Home » Posts tagged 'western narratives'

Tag Archives: western narratives

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

If You Haven’t Researched Arguments Disputing A Western Narrative, You Don’t Understand The Issue

If You Haven’t Researched Arguments Disputing A Western Narrative, You Don’t Understand The Issue

Listen to a reading of this article:

Lately when people react with shock and indignation that I would dare to dispute a claim made by the western political/media class about an empire-targeted government, I’ve taken to simply asking them what reading they’ve done on the other side of the issue. What are some articles they’ve read arguing against the official western narrative about that government?

It’s a question that can be applied to any disputed western narrative about any government the US-centralized empire doesn’t like. Russia is engaging in aggressive provocations. Assad is using chemical weapons. There’s a genocide in Xinjiang. Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Maduro is deliberately starving his people. Whatever’s the Official Imperial Line of the Day about the Official Bad Guy of the Day.

What I’ve found interesting about this exercise is that while I would’ve correctly predicted that those questioned had done zero research into the opposing viewpoints of the issue they’re commenting on, I would probably not have predicted the brazenness with which they’ll admit it. Very often they’ll come right out and express incredulity at the very idea that any such counter-arguments could even exist, skipping right past any pretense that they may have read them or even made any effort to find them.

When they do this, even before I provide them with links to counter-arguments against whatever issue we’re discussing, they have already lost the argument. They have already admitted that they’ve done no real research into whether or not the western narrative they just swallowed is actually true; they just believed what they were told because someone told them to believe it. They swallowed an imperial narrative about an empire-targeted government with zero gag reflex, just as people did in the lead-up to the Iraq war.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Don’t Laugh : It’s Giving Putin What He Wants

Don’t Laugh : It’s Giving Putin What He Wants

The BBC has published an article titled “How Putin’s Russia turned humour into a weapon” about the Kremlin’s latest addition to its horrifying deadly hybrid warfare arsenal: comedy.

The article is authored by Olga Robinson, whom the BBC, unhindered by any trace of self-awareness, has titled “Senior Journalist (Disinformation)”. Robinson demonstrates the qualifications and acumen which earned her that title by warning the BBC’s audience that the Kremlin has been using humor to dismiss and ridicule accusations that have been leveled against it by western governments, a “form of trolling” that she reports is designed to “deliberately lower the level of discussion”.


Turns out jokes are a Russian disinformation conspiracy. Is nothing safe?What will those barbarian Others think of next? Weaponizing our tears? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46567364 

Russian President Vladimir Putin smiles during his meeting with athletes at the Russia in October 2018

How Putin’s Russia turned humour into a weapon

Russia’s government wants people to have a laugh – as long as it’s at its opponents’ expense, and not Mr Putin’s.

bbc.co.uk


“Russia’s move towards using humour to influence its campaigns is a relatively recent phenomenon,” Robinson explains, without speculating as to why Russians might have suddenly begun laughing at their western accusers. She gives no consideration to the possibility that the tightly knit alliance of western nations who suddenly began hysterically shrieking about Russia two years ago have simply gotten much more ridiculous and easier to make fun of during that time.

Couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the emergence of a demented media environment wherein everything around the world from French protests to American culture wars to British discontent with the European Union gets blamed on Russia without any facts or evidence.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How the Corporate Media Enslave Us to a World of Illusions

How the Corporate Media Enslave Us to a World of Illusions

Photo by Mohamed Nanabhay | CC BY 2.0

Nazareth.

For several years now, I have been writing regular posts on my blog with one end in mind: to help open a door for readers and encourage them to step through. I select issues, usually those that dominate western media coverage and represent a consensus that we might term the Great Western Narrative, and try to show how this narrative has been constructed not to inform and enlighten but to conceal and deceive.

It is not that I and the many other bloggers doing this are cleverer than everyone else. We have simply had a chance – an earlier one – to step through that door ourselves, because of a jarring life experience that the Great Western Narrative could not explain, or because someone held the door open for us, or more usually because of a combination of the two.

My personal awakening

It is easy for me to identify my own process of awakening. It began with the dislocation of moving to Nazareth and being immersed in someone else’s narrative – that of the Palestinians. Then, I faced for the first time in my career as a journalist an impenetrable wall of opposition, even from my own former newspaper, the Guardian, as I tried to explain that counter-narrative. In fact, I found that the Palestinian narrative was invariably misrepresented as anti-semitism. These were dark years of disillusionment and the loss of a professional and ideological compass.

It is in such a moment of bereavement – deprived of the consolation of the Great Western Narrative – that one searches for a door to enlightenment. It can be a long journey to find it. My door appeared while reading about the Propaganda Model of Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky in their book Manufacturing Consent, as well as stumbling across a website called Media Lens

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress