in a fantasy world of “sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity,” in MLK, Jr.’s words, as the growing threat of a world war increases and insouciance reigns.

Neither the Israeli nor American government can allow themselves to be humiliated, U.S./NATO by the Russians in Ukraine and the Israelis by the Palestinians.  Like cornered criminals with lethal weapons, they will kill as many as they can on their way down, taking their revenge on the weakest first.

Their “mistakes” are always well intentioned.  They stumble into wars through faulty intelligence.  They drop the ball because of bureaucratic mix-ups. They miscalculate the perfidy of the moneyed elites whom allegedly they oppose while pocketing their cash and ushering them into the national coffers out of necessity since they are too big to fail.  They never see the storm coming, even as they create it.  Their incompetence or the perfidy of their enemies is the retort to all those “nut cases” who conjure up conspiracy theories or plain facts to explain their actions or lack thereof.  They are innocent.  Always innocent.  And they can’t understand why those they have long abused reach a point when they will no longer impetrate for mercy but will fight fiercely for their freedom.

All signs point to a major war on the horizon.  Both the U.S.A. and Israel have been shown to be rogue states with no desire to negotiate a peaceful world.  Believing in high-tech weapons and massive firepower, neither has learned the hard lesson that anti-colonial wars have historically been won by those with far less weapons but with a passionate desire to throw off the chains of their oppressors.  Vietnam is the text-book case, and there are many others.  Failure to learn is the name of their game.

The Zionist project for a Greater Israel is doomed to fail, but as it does, desperate men like Biden and Netanyahu are intent on launching desperate acts of war.  Exactly when and how this expanded war will blaze across the headlines is the question.  It has started, but I think it prudent to expect a black swan event sometime this year when all hell will break loose.  The genocide in Gaza is the first step, and the U.S./Israel, “not wanting” a wider war, have already started one.

(For an excellent history lesson on the Zionist oppression of Palestinians and the current genocide, listen to Max Blumenthal’s and Miko Peled’s impassioned talk – “Where is the War in Gaza Going? – delivered from the heart of darkness, Washington D.C.  Two Jewish men who know the difference between Zionism and Judaism and whose consciences are aflame with justice for the oppressed Palestinians.)

ABOUT EDWARD J. CURTIN JR / SOURCE
Writer, researcher, and former professor of sociology. Poet, essayist, journalist, novelist….writer – beyond a cage of categories.

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IS THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA A RELIC OF THE PAST?

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the establishment media is an enabler of endless wars and illegitimate oligarchic power

Larry Johnson
SONAR21
First run on 27 August 2023

OpEds

walter cronkite

Walter Cronkite, CBS's iconic anchor. The age of Big Network television, and Big Legacy media, is gone, says the author, and the world may be the better for it.

This post will be different from what you are accustomed to reading. I am not commenting specifically on the current situation in Ukraine or the future of BRICS or the possible outbreak of a war with China. What I want to discuss is how the mainstream media — both traditional networks and mainline news papers and magazines — and cable news are losing influence to blogs and social media.

Part of my motivation to tackle this subject comes from a weekly Zoom meeting that I attend with a group of very smart men and women, most over the age of 65. If I named some of the distinguished souls in this group your next question would be, “Why the hell did they let you into the group?” They were feeling charitable, I guess, when they invited me to participate.

Several in this group have been doing some pretty interesting mental gymnastics in trying to explain away the Tucker Carlson/Donald Trump interview. It is an internet phenomena and set a new record as the most watched video ever on X (formerly twitter). Yet, some of these good folks just cannot believe that so many people actually watched the interview and try to dismiss the 260 million plus number as nothing more than idle clicks. These are the people who still watch cable news and spend much of their day with CNBC, Fox Business and Bloomberg News on their screens.

The television news business that reigned supreme in the 1980s and 1990s is dead. I have written previously about the difference between 1968 and 2016 in terms of ratings and viewers. In August 1968 more than 53 million Americans watched the nightly news on ABC, CBS and NBC. Walter Cronkite on CBS reigned supreme with 28 million viewers. At that time there were a little over 200 million Americans. That means a whopping 14% of all Americans were watching Walter. I was shocked to discover what had happened to ratings when I looked at the numbers for August 2016. All major networks and cable news shows combined had a total of roughly 28 million viewers. (Yes, I added up the ratings for ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News).

Although fewer people were watching these various news shows, the anchors continued to make big money and the corporate control of these various outlets became more concentrated. The new reality is that legacy media and cable news cater primarily to an elite audience that is not representative of the American social and ethnic classes.

I made my first appearance as a terrorism pundit on August 15, 1994 on CNN to talk about the capture of Carlos the Jackal aka Ilich Ramírez Sánchez. Way back then this was a simple news hit. I was invited on to talk about the terrorist past of Carlos and the meaning of his arrest. As a result of that bit of punditry I started getting invites from all the other networks, and I do mean all. I appeared multiple times on CNN’s Crossfire, NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Nightline, CBS 60 Minutes and the Jim Lehrer Newshour, just to mention a few. In late 1999 NBC hired met to be their terrorism consultant as we waited for the world to implode with the arrival of Y2K aka New Year’s 2000. After 9-11, Fox News put me under contract for a year (all of 2002). Roger Ailes decided not renew my contract because I was raising questions about the wisdom of invading Iraq.

Whenever I was asked to appear on any show the process was the same regardless of network. There would be a pre-interview (the producers wanted to know what I was going to say). The network would send a limo to my home. I made sure I was cleaned up and wearing a suit jacket of some type. The drivers of the limos were from Pakistan. Always. The immigrant Pakis had the limo business with the various networks locked down.

When I arrived at the station I would be hustled into make-up and then sit in the “green” room making chit chat with any other pundit waiting to go on air. Met some interesting folks this way. When the time came for my hit I would be taken to either a small studio or ushered into the main stage where I sat across from folks like Wolf Blitzer, Bill Press, Patrick Buchanan and even Tucker Carlson. Except for the appearances on Cross Fire, most of the time on air lasted five to eight minutes. Once my moment of punditry was over I trundled back to the make up room to remove my disguise, exited the building, climbed into the limo and returned home. This whole process consumed two to two-and-a-half hours for a brief bit of punditry.

There was one exception to this pattern. Sixty Minutes. They brought a five man crew to my home in Bethesda in October 2001. They set up for more than two hours — lighting and sound — and then Bob Simon showed up. He needed to change clothes and the next thing I knew I had Bob Simon in his underwear in my foyer. Hilarious. All of this for a 45 second comment on the story about 9-11. Hey, it was CBS money, not mine.

That world no longer exists, thanks in large part to Covid. All of the networks, both in the United States and abroad, discovered Zoom, Skype, Streamyard and Google as more efficient, cheaper and quicker ways to snag an interview. I feel for the poor Pakistani limo drivers . Their days of being the primary chauffeurs for pundits in Washington, DC have been decimated by the internet.

But that is not the revolutionary change that has transformed the TV and Cable News empire into tabloid, propaganda outlets. Starting in 2008, with the arrival of Barack Obama, the networks and cable shows became more political. Prior to 2008 I remember being able to have legitimate debates on air with people who had opposite points of views. I recall vividly debating Professor Alan Dershowitz during the Wye River Summit in October 1998. I laughed at him insisting that Jonathan Pollard was not a spy and it discombobulated him. But at least we had an honest disagreement without rancor or screaming.

After 2008 all of that changed. Fox became the anti-Obama channel and the rest of the media donned their Obama cheerleading outfits. The age of honest debate (if it ever existed) was over. My anti-Iraq comments and my appearance in the documentary, Outfoxed, ensured I would never be invited to appear on Fox News. My criticism of Barack Obama and his ties to terrorists and other unsavory political characters made me persona non grata with the rest of the media. I am not complaining and I have no regrets. Just telling the story.

In 2017 I started to get invites to appear on foreign media, such as RT. I appeared several times on RT’s program, Cross Talk. Remember, this was pre-covid. Only with RT I did not get a limo. I had to drive myself but they paid for parking. When Covid hit, the media world changed. No more in person interviews. Instead, the TV interviewers were content to use my computer camera and audio. Wasn’t great but it got the job done.

We are now in an era where I believe that the mainstream media, especially TV and Cable, are largely irrelevant. Yet the tradition of using those platforms is still firmly embedded in the establishment mentality. Politicians raise tons of money, or try to, just to buy time on conventional TV and Cable that a diminishing number of people are watching. The action has shifted to podcasts, X and other social media platforms. That is what the vast majority of Americans are watching.

Most politicians do not understand nor comprehend the shift that has taken place. There are exceptions. Barack Obama picked up on it early. Donald Trump is the king of social media. And Vivek Ramaswamy gets in. The rest are still welded to the legacy media and foolishly spend money on TV ads that people skip if they can.

The wild west world of the internet scares the hell out of the traditional media gatekeepers. They no longer can wield total control over what messages get out. That is why the Biden Administration was working so frantically to get social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube to quash any voice that failed to genuflect before acceptable government policy. These dummies fail to realize that the world of the internet is still relatively free and that alternative channels exist or are being created every day.

There was a time when all of the cable news shows would permit a debate about the war in Iraq, for example. Now? Complete shutdown of anyone who speaks out against the U.S. policy in Ukraine. Col. Doug MacGregor is one of the rare exceptions. He appeared several times on Tucker’s show, and a few others. But now that Tucker’s gone, Doug and I are relegated to doing internet podcasts. Great! Instead of trying to discuss the complexities of the Ukraine/Russia war in five minutes, we can spend 30 minutes to an hour and a half going in depth.

We cannot (and should not) go back to the halcyon days of the 1990s and early 2000s. The combination of blogs and podcasts have created a new world that cuts across international borders and provides the means for creating a genuine international community of conversation. We just have to do what we can. That is why I have this blog and I thank you for being part of this new community.

ADDENDUM
Some things to ponder...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Larry JohnsonLarry C. Johnson is surely a controversial figure. Johnson is a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. He is the founder and managing partner of BERG Associates, which was established in 1998. Larry provided training to the US Military’s Special Operations community for 24 years. He has been vilified by the right and the left, which means he must be doing something right. You can also follow him on telegram (t.me/sonar_21 (https://t.me/sonar_21), Patreon and Substack (https://larrycjohnson.substack.com).

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Filthy Media: Scaring Americans into coughing up more “aid” for Ukraine

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the establishment media is an enabler of endless wars and illegitimate oligarchic power

Annotated by Patrice Greanville

CBS, "the Tiffany Network," has long been a bulwark of disinformation in the US constellation of TV disinformation assets. CBS has the dubious distinction of being a favorite legacy media choice of "elegant liberals", the really well-heeled crowd, making it a significant component of the "Blue Media Mafia", in the service of Democrats. (Contrary to what many liberals have long believed, in the US the mainstream media is almost 3/4 liberal, and so is social media, since "Big Tech"/ Silicon Valley—Facebook, Google, and until recently Twitter—have long been heavily infiltrated and controlled by pro-Dem / Deep State operatives.  This phenomenon also holds for much of the EU, especially Britain. Today's liberal, of course, is a fascist globalist with "good manners". 

Ukraine struggles to defend against Russian invasion as aid dries up

CBS Evening News
Jan 14, 2024

Which brings us to this pathetic attempt at naked manipulation, as the goals of the Empire and the Democrats (the current "War Party"), clearly coincide. The Biden gang, momentarily distracted by their depraved investment in the Gaza genocide, would love to keep the Ukraine war going as long as possible to prevent an embarrassing collapse right before the 2024 election. They will probably lose anyway. For its part, the Deep State, in charge of managing the Empire of Lies big portfolio, finally cognizant that the war is lost, is busy trying to carve up some more time in Ukraine to secure a plausibly dignified off-ramp. Hence all this cynical noise we keep hearing in some quarters about the "need" to support Ukraine to fight as long as possible in our behalf, or soon Putin will take over Europe and our boys will have to fight and die "over there" to stop the big ugly Russian bear. How many times have we seen this lousy movie before?

 

Western Gall: First we push NATO right up to Russia's doorstep, forcing them into a war. When they defend themselves, and win, we accuse them of pushing Russia into Europe.


Our audience will not be surprised to hear that some of the most despicable Neocons have been at the forefront of this psyop for quite some time. Indeed political excrement like Lindsey Graham and Adam Schiff —and of late Nikki Haley—have been busy drumming up support for an endless war on Russia, "to fight them over there", yea, this is their rational option, which shows this is a fully systemic bipartisan goal. All of which is only logical as per the insane logic of the Empire. The US military industrial complex (which owns practically all politicians and big media, among other things, not to mention cutouts like NATO), is the most profitable and influential enterprise in the collective West. It is also the backbone of what remains of America's industrial economy.  Like rust in some old ships, often present in every nook and cranny, if you scrape it off, they'll sink. It's the main thing that keeps them afloat. The vast implications of the latter fact have been explored by a number of Pentagon critics, few as eloquent as Joan Roelofs, who certainly deserves a much bigger audience. Our associate editor, Jeff Brown, brought her to our attention on Dec 9, 2023. Be sure to have a look: 

JOAN ROELOFS SHARES HER NEW BOOK, “THE TRILLION DOLLAR SILENCER: WHY THERE IS SO LITTLE ANTI-WAR PROTEST IN THE UNITED STATES”.

Joan sketches out the subtle ways the military has embedded itself in US society.

ADDENDUM
As usual, some more food for thought

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patrice Greanville is editor in chief and founding editor of The Greanville Post.

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The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of  The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

If you find the above useful, pass it on! Become an "influence multiplier"! 

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Demonising China: Insidious television for recalcitrant fools

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the establishment media is an enabler of endless wars and illegitimate oligarchic power

Patrice Greanville

American television—especially when it comes to its "news programs"—is supremely insidious. Mind you, I use the word advisedly. The dictionary tells us that in·sid·i·ous is the equivalent of underhanded, sneaky, deceitful and dishonest. You get the point. This is their default mode, learned in over a century of promptly executing the desires of their masters, the shady billionaires whose cliques control the shaping of all US international policy. Because US foreign policy is imperialist, that is, it sees the world with malignity as only comprised of vassals or sovereign countries to conquer, the system's mainstream media‚ in reality a gigantic machine of distraction and propaganda, is well trained to deliver the requisite poisonous slant when covering a particular nation in America's cross-hairs. Right now, China, Russia, Syria, and Iran are in the cross-hairs, along with North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua, and newcomer Venezuela. There are others, of course, as the Hegemon has no sense of humor, is compulsive in its bullying and meddling, and never forgets an offense, the cardinal one being a country who refuses to worship Neoliberalism. 

So watch this closely. I can tell you that everything this correspondent says, an old hand at this game of character assassination, is basically tainted with a big lie, the lie in this case being that China has committed great human rights crimes against the Uyghurs. Devoid of honest historical context, such insinuations stick to the back of people's minds, with the persistence of some insolent dirt that refuses to be wiped off.  Which is what these low-down hypocrites and contemptible disinformers want. So watch this filthy "report" with Elizabeth Palmer and then do yourself a favor: read some credible dispatches on this issue. The Grayzone has many articles on this topic that can help you clarify your mind. Some date back to 2018 or even earlier. The US has been trying to blacken China's image for years, and more recently, via Taiwan (another probable proxy like Ukraine in the Far East), even threatening an all-out war to stop Beijing. This disgusting and immoral policy first materialised under Obama and his "pivot to Asia", when the US elites realised that China's peaceful growth was likely to leave the US empire in the dust. A key stipulation in the US empire's Neocon doctrine is not to allow any nation to match, let alone surpass, the Empire. Resting on its trillion plus "defence" budget, the US empire is all about undisputed supremacy. Period. Unipolarity forever. Unfortunately for these believers in "exceptionalism", with the rise of Russia and China, that ship sailed some time ago and is not likely to return. Ever. And indecent lying will not help matters much, either.

After its hypocritical participation in the despicable Gazan genocide, the wholesale destruction of Syria and Libya, the US now expects us to believe its gives a hoot for the fate of some muslims in Xinjiang?

Rebranding China's conflicted Xinjiang region as a tourist destination

CBS Sunday Morning

Jan 7, 2024

Western China's vast and beautiful Xinjiang region became notorious for the arbitrary detention and "re-education" of hundreds of thousands of Muslim Uyghurs, whose language and cultural identity have been seen by China's Communist Party as a threat to its total control. But following global condemnation for its crackdown on the Uyghurs, China claimed its so-called re-education centers were shut down in 2019. CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer recently traveled to Xinjiang on a government tour to see how the region is now being re-branded by China as a fun-filled destination for international tourists.

Incidentally, my friend and colleague Godfree Roberts, a recognised expert on China, has this to say on this issue:

Godfree Roberts:

There is zero evidence of mistreatment of Uyghurs in China. Zero, despite the fact that we have been sponsoring terrorism there for 70 years, as US Ambassador Chas. H. Freeman, Director for Chinese Affairs at the U.S. Department of State from 1979-1981, said:

"The CIA programs in Tibet, which were very effective in destabilizing it, did not succeed in Xinjiang*. There were similar efforts made with the Uyghurs during the Cold War that never really got off the ground. In both cases you had religion waved as a banner in support of a desire for independence or autonomy which is, of course, anathema to any state. I do believe that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones applies here. I am part American Indian and those people are not here (in the US) in the numbers they once were because of severe genocidal policies on the part of the European majority”.
https://supchina.com/podcas...

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 29. 54 countries on Tuesday jointly voiced their support for China's counter-terrorism and de-radicalization measures in its Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region at a UN session. Belarusian Permanent Representative to the United States Valentin Rybakov presented the statement on behalf of the 54 countries during a discussion on human rights at the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, also known as the Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee. Noting China's people-centered development philosophy and remarkable development achievement, the statement spoke positively of the results of counter-terrorism and de-radicalization measures in Xinjiang. These measures "have effectively safeguarded the basic human rights of people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang," according to the statement delivered at the session. The statement expressed opposition to relevant countries "politicizing the human rights issue" and called on them to stop baseless accusations against China.

No cultural, religious repression of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang: Pakistan diplomat
A senior Pakistani diplomat on Thursday put up a staunch defence of the controversial education camps in China's volatile Xinjiang province where thousands of Uighur Muslims have been reportedly detained, saying there is no forced labour or cultural and religious repression in the region.

China recently took diplomats from 12 countries with large Muslim populations, including India and Pakistan, to its Xinjiang province where tens of thousands of members of the minority Uighur Muslims have been interned in education camps.

"During this visit, I did not find any instance of forced labour or cultural and religious repression," Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, the Charge d'affaires, Pakistan's Embassy in China, told The Times of India.

"The imams we met at the mosques and the students and teachers at the Xinjiang Islamic Institute told us that they enjoy freedom in practicing Islam and that the Chinese government extends support for maintenance of mosques all over Xinjiang," said Baloch, who visited Xinjiang as part of delegation of diplomats.

"Similarly, I did not see any sign of cultural repression. The Uighur culture as demonstrated by their language, music and dance is very much part of the life of the people of Xinjiang," she said.

Asked about the security situation in Xinjiang, which has been "beset by terrorism", Baloch said, "We learned that the recent measures have resulted in improvement of the security situation in Xinjiang and there have been no incidents of terrorism in recent months."

"The counter-terrorism measures being taken are multidimensional and do not simply focus on law enforcement aspects. Education, poverty alleviation and development are key to the counter-terrorism strategy of the Chinese government," she said.
 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Media critic Patrice Greanville is The Greanville Post's founding editor.

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The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of  The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

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Indecent Corporate Journos Won't Do the Job, So Honest Communicators Must. Support them by helping to disseminate their work.

The Jimmy Dore Show • Fiorella Isabel — Craig Pasta Jardula (The Convo Couch) • Mike Prysner & Abby Martin (The Empire Files) • Lee Camp's Redacted Tonight • Caleb Maupin • Jonathan Cook • Jim Kavanagh • Paul Edwards • David Pear • Max Blumenthal • Ben Norton  • Anya Parampil (The Grayzone) • Caitlin Johnstone • Alex Rubinstein • Alexander Mercouris • Alex Chistoforou • Margaret Kimberley • Danny Haiphong • Bruce Lerro • Israel Shamir • Ron Unz • Andrei Raevsky • Alan Macleod • Eric Zuesse • Ed Curtin • Gary Olson • Andrei Martyanov • Jeff J Brown • Godfree Roberts • Jacques Pauwels • Max Parry • Matt Orfalea • Glenn Greenwald • Rick Sterling • Jim Miles • Janice Kortkamp • Li JingJing • Margaret Flowers • Brian Berletic (The New Atlas) • Regis Tremblay • Bruce Gagnon • Scott Ritter • Aleks • Big Serge • Simplicius The Thinker

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The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post

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VIA A BACK LIVE LINK. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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