Mijn oude kameraad Derk Sauer, voormalig marxist-leninist, en thans SP-multimiljonair, verkeerde geruime tijd op goede voet met de veroordeelde gangster Michail Borisovitsj Chodorkovski, een voormalige communistische apparatsjik die na de ineenstorting van de Sovjet Unie in slechts één decennium miljardair wist te worden, de rijkste man van Rusland en zestiende op de Forbes-wereldranglijst van miljardairs. De Amerikaanse journalist Peter Lavelle, die al sinds een kwarteeuw de ontwikkelingen achter het voormalige IJzeren Gordijn van binnenuit volgt, schreef over hem dat
he, like other oligarchs during the 1990s, stole, extorted, and even possibly ordered murders when making empires from looted state property. He was also a political fraudster – buying political influence from virtually anyone who would take his dirty money. It was only in prison did Khodorkovsky 'find religion' in an attempt to rebrand himself as a man of the people and supporter of democracy…
Not only did Khodorkovsky become Russia’s richest man, but he also intended to cash-out and/or make himself even richer (and at the expense of the Russian state and people). No one can deny Khodorkovsky had ambitions. His ambitions became hubris. First, he wanted to sell Yukos to Texas oilmen. Second and against Russian law, he wanted to build a private pipeline to export energy. (Under Russian law, the state has the monopoly right to export energy). Putin, as head of state and protector of the country’s sovereignty had no choice – Khodorkovsky and the other oligarchs had to be stopped.
After being elected to the presidency in 2000, Putin made it clear the oligarchs were to stay out of politics and pay their fair share of taxes. This was the background to what is called Putin’s 'Oligarch Wars.'
Khodorkovsky ignored Putin’s warnings and threats at his own peril. Western media and paid apologists in the service of corruption claim Khodorkovsky is a victim of arbitrary prosecution and persecution.
Oktober 2005 berichtte de journalist Simon Kuper van de Financial Times in zijn krant over Derk Sauer's Russische bedrijf Independent Media:
By 2004, Independent Media’s net sales had grown to about €70m, with earnings of €10m. The company controls about a third of Russia’s advertising market for print media. Inevitably mafiosi and oligarchs have become interested along the way. The oligarch Vladimir Potanin briefly owned a 35 per cent stake of Independent Media and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, jailed head of the oil company Yukos, held 10 per cent.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/1/28054942-39af-11da-806e-00000e2511c8.html
Hoewel de mainstream-media in Nederland blijven beweren dat Sauer en zijn Independent Media, dan wel zijn 'invloedrijke Russische mediabedrijf RBK, dat eigenaar is van de grootste onafhankelijke nieuwssite van Rusland' werkelijk 'onafhankelijk' zijn, is de vraag gerechtvaardigd in hoeverre Sauer, die ook wel als 'katvanger' wordt gezien, werkelijk 'onafhankelijk' is. De volgende feiten tonen een ander, meer realistisch beeld:
In 1989 vertrekt Sauer naar Rusland waar hij samen met enkele Russische journalisten die later KGB-agenten bleken te zijn, de eerste glossy-magazine van de Sovjet-Unie startte.
Khodorkovsky's en zijn 'enforcer' Platon Lebedev tijdens één van de processen.
Moscow Times is published by a former Dutch communist Derk Sauer who came to Russia as a reporter back in early 1990s. The early origins of financing for Moscow Times are still shrouded in a mystery buried deep in the files of a well-known organization in McLean, Virginia. But the newspaper found its niche promoting the privatization programs of President Boris Yeltsin, his favorite Anatoly Chubais, and his favorite in the U.S. Treasury, Lawrence Summers. Naturally, it became the favorite of the beneficiaries of that privatization. The editorials back then literally thanked God for people like Chubais and other prime beneficiaries of Russian privatization that saw mass looting of the country. At the peak of this sell off, the Moscow Times publisher applied for and landed himself a new patron – Khodorkovsky. Sauer needed his money to publish Playboy and Cosmopolitan. The methods, terms and scale of that cash injection into Sauer’s business remain almost secret to date. One of Khodorkovsky’s investment advisors at the time has said that Sauer wanted to sell 20 percent of his publishing group; Khodorkovsky, acting through an outfit called Menatep Lausanne, agreed to just half, 10 percent. It is not known if the money Khodorkovsky paid Sauer is among the funds, which Khodorkovsky is now accused of laundering abroad. What is known, however, is that Sauer’s closest associates and partners have admitted selling their shares to Menatep for political protection in Russia. They never mentioned, however, how much money they got for that transaction. Nor did they ever announce the subsequent largesse the company kept on receiving for the following decade. Yukos was one of the first sponsors of the new newspaper by Sauer, Vedomosti.
Over Sauer's voormalige sponsor en beschermheer, Michail Chodorkovski, berichtte de onafhankelijke linkse website The Greanville Post het volgende:
What makes Khodorkovsky of interest to German politicians is his absolute commitment to the looting of social wealth. 'Our compass is profit, our idol is Her Majesty, capital,' is his oft-quoted credo from the year 1993. For Khodorkovsky, freedom means primarily the unrestricted freedom of the market, including the opening up of Russia to Western capital.
This brought him into conflict with Putin, who also protects the wealth of the Russian oligarchs, but regards a strong Russian nation-state, which can also act internationally as a great power, as vital to a functioning Russian capitalism.
Probably the most important reason for Khodorkovsky’s arrest in autumn 2003 were his efforts to sell up to 50 percent of the Yukos oil company to the US corporations Exxon and Chevron. For the Kremlin, this was not acceptable. After Khodorkovsky’s conviction, Yukos was broken up and incorporated into the state-dominated oil company Rosneft, which also controls the gas monopoly Gazprom, and is now the largest energy company in the world.
The strategic role of oil and gas has changed over the last ten years. New extraction methods, such as deep sea drilling and fracking, have unlocked new deposits globally, undermining Russia’s position as an energy exporter. Putin was therefore looking for new ways of strengthening the position of Russia. The main project of his third term as president is to build a Eurasian Union. This is to be modelled on the European Union, and would include large parts of the former Soviet Union and other countries.
Before the presidential elections, Putin presented the project in a detailed article in Izvestia on October 3, 2011. He stressed that the Eurasian Union did not 'entail any kind of revival of the Soviet Union … It would be naïve to try to revive or emulate something that has been consigned to history.'
Putin wrote that the Eurasian Union promised to strengthen Russia’s global position: 'We suggest a powerful supranational association capable of becoming one of the poles in the modern world and serving as an efficient bridge between Europe and the dynamic Asia-Pacific region.'
At the same time, he denied that the project was directed against the European Union. Rather, the Eurasian Union would 'join the dialogue with the EU.' The goal is 'a harmonised community of economies stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok.' The partnership between the Eurasian and the European Unions would 'prompt changes in the geo-political and geo-economic setup of the continent as a whole, with a guaranteed global effect.'
Putin’s article triggered disquiet in the US and Europe. There was hardly a major newspaper or a think tank which did not comment on it in detail. In particular, the German and US governments concluded that their strategy—bringing large parts of the former Soviet Union under their economic and political control, increasingly isolating Russia, and strengthening their influence in strategically important Central Asia—was at risk.
Even Beijing reacted nervously. It saw Putin’s foray as a rival project to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which is meant to strengthen China’s position in Central Asia.
The right-wing American think tank Heritage Foundation warned: 'Russia’s Eurasian Union could endanger the neighborhood and U.S. interests.' It advised the US and its allies in Europe and Asia, 'to balance the Russian geopolitical offensive and protect U.S. and Western interests.'
At a press conference in Dublin in December 2012, then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton clearly indicated that the United States will not tolerate Putin’s project. There is a 'move to re-Sovietise the region,' Clinton said, regarding talk of a Eurasian Union. 'But let’s make no mistake about it. We know what the goal is and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it.'
Deze informatie werpt een heel ander licht op Sauer's uitspraak in het dagblad Trouw van 6 augustus 2015 dat 'Media onder Poetin terug bij af [zijn].' Ik bedoel niet dat zijn opmerking onjuist is, geenszins, maar zijn constatering komt veel te laat, pas nu zijn eigen media-praktijken aan banden worden gelegd, terwijl hij al zes jaar geleden in Het Parool schreef:
We hebben ons portie Rusland-ellende wel weer gehad in 2009... de reeks moorden op journalisten en burgerrechtenactivisten, de corruptie in het land -- genoeg redenen om de koffers te pakken.
Sauer was evenwel als oud marxist-leninist en tegenwoordig multimiljonair uitgekookt genoeg om zijn 'koffers' juist niet 'te pakken.' Uit gesprekken die ik al ruim vier decennia geleden met hem over de media voerde, weet ik dat ook de SP-er Derk er diep van doordrongen is dat de westerse media niet vrij en onafhankelijk zijn. Een aardig voorbeeld van de betrekkelijkheid van het begrip 'de vrije pers' gaf de onderzoeksjournalist John Pilger middels de volgende anekdote:
During the Cold War, a group of Russian journalists toured the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by their hosts for their impressions. 'I have to tell you,' said their spokesman, 'that we were astonished to find, after reading all the newspapers and watching TV, that all the opinions on all the vital issues were, by and large, the same. To get that result in our country, we imprison people, we tear out their fingernails. Here, you don't have that. What's the secret? How do you do it?'
Repressieve tolerantie werkt veel effectiever dan openlijke censuur. Zodra de zelfcensuur volledig is geïnternaliseerd, heeft de macht geen openlijke censuur nodig. Bovendien is zelfcensuur ook nog eens veel goedkoper dan een peperduur ambtelijk apparaat dat alles in de gaten moet houden. Het feit dat nu de NSA en andere westerse geheime diensten de burger permanent bespioneren, demonstreert alleen maar dat naar het oordeel van de macht de 'democratie' niet het gewenste resultaat meer oplevert. Het feit dat internet het monopolie op de berichtgeving van de commerciële massamedia heeft doorbroken en daarmee op de waarheidsvinding, speelt hierbij een belangrijke rol. Een echte vrije pers is per definitie de grootst denkbare bedreiging van de macht. Niet voor niets stelde de Amerikaanse media-ideoloog en journalist Walter Lippmann in zijn tweede boek Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest (1914):
The chaos of too much freedom and the weaknesses of democracy are our real problem. The battle for us, in short, does not lie against crusted prejudice, but against the chaos of a new freedom. This chaos is our real problem. So if the younger critics are to meet the issues of their generation they must give their attention, not so much to the evils of authority, as to the weaknesses of democracy.
Lippmann was geen radicale buitenstaander, maar door het establishment uiterst gerespecteerde opiniemaker die 'an informal adviser' was 'to several presidents. On September 14, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson presented Lippmann with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.' Bovendien ontving hij
a special Pulitzer Prize for journalism in 1958, as nationally syndicated columnist, citing 'the wisdom, perception and high sense of responsibility with which he has commented for many years on national and international affairs.' Four years later he won the annual Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting citing 'his 1961 interview with Soviet Premier Khrushchev, as illustrative of Lippmann's long and distinguished contribution to American journalism.'
On September 14, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson presented Lippmann with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Zijn opvattingen vormen nog steeds de consensus onder de elites die de macht in het Westen in handen hebben:
Legacy: Almond–Lippmann consensus
A meeting of liberal intellectuals mainly from France and Germany organized in Paris in August 1938 by French philosopher Louis Rougier to discuss the ideas put forward by Lippmann in his work The Good Society (1937), Colloque Walter Lippmann was named after Walter Lippmann. Walter Lippmann House at Harvard University, which houses the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, is named after him too. Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman used one of Lippmann's catch phrases — the 'Manufacture of Consent' — for the title of their book, Manufacturing Consent, which contains sections critical of Lippmann's views about the media.
Similarities between the views of Lippmann and Gabriel Almond produced what became known as the Almond–Lippmann consensus, which is based on three assumptions:
1 Public opinion is volatile, shifting erratically in response to the most recent developments. Mass beliefs early in the 20th century were 'too pacifist in peace and too bellicose in war, too neutralist or appeasing in negotiations or too intransigent'
2 Public opinion is incoherent, lacking an organized or a consistent structure to such an extent that the views of U.S. citizens could best be described as 'non-attitudes'
3 Public opinion is irrelevant to the policy-making process. Political leaders ignore public opinion because most Americans can neither 'understand nor influence the very events upon which their lives and happiness are known to depend.'
Uit mijn eigen langdurige ervaringen met Nederlandse opiniemakers weet ik dat ook hier de zogeheten Almond–Lippmann consensus wijd verspreid is. Er bestaat in de polder-journalistiek een vaak onbewuste minachting voor het publiek, die zich op talloze manieren manifesteert. Zondagmiddag zag ik in Tuschinski de documentaire-film Lampedusa in Winter (2015) van de Oostenrijkse cineast Jakob Brossmann, handelend over de 'vluchtelingenstroom' naar Europa en de humane wijze waarop de vissersbevolking van het Italiaanse eilandje op dit fenomeen reageerde. Brossmann en de eilandbewoners maken duidelijk hoe zij en de vluchtelingen door Europa aan hun lot worden overgelaten. De documentaire die in het kader van Movies That Matter, onderdeel van het IDFA, werd getoond eindigde met de sarcastische tekst: 'Met dank aan de Europese Unie.' De woorden waren nauwelijks voorbij gekomen of ik zag mijn oude vriend Geert Mak de filmzaal uit stuiven, zo snel dat zijn vrouw Mietsie zeker vijf meter achter hem aan moest draven. Dat was jammer en ook onbeleefd, aangezien de filmmaker zijn documentaire zou toelichten, vragen zou beantwoorden en in discussie zou gaan met het publiek. Maar Mak met zijn 'Geen Jorwert zonder Brussel' had geen tijd om deel te nemen aan een publieke discussie over het falen van nota bene zijn Europese Unie, die geen enkel antwoord heeft op de armoede en het oorlogsgeweld aan en nu zelfs binnen haar grenzen. En aangezien hij ontdekte dat ik in de zaal zat, had Mak al helemaal geen zin om van gedachten te wisselen met wie dan ook over de door hem geclaimde westerse 'normen en waarden.' Het is kenmerkend voor de regenteske houding van de 'vrije pers.' Misschien kunt u Geert Mak of Henk Hofland eens aanspreken op het feit dat zij deelnamen aan de anti-Poetin hetze, terwijl nu bekend is geworden dat 'EU [weer] flirt met Russen,' zoals de kop in De Telegraaf van maandag 23 november 2015 luidde, boven een vetgedrukt artikel, waarvan de openingszinnen waren:
Voorzitter Juncker van de Europese Commissie wil sterkere economische banden met Rusland. Het Europarlement doet ook een duit in het zakje en nodigt opeens Russische parlementariërs uit, waar een tijdlang een ban op zat.
Wat blijft er over van de bewering van de gecorrumpeerde NRC-redacteur buitenland Hubert Smeets dat 'Het typisch Russisch [is], om altijd alles om te draaien'? Wie draait er voortdurend als een vaan met elke wind mee? Hoe lang nog kunnen mijn collega's zichzelf belachelijk maken voordat het grote publiek het doorkrijgt? De volgende keer meer.
De Russen komen vanuit het Oosten, of toch weer niet? Hubert Smeets legt uit.
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