By Joe Lauria, Consortium News, 2/4/22

United States plans to weaken Russia by imposing punishing sanctions and bringing world condemnation on Moscow depend on Washington’s hysteria about a Russian invasion of Ukraine actually coming true. 

At his press conference on Tuesday, Vladimir Putin said,

“I still believe the United States is not that concerned about Ukraine’s security, though they may think about it on the sidelines. Its main goal is to contain Russia’s development. This is the whole point. In this sense, Ukraine is simply a tool to reach this goal. This can be done in different ways: by drawing us into some armed conflict, or compelling its allies in Europe to impose tough sanctions on us like the US is talking about today.”

At the U.N. Security Council on Monday, Russia’s U.N. envoy Vassily Nebenzia said: “Our Western colleagues say that de-escalation is needed, but they are the first to build up tension, enhance rhetoric and escalate the situation. Talks about an imminent war are provocative per se. It might seem you call for it, want it and wait for it to come, as if you wanted your allegations to come true.”

The war mania being drummed up in U.S. and British media recalls even Zbigniew Brzezinski‘s warning that “whipping up anti-Russian hysteria … could eventually become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Without an invasion the U.S. seems lost. No sanctions, no world opprobrium, no weakening of Russia.

If the U.S. is trying to lure Russia into a trap in Ukraine, what might it look like?

Offensive on Donbass

Ukraine says it is not planning an offensive against the breakaway provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, which border Russia in the east. But just ten days ago Ukrainian President Zelensky said:

Joe Biden has said a Russian invasion will come in February, when the ground freezes. But it could also be the time for a Kiev offensive to recover the two Donbass provinces. NATO nations are pouring weapons into Ukraine supposedly to defend it against the “invasion.” But the weapons transfers could instead be preparation for an offensive, on orders from Washington. Since the 2014 U.S.-backed coup the U.S. essentially runs the country and all Ukrainian leaders, including Zelensky, serve at the pleasure of the U.S. president.

The ground will also be frozen for Kiev’s forces in February, which was the month of the 2014 coup, while Putin was in Sochi for the Winter Olympics. He is now in Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympics, away from the command center in Moscow. (The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing was also the time Georgia instigated its war with Russia against its renegade provinces at the behest of the United States.) 

When Kiev stepped up attacks against Donbass in March and October 2021, Russia both time increased its troop deployments near the Ukraine border, which this time is being interpreted by Washington as plans for an “imminent” invasion.

It is an invasion the U.S. absolutely needs to implement its plans to weaken Russia (and ultimately to replace Putin with a pliable leader in the mold of Boris Yeltsin.) As Moscow has never openly threatened such an invasion, the U.S. appears to be devising ways to get it.

The Russian ‘Plot’

On Thursday U.S. intelligence leaked what it says is a diabolical scheme by Russia to stage a provocation in Donbass or even on Russian territory itself to provide a pretext for an invasion. The New York Times reported the lurid details of this supposed plot:

“The plan — which the United States hopes to spoil by making public — involves staging and filming a fabricated attack by the Ukrainian military either on Russian territory or against Russian-speaking people in eastern Ukraine.

“Russia, the officials said, intended to use the video to accuse Ukraine of genocide against Russian-speaking people. It would then use the outrage over the video to justify an attack or have separatist leaders in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine invite a Russian intervention.

“The video was intended to be elaborate, officials said, with plans for graphic images of the staged, corpse-strewn aftermath of an explosion and footage of destroyed locations. They said the video was also set to include faked Ukrainian military equipment, Turkish-made drones and actors playing Russian-speaking mourners.”

Of course unsaid is that the U.S. can get Kiev to launch an actual attack, even inside Russia, and then say it was the false flag event, to try to prompt the Russian intervention.

As usual, the U.S. “intelligence officials” refused to provide any evidence for such a plot. “Officials would not release any direct evidence of the Russian plan or specify how they learned of it, saying to do so would compromise their sources and methods,” the Times reported.

That prompted AP State Department Matt Lee to have this exchange with spokesman Ned Price on Thursday. Because Price was unable to produce any evidence he resorted to smearing Lee as taking “solace” in Russian information. 

So if the offensive comes this month, with or without a false flag, how will Russia respond?

Options for Russia

If a major offensive begins to regain Donbass (likely downplayed by Western media) there’s no reason to doubt Russia would continue supplying arms, ammunition, intelligence and logistical support to the militias there.

However if those defenses begin failing the Kremlin would have a major decision to make: intervene with regular Russian units to save the inhabitants, most of whom are Russian-speakers, or abandon them to avoid giving Washington the invasion it seeks to prompt the harsh U.S. response. 

If Russia did not intervene it would see massive refugees, destruction of the Minsk agreements that would give Donbass autonomy and a hostile Ukrainian force at its borders. Putin would also have hell to pay from the Duma that has been moving legislation to annex the provinces to Russia, a move resisted so far by Putin. If they became part of Russia, Moscow would argue it was no invasion at all.

Political analyst Alexander Mercouris told CN Live! on Wednesday that he thought an offensive unlikely because of the low morale of senior Ukrainian military. But, he said:

“If there were an offensive in eastern Ukraine, Russia would back the militia … and if there were a chance of a Ukrainian breakthrough, I think the Russians would respond, and respond decisively. I don’t think this is speculation. If you look at the statements that Russian officials have made, including by [Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov, including to a great extent Putin himself, I think it’s absolutely clear what the Russian response would be.”

But that as long as Donbass remains part of Ukraine that would be the invasion Washington has been screaming about. And it would mean that Russia had taken the bait and fallen into the U.S. trap.

Precedents for a Trap 

There are precedents for this. One is the clear signal given to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein by April Glaspie, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, in 1990 that the U.S. would do nothing to stop him from invading Kuwait. She told Saddam that the U.S. had no “opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.” But it wasn’t just Glaspie that left the door open to Kuwait. The Washington Post reported on Sept. 17, 1990:

“In the same week that Ambassador April Glaspie met a menacing tirade from Saddam with respectful and sympathetic responses, Secretary of State James Baker’s top public affairs aide, Margaret Tutwiler, and his chief assistant for the Middle East, John Kelly, both publicly said that the United States was not obligated to come to Kuwait’s aid if the emirate were attacked. They also failed to voice clear support for Kuwait’s territorial integrity in the face of Saddam’s threats.”

Following the 1979 Islamist revolution in Teheran that overthrew the U.S.-backed Shah, the United States sought to contain Iran by supplying billions of dollars in aid, intelligence, dual-use technology and training to Iraq, which invaded Iran in 1980 spurring an eight-year long brutal war. The devastating conflict ended in a virtual stalemate in 1988 after the loss of one to two million people.

Though neither side won the war, Saddam’s military remained strong enough to be a menace to U.S. interests in the region. The trap was to allow Saddam to invade Kuwait to give the U.S. a reason to destroy Iraq’s military. For instance, retreating Iraqi soldiers were essentially shot in the back in the massacre on the Highway of Death.

The ‘Afghan Trap’

Another U.S. trap was to lure the Soviet Union into Afghanistan in 1979. In a 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, Brzezinski admitted that the C.I.A. essentially set a trap for Moscow by arming mujahiddin to fight the Soviet-backed government in Kabul. He said:

“According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahiddin began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the reality, closely guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

He then explained that the reason for the trap was to bring down the Soviet Union, (much as the U.S. today would like to bring down Putin’s Russia.) Brzezinski said:

“That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: ‘We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.’ Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime, a conflict that bought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.”

Brzezinski said he also had no regrets that financing the mujahideen spawned terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. “What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?,” he asked.

So if the U.S. setting a similar trap in Ukraine for Moscow, will it work?

“I think the Russians are smarter than Saddam,” said military analyst Scott Ritter. “Any Ukrainian incursion into Donbas would be handled by the pro-Russian militias, backed by Russian forces. I don’t think Russia would move on Ukraine unless NATO membership was invoked.”

It remains to be seen whether Russia steps into a U.S. bear trap.

By Bradley Devlin, The American Conservative, 1/25/22

As tensions continue to escalate between Russia and Ukraine, the Ukrainian government’s actors in Washington have kicked their influence efforts into overdrive.

New analysis from the Quincy Institute’s Ben Freeman found the Ukrainian government hired just under a dozen firms registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), shelling out about $2 million last year to firms who lobbied on their behalf. Freeman described the Ukrainian lobby as “small but mighty” in a phone interview with The American Conservative, and said their efforts to influence Washington and America’s political apparatus are intense relative to their modest budget.

While Ukraine’s lobbyists have primarily focused on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline given Russia’s buildup along the Ukrainian borders, they have also spent time on Ukrainian security issues and promoting support for Ukraine’s political system. The completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline would allow Russia to export natural gas directly to the core of Europe via Germany. The pipeline would cut out Ukrainian middlemen, who would continue to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars annually in energy-transit fees if the pipeline’s completion were prevented. In the beginning of his tenure, Biden waived sanctions against Nord Stream 2 construction.

FARA disclosures show Yorktown Solutions, one of the lobbying firms hired by the Ukrainian government to work behind the scenes, received nearly $1 million from the Ukraine Federation of the Employers of the Oil and Gas Industry (UFEOGI) between Dec. 1, 2020 and Nov. 30, 2021. UFEOGI members include the state-owned Naftogaz and several other joint-stock and subsidiary energy enterprises. In that same period of time, UFEOGI’s Yorktown lobbyists made more than 11,000 connections—meetings, emails, and phone calls—with representatives in government (from Congress to the State Department and the National Security Council), think tanks (such as the Atlantic Council and the Heritage Foundation), and media outlets (like Foreign Policy, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and NBC News). Freeman told TAC he’s “never seen something so expansive” as Yorktown’s efforts in his decade-plus of analyzing FARA disclosures.

Read full article here.

By Alexander Baunov, Carnegie Moscow Center, 2/1/22

In some ways, the two sides appear to be negotiating over different things. Russia is talking about its own security, while the West is focusing on Ukraine’s. This switch in focus looks to Russia like an attempt to turn the conversation away from the issue at hand toward less important details. Yet for the West, the security problems it has created for Russia didn’t even exist until very recently. One important consequence of Russia’s actions in articulating its demands is that the West has been forced, albeit unwillingly and cautiously, to recognize that there is even anything to discuss.

Previously, it was the West’s firm position that there could be no threat from market democracies, states governed by the rule of law, and open societies approaching Russia’s borders. If Russia is not a rogue state, what does it have to fear from this? Now, as a result of the ultimatum issued by Russia as it massed its troops on the Ukrainian borders before Christmas—that NATO must pledge never to admit Ukraine into its ranks, and scale back its presence in Eastern Europe—cracks in this position have appeared. The West still believes that it does not pose a threat to anyone, but is now willing to concede that others may view its expansion toward Russia differently, and is prepared to enter discussions in order to prevent such misconceptions from creating very real problems.

So what is the source of Russia’s fears? The modern Western view of security is based on the principle that democracies and autocracies do not pose equal threats. Free market democracies supposedly cannot be a source of aggression or pose a threat of war because their politicians have to answer to voters, and voters do not want to fight and die for their government in an aggressive war, while autocrats can send their people off to die for the regime. Autocrats, therefore, suspect—and not without reason—that until their countries become free market democracies, they will never be afforded equal security rights. The security of people living in autocracies is considered secondary to their freedom.

The question of whether Russia had any concerns for its own security was considered a bad joke: after all, not only was it stronger than its western neighbors, those neighbors were both richer and more advanced in terms of their legal and institutional development. Accordingly, there could be no threat from such neighbors. Yet in the last two hundred years, Russia has been attacked by European armies three times—by countries that were wealthier and more developed, both at a domestic and sometimes institutional level. Soldiers from countries that see themselves as perfectly harmless, such as the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, and Sweden, all waged war on the Russian army and civilians on Russian territory during the last world war, centuries after any Russian soldier had set foot on their land, if ever. So if the generational trauma and fears of Poland, the Baltics, Czechia, and Ukraine can be seriously taken into account as part of their political motivation today, so can Russia’s.

The many months of speculation of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine are in sharp contrast to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s usual method of a swift, covert, and unexpected special operation. It looks, therefore, as though Russia wanted to use Western fears over Ukraine’s security to achieve its broader aims. As those fears grew, so did Russia’s ambitions. Now, with tensions reaching boiling point and the world watching, it’s hard for either side to back down.

But it’s also hard to keep an army mobilized and in field conditions indefinitely. The threat of the use of force is very effective in the short term, but loses value the longer it is drawn out. This explains the deadlines set by Russia in its negotiations with the West. If the West steps out of rhythm with Russia and stops reacting within the given timeframe, Moscow will have to take action to show that it is serious or run the risk of not being listened to next time. It looks like Russia is indeed prepared to take action, even if it is not necessarily the action anticipated right now by foreign observers.

Moscow’s goal is clear: it wants the world to listen to it and to realize that the country speaking is not the same as the one that once lost the Cold War. Russia has a new confidence that has inspired it to revert to the language of the Soviet superpower.

That confidence springs from several sources. The first is Russia’s modernized army and new weapons. Judging by some of Putin’s statements, he is confident that Russia has a temporary technological advantage in some types of weapons, and that the West knows it. Secondly, modern Russia is not the Soviet Union, and did not lose anything to anyone. Finally, the Soviet Union might have had its own military bloc behind it in the form of its Warsaw Pact allies, but Russia likely feels stronger than the Soviet Union ever did, thanks to its partnership with China. Beijing may not be Moscow’s formal military ally, but it’s a reliable source of support with elements of a second anti-Western front. China is also an alternative market and supplier, including of high-tech goods. These are all things that Russia lacked both during the Cold War and in the turbulent 1990s.

In its negotiations with the West, Russia is behaving not like a country preparing to wage war, but like a country that, if necessary, can afford to do so. The aim of the West, on the other hand, is to avoid war. Consequently, Russia can exploit Western fears of war—without actually using force.

Another important asset at Putin’s disposal is the resilience of the Russian people, most of whom remember worse times, though they would of course prefer not to see their return. With the further sanctions it is threatening, the West is capable of worsening the current living standards of ordinary Russians, but so far, nothing it has proposed could make life harder for Russians than it was in the 1990s, when the West was considered a friend of their country. In other words, Russia is better prepared to be cut off from the SWIFT international payment system than Europe is to be cut off from Russian gas supplies.

Read full article here.

This is one of my occasional pieces of media critique. In this one I demonstrate an increasing pattern of corporate media profiting from making and keeping citizens afraid. It’s always imperative when the government or media is trying to make you afraid of something – whether it’s a foreign country/leader, another group of people or a virus – to always ask questions, including who benefits and profits off that fear. – Natylie

By Natylie Baldwin, OpEd News, 2/1/22

Corporate media tends to prioritize sensationalism and scary stories. There is even some evidence that news consumers prefer these types of stories, with the hypothesis being that they do so out of an evolutionary psychological need to prepare for dangers. Nonetheless, inundating consumers with scary stories under the guise of giving them what they want actually results in a distorted view of the world reflected back, leading news consumers to believe that scary things are more prevalent or more intense than they really are. This is antithetical to the purpose of journalism, which is to inform the citizenry so they can make sound decisions in their lives, particularly as it relates to public policy.

We have seen this sensationalist fear-pumping phenomenon over the course of decades where the media goes through a period of obsessive coverage of an issue from child abductions to sexual abuse to terrorism to Covid. Scientists say that a brain overcome with fear bypasses the rational mind and prevents one from thinking calmly and critically. According to the University of Minnesota: “Fear can interrupt processes in our brains that allow us to regulate emotions, read non-verbal cues and other information presented to us, reflect before acting, and act ethically. This impacts our thinking and decision-making in negative ways, leaving us susceptible to intense emotions and impulsive reactions. All of these effects can leave us unable to act appropriately.”

Moreover, being subjected to chronic fear creates long-term psychological and health problems, including brain damage. Constant cycles of fear-mongering by the media over a range of issues that almost seem designed to make a person feel that they best not leave their home unless fitted with a Hazmat suit, bear spray and an assault rifle are not a benign problem.

There is also the fact that fear manipulates people into certain behaviors and to accept certain policies they otherwise would not. This is not a new occurrence as Edward Bernays introduced several different forms of manipulation, based on the psychological theories of his famous uncle Sigmund Freud, into media and advertising as far back as the 1920s.

There are, in fact, several factors that encourage and reinforce the sensationalism and fear that has been growing within the media landscape over time. One factor has been the media’s historical reliance on advertising to make money rather than a focus on selling a quality news product. Newspapers, magazines, broadcasts, and internet programming have historically made much of their money from selling space to corporate advertisers, which consequently drives the motivation to produce content that will grab people’s attention in order to attract advertising dollars. Thus, the emphasis on sensationalist stories focused on sex, violence, danger and scandal. According to the Pew Research Center’s Journalism & Media project, as of 2014, “69% of all domestic news revenue is derived from advertising”

In the years since then, there has reportedly been a decrease in the proportion of traditional advertising revenue with more outlets relying on subscriptions to make money. Readers who pursue these subscriptions, however, are often looking for an outlet to echo their worldview rather than report factually and objectively. This has been primed by years of media outlets moving toward providing emotionally addictive and divisive echo chambers that appeal to a particular political party and focusing digital advertising to the preferences of that particular demographic rather than a neutral, fact-based presentation of the news.

Budget cuts and the speed of online technology have created another factor that contributes to sensationalist junk reporting. With online news and social media creating more pressure than ever to get stories up fast, combined with less advertising revenue from traditional print and television sources, churnalism – the use of information from press releases – is encouraged as reporters simply don’t have the luxury of taking days (or even hours) to hunt down the facts, details and nuances of a story, apply critical thinking and analysis, and submit it to rigorous fact checking.

A 2008 survey by Nick Davies found that 80 percent of articles in major British media like The Guardian and The Independent regurgitated corporate press releases or other news agency articles. Similarly, a 2014 survey by Business Wire revealed, the vast majority of journalists rely on press releases by PR firms to provide them with breaking news (77%) and factual support for articles (70%). In fact, churnalism was recognized as a serious enough problem by the Media Standards Trust to motivate the creation of a website, churnalism.com, which provides a “churn engine” that viewers can paste press releases into and find articles in the database that quote directly from or heavily rely upon “reproduced publicity material,” receiving a high score on the churnalism meter.

All this underscores that much of what passes for journalism in recent years is derivative and not based on original and on-the-ground reporting. This explains so many major news outlets repeating the same narrative in lockstep even when it turns out to be wrong.

If media actors take seriously their journalistic duty to inform accurately and objectively, then this is a problem that needs to be addressed. Otherwise, corporate media is not journalism but toxic infotainment. There is plenty of evidence that the corporate media has descended even more dangerously into infotainment in recent years.

How the Corporate Media Created the Trump Circus and Kept it Going for Profit

Going in to the 2016 election, Americans’ trust in the corporate media in general was low; this was reflected in dismal cable TV news ratings and paltry subscriptions to the New York Times.

The campaign and election of Donald Trump would soon change all of that, however. The Trump circus was actively encouraged by the media, which gave him an estimated $2 billion in free media time. Leslie Moonves, then-CEO of CBS, actually admitted during the 2016 campaign in reference to the ad revenue that the Trump candidacy was bringing in for the media: “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”

Those media ratings and subscriptions were kept high during the Trump administration with the Russiagate conspiracy theory – eventually discredited – given constant coverage. Journalist and media critic Matt Taibbi explained in a 2017 interview with The Real News how keeping the Russiagate narrative going with constant innuendo that Trump was on the cusp of getting removed from office (remember how many times “the walls were closing in”?) ensured that viewers would keep tuning in and the money would keep rolling in for the media:

From the media standpoint, I think what people have to understand is that a lot of this is about money. The Russia story sells incredibly well and cable networks that traditionally have not made a lot of money are making a lot of money with this story. So I understand that the relentless emphasis on the Russia story makes a lot of sense from the networks’ point of view because it creates among viewers this impression that the fate of the nation may be decided any minute. This is like they’re selling it as a kind of Watergate sequel, so you have to tune in every night. Not just on election night, you have to keep tuning in.

In other words, it was bad melodrama but it kept fans coming back each day. Unfortunately, that isn’t the definition of journalism, it’s the definition of a soap opera. And it kept the nation divided and on edge as liberal Democrats had their fears that Trump, in cahoots with Vladimir Putin, was going to destroy American democracy and implant a fascist dictatorship reinforced daily. Trump supporters, on the other hand, felt that their hero was under siege and had to keep tuning in to their media outlets of choice for the latest.

Covid Rising

When Trump finally left office, cable news ratings, most notably CNN and MSNBC, plummeted. The Covid pandemic was soon decoupled from the Trump presidency and then ascended on its own to the trauma drama that had to be kept going, keeping people frightened, divided and controlled. A report revealed in November of 2020 that the media maintained a negative narrative about Covid even when real-life trends were more positive. One of the findings included the observation that “Stories of increasing COVID-19 cases outnumber stories of decreasing cases by a factor of 5.5 even during periods when new cases are declining.”

Meanwhile, the Covid pandemic and how to respond to it had become intensely politicized. People who had questions about the vaccines, which did not undergo the usual long-term testing and utilized new technology, or wanted to look into early treatment options were automatically labeled right-wing conspiracy theorists and hayseed Trumpers who imbibed horse paste. Those who largely accepted the hysteria and happily lined up for numerous shots without question and advocated for the unvaccinated to lose their jobs, homes, and ability to participate in society were labeled the enlightened white hats. Instead of allowing an informed debate on how best to address the effects of the virus with the least amount of collateral damage, dividing lines were drawn and anyone who didn’t adhere to the narrative presented by one side or the other was the enemy. There was little middle ground with respect to most media coverage as keeping people tuning in for the latest case statistics and apocalyptic depictions became paramount.

At this point, a fair question to ask is: who benefits from continuing to stoke fear, both as it relates to Covid and more generally?

The Financial Beneficiaries of Covid Fearmongering

With respect to the Covid pandemic there are some parties who definitely have a financial stake in influencing the media to push, not only the most sensationalist fearmongering about the virus, but to push for specific solutions to the danger at the exclusion of other possible solutions. A popular video has made the rounds on YouTube that is a compilation of how many corporate media TV and cable shows are funded by Pfizer, the manufacturer of the most commonly used Covid vaccine in the U.S. and the only one of the three to have full approval from the FDA as opposed to just emergency use authorization.

Most major media are owned by one of six corporate conglomerates: AT&T/Time Warner (owner of CNN), Comcast (owner of NBC/MSNBC), Disney (owner of ABC), Newscorp (owner of Wall Street Journal and New York Post), Viacom (owner of CBS), and Fox Corp. Furthermore, there exists financial incest among corporate media owners and those with financial investments in the three Covid vaccines used in the U.S. Two of the biggest such financial entities with interests in the major media companies and all three of the vaccine makers are Blackrock Fund Advisors and Vanguard Group, Inc.

Blackrock is the world’s largest asset manager with approximately $9.5 trillion in assets. It also has the distinction of being the largest investor in weapons manufacturers. Vanguard is worth about $7 trillion in assets. Blackrock, with strong ties to the Biden administration, has received criticism in the past for using its power to evade government regulation and accountability. Meanwhile both Vanguard and Blackrock have come under scrutiny for their increasing control of so much of the corporate world through institutional ownership of stock as to be on the way toward monopolization.

Blackrock and Vanguard are the two largest investors in the ownership of The New York Times Company. They hold similar ownership stakes for all six of those corporate owners of mass media in the U.S.: AT&T (in top 2), Comcast (in top 3), Disney (in top 2), Viacom (in top 3), Newscorp (in top 3), and even Fox Corp. (in top 5). They also hold the highest institutional ownership stakes in Pfizer, Moderna (in top 3), and Johnson and Johnson (in top 3).

Could this help explain the near-cult status of vaccinations as the solution to the Covid pandemic while early treatments – which until recently involved cheaper drugs that would not have provided a profit for these major corporate entities – were repressed? After all, we were told repeatedly that Covid policy was about saving lives. But if it was really about saving lives, then wouldn’t we want every possible weapon in our arsenal to combat Covid? Why was there downright hostility toward even looking into Ivermectin and other cheap medications that had been around for many years?

The fact that fear – especially a constant state of fear – can interfere with a person’s ability to think clearly, critically, and ethically was a convenient advantage for those with a financial stake in both the media – the facilitator of fear – and the vaccine makers – the profit-making providers of the purported only solution to the cause of the fear.

How Average People Were Hurt by Covid Fearmongering

In addition to the negative long-term psychological affects mentioned above that can result from being subjected to constant fear, many Americans were adversely affected in other significant ways by extreme Covid measures that were implemented due to that constantly stoked fear among the public.

Many Americans lost their financial security through a reduction in hours or complete loss of jobs or small businesses due to lockdowns and other long-term restrictions. A recent comprehensive article on the negative effects of Covid policy on the poor and working class published at The Grayzone reported:

In the US in 2020, 40 percent of people making under $40,000 annually lost work, and almost three million women were driven out of the workforce due to an inability to balance work and caregiving and virtual learning obligations for children who could no longer attend in-person school or daycare.

It was estimated that in 2020 alone, almost 30 percent of small businesses – about 9.4 million – closed either temporarily or permanently.

The CARES Act, passed quickly in an atmosphere of social panic that required the government to help its citizens, actually resulted in the transfer of billions of dollars to the wealthiest Americans. This included a corporate bailout fund overseen by the Treasury Department that could be leveraged to trillions of dollars, a $90 billion tax break for Americans in 2020 with incomes over $1 million, $243 million in tax subsidies for large corporations, and $10 billion in fees made by banks to assist small business owners in getting government loans that were supposed to help them through the pandemic.

Americans also lost many of their most basic rights and liberties as well as their sense of being recognized as human beings with inherent dignity and worth. Instead, the new norm has been to increasingly view our fellow humans as disease vectors who should be shamed for making health choices that differ from the groupthink regardless of the reasons.

What started out as lockdowns meant to “slow the spread” and not overwhelm hospitals for a couple of weeks, based largely on ultimately discredited modeling projections from a British academic with a history of discredited projections for viruses, turned into rolling lockdowns depending on the ebb and flow of Covid cases for nearly two years. Eventually many other western countries like Austria and Germany – who have touted themselves as democracies for the rest of the world to emulate – began implementing what amounts to Covid-apartheid regimes for the unvaccinated in response to a virus with an overall 0.15 fatality rate and a fatality rate of .05 for the non-elderly.

Meanwhile, the costs in terms of the deterioration in general mental and physical health have been disastrous as further figures from The Grayzone article reflect:

As lockdowns drove inequality in the US, millions skipped routine medical care such as childhood vaccinations and cancer screenings, because the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommended that hospitals suspend non-essential and elective procedures. In May 2021, almost ten million routine screenings were missed in the United States, while other preventative health visits declined on a mass scale due to elective procedure suspensions, which may also lead to worsening public health problems in the long-term.

Due to the CDC’s recommendations, 1.4 million medical workers lost their jobs in April 2020. One medical record company estimated that screening for breast, colorectal, and cervical cancers dropped by 80% to 90% during March and April of 2020 compared to the same months in 2019. Now, the US is struggling with a surge of cancers and other ailments that went undetected because of overzealous and overly broad lockdowns.

Mental health issues have also been exacerbated by Covid policies. Depression and anxiety increased, along with opioid overdoses, and domestic and child abuse. Suicide attempts among teenagers and young adults have also risen significantly during the pandemic.

Media Accountability

Most media malpractice, from WMDs to Russiagate to Covid, reflects an official government narrative. In Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky describe how journalists often have a close source relationship with government officials who work for various agencies because it’s an efficient and cost-effective way to obtain information about crime, disasters, regulations and other activity presided over or handled by government authorities. In turn, we know that those government authorities serve the interests of their rich and powerful donors. Sometimes those government authorities are even appointed from the donor class.

The job of journalists – representing the mythical fourth estate – is supposed to be informing citizens and providing a check on abuse by the powerful. These days what passes for journalism seems to be facilitating that abuse by repeating the narrative of the corporate and government abusers and shutting down debate.

If recent history is any indication, within a couple of years there will be a few articles here and there reluctantly asking “How did we get taken in by the nonsense?” But no lessons will actually be learned, no one responsible will actually be held accountable, and the government and media will move on to the next sensational distortion that will harm regular people while benefiting the powerful.

The Spanish newspaper El Pais obtained a copy of the written responses provided to Russia by both NATO and the U.S. The U.S. rejected Russia’s main security concerns regarding NATO expansion but offered significant negotiations on arms control issues. The responses can be read here.

Below is an excerpt from a summary report by Antiwar.com:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been concerned that US MK 41 missile launchers that are deployed in Romania can fit Tomahawk missiles that could potentially target Russia. In the written response, the US said that it was willing to discuss a “transparency mechanism to confirm the absence of Tomohawk cruise missiles” at US bases in Romania and Poland.

In exchange for the verification method, which would likely be in the form of on-site inspections, the US wants Russia to offer “reciprocal transparency measures on two ground-launched missile bases of our choosing in Russia.”

Russia is also seeking a mutual ban on the deployment of short and medium-range missiles in Europe that were previously prohibited under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which the US withdrew from in 2019. The US said it’s prepared to start talks on “arms control for ground-based intermediate and shorter-range missiles and their launchers.”

…Another major concern for Moscow is the potential deployment of US missiles and combat troops to Ukraine. The US said it’s “prepared to discuss conditions-based reciprocal transparency measures and reciprocal commitments by both the United States and Russia to refrain from deploying offensive ground-based missile systems and permanent forces with a combat mission on the territory of Ukraine.”

Read full article here.

Russia analyst Andrey Baklitskiy published a thread on Twitter yesterday breaking down the responses and how they will likely be viewed in Moscow. I have embedded a link to the thread below:

https://mobile.twitter.com/baklitskiy/status/1488898262937518091