Eric Zuesse, originally posted at Strategic Culture
Democrats are deceived in basically the same way that Republicans are, but by a different group of billionaires. Both of America’s political Parties try to get their dupes to donate or subscribe to their propaganda-media, but will continue operating them regardless, because their billionaires actually own and advertise in these ‘news’-media, and so subscribers to those media aren’t really needed, but are just “icing on the cake.” Their paying subscribers reduce the amount that the Party’s billionaires will need to spend in order to produce and distribute their propaganda. Here is a typical example of this:
Noah Shachtman is the Editor-in-Chief of the Democratic Party billionaires’ Daily Beast ‘news’ site. On 29 October 2018, he headlined there, “Why The Daily Beast Matters Now More Than Ever”, and the article sub-headed “Journalism today has to paint in bright colors, have a sense of wit, and give up any attachments to the powerful. It’s gonzo or go home.” So, he and his site is “gonzo,” and they “give up any attachments to the powerful.” At least they say they do.
He opened:
Maybe Putin’s spies were onto something.
In June 2015 — nine months before targeting the Hillary Clinton campaign, and a full year before the world learned about their hacking of the DNC — Russia’s military intelligence division tried to hack the accounts of journalists, including a number of Daily Beast reporters and alumni.
(Sure — the reason why Hillary lost isn’t Hillary — it is Putin! Just like the reason Trump won’t win isn’t Trump — it will be ‘them!’, whomever ‘they’ will be: maybe “Democrats.”)
That Democratic Party site considers Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, etc., to be enemies of America; and it considers Israel, Poland, UK, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, etc., to be America’s allies. They don’t really say why. But they do.
Shachtman and his site are propagandists for every invasion of every country whose head-of-state isn’t allied with the U.S. against Russia. (So too are Republican sites — but their central bugaboo is instead ‘China!’) It’s so simple, really. Saddam Hussein wasn’t anti-Russian, so he got knocked off. Muammar Qadaffi wasn’t, so he also did. Bashar al-Assad isn’t anti-Russian, so “regime change” there is still being attempted. Nicolas Maduro isn’t anti-Russian, so America is trying to grab Venezuela’s oil and is blockading Venezuela to starve the public there into a ‘revolution’. Ditto Iran. Viktor Yanukovych wasn’t anti-Russian, so American ‘news’-media such as The Daily Beast portrayed him as being pro-Russian and even as being an enemy, even though he was neither but was just trying to keep Ukraine “neutral” or not hostile toward either America or his next-door-neighbor Russia. On 12 April 2010 Yanukovych met the U.S. President at the White House, to which Obama had invited him, but Yanukovych refused Obama’s suggestions that Ukraine join America’s alliance against Ukraine’s next-door neighbor Russia. On 2 July 2010, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Yanukovych held a joint press conference in Kiev, where she said
“We discussed ways that Ukraine and the United States can deepen and expand our strategic partnership, moving forward with the work of the U.S.-Ukraine Strategic Partnership Commission that I co-chair. … And the United States welcomes Ukrainian parliament’s decision to approve foreign military exercises on Ukrainian territory in 2010 and we thank Ukraine and the Ukrainian people for your important contributions to NATO and other international security operations. … And as I said, we are grateful for Ukraine’s contributions to NATO security efforts and other peacekeeping operations around the world. And we look forward to the joint U.S.-Ukraine military exercises. And we also support a relationship with Russia that is in Ukraine’s interest that helps to further what President Obama has called the resetting of relations with Russia.”
But finally Yanukovych turned down the U.S.-EU proposed aliance with Ukraine against Russia, the proposal that Ukraine join the EU and abandon its trade with Russia. Though the reason for his having turned it down was stated in U.S.-allied ‘news’-media as being that he was allied with (his next-door-neighbor) Russia against America (just a lie), the actual reason was that America and its EU had set the deal up for Ukraine to bleed $160 billion which it didn’t have. The whole deal was a set-up to stir “Maidan demonstrations” against him, which would serve as a cover for a CIA coup that would install a rabidly anti-Russian Government in Ukraine. Until that coup, Shachtman had been the Executive Editor for News at the (anti-Russian) Foreign Policy magazine. He had ranked #3 on the executive staff there.
The Obama Administration’s planning for the coup to regime-change Ukraine had started in 2011 (barely after Yanukovych had turned down Clinton-Obama’s urgings to join “The West” against Russia). It was planned on the basis that Yanukovych would turn the EU’s offer to Ukraine down. Yanukovych did that on 20 November 2013. The CIA-edited and written Wikipedia claims that the ‘Ukrainian revolution’ (actually coup) started the day after he did that. It was started by the “demonstrations on the Maidan Square” in Kiev, and they “began on the night of 21 November 2013 with public protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kiev.” That started it; the U.S. regime’s plan to take over Ukraine didn’t. According to Wikipedia, and the U.S. Government.
On 5 December 2013, a pro-Russian news-site, Voltairenet, headlined “Jihadists in charge of crowd control in Kiev protests”, and it was true — that was part of the U.S. Government’s plan. Then, eight days later, on December 13th, Noah Shachtman’s reporter on the scene in Kiev, bannered “The Fight for the Maidan: How long can Ukraine’s protesters hold out against Yanukovych’s thugs?” That counterforce from Ukraine’s democratically elected Government was also part of the plan (to make that Government look bad). The “thugs” were the police of the democracy, and not the CIA’s hired goons (who weren’t even mentioned by Shachtman’s hired ‘journalist’).
Back before the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Shachtman had been a lowly “Contributor” to a digital ‘news’ site “Tech Central Station,” which billed itself as “Where Free Markets Meet Technology” and this was actually a MIC (military-industrial complex, or U.S. ‘defense’ contractor financed) propaganda site. On 22 January 2003, two months before America invaded and destroyed Iraq, that ‘contributor’ headlined there, “Predator or Prey?” and opened: “Predator drones are the high-tech darlings of the new war. Too bad they’re so slow, dumb, noisy, and near-sighted that almost anything stronger than a peashooter could take them down.” ‘Defense’ spending needs to be increased — that was the pitch. Otherwise, America’s drones could become the Taliban’s — and soon also Saddam’s — “prey.”
Tech Central Station’s top person was its Editor-in-Chief, Nick Schulz, who since at least 2014, is with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is an overtly right-wing (no mealy-mouthed Democratic Party) proponent of extending the American empire to everywhere in the world.
The Daily Beast is owned by IAC Corporation, whose Chairman is the billionaire Barry Diller. On 7 January 2020, the Republican billionaires’ neoconservative magazine National Review headlined “Chelsea Clinton Made Millions on Boards Run by Clinton Mega-Donor”, and that was referring to the Democratic neoconservative Diller. (All billionaires are neocons — not a one of them donates to progressive candidates. And all progressives are against imperialism; that’s a core of progressivism. This is why progressive politics stands no chance in America: the billionaires always drown it aborning — not just in 2016 and 2020.)
Even “entertainment” news in America is often used in order to boost sales for corporations such as Lockheed Martin — America’s megacorporations whose main or only customer is the U.S. Government itself. For example, on the July 4th edition of NPR’s “All Things Considered” was a plug for a movie that aims to persuade viewers that America’s invading troops need more and better weapons; the movie is called “Outpost” and it’s filmed in Afghanistan. The interview (which is free MIC publicity that’s funded by NPR’s donors) had Sacha Pfeiffer interviewing its director, Rod Lurie. This was a skillful sales-pitch for the movie, and for the entire MIC that the movie promotes. It’s not enough that America’s Government already spends around half of the entire world’s annual military exenditures. More, more!! Conquest is costly. (Even when it fails to conquer.) And those billionaires want the public to spend even more to buy and upgrade the weaponry that these billionaires are selling to the U.S. Government and its allies.
In America and its allies, this is what’s called “capitalism,” and “the free market.” And “patriotism.” Just right for July 4th. Very ‘right’. Shoot those ‘Reds!’
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
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