The dying USA empire will not go quietly into the night. Instead, they will drag us all down to hell with them
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Propaganda war on Ukraine
"media stampedes off the reality cliff"
that certainly sums up western media in times of Washington collaboration
Yesterday I was in the car listening to NPR and they signed off their Ukraine story with a woman sobbing in broken English about how she was ready to pick up a weapon and fight for her country because who else will save them from the Russians? (Apparently not the Kiev junta since the military appears to be defecting.)
Ukraine, Through the US Looking Glass
by Robert Parry
The acting president of the coup regime in Kiev announces that he is ordering an “anti-terrorist” operation against pro-Russian protesters in eastern Ukraine, while his national security chief says he has dispatched right-wing ultranationalist fighters who spearheaded the Feb. 22 coup that ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych.The Times’ front page on Wednesday was a bizarre story by David M. Herszenhorn accusing the Russian government of engaging in a propaganda war by making many of the same points that you could find – albeit without the useful context about Parubiy’s neo-Nazi background – in the same newspaper.
On Tuesday, Andriy Parubiy, head of the Ukrainian National Security Council, went on Twitter to declare, “Reserve unit of National Guard formed #Maidan Self-defense volunteers was sent to the front line this morning.” Parubiy was referring to the neo-Nazi militias that provided the organized muscle that overthrew Yanukovych, forcing him to flee for his life. Some of these militias have since been incorporated into security forces as “National Guard.”
Parubiy himself is a well-known neo-Nazi, who founded the Social-National Party of Ukraine in 1991. The party blended radical Ukrainian nationalism with neo-Nazi symbols. Parubiy also formed a paramilitary spinoff, the Patriots of Ukraine, and defended the awarding of the title, “Hero of Ukraine,” to World War II Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, whose own paramilitary forces exterminated thousands of Jews and Poles in pursuit of a racially pure Ukraine.
During the months of protests aimed at overthrowing Yanukovych, Parubiy became the commandant of “Euromaidan,” the name for the Kiev uprising, and – after the Feb. 22 coup – Parubiy was one of four far-right Ukrainian nationalists given control of a ministry, i.e. national security.
But the U.S. press has played down his role because his neo-Nazism conflicts with Official Washington’s narrative that the neo-Nazis played little or no role in the “revolution.” References to neo-Nazis in the “interim government” are dismissed as “Russian propaganda.”
Yet there Parubiy was on Tuesday bragging that some of his neo-Nazi storm troopers – renamed “National Guard” – were now being sicced on rebellious eastern Ukraine as part of the Kiev government’s “anti-terrorist” operation.
The post-coup President Oleksandr Turchynov also warned that Ukraine was confronting a “colossal danger,” but he insisted that the suppression of the pro-Russian protesters would be treated as an “anti-terrorist” operation and not as a “civil war.” Everyone should understand by now that “anti-terror” suggests extrajudicial killings, torture and “counter-terror.”
Yet, with much of the Ukrainian military of dubious loyalty to the coup regime, the dispatch of the neo-Nazi militias from western Ukraine’s Right Sektor and Svoboda parties represents a significant development. Not only do the Ukrainian neo-Nazis consider the ethnic Russians an alien presence, but these right-wing militias are organized to wage street fighting as they did in the February uprising.
Historically, right-wing paramilitaries have played crucial roles in “counter-terror” campaigns around the world. In Central America in the 1980s, for instance, right-wing “death squads” did much of the dirty work for U.S.-backed military regimes as they crushed social protests and guerrilla movements.
The merging of the concept of “anti-terrorism” with right-wing paramilitaries represents a potentially frightening development for the people of eastern Ukraine. And much of this information – about Turchynov’s comments and Parubiy’s tweet – can be found in a New York Times’ dispatch from Ukraine.
Whose Propaganda?
However, on the Times’ front page on Wednesday was a bizarre story by David M. Herszenhorn accusing the Russian government of engaging in a propaganda war by making many of the same points that you could find – albeit without the useful context about Parubiy’s neo-Nazi background – in the same newspaper.
In the article entitled “Russia Is Quick To Bend Truth About Ukraine,” Herszenhorn mocked Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev for making a Facebook posting that “was bleak and full of dread,” including noting that “blood has been spilled in Ukraine again” and adding that “the threat of civil war looms.”
The Times article continued, “He [Medvedev] pleaded with Ukrainians to decide their own future ‘without usurpers, nationalists and bandits, without tanks or armored vehicles – and without secret visits by the C.I.A. director.’ And so began another day of bluster and hyperbole, of the misinformation, exaggerations, conspiracy theories, overheated rhetoric and, occasionally, outright lies about the political crisis in Ukraine that have emanated from the highest echelons of the Kremlin and reverberated on state-controlled Russian television, hour after hour, day after day, week after week.”
This argumentative “news” story spilled from the front page to the top half of an inside page, but Herszenhorn never managed to mention that there was nothing false in what Medvedev said. Indeed, it was the much-maligned Russian press that first reported the secret visit of CIA Director John Brennan to Kiev.
Though the White House has since confirmed that report, Herszenhorn cites Medvedev’s reference to it in the context of “misinformation” and “conspiracy theories.” Nowhere in the long article does the Times inform its readers that, yes, the CIA director did make a secret visit to Ukraine last weekend. Presumably, that reality has now disappeared into the great memory hole along with the on-ground reporting from Feb. 22 about the key role of the neo-Nazi militias.
The neo-Nazis themselves have pretty much disappeared from Official Washington’s narrative, which now usually recounts the coup as simply a case of months of protests followed by Yanukovych’s decision to flee. Only occasionally, often inserted deep in news articles with the context removed, can you find admissions of how the neo-Nazis spearheaded the coup.
A Wounded Extremist
For instance, on April 6, the New York Times published a human-interest profile of a Ukrainian named Yuri Marchuk who was wounded in clashes around Kiev’s Maidan square in February. You have to read far into the story to learn that Marchuk was a Svoboda leader from Lviv, which – if you did your own research – you would discover is a neo-Nazi stronghold where Ukrainian nationalists hold torch-light parades in honor of Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.
Without providing that context, the Times does mention that Lviv militants plundered a government weapons depot and dispatched 600 militants a day to do battle in Kiev. Marchuk also described how these well-organized militants, consisting of paramilitary brigades of 100 fighters each, launched the fateful attack against the police on Feb. 20, the battle where Marchuk was wounded and where the death toll suddenly spiked into scores of protesters and about a dozen police.
Marchuk later said he visited his comrades at the occupied City Hall. What the Times doesn’t mention is that City Hall was festooned with Nazi banners and even a Confederate battle flag as a tribute to white supremacy.
The Times touched on the inconvenient truth of the neo-Nazis again on April 12 in an article about the mysterious death of neo-Nazi leader Oleksandr Muzychko, who was killed during a shootout with police on March 24. The article quoted a local Right Sektor leader, Roman Koval, explaining the crucial role of his organization in carrying out the anti-Yanukovych coup.
“Ukraine’s February revolution, said Mr. Koval, would never have happened without Right Sector and other militant groups,” the Times wrote. Yet, that reality – though actually reported in the New York Times – has now become “Russian propaganda,” according to the New York Times.
This upside-down American narrative also ignores the well-documented interference of prominent U.S. officials in stirring up the protesters in Kiev, which is located in the western part of Ukraine and is thus more anti-Russian than eastern Ukraine where many ethnic Russians live and where Yanukovych had his political base.
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland was a cheerleader for the uprising, reminding Ukrainian business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations,” discussing who should replace Yanukovych (her choice, Arseniy Yatsenyuk became the new prime minister), and literally passing out cookies to the protesters in the Maidan. (Nuland is married to neoconservative superstar Robert Kagan, a founder of the Project for the New American Century.)
During the protests, neocon Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, took the stage with leaders of Svoboda – surrounded by banners honoring Stepan Bandera – and urged on the protesters. Even before the demonstrations began, prominent neocon Carl Gershman, president of the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy, had dubbed Ukraine “the biggest prize.” [For more details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “What’s the Matter with John Kerry?”]
Indeed, in my four-plus decades in journalism, I have never seen a more thoroughly biased and misleading performance by the major U.S. news media. Even during the days of Ronald Reagan – when much of the government’s modern propaganda structure was created – there was more independence in major news outlets. There were media stampedes off the reality cliff during George H.W. Bush’s Persian Gulf War and George W. Bush’s Iraq War, both of which were marked by demonstrably false claims that were readily swallowed by the big U.S. news outlets.
But there is something utterly Orwellian in the current coverage of the Ukraine crisis, including accusing others of “propaganda” when their accounts – though surely not perfect – are much more honest and more accurate than what the U.S. press corps has been producing.
There’s also the added risk that this latest failure by the U.S. press corps is occurring on the border of Russia, a nuclear-armed state that – along with the United States – could exterminate all life on the planet. The biased U.S. news coverage is now feeding into political demands to send U.S. military aid to Ukraine’s coup regime.
The casualness of this propaganda – as it spreads across the U.S. media spectrum from Fox News to MSNBC, from the Washington Post to the New York Times – is not just wretched journalism but it is reckless malfeasance jeopardizing the lives of many Ukrainians and the future of the planet.
© 2014 Consortium News
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat. His two previous books are Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth'.
"Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is." - A. Shakur
"There is nothing here, no oil, no strategic location. We will recommend to our government not to intervene as the risks are high and all that is here are humans."
- Rwanda, 1994
The dying USA empire will not go quietly into the night. Instead, they will drag us all down to hell with them
wasn't NPR created by the US gov to counter the progressive and independent Pacifica radio network? So not surprising that their coverage of Ukraine is in line with the US policy.
Not 100% sure about the veracity of the info:
The Kiev authorities seem to be planning a bloody provocation in Lugansk on April the 17th.
Right Sector members have been shuttled into both towns. University students and the teaching staff are ordered by the rector (Yukia Timoshenko's colleague Vitaliy Kurilo) and the ministry of education to partake in a mass rally near the buildings occupied by the separatists. If they refuse they are threatened with being ex-matriculated and fired.
At the beginning of the rally the Right Sector members pretending to be part of the student body will infiltrate their ranks and march together with the students and teachers.
As they come to the occupied buildings the Right Sector members will attempt to enter those buildings (which are guarded by the armed separatists) - they will try at any cost to provoke the guards to fire into the crowd. Moreover, snipers hired by the Kiev government will be placed nearby and will start shooting into the crowds.
The aim of this whole action is to stage a bloody event - murder of children and youths - and to shove the blame on the separatists and Russia in order to provoke international reaction and facilitate a military resolution of the conflict!
Sources (in Russian):
http://putnik1.livejournal.com/3051219.html
http://putnik1.livejournal.com/3052278.html
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.p...00008239891566
Interestingly enough, I just read somwhere that Yatseniuk is now saying that he has info that Russians are planning a provocation with 100-200 dead. Hmm... could it be he is giving away his plans now and trying to pin the blame on others pre-emptively?
No, nothing that nefarious, it was created as part of LBJ's Great Society Programs as the radio counterpart to PBS. It's not uncommon for NPR-run stations to have Pacifica-produced content and vice versa in some localities.
But in general US media especially when it comes to foreign policy is going to closely toe the line the administration(s) is holding, at least in the first few years for the same event (pretty much all the 'respectable' media covered the Iraq War the same way in its first years and began to differ as the war got longer). We'll see the same points parroted when it comes to other events, pretty much all the major media for example have covered events in Venezuela (as well as previous ones, like Hugo Chavez's death) more or less with the same angle of insane crazy dictator with significant bias towards the opposition. As far as NPR is concerned they always bring in journalists and pundits from different places, many of them with sometimes pretty hawkish foreign policy positions.
Fuck the right wingers in Ukraine, fuck the right wing Russian govt and its supporters and fuck the US forces if/when they try to intervene. It's so pointless to even try to decipher "oh which side is screwing people over less and has more people on there side" because it doesn't even matter. In conflicts like these there's never a benevolent winner and every prominent side sucks and there's no point to taking an official stance on these wars between two right wing forces like it actually matters (cough cough communist parties everywhere cough cough) - so fuck it, I hope all the civilians live and all the assholes die. That'll never happen, but that is my "official" position and it's just as relevant as anyone else on the left choosing sides in these matters.
FKA Chomsssssssky, Skwisgaar, The Employer Destroyer, skybutton
More and more info about the very likely upcoming bloodbath on the 17th in both Donetsk and Lugansk. Right Sector are basically openly saying now that there will be shootings, that people will die (they predict most victims will most likely be women and children) - only they are ascribing the provocation to a supposed planned operation by Russian agents.
The person collecting this info cites as some of his sources officers in the SBU who know what is planned but wish to prevent the tragedy.
(again for those who understand the language the sources are in Russian):
http://putnik1.livejournal.com/3052750.html
http://putnik1.livejournal.com/3052843.html
http://putnik1.livejournal.com/3053107.html
http://putnik1.livejournal.com/3053444.html
http://putnik1.livejournal.com/3053854.html
Let's hope the predictions are wrong.
Yeah, ok, nice dodge. There are some very basic material reasons why people in the east are siding with Russia. For instance:
Russian Military Pay Scale 2013 Edition
Monthly pay rate of a contract (volunteer) serviceman is computed by adding monthly pay rate based on posting, monthly pay rate based on rank and bonuses.
Monthly pay rate of a conscript serviceman is computed by adding monthly pay rate based on posting and bonuses.
Monthly pay rate based on posting (min-max, depending on tariff bracket):
- Rifleman: RUB 10,000-12,500 ($350-450)
- Detachment commander: RUB 14,500-15,000 ($520-540)
- Platoon commander: RUB 20,000-20,500 ($720-730)
- Battalion commander: RUB 24,000-24,500 ($860-880)
- Brigade commander: RUB 29,000 ($1,040)
- Army commander: RUB 37,000 ($1,320)
- Deputy minister of defense: RUB 44,000 ($1,570)
Monthly pay rate based on rank:
- Private: RUB 5,000 ($180)
- Sergeant: RUB 6,500 ($230)
- Lieutenant: RUB 10,000 ($360)
- Major: RUB 11,500 ($410)
- Colonel: RUB 13,000 ($470)
- Lt.-General: RUB 17,000 ($610)
- Col.-General: RUB 20,000 ($720)
Extra bonuses:
- Monthly bonus for seniority: 2-5 years - 10%, 5-10 years - 15%, 10-15 years - 20%, 15-20 years - 25%, 20-25 years - 30%, 25 years and more - 40%
- Monthly bonus for class qualification: 3rd class - 5%, 2nd class - 10%, 1st class - 20%, master class - 30%
- Monthly bonus for working with classified materials: "Critical importance" - 25%, "Top Secret" - 20%, "Secret" - 10%
- Monthly bonus for special conditions of service: 100% of monthly pay rate
- Monthly bonus for peacetime service connected with risk to life and health: 100% of monthly pay rate
- Monthly bonus for special service merit: 100% of monthly pay rate
- Bonus for effective discharge of duty: Up to 3 monthly pay rates a year
- Annual material support: No less that one monthly pay rate
Thus, for example:
- Company commander with a rank of Captain, 10 years of service, 1st class qualification and access to classified materials could potentially receive RUB 83,820 ($2,990) per month.
- Platoon commander with a rank of Lieutenant, 5 years of service, 3rd class qualification and access to classified materials could potentially receive RUB 56,000 ($2,000) per month.
- Rifleman private with 2 years of service and 2nd class qualification could potentially receive RUB 40,645 ($1,450) per month
http://khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1397083413
http://www.wbur.org/npr/303646309/in-ukraine-reports-of-soldiers-switching-to-pro-russia-side
well yipee for the marginally better capitalists - I'm sure anything that "people" are behind must be good, I'll vote for the democrats while I'm at it because yay popular support.
FKA Chomsssssssky, Skwisgaar, The Employer Destroyer, skybutton
Also, do you think you are accomplishing anything by taking some official position in a geopolitical conflict like this?
FKA Chomsssssssky, Skwisgaar, The Employer Destroyer, skybutton
This sums up the beginning of the 21st century eh?
One side has food and water. The other one doesn't.
See, some people live in the real world, unlike most western leftists. Until the left can offer something that can benefit the working class in even the most "marginal" way, the masses are going to continue to flock to the "marginally better capitalists," despite all the A-rank finger wagging and eye rolling you can muster. Fact's a fact.
Why are you a moderator on a communist forum, Khad?
“All that a well-organized secret society can do is, first, to assist in the birth of the revolution by spreading among the masses ideas corresponding to their instincts, and to organize, not the army of the revolution—the army must always be the people [—] but a revolutionary General Staff composed of devoted, energetic, intelligent and above all sincere friends of the people, who are not ambitious or vain, and who are capable of serving as intermediaries between the revolutionary idea and the popular instincts.” - Bakunin the Leninist
Objective analysis is taboo now?
See, that's the difference between Marx and the lot fronting wannabes that infest the western left these days. Marx actually took an interest in the material factors involved in events of his day, instead of retreating to the comfort blanket of convenient slogans.
Has anyone talked about the politics of the IMF and Russian financial policy? Or of logistics and industrial development in Ukraine? Unless you learn to speak in real-world terms, don't blame me when real people tune out your drivel.
Marx to Engels, 27 May 1862:
#BanMarxForLesserEvilismAndFinanceTalk
Ukraine just raised 9 million dollars for its starving military with fundraising drive. Problem is, the annual budget is in the order of 5.3 billion. If you were a soldier, how much confidence would you have going to war with these kinds of people at your back?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...raising-drive/
Wow, 14 radios. Maybe they will deliver 15 rifle straps next. And then 16 MREs.
I think it's obvious that the Ukrainian state is materially decrepit and cannot pay good pensions or pay its soldiers. It doesn't change the fact that things like Western toleration for homosexuality and other "liberal" ideas are cited by pro-Russian protesters as justifications to fight for "independence". So I don't think those pro-Russian activists are quite comparable to Union soldiers if we are drawing some kind of analogy for when to support a "lesser evil".
Socialist Party of Outer Space
Conditions will be better under Russia, sure. However, Russia is a right wing entity still and shouldn't be supported - if anything, why not support the workers rights to determine their own course rather than having capitalist entities determine it for them? Is it because you don't view this as "practical" meaning that it wouldn't lead to anything? Because if that's the case, that's a funny position to take given that your verbal support for Russia in this conflict already doesn't mean shit. The only difference between the two is that you're lending verbal support to a right wing government. Either way, you're not having an impact and are wasting your time.
FKA Chomsssssssky, Skwisgaar, The Employer Destroyer, skybutton
