Sustaining Consent: How US Media Mafia Fuels US Imperialist War Machine.
The US never ending wars would not be possible if not for their corporate owned media. Journalists turn into sales reps for weapons manufacturers, rewriting history and reality to do so.
Introducing Maddow.
The Rachel Maddow Show or TRMS as it is known on MSNBC was one of the highest-rated shows for years, especially post the 2016 US presidential elections. She was best known for her rage against the Trump regime’s corruption and collusion with Russia. However, as the Meuller Report made it clear, despite business interests in Russia and failed real-estate deals, there was no evidence of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia.
That did not stop Rachel. Since the Meuller report, Maddow continued to and to some extent increased her anti-Russia rhetoric.
In hindsight, Russiagate was manufacturing consent for a war with Russia, that the Democratic Party regimes have been ginning up since the Russians got involved in Syria and the Maidan coup in Ukraine, both occurring in 2014.
During the 2016 presidential debate, Hillary Clinton as much admitted her administration would go to war with Russia over Syria.
Joe Biden’s rhetoric against Russia after he left the VP office over Ukraine, is secret to nobody. In essence, war with Russia and regime change in Russia have long been a dream of Democratic Party neo-cons.
In a recent 26000 word report by prize-winning journalist, Jeff Girth debunks Russiagate and provides a scathing review of media commentators like Rachel Maddow for their wrongful, dishonest coverage.
Sadly for Maddow, once COVID-19 became the new national and international obsession, her anti-Russia rants lost popularity. Her show slid in ratings. For a brief period, Maddow quit MSNBC’s main roster. She continued to have a shorter version of TRMS on the network. However, ratings are everything in the modern news business and Maddow lost her mojo. Rachel went from having a daily show to a weekly show on MSNBC. Once a week of Russophobia was enough according to NBC. Some on the independent news circuits described her Putin and Russia obsession as “Russiagate worms”.
In December 2021, Russia made their last efforts to negotiate with the West over Ukraine, their security concerns and the EU’s security concerns. Anthony Blinken rejected the offer for peace and claimed famously, “everything was on the table, including a hot war”.
Rachel was back again. The anti-Russia rant time again. Since December 2021 Maddow spends most of her time interviewing neo-cons who entered the US into disastrous wars like Iraq or Libya. Let’s study a couple of her recent segments which are shameless propaganda to rile up the war fervour.
Unhinged Propaganda.
1. SMUG RANTS AGAINST AN ANTI-WAR RALLY IN D.C.
For well over a couple of months, people from the Libertarian Party and the People’s Party were trying to bring together speakers for an anti-war rally. So Rachel’s first lie; was a rather spontaneous rally.
Russian and former soviet flags;
Rachel deliberately omits all the Ukrainian flags and placards that were around at the rally. One of the attendees, Sabrina Salvati said in an interview at The Hill’s Rising show, “there were several people at the rally with Ukrainian flags”...in attendance were Proud Boys and those from the Charlottesville neo-nazi rally of 2017;
this was debunked by almost any attendee interviewed after the rally. Rachel Maddow sold her propaganda and downplayed the event that was attended by approximately 1500 people...it was a small rally, and a really weird one;
Having lived in the US for a while, and having seen the anti-Russia narratives, and the hate-filled news shows daily, 1500 was a good outcome.
But if the size of a rally calls for mockery, so has she covered the rallies that have been occurring for over two months in Europe? Niet again! Demonstrations culminated in over 100,000 people in Germany in all major cities. No coverage on TRMS.
A recent anti-NATO and anti-war rally in Paris saw a minimum of 50,000 in attendance taking over the streets of Paris and bringing the city roads to a halt. Did Rachel cover this event? No.
”New demonstration against the subsidy of the war in Ukraine 🇺🇦 and the exit of France 🇫🇷 from NATO.The media continue to ignore us, but resistance is mounting in France 👊
👉 Thousands of people in Paris this 02/26/23”
Complete omission of many speakers and attendees;
in her passion for war and neo-con Democrats, Rachel forgot to mention a list of speakers who have been advocating against the war efforts against Russia since 2016. Amongst the ignored were Chris Hedges, Roger Waters, Dennis Kucinich, Jill Stein, David Swanson, Gerald Celente, Garland Nixon, Ron Paul, and Scott Horton to name a few. Medea Benjamin, one of the most famous anti-war activists in the US couldn’t speak on the stage but showed her support by taking pictures of herself with other attendees. Code Pink was represented by Ann Write on the stage. What a weird bunch of well-known weirdos according to Rachel.
2. STRAIGHT-UP LYING ABOUT UKRAINE.
Rachel Maddow was interviewed about the Ukraine war where she straight up lies about how the war started and how the only just end to this war would be Russia losing.
Ukraine was minding its own business when Russia just came in;
Rachel conveniently forgot that the Obama administration led a violent coup in Ukraine ousting Viktor Yanukovich in 2014. Here is a leaked audio of then U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland in her own words selecting the leadership of Ukraine post-Viktor Yanukovich.Russia was provoked, blah, blah blah blah;
Rachel Maddow dismisses the fact that Russia was provoked, gaslighting her ignorant audience. Post-Maidan 2014, nazi factions in Ukraine held important positions in the new government. The rage and hate for everything Russian were evident. The war on Donbas by nazi factions like the Azov Batallion and The Right Sector is omitted by Rachel to sell her hate for Russia and Russians. Here is former far-right, neo-nazi president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko talking about people in Donbas.There can’t be negotiations;
True Rachel, there can’t be negotiations because Russians do not trust the West. Negotiations were reached in 2015 between Ukraine and Russia, with France and Germany being the guarantors. Russia pushed for the Minsk and Minsk 2 accords for eight long years. Despite the people of Donbas urging Putin to help militarily, it was not until reports were out that the Azov battalion had multiple brigades headed towards Donbas. This caused Putin to recognize the legitimacy of the Luganks and Donetsk Republics and enter Ukraine. Here is then Ukrainian President Poroshenko revealing how Ukraine, France and Germany fooled the Russians as they continued to bombard Donbas for eight years.
Russia has to lose;
Western media outlets used to cover the nazi problem in Ukraine. Rarely, but they covered Donbas and the suffering of the people. Western news media routinely called Ukraine the most corrupt nation in Europe. However, since December 2021, the coverage has been whitewashed to valourize the nazis. As the West bans Russian media, most people in the West do not know what the Russian strategy for this war is, what their goals are and when they plan to end this misery. With the loss in Bakhmut nearing, having lost close to 80,000 troops in Bakhmut alone, Ukraine must cut their losses. Ukraine wanted to negotiate back in March and April of 2022 when the war had just begun. It was the US and UK that blocked these negotiations that would have kept these regions within Ukrainian borders with a Russian retreat. So the truth Rachel can’t tell you due to her severe hatred for Russia is that Ukraine will lose. The question is how many more Ukrainians will the US and NATO sacrifice.
The Blowback.
The United States has a long history of arming fascist elements and facing blowback. They funded the military build-up of nazi Germany, which ended in Hitler invading American allies in Europe. The blowback is real and it kills.
Volodymyr Zelenksyy won his election to bring peace between Donbas and western Ukraine. When he advanced his efforts to implement the Minsk 2 agreement, the Azov nazis publically threatened his life.
2 Ukrainian diplomats who were pushing for peace with Russia in March-April 2022 were assassinated by Azov forces in the Ukrainian intelligence force SBU.
Poland took in over 2 million Ukrainian refugees and had to introduce a bill to denounce Banderism in the Polish parliament. Banderism is an extreme version of nazism led by Stepan Bandera. His beliefs were so extreme that the German nazis had to imprison him for ‘hate crimes’.
Nazi plots of terrorism by Ukrainian refugees were reported in Germany, UK and Italy. This got zero focus from the western media.
Soon after Rachel Maddow mocked the anti-war rally, there was a pro-Ukraine and pro-war rally held in D.C. It featured the Ukrainian Ambassador to the US and the ever-war-loving Samantha Power.
This pro-war rally featured several Right Sector nazi flags alongside Ukrainian flags. Placards with Nazi insignias were everywhere. Of course, nazi flags are not as dangerous as Russian or Soviet Union flags, right Rachel?
Just some of the nazi flags and placards at the "pro-Ukraine" rally. Rachel Maddow falsely claimed there were Proud boys and Trumpian nazis at the Peace rally she mocked only to fearmonger her audience. However, she is fine with pro-war rally attendees with nazi flags and insignia because this is a war led by the Democrats, and Joe Biden is not Donald Trump.
What will happen to all the armed nazis in Kyiv and Western Ukraine? CBS reported and then deleted their report on how only 30% of arms being sent to Ukraine are reaching the frontlines.Conclusion.
Rachel Maddow never covered the above anti-Russia rally. She could not have. There were nazi flags in such abundance, it would have been impossible for her editors to manipulate the video footage.
Nazis slaughtered 27 million Russians during World War II. The trauma of Nazis and Western colonialism is a daunting reality that has cost at least 100 million Russian lives in their recent wars against fascists. This is the real history. As Dr Gerald Horne says, “if you don’t know the history, you can’t understand the present or the future”.
The banning of Russian media, Russian art, Russian literature, Russian musicians, Russian everything resides in the historical otherization of Russians. This is not anti-Putin. This is anti-Russian. It’s about hate.
Rachel Maddow is a perfect encapsulation of news media failing to report reality. Recent polls show only 40% of Americans support sending aid to Ukraine and the war against Russia. It is no longer about ‘manufacturing consent’. With generations of cold war propaganda, Americans now have war in their DNA. It is about ‘sustaining consent’ enough till the next war.
The Biden administration pulled out of Afghanistan, tanking weapon manufacturers’ stocks in July 2021. They reject peace deals and ramped up a hot war with Russia by December 2021. Now while the war in Ukraine still looms large, the Biden administration is already war-mongering against China.
War is the racket, and news is in the business of omitting reality every day while the common man and woman’s lives get worse. Rachel Maddow shows us that news is no longer synonymous with truth or reality. Since the loss of Hillary Clinton in 2016, the switch in the Democratic Party leaning media towards warmongering against the world is a dire crisis. The real danger of Maddow’s deliberate omission of facts on her show is her viewers. TRMS reached high levels of popularity because Democrats were loyal viewers. They believed Russiagate, which was debunked as a nothing burger. They continue to be incredibly propagandized by Maddow’s continual hatred for Russia. Most of her viewers believe they are supporting a just cause in supporting war, while historically Democrats used to lean more towards being anti-war. Her viewers are the partisan primary voters who decide Democratic Party’s nominations during presidential primaries. How can there be just elections when the voters are totally brainwashed and ahistorical?
People in the heart of the US empire need to wake up before it consumes them beyond reproach. Here is an anti-war video produced by the people of the Global South from People’s Dispatch.
Well, let me be the first to say; this is very good. .. albeit, I'm a bit like Capt. Kirk on the Starship Enterprise of journalism - I seek out new writers and boldly go where no brainwashed tongue-tied American has gone before.
Well organized highly relevant and appropriate content/sources. Fair, reasonable, rational, logical and authoritative arguments. Well done.
*>"In December 2021, Russia made their last efforts to negotiate with the West over Ukraine, their security concerns and the EU’s security concerns. Anthony Blinken rejected the offer for peace and claimed famously, “everything was on the table, including a hot war”.
I don't recall Sec. Blinken (or anyone else in the Biden cabinet) publicly responding *at all* to the 12.17.21 Russian Foreign Ministry's peace Proposal for European Security.
In fact, I have never found the Russian FM proposal referenced *at all* in western media .. . pro or con. It's like it doesn't exist.
(I only found it early last year through a translated copy posted on a Substack report)
I do vividly recall Sec. Blinken - along with Biden, Austin and Jens Stotlenberg - all saying exactly the same thing on Feb. 23, 2022: "If Putin's greatest fear is a strong NATO in Ukraine, that's exactly what he will get"
*Russia invaded the next day.