The Media Loves “The Experts,” Until it’s Time to Count Gaza’s Dead

Current Affairs | Lex Syd

Public debate around Gaza fixates on a death toll that is probably half the size of the real number. 

ar from being inflated by sneaky Hamas propagandists, the commonly cited death toll of the war in Gaza is an extreme undercount. 

Virtually every news article about the Israel-Hamas war cites the death toll provided by the strip’s Ministry of Health. Currently at 60,900 (and climbing by the day), the MOH toll is widely accepted as an accurate minimum. Still, journalists and political figures aligned with Israel often call it into question in a range of ways, from attaching the label “Hamas-controlled” to the Ministry itself to outright denying its accuracy. In 2023, even former President Joe Biden invoked this idea, saying that he had “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.”

Because the Ministry’s death toll has attracted this undeserved controversy, the standard reporting line is to explain why the MOH figures are considered reliable. For example, the Washington Post recently published a detailed accounting of the names, and in some cases the photos, of roughly 18,500 children who are counted among the dead overall.

But in defending and insisting on the MOH figures, media outlets have defended the bare minimum, and the result is a public debate that revolves around an understated count. Hence why New York Times columnist Bret Stephens can write an opinion piece arguing that 60,000 dead is tragic, but small relative to what Israel could do. Those terms of debate are accepted even by his harshest critics.

But the figure everyone knows is not an undercount of a few thousand or even ten thousand. The real toll could well be twice as high. That is according to a growing body of research that is conspicuously absent in news coverage of Gaza—despite the eagerness of newsrooms to emphasize expert opinion on other divisive topics, like COVID-19 policy or climate change.

The standard figure largely counts only those whose bodies reached health workers and those who were killed violently. But in reality, the institutions that count the dead are heavily degraded, thousands remain under rubble, and deaths due to malnutrition or easily preventable diseases are rarely included in MOH totals, if at all.

How Many Gazans Have Died According to Experts?

A reasonable, conservative estimate of the death toll in Gaza is about 100,000. And the figure may well tally to 200,000, if not now, then by the war’s end. 

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Inside the Submissive Void — Propaganda, Censorship, Power, and Control

Greg Maybury
Pox Americana

Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. David Hume, Of the First Principles of Government, 1768.

—

Brief: The use of propaganda and censorship is more frequently associated with totalitarian, corrupt and/or despotic regimes, not modern democracies in the West. Yet the history of how western governments and their ever-vigilant overlords in the media, financial, and business spheres have controlled the political narrative of the time via these means is a long, storied and ruinous one, going back well before 1914. Along with serving the contemporaneous political objectives of its perpetrators as contrived, such activities often continue to inform our understanding, and cement our interpretation, of history. If as the saying goes, “history repeats itself”, we need look no further as to the main reason why. In this wide-ranging ‘safari’ into the fake news, myth-making, and disinformation wilderness—aka The Big Shill—Greg Maybury concludes that “It’s the narrative, stupid!”

— Controlling the Proles —

The following yarn may be apocryphal, but either way the ‘moral of the fable’ should serve our narrative well. The story goes like this: sometime during the height of the Cold War a group of American journalists were hosting a visit to the U.S. of some of their Soviet counterparts. After allowing their visitors to soak up the media zeitgeist stateside, most of the Americans expected their guests to express unbridled envy at the professional liberties they enjoyed in the Land of the Free Press. 

One of the Russian scribes was indeed compelled to express his unabashed ‘admiration’ to his hosts…in particular, for the “far superior quality” of American “propaganda“. Now it’s fair to say his hosts were taken aback by what was at best a backhanded compliment. After some collegial ‘piss-taking’ about the stereotypes associated with Western “press freedom” versus those of the controlled media in the Soviet system, one of the Americans called on their Russian colleague to explain what he meant. In fractured English, he replied with the following: ‘It’s very simple…In Soviet Union, we don’t believe our propaganda. In America, you actually believe yours!’

As amusing as this anecdote is, the reality of the Russian journo’s jibe doesn’t simply remain true now; that ‘belief’ has become even more delusional, farcical, and above all, dangerous. One suspects that Russian journos today would think much the same. And in few cases has the “delusional”,“farcical”, and “dangerous” nature of this conviction been more evident than with the West’s continued provocations of Russia, with “Skripalgate” in Old Blighty (see here, and here), and “Russia-Gate” stateside (see here, and here) being prime, though far from the only, exemplars we might point to.

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BBC Admits ‘Syrian’ Airstrike in Recent Story on Scarred Boy Turned Out to Be Turkish

Sputnik

The BBC has corrected its August 19 news story about a Syrian boy who was severely wounded in a 2018 airstrike, which the broadcasting company first said was carried out by Syrian forces but later admitted could be blamed on Turkey.

Some Twitter users posted screenshots showing that the BBC had actually redacted its text several times.

The headline of the short story, featuring a video about the life of a four-year-old Syrian boy whose face was scarred in the airstrike, originally referred to the incident as “a Syrian airstrike.” The mention of Syria was then deleted with an indication that it was “not clear who was responsible for the attack.” Now the headline refers to it as just “an airstrike,” and the article clarifies that “evidence indicates that Turkey carried out the airstrike.”

Last January, Turkish forces launched airstrikes on Kurdish fighters in Afrin, a city located in northern Syria, as part of a military operation dubbed Olive Branch. The boy, named Jouma, and his family were fleeing their home in Syria when an airstrike hit the bus they were on.

Jenan Moussa, a reporter for Arabic Al Aan TV, wrote on Twitter that Tolin Hassan, a close friend of the wounded boy’s family, told her that Jouma’s relatives “mentioned over and over to BBC-journo that the car was hit by a Turkish strike after escaping Afrin.”

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Young people in UK abandon TV news 'almost entirely'

The Guardian via sott.net

 Young people in Britain have almost entirely abandoned television news broadcasts, according to Ofcom, while half of the country now gets its news from social media.

While the average person aged 65 and over watches 33 minutes of TV news a day, this falls to just two minutes among people aged 16-24, according the media regulator's annual news consumption report.

The decline has been driven by audiences moving away from traditional live broadcast channels, where they might watch a popular drama and leave the channel on during the evening news bulletin, towards watching catchup content from streaming services.

The shift could have major implications for British politics, given services such as Netflix do not provide any news. Political parties have traditionally considered the BBC's 10pm news bulletin to be their most important outlet for getting their message across to large swaths of the public, which in turn can shape policies being proposed and how they are presented. TV news is still the main way that the British public learn about current affairs, however, in part because older viewers have remained loyal to traditional services.

Ofcom's research also suggests that people are increasingly willing to wade into online arguments about news. "There is evidence that UK adults are consuming news more actively via social media. For example, those who access news shared by news organisations, trending news or news stories from friends and family or other people they follow via Facebook or Twitter are more likely to make comments on the new posts they see compared to the previous year."
Comment: With Big Tech censorship going into hyperdrive social media users will end up consuming the same fakenews they were fed by the mainstream TV channels if they're not careful: Facebook Teams up With Mainstream Media to Directly Censor News Websites

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The WORST Part of the Epstein Case - #PropagandaWatch

Corbett Report

SHOW NOTES: https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=32026 

According to the dinosaur media, the worst part about the exposure of Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking and high-level blackmail operation is that it bolsters conspiracy theories about child sex trafficking and elite corruption. Newsflash: they're trying to gaslight you. Don't fall for it for a second.

Newspeak at the Media Freedom Conference

Kit Knightly  
Off Guardian

Joint UK-Canada Event Littered With Insidious Undertones

 

OffGuardian already covered the Global Media Freedom Conference, our article Hypocrisy Taints UK’s Media Freedom Conference, was meant to be all there was to say. A quick note on the obvious hypocrisy of this event. But, in the writing, I started to see more than that. This event is actually…creepy.

Let’s just look back at one of the four “main themes” of this conference:

"building trust in media and countering disinformation"

“Countering disinformation”? Well,that’s just another word for censorship.
This is proven by their refusal to allow Sputnik or RT accreditation. They claim RT “spreads disinformation” and they “countered” that by barring them from attending. 

“Building trust”? In the post-Blair world of PR newspeak, “building trust” is just another way of saying “making people believe us” (the word usage is actually interesting, building trust not earning trust).

The whole conference is shot through with this language that just feels…off.
Here is CNN’s Christiane Amanpour:

Our job is to be truthful, not neutral…we need to take a stand for the truth, and never to create a false moral or factual equivalence.”

Being “truthful not neutral” is one of Amanpour’s personal sayings, she obviously thinks it’s clever. 

Of course, what it is is NewSpeak for “bias”. 

Refusing to cover evidence of The White Helmets staging rescues, Israel arming ISIS or other inconvenient facts will be defended using this phrase – they will literally claim to only publish “the truth”, to get around impartiality…and then set about making up whatever “truth” is convenient. 

Oh, and if you don’t know what “creating a false moral quivalence is”, here I’ll demonstrate:

MSM: Putin is bad for shutting down critical media. OffG: But you’re supporting RT being banned and Wikileaks being shut down. BBC: No. That’s not the same. OffG: It seems the same. BBC: It’s not. You’re creating a false moral equivalence.
Understand now? You “create a false moral equivalence” by pointing out mainstream media’s double standards.

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La-La-Land: US Media Cites Fake News Disinfo Site to Prove 'Russia' Behind 'Theory' Clinton Hitmen Killed Seth Rich

Sott.net via RT

The man who first reported on the discredited Steele dossier has a brand new conspiracy theory about Russia. The idea that DNC staffer Seth Rich was killed on the order of Hillary Clinton was invented by - guess who?

Yahoo News Chief Investigator Michael Isikoff, who is also the co-author of hit Russiagate book 'Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump,' has a new example of how the nefarious Russians supposedly subverted democracy in the US. According to him, it was Russian intelligence that started a conspiracy theory about the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich on July 10, 2016 during an apparent botched robbery.

The supposed Russian disinformation showed up three days after Rich's death on a website called WhatDoesItMean.com. Befitting of the site's '90s design, it is, well, a badly written thriller fiction about Rich trying to expose the corruption of the Clinton campaign to the FBI, and instead being ambushed by her hit team. It is complete with a gun battle "just blocks from the White House" - all based on a 'report' by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). 

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Don't fall for the ruse - The truth about Iran's nuclear program

James Corbett
Corbett Report

"Be afraid!" say the repeaters of mockingbird media. Afraid of who? Afraid of Iran, of course.

Oh, haven't you heard? The Iranian government's stockpile of enriched uranium is about to surpass 300 kilograms! And Iran's store of heavy water is about to surpass 130 metric tons! Don't you understand? This will exceed the limits on these materials set out in the Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)! And the dastardly Iranian government is not only embarrassed by these actions, but openly taking steps to end (some of) their commitments under the JCPOA!
Sounds chilling, doesn't it? But there's one little disclaimer that seems missing from a lot of the MSM's scaremongering coverage of these developments: None of this has anything to do with an offensive nuclear weapons program.

Confused? Of course you are. The highly-technical details of the 159-page nuclear agreement were never meant to be scrutinized by (much less understood by) the average Joe Sixpack and Jane Soccermom. Words like "enriched" and "highly enriched," "heavy water" and "tritium," "nuclear program" and "nuclear weapons program" are thrown around by the media as if these terms are all the same, even though they describe fundamentally different materials and processes. And the whole point is to make the public afraid of a nuclear weapons program that both US and Israeli intelligence has confirmed doesn't exist.

So what's the real story on the Iran nuclear deal?

Well, as I had cause to point out on The Corbett Report podcast quite recently, defining our terms is the first step toward understanding the world. So let's do some defining.

First, "enrichment." As the World Nuclear Association explains:

Natural uranium contains 0.7% of the U-235 isotope. The remaining 99.3% is mostly the U-238 isotope which does not contribute directly to the fission process (though it does so indirectly by the formation of fissile isotopes of plutonium). Isotope separation is a physical process to concentrate ('enrich') one isotope relative to others. Most reactors are light water reactors (of two types-PWR and BWR) and require uranium to be enriched from 0.7% to 3-5% U-235 in their fuel. This is normal low-enriched uranium (LEU). There is some interest in taking enrichment levels to about 7%, and even close to 20% for certain special power reactor fuels, as high-assay LEU (HALEU).

Note that there is a large difference between low-enriched uranium (less than 20% U-235) used for fuel in nuclear power plants and research reactors, and high-enriched uranium (over 90% U-235) used for nuclear weapons. One guess which kind Iran is producing. That's right: low-enriched uranium! To be precise, 3.67% U-235 enriched uranium, also known as " not even close to being used in a nuclear weapon" enriched uranium. 

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Recruiting American Spies for Israel

Philip Giraldi

Unz Review

Israel never loses an opportunity to promote what it perceives to be its interests. That any nation would do just that most of the time should surprise no one, but Israel is perhaps unique in terms of how assiduously it works at creating situations that favor it through the use of corruption of foreign governments and subversion of existing institutions. For most countries, the actions of a minority that seeks to advance the interests of a foreign nation would face strong resistance, but Israel manages to get away with what it does due to the presence of powerful and wealthy diaspora communities, most particularly in the Anglophone countries, but also in France.

The Israel Lobby in the United States has been subjected to some scrutiny thanks largely to the impetus provided by Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s groundbreaking study The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. More recent revelations have come from undercover journalism undertaken by al-Jazeera, which has demonstrated how British Jewish groups and parliamentarians have worked together with Israeli Embassy intelligence officers to remove public officials believed to be critical of Israel. Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, has been on the receiving end of a campaign to replace him for his alleged anti-Semitism solely because he has condemned Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. A second al-Jazeera investigation demonstrated how The Lobby, cooperating with the Israeli Embassy, has been controlling discussion of the Middle East in the United States, which should have surprised no one.

Europe indeed appears to be a hotbed of anti-Semitism, or so Israel and its friends would have us believe. Leaders in France, Germany and Britain feel compelled to frequently address the issue, making the equivalent of a war on anti-Semitism a principal objective of government. The United States has joined this effort, appointing a Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism whose job includes reporting other countries’ treatment of Jews and Israel.

The newest wrinkle comes under the category of Lawfare. It consists of hate crime laws that are directed against anyone criticizing Jews and, increasingly, Israel. In fact, any criticism of Israel is frequently being seen as a criminal offense, a trend that is also evident in the United States at the national, state and local levels, where Jewish groups have also been quick off the mark in claiming that anti-Semitism is surging. Freedom of speech in the western world has been diminished as a result.

Diaspora Jews are well entrenched in the media, which has enabled them to promote a narrative favorable to Israel no matter what it does, to include a repetitive dose of holocaust guilt that plays out from Hollywood and elsewhere in the media. The assiduously cultivated message for the public is that Jews are always the victims, never the aggressors, even when IDF snipers shoot Arab children and medical workers during protests.

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The Gulf Of Credibility

Craig Murray

I really cannot begin to fathom how stupid you would have to be to believe that Iran would attack a Japanese oil tanker at the very moment that the Japanese Prime Minister was sitting down to friendly, US-disapproved talks in Tehran on economic cooperation that can help Iran survive the effects of US economic sanctions.

The Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous was holed above the water line. That rules out a torpedo attack, which is the explanation being touted by the neo-cons.

The second vessel, the Front Altair, is Norwegian owned and 50% Russian crewed (the others being Filipinos). It is owned by Frontline, a massive tanker leasing company that also has a specific record of being helpful to Iran in continuing to ship oil despite sanctions.

It was Iran that rescued the crews and helped bring the damaged vessels under control.

That Iran would target a Japanese ship and a friendly Russian crewed ship is a ludicrous allegation.

They are however very much the targets that the USA allies in the region – the Saudis, their Gulf Cooperation Council colleagues, and Israel – would target for a false flag. It is worth noting that John Bolton was meeting with United Arab Emirates ministers two weeks ago – both ships had just left the UAE.

The USA and their UK stooges have both immediately leapt in to blame Iran. The media is amplifying this with almost none of the scepticism which is required. I cannot think of a single reason why anybody would believe this particular false flag. It is notable that neither Norway nor Japan has joined in with this ridiculous assertion.

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When the Journalists Ganged Up on Assange They Ganged Up on Themselves

Paul Craig Roberts

Journalists did not appreciate the implications for themselves of the contrived and false indictment of Julian Assange by a corrupt US government.  It was obvious to a few of us that the indictment by the US government, a government constrained by the First Amendment, of a foreign national for publishing leaked material, an action never before regarded as espionage or a crime, was the beginning of the end of any Western government ever again being held accountable by a free press.

Not that the Western World has a free press.  It has a collection of presstitutes that serve as a Ministry of Propaganda for the ruling oligarchies.

Still, in principle it was possible that governments could be held accountable.  But that possibility ended with Assange’s false indictment.

First of all, no honest government would have spent years trying to invent a way to indict a journalist for practicing journalism.

Second, no intelligent grand jurors with an ounce of integrity would have been putty in the hands of a corrupt US prosecutor and enable a prosecution that ensures the destruction of accountable government.

Third, it was obvious that once America led the way in shutting down the principle of a free press, governments of other “Western democracies” would follow as soon as they could.

And follow they did.  Assange’s indictment led to raids by the “Australian Gestapo” on the home of News Corp Australia journalist Annika Smethurst and on the headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corp. See this.

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GcMAF - The Persecution of David Noakes and Lyn Thyer

Ian Davis

In This Together

Recently business man David Noakes was released from prison having served six months following his conviction on four charges relating to the manufacture, sale and supply of an unlicensed medicine. Noakes pleaded guilty to all charges including one of money laundering. This is something the MHRA and the mainstream media (MSM) have been very keen to highlight because it casts Noakes as a ‘real criminal.’

Money laundering is an automatically levied charge if anyone ever sells an unlicensed ‘medication.’ Pleading guilty to selling an unlicensed medication automatically makes you guilty of so called ‘money laundering.’ David Noakes is no BCCI executive.

Over 6 years Immuno Biotech made £7.6 million selling GcMAF. Out of that they paid a staff team of 27 including 4 research scientists, 7 doctors, 2 ultrasound staff, 4 nurses and admin staff for 6 years. They paid for the laboratories, staff travel (a significant expense) and accommodation. Any additional revenue they pumped back into GcMAF research and development. The CEO of GlaxoSmithKline earns approximately £6 million every single year.

The alleged medicine is not a synthetic manufactured pharmaceutical. It is actually derived from naturally occurring human protein. It is called ‘Gc Protein-derived Macrophage Activating Factor,’ or GcMAf for short. How and why GcMAF is being withheld from the public, despite an abundance of supporting scientific evidence, reveals a system of corrupt corporate control designed to profit from our sickness and death.

The scientific evidence clearly shows that GcMAF is potentially the most effective cancer treatment ever discovered. At David Noakes trial Judge Nicholas Lorraine-Smith made it clear that GcMAF was not on trial. He accepted that Noakes had acted out of a genuine desire to treat people; he noted that GcMAF had been instrumental in successfully treating people who had been written off by the medical profession and added that he was looking forward to GcMAF being made available to the public. He then sentenced David Noakes to prison.

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Bipartisan Support for Trump’s Aggressive Iran Policy Reveals the Hollowness of Russiagate

Whitney Webb
Mint Press News

In early May, MSNBC news host Rachel Maddow — known as one of the top promoters of the new Cold War and Russiagate in American media — emphatically endorsed regime change in Venezuela after she claimed that President Donald Trump’s hawkishness towards the South American country had changed, all because of a single phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. 
 
Though Maddow’s claims were arguably the most extreme in suggesting that Trump was “taking orders” from Putin on Venezuela, she wasn’t alone in making them. For instance, Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks also made the claim that the Trump-Putin phone call on Venezuela was “direct evidence that he is literally taking orders from Putin.” In addition, several corporate media outlets supported this narrative by suggesting that Trump “echoed” Putin’s Venezuela stance after the phone call and directly contradicted his top staffers and even himself in doing so.

Yet now, strangely, those same corporate media voices remain silent on the Trump administration’s other regime-change project — in Iran — despite the fact that the Putin-led Russian government is set to be the biggest winner as tensions between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic boil over and threaten to send the Middle East into a fresh bout of destruction and chaos.  

As tensions between the U.S. and Iran have grown in recent months, analysts in both corporate and independent media have speculated about what country is set to benefit the most from the U.S.’ campaign of “maximum pressure” and regime change against the Islamic Republic. Of the many analyses, two countries have stood out as likely beneficiaries: Russia and China.

The cases for China and Russia’s benefit are somewhat similar given that the Trump administration’s focus on Iran results in less pressure on both Russia and China. This is despite the fact that, officially, the U.S.’ current National Defense Strategy explicitly calls for focusing attention on preparing for a “long war” against Russia and China to prevent either from superseding the U.S. as a global superpower. Yet, with the U.S. focused on regime change in Iran and Venezuela, Russia and China can avoid bearing the brunt of U.S. military adventurism, either directly or by proxy, while the U.S. wears itself thin by trying to do it all at once.

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Police raids escalate as the war on journalism goes worldwide

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium

The Australian Federal Police have conducted two raids on journalists and seized documents in purportedly unrelated incidents in the span of just two days.

Yesterday the AFP raided the home of News Corp Australia journalist Annika Smethurst, seeking information related to her investigative report last year which exposed the fact that the Australian government has been discussing the possibility of giving itself unprecedented powers to spy on its own citizens. Today they raided the Sydney headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corp, seizing information related to a 2017 investigative report on possible war crimes committed by Australian forces in Afghanistan.

In a third, also ostensibly unrelated incident, another Australian reporter disclosed yesterday that the Department of Home Affairs has initiated an investigation of his reporting on a story about asylum seeker boats which could lead to an AFP criminal case, saying he's being pressured to disclose his source. 


"Why has AFP suddenly decided to carry out these two raids after the election?" tweeted Australian Sky News political editor David Speers during the Sydney raid. "Did new evidence really just emerge in both the Annika Smethurst and ABC stories?!"

Why indeed?

"If these raids unconnected, as AFP reportedly said, it's an extraordinary coincidence," tweeted The Conversation chief political correspondent Michelle Grattan. "AFP needs to explain ASAP the timing so long after the stories. It can't be that inefficient! Must be some explanation - which makes the 'unconnected' claim even more odd."

Odd indeed.

It is true that the AFP has formally denied that there was any connection between the two raids, and it is in fact difficult to imagine how the two could be connected apart from their sharing a common theme of exposing malfeasance that the government wanted kept secret. If it is true that they are unconnected, then what changed? What in the world could have changed to spark this sudden escalation of the Australian government's assault on the free press?

Well, if as I suggested recently you don't think in terms of separate, individual nations, it's not hard to think of at least one thing that's changed. "The criminalization and crack down on national security journalism is spreading like a virus," WikiLeaks tweeted today in response to the ABC raid. "The Assange precedent is already having effect. Journalists must unite and remember that courage is also contagious." 

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The Tiananmen Square 'Massacre' - Facts, Fiction and Propaganda

Chris Kanthan
Sott.net

"As far as can be determined from the available evidence, NO ONE DIED that night in Tiananmen Square."

If after reading that you're thinking: 'nonsense! that's just a blatant propagandist claim by China's communist party!', you'd be wrong. It was, in fact, Jay Mathews, the Washington Post's Beijing Bureau Chief in 1989. He wrote this article on the topic of the June 4th 1989 Tiananmen square protests for Columbia Journalism Review.

Many western papers have, in fact, occasionally admitted that this report and other similar reports exist, only to go back to the "massacre" narrative, for some unknown reason. For example, in June 13, 1989, NY Times reporter Nicholas Kristoff - who was in Beijing at the time - wrote: "State television has even shown film of students marching peacefully away from the [Tiananmen] square shortly after dawn as proof that they [protesters] were not slaughtered." In that article, he also debunked a sensational article's claim that Chinese soldiers with machine guns simply mowed down peaceful protesters in Tiananmen Square.

A Wikileaks cable from July 1989 also reveals the eyewitness accounts of a Latin American diplomat and his wife: "They were able to enter and leave the [Tiananmen] square several times and were not harassed by troops. Remaining with students ... until the final withdrawal, the diplomat said there were no mass shootings in the square or the monument."

It is true, of course, that about 200-300 people died in clashes in various parts of Beijing around June 4th 1989 - but about half of those who died were soldiers and police officers.

But what about the iconic "tank man"? Well, if you watch the whole video, you can see that the tanks stopped and let the man jump on the tank. He eventually walks away unharmed. In fact, there are almost no pictures or videos of soldiers actually shooting at or killing people (which doesn't mean it didn't happen, but it's a point to keep in mind).

Propaganda involves not only exaggeration, but also omission. Western media now rarely show pictures of tanks and military vehicles burned down or Chinese soldiers brutally killed by the Beijing protesters.

In an article from June 5, 1989, the Wall Street Journal described some of this violence: "Dozens of soldiers were pulled from trucks, severely beaten and left for dead. At an intersection west of the square, the body of a young soldier, who had been beaten to death, was stripped naked and hung from the side of a bus."

So what exactly did happen? What's the complete story?
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Academic Study Exposes Google's Left-Leaning Media Bias

Zero Hedge

According to data compiled by researchers from Northwestern University, Google's left-wing bias has been exposed.

Researchers from Northwestern University have used an algorithm to study Google search results - and found an overwhelming left-leaning bias towards news outlets such as CNN and The New York Times, which the search giant repeatedly promoted in November, 2017 according to the Daily Mail.

Of the 6,302 articles that appeared in Google's Top Stories box during November, 2017, 62% were from outlets considered to be left-leaning. CNN constituted 10% of the news promoted, while the New York Times and Washington Post came in at 6.5% and 5.6% respectively. 

Fox News, on the other hand, accounted for just 3% of promoted stories.

Columbia Journalism Review

Nearly all (86 percent) of the stories came from just 20 sources and of them, 62 percent were considered to be left-leaning. 

The research sheds new light on the unprecedented power the search engine has in influencing the external traffic to news sites, a hot topic in the worlds of media and politics given Facebook's recently reduced output. 
For example, the researchers found that CNN got a 24 percent bump in traffic as a result of having its stories featured in the 'Top Stories' box. 

The most featured sources, in order, were CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fox News, BBC, USA Today, LA Times, The Guardian, Politico, ABC News, CBS News, NPR, NBC News, CNBC, Reuters, Huffington Post, The Verge, Al Jazeera, The Hill and People. -Daily Mail

In one example, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was written about in at least 38 sources, however 75% of those promoted by Google came from The New York Times and CNN, according to the study. 

What's more, Google promoted newer articles which were just a few hours old over older ones. 

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“Manufacturing Dissent”: The Anti-globalization Movement is Funded by the Corporate Elites

Prof Michel Chossudovsky Global Research

This article was first published in 2010.

The author’s introductory quote was first formulated in 2001 in the context of the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City which was held a few months before 9/11

“Everything the [Ford] Foundation did could be regarded as “making the World safe for capitalism”, reducing social tensions by helping to comfort the afflicted, provide safety valves for the angry, and improve the functioning of government (McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson (1961-1966), President of the Ford Foundation, (1966-1979))

“By providing the funding and the policy framework to many concerned and dedicated people working within the non-profit sector, the ruling class is able to co-opt leadership from grassroots communities, … and is able to make the funding, accounting, and evaluation components of the work so time consuming and onerous that social justice work is virtually impossible under these conditions” (Paul Kivel, You Call this Democracy, Who Benefits, Who Pays and Who Really Decides, 2004, p. 122 )

***

“Under the New World Order, the ritual of inviting “civil society” leaders into the inner circles of power –while simultaneously repressing the rank and file– serves several important functions. First, it says to the World that the critics of globalization “must make concessions” to earn the right to mingle. Second, it conveys the illusion that while the global elites should –under what is euphemistically called democracy– be subject to criticism, they nonetheless rule legitimately. And third, it says “there is no alternative” to globalization: fundamental change is not possible and the most we can hope is to engage with these rulers in an ineffective “give and take”.

While the “Globalizers” may adopt a few progressive phrases to demonstrate they have good intentions, their fundamental goals are not challenged. And what this “civil society mingling” does is to reinforce the clutch of the corporate establishment while weakening and dividing the protest movement. An understanding of this process of co-optation is important, because tens of thousands of the most principled young people in Seattle, Prague and Quebec City [1999-2001] are involved in the anti-globalization protests because they reject the notion that money is everything, because they reject the impoverishment of millions and the destruction of fragile Earth so that a few may get richer.

This rank and file and some of their leaders as well, are to be applauded. But we need to go further. We need to challenge the right of the “Globalizers” to rule. This requires that we rethink the strategy of protest. Can we move to a higher plane, by launching mass movements in our respective countries, movements that bring the message of what globalization is doing, to ordinary people? For they are the force that must be mobilized to challenge those who plunder the Globe.” (Michel Chossudovsky,  The Quebec Wall, April  2001)

“Manufactured Consent” vs. “Manufactured Dissent”

The term “manufacturing consent” was initially coined by Edward S Herman and Noam Chomsky.

“Manufacturing consent” describes a propaganda model used by the corporate media to sway public opinion and “inculcate individuals with values and beliefs…”:

The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda. (Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky)

“Manufacturing consent” implies manipulating and shaping public opinion. It establishes conformity and acceptance to authority and social hierarchy. It seeks compliance to an established social order. “Manufacturing consent” describes the submission of public opinion to the mainstream media narrative, to its lies and fabrications. 

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CONFIRMED: Chemical Weapons Assessment Contradicting Official Syria Narrative Is Authentic

Caitline Johnstone
Consortium News

The leak undermines the fundamental assumptions behind many years of Western reporting, writes Caitlin Johnstone.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has begun responding to queries by the press about a leaked document that contradicts official OPCW findings on an alleged chemical weapons attack last year in Douma, Syria. The prepared statement they’ve been using in response to these queries confirms the authenticity of the document.
 

To recap, a few days ago the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media (WGSPM) published a document signed by a man named Ian Henderson, whose name is seen listed in expert leadership positions on OPCW documents from as far back as 1998 and as recently as 2018. It’s unknown who leaked the document and what other media organizations may have received it.

The report picks apart the extremely shaky physics and narratives of the official OPCW analysis on the gas cylinders allegedly dropped from Syrian government aircraft in the Douma attack, and concludes that “The dimensions, characteristics and appearance of the cylinders, and the surrounding scene of the incidents, were inconsistent with what would have been expected in the case of either cylinder being delivered from an aircraft,” saying instead that manual placement of the cylinders in the locations investigators found them in is “the only plausible explanation for observations at the scene.” 

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Newly Released FBI Docs Shed Light on Apparent Mossad Foreknowledge of 9/11 Attacks

Whitney Webb
Mint Press News 

New information released by the FBI has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center. 

NEW YORK — For nearly two decades, one of the most overlooked and little known arrests made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks was that of the so-called “High Fivers,” or the “Dancing Israelis.” However, new information released by the FBI on May 7 has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Shortly after 8:46 a.m. on the day of the attacks, just minutes after the first plane struck the World Trade Center, five men — later revealed to be Israeli nationals — had positioned themselves in the parking lot of the Doric Apartment Complex in Union City, New Jersey, where they were seen taking pictures and filming the attacks while also celebrating the destruction of the towers and “high fiving” each other. At least one eyewitness interviewed by the FBI had seen the Israelis’ van in the parking lot as early as 8:00 a.m. that day, more than 40 minutes prior to the attack.

The story received coverage in U.S. mainstream media at the time but has since been largely forgotten. The men — Sivan Kurzberg, Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Yaron Shimuel and Omar Marmari — were subsequently apprehended by law enforcement and claimed to be Israeli tourists on a “working holiday” in the United States where they were employed by a moving company, Urban Moving Systems. Upon his arrest, Sivan Kurzberg told the arresting officer, “We are Israeli; we are not your problem. Your problems are our problems, The Palestinians are the problem.”

For years, the official story has been that these individuals, while they had engaged in “immature” behavior by celebrating and being “visibly happy” in their documenting of the attacks, had no prior knowledge of the attack. However, newly released FBI copies of the photos taken by the five Israelis strongly suggest that these individuals had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center. The copies of the photos were obtained via a FOIA request made by a private citizen.

According to a former high-ranking American intelligence official who spoke to the Jewish Daily Forward in 2002, the FBI concluded in its investigation that the five Israelis arrested “were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, NJ, served as a front.” At least two of the men arrested were determined to have direct links to the Mossad after their names appeared in a CIA-FBI database of foreign intelligence operatives. According to one of their lawyers, one of the men, Paul Kurzberg, had previously worked for the Mossad in another country prior to arriving in the United States. Another of those arrested, Oded Ellner, subsequently stated on Israeli TV that the five Israelis had been in New York at the time “to document the event,” meaning the attack on the World Trade Center. 

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See also: Hello Israel I: Dancing Israelis and Artistic Pursuits

 Chabadniks, Zionists & 9/11 Insiders (1)