Let us look at the latest crisis in the Ukraine.
There has been a Western view of the Ukraine which has lined up precisely with the views of the US state, both major political parties, the entire US media and almost all of Europe.
That is the pro-US, anti-Russia view of the situation in which Russia is 100% evil, the separatists in the Crimea and Eastern Europe are puppets whose strings are being pulled by Russia, the putchist regime that came into power via violent coup against a Democratically elected government are the democratic and pro-freedom heroes, the democratically elected former government overthrown by a violent coup was a violent dictator who needed to be overthrown by Maidan freedom fighters, Russia is an aggressive power similar to Hitler’s Nazi Germany who is trying to conquer foreign lands for his Russian lebensraum just as Hitler did, the putschist regime is a neutral power valiantly fighting to resist the Putin/Nazi military conquest of their nation, the annexation of the Crimea, always traditionally a part of Russia, back to its Russian homeland is an “anschluss” similar to Hitler’s violent conquest of Austria and Czechoslovakia with which it has nothing common, Putin is a fascist military dictator, the separatists in the East are anti-Semitic fascist like Communist lovers of Lenin and Stalin, on and on and on.
Well, almost all of this narrative is a total lie, but the West is in surprising agreement about this bit of fiction. The Western media has been about as objective as the USSR’s Pravda or North Korea’s media at the moment. Western media has simply become an outlet for the most outrageous propaganda, distortion and out and out lies. That has been its role anyway, in the US since the end of World War 2 and in Europe only recently, but this is a particularly egregious example of blatant totalitarian type propaganda.
Let us look at freedom of speech (TM) and freedom of the press (TM) in the US, head of the Free World (TM).
Extreme Right, nationalist, populist or racist right including Pat Buchanan types: Most of them are pro-Russian, which is interesting. They have no newspapers, no newsmagazines, no TV stations and no radio stations. They do have a presence on the Internet, but there is not a lot of traffic on these sites.
Hard Right, right wing of the Republican party: party line as laid out above, strong pro-US, strong anti-Russia.
Right, mainstream Republican Party: party line as laid out above, strong pro-US, strong anti-Russia.
Liberal Right, Liberal Republicans, almost an extinct species: party line as laid out above, strong pro-US, strong anti-Russia.
Centrist, splitting the difference between the two parties, cynical corporate invertebrates: party line as laid out above, strong pro-US, strong anti-Russia.
Conservative Left, right wing of the Democratic Party, conservative Democrats: party line as laid out above, strong pro-US, strong anti-Russia.
Left, mainstream Democratic Party, increasingly corporatist: party line as laid out above, strong pro-US, strong anti-Russia.
Hard Left, left wing of the Democratic Party, liberals, base of the party, often “lesser of two evils” invertebrates though: party line as laid out above, strong pro-US, strong anti-Russia.
Extreme Left, Leftists, socialists, Communists, etc, marginal to US politics, only pro-worker faction left in the US: Split, many are pro-Russia, however some like Super Jew (Lou the Jew) Louis Proyect and the magazine The Nation, are taking the party line above, and some of the Left are not really taking the pro-Russian line but more a sort of neutrality, let’s find a peaceful solution head in sand ignorant approach. Nevertheless, among the Leftist media is the only place where there is some freedom of speech on this issue.
The Leftist media in the US no newspapers, no major newsmagazines but some minor ones, no TV news, and no major radio news stations, although there is maybe one Left radio station on the dial at least here in California, where we have Pacifica Radio which gets some public funds that the Congress is always trying to cut off, thereby killing the station. There is some Internet presence, but traffic here is low.
As you can see, there is almost no freedom of speech or freedom of press in the US on this issue because nearly the entire political spectrum and nearly 100% of the media is in line with the state propaganda line.
Freedom of speech is useless when the entire so-called political spectrum agrees. If they are all going to agree, why call it a spectrum at all? Freedom is press in the US is the same as it has always been – freedom of press here belongs to those who own a printing press, who are all rich and conservative. Freedom of press is pointless when all the newspapers, newsmagazines, TV news and nearly all the radio news is saying the same thing. Why bother to have a freedom of the press if all the media is going to say the same thing anyway?
