Be seeing you
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Watch “Is gravity a force?” on YouTube
Posted by M. C. on April 6, 2023
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: force, gravity | Leave a Comment »
For The Record, NPR Absolutely Is US State Propaganda
Posted by M. C. on April 6, 2023
Indeed, the problem with the “state-affiliated media” label hasn’t so much been that it exists, but that it will always be unevenly applied. The label gets pinned to outlets like RT and China Daily while left off of known US propaganda outlets like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and Voice of America. This designation is also nowhere to be seen on other outlets which receive a far greater share of their funding from the state than NPR does, like the UK’s BBC, Australia’s ABC, Canada’s CBC, and the Saudi Press Agency.
American liberals are in an uproar over Twitter’s recent labeling of National Public Radio as “US state-affiliated media”, a designation typically reserved for state media from governments the US is trying to topple like Russia’s RT, China’s CGTN, and Iran’s Press TV.
In an article titled “Twitter labels NPR’s account as ‘state-affiliated media,’ which is untrue,” NPR’s Bill Chappell attempts to argue that his outlet does not deserve to have the same labels affixed to it as state media from naughty governments like Russia and China:
“Noting the millions of listeners who support and rely upon NPR for ‘independent, fact-based journalism,’ NPR CEO John Lansing stated, ‘NPR stands for freedom of speech and holding the powerful accountable. It is unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way. A vigorous, vibrant free press is essential to the health of our democracy.'”
It is an interesting choice to spotlight NPR’s CEO John Lansing while trying to argue that NPR is not state-affiliated, given that Lansing spent his pre-NPR years as the CEO of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM). USAGM is the US government narrative management umbrella which runs overt US state propaganda outlets like Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Voice of America.
In a 1977 article titled “Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the C.I.A.,” The New York Times explicitly names Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Free Asia as part of the network constructed by the Central Intelligence Agency to circulate propaganda. As Fair.org’s Bryce Greene recently noted, USAGM received $810 million in US federal funding in 2022, which is more than twice the amount RT received from Russia for its global operations in 2021.
Lansing’s history is not an anomaly; NPR is regularly overseen by executives who came directly from senior positions in Washington’s official propaganda network. From 1998 to 2008 NPR’s president was a man named Kevin Klose, who previously ran Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and then returned to that job after his decade-long NPR stint. A man named Ken Stern became NPR’s executive vice president in 1999 and was appointed CEO in 2006; prior to that he was the senior advisor to the director of the USAGM’s International Broadcasting Bureau.
So it is a bit funny that John Lansing is now cited complaining about NPR being labeled “state-affiliated media” on Twitter, given that he has devoted his life to promulgating US state-affiliated media. NPR receives funding from the US government, consistently advances the information interests of the US government, and is routinely run by professional propagandists of the US government. You could spend hours of your life just reading through Fair.org’s “NPR” section to see the many, many ways that platform has exhibited wild biases to grease the wheels of the US empire. If NPR is not state-affiliated media, then nobody is.
In his efforts to argue that his outlet is not state-affiliated media, Bill Chappell also hilariously points out that White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended NPR as a wonderful exemplar of journalistic integrity:
When asked about Twitter’s decision during the White House’s daily briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to address Twitter’s content rules specifically. But she also defended NPR’s journalism.
“There is no doubt of the independence of NPR journalists,” Jean-Pierre said. “If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of their questions, you know this.”
Yeah great argument Bill, “The White House says we’re good so we can’t possibly be US state-affiliated media.”
Defenders of NPR try to argue that the label is inaccurate because NPR only receives a small amount of its funding from the US government (between one percent and 15 percent depending on whose talking points they’re reciting), but this claim is undercut by NPR’s own claim that “Federal funding is essential to public radio’s service to the American public and its continuation is critical for both stations and program producers, including NPR [emphasis theirs].”
It’s probably also worth saying that if I was receiving between one and 15 percent of my funding from the government of Russia or China, I feel quite confident that Twitter would slap me with the “state-affiliated” label immediately, as it has so many others.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: NPR, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, State Propaganda, Voice of America | Leave a Comment »
Watch “Sony is CENSORING the INTERNET!” on YouTube
Posted by M. C. on April 5, 2023
The Internet has transformed the way we access knowledge, and its neutral infrastructure is supposed to be free from government influence or corporate censorship. But the internet as we know it is under threat. Sony music has brought a legal attack against a critical part of the Internet’s infrastructure — the DNS resolver. In this video we’ll explain why Sony is attacking critical infrastructure of the internet, why this is terrifying for the future of free online expression and access to information, and what you can do to help.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: censoring, DNS resolver, Internet, Sony | Leave a Comment »
The RESTRICT Act Restricts More Than TikTok
Posted by M. C. on April 5, 2023
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Restrict Act, TikTok | Leave a Comment »
Marco Rubio Accidentally Makes A Great Argument Against US Dollar Hegemony
Posted by M. C. on April 5, 2023
Some empire managers are so brash about wanting to rule the world that they’ll occasionally voice their position so directly it sounds like an anti-imperialist said it.
We saw just such an instance last Wednesday during a conversation between empire propagandist Sean Hannity and warmongering senator Marco Rubio on Fox News. So frenzied was Rubio in his vitriol about the rise of China on the world stage that he accidentally wound up providing a very good argument against the hegemony of the US dollar.
Rubio began with a rant about how the US is in a “conflict” with China in response to a question from Hannity about whether Xi Jinping is preparing for war with America.
“The bottom line is we’re in a conflict, and I think we have to start talking about it that way,” Rubio said. “I was very young, obviously, at the end of the Cold War, but it’s been about 30 years since there was another superpower on the earth that was in conflict with the United States. We are back in that place. We need to stop pretending like that’s not the case now.”
Hannity repeated the soundbyte he’s been pushing for the last few weeks saying that China, Russia and Iran are a “new Axis of Evil,” then Rubio made a very revealing comment about a recent deal that was struck between China and Brazil.
“Just today, Brazil, the largest country in the Western Hemisphere, cut a trade deal with China,” said Rubio. “They’re going to, from now on, do trade in their own currencies, get right around the dollar. They’re creating a secondary economy in the world totally independent of the United States. We won’t have to talk about sanctions in five years, because there’ll be so many countries transacting in currencies other than the dollar that we won’t have the ability to sanction them.”
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: dollar hegemony, Marco Rubio, US dollar | Leave a Comment »
Dailywire Article-CNN Poll Finds 60% Of Americans Support Trump Indictment Even Though They Have No Clue What’s In It
Posted by M. C. on April 5, 2023
I wonder if the poll was just CNN viewers or the public in general.
A new CNN poll found that more than half of all Americans approve of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s decision to indict former President Donald Trump — despite the fact that no one surveyed knew the contents of the still-sealed indictment when they answered questions about it.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper broke down some of the results of the poll, which was taken between March 31 and April 1. It showed that an overwhelming majority of Democrats (94%) were in favor of the indictment. A majority of independents (62%) also supported the move, followed by just 21% of Republicans. Overall, nearly two-thirds (60%) of those surveyed said that they supported the decision to indict Trump.
But as critics quickly began to point out, neither those asking the question nor those answering it had any idea what specific crimes the former president was actually being charged with.
Reports have indicated that Trump is expected to face nearly three dozen charges related to business fraud — but the official indictment was still under seal at the time the survey was conducted, days before Trump’s arraignment was scheduled to take place in Manhattan.
The Daily Caller’s Brianna Lyman tweeted, “CNN conducted a poll: 60% of Americans approve of Trump’s indictment. We don’t know what he’s charged with & yet 60% of Americans BLINDLY say they support this. Tells you all you need to know about these people: they don’t believe in justice, but in political persecution.”
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Alvin Bragg, CNN Poll, Trump Indictment | Leave a Comment »
MoA – Journalist, Spy Or Cyber Front Warrior?
Posted by M. C. on April 5, 2023
Would the Wall Street Journal even know if the CIA hired one of its journos for a side job?
But fear not, the CIA would never do such:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/04/journalist-spy-or-cyber-front-warrior.html#more
Journalist, Spy Or Cyber Front Warrior?
Last Thursday, March 30, Russian authorities arrested the Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershovitch:
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was “acting on instructions from the American side to collect information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex that constitutes a state secret.” Gershkovich, who was arrested in the city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains region, will be held until at least May 29, according to Russian judicial officials.
The Wall Street Journal said it “vehemently denies” the allegation and demanded that Russia release Gershkovich, who has lived in Moscow for six years and was accredited by Russia’s foreign ministry. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison.
Would the Wall Street Journal even know if the CIA hired one of its journos for a side job?
But fear not, the CIA would never do such:
The arrest shows that Moscow is “increasingly treating the United States as an open belligerent in a war against Russia,” according to George Beebe of the Quincy Institute, who previously led Russia analysis at the CIA.
Citing a 1977 law that banned CIA recruitment of journalists, Beebe argued that it is “very unlikely that Gershkovich is a U.S. intelligence asset or that his reporting was directed or influenced by the U.S. Intelligence Community.”
Surely, the CIA would never ever break a law, says a former CIA analyst …
But why then is the U.S. Secretary of State calling Russia for a talk about the man?
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday held a call with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, to discuss Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and US citizen who was detained in Russia last week over spying allegations.
According to a State Department readout of the call, Blinken expressed the US’s “grave concern over Russia’s unacceptable detention of a US citizen journalist” and called for his “immediate release.”
According to the Russian side, Lavrov told Blinken that a Russian court will decide Gershkovich’s fate. “In light of the established evidence of the US national’s illegal activities, his future will be determined by court,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed that Gershkovich, “acting at the behest of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of an enterprise within Russia’s military-industrial complex.”
May be I am naive, but what Gershkovich inquired about was way too much on the questionable side than to be called journalism:
Kevin Rothrock @KevinRothrock – 17:15 UTC · Mar 30, 2023
Journalist @kolezev, who spoke on background to @evangershkovich before his trip to Yekaterinburg, says Evan hoped to intercept employees (literally in the street) leaving the UralVagonZavod plant in Nizhny Tagil or the NPO Novator missile factory in Yekaterinburg, planning to ask them how they feel about the invasion of Ukraine.
This more than the WSJ’s Wagner Group investigation seems likeliest to have triggered the FSB’s “espionage” paranoia. Evan knew the risks but apparently hoped that the FSB would let him be, given that war sentiment isn’t a state secret.
Колезев ☮️
Мария Захарова заявила, что «то, чем занимался в Екатеринбурге сотрудник американского издания The Wall Street Journal, не имеет отношения к журналистике». Марии Захаровой, конечно, виднее, ей в ФСБ…
Tass summarizes the accusations:
- US citizen Evan Gershkovich, a correspondent for the Moscow bureau of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), was detained in Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Region, in the Urals region of Russia, on suspicion of espionage.
- According to the FSB, the journalist was collecting top-secret data about an enterprise within the Russian military-industrial complex in the interests of the United States.
- The American was detained while trying to obtain classified data.
Yekaterinburg has been a the metallurgical center of Russia for 300 years:
Yekaterinburg was founded on 18 November 1723 and named after Yekaterina I, the wife of Russian emperor Peter the Great. The city served as the mining capital of the Russian Empire as well as a strategic connection between Europe and Asia.
The city grew during the second world war when Russia moved its heavy industry away from the frontline to behind the Ural. UralVagonZavod is the largest tank manufacturer in the world. It is currently producing the T-90 tanks for the Russian army. NPO Novator is making anti-aircraft missiles and other weapons like the Kalibr cruise missiles which are currently in high demand.
To ask workers of such factories how they feel about the U.S. proxy war waged against Russia while that war is ongoing seems a bit off to me.
What would have been the offer by Gershkovich to any worker who would have spoken against the war?
Also, this was about more than just asking random workers:
The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was interested in operation of military-industrial complex facilities in Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Region Legislative Assembly deputy Vycheslav Vegner, whom the reporter interviewed earlier, told TASS Thursday.
“[During the interview, Gershkovich] started asking questions regarding the military-industrial complex of Yekaterinburg, he named one such enterprise – ‘Novator’- and so on,” Vegner said.
According to the lawmaker, the reported cited the experience of other regions on industry conversion and asked about the Sverdlovsk Region experience – for example, whether the enterprises change their profile, how many shifts there are, and if they are appropriately staffed. Vegner noted during the interview that he is not authorized to answer such question.
Anything about weapon production numbers or related issues are of course state secrets, at least during times of war. What then do we call such inquiries if not espionage?
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Antony Blinken, CIA, Evan Gershkovich, Federal Security Service, Russia, Wall Street Journal, Yekaterinburg | Leave a Comment »
Big mouths for weapons spending are mum on industry backers – Responsible Statecraft
Posted by M. C. on April 4, 2023
Even with appropriations and requests needlessly sky high, think tank experts underwritten by defense firms are calling for more.
AEI does not publicly provide a list of its funders and did not respond to multiple requests for comment about its funding. But the moderator of a public AEI event last year noted that “both Lockheed and Northrop provide philanthropic support to AEI. We are grateful for that support.”
The American Enterprising Institute
Written by
Ben Freeman and Yameen Huq
Earlier this month, President Biden requested the largest defense budget in U.S. history. Even adjusting for inflation, this $842 billion budget — which will likely increase with congressional add-ons and additional spending for the war in Ukraine — could ultimately give the Pentagon more taxpayer money than when the U.S. had more than 100,000 troops on the ground at the height of the Iraq and Afghan conflicts.
But you’d have no idea that was the case if you read Pentagon contractor funded think tanks’ commentary about the budget, which have been clamoring for even more Pentagon spending, often without disclosing that the beneficiaries of it fund their organizations.
“For defense, this is a pretty substantial step backwards,” a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) told The Hill. This amounts to a “$28 billion cut to programs and activities” after you account for a troop pay raise and inflation, an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) expert told Defense News, which added that the AEI expert was pushing for a DOD budget of at least $882 billion. That $882 billion figure is, perhaps coincidentally, the exact amount of Pentagon funding another AEI scholar promoted in a recent op-ed for Breaking Defense.
Unsurprisingly, think tank arguments for increasing Pentagon funding have also found their way into mainstream media outlets. The day before the Biden administration released its fiscal year 2024 budget, the Washington Post published an article bemoaning the defense industry’s limited capacity to “build things to kill people,” as the head of a munitions facility told the Post. The piece cited CSIS research on the defense industry’s struggles to replace stockpiles of the tens of billions of dollars in munitions the U.S. has given Ukraine.
Earlier that same week, the Wall Street Journal ran an article proclaiming “The U.S. Is Not Yet Ready for the Era of ‘Great Power’ Conflict.” As evidence, the author cited a CSIS wargame that simulated a Chinese attack on Taiwan in which “the U.S. side ran out of long-range anti-ship cruise missiles in a week.” That same CSIS study was cited in a New York Times article published last week titled “From Rockets to Ball Bearings, Pentagon Struggles To Feed War Machine.”
What goes unmentioned in any of these articles is that these think tanks clamoring for more defense funding are funded by the defense industry.
CSIS is commendably transparent about its funding and provides a publicly available list of donors on its website. And, that list is filled with defense contractors. In total, 20 different defense contractors provided the organization with a total of at least $2.2 million last year. The top defense sector donor to CSIS was Northrop Grumman, which gave the organization more than $500,000. The firm builds many of the military’s weapons, most notably munitions, the organization’s scholars have been pushing.
A spokesperson for CSIS explained that, “CSIS is an independent non-profit with a diverse funding base and the conclusions of our scholars are theirs alone,” and, “CSIS discloses our donors on our website. We also disclose funders of our research reports in the reports themselves. We do this because we believe our audience should know who supports our work.” Yet, this only applies to research reports with dedicated external funding, the spokesperson explained, not work done through general support funding like the CSIS report on the need for investing in U.S. munitions that has been widely cited in media outlets with no disclosure in the report that the munitions in question are made by the organization’s funders.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: AEI, CSIS, Lockheed, Northrop, weapons spending | Leave a Comment »
Fauci quietly begins advising mysterious overseas ‘anti-pandemic’ bio lab
Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2023
The longtime government bureaucrat links up with infamous Big Pharma heavyweights for new consultant gig.
GSK is known for record setting fraudulent activity. In 2012, GSK agreed to pay a $3 billion settlement to the U.S. government, breaking Pfizer’s record for the largest health-care fraud settlement for a drugmaker in U.S. history.
In news that has somehow remained entirely unreported in the United States, Dr Anthony Fauci seems to have inked his first gig outside of U.S. Government Health, where he is reportedly still taking a salary.
According to several Italian press reports, Fauci has agreed to serve in a consulting capacity to a newly created “anti-pandemic” bio lab, which is being run by a high-level Italian scientist and longtime pharmaceutical executive.
Italy’s ANSA news wire service reports:
“American immunologist Anthony Fauci has agreed to act in an informal capacity as a strategic advisor to Rino Rappuoli, scientific director of the Biotecnopolo biotech hub in Siena, an institution founded by the Ministries of the University, Health, Economy and Industry with the aim of focusing on applied research in biotechnologies and life sciences, the Fondazione Biotecnopolo announced this week.”
The news was also reported by Italy’s L’Eco di Bergamo and others, but there seems to be no reports on the matter outside of the country.
Biotecnopolo, the newfound bio lab that is funded by the Italian government, is self-described as “an anti-pandemic hub with a particular focus on the development and production of vaccines and monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of emerging epidemic-pandemic pathologies.”
Rome has already committed hundreds of millions of Euros to the noticeably below the radar state-backed project.
In a press release, a board member declared that Fauci’s new role will be “a fundamental step towards making the Biotecnopolo the Italian hub for the research, study and prevention of pandemics”.
Fauci has not released a statement on the matter. Dr Rappuoli did not reply to a request for comment.
It still remains unclear why Fauci, a lifelong American government bureaucrat, has decided to become a consultant for an entity funded by the Italian government. On several occasions, he has spoken highly about his Italian heritage. In 2020, the Italian government awarded him with the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
Italy and the United States share a lot when it comes to the humanitarian catastrophes our governments imposed in the name of a virus.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthony Fauci, anti-pandemic, Biotecnopolo | Leave a Comment »
Wall Street Journal Commits Elementary Economic Error
Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2023
Will women who join, or rejoin, the workforce strengthen the economy? Of course, they will, at least in the ex ante sense. But all of human action “strengthens the economy.”
According to a headline blaring on the front page of one of America’s leading newspapers, “Women Rejoin the Workforce, Adding Strength to Economy.” This is wrong in more ways than you can shake a stick at. Strangely enough, as written exactly as is, it is also entirely correct. Let me explain.
Will women who join, or rejoin, the workforce strengthen the economy? Of course, they will, at least in the ex ante sense. But all of human action “strengthens the economy.” A man purchases a shirt for $20. At what rate did he value this shirt when he bought it? Not at $20. Then, there would have been no profit in the transaction for him. Why bestir himself in this manner if he couldn’t even imagine thereby improving his economic well-being? He must have valued this article of clothing at more than $20, say, $25, so there would have been a $5 profit in it for him. Well, I speak too quickly. His main motive in so doing might have been to get a date with the attractive female seller. So, all we can say is that there was something about this transaction, the shirt or something else, or maybe a combination of the two, that he ranked more highly than the sales price. All that of course is ex ante, in anticipation. Ex post, this may or may not have been true. After the fact, he may rue his purchase; the shirt was not that much to his liking, the woman refused his offer of dinner.
The same applies to women rejoining the labor force. They would not have done so, did they not prefer this course of action to all others open to them, such as enjoying leisure, entering college, engaging in child care, etc. The economy necessarily improved, again, necessarily ex ante, but as upon all such occasions, it is by no means certain that this occurred ex post as well.
Now consider an alternative headline: “Women Quit the Workforce, Adding Strength to Economy.” The same identical analysis applies! Females would not have quit their jobs did they not contemplate thereby an improvement in their economic welfare. Perhaps they ranked child care, or leisure, or education, etc., more highly than the money they garnered from their jobs. They necessarily gained, again, ex ante from this decision of theirs, and may or may not have also done so ex post depending upon how they looked upon it after the fact.
The point is, whatever they did, quit, join, rejoin, the workforce, they improved the economic in general, because their own well being was boosted. So the headline was problematic in that it strongly implied that work, not any of these other alternatives, was the path to economic improvement.
What, then, are the unmitigated benefits of laboring, that do not apply to any of these other options?
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Economic Error, Wall Street Journal, workforce | Leave a Comment »
MCViewPoint 