Democracy Now:
"Report from Ukraine: Russian Forces Carry Out 'Vindictive and Deliberate' Attacks on Civilians; 'I’m Ready to Be Arrested': Activist in Moscow Says Mass Russian Protests Can Stop Putin’s War; Attack on Maternity Ward is a War Crime: David Miliband on Russia’s Bombing of Mariupol."
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/10/russian_vindictive_and_deliberate_civilian_attacks
-->These headlines from a recent Democracy Now program (Mar 10) have one thing in common. They are all anti Russian and anti Putin. Every guest that came on had the same point of view about how the invasion started and how Russia was committing war crimes. For a supposed balance, listeners were offered an interview with a Russian peace activist, who ended up repeating the same sentiments.
To be fair, Amy did have Tariq Ali as a guest on a recent program: "Neither Putin who launched [the war], nor NATO who have created a situation over the last 30 years, as some of the more intelligent U.S. commentators have been telling us now for a long time, has finally reached its apogee. It will end here, whatever the solution." At least he acknowledges NATO's role in provoking Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
So when it comes to Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and now Russia, Democracy Now can't really be trusted. It is an awful defeat for the left in the US. But perhaps it will prompt other leftist media to step up and take its place. We desperately need a national source of news and analysis that isn't pro US empire.
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Caitlin's Newsletter:
"Kremlin-backed media outlets have been banned throughout the European Union, both on television and on apps and online platforms. RT has lost its Sky TV slot in the UK, where the outlet is also blocked on YouTube. Australian TV providers SBS and Foxtel have dropped RT, and the federal government is putting pressure on social media platforms to block Russian media in Australia. ...
Twitter is also placing warnings labels on all Russia-backed media and delivering a pop-up message informing you that you are committing wrongthink if you try to share or even 'like' a post linking to such outlets on the platform. ... 'The purge of RT and other Russian media outlets in the US and Europe is 100% censorship,' tweets journalist Michael Tracey. 'Go ahead and argue it's justified, but at least don't be a coward and admit you are advocating censorship.'
'The western world believes that it has a monopoly on what constitutes 'political truth' and that their ideological worldview is the only correct, valid and authoritative one,' writer and analyst Tom Fowdy observed. 'They preach freedom of speech and the press to other countries, but exempt themselves from it.' "
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/defending-freedom-and-democracy-sure
-->The censoring of Russian media in the EU and US has been censored out of the US media. Rather than addressing the issue first hand, the NYT runs stories like: "What It Was Like to Work for Russian State Television." Not much is printed about the disappearing of freedom of speech in the US Empire.
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Common Dreams:
"A new law passed Thursday that effectively bans the naturalization of Palestinian spouses of Israeli Jews was condemned by human rights advocates in Israel and around the world, some of whom called it the latest manifestation of an apartheid regime.
Reut Shaer, a lawyer with the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, told Reuters that the law 'comes off as more xenophobic or racist because it's not only giving extra rights and privileges to Jewish people, but also preventing certain basic rights only from the Arab population.' ...
Public polling has consistently shown a majority of Israeli Jews oppose marriage between Arabs and Jewish people. The very prospect of Jewish women dating Arab men has brought seething crowds out into the streets of towns like Bat Yam, where in 2010 one demonstrator asserted that 'any Jewish woman who goes with an Arab should be killed.' "
-->Yes, Israel is an apartheid state. But readers of the NYT will never really get it. Our supposed "newspaper of record" left this story out.
