New York Times Covers Up Its Debunked Lies About Peng Shuai By Adding New Ones
The Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai recently gave an interview in which she refuted various lies the New York Times and other media had made about her.
Today the Times responded by creating and publishing more lies about her.
To recap:
In mid November the New York Times had launched a campaign for a boycott of the Olympics in Beijing. As Moon of Alabama reported at that time:
New York Times Invents 'Sexual Assault' #MeToo Case To Blame China
There is currently a push for a boycott of the winter Olympics in Beijing. Western media are busy to push for an anti-China angle of the games. Their aim is a political boycott so no one 'in good standing' dares to visit them.
On November 2, by timely chance, some well known Chinese sportswoman posted a sad story about the end of her love affair with a once powerful older man on the Chinese social media site Weibo. That post was soon taken down, likely by the woman herself, but that was too late to prevent that the 'woke' western media and Olympic boycott campaigners made a hash out of it.
A day after the post was published and unpublished the New York Times mangled the facts to make it into a 'woke' anti-China story:
A Chinese Tennis Star Accuses a Former Top Leader of Sexual Assault
Peng Shuai’s accusation against Zhang Gaoli takes the country’s budding #MeToo movement to the top echelons of the Communist Party for the first time.
A diligent reading of the NYT piece revealed that there was zero evidence in Peng Shuai's post that a 'sexual assault' had happened or that Peng Shuai had ever claimed that there had been one:
Where is the headlined 'sexual assault' one might ask. The NYT piece wont say:
Mr. Zhang retired in 2018, when, according to Ms. Peng’s account, the two resumed a relationship that had begun when he served in Tianjin, which would have been between 2007 and 2012. She said he had first assaulted her after inviting her to play tennis with him and his wife. “I never consented that afternoon, crying all the time,” she wrote, not specifying when exactly the assault occurred.As it turns out no 'assault' had happened. Moreover Peng Shuai never alleged that an 'assault' happened. The New York Times made that up!
A full English language translation of Peng Shuai's Weibo post can be found here.
Peng Shuai's Weibo post said nothing about an 'assault' sexual or otherwise against her. Her post was about her long term relation with an older man that had just broken up. She was sad when she wrote her piece. Here is an excerpt:
Romantic attraction is such a complicated thing that explain it clearly. From that day on, I renewed my love for you. Throughout my time with you after that, purely based on our interactions, you were a very good person, and you treated me well. We talking about recent history, as well as ancient eras. You educated me on so many topics, and we had discussions about economics, politics. We never ran out of things to talk about. We played chess, sang, played table tennis, played pool and also played tennis together. We always had endless fun. It was as if our personalities fit perfectly together.
Where please is a 'sexual assault' in that?
Two weeks later, at the next stage of its campaign, the New York Times declared that Peng Shuai was 'missing'.
The women’s professional tennis tour announced Wednesday that it was immediately suspending all tournaments in China, including Hong Kong, in response to the disappearance from public life of the tennis star Peng Shuai after she accused a top Communist Party leader of sexual assault.With the move, the Women’s Tennis Association became the only major sports organization to push back against China’s increasingly authoritarian government.
However as Moon of Alabama reported Peng Shuai was not missing at all:
Peng Shuai did not disappear from public life. She has sent an email to the WTA which asked to respect her privacy. She has posted pictures of herself and video showed her taking part in a public tennis event and going to dinner in a public restaurant. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has held a 30 minute video conference with her and found her well and happily alive.
Despite that the WTA and especially Steve Simon, its chief executive, have instead gone public with the issue and continue to intrude her privacy.
The IOC in contrast has been discrete and has shown respect for Peng Shuai's privacy. A short clip of their video call was published with her consent.
And today the IOC announced that it had another video call with Peng Shuai.
A search of the New York Times website finds that the paper since November 2 published 82 news and opinion pieces, editorials and briefings that mention Peng Shuai.
The paper will obviously not let go of the fake story it itself had created.
News today is that Peng Shuai directly refutes the false claims the New York Times and other media had made about her:
Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai has denied saying that a senior Communist Party leader sexually assaulted her despite her November social media post and insisted she is living freely, in her first media interview since her accusations triggered concerns for her safety.The Lianhe Zaobao Chinese-language newspaper posted a video of Peng in which she said she has been mainly staying at home in Beijing but was free to come and go as she chose.
"First of all, I want to emphasise something that is very important. I have never said nor written anything accusing anyone of sexually assaulting me," Peng said in the footage apparently filmed on a phone at a sports event in Shanghai on Sunday.
"I would like to emphasise this point very clearly," she went on.
A video of the seemingly spontaneous 6 minutes long interview can be seen here.
You may wonder what the Times is making of that. Will it continue to lie?
Well, its the New York Times, so of course it will.
Chinese Tennis Player Denies Sexual Abuse Claim, Raising More Questions
Peng Shuai said in an interview with a Singaporean newspaper that she had been misunderstood. She also said, “I’ve been very free all along.”
Peng Shuai, the Chinese tennis star whose account of sexual coercion by a former Communist Party leader ignited weeks of tensions and galvanized calls for boycotts of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, has reversed her assertion that she had been sexually assaulted by the official.
Peng Shuai has of course not "reversed" anything. She had never claimed to have been 'sexually assaulted' in the first place. It is only the Times that had made that claim and is unwilling to 'reverse' that:
Ms. Peng made the comments in an interview that was published on Sunday by a Singaporean newspaper. But the retraction appeared unlikely to extinguish concerns about her well-being and suspicions that she had been the target of well-honed pressure techniques and a propaganda campaign by Chinese officials.
There was no "retraction". The claim had never been made by her. However with that sentence the Times announces that it will continue its campaign by keeping its sorry fake 'news' tale up:
The controversy erupted last month when Ms. Peng wrote in a post on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, that she had maintained a yearslong, on-and-off relationship with Zhang Gaoli, now 75, a retired Chinese vice premier. She said that in an encounter with him about three years ago, she had “never consented” and that she was “crying all the time.”
That is false. The quotes are fake. Peng Shuai did not write that she was "crying all the time". She just describes how her former lover wanted to restart the affair with her after a few years pause. As I described her tale while quoting the relevant parts of her post:
[H]e had not forgotten Peng Shuai and as soon as he retired he again contacted her:
About three years ago, Zhang Gaoli vice president, you retired. You asked Dr. Liu at the Tianjin Tennis Centre to contact me, and asked me with play tennis with you at Kang Ming Hotel in Beijing. After we finished playing tennis, you and your wife Kang Jie brought me to your home. Then you took me into your room. Like what happened ten years ago in Tianjin, you wanted to have sex with me.She did not want to have sex that afternoon and she nowhere claims that they had sex that afternoon. He asked for sex. She said no. Nothing happened. She stayed for dinner:
That afternoon I didn't agree, and I kept crying. I had dinner with you and auntie Kang Jie together. You said the universe is very very big. The earth is merely a speck of sand in the universe, and us human beings are smaller than even a speck of sand. You said a lot more than that, and the purpose was basically to persuade me to drop my guard. After dinner, I was still not willing to have sex. You said you hated me. You said in those seven years, you never forgot about me, and you will treat me well etc... I was terrified and anxious. Taking into consideration the affection I had for you seven years ago, I agreed... yes, we had sex.She agreed, they had sex, and a lot of affection for each other ...
The Times lies when it claims that Peng Shuai wrote she “never consented”. The Times lies when it claims Peng Shuai wrote that "she was crying all the time". It was what happened on "that afternoon". The same day, after dinner, Peng Shuai was in a good mood, had again fallen in love, explicitly "agreed" and had sex with her lover.
After that their happy life continued for more than three years with consent and without crying.
The Times also keeps up its second big lie that Peng Shuai went "missing" even as she only had refuted the claims made about her and only had asked for privacy:
She then abruptly dropped from public view, and global concern for her whereabouts grew. In a written statement later, she appeared to seek to pull back the accusation, and the Women’s Tennis Association and other professional players rallied to her side, saying they believed that her statement had been written under official duress.
Peng Shuai "did not seek to pull back the accusation". She had never made any. The Times had made it up.
In the fact free disinformation campaign spread by the New York Times one lie begets the other. Every time one of its lies is revealed as such the Times ignores the evidence and adds new lies to continue its disinformation spree. It even misquotes her original posting out of context.
After falsely claiming that Peng Shuai had "reversed" accusations she had never made and "retracted" a story she never had told, after the insertion of false and out of context quotes into the story and after repeating the false claim that Peng Shuai went "missing" the Times for a moment reverts to the facts:
In the interview with Lianhe Zaobao, a Chinese-language Singaporean newspaper, Ms. Peng, 35, said, “First, I want to stress a very important point — I never said or wrote that anyone sexually assaulted me.”“There may have been misunderstandings by everyone,” she said of her initial post on Weibo.
Ms. Peng also denied that she had been under house arrest or that she had been forced to make any statements against her will.
“Why would someone keep watch over me?” she said. “I’ve been very free all along.”
After quoting Peng Shuai's spontaneous statement, which debunks everything the Times had claimed about her, the paper goes on to put doubt on her very clear explanation:
Her denial drew skepticism from human rights advocates, who have said that Chinese officials appear to have corralled her into rehearsed video appearances.Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said on Twitter that Ms. Peng’s latest statement was “only deepening concerns about the pressure to which the Chinese government is subjecting her.”
Kenneth Roth is of course a a proven liar so it is only appropriate that the lying New York Times is quoting him.
Do New York Times writers ever wonder why no one trusts whatever their paper claims?
Posted by b on December 20, 2021 at 17:15 UTC | Permalink
Here is a screenshot of the original post by Peng Shuai in what may be the original source of the allegations.
Emily Feng 冯哲芸 @EmilyZFeng on Twitter, November 2, 2021Unverified post from Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai, taken down from Weibo within minutes, in which she claims (again unverified) that she was assaulted by former Vice premier Zhang Gaoli, before willingly becoming his mistress. Highest public #MeToo allegation in China
Emily Feng is "@NPR’s woman in Beijing."
Posted by: Petri Krohn | Dec 20 2021 17:44 utc | 2
None of this matters anymore.
The Western elites have so successfully numbed their populations, so instilled deep apathy within the masses that even their glibly constructed propaganda has lost all potency.
Their propaganda is so far removed from the lives and concerns of ordinary people that it is only the elites who care about it.
Like the orobouros, the elites produce, consume and finally become their own propaganda.
Regardless, the world moves on ...
Posted by: Arch Bungle | Dec 20 2021 17:59 utc | 3
First, kudos to b for the clarity and rigor of your reports on this from the beginning. Following the facts and emphasizing them is the only weapon the non-mainstream media have.
In a way, and for what is a rather small and inconsequential event after all, this story is a very nice illustration of the entire western narrative building system in action. Lie, exaggerate the lie, when called on it double down on the lie from another angle, attack strawmen, and then perhaps, months later, admit some version of the facts buried in an inside page with no correction of the original story.
In the meantime, of course, the concept of China as this authoritarian boogieman continues to be implanted and nurtured in the western mind, which is the primary target of all this, to the effect that majorities now view China as the new and forever enemy, against whom we obviously need to spend trillions of dollars preparing for Armageddon, which was the objective all along.
And so, once again, the Times and the rest of the approved media have earned their keep.
Posted by: Caliman | Dec 20 2021 18:02 utc | 4
After the NY Times and Wash Post published Elsberg's Pentagon papers in 1970, many on the left (having just recently arrived on the left over the horrors of the Vietnam War) somehow came to believe that those papers had basic progressive instincts. That was false then as it is obviously false now.
Both of those national papers rained down overt propaganda from 1956 to 1968 that supported US war against the National Liberation Front in S. Vietnam and the nation of N. Vietnam. The barrage of lies was unrelenting. What happened in 1970 was that it started to become clear to a few major players in national security state that the US was losing the Vietnam War. They rationally concluded to cut their losses and withdraw. The NY Times and WaPo dutifully carried out their new instructions.
In any case both of those US national propaganda rags are whipping up support for war against both China and Russia. I do hope that they begin to realize that the US will lose those wars as well before it is too late.
Posted by: Toivos | Dec 20 2021 18:09 utc | 5
Most Chinese Internet posters that I know are already tired of reading or commenting about Peng Shuai affair.
So, assume 100% of what NY Times writes about the affair are correct (they aren't), and assume that all US lapdog countries diplomatically "boycott" the Beijing winter game (they won't), SO WHAT? They will have ZERO consequence on China's position, reputation, Chinese people, etc.
Such easy conclusion can be easily deduced by even a simpleton, and yet NY Times relentless efforts continue...
Speak much more about the evil empire and their agents than about China.
Posted by: d dan | Dec 20 2021 18:10 utc | 6
thanks b... i think nyt is busy doing what karl rove stated many years ago... when people are addressing a particular reality, they just go on and make up another reality that does or doesn't have to be addressed! i would skip with the nyt myself... as one of the main mouthpieces of the intel agencies, it is wise to skip reading it completely! that is basically how i feel about a lot of media and social media today..
bottom line - stereotyping china in the worst possible way in the western media is the name of the game.. if people can't pick up this much, we're all in trouble... we went thru this with the msm doing the same with russia, iran and venezuala for how long? now china.. who whudda thunk it? lol..
Posted by: james | Dec 20 2021 18:24 utc | 7
"Do New York Times writers ever wonder why no one trusts whatever their paper claims?"
Unfortunately too many readers will believe blindly what the nyt will write.
Does the nyt publish letters from the readers? If yes, what will happen if someone will send a letter explaining how the nyt is lying about Peng Shuai?
Posted by: Olivier | Dec 20 2021 18:30 utc | 8
The USA is a toxic ticking time bomb. Get well away.
b's reporting on this case has been invaluable. mil gracias.
Posted by: gottlieb | Dec 20 2021 18:30 utc | 9
According to metoo activists, you always have to believe the woman. And now a male reporter from the New York Times comes along and doesn't believe a word Peng says. So what now, dear metoo friends?
Posted by: Pnyx | Dec 20 2021 18:34 utc | 10
Toivos at 5 has the truth of it. Yet it's even worse now because idiotic people on the alleged "Left" not only trust WaPo and NYT but also the "intelligence community" since it openly turned on bad Orange Man. How retarded do you have to be? Is there any sane leftist left in this bloody country?
And just as despicable as HRW and NYT, the WTA is once again babbling about how they're still concerned. Fucking assholes. Be concerned about doping in tennis and do your fucking job for once, instead of concern-trolling.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Dec 20 2021 18:36 utc | 11
Any chance to file a suit against NYT for defamation?
Posted by: Andres | Dec 20 2021 18:39 utc | 12
an attempt at machine translation from the link Petri posted @2:
"22:36 Tuesday, January 2
"Peng Shi Weibo Text
[2 +
11-2 22:07 from Huawei Mate20 guarantee time connection design
I know it is not clear, and it is useless to say it. But I still want to say it. How hypocritical I am, I admit that I am not a good woman.
Boy, very bad and very bad girl. Da: Former Deputy Prime Minister Zhang Gaoli, you are retired. Find the nine doctors at Tianjin Tennis Center and then contact me, about I play ball in the Kangming Building in Beijing. Finished playing in the morning. You and your wife Kang Jie took me to your house together. People then brought me into your house The room is the same as it was in Tianjin more than ten years ago. Want to have sex with me. I was very scared that afternoon, I never thought it would be like this, one
People help out, because no one can believe that his wife will answer. Seven years ago, we had a one-off relationship, and then you were promoted to the Standing Committee and went to North Jing never contacted me again. I originally buried everything in my heart. Since you are not going to be responsible at all, why come back to find me and take me to you My family forced me to have a relationship with you? It's because I have no evidence, and it is impossible to leave evidence at all. Later you kept denying. Ke Xiong is what you like first Me, otherwise I wouldn't be able to reach you. That afternoon, I didn’t agree to cry all the time. I had dinner with you and Aunt Kang Jie. Yes, you said the universe is huge. The earth is a piece of sand in the universe, and we humans don’t even have a grain of sand. Also said a lot, just Let me let go of my thoughts. After dinner, I didn’t want to, you said you hated me! And you said you never forgot about me in the past seven years, you would wait for me.
Wait... I was afraid and panicked and agreed with you seven years ago... Yes, we had sex. Feelings are very complex
I can’t tell. From that day on, I opened my love for you again, and then in the days I spent with you. You are a very good person
People of, are also very good to me. We talked from modern history to ancient times. You talked to me about the knowledge of all things and then talked about economic philosophy. topic. Play chess together, Singing, playing table tennis,. Billiards,. Including tennis, we can always play nonchalantly. Personality is so good It seems that everything goes well. I left home early since I was a child, and I was extremely lack of love in my heart. Faced with all this, I never thought I was a good girl, I hate it. I myself, hate why I came to this world and experienced this disaster. You tell me you love me, love me very much, hope in your next life twenty We met when I was eighteen. You say you are very lonely, you are alone, and we have endless days to talk, we can't finish talking, you say you There is no way to divorce at this position. If you met when you were in Shandong. Divorce is still possible, but there is no way now. I thought about it in silence Stay with you like this. It was fine at the beginning, but slowly changed over time, too much injustice and insult. Every time you let me go. Carrying your wife How many ugly and insulting things the son said to me, all kinds of cold ridicule. I said I like to eat duck tongue, Aunt Kang Jie will tell me that a mosquito is really disgusting. In winter, Beijing Gui Hao I said that sometimes the air is not so good. Aunt Kang Jie would tell me that it is your suburb, we don't feel that much. And so on Such as similar things have been said a lot, When you did not say that, she seemed to be the same as us, when two people get along, they are the same. Someone else At that time you were the same to me again. I told you that these words are too evil, and I feel particularly uncomfortable in my heart. I haven't used it since the first day I met you You have a penny, not to mention any benefit or good out of you. But the name is really important. I deserved all this and took the humiliation for myself. From beginning to end, you kept keeping me secret and all my relationship with you, let alone telling my mom that you have a relationship with you, because it's her every time Take me to Xishima Church, and then change your car to enter the courtyard. She always thought I was going to play mahjong and go to your house to play. I We are all transparent people in real life in each other's lives, and your wife is like the queen of Zhen Huan Chuan. And i can't describe since How unbearable I am, do I feel that I am still alone? I feel that I am a trader, pretending to be, every day Pretend, which me is the real me? I shouldn't have come into this world, but I don't have the courage to die. I really want to live simpler, but it's the same Cheek speed. There was a lot of controversy that night on the 30th. You said that we will go to your house in the afternoon on the 2nd and we will talk slowly. Yes, shirk everything, excuses that we will contact again another day, just like this "disappeared" like seven years ago, just don't want to have fun. You said There is no transaction between us, but the feelings and money between us. There is nothing to do with rights, but I have nowhere to stay with the feelings of these three years
It's hard to face. You are always afraid of what recorder I bring. Leave evidence or something. Yes,. I didn’t leave any evidence other than me, no Audio recording, no video recording, only my real experience distorted. I know that for your high-ranking deputy Zhang Gaoli, you said
You are not afraid. But even if the pebbles hit the rocks and the moths fight the fire to kill themselves, I will tell the truth about you. Based on your IQ, do you have to Acknowledge it or you can give it back to me, you can be so cynical. You always said that you hope your mother can bless you in the sky. I am a altar girl not You deserve to be a mother. How many daughters you have as a father, I asked you, even if you were your adopted daughter, would you force her to do this? All these days of your life Do you face your mother with peace of mind? We are all respectable
Pseudo Fu Quan Ding"
Posted by: the pessimist | Dec 20 2021 18:57 utc | 13
You know how people who use app-based navigation often/frequently lose the ability to navigate on their own?
I am increasingly of the view that the same thing is happening with Twitter and independent thought.
In particular, the reason why different MSM figureheads all parrot the same nonsense isn't because of some dark organization controlling them overtly so much as these morons having outsourced all thought to their Twitter feeds.
Posted by: c1ue | Dec 20 2021 19:03 utc | 14
Speaking of lying propagandists in the press, the above is Harding's latest effort in the Guardian; a puff piece on Zelenskiy so risible it made me laugh out loud.
Posted by: Arch Stanton | Dec 20 2021 19:07 utc | 15
This is just a distraction away from the really important issues of the days we are living in.
Posted by: Norwegian | Dec 20 2021 19:11 utc | 16
There's a consistent drum beat here from the U$A's propaganda driven MSM; Try to destroy the reputation of any nation who's seen as a competitor in commerce, or political system.
Posted by: vetinLA | Dec 20 2021 19:19 utc | 17
Boy, a whole lot of trouble for nothing at all. If they want to press the fact that the US doesn’t want to participate in the Winter Olympics, why go through all of this trouble? Just state that you won’t send anyone there, because we don’t like you. And if the athletes make a stink, just tell them to go fly a kite. All these articles just pumping out lies of which more than half of readers don’t believe. It’s just perplexing at best.
Posted by: Jose Garcia | Dec 20 2021 19:29 utc | 18
Olivier @ 8:
The real problem with The New York Times with regard to its fabrications and fantasies is that other newspapers in other parts of the world rely on it as their sources of international news.
The Sydney Morning Herald and its sister papers The Age (Melbourne) and The Herald-Sun (Brisbane) rely on NYT, The New York Post along with Reuters and AFP as their main sources of foreign news. Australian newspapers gave up the practice of having their own foreign correspondents in other countries long ago, due perhaps to past decisions to trim costs and save money.
Australian newspapers would not be the only ones to blindly follow The NYT. The result is that the lies about Peng Shuai have spread rapidly around the world. The more they are repeated by different news outlets, the more difficult it is for Peng to refute them and quash any other rumours and gossip.
I think that eventually she will have to sue The NYT for defamation but not before huge and very extensive damage has been done by the news media across international sport and public trust in global mainstream news. Not to mention Peng's own future in tennis and related activities such as coaching or reporting and tennis commentary.
Posted by: Jen | Dec 20 2021 19:30 utc | 19
bbc repeats the latest talking points numerous times a day
Posted by: the pessimist | Dec 20 2021 19:44 utc | 20
Roth, Simon, The NY Times -- well it's clear what crowd is involved here.
Posted by: bjd | Dec 20 2021 19:58 utc | 21
b's reporting on this case has been invaluable. mil gracias.
Posted by: gottlieb | Dec 20 2021 18:30 utc | 9
Not. b's reporting on this has no value. What didn't we already know about NYT and MSM.
This belongs on Yahoo News and People mag.
Posted by: waynorinorway | Dec 20 2021 20:03 utc | 22
Posted by: Arch Bungle | Dec 20 2021 17:59 utc | 3
None of this matters anymore.The Western elites have so successfully numbed their populations, so instilled deep apathy within the masses that even their glibly constructed propaganda has lost all potency.
Their propaganda is so far removed from the lives and concerns of ordinary people that it is only the elites who care about it.
Like the orobouros, the elites produce, consume and finally become their own propaganda.
Regardless, the world moves on ...
I am genuinely curious as to which part of the Western world you live in where ordinary people are impervious to this propaganda.
My personal experience in this (very average) corner of Western Europe is apparently very different from your own. I'm pretty certain I could go through an entire week questioning every single person I come across, recording perceptions of the Chinese tennis player affair, and not a single person would even imagine a reality where there was no allegation of sexual assault to begin with. In fact, I would be surprised if more than one in five cared to even know what the topic was about. I could cut a transect straight through the densest part of town and never meet anyone remotely as septic as the people you are referring to.
In any case, on an awareness spectrum ranging from "huh, what?" to "Oh yes, the tennis player", I am certain that the keywords ringing between their ears would be strictly identical.
China, China
Regime, regime.
Tennis player, rape, rape
China, China, regime, regime
This is the narrative tinnitus miracle and it is all that really matters.
Posted by: robin | Dec 20 2021 20:25 utc | 23
Posted by: d dan | Dec 20 2021 18:10 utc | 6
Most Chinese Internet posters that I know are already tired of reading or commenting about Peng Shuai affair.So, assume 100% of what NY Times writes about the affair are correct (they aren't), and assume that all US lapdog countries diplomatically "boycott" the Beijing winter game (they won't), SO WHAT? They will have ZERO consequence on China's position, reputation, Chinese people, etc.
Such easy conclusion can be easily deduced by even a simpleton, and yet NY Times relentless efforts continue...
I hate to be the one breaking this to you, but we all are, in fact, simpletons. This is what makes the game so easy for the likes of the New York Times.
The NYT doesn't target a Chinese audience. They don't matter in the game that is played. Chinese people do not have the power to influence Western foreign policy. What an Oriental audience thinks will never be a determining factor in the West's belligerence. This is the exclusive power of the Western electorate.
Posted by: robin | Dec 20 2021 20:29 utc | 24
Surprised by some of these comments disparaging the importance of this narrative building (and b's attempted narrative busting). Narrative building is, in my view, the most important enemy of the people that exists. It is through narrative building that the masters get the people to put the rope around our own necks, to vote for things that we would otherwise know are obviously not in our interest, and to fight wars that destroy us.
And the "west" is the best at this narrative building ... from the time of the Greeks versus Persia to the dawn of the 20th century when propaganda techniques were scientifically improved, we have been working at this for thousands of years.
CIA chief Bill Casey quote: We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.
Posted by: Caliman | Dec 20 2021 20:52 utc | 25
RE: Toivos | Dec 20 2021 18:09 utc | 5
". . . both of those US national propaganda rags are whipping up support for war against both China and Russia. I do hope that they begin to realize that the US will lose those wars as well before it is too late."
Actually it has nothing to do with winning or losing. The US oligarchy simply demands that millions of working taxpayers continue shoveling their little bits of money to the billionaires, and the fastest and easiest way to get that done is to start wars. They don't care who wins or loses.
Posted by: AntiSpin | Dec 20 2021 20:53 utc | 26
Posted by: Arch Bungle | Dec 20 2021 17:59 utc | 3
Sadly, I think you've hit the nail on the head. As b says, it's the New York Times so of course they're going to continue to lie and invent new fictions.
To the general thread and b, it's not just the NYT on this "story" - You can always count on the NY Post and right-leaning British tabloids to pick up on such "accounts" as they have dutifully done in this case. A recent perusal of one of those sites, which I will not name here, revealed to me that Russia is also planning a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on Christmas Eve, which - if Las Vegas is taking bets - I may decided to make some money.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Dec 20 2021 20:59 utc | 27
Posted by: robin | Dec 20 2021 20:29 utc | 24 and 23
I think arch bungle's point may also have been that sure, maybe some people believe these narratives, but it really doesn't matter insofar as how it used to matter, such as in the runup to the Iraq invasion. The corporate media has lost nearly all of its clout among a large majority, left and right, in the United States. I can't speak to Europe, but your hunches seem a little bit overblown without some sort of empirical (not just suppositional or anecdotal) evidence.
That said, yes, of course it's narrative building going on, but I truly believe its lost its power on all but a small PMC minority (and red baiting China/commie haters).
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Dec 20 2021 21:07 utc | 28
The NYT remains busy pushing the narratives on the Venezuela front as well.
https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1473020379182645252?
On Venezuela 🇻🇪, the New York Times went from openly calling for a coup to denying one was going on to giving tips on how the next one could succeed.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Dec 20 2021 21:18 utc | 29
the NYT and US govt's increasingly unhinged and desperate misinformation campaigns have been a goid thing. those who swallow it wholesale, they are basically a lost cause anyway; theres no meaningful difference between super ranid
Posted by: mastameta | Dec 20 2021 21:31 utc | 30
between super rabid and a banality-of-evil level of sinophobia. both will do what's expected if them when called.
meanwhile, some others, open to disbelief and critical perspectives, now have a chance to see through the lies.
Posted by: mastameta | Dec 20 2021 21:37 utc | 31
Posted by: Arch Stanton | Dec 20 2021 19:07
It's a waste of time reading what the faker says, anytime, your time would be better spent watching the washing machine spin. There's a guy who's a must watch on Ukraine provided you speak Russian, Anatolij Sharij on u-tube, unbeatable he.
Posted by: Baron | Dec 20 2021 21:45 utc | 32
I can say, in my own case, that it was the overreach of the hong Kong psyops and misinformation campaigns that allowed me to start to see how all the pieces fit together. hong kong was the key log that, once unjammed, allowed all the obstructions and obfuscations to finally fall away.
it was not that event alone. it had reached a critical mass up to that point. it just took an extra something to break through. back then I didn't know about this blog. in a way, it was the NYT that led me here.
Posted by: mastameta | Dec 20 2021 21:51 utc | 33
MOA's coverage of the COVID "pandemic" continues to be a sad joke. How can he be so naive?? How could he get so many things (almost everything) wrong??
Posted by: zebolu | Dec 20 2021 22:04 utc | 34
I'll be honest: MOA's complete failure regarding COVID, the most important event in our lifetime, has totally destroyed this blog.
Posted by: zebolu | Dec 20 2021 22:05 utc | 35
robin@24 says: "The NYT doesn't target a Chinese audience."
They do and care. In fact they do it very often. It is called "color revolution."
Have you heard of the Chinese edition of NY Times? They used to be very popular and very well-regarded among certain circles of Chinese elites. Thanks goodness this is no longer true.
Posted by: d dan | Dec 20 2021 22:06 utc | 36
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Dec 20 2021 21:07 utc | 28
I think arch bungle's point may also have been that sure, maybe some people believe these narratives, but it really doesn't matter insofar as how it used to matter, such as in the runup to the Iraq invasion. The corporate media has lost nearly all of its clout among a large majority, left and right, in the United States. I can't speak to Europe, but your hunches seem a little bit overblown without some sort of empirical (not just suppositional or anecdotal) evidence...
Perhaps you're right. I'm just relating my personal observation and have no polls or studies to cite here.
Now about the run-up to the Iraq war, again, I have a different take. In my opinion, the invasion would be just as easy if not easier today. Remember, back in 2003, the war was widely perceived as W Bush's project. This turned ordinarily passive, uninterested, unaffected and uninvolved sheeple into rabid antiwar activist. A few years later these very same antiwarriors quietly sat on their hands while Obama matched and, even surpassed, Bush in terms of belligerence and expenditure.
I think the marketers have learned their lesson and have matured their strategy. They can now harness that partisan energy to further their goals and today folks are trapped into supporting belligerant projects by their own sectarian atavism.
Posted by: robin | Dec 20 2021 22:11 utc | 37
From "The Imperial Cruise" by James Bradley that I'm reading on and off, here's another example, from 120 years ago, of the propaganda narratives from the New York Times.
After the US deceived and exploited Filipino freedom fighters - and then betrayed, massacred, and hunted them down - in 1898-1901:
Page 94:
Instead of referring to the leader of the Philippines as President Aguinaldo, the New York Times called him "Chief Aguinaldo," or just "insurgent" or "unmoral infant."
Page 113:
Ingenious Yankees employed a variety of other gruesome tortures, including flogging, scorching bound prisoners over open fires, and the "rope cure" (hanging trussed prisoners from the ceiling). A private from Utah summed things up in a letter home to his folks: "No cruelty is too severe for these brainless monkeys, who can appreciate no sense of honor, kindness or justice."
Page 121:
On March 23, 1901, the U.S. Army captured President Aguinaldo in his mountain lair.
After two months in General MacArthur’s custody in Manila, the Philippines’ founding father declared, “There has been enough blood, enough tears, enough desolation… I cannot refuse to heed the voice of a people longing for peace… by acknowledging and accepting the sovereignty of the United States throughout the Philippine Archipelago…. I believe that I am serving thee, my beloved country."
The New York Times - which had pilloried Aguinaldo as a lying thief - now described America’s captive as "a warm, friendly, intelligent, trustworthy, and reasonable person - a man of honor with the best interest of his countrymen at heart."
One has to wonder to what extent his people, and possibly the Philippine's founding father himself, were waterboarded (then known as "the water cure") or suffered other torture while in US military captivity before he declared acceptance of US sovereignty over his people.
That's just another example from 1898-1901, but the New York Times has probably been serving up narratives to back Anglo-American expansionism and wars since its founding in 1851 ...
Posted by: Canadian Cents | Dec 20 2021 22:23 utc | 38
@ Caliman | Dec 20 2021 20:52 utc | 25... thanks... i would like to re-emphasize your comment here and encourage others to read it...
@ robin | Dec 20 2021 20:25 utc | 23.. i am mostly in agreement with you robin, although it might be less so today then previously.. hard to know.. here in canada my impression is most people are duped - unfortunately.. and most people as i see it, fall for these ongoing narratives, especially those not interested in scratching below the surface... of that would be ''most'' people...
Posted by: james | Dec 20 2021 22:27 utc | 39
AntiSpin | Dec 20 2021 20:53 utc | 26
Actually it has nothing to do with winning or losing. The US oligarchy simply demands that millions of working taxpayers continue shoveling their little bits of money to the billionaires, and the fastest and easiest way to get that done is to start wars. They don't care who wins or loses.
Except, except, now, they are targets. This, that, is the message Putin gave to these lords, they are no longer safe !
I say, Putin, I mean Xi-Putin.. The great dragons understand each other, and, and, they can think..
Posted by: Sarlat La Canède | Dec 20 2021 23:19 utc | 40
Standing up to Putin
Speaking of lying propagandists in the press, the above is Harding's latest effort in the Guardian; a puff piece on Zelenskiy so risible it made me laugh out loud.
Posted by: Arch Stanton | Dec 20 2021 19:07 utc | 15
Hm. This piece is a bit original, because a standard trope is to quote a bunch of experts to conclude that Russian motivations are unfathomable and future behavior, unpredictable (although from time to time there are precise or rough date if the "imminent invasions". Of course, essential facts are blanked out, and some characterization may explain what "the collective West" means by "democracy". Two quotes with comments:
Moscow wants special status for the separatist eastern territories, already run by proxies controlled from Russia. The demands amount to the de facto return of a Kremlin sphere of influence in eastern Europe. Western leaders are likely to reject them. Moscow can in turn use this as a predicate for war.
Zelensky rejected that, but an inquiring mind may ask: how is it that after so many years, "Western leaders" did not reject the plan of the special status for ORDLO yet. And the reasons are interesting:
a. every year there is a ritual in EU, voting on extension of sanctions on Russia, and "yes" vote is invariably linked to Moscow "not fulfilling its obligations in Minsk agreements".
b. special status AND direct negotiation between Kiev and ORDLO about that status is the core of Minsk agreement. If "Western leaders" frankly reject those agreements, repudiating their own signatures, it may embolden some EU members to oppose sanction extension, and in general, it would be awkward.
In the face of hardball tactics from Moscow, Zelenskiy took a tougher stand. In February, Ukraine’s national security council shut down three TV channels controlled by Viktor Medvedchuk, an influential pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politician and oligarch. It was a bold move. Putin is godfather to Medvedchuk’s daughter. Medvedchuk is under house arrest and accused of treason.
These channels were spreading a pro-Russian narrative about the conflict in Donbas, Zelenskiy’s supporters say.
Thus censoring the media and political repressions are OK for a good cause (good because anti-pro-Russian). Of course, The Guardian would not dwell on an impressive list of suspicious deaths of inconvenient politicians and murders by extreme rights that never lead to a conviction.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Dec 21 2021 0:49 utc | 41
On Venezuela 🇻🇪, the New York Times went from openly calling for a coup to denying one was going on to giving tips on how the next one could succeed.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Dec 20 2021 21:18 utc | 29
And then we wonder why those coups fail. NYT should stick to food recipes and gardening tips (at least, being disinterested in those topics, I could not observe any obvious fallacies).
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Dec 21 2021 0:59 utc | 42
Here’s related narrative management at play courtesy of the CBC, Canada’s national broadcaster:
2-Time Olympic Snowboarder Calls For Team Canada Boycott of Beijing 2022
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/2-time-olympic-snowboarder-calls-for-team-canada-boycott-of-beijing-2022-1.6287991
“…a decade into retirement, he says he can't help but speak out about the 2022 Beijing Olympics and the International Olympic Committee's willingness to partner with China, calling for a full Canadian boycott of the games. "I'm really disgusted. I don't even want to be called an Olympian anymore," he said from his home in North Vancouver.
"The IOC recognizes ... human rights as enshrined both in the fundamental principles of the Olympic Charter and the code of ethics, and they say the IOC takes this responsibility very seriously. But do they?"
Neilson feels there is no way to square professed Olympic ideals with China's long list of troubling issues: Uyghur internment and human rights abuses, aggressive expansionism, the detention of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor and the Peng Shuai case, among others.”
Note that this former snowboarder’s “long list” of alleged “troubling issues” align closely with stories receiving recent saturation coverage by the CBC. Also note, the Olympic Charter does not mention or enshrine “human rights” (plural) as a presumed fundamental principle, but does simply identify “the practice of sport” as a human right. It states that “every individual must have possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind” - which is a principle and which is obviously denied through political boycotts of sporting events. So the former snowboarder actually doesn’t even know what he is talking about, which doesn’t prevent CBC from giving him a headline and a paragraph of China-bashing. The article then discusses another former Canadian athlete whose ability to practice sport was hindered back in 1980, a result the athlete continues to regret. The intellectual nimbleness required to fully digest the CBC’s subtle dialectic is most obviously lost on the resultant commentariat.
Posted by: jayc | Dec 21 2021 1:12 utc | 43
Excellent take down b.
I posted a take via The Guardian ( the cross Atlantic NYP) in the open thread.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/12/the-moa-week-in-review-ot-2021-099.html?cid=6a00d8341c640e53ef02942f8f2cb4200c#comment-6a00d8341c640e53ef02942f8f2cb4200c
What is revealing about this ‘pushback’ against western propaganda is that it is part of a full spectrum attack on western/nato hagemony that has been well advertised by the Empire killers Russia and China for many months now. From the initial meetings with the new ‘sane’ Biden administration with the latest NSA and State department apparatchiks to the now very public documents of surrender which have been presented to them.
Of course it is couched in a manner that doesn’t expect an unconditional surrender but it does require it.
What I perceive is that over the last decade the Chinese and Russians played the whipping boys to the economic onslaught from some obscure department of the US state that arbitrarily imposed sanctions and stole money from sovereign states because they could.
It has been Imperial hubris.
The smart humans chose to use that hubris against the perpetrators. Now as they pretended to cower under that onslaught they not only firmed up their collective military spine but have enrolled many other countries who have been subjected to similar economic actions. They have set up alternative world banking! They have also invested heavily and long term without onerous terms that the Workd Bank imposes. They have given vaccines for pretty much free. Now they are taking on the major force the West/nato Empire has built into what they believe is a dominant weapon - the power of the ‘blag’ the news & cultural hagemony.
The West/Nato have been allowed to lull into a false sense of that power of Narrative control over populations. Unfortunately it only works on the West/nato populations who all consume the same monopoly media guff.
Many alternative platforms have been set up and largely free of control. Except for interference by the Western platforms and their controllers.
It is now moving to a open full spectrum, all frontal counter attack. The last time it stopped in Berlin by pre agreement. This time ...with a modern China economic and human superpower and all the allies they are daily accumulating it is a done deal.
History may yet still record the Peng Shuai moment as a momentous point in this war of Empires.
Posted by: D.G. | Dec 21 2021 1:23 utc | 44
Greetings to all.
I may have missed it but I haven't seen a post from our excellent Karlof1.
What gives?
Posted by: CarlD | Dec 21 2021 1:31 utc | 45
@ Posted by: Piotr Berman | Dec 21 2021 0:49 utc | 40
I made some notes earlier on that Harding piece which you have dealt with so won’t repeat . I’ll just add the following from the same, very loooong , verbiage by Luke.
“His character can be impulsive,” Ihor Todorov, a professor of international relations at Uzhhorod National University, said of Zelenskiy. Todorov added: “His electorate is pretty solid. There is an active patriotic majority.”
This immediately after the paragraph which says:
“he commands about 25% support. He remains the country’s most popular politician. As things stand he is likely to be re-elected in 2024 – assuming, that is, that Russia does not occupy Kyiv..”
Why would Russia even want to occupy “Kyiv” ? It’s a ludicrous suggestion. You’d have to pay a LOT for Russia to even come and have a look at that shithole.
The whole piece is a Xmas cracker joke (bad usually) by Luke ‘the Farce is strong with him’ Harding. As they try and get Russia involved in the a southern front as some kind of new Vietnam (Afghanistan) a later President Carter under Brezinsky ( his vampire children). There is something very stupid in The West’s thinking that Russia woul fall for the same trick again!
This time they will if forced deal with the matter in much less than a hour, as the nato generals have made clear to their bosses and these fanatic fascists on the frontline will know that without nato boots on the ground next to them in the trenches - they are doomed!
Posted by: D.G. | Dec 21 2021 1:38 utc | 46
Maybe she should,write or get her lawyers to write to NYT asking them to correct the articles and publish that correction. It's false or fake news, and newspapers publish corrections to articles, she should make them do it. Lawyer up.
Posted by: Debz666 | Dec 21 2021 2:17 utc | 47
Maybe she should,write or get her lawyers to write to NYT asking them to correct the articles and publish that correction. It's false or fake news, and newspapers publish corrections to articles, she should make them do it. Lawyer up.
Posted by: Debz666 | Dec 21 2021 2:17 utc | 48
First, kudos to b for the clarity and rigor of your reports on this from the beginning. Following the facts and emphasizing them is the only weapon the non-mainstream media have.
Agree one-hundred fold with the above.
Stay well.
Posted by: Sushi | Dec 21 2021 2:19 utc | 49
Just came across this 1.5-minute clip of China's former ambassador to the US talking about China's need to pick a careful path in the face of US hostility.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OQwY6ohoys
Guess they see that the US is stopping at nothing, sparing no effort, to demonize China at every opportunity, and seem to be aware that this will likely get worse over the next few years.
After all, earlier this year, the US openly announced $1.2 billion for anti-China narrative efforts over the next four years (2022-2026) by the US Agency for Global Media ...
The New York Times is one of the media herd leaders, and the establishment news media across the West - including here in Canada - all obediently follow the NYT/WaPo/CNN lead with no questions asked ...
Orwell's Ministry of Truth is well-funded and well-staffed. We will likely be getting even more Two Minutes Hate sessions over the next few years.
Posted by: Canadian Cents | Dec 21 2021 3:42 utc | 50
“New York Times” readers are not as smart as they think they are. Time and again they have opened their mouths wide and swallowed grossly false propaganda. Even when the falsehoods are debunked definitively, many either will not or cannot accept the fact that they have been fooled. That’s because they think they’re smart, and the Times is for smart people.
Posted by: Rob | Dec 21 2021 4:18 utc | 51
Here's the above video interview with Peng Shuai including English subtitles:
It's from Science Men K One Meter and his posts are informative, very detailed, and accurate.
Posted by: One Too Many | Dec 21 2021 5:58 utc | 52
The NYT and WaPo owners became admirers of the influence of the People's Daily and Global times.
Go with the power & money, honey.
Posted by: Antonym | Dec 21 2021 6:20 utc | 53
Any thread covering the lying NY Times needs to consider their coverage in 1945 of Hiroshima after it was destroyed by the atomic bomb.
Wilfred Burchett was the first western reporter to visit Hiroshima 30 days after the bombing. His article was titled the atomic plague. He wrote about what today we call radiation sickness. The NY Times sent their star reporter Lawrence to refute Burchett's findings. Lawrence denied the existence of radiation illness and that there was no radioactivity in the city. Lawrence, who was on a US Army salary at the time won the Pulitzer Prize for this reporting.
Wikipedia, for a change, actually gives a reasonably fair account of this affair.
Posted by: Toivos | Dec 21 2021 6:36 utc | 54
Posted by: Toivos | Dec 21 2021 6:36 utc | 52
Wilfred Burchett was one of the great journalists of the 20th century. Australians should be extremely proud of him.
Not only did he report on Hiroshima but he was all over Vietnam during the American (and Australian, NZ) invasion there.
His seminal book Vietnam Will Win, a prediction he made long before any other Western scribe, is still available for free download
at CounterPunch. I printed it out and still re-read parts now and then. I recommend it for any (Western)vets of that war. The understanding
he brings to the whole mess will assuage some of your bitterness - (some but not all as you will painfully realize how much you were lied to).
Of course the NYT coverage of that war was in character too. If the purpose of this thread is to throw darts at the NYT we will need
many more dart boards. 'Intellectuals' who get their info from the NYT are not. They are idiots and dishonest.
Posted by: waynorinorway | Dec 21 2021 7:10 utc | 55
Posted by: Antonym | Dec 21 2021 6:20 utc | 51
Nice try. No cigar, troll.
Posted by: Arch Bungle | Dec 21 2021 9:16 utc | 56
am increasingly of the view that the same thing is happening with Twitter and independent thought.
"In particular, the reason why different MSM figureheads all parrot the same nonsense isn't because of some dark organization controlling them overtly so much as these morons having outsourced all thought to their Twitter feeds."
Posted by: c1ue | Dec 20 2021 19:03 utc | 14
Add in that many came out of the same journalism courses and universities with the same mind set.
Plus there's an editorial guidelines
that they are "encouraged" to adhere to.
Posted by: JPC | Dec 21 2021 9:17 utc | 57
Posted by: Arch Bungle | Dec 21 2021 9:16 utc | 54
It's not even a nice try, it's literally incomprehensible. How anyone can come away from this ongoing absurd propaganda saga by NYT and somehow think that it and WaPo are in the pay of the Chinese is utterly baffling.
This is what happens when someone with a thoroughly one-dimensional worldview comes up against a reality diametrically opposed to that worldview. It's as if they enter a fatal error subroutine and continue to output like a broken record. They may not be a bot, but functionally they are no different.
Posted by: J D | Dec 21 2021 9:55 utc | 59
Posted by: robin | Dec 20 2021 20:25 utc | 23
(also responding to a few others who remarked on my apparent dismissiveness of the power of propaganda )
"I am genuinely curious as to which part of the Western world you live in where ordinary people are impervious to this propaganda."
All of it. I circle back and forth between the West and Asia (the semi-westernised parts of it) like a pendulum. I'm gathering impressions from "Five Eyes" countries, non-Anglophone Europe and former British colonies in Asia and Africa. So it's a cultural slice.
"My personal experience in this (very average) corner of Western Europe is apparently very different from your own. I'm pretty certain I could go through an entire week questioning every single person I come across ..."
I'm not saying that a large percentage of the western population is not affected by the propaganda, in the sense that they believe whatever narrative they've been fed by the mainstream media. I'm saying that:
- Most of us who have an interest in what the media says are under constant information bombardment 24 hours a day to the point that we've been numbed to apathy. This effect is real, you can see it in the falling subscriber numbers to newspapers and in CNNs tanking ratings for example.
Ordinary people are just not reading the news anymore and aren't of the issues. Ask them about "The Uighur Issue" and they think you're referring to the "Wigger Issue", conjuring up images of "Vanilla Ice".
This is the "numbness" I'm referring to. Media information overload. Too many media messages contending for attention, leading to a diffusion of human attention and eventually a diffusion of the emotional intensity people can invest in the issues.
There is a weary cynicism there too:
- The average "educated" person, while having perhaps absorbed some propaganda impressions of the purported "enemy" also has a deep distrust and dissatisfaction of their own government and "The Establishment". Their programmed dislike of "the other" is largely neutralised by an awareness the fact that their side too, holds no moral high ground.
The elites can't use this. It's poor material to build a war machine out of.
The massive bulk of the working people (blue collar - unskilled and skilled, pink collar) just don't know or care about the issues being propagandized are about. Most of the time they're far too absorbed in the details of paying the rent to care at all, or even form strong opinions.
Walk out into the street and have a chat to a couple of blue collar workers: Solicit their opinions on Peng Shuai, Qassem Soleimani, The Uighurs, the Gaza Strip, the Iran Nuclear Deal etc ... You'll find the either don't know, or care little to nothing.
They're concerned with getting their paychecks to stretch the length of a working month and binge watching the next netflix hit series.
That's the "apathy" I'm referring to. Yes, they may have their opinions but nothing else beyond that: They still buy "Made in China" at the end of the day - Amazon's orders just keep shooting up year after year.
You might argue that propaganda matters in terms of moving public opinion in the direction of war. However, what I've gathered from the wars in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria is that public opinion doesn't matter in the end:
If they're going to take us to war, they're going to do it regardless of millions protesting in the streets.
Propaganda isn't really recruiting soldiers for our wars either, ironically it's the apathy of the masses combined with their attempts to keep up with the rising costs of living that is driving recruitment more than anything.
Military Technology, driven by the demands of the elites for ever more domination over mankind has resulted in wars being fought in a fundamentally different way: No longer do we need to mobilise men in their millions to fertilize our battlefields but instead a single man with a single button can have the same effect.
So given that, it's clear the utility of propaganda regarding conflict between nations is dying out. In a world where you can be quarrantined in your home and impelled to inject unfamiliar substances into your body at the order of the state with no recourse or option to refuse, propaganda is not needed:
In the end the elites find themselves preaching to the choir, a powerful but nonetheless ever dwindling one at that.
It is and always has been the Iron Fist of The State that propels the masses, Propaganda is the velvet glove that gives us the illusion that we're responding out of free will and not fear of force.
Posted by: Arch Bungle | Dec 21 2021 10:31 utc | 60
I remember the Aleppo siege that woke me up after years of comfortable numbness. I realised to which extent we've been deceived day after day. The level of extravagant lies I've been passively accepting. I realised that the press of my tiny country in the middle of Europe, though not being NATO member, was absolutely sticking to the Atlantic narrative.
I discovered that once you scratch the surface of almost every international news we get, there's a gruesome layer underneath the fresh coat of paint. I noticed how it's difficult to share it with friends, to pique their curiosity so they'd seriously look into seemingly obvious scams like Russiagate, for instance, or Libya regime change, or Syria proxy war. I tend to get less involved in political talks with friends, even if I love it, because it seems our trenches become deeper and deeper as the time goes by.
This leads me to what is happening today with vaccines. Governments everywhere pointing finger at unvaccinated people in a surprisingly homogeneous manner make me give credit to Doc. Mattias Desmet's 'mass formation' theory. I never thought I'd ever suspect a growing totalitarianism in my quiet place, but I think it's there, not as far away as we would like. The current narrative is very strong, not even Australian internment camps make people bat an eyelid. Consider watching this interview, do you think it applies to our times?
Posted by: Francil | Dec 21 2021 11:43 utc | 61
waynorinorway @22
I agree in general, that this article, and its not the first one on the topic, is a waste of time. Like you say, it tells us nothing new and subsumes space and time which could otherwise be dedicated to more pressing and important issues.
I guess I still give b the benefit of doubt here, because its xmas :-) in the spirit of good cheer.
OTOH however, as observed on the recent Omicron Update thread, MoA has gotten the whole covid thing completely wrong from the start i.e. zoonotic origin, these are vaccines they are jabbing us with, vaccines work, masks work, booster shots required...
Who cares about BS in NYT?
Who cares about being forced to get a jamba juice jab?
Who cares about Turkey's currency?
Who cares about WWIII erupting in Ukraine?
Who cares about an olympic boycott?
Who cares about no heating in wintertime?
Sometimes to ask a question is to answer it.
Posted by: Idiocrates | Dec 21 2021 13:20 utc | 62
Arch Bungle @58
Don't take this too hard, as it is the rule and not the exception in the West, but the mistake you make is typical of those who have been successfully capitalist brainwashed. That mistake is in assuming the real brainwashing is being done by the White House press office, along with the NYT, WaPo, CNN and Fox News. That isn't the case at all.
"They're concerned with ... binge watching the next netflix hit series."
And that is where the real brainwashing happens.
That is where people get the general impression that stern-looking Asiatic or Slavic political bosses are corrupt and abuse their authority just for fun. The presstitutes and "news" media just provide the occasional anchor points to assure the Netflix/Disney/whatever mass media consumers that the fiction is based in a version of "reality".
"Damn those Chinese!" says Joe Twelve-Pack after watching a show in which generic corrupt Asiatic politicians, who obviously are intended to be Chinese, are portrayed being beaten up by diverse and intersectional American superhero.
"Yeah, and you know those Chinese are really like that!" says Joe the Roofer. "I saw in the news the other day how some ancient Chinese bigwig was raping a young sports star and nobody there would do anything about it!"
Joe Twelve-Pack: "No shit? What a surprise! We oughta just bomb them! I been sayin` that for years now."
The vast majority of capitalist brainwashing takes place in "entertainment" media. Carbonated sugar water and clothing logos are not the only "product placement" campaigns done in movies, pop music, and TV shows. The capitalists also use their entertainment "products" to sell capitalism itself, as well as the empire that keeps it dominant. The "news" media only provides headlines to tie the emotional content programmed into the consumer by "entertainment" to the current day's imperialist narratives. The consumer doesn't need to know the details. A vague general impression more than satisfies the empire's needs.
Total brainwashing is far more pervasive in the West than you seem to believe.
Posted by: William Gruff | Dec 21 2021 13:40 utc | 63
@ Archie Bunker And J R Ewing:
WaPo boss Jeff Bezos gets his Amazon goods(and thus profit$) from PR China; the NY/CIA times pre Trump had to protect US hardware, pharmaceuticals etc. production center China.
Both parties fell in love with monopoly positions, be it in business, information or "news" (= bread & circuses for the plebs).
Posted by: Antonym | Dec 21 2021 14:29 utc | 64
Arch #58 -
First, the main job of entities like the Times and CNN and AP is not to directly communicate with the masses but to inform what they call thought leaders and very importantly set the boundaries for acceptable range of thought.
Your local newscast, the local papers, the little news blurbs and feeds that Apple and others helpfully sends to you, the late night so-called comedians and other entertainers, the people and sources normal people DO pay attention to, they know where to get their marching orders and they march.
As for the purpose, it's not to get people ready to march to war ... they have professionals for that and don't need or want us. The purpose is so that there will be a basic and sustained hysteria and environment of support for what would otherwise be ludicrous spending levels on military/intelligence ... a trillion dollars a year that could otherwise be building bridges and clinics and paying for public health insurance. "Scare the hell out of the American people" as they say.
Posted by: Caliman | Dec 21 2021 14:44 utc | 65
Posted by: Caliman | Dec 21 2021 14:44 utc | 63
The purpose is so that there will be a basic and sustained hysteria and environment of support for what would otherwise be ludicrous spending levels on military/intelligence ... a trillion dollars a year that could otherwise be building bridges and clinics and paying for public health insurance.
I see the argument you're making but again: Do you seriously think "they" care?
The masses are powerless in their apathy, ignorance, preoccupation and fear, when has the common man ever had a say in the spending of state?
Not even hundreds of millions of a country's population have a whisper of a say in how the elite spends the country's wealth.
The Pentagon can piss away 2 Trillion and a few will scream it from the rooftops but the dumb sheeple go on ruminating in the fields.
"They" couldn't care less about our "basic and sustained hysteria". They hold all the cards and we have forgotten how to storm the Bastille.
Posted by: Arch Bungle | Dec 21 2021 15:33 utc | 66
Posted by: William Gruff | Dec 21 2021 13:40 utc | 61
Total brainwashing is far more pervasive in the West than you seem to believe.
Mr. Gruff, I'm sure I used my best English this time.
My argument was never that the masses are not brainwashed It is that the utility of Propaganda has reached a point of diminishing returns.
It is that brainwashed or not, the western masses have been so thoroughly pacified that Propaganda is of no value any more.
Posted by: Arch Bungle | Dec 21 2021 15:45 utc | 67
The New York Times is only representative of the Fake Free Press and indeed the Fake "Free World" in general.
Like the capitalist media around the globe from America to the Anglosphere to Europe to Japan to India, the NY Slimes instinctively peddles half-truths, lies, and blood libel campaigns against Official Enemy Nations. They are all bullshit artists of the highest order.
Here's a very abridged version of their lies:
Non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq; the bogus Russian poisoning of the Skripals; falsehoods about Syrian government chemical attacks (like in Douma); Russia hacking American elections, aka RussiaGate; a phony Uighur "genocide" in China; assorted American Axis sponsorship of regime change operations disguised as "pro-Democracy" movements in Libya, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, Syria, Iran, Belarus, China, and Russia; American Axis sponsorship of jihadi terrorist groups like ISIS and Al-Queda in Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere even as the USA and its allies claim to be fighting a Global War on Terror against ISIS and Al-Queda; the US Reichstag Fire incident called the September 11th terror attack....
Etc. Etc.
Lies, deception, and manipulation are core values of America and other self-styled "capitalist liberal democracies."
And the so-called "Free Press" is in its essence one thing: a Free Lie.
Posted by: ak74 | Dec 21 2021 16:41 utc | 68
Back in the cradle of Democracy: NYT, Ellen Barry, Dec. 21, 2021, 11:18 a.m. ET
In a Boston Court, a Harsh Spotlight Falls on a Heavyweight of Science
The trial of Charles Lieber offers a peek inside the world of big-money, big-prestige science as the U.S. cracked down on Chinese funding.
The trial of Dr. Lieber, which is expected to conclude this week, has offered a glimpse inside the big-money, big-prestige world of elite science as the U.S. government began the China Initiative, an effort to root out scientists suspected of sharing sensitive information with China.
Among the researchers under federal prosecution as part of the China Initiative, Dr. Lieber is by far the most prominent. Celebrated in the world of chemistry, he served as chair of Harvard’s department of chemistry and chemical biology and was seen by many in the field as a potential Nobel winner.
Adam Cohen, a professor of chemistry, chemical biology and physics, who attended last week, called him “one of the best and most impactful chemists alive.”
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Dec 21 2021 18:26 utc | 69
Posted by: William Gruff | Dec 21 2021 13:40 utc | 63
Joe Twelve-Pack: "No shit? What a surprise! Those old pricks in China get the best chicks! We oughta just bomb them! I been sayin` that for years now."
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Dec 21 2021 18:34 utc | 70
Posted by: d dan | Dec 20 2021 22:06 utc | 36
robin@24 says: "The NYT doesn't target a Chinese audience."
They do and care. In fact they do it very often. It is called "color revolution."Have you heard of the Chinese edition of NY Times? They used to be very popular and very well-regarded among certain circles of Chinese elites. Thanks goodness this is no longer true.
There may have been examples of entirely self centered colour revolutions where protest movements alone successfully brought about changes of government, but even then you could be sure to find signs and slogans written in English for a Western audience.
Now days, colour revolutions are about setting a narrative foundation to wider belligerant projects. I don't think anybody with any sense really expected a popular movement in Venezuela to rally behind an unpopular, or should I say, unknown Juan Guaido. If it were to happen, then, yeah, great, that's democracy for you. High fives all around.
If not, then there is always the next best thing: the violent coup. Except that, thanks to the legitimacy provided by the fig leaf of colour revolution, it would be referred to as a popular movement overthrowing a repressive regime. Viva la revolucion, right?
And if that doesn't work (they tried, it didn't), then there is the next best thing: economic, diplomatic, and covert physical warfare. Again, thanks to that solid narrative foundation, the project enjoys full support from the Western citizenry. Endless sanctions, brazen acts of high seas piracy, ostensible theft of gold reserves, covert destruction of industrial sites, it's all good. No objection here. Why? Well because of that, you know, regime guy with the moustache. Whatever his name is.
Posted by: robin | Dec 21 2021 19:15 utc | 71
Piotr Berman #69
Back in the cradle of Democracy: NYT, Ellen Barry, Dec. 21, 2021, 11:18 a.m. ET
Lieber is one of the USA’s most prominent and accomplished scientists, specialist in nanotechnology, and was considered one of Harvard’s star faculty members. On his arrest, he was paraded into a courtroom in shackles and the obligatory orange jump suit. The indictment was filled with descriptive inference which caused many to believe that Lieber was deeply involved in espionage activity with the CCP threatening to US national security.
As the trial continues, it turns out Lieber may or may not have been entirely clear regarding the fine print of a research program his lab co-sponsored with Chinese colleagues, and that his failure to declare some of his honorarium through the program may have resulted in his owing $22,000 in back taxes. Clearly not espionage,but his science career and work are effectively destroyed, at least in USA. The political requirements of a Congress-backed program designed to create suspicion and legal jeopardy regarding joint academic research between American and Chinese researchers took precedence over the career of one of America’s top scientists. (see https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2019-11-18%20PSI%20Staff%20Report%20-%20China's%20Talent%20Recruitment%20Plans.pdf)
Return to the witch-hunts of the 1950s.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/12/21/lieber-trial-day-5/
Posted by: jayc | Dec 21 2021 20:35 utc | 72
Lieber guilty. USA destroys the reputation of one of its top scientists for academic activity in China circa 2012-2014 based on reporting rules introduced in 2018. Never talk to FBI without an attorney.
Posted by: jayc | Dec 22 2021 0:59 utc | 73
@ b, Re the article caption:
New York Times Covers Up Its Debunked Lies About Peng Shuai By Adding New Ones
Of course lies routinely need new lies. From, Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: "A lie hath no feet. Because it cannot stand alone. In fact a lie wants twenty others to support it, and even then it is in constant danger of tripping."
British Consul in Ottoman Damascus, Captain Sir Richard Burton, 1868-1871 wrote in his book, The Jew The Gypsy and El Islam:
"The average Englishman ...is not ignorant of (the Jews) prodigious trickery (and ) of their immense and abnormal powers of lying..."
From The Journal of The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.
We know the NYT has agendas.
Posted by: Paul | Dec 22 2021 4:19 utc | 74
How dare Peng Shuai not be sexually assaulted after all those media people got outraged about her!
Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Dec 22 2021 5:04 utc | 75
Lieber guilty. USA destroys the reputation of one of its top scientists for academic activity in China circa 2012-2014 based on reporting rules introduced in 2018. Never talk to FBI without an attorney.
Posted by: jayc | Dec 22 2021 0:59 utc | 73
One may wonder about reputation of USA. Giving a top scientist Al Capone treatment with the use of "intercepted messages". Could be worse in USSR in 1930-ies: Prof. Lieber would be duly declared a "traitor" and send to a special concentration camp for scientists and engineers where he would continue his work for the benefit of the working classes. (Traitors were classified according to the current and future usefulness. USA did not learn that trick yet.)
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Dec 22 2021 16:55 utc | 76
What?
The NY Times lied?.
And the US propaganda machine is running red hot over some Chinese tennis player?
Unbelievable.
Surely, there is more compelling news to post about.
Posted by: Cadence calls | Dec 23 2021 3:05 utc | 77
The toll of Covid-19 on American society can be demonstrated by the precipitous decline in American life expectancy in 2020, down 1.8 years for both men and women, and 2.2 years for men in particular. This was, unsurprisingly, the biggest reduction in life expectancy since World War II. This reduction in life expectancy was actually greater than expected by some oft cited articles from earlier this year. The People's Republic of China can now boast that its population has a slightly higher life expectancy at birth than the United States, "the world's richest economy." I believe this also brings Cuba's life expectancy at birth up a little bit higher than the vast majority of US states, unless their last big Covid wave had a disproportionate impact on their numbers due to their peculiar economic and political circumstances.
The impact on life expectancy will probably be a kind of metric for historians in the future to determine how well different social systems coped, or collapsed, under the stress of the pandemic. Liberal democracies are almost universally going to be painted with a negative brush. Governments which remained committed to a laissez-faire economic and social policy through the pandemic almost universally suffered greater mass death and suffering than even the relic Stalinist governments of e.g. Cuba and the PRC. I bring these up also to note that, when the USSR - itself a relic Stalinist regime in 1991 - collapsed, one of the reasons cited was the "sclerotic" and "rigid" political character of the Marxist-Leninist single-party state. It was said that such a highly centralized party could never hope to be able to even collect the local, dispersed, knowledge that is necessary to produce a vibrant and reactive economy, let alone act on that knowledge.
Well, in 2020, the ability of these liberal democracies to do just that was shown to be as bad as that of Gorbachev's, while the relic Marxist-Leninist governments very quickly adapted digital technology to their extant surveillance regimes to keep apace of new cases practically as they were tallied, track the spread of infection, and in China's case especially, stop the spread of disease in its tracks. The willingness of the Stalinist governments to act with a heavy hand (such as by jailing disinformers, rather than allowing them to enrich themselves through either the sale of their audience's data, or through their herbal supplement retailing outlets which their political content advertises for, e.g. Alex Jones) was one deciding factor, but the successful implementation of a digital surveillance regime should put to rest, finally, the liberal Big Lie that there's knowledge out there which central planners (i.e. socialist planners) can never hope to capture. Governments that are enamored with this myth - such as, especially, the ones in the Anglophone parts of the world, with the exception of New Zealand - reacted poorly as a result of their belief in it. Governments which in practice rejected that myth fared far better. The unrestrained and undirected rule of market forces resulted in its own sclerotic response, and the result was simply that close to a million people in the United States alone have died from the absence of central planning.
We can only hope that some sense has finally been knocked into the heads of our countrymen. This "free enterprise" shit just don't work.
Posted by: fnord | Dec 23 2021 21:49 utc | 78
This whole thing makes me suspicious. It's as if the boycott idea was formed first, with the excuse added later.
Posted by: Dictynna | Dec 26 2021 18:51 utc | 80
It is interesting that people actually run a google translation to disagree with the translation done by a person who actually understands both English and Chinese. Talk about American Exceptionalism. And then there is the hypocrisy. We have at least 2 rapists on our supreme court and a couple of recent presidents known for womanizing, not just having a long term affair. The only men who are taken down by the Me Too! thing are men whom other men want to seed taken down. Sad but true. I don't give much credence to these 'woke' campaigns.
Also, the wife's apparent acquiescence and later distress over the relationship may be related to issues in Chinese Culture that is different than ours, though in the process of changing. In countries with arranged marriages there is more tolerance for these kinds of affairs. Also, I can raise an example that surprised me at the time some years ago. A friend had a long term affair with a married guy from China who worked lived in the U.S. for a few years. When he left, she missed him very much though she understood that it was his choice as well as his duty to return. A couple of years after he returned to Beijing, she went for a visit. His wife and family were very welcoming. She was received with grace and affection all around. His wife called her meimei (little sister). When she left after a few weeks they invited her to stay and join the family. She was very moved by their reception though she decided it would be best for her to move on.
The New York times is a propaganda rag. Even when they seem to be telling a truth we have been trying to get out for a long time, (as with the current 'drone' expose) their motives are suspect and you have to look around for what they are really up to.
Posted by: Judy Bello | Dec 28 2021 23:19 utc | 81
The comments to this entry are closed.
It will never matter what she says. "Facts" are created around a given policy.
Always watch what the left hand is doing, while the right hand is slapping you.
Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | Dec 20 2021 17:27 utc | 1