Currently the number of so-called experts and other commentators who are trotted out to sell their wares regarding the subjects of Russia and Ukraine on YouTube is still high. Google, the search engine a high percentage of western populations use, has long since modified their algorithms to place the pro-Ukrainian, anti-Russian YouTube videos and articles at the top of search results on these subjects. It is almost impossible to find any independent and objective analysis via Google or other readily available search engines. This produces a completely skewed array of opinion that in turn provides an overall picture that excludes a good half (and in fact much more) of the reality on the ground.
The situation above is self-perpetuating to a significant degree. Half the story (or in fact much less) constantly told, produces a certain effect in those watching or reading who are already inclined (through lack of knowledge) to wish to hear this kind of material. In other words, an existing prejudice based upon initial encounters through western mainstream news media creates a certain need for reinforcement. An opinion that one side is bad and the other good thrives on hearing that one is correct in the earliest assumption fed by entities such as the BBC or CNN. And what is the end result of all this constant reinforcement of a highly partial reality? In a nutshell, delusion, or at the very least an almost complete lack of skepticism.
It is quite surprising after the era of regime change wars and the justifications used for them (mostly useful fabrications if not outright lies) that we find ourselves in that skepticism appears to be in such short supply. After all, we are in the Information Age, are we not? Almost everyone has access to a near universal array of facts concerning just about anything under the sun… if you know where to look. There’s the nub. Do we look? Are we interested enough to look, to look at things in the round? Or are we generally more interested these days in finding the “facts” that fit our way of looking at things (as guided by the news media that permeates our lives)? How many of us eschew the headlines and take the time to dig deeper below and beyond them? Does it even reach 0.1% of us? Yet, if you ask most people they will have an opinion about the conflict in Ukraine, and often a very strong one, a dismissive one even.
Does the average person really want to know the facts even? Is there not a risk they will engender emotions which the average Joe and Jill would rather not have. Don’t blind me with facts they say. Just give me a headline that seems to make sense and a few paragraphs telling me how bad they are ‘over there’. Then I’ll be happy, satisfied that I know what’s going on and who to blame if the subject comes up in the pub or at the hairdressers. But overall let’s not talk about it.
The deluge of anti-Putin, anti-Russian sentiment on YouTube, in newspapers, magazines and books has been incessant longer than some of us have been alive. What else are people to believe, lacking the curiosity to examine any accusations in detail, but accept all of it as fact on the basis there’s no smoke without fire and surely all these supposedly intelligent people can’t be wrong? That truly independent experts would tell them that they certainly can be is not something most people are going to realize unless they happen to be motivated to dig deeper than the latest headline. Headline surfers will certainly sleep well at night on the premise that ignorance is bliss. Or else, when the powers-that-be consider it necessary they can be fired up emotionally to call for the actions those powers-that-be need from time to time.
We didn’t use to be such malleable sheep, made to sleep or bleat to order. There were times now long past when journalists attempted to deliver something closer to reality to their readers and viewers. There have been such people, believe it or not. If you are of a certain age you will know the names of the following: John Pilger, Seymour Hersh, and Robert Fisk. Of the three only Seymour Hersh survives. These were men of integrity and independence who tended to work freelance, seeking to find the core of the subject they were on the trail of, unaccepting of easy answers and one-sided narratives. Their much younger, modern day equivalents do exist but as with those they surely accredit as their heroes, they work quite independently of the main news media and the requirements they demand of them. Max Blumenthal, Aaron Maté and Chris Hedges.
There has been a sea change in how journalism is done in its usual, mainstream incarnation. It is no longer particularly investigative. It has become more a channel to communicate views. The rot appears to have started after support for the Vietnam War was essentially brought to a close in the USA due to the reporting of facts. When the West’s regime change wars of choice began after the events of 9/11 journalists no longer covered them from the battlefield itself but were instead “embedded” among the various militaries taking part. They were given nightly briefings, i.e. they were essentially told what to report. This was a lot easier, safer and more comfortable for a new breed of journalists who found this quite convenient. It was also extremely convenient and helpful for the western states who wished certain narratives to be broadcast and certain inconvenient realities ignored.
So, here we are, now, in these modern times of war, war and more war within a news flowchart where certain facts are “okay” for distribution as they fit the chosen narratives of western political elites and where certain facts are not. Those who wish to manipulate certain expectations and emotions and dampen others can do so easily, and by this convenient chain of narrative creation build a fabricated, highly partial reality among populations conditioned to readily believe them, and to have their already existing prejudices reinforced. George Orwell would have no problem identifying the system that has been so deftly created with the complicity of all western mainstream news outlets. The wall-to-wall nature of totalitarian information control would be very familiar to him. It is just as he foresaw it in his novel ‘1984’ only in all its modern form, without the hero of ‘1984’, Winston Smith to undermine it.
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Wikipedia:
‘The story takes place in an imagined future. The current year is uncertain, but believed to be 1984. Much of the world is in perpetual war. Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, has become a province of the totalitarian superstate Oceania, which is led by Big Brother, a dictatorial leader supported by an intense cult of personality manufactured by the Party's Thought Police. The Party engages in omnipresent government surveillance and, through the Ministry of Truth, historical negationism and constant propaganda to persecute individuality and independent thinking.
The protagonist, Winston Smith, is a diligent mid-level worker at the Ministry of Truth who secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion. Smith keeps a forbidden diary. He begins a sexual relationship with a colleague, Julia, and they learn about a shadowy resistance group called the Brotherhood. However, their contact within the Brotherhood turns out to be a Party agent, and Smith and Julia are arrested. He is subjected to months of psychological manipulation and torture by the Ministry of Love. He ultimately betrays Julia and is released; he finally realizes he loves Big Brother.’
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There is a somewhat happy ending in the case of the Russian-Ukraine conflict however. The actuality of which western publics are only granted (through the mainstream) to less than half, is breaking through the western media facade. Russian victories on the battlefields are becoming too obvious and too numerous now, they are becoming harder and harder for legacy media owners, editors, “journalists” and commentators to ignore. Much to their chagrin, actuality is starting to break through their carefully constructed “news” mirages of Ukrainian “success”. Tall tales concerning Zelensky, Syrsky and their talents and achievements are sounding thin and rather desperate. The recent incursion into the Russian region of Kursk is only the latest of a number of desperate schemes to generate enough headlines to make western populations believe they are being successful still.
The truth is that Russia is winning, has been winning and now is winning big. The illusion with which western news media elites have been deluding western viewers on YouTube and readers of print media is now unsustainable. The Orwellian milieu of creating lies absorbed by many in the West wish alacrity is failing fast. Russian territorial gains are happening at an ever faster pace. As these occur, more and more of those like Winston Smith who don’t like being lied to or being part of the fabrication factory that is western mainstream news, are speaking out. The percentage of those happy to hear comforting lies is reducing. No doubt they will seek out more lies to comfort them as time goes by… but those lies are going to be harder and harder to make convincing. And ultimately we will all be able to recognize the true situation and outcome of the Russian-Ukraine conflict, a total and absolutely conclusive, Russian victory.
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