Eric Zuesse

Typical is TIME Magazine, which headlined on 24 July 2014, "In Russia, Crime Without Punishment.”

The sub-head, from Simon Shuster, "reporting" for the Russia-hating regime of Barack Obama, in the Russia-hating Ukrainian capital Kiev, was the even-more-slanted, propagandistic: "Vladimir Putin backs the rebels suspected of shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Why each new crisis makes him stronger." Then, to stir the fear in its gulls even more, TIME's propaganda (though they call this sort of thing "news reporting") opened: "The scene was almost too horrible to take in, and yet in a world of bristling threats no scene has been more revealing: under the baking July sun of eastern Ukraine, hundreds of bodies lay rotting as pro-Russian militiamen, some of them apparently drunk, brandished their weapons to keep European observers away." The “Crime Without Punishment” was here alleged to have been such men’s shooting down of the Malaysian jet.

No one yet actually knew whether that passenger plane was shot down by any "pro-Russian militiamen," or perhaps by the Ukrainian regime who were trying to exterminate as many residents in the "pro-Russian" areas as possible and were seeking support from other countries in their effort to eliminate the people in Ukraine’s regions where the new Obama-installed regime was unpopular, or perhaps even by Russian soldiers across the border inside Russia who were trying to help to protect those Russian-speaking Ukrainians from Kiev’s bombers, or what. But any "news" report that opens with such a loaded phrase as "suspected of shooting down," without simultaneously saying who is alleged to have "suspected" those individuals, and why, and what the evidence against and for them is, is sheer rabble-rousing propaganda, not actual news-reporting at all, and it's taking cheap "patriotic" shots, to bolster the allegations and agenda of one's own government, even if that government might happen to be despised by many of the people who voted for it (people such as the present writer is), who might think that our government has shown too often that it lies through its teeth, like the U.S. media and government routinely do -- and like "our" government did in 2003 about the "need" to "eliminate Saddam's WMD." How much credibility do the U.S. "news" media, and government, actually have, after that sordid, costly, and bloody waste, in and of Iraq? Perhaps among millions of ignorant people, our regime's leaders and media still are believed, but not among anyone who followed and analyzed the "news reports" closely during the months leading up to our shameful, scandalous, invasion of Iraq. It was one lie, and distortion, and stenographic "news report" from White House sources, after another – all really just lying propaganda, all designed to win enough suckers so that George W. Bush could claim that "everybody knows he's hiding something." And, as the Democratic Party's "Media Matters" documented as late as 25 October 2010, headlining, "Déjà vu: Right-wing media absurdly claim 'Bush was right' about Iraq's WMDs," the lies were still being circulated by Republican Party mouthpieces such as Fox "News," even years later, constantly trying to rewrite history, constantly lying about it. But the Democratic Party's propagandists are only slightly less untrustworthy themselves, and you won't find out about that by reading "Media Matters," which lies only for “Democrats,” even for fake ones, such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- pro-Wall-Street "Democrats," who protect banksters (at the public's expense) as much (and as effectively) as self-declared Republican politicians do.

This two-faced, two-conservative-party, system, is mere mockery of a "free press" in a "democracy." Americans should be outraged, no longer accept it, but just reject the conning of America by the aristocracy's two political parties, and by the "news" media that the aristocracy control. The independent national-award-winning investigative reporter Robert Parry took the aristocracy's "news" media to task on 20 July 2014 by headlining “What Did US Spy Satellites See in Ukraine?” and he reported that what they saw and showed at the NSA was Ukrainian Government troops operating the missile-launcher that almost certainly brought down the Malaysian plane, and that this fact was being hidden from the U.S. public by the government, the Washington Post, and the aristocracy's other propaganda-operations called "news organizations." Parry closed by noting that, "this sort of recklessness is careening the world toward a very dangerous moment, conceivably its last." But it wasn't "recklessness": it was highly professional propaganda, entailing virtually all of the U.S. "press."

As I documented on 18 July 2014, "Obama Definitely Caused the Malaysian Airliner to Be Downed." Read that, and then read the TIME "report," and make your own judgment (it won’t be either mine, or TIME’s, but yours) as to whether this country has the free and honest press that one would expect in an authentic democracy. I contend that we do not (far from it), and that this country's citizens should no longer accept the propaganda-factory that we do have. We should boycott it, and tell its advertisers that we don't trust them or their commercials, because America's democracy is gone: the whole system now is just rigged against the public – it’s rigged to lie.

For example, how did it happen that "Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. To date, the United States has provided Israel $121 billion (current, or non-inflation-adjusted, dollars) in bilateral assistance. Almost all U.S. bilateral aid to Israel is in the form of military assistance." And, on July 18th, "Senate Approves Transfer Of Additional $351 Million To Israel," at the very time when our government was pretending to be an honest broker in Israel-Palestine negotiations, and hundreds of Palestinian civilians were being bombed to death with U.S. bombs. Is this democracy? Or is it lobbying, and cash-purchase of "our" politicians? "There has been virtually no debate about such huge payments to another nation’s defense budget when cities and schools continue to cut back on programs." You can read about "America's Nazi Allies in Israel and Ukraine," but not in places such as The New York Times, or the Times of London. Nor (at least till now) even in places such as alternet, commondreams, and truthout. The propaganda-net is broad and deep, as it has to be in a fake-“democracy.” A fuller description of the background of these events is given in the lengthy article "Who Profits from Ukraine's War."

This news report is distributed, free of copyright or any charge, to all U.S. “news” media. We’ll see which ones are honest enough to publish it. (And past experience suggests they’ll be only few and small.)

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of Christ's Ventriloquists: The Event that Created Christianity.