Add this one to the Annals of U.S. Hypocrisy: The American corporate media (propaganda system) has been running a campaign for several years now highlighting repression in Russia. Funny thing is, so much of what they tut-tut about is the same as U.S. domestic repression methods. In fact, in some cases the U.S. was there first, so arguably the Putin regime got the ideas for the methods from the U.S. example.
On June 11, the New York Times (the maestro of the U.S. propaganda system from which the rest of the corporate media often takes its cues) put smack on the top of the front page an article about Russian police rounding up protest leaders in advance of protests. (Posted online as "Raids Target Putin’s Critics Before Protest.")
Hello, Sulzbergers and company! The U.S. police have been doing that for years now every time there's a progressive protest organized against one of the insufferably self-important meetings of national bosses ("world leaders" in their obnoxiously conceited jargon). G-8, G-12, G-20, G-X, NATO, WTO, whatever the hell it is, the cops bust into the houses of organizers, round them up, steal their computers, cellphones, placards, protest puppets, materials, and oftentimes charge them with bogus crimes, including "terrorism." Part of the NY Times article also pointed out that some of those arrested faced heavy sentences. (But nowhere near as heavy as the sentences faced by people branded "terrorists" by U.S. "authorities.")
Most recently, in Chicago, the "terrorism" rap was dropped on people preemptively arrested.
Today (June 12th) the NY Times cheerleads for the Russian protests on its website, including a large photo of the protesters. ("Putin Opponents Defy Kremlin Efforts to Muffle Protests".)
The U.$. propaganda system is also assiduous about pointing out repressive laws aimed at protesters in Russia. They're quite a bit less attentive about noticing the same sort of laws in the U.S. For example, the new caudillo of Chicago, the loathsome and vulgar Rahm Emanuel, (who is celebrated for habitually abusing people by yelling and cursing at them!) instituted new, repressive statutes to smash the protesters coming to his town for the recent NATO summit just last month. The propaganda system treated us to video of Rahm and his mate hugging and smiling with Obama and his mate upon the arrival of the latter. We also got the local political rulers announcing the arrests of dangerous "terrorists" (protesters) to stifle the protest. Not covered was the systematic repression and police violence meted out to those who dare to find something objectionable about NATO.
Likewise new repression laws in Tampa Bay, Florida, in preparation for crushing demonstrations aimed at the GOP convention to be held there also are ignored by the U.$ media.
Reading the details of the awful new laws in Putinland, I see they are no worse- indeed are milder than- the various U.S. laws aimed at crushing unwanted dissent in the streets.
Then there's the very very low key reporting of the Canadian Harper regime's anti-demonstrator laws, for example in Montreal, where protest has been effectively outlawed. Protests require police permission in advance- something the U.S. media finds highly objectionable in Russia, not in Canada. (The loathsome NPR "news" is part of this anti-Putin propaganda campaign, ostensibly on behalf of Russians' right to protest. Wish NPR was one-quarter as concerned with our right to protest. Don't get me wrong, Putin is a scumbag authoritarian in my book. The hypocrisy and double standard is the issue here. Say, does Russia imprison people without trial or even charges for years, like Israel does, or for life, like the U.S. does? Has it assassinated thousands of people with killer drones in the last few years? Just asking.)
The pattern throughout the 20th and 21th centuries has been for the U.S. media to cover repression abroad in proportion to the degree of unfriendliness of relations the U.S. has with the country in question. Where the U.S. is itself responsible for the most horrible atrocities and mass murder, such as in Central America in the 1980s, there is a total blackout. Instead one is told that a friendly "democratic" (Orwellian language there!) regime is fighting a "communist insurgency." (Which apparently always includes lots of professors, students, unionists, poor peasants, women and children, and so on.) And of course since it is a matter of ideological dogma that the U.S. is just the freest country on earth, there cannot be reporting of repression here, since by definition repression in the U.S. is impossible.
Here's another article from the NY Times, from November 17th, 2011: "With a Russian in a Tajik Jail, Moscow Aims Its Reprisal at Migrant Workers." This covers the entire top half of page A14. Somehow the Times considers the plight of Tajik migrants to be a major issue. The Times moans that the "roundup" of 300 Tajiks "has underscored the vulnerability of the millions of migrant laborers who work and live in Russia, often in squalid conditions."
Of course, the U.S. rounds up and deports hundreds of thousands of Latinos yearly. Wonder how vulnerable that makes them feel. And of course many, especially farm laborers, "work and live...often in squalid conditions."
The treatment of Chinese dissidents is another example of galling U.S. hypocrisy. The NY Times and the rest of the corporate media have made celebrities out of Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei, and of the blind lawyer who was just allowed to come to the U.S. Now I think the Chinese treatment of them is despicable, but it's a lot milder than how many U.S. dissidents are treated. Elmer Pratt was framed up by the secret police (FBI) for murder and imprisoned for 30 years until the system admitted it was a bum rap. The FBI framed up Leonard Peltier with bogus ballistics "evidence" from its "crime lab." (The name is accurate if you interpret it to mean a lab that commits crimes.) Apparently the bourgeoisie are determined that he will die in prison. An FBI bomb almost killed Judi Bari, whose "crime" was opposing logging of old growth forests. (The CIA seems to have taken her out with breast cancer.) There are countless thousands of other examples. Judging from U.S. media attention, it seems that the rate of political murder in Russia is comparable to that in the U.S. (Of course you don't learn of U.S. state murders from the corporate propaganda system.) That includes murder of journalists too. (Danny Casolaro springs to mind.*)
In the case of China, the U.S. uses "human rights" as a prybar to try and force China to be more "open"- to penetration by foreign capital. Do they really care so much about some artist or lawyer? They don't seem to care about such people when their buddy-regimes in Honduras and Colombia murder them.
Another example: the extreme repressiveness of Saudi Arabia gets very light and infrequent treatment in the U.S. media. I think the reasons are obvious. Iran, on the other hand, is one of those nasty devil countries.
Obviously, when "coverage" is so obviously biased, and so blatantly follows hidden political and ideological agendas, it cannot be called "news." This is the realm of propaganda. Thus the U.S. corporate media should not be analyzed as a journalistic enterprise, but as a propaganda one. The critical flaw in much media "analysis" and "criticism" is precisely this fundamental misidentification and misunderstanding. (The Ben Bagdikian school of Acceptable Media Criticism is a seminal example of this.) This basic error in turn leads to all kinds of bogus alibis for the corporate media's crimes, distortions, coverups, and lies. "Laziness," "two sides to every story," "credulousness," "advertiser pressure," "time constraints," and other such tactical explanations are put forth. While of course these have some validity, most of the time they obfuscate the real explanation for the media's behavior, which is ideological and political, and stems from its role as propaganda organs for the U.S. economic and political system. A system of rule of big capital by an Imperialist nation, masquerading as a "democracy" that fancies itself an avatar of freedom and defender of human rights. The fact that an empire founded on slavery and genocide, that consistently commits massive crimes against humanity, can pull off such a brazen propaganda coup, attests to the power of the Big Lie. If there's a Hell, Goebbels must be looking on in grudging admiration.
*Think that's a paranoid crackpot conspiracy theorist delusion? Well then add ruling class poohbah Elliott Richardson to your list of "nuts." He believes Casolaro was murdered. See his NY Times op-ed, "A High-Tech Watergate," paragraph 19.
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