donderdag 29 december 2022

Europa Vernietigt Zichzelf (17)

Aangezien het meeste dat de hedendaagse mens weet niet gebaseerd is op eigen ervaring maar op de gefilterde perceptie van de commerciële pers, moet de conclusie luiden dat de massamens een volkomen vertekend beeld van de werkelijkheid heeft. Het handjevol dissidente journalisten kan namelijk geen tegenwicht bieden aan de dagelijkse portie propaganda van de westerse mainstream-journalistiek.

Hoog tijd daarom Nick Davies te introduceren, een ‘award-winning British investigative journalist, writer, and documentary maker,’ uitgeroepen tot ‘Journalist of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year at the British Press Awards.’ In 2011 meldde de BBC dat:

Nick Davies is considered one of Britain's top investigative journalists. He has broken numerous stories… He has written several books, including Flat Earth News. In this book he accuses many British newspapers of what he calls “churnalism," churning out stories based entirely on PR, press releases or wire copy, without further fact-checking. This did not make him the most popular man in Fleet Street, but he is one of the most respected.

Davies ‘has made documentaries for ITV's World in Action and written numerous books on the subject of politics and journalism, including Flat Earth News, which attracted considerable controversy as an exposé of journalistic malpractice in the UK and around the globe.’

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012f6fz

In zijn in 2008 verschenen boek Flat Earth News citeert Davies de toenmalige hoofdredacteur van Le Monde Diplomatique, Ignacio Ramonet, die in januari 2005 tot de conclusie kwam dat:

’A journalism of compliance is in the ascendancy and critical journalism on the decline… Information may proliferate but we have zero guarantee of its reliability. It may turn out to be false… Display and packaging have taken over from verification of facts.’

This is world news. What has been created is a vortex of concentric forces, reducing reality to a small cluster of reports, flowing through a handful of monopoly providers who, in turn, channel each other’s stories into their own streams. Frequently unchecked, commonly created by PR, this consensus account of the world is inherently inadequate in its selection of stories, inherently unreliable in its reporting, daily generating the mass production of ignorance.

Davies geeft talloze voorbeelden van het feit dat mainstream-journalisten te vaak verhalen domweg overschrijven of na-kwaken, en merkt dan op dat:

Journalism without checking is like a human body without an immune system. If the primary purpose of journalism is to tell the truth, then it follows that the primary function of journalists must be to check and to reject whatever is not true. But something has changed, and that essential immune system has started to collapse. In a strange, alarming and generally unnoticed development, journalists are pumping out stories without checking them — stories which then circle the planet. And so now, in a way that was not true in the past, the global mass media are not merely prone to occasional error but are constitutionally and constantly vulnerable to being infected with falsehood, distortion and propaganda.

Insiders weten hoe gecorrumpeerd de westerse ‘corporate press’ is, zoals ondermeer blijkt uit enkele reacties op Davies’ boek:

A wonderfully written tour de force which confirms many of our worst fears about the conduct of 21st century journalism… A cri de coeur from someone within the system who can see that the system is broke and that the currency of public life — accurate, unprejudiced information about what is happening in the world around us — is being systematically corrupted.’

— Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications at University of Westminster, Political Quarterly

‘What he reveals about the news media is so damaging that it must shock anyone who isn’t involved in journalism as well as many who are… His chapters “The Private Life of Public Relations” and “The Propaganda Puzzle” should be read by all journalists and those who want to be journalists so that they are fully aware of the strength and cunning of the forces ranged against them’

— Jenny McKay, Lecturer in Journalism at University of Stirling, Journalism Studies

‘The valiant-for-truth writers and broadcasters whom I most admire have united in applauding Davies’s work… Shamefully (but understandably) the book was largely ignored by the national newspapers it attacks’

— Christopher Gray, Oxford Times

Het volkomen ‘negeren’ van fundamentele kritiek op het werk van bekende opiniemakers is eveneens in Nederland gebruikelijk, zo is mij opgevallen nadat ik de leugens, het verdraaien van feiten, de verkeerde voorstelling van zaken, de platte propaganda, de hetze van mijn collega’s, etc. aan de kaak had gesteld. Nooit heb ik ook maar één schriftelijke reactie gekregen van journalisten als Hubert Smeets (NRC), Geert Mak (NRC), Bas Heijne (NRC), Frank Westerman (NRC), Paul Brill (VK), Max van Weezel (VN), Derk Sauer (Parool) om slechts enkele gevallen te noemen. Geen één van hen heeft mijn op feiten gebaseerde kritiek kunnen weerleggen. Inderdaad, ‘shamefully but understandably,’ negeren zij de kritiek, ze hebben immers geen weerwoord zodra ze betrapt worden op bedrog. Toch maakt de weigering in te gaan op gefundeerde kritiek hun volksverlakkerij alleen maar erger. Juist nu vormt hun bellicose, neoconservatieve propaganda een gevaar voor de westerse maatschappij die in een systeemcrisis verkeert, en op ecologisch, economisch, sociaal en klimatologisch gebied ernstig bedreigd wordt. Met hun permanente demonisering van Rusland brengt de naoorlogse geschoolde babyboom-generatie een Derde Wereldoorlog almaar dichterbij.

De ‘corporate press’ reageert collectief alsof zij gehypnotiseerd is. In werkelijkheid is hier evenwel sprake van geconditioneerde reflexen die kenmerkend zijn voor het milieu waarin mijn generatie is opgegroeid, te weten: de altijd angstige petite bourgeoisie, de opportunistische middengroep die weliswaar leunt op de arbeidersklasse maar tegelijkertijd de schatrijke haute bourgeoisie zowel haat als bewondert. De middenklasse, die qua smaak en opvattingen altijd kleinburgerlijk blijft, zal zowel ‘de stupiditeit van de massa blijven vrezen zolang die conservatief,’ als de bewustwording van diezelfde massa ‘zodra zij revolutionair’ is geworden, zoals Karl Marx uiteenzette. Op zijn beurt waarschuwde de Italiaanse revolutionaire denker Antonio Gramsci in het interbellum voor het feit dat 'the bourgeoisie is attached to fascism. The bourgeois and fascism stand in the same relation to each other as do the workers and peasants to the Russian Communist Party.’ Dit verklaart de huidige sympathie en steun van de westerse bourgeoisie voor de Oekraïense neo-nazi’s die al sinds 2014 de Russisch-talige Oekraïeners vervolgen en vermoorden, waarbij tenminste 14.000 mensen om het leven zijn gekomen. Typerend voor deze houding is dat afgevaardigden van deze neo-nazi’s momenteel worden toegejuicht door zowel het Amerikaanse Congres als het Witte Huis. In dit verband is onthullend wat Hannah Arendt schreef in The Origins of Totalitarianism(1951):

It is significant that modern believers in power are in complete accord with the philosophy of the only great thinker who ever attempted to derive public good from private interest and who, for the sake of private good, conceived and outlined a Commonwealth whose basis and ultimate end is the accumulation of power. Hobbes, indeed, is the only great philosopher to whom the bourgeoisie can rightly and exclusively lay claim.

Het was juist de Engelse filosoof, Thomas Hobbes, die ‘als één van de grondleggers van de moderne politieke filosofie’ in de zeventiende eeuw als dogma stelde dat de mens voor andere mensen een wolf is: ‘Homo homini lupus est. Mensen zijn immers primair gericht op lijfsbehoud,’ en zullen ‘zichzelf verrijken ten koste van anderen.’ Omdat Hobbes’ leerstellingen door de macht nog steeds als onaantastbaar worden gezien, is van belang te weten dat:

The main practical conclusion of Hobbes's political theory is that state or society cannot be secure unless at the disposal of an absolute sovereign. From this follows the view that no individual can hold rights of property against the sovereign, and that the sovereign may therefore take the goods of its subjects without their consent. This particular view owes its significance to it being first developed in the 1630s when Charles I had sought to raise revenues without the consent of Parliament, and therefore of his subjects. Hobbes rejected one of the most famous theses of Aristotle's politics, namely that human beings are naturally suited to life in a polis and do not fully realize their natures until they exercise the role of citizen.

De ‘sovereign’ is niet langer meer de ‘koning,’ maar de ‘staat,’ die dan ook het geweldsmonopolie bezit, en waaraan iedere burger ondergeschikt en schatplichtig is. Wikipedia: ‘The main practical conclusion of Hobbes's political theory is that state or society cannot be secure unless at the disposal of an absolute sovereign. From this follows the view that no individual can hold rights of property against the sovereign, and that the sovereign may therefore take the goods of its subjects without their consent. This particular view owes its significance to it being first developed in the 1630s when Charles I had sought to raise revenues without the consent of Parliament, and therefore of his subjects. Hobbes rejected one of the most famous theses of Aristotle's politics, namely that human beings are naturally suited to life in a polis and do not fully realize their natures until they exercise the role of citizen.’ Daarnaast zette Hobbes in Leviathanzijn doctrine uiteen betreffende:

the foundation of states and legitimate governments and creating an objective science of morality. Much of the book is occupied with demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war.

Beginning from a mechanistic understanding of human beings and their passions, Hobbes postulates what life would be like without government, a condition which he calls the state of nature. In that state, each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. This, Hobbes argues, would lead to a ‘war of all against all’ (bellum omnium contra omnes). The description contains what has been called one of the best-known passages in English philosophy, which describes the natural state humankind would be in, were it not for political community:

‘In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’

In such states, people fear death and lack both the things necessary to commodious living, and the hope of being able to obtain them. So, in order to avoid it, people accede to a social contract and establish a civil society. According to Hobbes, society is a population and a sovereign authority, to whom all individuals in that society cede some right for the sake of protection. Power exercised by this authority cannot be resisted, because the protector's sovereign power derives from individuals' surrendering their own sovereign power for protection. The individuals are thereby the authors of all decisions made by the sovereign, ‘he that complaineth of injury from his sovereign complaineth that whereof he himself is the author, and therefore ought not to accuse any man but himself, no nor himself of injury because to do injury to one's self is impossible.’ There is no doctrine of separation of powers in Hobbes's discussion. According to Hobbes, the sovereign must control civil, military, judicial and ecclesiastical powers, even the words.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes

Inmiddels zijn wij ruim drieënhalf eeuw verder, maar nog steeds geldt dat de doctrine van Hobbes, ‘één van de grondleggers van de moderne politieke filosofie,’ meer dan ooit het dogma is waarop de macht van de staat rust. Intussen wordt de mensheid geconfronteerd met een zich snel ontwikkelende totalitaire technocratie, waarin een kleine elite van technocraten, in dienst van een nog kleinere elite van superrijken, de toekomst van de mens en de natuur bepaalt, waardoor Hobbes’ leerstelling dat ‘de noodzaak bestaat van een sterke centrale autoriteit ter voorkoming van het kwaad van tweedracht en burgeroorlog,’ apert onjuist is. Juist het inherent totalitaire karakter van zijn leer van de sterk gecentraliseerde macht heeft in de twintigste eeuw geleid tot de dictatuur van zowel het Sovjet communisme als het kapitalisme van Nazi-Duitsland, Fascistisch-Italië en nu de terreur van de VS. De voortdurend uitdijende macht van de staat confronteert het Westen in de 21ste eeuw met het neofascistisch geweld van de NAVO, onder aanvoering van Washington en Brussel. Vandaar ook dat Hannah Arendt na de Tweede Wereldoorlog benadrukte hoe ‘veelzeggend’ het ‘is dat moderne gelovigen in macht het volledig eens zijn met de filosofie van de enige grote denker die ooit probeerde het publieke welzijn te ontlenen aan privébelang, en die omwille van het privébelang een gemeenschap bedacht en schetste, gebaseerd op, en met als uiteindelijk doel, de vermeerdering van macht.' Te weten: Thomas Hobbes, ‘de enige grote filosoof op wie de bourgeoisie met recht en exclusief aanspraak maakt,’ en wiens leer al eeuwenlang het gewelddadig westers kapitalisme en kolonialisme intellectueel rechtvaardigt.

De overgrote meerderheid van mijn collega’s in de commerciële journalistiek, met haar petite bourgeois-opvattingen, beseft niet dat zeventiende eeuwse, mechanistische, politieke dogma’s niet meer toepasbaar zijn in de 21ste eeuw zonder dat die onvermijdelijk tot een alles vernietigende oorlog leidt. Bovendien weigeren zij te beseffen dat hun ‘bourgeoisie is attached to fascism,’ zoals we nu zien door de blinde westerse steun aan Oekraïense neo-nazi troepen. In zijn boek America and the World Revolution and Other Lectures, concludeerde in 1962 één van de grootste historici van de twintigste eeuw, de Brit Arnold J. Toynbee, dat:

America is today the leader of a world-wide anti-revolutionary movement in the defense of vested interests. She now stands for what Rome stood for. Rome consequently supported the rich against the poor in all foreign communities that fell under her sway; and, since the poor, sofar, have always and everywhere been far more numerous than the rich, Rome’s policy made for inequality, for injustice, and for the least happiness of the greatest number.

Welnu, wat te denken van de veelvuldig door het neoliberale establishment gelauwerde publicist Geert Mak,die tegen het eind van zijn oppervlakkige bestseller Reizen zonder John. Op zoek naar Amerika (2012)beweert dat de VS na 1945 ‘decennialang als ordebewaker en politieagent [fungeerde] – om maar te zwijgen van alle hulp die het uitdeelde,’ en vervolgens blijmoedig constateert dat ‘nog steeds de Verenigde Staten het anker [zijn] van het hele Atlantische deel van de wereld in de ruimste zin van het woord.’ Uit gedocumenteerd Amerikaans onderzoek blijkt echter dat Geert Mak’s ‘ordebewaker en politieagent,’ met zijn ‘military forces were directly responsible for about 10 to 15 million deaths during the Korean and Vietnam Wars and the two Iraq Wars. The Korean War also includes Chinese deaths while the Vietnam War also includes fatalities in Cambodia and Laos.

The American public probably is not aware of these numbers and knows even less about the proxy wars for which the United States is also responsible. In the latter wars there were between nine and 14 million deaths in Afghanistan, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East Timor, Guatemala, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sudan.

But the victims are not just from big nations or one part of the world. The remaining deaths were in smaller ones which constitute over half the total number of nations. Virtually all parts of the world have been the target of U.S. intervention.

The overall conclusion reached is that the United States most likely has been responsible since WWII for the deaths of between 20 and 30 million people in wars and conflicts scattered over the world.

To the families and friends of these victims it makes little difference whether the causes were U.S. military action, proxy military forces, the provision of U.S. military supplies or advisors, or other ways, such as economic pressures applied by our nation. They had to make decisions about other things such as finding lost loved ones, whether to become refugees, and how to survive.

And the pain and anger is spread even further. Some authorities estimate that there are as many as 10 wounded for each person who dies in wars. Their visible, continued suffering is a continuing reminder to their fellow countrymen.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-regime-has-killed-20-30-million-people-since-world-war-ii/5633111

Laat ik slechts één voorbeeld geven van de consequenties van het beleid van Mak’s ‘ordebewaker’ die tot op de dag van vandaag voortduren:

To try to stop the communist Pathet Lao from coming to power, the US dropped 270 million bombs on Laos, more than all the bombs dropped in WW2. By 1975, 10% of the population had been killed. Twice as many were wounded.

From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped more than two million tons of ordnance on Laos during 580,000 bombing missions — equal to a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24-hours a day, for 9 years — making Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in history. The bombings were part of the U.S. Secret War in Laos to support the Royal Lao Government against the Pathet Lao and to interdict traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The bombings destroyed many villages and displaced hundreds of thousands of Lao civilians during the nine-year period.

Up to a third of the bombs dropped did not explode, leaving Laos contaminated with vast quantities of unexploded ordnance (UXO). Over 20,000 people have been killed or injured by UXO in Laos since the bombing ceased. The wounds of war are not only felt in Laos. When the Americans withdrew from Laos in 1973, hundreds of thousands of refugees fled the country, and many of them ultimately resettled in the United States.

The Legacies of War organization provides some startling facts about the U.S. bombing of Laos and its tragic aftermath:

Over 270 million cluster bombs were dropped on Laos during the Vietnam War (210 million more bombs than were dropped on Iraq in 1991, 1998 and 2006 combined); up to 80 million did not detonate.

Nearly 40 years on, less than 1% of these munitions have been destroyed.More than half of all confirmed cluster munitions casualties in the world have occurred in Laos.

Each year there are now just under 50 new casualties in Laos, down from 310 in 2008. Close to 60% of the accidents result in death, and 40% of the victims are children.

Between 1993 and 2016, the U.S. contributed on average $4.9M per year for UXO clearance in Laos; the U.S. spent $13.3M per day (in 2013 dollars) for nine years bombing Laos.

In just ten days of bombing Laos, the U.S. spent $130M (in 2013 dollars), or more than it has spent in clean up over the past 24 years ($118M).

https://www.tourismlaos.org/welcome/secret-war/