You might ask why the media sensors the truth about the war in Ukraine and you might ask how the truth is censored. This article mainly explores the second question.
As to the Why the truth is censored, we live in an information age and this is a war by information, or by defamation. If you consider all the sacrifices the public has made in order for the West to win this war, then it is necessary to keep them on board, at the expense of the truth, because otherwise the West's political system will begin to lose support and legigimacy, the power of the people can cause its collapse.
Very interesting discussion developing on points made in an earlier piece here.
https://youtu.be/73G_4pPmNf0
This is an exploration of exactly how "consent is manufactured", to use Chomsky's words.
Until now we have been able to see quite easily the power of conformity and group think at work feeding us a diet of the same propaganda every day in support of NATO and the West.
And we can also imagine that if you take a dissenting line, as a journalist, your job might be under threat - I think but don't know for sure, that most journalists are freelance writers.
But in this video there are other more subtle explanations... like for example 'access': that if you don't tow the line you won't have access for yourself and your pieces in the public eye and in the eye of business and politicians. The more you conform, the more access you get and the more work and attention comes your way.
Also, how it is not just at an individual level, but it works more globally, there are cogs within cogs, so that media groups form part of an industry and the profits, the revenues, to keep a news organisation going, depend on their towing government and MoD lines ie keeping the propaganda flowing.
There is another point. It is interesting operationally to observe how the government or the Ministry of Defence feed a line to the media; which then writes it up in their morning news or op-ed; and then the next day the government is able to cite this op-ed saying look we are not the only ones who think this...
There is what Katrina in the video called 'seduction', which is where you, as a journo, are positively drawn in because to be included is to be on the inside, amongst the rich famous and powerful, and being in this company flatters your ego, you are associated with powerful and well-known figures, your ego gets a boost.
There's also that a journalist doesn't have to fight too hard for his place in the sun if he is or she is writing pieces that conform, it's just plain easier and safer to run with the herd.
And then for the anecdote, there's the story of the contrarian Scott Ritter who was saying time and again that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq... Of course I'd forgotten that story and here is Scott Ritter making news today, exposing the lies of government and mainstream Media.
It's true as well that if you go out on a limb against your country you are accused of being unpatriotic anti-american treasonous even.
The analysis of how consent is obtained also takes us into questioning the value of our democracy whether we really live in a free and democratic society where we can express our own opinions in or is it that war limits are freedom of thought and speech.
Furthermore in a democracy the leadership is accountable to the people and yet how is it that despite all these lies and despite the absolute disasters of all the wars from Panama to Yugoslavia to Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya and Syria; and now to Ukraine in spite of all these disasters absolutely no one has been held accountable.
What is astounding and incomprehensible almost is that all the truth about these wars was known at the time but there was no penetration into the public space so descent was relegated to the fringes and even today with the Ukraine war which was debated in the UK parliament a couple of weeks ago absolutely all the party leaders were pushing for more support for Ukraine with the objective of pushing the Russians completely out of Ukraine including the Crimea.
Pretty much everyone these days acknowledges that the Iraq war was a disaster and yet who took us into it if it wasn't Biden and blinken and here they are again and there doesn't appear to be any remorse or apology for these neocon wars, it's just simply blamed on group think, individual choices, but it looks very much like there is a structural problem, what you might call C Wright Mills's 'industrial military government complex', it's a story of backscratching and revolving doors.
The thing to grasp is that the most god-awful mistakes were made, but no one has apologised, nothing has been learnt and we carry on making the same mistakes. In fact you could say that the decline of American power, the end of the unipolar moment, began with the war in Iraq.
Why is it we love the dissenters in other countries, but not our own?
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