[updated from 17 September 2015, and restoring links that since died]
[a new updated list of 51 recommended news-sites is at the end here]
Eric Zuesse
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One good test of the extent to which a given news-medium censors out news that the aristocracy (especially the people who control international corporations — the people who possess the ultimate authority to determine where the big advertising-dollars are spent) want the public not to know, is to submit important news reports to them on a regular basis, so as to find out which media will publish it, and which ones won’t (which ones won’t publish a major and rigorously researched news story that reports something which is much discussed in the news but which includes information that all (or virtually all) major advertisers want the public not to know. A news-story that exposes a fundamental lie ‘justifying’ a major U.S. foreign policy is precisely of this sort.
A news-report of this type was submitted on 16 September 2015 to all major mainstream and “alternative news” news-sites in the U.S., and international-news sites, including the sites listed following; and only the nine sites that are shown here BOLDFACED-CAPITALIZED actually published it (and if you click onto the link there, you will see it at that site); all of the other sites did not:
ABC
AP
Alternet
American Prospect
Asia Times
Black Agenda
Blacklisted News
Bloomberg
Business Insider
CBS
CNN
Commentary
Common Dreams
Consortium News Service
COUNTERCURRENTS
Counterpunch
Daily Kos
Daily Mail
Democracy Now
Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten
Dissident Voice
Drudge Report
Empty Wheel
Euractiv
Eurasianet
Euronews
Eurosif
FAIR
Financial Times
Foreign Policy
Fort Russ
GLOBAL RESEARCH
GREANVILLE POST
Hampton Institute
Harper’s
Huffington Post
In These Times
InfoWars
InformationClearingHouse
Institute for Policy Studies
Lapham Quarterly
MSNBC
McClatchy
Media Matters
Mother Jones
NBC
NPR
Naked Capitalism
National Interest
National Memo
National Post
National Review
New Cold War
New Statesman
New Yorker
Newshour
OFF-GUARDIAN [sharp recent decline in quality]
Oriental Review
PBS
Paul Craig Roberts
Politico
PRISON PLANET [now only Republican propaganda]
Raw Story
RINF [gone]
Rolling Stone
Russia Insider
Salon
Slate
SMIRKING CHIMP [now only Democratic propaganda]
Sojourners
Spiegel
TIME
The Atlantic
The Daily Beast
The Guardian
The Independent
The Intercept
The Nation
The New Republic
The New York Times
THE PEOPLES VOICE [gone]
The Progressive
The Young Turk
TheAntiMedia
Thom Hartmann
Truthout
Wall Street Journal
Washington Post
WASHINGTONSBLOG [gone]
Zerohedge
Here was the news-report that only those nine sites published:
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Polls Show Syrians Overwhelmingly Blame U.S. for ISIS
Eric Zuesse, 16 September 2015
The British polling organization ORB International, an affiliate of WIN/Gallup International, repeatedly finds in Syria that, throughout the country, Syrians oppose ISIS by about 80%, and (in the latest such poll) also finds that 82% of Syrians blame the U.S. for ISIS.
The Washington Post summarized on September 15th the latest poll. They did not headline it with the poll’s anti-U.S. finding, such as “82% of Syrians Blame U.S. for ISIS.” That would have been newsworthy. Instead, their report’s headline was “One in five Syrians say Islamic State is a good thing, poll says.” However, the accompanying graphic wasn’t focused on the few Syrians who support ISIS (and, at only one in five, that’s obviously not much — it’s hardly even news). It instead (for anyone who would read beyond that so-what headline) provided a summary of what Syrians actually do support. This is is what their graphic highlighted from the poll’s findings:
82% agree “IS [Islamic State] is US and foreign made group.”
79% agree “Foreign fighters made war worse.”
70% agree “Oppose division of country.”
65% agree “Syrians can live together again.”
64% agree “Diplomatic solution possible.”
57% agree “Situation is worsening.”
51% agree “Political solution best answer.”
49% agree “Oppose US coalition air strikes.”
22% agree “IS is a positive influence.”
21% agree “Prefer life now than under Assad.”
Here are the more detailed findings in this poll, a poll that was taken of 1,365 Syrians from all 14 governates within Syria.
The finding that 22% agree that “IS is a positive influence” means that 78% do not agree with that statement. Since 82% do agree that “IS is US and foreign made group,” Syrians are clearly anti-American, by overwhelming majorities: they blame the U.S. for something that they clearly (by 78%) consider to be not “a positive influence.”
Here is the unfortunately amateurish (even undated) press release from ORB International, reporting their findings, and it links directly to the full pdf of their poll-results, “Syria Public Opinion – July 2015”. Though their press-operation is amateurish, their polling itself definitely is not. WIN/Gallup is, instead, the best polling-operation that functions in Syria, which is obviously an extremely difficult environment.
WIN/Gallup and ORB International had previously released a poll of Syria, on 8 July 2014, which reported that, at that time, “three in five (60%) of the population would support ‘international military involvement in Syria’. In government controlled regions this drops to 11% (Tartus), 36% (Damascus) and rises in those areas currently largely controlled by the opposition – Al Raqqah (82%), Aleppo (61%), Idlib (88%).” In other words: The regions that were controlled by Islamic jihadists (Sunnis who are backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United States) were, a year ago, overwhelmingly wanting “international military involvement in Syria.” They wanted to be saved from ISIS. [I should have explained: ISIS opposed both Syria’s Government and America’s Government; Al Qaeda in Syria, which called itself Al Nusra, opposed Syria’s Government and was leading most of the U.S-supported groups who were trying to overthrow the Government, and was therefore central to America’s war against Syria’s Government. Whereas both ISIS and Al Qaeda were jihadists, these two groups opposed one-another regarding the U.S.] Government-controlled regions didn’t feel the need for international involvement. Syrians were, apparently, at that time expecting “international military involvement” to be anti-jihadist, not pro-jihadist, as it turned out to be (which is the reason why the current poll is finding rampant anti-Americanism there).
This earlier poll further found that, “There is also evidence to suggest that Bashar al-Assad’s position is strengthened from a year ago.”
So, apparently, the more that the war has continued, the more opposed to the U.S. the Syrian people have become, and the more that they are supporting Bashar al-Assad, whom the Syrian people know that the U.S. is trying to bring down.
Also on September 15th, Russian Television issued a video of their interview in Damascus of President Assad. Unfortunately, most of it is in Russian, and without subscripts. However, parts of it are in English, and this interview does provide English-speakers an opportunity to hear him speak, unmoderated by Western media.
UPDATE: To see how the U.S. major media covered Syria that day, a good example can be found here.
——
NOTE THE CURRENT RECOMMENDED NEWS SITES:
The new list of 51 recommended sites are:
American Herald Tribune
Anti-Imperialism
Arab24
Asia Times
Blacklisted News
Consortium News
Coronavirus Data
Countercurrents
Craig Murray
Dances with Bears
Defend Democracy
EurAsia Review
Europe Reloaded
Geopolitics Alert
Global Research
Global Village Space
Greanville Post
Information Clearing House
Inner City Press
Law and Crime
Libyan War The Truth
Little Sis
Meduza
Middle East Eye
Middle East Monitor
Middle East Observer
Mint Press News
Modern Diplomacy
Moon of Alabama
New Eastern Outlook
News Lookup
No War No NATO
Oriental Review
PEU Report
Polling Politicians
Polling Report
Russian Television
South China Morning Post
South Front
Stalker Zone
Strategic Culture
Syria News
Tehran Times
The Duran
The Energy Mix
The Gray Zone
The Saker
Scoop
Venezuela Analysis
Wall Street on Parade
Zero Hedge
All of the other sites (virtually the entirety of the Western ‘news’ media) are rigidly censored by the international aristocracy. Their ‘news’ is propaganda, especially whenever the focus of a given news-report is on international relations.
For example, when the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, it was because both the U.S. Government and the U.S. aristocracy (who also control the press) did not want the public to know the truth, and so fooled the public into believing that Saddam Hussein constituted a threat to the United States. The same mechanism (of a lying government and press) still functions today, except at the recommended sites (this small minority of news-media, the ones which are not controlled by aristocrats, or else by people whose main aim is to satisfy aristocrats).
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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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