UKRAINE & THE WESTERN AGENDA: COMPLEXITY, SIMPLICITY, SIMPLE-MINDEDNESS AND INSIGHT

Are any geopolitical situations completely simple? I don't think so. Why then are they often portrayed in the simplest of forms at times, especially via mass media?

Simple geopolitical circumstances must surely be almost as rare as hens' teeth. On the contrary I would suggest that the briefest look into any decent history book will tell the average reader that instead they are intensely complex and take a great deal of understanding to gain a clear picture of all that is involved.

Yet what do we see across western mass media? A plain and simple story of good and evil with Ukraine being wholly good and Russia wholly evil. What benefit to anyone is such an analysis, if such a word can be applied to such a portrayal? It is certainly not designed to inform as this would require a portrayal of events reflecting a due degree of complexity including the reasons for the 'other side' doing what they are doing other than simply that they are demons in human form perpetrating acts of evil, unrepentant, irredeemable and that the only fitting response is to fight them to a standstill.

Is this approach not to some degree simple-minded? Yet we are talking of such prestigious entities as the BBC in the UK and CNN in the USA. Is it truly the case that they know their approach is simplistic (if not quite simple-minded)? I do wonder. Their stance is four-square alongside that of the UK and U.S. state positions without so much as a cigarette paper between them.

Russia does have its reasons for every action seen playing out in Ukraine, reasons that reflect its own national interests and the interests of the Russian-speaking people of Ukraine, most of whom who live in the eastern Ukraine region known as the Donbass. However, to the BBC, CNN and virtually all other western mainstream news entities, to even speak of these is regarded as tantamount to support for them.

Those who are of a more intellectual mental bent are no doubt discussing the entire scenario playing out in Ukraine currently along with the long history leading up to them stretching back to the second world war and long before. But BBC and CNN editors have clearly made the decision that there must be a clear dividing point between what is known and relevant and what is required to be shown and useful.

Here we see an agenda has been formed. This is quite clear and distinct. No one with a mind unprejudiced on these matters but with a decent understanding of the factors involved on both sides can fail to notice this. The BBC and CNN et al are fully behind the Kiev authorities and fully against those of Russia. The output they channel to their viewers can hardly then under these circumstances be called news. It is perhaps better defined as the conveyance to the western public of the latest positions held by western states in their alliance against Russia and the helpful descriptions that will hopefully add support to these positions.

This is where simplicity conveyed to the sometimes simple-minded comes in conflict with the principles of journalism including balance, freedom from bias and impartiality which categorise the best of journalism as it has been known to date.

Journalists have morphed in recent times to become commentators and in the present war mode situation have morphed once more into state stenographers.

For all the reasons above I have therefore titled this text:

UKRAINE & THE WESTERN AGENDA: COMPLEXITY, SIMPLICITY, SIMPLE-MINDEDNESS AND INSIGHT