A couple of days ago I was watching Russian TV news when I came across this absolutely hilarious segment. I asked the "Russian Team" to subtitle it for my English speaking readers and here it is, thanks to "AE"!
This war is truly one of constant and systematic disinformation and one of the many lies spread by the Empire's corporate media is that the Russian media was "toning down" it's criticism of Banderastan which, in turn, suggested that they did so at the behest of the Kremlin which, of course, meant that "Putin had betrayed". Utter nonsense, of course, the Russian media, which I follow every day, is still absolutely enraged at the Ukie junta and its coverage has not been "toned down", not even by a small notch. But what this reporter from Ren-TV did is even better: he turned the latest lie of the AngloZionist propaganda machine against its authors and used it to ridicule them.
I am delighted to be able to share this with you not only to reassure you about the Russia media (I have had comments posted here which echoed this myth about the Russian media toning down its rhetoric) but to also show a great example how humor can be used as a weapon against disinformation.
Enjoy and have a great-week end!
The Saker
PS: just to clarify in case it is not as obvious in the English subtitles as it is in Russian, after listing all the expression which, according to the western MSM lies, the Russian media stopped using, this reporter, Andrei Dobrov, uses them all together in the very next sentence while making the point that there is no reason to tone down anything.
PPS: please make sure to click on the 'cc' button on the bottom right of the video to see the subtitles
Showing posts with label counter-propaganda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label counter-propaganda. Show all posts
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Friday, April 25, 2014
John Kerry and the "last resort" rule as a cause for optimism
[First a small announcement: I will contact the "Saker correspondents" over the week-end with details about how we will get organized and the kind of stuff we will do. Over 40 people have responded to my offer and I am happy to announce that we got all five continents covered. Another seven candidates have not answered my request to confirm their desire to participate: "fsd", "cc", "sl", "y", "aa", "ov" and "fg". If you are still interested, please email me over the week-end.]
First, of course, my stomach turns every time I hear this prototypical representative of the 1%er plutocracy speaking to the world as if he was some kind of Emperor-schoolteacher scolding a class of rather dumb and unruly kids for their bad behavior and promising them a spanking. We all know that folks like Obama or Baby Bush are just puppets, a mostly empty shell shown to the zombified public as "The President and Commander in Chief" while in reality these guys are basically spokesmen. Not so Kerry. He is in the Dick Cheney or James Baker class, not quite at the top of the power pyramid, but much higher up. These are the folks who step in when the mindless puppet makes a mess and some brains are needed on the frontlines. I find these people profoundly repulsive (though I could not help admiring James Baker's fantastic diplomatic skills).
My initial disgust turned into rage when I heard Kerry speak such lies that out to make even a politician feel ashamed of himself. Most of what Kerry said could quite literally be turned around by 180 degrees and become true. Even though I am now 50 years old and I have seen all sorts of lies, deceptions, betrayals and falsehoods over the years, I still have a naive voice in me screaming "how can he say that?", "does he not feel horribly ashamed?", "how can he live with himself?". I know. I am naive and idealistic. I just cannot get used to it. Even after 50 years.
Eventually, my rage turned into outright amazement. At this point, I was beyond good and evil, I was marveling at the nerve it takes to go on world-wide TV and basically state that he earth is not round, but triangular, that 2+2=317 and that black is pink with green dots. He even added that it was impossible to turn black into grey, that black was just that, black. At this point I was awed.
And then, suddenly, it hit me. Kerry and the interests he represents are really terrified and frustrated. His statement is a desperate attempt to do what the lawyers call the "last resort rule". It goes like this: “If you have the law, hammer the law. If you have the facts, hammer the facts. If you have neither the law nor the facts, hammer the table”. Kerry was hammering the table really very, very strongly and that, I realized, was an implicit admission that neither the (international) law nor the facts were on his side. Had the facts or the law been on his side, there would have been no need for table hammering, of course.
His panic and frustration also showed in his rather clumsy attack on the Russia Today TV channel. Here is what he said:
So, to sum things up:
1) The law is not on Kerry's side.
2) The facts are not on Kerry's side.
3) The people in the West are beginning to see through the lies of the propaganda machine.
4) There is nothing the Empire can do about any of that.
If any confirmation of that was needed, it came today with the amazing performance of Mark Levine on today's CrossTalk show. It's not on YouTube yet, but you can watch it here: http://rt.com/shows/crosstalk/154788-ukraine-info-war-russia/. Levine turned CrossTalk into CrossShout, another clear case of "table hammering". Why - for the same reasons as Kerry. Nothing else works for him anymore.
Ever since Putin came back to power, Russia is not playing by the same set of rules as the ones drafted by the Empire. Both in Syria and the Ukraine, Russia has been very carefully but steadily pushing back the international AngloZionist plutocracy and loosening its grip on the planet and this is directly reflected in the impotent rage of Kerry and his fellow 1%ers.
This, I think, is very good news indeed.
Cheers,
The Saker
-------
Listening to Kerry today I went through a series of rather contradictory emotions. First, I felt disgusted, then my disgust turned to anger, then to outright amazement and, by the end, I actually felt rather happy. Let me explain why.First, of course, my stomach turns every time I hear this prototypical representative of the 1%er plutocracy speaking to the world as if he was some kind of Emperor-schoolteacher scolding a class of rather dumb and unruly kids for their bad behavior and promising them a spanking. We all know that folks like Obama or Baby Bush are just puppets, a mostly empty shell shown to the zombified public as "The President and Commander in Chief" while in reality these guys are basically spokesmen. Not so Kerry. He is in the Dick Cheney or James Baker class, not quite at the top of the power pyramid, but much higher up. These are the folks who step in when the mindless puppet makes a mess and some brains are needed on the frontlines. I find these people profoundly repulsive (though I could not help admiring James Baker's fantastic diplomatic skills).
My initial disgust turned into rage when I heard Kerry speak such lies that out to make even a politician feel ashamed of himself. Most of what Kerry said could quite literally be turned around by 180 degrees and become true. Even though I am now 50 years old and I have seen all sorts of lies, deceptions, betrayals and falsehoods over the years, I still have a naive voice in me screaming "how can he say that?", "does he not feel horribly ashamed?", "how can he live with himself?". I know. I am naive and idealistic. I just cannot get used to it. Even after 50 years.
Eventually, my rage turned into outright amazement. At this point, I was beyond good and evil, I was marveling at the nerve it takes to go on world-wide TV and basically state that he earth is not round, but triangular, that 2+2=317 and that black is pink with green dots. He even added that it was impossible to turn black into grey, that black was just that, black. At this point I was awed.
And then, suddenly, it hit me. Kerry and the interests he represents are really terrified and frustrated. His statement is a desperate attempt to do what the lawyers call the "last resort rule". It goes like this: “If you have the law, hammer the law. If you have the facts, hammer the facts. If you have neither the law nor the facts, hammer the table”. Kerry was hammering the table really very, very strongly and that, I realized, was an implicit admission that neither the (international) law nor the facts were on his side. Had the facts or the law been on his side, there would have been no need for table hammering, of course.
His panic and frustration also showed in his rather clumsy attack on the Russia Today TV channel. Here is what he said:
In fact, the propaganda bullhorn that is the state-sponsored Russia Today program, has been deployed to promote – actually, Russia Today network – has deployed to promote President Putin’s fantasy about what is playing out on the ground. They almost spend full time devoted to this effort to propagandize and to distort what is happening or not happening in Ukraine. Instead, in plain sight, Russia continues to fund, coordinate, and fuel a heavily armed separatist movement in Donetsk.But think about it: Russia Today does not broadcast in Ukrainian or Russian. It broadcasts in English, Spanish and Arabic. The only thing RT does broadcast in Russian are its documentaries on its dedicated website: http://doc.rt.com/on-air/. This is a tiny fraction of what the channel really does and its audience in Russia or the Ukraine is minute compared to the one of the big Russian TV channels. So why did Kerry single our Russia Today? The answer is obvious, of course, it is because Russia Today is a very popular TV channel outside Russia or the Ukraine. According to Wikipedia,
The network's signal is carried by 22 satellites and over 230 operators, which allows some 644 million people to watch the channel in more than 100 countries. RT America is available to 85 million people in the United States. In 2011 it was the second most-watched foreign news channel in the U.S. after BBC World News, and the number one foreign station in five major U.S. urban areas in 2012. It is also very popular among younger American people, U.S. college students, and in U.S. inner city neighborhoods. In 2013 RT has become the first TV news channel in history to reach 1 billion views on YouTube. According to the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board between 2.2–2.3 million Britons tuned their televisions to RT during the second half of 2012, making it the fourth-most watched rolling news channel in Britain, behind BBC News, Sky News and Al Jazeera English.Remember the candid admission of Walter Isaacson, chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, who openly declared that,
“We can't allow ourselves to be out-communicated by our enemies, you've got Russia Today, Iran's Press TV, Venezuela's TeleSUR, and of course, China is launching an international broadcasting 24-hour news channel with correspondents around the world [and has] reportedly set aside $6 -10 billion dollars – we have to go to Capitol Hill with that number – to expand their overseas media operations.”So there you have it. The problem is not that Russia Today is stirring up the people of eastern Ukraine, the problem is that thanks to Russia Today the people in the West are beginning to see through the official propaganda! That is the real reason for Kerry frustrated outburst.
So, to sum things up:
1) The law is not on Kerry's side.
2) The facts are not on Kerry's side.
3) The people in the West are beginning to see through the lies of the propaganda machine.
4) There is nothing the Empire can do about any of that.
If any confirmation of that was needed, it came today with the amazing performance of Mark Levine on today's CrossTalk show. It's not on YouTube yet, but you can watch it here: http://rt.com/shows/crosstalk/154788-ukraine-info-war-russia/. Levine turned CrossTalk into CrossShout, another clear case of "table hammering". Why - for the same reasons as Kerry. Nothing else works for him anymore.
Ever since Putin came back to power, Russia is not playing by the same set of rules as the ones drafted by the Empire. Both in Syria and the Ukraine, Russia has been very carefully but steadily pushing back the international AngloZionist plutocracy and loosening its grip on the planet and this is directly reflected in the impotent rage of Kerry and his fellow 1%ers.
This, I think, is very good news indeed.
Cheers,
The Saker
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
The smartphone as a weapon to defeat the Empire's propaganda
Tonight I was watching the latest video footage of the bloodbath in Egypt - this time infantry fighting vehicles using their guns to shoot at demonstrators. What caught my attention was that in the corner of the video you could see two Egyptian men standing with smartphones making their own video recording of the massacre taking place under their window. See for yourself:
And I thought to myself "at least this massacre will be well documented!"
These smartphones are truly a powerful counter-propaganda tool. Not only can they make rather decent videos by just pressing a button, but they can also instantly upload them to the web, or send the footage to friends, or even stream it live. And they are literally *everywhere*. This kind of distributed video-capability is practically impossible to defeat because it is simply too ubiquitous. I have read that even in the DPRK more and more people are using (highly illegal) smartphones.
Of course, a military junta can shut down the Internet (locally, at least), search for smartphones, jam their signals, etc. A techno-savvy regime like the one in the USA or Israel could do something even far more effective: it could remotely disable the video camera on all smartphones in a specific areas or even remotely destroy all smartphones. But that would be very *very* conspicuous and, besides, it would also be a PR disaster. So I don't mean to suggest that the "smartphone threat" cannot be successfully tackled by a sophisticated regime, but in most cases this would be a difficult task, at least in most countries out there.
And then, there is the relative blessing of having the truly sicko thugs, like the Wahabi crazies in Chechnia and Syria, who love to film their own atrocities. The footage of the horrors committed and video-recorded by the Chechen Wahabis truly mobilized the Russian public opinion behind Putin's 2nd war to smash the insurgency. Likewise, in Syria, thanks to all the bloodcurdling atrocities filmed by the Wahabis themselves, the public opinion gradually shifted against the insurgency.
Bottom line: CNN, al-Jazeera, the BBC and the rest of them can continue to spew their lies, millions of people with cheap smartphones in their pockets can now prove that they are lying and show the facts on the ground if not on TV then, at least, on the Internet.
The Internet plus the smartphone are a fantastic combination of technologies which have political repercussions which their creators (DARPA, IT corporations) never saw coming. Sure, the bad guys are now very *very* busy trying to get all that back under their control, but, hopefully, the good guys - us - will remain a step ahead of them.
The Saker
And I thought to myself "at least this massacre will be well documented!"
These smartphones are truly a powerful counter-propaganda tool. Not only can they make rather decent videos by just pressing a button, but they can also instantly upload them to the web, or send the footage to friends, or even stream it live. And they are literally *everywhere*. This kind of distributed video-capability is practically impossible to defeat because it is simply too ubiquitous. I have read that even in the DPRK more and more people are using (highly illegal) smartphones.
Of course, a military junta can shut down the Internet (locally, at least), search for smartphones, jam their signals, etc. A techno-savvy regime like the one in the USA or Israel could do something even far more effective: it could remotely disable the video camera on all smartphones in a specific areas or even remotely destroy all smartphones. But that would be very *very* conspicuous and, besides, it would also be a PR disaster. So I don't mean to suggest that the "smartphone threat" cannot be successfully tackled by a sophisticated regime, but in most cases this would be a difficult task, at least in most countries out there.
And then, there is the relative blessing of having the truly sicko thugs, like the Wahabi crazies in Chechnia and Syria, who love to film their own atrocities. The footage of the horrors committed and video-recorded by the Chechen Wahabis truly mobilized the Russian public opinion behind Putin's 2nd war to smash the insurgency. Likewise, in Syria, thanks to all the bloodcurdling atrocities filmed by the Wahabis themselves, the public opinion gradually shifted against the insurgency.
Bottom line: CNN, al-Jazeera, the BBC and the rest of them can continue to spew their lies, millions of people with cheap smartphones in their pockets can now prove that they are lying and show the facts on the ground if not on TV then, at least, on the Internet.
The Internet plus the smartphone are a fantastic combination of technologies which have political repercussions which their creators (DARPA, IT corporations) never saw coming. Sure, the bad guys are now very *very* busy trying to get all that back under their control, but, hopefully, the good guys - us - will remain a step ahead of them.
The Saker
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