This week’s INM/Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.
Michael Commane
Last week someone sent me a link to John Pilger’s blog titled ‘Silencing the Lambs. How propaganda works’. Over the years I have read and watched material authored by Pilger and I have found what he has to say engaging.
The link I received is the content of an address he gave to the Trondheim World Festival in Norway where he ‘charted the history of power propaganda and describes how it appropriates journalism in a profound imperialism and is likely to entrap us all, if we allow it.’
Pilger on his blog lists all the governments the US has overthrown or attempted to overthrow and points out that the US dominates the world media.
He cites the disaster that the war in Iraq was and how Nato’s intervention in Libya was done on the most spurious of reasons.
He then goes on to discuss the war in Ukraine and writes: ‘In February, Russia invaded Ukraine as a response to almost eight years of killing and criminal destruction in the Russian-speaking region of Donbass on their border.’
He argues that the people rising in Maidan in Kyiv in 2013/’14 was a coup sponsored by the US. But hang on a minute. He gives no proof whatsoever that what happened in Kyiv was inspired and planned by the US. It really is conjecture on his part.
On my first reading of Pilger’s article I found myself wondering where does truth and fact lie. These days we are all shouting and roaring about how information and news is being mangled and how can we get to what is real and truthful?
But reading Pilger’s piece it dawned on me how he mixes conjecture with facts and even fantasy and comes up with a hodgepodge that contains some truths but many inaccuracies too.
The old cliche that truth is the first casualty of war is staring us in the face right now. And that leads to a much broader issue, is truth at present some sort of permanent casualty.
Isn’t it remarkable at a time when we have such means of communication at our fingertips that it is so difficult to discover what is true and what is not true.
Anyone can say whatever they like on social media. It’s a place where opinion and fact are constantly being interwoven and yes, it requires skills to discover where truth lies. How clued in are we to spot what is true? Why do we take sides? We are all conditioned by our environment and circumstances.
The big question, is there an objective standard? Who decides what’s right and wrong? 13th century Thomas Aquinas said we should pay more attention to what is being said than who said it.
When it comes to the war in Ukraine it is clear that Russia is the invader, Russia is the oppressor and has simply broken all the rules and regulations about accepting the inalienable rights of independent states.
I well know the US is not squeaky clean but I have no hesitation in saying that if push came to shove I would much prefer to live in Biden’s US than Putin’s Russia. Any organisation or state that jails its opponents and refuses to allow a free press has no credibility whatsoever.
1 comment:
Michael, shouldn't you provide the link to the article you refer to in your text (as a small footnote)?
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