https://consortiumnews.com/2024/10/18/police-escalate-britians-war-on-independent-journalism/
The recent Israel-Gaza War has been eye-opening. We're literally witnessing the normalizing of a genocide. I feel it's something of a watershed. This sort of butchery has taken place before - in Vietnam for example. And while everyone talks about the media's role in reporting that war and supposedly undermining it, the truth is they barely scratched the surface. The fact that their on-the-ground reporting was (and is) considered controversial by some is a testimony to how well conditioned the public was up to that point. It was not adversarial (by my estimations) but just the reporting and the footage was enough to upset the public and lead to a questioning.
And as such it spawned a massive protest movement. This is not the case today. The recent Anti-Gaza War campus protests were but a shadow and at this point have already been crushed and dispersed - and spun by the Right into a bogus Anti-Semitic narrative.
The world is moving toward a paradigm of global war. It's a scramble for power and control of resources - something hinted at in connection with Ukraine. The blocs have been formed and large-scale war abroad means war at home. Adversarial journalism cannot be tolerated. Many of history's lessons have not been learned and yet some in government have learned a thing or two about how to manage the public.
They do not want solid reporting as it will lead to protests and the Establishment (in places like the US and UK) are terrified that it will lead to worker uprisings, strikes, and increasing dissent. And remember strikes and labour unrest hurt the war effort and the need for munitions etc.
Those who fail to fall in line will be labelled as conspiracy theorists, Anti-Semites, and Russian stooges. And because of the mis- and disinformation surrounding Covid, it can be argued that such misplaced reporting and propaganda can endanger public safety - as indeed it did during that period.
For my part, I have no doubt the zone (as they say) has also been flooded by provocateurs. They lurk in chat rooms and on social media. We know this because the majority of terror-related arrests over the past couple of decades have been cases of lonely and mentally unsound people who would have posed no threat had they not been urged on by provocateurs - who then arrest these pathetic souls and claim a victory in the process. Their real crimes are not terrorism but thought-crime - the same unspoken (but implied) charge levied at dissident thinkers and journalists.
Real reporting has been suppressed and largely lost - the Syrian War made this all too clear and even now the narratives are self-serving and twisted - meant to ensure the public forgets the real origins and course of the war and never questions the narrative. The many lies that have been challenged and disproven are simply repeated over and over again. As I've watched the Gaza coverage I keep thinking back over the last decade and more and how the Syrian War was reported.
Assad waged war on his people it is claimed even as his corrupt and evil but secular government fought off the forces of al Qaeda and ISIS. The idea that these forces might overrun the country was unthinkable in the public mind - of those who supported Assad. This was the case even as Washington and NATO backed these Salafists and now these crazed butchers simply trim their beards down a bit and don Western clothing - and all is well, or so we're told.
Assad used chemical weapons on his people - another claim that has been repeatedly challenged, but you'll never hear it even though the evidence is out there including some rather revealing statements from top Western officials It's simply stated over and over again as are the propaganda claims related to the White Helmets. I read a terrible farcical editorial about them the other day in The Christian Science Monitor - supposedly the one group in Syria that we can all agree on that has integrity and moral standing. It has absurd and offensive. And I must say that Al Jazeera for all the fine reporting it does on some Middle Eastern issues - has totally thrown in the West when it comes to Syria, and by extension Russia.
In the case of the British journalist Asa Winstanley, his reporting exposed the fraudulent nature of the Blairite dominated Labour party and the bogus plot to oust Jeremy Corbyn. MP's who opposed Likud policies were labelled Anti-Semite and Corbyn proved unable or unwilling to challenge and openly reject this narrative. The reasons why are still somewhat of a mystery and reminiscent of the same kind of nebulous behaviour seen in the United States with a figure like Bernie Sanders. Either these men are hopelessly obtuse or corrupt - or perhaps both.
The UK government won't have it and they're not going to risk public dissent and protest. That was true with Syria and it's certainly true with Gaza/Israel. The official narrative must stand - anything else is tantamount to treason. Your home will be raided, your privacy violated, and most likely your life will be ruined.
This is just a harbinger of what is to come. The stakes are high and getting higher by the day as the geo-political cauldron boils over. It's the once absurd and disturbing Bush ultimatum become normalised - you're either with us or against us. As it was during the Cold War in the United States - neutrality or a categorical rejection of the choices is to side with the enemy.
See also:
https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/04/27/weapons-inspector-refutes-u-s-syria-chemical-claims/
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/04/17/blowing-up-lack-of-evidence-in-syria-chemical-attack/
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/09/08/un-team-heard-claims-of-staged-chemical-attacks/
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/10/echoes-of-iraq-wmd-fraud-in-syria/
https://www.mintpressnews.com/white-helmets-chemical-attack-idlib/249121/
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/04/21/beware-of-white-helmets-bearing-news/
https://therealnews.com/mblumenthal0824helmets
Articles expressing the ambiguity and confusion regarding the official narratives:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/08/syria-chemical-weapons-not-assad-bild
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-has-no-evidence-of-syrian-use-of-sarin-gas-mattis-says
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