China detains South Africans for ‘propaganda videos’

A total of 20 people sent to China by a religiously inspired charity have been detained, most of them British or South African, the organisation said, adding some had been accused of watching “propaganda videos”.

Gift of the Givers, a disaster relief charity based in Pietermaritzburg in South Africa, said 20 of its associates were detained Friday at Ordos airport in China’s Inner Mongolia region.

It said 10 were South Africans, nine British, and one an Indian national.

“No reasons were given for the arrest. The Chinese, now trying to find reasons for the detention suggested that some members were linked to a terror group,” it added.

As of Tuesday 11 had been released, it added on a Facebook page. “The other nine are being held without charge at a detention centre on the accusation that they were watching propaganda videos.”

The public security ministry in Beijing did not immediately respond to a request for comment by AFP.

Gift of the Givers describes itself on its website as being inspired by Muhammed Saffer Effendi al Jerrahi, a master of Sufism, a mystical form of Islam.

The group, which has provided medical equipment and training in multiple countries in Asia and Africa, says its staff are “facilitators of Almighty God’s Aid… distributing it from Him to all of mankind. This is made possible only by His Grace and Permission.”

“God Almighty Exists,” it adds. “This is a Gracious God to Whom belong the Most Beautiful Attributes.”

Chinese regulations passed in 2000 ban foreigners from all missionary activity including “distributing religious propaganda materials.”

The ruling Communist party, suspicious of overseas groups, has in recent months tightened controls on foreign charities working in the country.

State-run media have accused some foreign groups of attempting to foment revolution and overthrow the party.

Police too have cracked down on foreign missionaries in China, detaining a Canadian Christian couple near the North Korean border last year.

Beijing also blames what it calls Islamist terrorists for ongoing violence in the mainly Muslim far western region of Xinjiang.

The South Africans were originally detained “with no access to communication or legal representation” and included several doctors, Gift of the Givers said.

The group’s planned 47-day tour of China had gone “horribly wrong”, it added.

A spokeswoman for the British embassy in Beijing said Wednesday that 11 British citizens had been held in northern China, two of whom held South African dual nationality.

Officials were seeking “further clarifications” on the detentions, spokeswoman Natasha Simpson added.

South African foreign affairs ministry spokesman Nelson Kgwete told local television that the government had been informed “about the arrest of 10 South African citizens in China” and the embassy was providing consular assistance.

Source: AFP

Russia bans Hollywood propaganda film

Russia on Wednesday cancelled the release of a Hollywood thriller set in the Stalin era on grounds it distorts history and would be shown as the country celebrates the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in WWII.

The film, “Child 44”, starring Tom Hardy, Vincent Cassel and Gary Oldman, tells the story of a serial killer who targets children in the Stalin era. It is based on a fantasy novel by British writer Tom Rob Smith and was due to premiere in Russia on Thursday.

Russia’s culture ministry said the film’s distributors in Russia, Central Partnership, had agreed to withdraw a request for a distribution licence after ministry officials viewed the film.

“Films such as ‘Child 44’ should not go out in our country on mass release, earning money from our cinema audiences, not in the year of the 70th anniversary of victory, not ever,” Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky wrote on the ministry’s website.

The move to effectively ban a major mainstream Hollywood film just a day before it was due to premiere was unprecedented.

In recent years, Russia has cracked down harshly on negative depictions of the Soviet Union during the Stalin era, while criticism of those who fought in World War II is frowned upon.

The culture ministry accused the film of “distortion of historical facts and the idiosyncratic treatment of events before, during and after” World War II.

Source: AFP

We are losing the oceans

I am an admirer of Dahr Jamail’s reporting. In this article, Oceans In Crisis, Jamail tells us that we are losing the oceans. He reports on the human destruction of the oceans. It is a real destruction with far-reaching consequences.

That fact is indisputable.

From my perspective the human destruction of the oceans is yet more evidence of the ruinous nature of private capitalism. In capitalism there is no thought for the future of the planet and humanity, only for short-term profits and bonuses. Consequently, social costs are ignored.

Capitalism can work if social or external costs can be included in the costs of production. However, the powerful corporations are able to block a socially functioning capitalism with their political campaign contributions.

Consequently, capitalists themselves make the capitalist system dysfunctional. We may have reached the point where the external costs of production are larger than the value of capitalist output. Economist Herman Daly makes a convincing case that this is the fact.

While the powerful capitalists use the environment for themselves as a cost-free dumping ground, the accumulating costs threaten everyone’s life. It appears that nothing can be done, because the oceans are “common property.” No one owns them, so no one can protect them and their contents.

What we are faced with is the most destructive force in history: the short-sightedness of humans. Humans are willing to destroy the environment that sustains them, the law that sustains them, the truth that sustains them. Indeed, humans will destroy everything that sustains life if they can raise their incomes for another quarter or another year.

I have a friend who regales me with stories that humans are aliens on planet earth, exiled here by an intergalactic government that unwittingly disposed of its criminal wastes on a planet teeming with life. The inhumans, not humans, have been busy at work ever since their arrival exterminating one another, other species, and the life of the planet itself.

In the Western World truth is dying. Corporate and government money has purchased many scientists along with the media and politicians. The independent scientists who remain have great difficulty obtaining funds for their research, but the corporate scientists have unlimited funds with which to lie.

Scientists, like journalists, advance their careers by lying for the Establishment.

Truth-tellers and whistleblowers are defined as “domestic extremists,” “terrorists,” and are on watch lists. Some have been arrested on suspicion that they might commit a crime in the future. Here in the US we have Jeremy Bentham’s policy of arresting “suspects” before they commit a crime on the basis that they might in the future commit a crime.

All the while the US and UK, Australian and Canadian, governments are committing heinous crimes against other countries in the world whose peoples, like those of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Palestine, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Ukraine don’t count. These peoples are disposable, unexceptional, like the Vietnamese, Laotians, Cherokees, Sioux, Apaches . . .

These peoples don’t matter. It is we Americans who matter. We are “exceptional.” We are “indispensable.”

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

The brilliance of propaganda and the mass media

It really becomes about having the the most politically correct jibe – people with “real” morals breaking down another, less popular view, with insults of stupidity and thinly disguised hatred.

It’s like many Germans detesting hearing the word “Hitler”.

Many of those with very strong opinions will “TLDR” a carefully worded response as mute reminder that they know next to nothing about what they are speaking of.

Herein lies the brilliance of propaganda and the mass media. Divide and conquer. Use triggers to whip the people up against themselves. Let them kill each other – then we step in and “save” them from themselves. (we = the powers that be/were)

We are lambs to the slaughter. We fear each other and thus prance and pontificate while the cattle cars lie in wait.

Steve has a problem with the murder of white farmers. Somehow we have to start discussing this. Many might say that his tweet was not a way to get that attention. But it did. He is also saying that there is a lot of history most of us will just not look at.

The current government is rotten to the core. Why is this acceptable?

But one tweet that just maybe might make us “thinking Afrikaners” look bad… and we summon enough energy to rid the world of fraudulent bankers.

A friend of mine has a saying for most of us Afrikaners: “Bly dof, my volk”.

He’s right. We are so trained to accept any authority. The way our schools taught us.

I personally go with George Carlin. “I have certain rules I live by. My first rule: I don’t believe anything the government tells me.” These days, it includes the mainstream media.

– Mad Pierrot

ISIS video a fake say experts

We have been fed so much fake government war propaganda in recent decades

Video experts observed that the video showing the actual beheading of US journalist James Foley was so professionally produced and well-scripted, to the extent that portions of it appeared to be just being acted out.
Two video experts were one in observing that portions of the purported video were give-aways that the beheading video was intended primarily for propaganda purposes.

One security expert, who had credible experience of scrutinizing videos of beheading, noted a very strange thing about Foley’s video – in the seconds before the executioner jab the knife into Foley’s neck, there was no single sign that he was terrified.

“My experience of these things is when the knife gets close the knees buckle and you become like a rag doll, whereas this guy seemed to sit upright. It could be that that particular knife wasn’t the one that killed him, that that was a play-acting thing,” the expert told The Times.

After the part where the executioner was shown cutting Foley’s head, the video fades.

The next part of the video already showed Foley’s decapitated head while he was upturned back. His hands were handcuffed. But his right ankle already had bruises hinting that he had been kneeling on the ground longer than what was shown in the video. And most importantly, a different looking knife lies on the ground, next to Foley’s corpse.

“The guy is obviously dead but it may be that particular scene was acted and that was why he is staying stiff,” the security expert noted.

Joe Fields, of Breakthru Productions, a recording studio in London, on the other hand noted that the video was well-produced as both Foley and the masked man appeared to be speaking following well-scripted lines.

What was noticeable for Fields was the battery-powered microphone clipped to the front of Foley’s robe. He said that the microphone looks like a professional one used in television studios so as the audio can be recorded without the need of editing or sound dubbing.

With all these elements present, it could be considered that the man masked in black, speaking with a British accent, was not the one who killed Foley. Rather, the man was just acting out the part.

Source: ibitimes.com

Towards the End of U.S. Propaganda

Stengel and his black prop
Stengel and his black prop

By Thierry Meyssan.

The Anglo-Saxon Empire is based on a century of propaganda. It managed to convince us that the United States is “the land of the free” and that it engaged in wars to defend its ideals. But the current crisis over Ukraine has changed the rules of the game. Now Washington and its allies are not the only speakers. Their lies are openly challenged by the government and media of another major state, Russia. In the era of satellites and the Internet, Anglo-Saxon propaganda no longer works.

Rulers have always tried to convince their subjects of the correctness of their actions, because crowds never follow men they know to be bad. The twentieth century has seen new ways of spreading ideas unburdened by the truth. Westerners trace modern propaganda to Nazi minister Joseph Goebbels. It is a way to forget that the art of distorting the perception of things was previously developed by Anglo-Saxons.

In 1916, the United Kingdom created Wellington House in London, followed by Crewe House. Simultaneously, the United States created the Committee on Public Information (CPI). Considering the First World War was between masses and no longer between armies, these organizations tried to intoxicate their own people as well as those of their allies and those of their enemies with propaganda.

Modern propaganda started with the publication in London of the Bryce Report on German war crimes, which was translated into thirty languages. According to this document, the German army had raped thousands of women in Belgium. The British Army was thus fighting against barbarism. At the end of the First World War it was discovered that the entire report was a hoax, made up of ​​false testimony with the help of journalists.

For his part, in the United States, George Creel invented a myth that World War II was a crusade by democracies for peace to protect the rights of humanity.

Historians have shown that World War I was responding to causes as deep and as profound, the most important being the competition between major powers to expand their colonial empires.

The British and U.S. bureaus were secret organizations working on behalf of their states. Unlike Leninist propaganda, which aspired to “reveal the truth” to the ignorant masses, the Anglo-Saxons sought to deceive in order to manipulate them. To this end, Anglo-Saxon state agencies had to hide and usurp false identities.

After the demise of the Soviet Union, the United States neglected propaganda and favoured public relations. It was no longer a matter of lying, but of holding journalists’ hands that they may see only what they are shown. During the Kosovo war, NATO appealed to Alastair Campbell, an adviser to the British Prime Minister to tell the press an uplifting dayly story. While journalists reproduced this story, the Alliance could bomb “in peace.” The story telling was less designed to lie than to distract.

However, story telling is back with a vengeance with the September 11 attacks : it consisted of focussing public attention on the attacks on New York and Washington so that people would not perceive the military coup organized that day : the transfer of the executive powers of President Bush to a secret military unit and the house arrest of all parliamentarians. This intoxication was especially the work of Benjamin Rhodes, now an adviser to Barack Obama.

In subsequent years, the White House installed a system of propaganda with key allies (the UK, Canada , Australia and of course Israel). Every day these four governments received instructions or pre-written speeches from the Office of global media to justify the war in Iraq or vilify Iran. [1]

For the rapid spread of its lies since 1989, Washington relied on CNN. Over time, the United States created a cartel of satellite information (Al- Arabiya , Al- Jazeera , BBC , CNN, France 24 , Sky) channels. In 2011, during the bombing of Tripoli , NATO surprisingly convinced Libyans that they had lost the war and that it was useless to continue resisting. But in 2012, NATO failed to replicate this model and to convince the Syrians that their government would inevitably fall. This tactic failed because the Syrians were aware of the operation carried out by international television in Libya and were able to prepare [2]. And this failure marked the end of the hegemony of the “information”cartel.

The current crisis between Washington and Moscow about Ukraine has forced the Obama administration to review its system. Indeed, Washington is now no longer the sole speaker, it must contradict the Russian government and media accessible anywhere in the world via satellite and Internet. Secretary of State John Kerry appointed a new deputy for propaganda, in the person of the former editor of Time Magazine, Richard Stengel [3]. Stengel wrote Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, a total fabrication of the the life of the black “freedom fighter”. Before taking the oath on April 15, he was already occupying his office and, on March 5, sent a “fact sheet” to major Atlanticist media on “10 counter-truths” that Putin would have pronounced on the Ukraine [4]. He reoffended on April 13 with a second sheet with “10 other counter-truths ” [5].

What strikes one in reading this prose is its ineptitude. It aims to validate the official history of a revolution in Kiev and discredit the Russian discourse on the Nazi presence in the new government. However, we know today that in fact this “revolution” was indeed a coup staged by NATO and implemented by Poland and Israel by mixing recipes for “color revolutions” and the “Arab spring”. [6] Journalists who received these files and relayed them are fully aware of the recordings of telephone conversations between the Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland and Minister for Estonian Foreign Affairs, Urmas Paets, on how Washington would change the regime at the expense of the European Union, and on the true identities of the Maidan snipers. In addition, they learned later revelations of the Polish weekly Nie about the training two months before the events of the Nazi rioters at the Academy of Polish police. As to denying the presence of Nazis in the new Ukrainian government, this amounts to a claim that the night is luminous. It is not necessary to go to Kiev but just to read the writings of the current ministers or listen to their remarks to see this is the case. [7]

Ultimately, if these arguments help give the illusion of a consensus in the large Atlanticist media, they have no chance of convincing curious citizens. Instead, it is so easy with the Internet to discover the deception that this type of manipulation cannot but further undermine Washington’s credibility.

The unanimity of the Atlanticist media on September 11 helped convince international public opinion, but the work done by many journalists and citizens, of which I was the precursor, showed the physical impossibility of the official version. Thirteen years later, hundreds of millions of people have become aware of these lies. This process will only grow with the new propaganda devices manipulated by the US. In short, all those who relay the arguments of the White House , including the governments and media of NATO, destroy their own credibility.

Barack Obama and Benjamin Rhodes , John Kerry and Richard Stengel act only in the short term. Their propaganda convinces the masses for only a few weeks and then helps create revulsion when the people understand they are being manipulated. Unwittingly, they undermine the credibility of the state institutions of NATO who consciously relay them. They forget that the propaganda of the twentieth century could only succeed because the world was divided into blocks that did not communicate with one another, and this monolithic principle is incompatible with the new means of communication.

The crisis in Ukraine is not over, but it has already profoundly changed the world : by publicly contradicting the President of the United States, Vladimir Putin has taken a step that henceforth prevents the success of U.S. propaganda.

French intellectual, specializing in international relations in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His last two books published in English : 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate.

Translation – Roger Lagassé – Source – Al-Watan (Syria)

[1] “Un réseau militaire d’intoxication” , Voltaire Network, 8 December 2003.

[2] “NATO preparing vast disinformation campaign”, by Thierry Meyssan, Komsomolskaya Pravda , Voltaire Network, 10 June 2012.

[3] “TIME Magazine Managing Editor becomes new US propaganda chief”, Voltaire Network , 16 April 2014.

[4] “State Department Fact Sheet on Putin’s False Claims About Ukraine” , Voltaire Network , 5 March 2014.

[5] “Media Note by the U.S. Departement of State on Russian Support for Destabilization of Ukraine” , Voltaire Network , 13 April 2014.

[6] “Ukraine : la Pologne avait formé les putschistes deux mois à l’avance”, by Thierry Meyssan , Réseau Voltaire, 17 April 2014 .

[7] “Who are the Nazis in the Ukrainian government ?”, By Thierry Meyssan , Voltaire Network , 2 March 2014.

 

Tutu tries ‘science’ to sell One World

Maropeng, political entertainment
Maropeng, political entertainment

“It is scientifically proven that we belong to one family. That is why ubuntu is so important. Ubuntu started here.”

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu left his decidedly unscientific mark during a ceremony at Maropeng Visitor’s Centre in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site.

Maropeng, Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, as the grand title suggests, is a political entertainment park where vistors are fed “scientific facts” on why there are no differences between races and cultures.

Archbishop Tutu, together with a slew of politically implicated academics, his family and friends, and members of the media all gathered to witness yet another propaganda effort.

After a gushing welcome from the CEO of Gauteng Tourism, Dawn Robertson, Archbishop Tutu was asked to take off his shoe and sock to leave his footprint.

“This spectacular journey of a species was all done on two feet. So no matter what complexion and physique your recent ancestors had, you ultimately are an African. What incredible feet!” Robertson screeched in adulation.

The Archbishop, who was full of jokes during the ceremony, entertained the media and others with his usual antics. His child-like excitement was clearly infectious to those who were part of the event.

Attendees could not help but feel that they were all part of history – their own – in the making. Most could barely hide their incessant obsequious flattery.

After leaving his footprint in a block of concrete and also signing his name, the Archbishop loudly reminded everyone why he was left-handed, bringing forth yet more merriment: “God made perfect people, and the rest He made right-handed.”

Other footprints outside the Tumulus building at the centre include those of former president Thabo Mbeki and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, all resolute One Worlders.

The 1984 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former head of the South African Anglican Church described the event as a “huge privilege”, but did not disclose the amount of money he received to be part of it.

 

SAPA flush with anti-white vitriol

PW Botha, Nelson Mandela
PW Botha, Nelson Mandela

SAPA, the South African Press Association, is bent on anti-white propaganda, it appears. A steady stream of misleading information flows freely from most of its press reports on the ailing health of Mandela.

Here are some of the snippets from SAPA that indicate that the Association is less concerned with news than it is with spreading naked anti-white vitriol. These SAPA reports were written by one Shabtai Gold.

The most recent report includes this gem: “His lungs were damaged during his imprisonment for 27 years under the white-minority regime.”

Mandela, however, lived to be 94 on a continent where the median age is 38 for African men.

Earlier we were treated to this: “Mandela was kept in prison for 27 years by white racist regime”. Mandela was actually in prison for inciting violence, armed struggle and high treason.

The then premier, PW Botha repeatedly stated that he would pardon Mandela if he agreed to a peacefully negotiated settlement.

Mandela plotted instead with fellow communists to violently overthrow the government. Remember the Cold War?

A while ago SAPA reported that “Mandela’s eyes were damaged during his 27 years of imprisonment on Robben island.” But at the ripe old age of 94 Mandela still does not wear glasses.

NYT is a propaganda megaphone says correspondent

The New York Times has essentially become a “propaganda megaphone” to peddle the establishment’s narrative — especially when it comes to war — charged foreign correspondent Daniel Simpson, who resigned from the paper in disgust. According to Simpson, the paper, which is often lambasted and ridiculed by conservatives and libertarians for its blatant “liberal” bias, is actually just a propaganda tool for the ruling establishment.

In an explosive interview, the former Times correspondent, who was based in the Balkans during his stint at the newspaper, offered an inside look at how it all works. What appears to have bothered him more than anything was how the supposed paper “of record” was so determined to sell the Iraq war to the American people, even if it meant basically lying or repeating government lies to do so.

“It seemed pretty glaringly obvious to me that the ‘news fit to print’ was pretty much the news that’s fit to serve the powerful,” Simpson explained, citing the warmongering over Iraq as a prime example. “The way that the paper’s senior staff think is exactly like those in power — in fact, it’s their job to become their friends.”

An ambitious reporter, Simpson joined the paper a decade ago when he was just 27 years old. He had been hired to report on the Balkans, where the U.S. government and other Western powers had intervened in an internal conflict. However, within a few months, disillusioned by the Times‘ war-mongering, he resigned.

“I was young and naive and idealistic, I suppose. I thought I was going to be holding people in power to account,” said Simpson, who wrote a recently published book about his experiences entitled A Rough Guide to the Dark Side. “It turned out instead that when I joined in 2002, the New York Times was very much engaged in doing exactly what those in power wanted them to do, and printing fake intelligence information to start the war in Iraq.”

As the establishment’s propaganda about “Weapons of Mass Destruction” in Iraq was getting in full swing, Simpson said he was asked to report bogus information about Serbians selling WMD delivery parts to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The Serbs, however, were actually just selling spare airplane parts, not WMD delivery systems, he explained.

“They were looking for every possible way of getting this weapons-of-mass-destruction story into the news media,” Simpson told RT, adding that the Washington Post quickly jumped on the dubious allegations. “So I came under enormous pressure from my bosses to start looking at it the same way, and I couldn’t see any evidence for doing that.”

While the Times did apologize for some of its most outrageously bogus WMD “reporting” — or war-mongering, as critics have labeled it — the paper “hasn’t really changed its policy,” Simpson explained. Among other problems, he pointed to Howell Raines, the executive editor during his time at the paper, who wrote a long article in the Atlantic after losing his job in 2004 that offered insight into the way top officials at the paper view its role.

Raines wrote that the Times was “the indispensable newsletter of the United States’ political, diplomatic, governmental, academic, and professional communities.” To Simpson, though, the former executive editor was basically admitting that “he sees his newspaper as being this propaganda megaphone for those who run the world.”

RT host Abby Martin agreed, slamming the paper and the “illegal and immoral” war repeatedly. She said the Times had indeed become a “propaganda megaphone” by simply reprinting government press releases and official statements — the “establishment line” — as if it were truth. Critics of the paper have been saying that for decades.

Asked about how the censorship over such a vast organization could function, Simpson explained that “there are different processes at work.” Citing his own experience, the self-styled “renegade” correspondent said that even in the Balkans, the Times had a pre-determined view of what happened. Editors were not interested in analyzing the tragic effects of Western military intervention, and they certainly were not open to exploring alternative explanations and views.

Reporters, meanwhile, would quickly adapt to their environment and learn to parrot the establishment narrative — at least if they hoped to advance their careers and have their stories published. “I was just so disgusted by this situation that I didn’t want to play the game anymore,” Simpson said, adding that he had previously been “very keen” to “play the game” in order to further his ambitions.

During the interview, Simpson gave various examples of how stories were framed to suit the Times’ — or the ruling establishment’s — world view. “You learn, you internalize these little phrases that you apply to other countries, like Serbia is ‘nationalist’ or engaged in ‘extremist policies,’ but the United States is never doing those things, of course — and you wouldn’t put them in a story,” Simpson explained.

Times employees are expected to tout the agenda no matter how hypocritical. “You’d never frame a story that said the United States has started a war of aggression, but it’s instead engaged in a ‘foreign policy project,’” Simpson added. “Or you would talk about ‘harsh interrogation techniques’ as opposed to torture. These are things that people just learn to do.”

In a separate interview with Green Left Weekly, Simpson echoed those comments, explaining how reporters themselves learn to accept the situation if they want to move forward. “It only seemed possible to rise higher at the Times if I bought their illusions, and having seen through them, this would have been consciously corrupt,” he explained. “Until that point, I’d been unconscious of cooption as a journalist — like most of my peers. But as my eyes lost their scales, I saw my own flaws more clearly, and freaked out.”

In the interest of fairness, it is worth pointing out that the Times recently became the first media outlet to admit that much of the establishment press — the Times included — was allowing the Mitt Romney and Barack Obama presidential campaigns to censor news reports about themselves. The Times actually published a front-page story about the startling practice, leading to an uproar among media critics that eventually sparked policy changes at newspapers nationwide.

The Times also recently ran a column by then-Public Editor Arthur Brisbane openly admitting that “the paper’s many departments … share a kind of political and cultural progressivism … that virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times.” Of course, that has long been obvious to honest observers. But the fact that the newspaper was actually willing to publicly acknowledge its bias was celebrated by analysts.

On the other hand, the paper has been complicit in covering up some of the worst atrocities in human history. Pulitzer Prize-winning “journalist” Walter Duranty, for example, played a key role in hiding Josef Stalin’s mass murder of millions of Ukrainians while serving as the Times’ chief correspondent in Moscow. Other savage tyrants have benefited from the paper’s “reporting,” too.

Of course, the Times is hardly the only establishment news outlet to peddle propaganda as truth. Amber Lyon of CNN, for example, recently exposed censorship at the Cable News Network and accused her employer of “making me put what I knew to be government lies into my reporting.” Former reporters at Fox and other media outlets have made similar accusations.

The largest media companies in the United States — most of the market is controlled by just a handful of mega-corporations — are regularly deceiving hundreds of millions of Americans through lies, omissions, self-censorship, and by unquestioningly parroting government claims no matter how absurd. And they are starting to pay the price.

Less than one fourth of Americans trust TV news programs, and newspapers across the nation are dying as readers flock to alternative media sources online. In fact, a new Gallup survey just found that distrust in the media hit a new high, with 60 percent of Americans saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news.

As the Founding Fathers knew when they enshrined freedom of the press in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, if the American people hope to remain free, they must have a free press to keep them informed. Today, with much of the “mainstream” press serving as a propaganda megaphone for the establishment, it appears increasingly likely that the alternative media will have to fill the void. The New American