The Corruption of Mainstream Media
The 𝘓𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 has resulted in a complicit, captured MSM.
1 Introduction
There was a wonderful episode recently when Eva Vlaardingerbroek made a powerful speech, viewed over 55 million times on TwiX, to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Hungary. YouTube, naturally, quickly banned the recording, in which Ms Vlaardingerbroek focussed exclusively on uncontrolled immigration, labelling it as “hate speech”. Plus ça change…
While not of course the only issue we face, out-of-control immigration is nevertheless causing massive, and increasing, social and economic problems across Europe and the US. It was therefore not unduly reductionist to dedicate a major speech to this one critical issue.
Similarly, the mainstream media (MSM) is not wholly responsible for the madness currently sweeping the western world. But, perhaps jointly with the education establishment, it is at least “first among equals”. So indulge us a little, while we focus briefly and exclusively on their criminal culpability.
A recent favourite topic of the broadcast media is that of the “pro-Palestinian protests” involving indoctrinated neo-Marxist students at US (and UK) universities - who, as Allister Heath of the Daily Telegraph (a rare exception to the rule that all MSM contributors are idiots) observed, are “nihilistic, ignorant” and “a harbinger of much worse to come”. In Allister’s assessment:
Many young activists have been turned into self-entitled narcissists by a culture that tells them that society owes them everything, that the world revolves around them, that great institutions must change to make them feel more comfortable, that there is such a thing as “their truth”. They find it hard to distinguish between virtue-signalling and actual deeds.
It is of course hard to argue with this sentiment, but it is far from the full story.
The question must be how and why have these people “been turned into self-entitled narcissists”? More importantly, how are they so delusional as to believe that all Palestinians are innocent victims, that Israel is wilfully “committing genocide”, and that war is a utopian affair, always conducted neatly and tidily according to some fictional Queensbury Rules whereby nobody ever actually dies?
The answer is very clear: This is what they have been constantly told by the MSM.
It is a damning indictment of the 21st century “New World Order” - ushered in by tyrannical globalist maniacs such as Tony Blair, Barrack Obama, Klaus Schwab, Antonio Gutteres, Bill Gates, George Soros, Justin Trudeau, Jacinda Ardern, David Cameron, and hundreds more too numerous to list here, as well as the “military industrial complex” and powerful financial players such as Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street - that the conflict in Gaza is far from the only military conflict happening in the world today. Understandably, media and public focus remains primarily on the Middle East, and the other major risk to world stability; Ukraine.
To understand how and why ignorant, indoctrinated far-left student activists are drawn to every risible neo-Marxist cause under the Sun, including the plight of “innocent” Palestinians, it is instructive to consider the reporting of some other recent MSM favourites, including the war in Ukraine.
2 The 21st Century History of Ukraine & Georgia
2.1 Since the Millennium
Having lived and worked in Ukraine ourselves for a period in the early 2000’s, and before that, in the Republic of Georgia, your authors know something - rather more than the “fact checkers” of the BBC, we would argue - of history following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
We first worked in the former Soviet Union (FSU), in Tbilisi, in the Spring of 1999. For geo-political context, it’s worth outlining how and why we were there.
After independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and the Georgian Civil War (1991-93) Georgia, in common with many CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) members, was ‘looking west’ – encouraged, naturally, by the USA and the EU. Many CIS countries needed money to rebuild their economies and modernise their infrastructures. Institutions such as the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development, EBRD, were happy to provide funding, subject to those countries ‘modernising their economies’ – largely a euphemism for privatising key infrastructure utilities and other institutions.
So it was that a western business acquired the electricity company in Tbilisi. Politics and business – and the opportunity for nefarious dealings – were already somewhat intertwined. How could they not be in such circumstances? The US Agency for international development (USAID), often considered a covert front for the CIA, was also prominent in Georgia as well as the countries in which we worked later.
At the turn of the millennium, the legacy of the Civil War lingered in the disputed/separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, with ongoing Russo-Georgian tensions and many internally displaced persons (refugees) living in Tbilisi at the time. The Rose Revolution in Tbilisi, in 2003, was the result of the ongoing ideological battle between Soviet and Western-looking factions in Georgia. The pro-West Mikheil Saakashvili emerged victorious and was elected President in 2004.
The festering tensions in South Ossetia and Abkhazia later resulted in the 2008 South Ossetia war and the Russian invasion of Georgia (after which, incidentally, Georgia withdrew from the aforementioned CIS). The parallels with later events in Ukraine hardly need highlighting. It is important to note that the vast majority of Georgians we met and worked with were, and are, pro-Western / anti-Russian.
In late 2003, we were invited to Kyiv to help with the management of another power company acquisition by the same western business – this time in the Kyiv region – and we were there a year later for the Orange Revolution. Our camera pictures from the time are not the best quality, but give a flavour of the situation.
The pictures were taken on Khreshchatyk, Kyiv’s main street on which the famous Independence Square is located, which was the epicentre of the protests. We were staying in a rented apartment 100m from Khreshchatyk at the time, so the whole thing unfolded before our eyes.
As with the earlier Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution was a response to electoral irregularities. Viktor Yanukovych was Russia’s man, while the pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko was the popular pro-Western choice. During the election campaign, Yushchenko was poisoned with Dioxin and Russia / the Yanukovych campaign was widely (universally) believed to have been responsible.
Following a re-run of the disputed election, Yushchenko won and became President. Yulia Tymoshenko, a pro-western firebrand and a somewhat controversial figure, was instrumental in the Orange Revolution and subsequently served as Yushchenko’s Prime Minister. She stood for President herself in 2010, losing to Yanukovych who then had her imprisoned.
There is no evidence that Yanukovych’s victory in 2010 was fraudulent, despite his earlier history. However, he turned his back on the EU in 2013 in favour of Russia. This triggered further protests and the Maidan Revolution, AKA the Revolution of Dignity, in 2014, which saw Yanukovych ousted after a vote in the Ukrainian parliament. Russia seized the opportunity to cite this ‘coup’ as an excuse to annexe Crimea and foment further unrest in the Eastern region of Donbass which, ostensibly, led directly to the current invasion.
The role of the US, especially Victoria Nuland, in the events of this period was key. During our own time in Kyiv, US (and Russian) interference in Ukraine was relatively restrained and subtle - conducted mostly behind the scenes and with due regard to “plausible deniability”. During the Obama administration though, diplomatic caution was largely thrown to the wind, and the likes of Nuland were instrumental in ramping up geo-political tension in the region. A leaked recording of a phone call between Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt (U.S. ambassador to Ukraine at the time) in January 2014 reveals just how involved they (and Joe Biden) were in internal Ukrainian politics at that time.
There is no question that the majority population of Ukraine wanted, and want, to align themselves with the West, not with Russia. But things have never been that simple in the East of the country (the Donbass region), where a lot of ethnic Russians have always been far more sympathetic to Russia. From Russia’s perspective, “interference” in Ukraine and Georgia, and the expansion of NATO in Europe, has understandably been interpreted as a “threat”.
Vladimir Putin, who has effectively led Russia since his original election to President in 2000, has never accepted the full right of ex-Soviet states to self-determination and has manoeuvred at every opportunity to undermine western style democracy in those countries. Has the west provoked him (‘poked the Russian bear’)? Have western actors, including the Biden family, been engaged in corrupt practices in Ukraine? To some extent, undoubtedly, and it is a disgrace (one among many) that information about Hunter Biden has been actively suppressed by the mainstream media in the US and across the anglosphere.
Putin’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine can not be justified in any way. However, the West, especially the US under the Democrats, is not without some responsibility for the escalating tensions of the past 20 years. Crucially, in 2022, the UK Prime Minister at the time Boris Johnson (rumoured to be acting under direction from, or at least with the consent of, Joe Biden) is reported to have sabotaged an “oven ready” peace deal during a visit to Kyiv.
2.2 Ukraine & Georgia Today
In today’s chaotic world, every “current thing” moves at breakneck speed - and the situations in Ukraine and Georgia are no different.
In Ukraine, Russia has now launched new attacks in Kharkiv, in the north east of the country. Of course, we are initially treated to the normal gung-ho reporting from the BBC - "not a single metre has been lost" - before they are eventually forced to admit a more sobering truth - “the Russians simply walked in”. The BBC, along with the vast majority of its MSM peers, is now little more than a post box for globalist narrative propaganda.
In Georgia, “protests” have failed to prevent the parliament from approving a “controversial foreign agents” bill which would require non-governmental organisations (NGO’s) and independent media receiving more than 20% of their funding from foreign donors to register as organisations "bearing the interests of a foreign power". This raises at least two questions about impartiality and double standards in the MSM.
Anti-government protests against “bad” foreign governments are always reported sympathetically by the MSM, with protestors portrayed as heroic freedom fighters battling tyrannical or cowardly rulers.
In the west, of course, there are no bad rulers - unless they’re “far-right anti-narrative bad guys” like Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban, or Milei - and brutal police actions such as the pepper-spraying and arrest of Tommy Robinson are reported entirely uncritically.
In the west, NGO’s and “charities” funded by anti-democratic globalists are responsible for an enormous amount of neo-Marxist propaganda. The recent publicity around the NGO “Global Disinformation Index” has exposed the globalist communist infiltration of every aspect of public life - so much so that even The Times has finally noticed something rotten, as per the screen shot below.
But in Georgia, reporting of dubiously funded NGO’s must not only be swept under the carpet, they must be used as further evidence of the satanic evil of “bad man Putin” to, inter alia, reinforce the idea of Ukraine’s “just struggle against evil.”
That many NGO’s in Georgia are funded, at least in part, by USAID, barely merits a mention by our scrupulously impartial media heroes. Especially because, as highlighted above, USAID is frequently considered a front for covert CIA activities by those who know about these things.
2.3 Summary of the Conflicts in Ukraine & Georgia
As ever in complex, evolving situations, there are nuances, and few are completely innocent. And therein lies the point of the above brief explanation of recent history in the FSU. It is not simple. It is not black and white.
But what was the MSM narrative pre- and post-invasion of Ukraine? What is the narrative now? When are they going to report the truth; that Ukraine cannot defeat Russia militarily and that the ongoing slaughter is utterly futile - except of course insofar as it further enriches, and/or protects, some seriously corrupt actors in the west, including the Biden family.
Instead, the MSM continues to imply - and frequently to explicitly assert - that the situation is black and white. Putin is 100% bad, (western backed) Ukraine is 100% good. Zelensky is an untainted hero and “Kyiv” is pronounced “Keeve”. Risible.
“Ukraine must and will win”. Never mind the cost in human misery of this utter folly, with hundreds of thousands of injuries and deaths on both sides.
In Georgia, foreign funding of NGO’s and “independent” media organisations, by the same malign state actors and oligarchic maniacs who are driving the destruction of western democratic freedom - because they are opposed by a government in fear of the bogeymen Putin - must necessarily be entirely a good thing, and protests against said government are therefore fully justified. While January 6th “insurgents” in the US can be subjected to long term incarceration without trial as far as our heroic MSM is concerned.
There can be no admission of nuance, no complex history, at all. On social media, Ukrainian flags abound in the “bio’s” of the gullible useful idiots who succumb to every new neo-Marxist globalist fiction - wait for the Georgian flag and “I stand with Georgia” to start appearing any day now.
Politicised far-left students are indoctrinated to believe that every situation is simple - you are “on the right side of history”, or you are not. Virtue-signalling, and taking a side, is everything - even if you understand nothing, as is clearly the case with most of the spoilt young brats recently wreaking criminal havoc across so many university campuses in support of “innocent Palestinian victims of Israeli genocide”.
3 Covid, Climate, BLM, Trans Rights, and More
It is, of course, not only in matters of war that the MSM has pumped out a constant stream of simplistic, biased propaganda, motivated by their neo-Marxist globalist agenda.
Covid, despite a total lack of clear, independent evidence, was a deadly plague which was going to decimate the world. Lockdowns were a no-brainer (though enforced too slowly for the extremist lunatics of the BBC and Sky News). Vaccine coercion, even for age groups at negligible risk from a mild cold, was fine and dandy - never mind the Geneva convention, or indeed basic human ethics. A positive PCR test meant a “case”, even if the “patient” had no symptoms and the test had only picked up dead viral fragments after a ridiculous 35 amplification cycles. Vaccines have “saved millions of lives”, even though the truth is almost certainly that they have resulted in millions of unnecessary deaths globally.
Anthropogenic global warming - or, now, man made climate change - is “settled science”, even though it is widely debated between genuine scientists. Tampering with historical temperature records is studiously ignored and suppressed by the MSM, as are statistical shenanigans to “prove” daily temperature and weather extremes. Exponential population growth and urban heat island effects, naturally, are totally ignored. The complete lack of empirical evidence to support the scam is swept under the carpet, and fearmongering propaganda constantly promoted.
It does seem as though the “trans rights” farce is finally blowing up in the UK, following the Cass report - though time will tell if this sudden explosion of apparent sanity lasts.
We could go on: Limitless immigration is a good thing, “diversity is our greatest strength”, we need to decolonise the curriculum, banish hate speech, eradicate the imaginary far-right hordes, etc.
If you question any of it - if you refuse to join the tribalist cult - you are a denier, a racist, or a purveyor of hate speech, a granny killer, or a far right terrorist bogeyman.
4 Conclusion
The transparent falsehoods of the MSM are endless and shameless. The “fact checkers” are liars.
But the constant mud-at-the-wall propaganda has its desired effect; at least two generations now - accelerated massively since the election of Tony Blair in 1997 - of brainwashed “Long March” foot-soldiers, who “know everything” and understand nothing in their delusional, monochrome, parallel universe of virtue-signalling lunacy. Almost single-handedly, Blair destroyed our existing institutions, while creating entirely new anti-democratic monstrosities such as the Supreme Court.
It is not the fault of “self-entitled, narcissistic students”, to paraphrase Allister Heath, but their parents and grandparents - the supposed “adult” generations - who have progressively succumbed to total neo-Marxist lunacy. Truth no longer counts - indeed, the complete opposite now holds. Our youth are trained to disregard and deny the truth, and to blindly align themselves with the latest cause, irrespective of just how ignorant and insane that cause is.
Breaking up a few anti-Semitic student protests will achieve nothing. Where we agree absolutely with Allister Heath is that all of this is “a harbinger of much worse to come”.
We need a revolution. But, unless we can quickly find a lot more Eva Vlaardingerbroeks, it is probably already too late.