Media in the world and in South Africa VC, CU, 23 August 2014 Sometimes two articles in the same short space of time can show something up in a useful way. Please let me explain what I mean. In Counterpunch yesterday there appeared a fine article by Israel Shamir called "Kill Putin <http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/22/kill-putin/> ". It is a good read, although there are some parts of it that are loose or badly translated. It is too long and rambling for the Communist University, where what we need are articles that stay close to one point, or rather, close to one critical contradiction. I have extracted part of Israel Shamir's article, for comparison with a South African report of some words of Anton Harber that appeared on the same day. Harber is a former editor of the Mail and Guardian, a media businessman and promoter, and a professor at Wits University. Shamir's account is notable for the fact that he recognizes the material force of the Western media machine, which he calls its "dreadful might". It is "as powerful as nuclear weapons", he says. This frankness is so much better than other articles, full of righteous bravado, which dismiss the lies of the Imperialist media as if, as mere untruths, they would not count for anything. On the contrary, Shamir admits the tremendous power of this media machine, and its ability both to smother an opposed country, and to penetrate to the heart of that country at the same time. Here, below, between horizontal lines, are the parts of Shamir's article that refer (after which we return to Harber and South Africa): "The Malaysian liner crash was a terrible disaster in many ways. Not so much per se: three hundred people are being killed each day in Gaza, Iraq, Donbass. Europeans and Americans forgot the Cuban air liner flight 455 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubana_de_Aviaci%C3%B3n_Flight_455> , or Iranian liner flight 655 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655> , or Libyan liner flight 114 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Arab_Airlines_Flight_114> , as these liners were downed by "our side". But this was a chance for the Western media machine to unleash its dreadful might. This machine is as powerful as nuclear weapons; when in full blast, it incapacitates leaders and countries. Thousands of TV channels, newspapers, radio programs, bloggers, internet sites, experts, ministers, presidents united in one single message, terrifying as vox Dei, though it's not even a vox populi, just a device of Masters of Discourse, akin to big trumpets used by Romans to scare the barbarians. "All British newspapers ran photos of dead children with captions like "He was murdered by Putin". Russians were overwhelmed by the furious blast of propaganda. People wept; some weak and emotional personalities admitted their guilt and lit candles in front of Netherlands embassy in Moscow. Why Netherlands, if the liner was Malaysian? (Because Netherlands is a European "white" country, while Malays are not?) Why guilt, if nothing was known yet? Why did not we see pictures of slaughtered Gaza kids with caption "murdered by Netanyahu", killed Iraqi kids "murdered by Blair", murdered Afghani babies "murdered by Obama"? This is the incredible power of the Masters of Discourse: when they go full blast, people lose mind and panic... "Now, one month later, we know that there was no evidence of Russian involvement in the tragedy. There are strong pieces of evidence suggesting Kiev and US involvement, the best of them is a negative one: if Kiev and Washington would have a proof of Russian and/or rebels' guilt we would hear of it day and night. If you are interested in detailed analysis of the disaster, you can read this one <https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByibNV3SiUoobnpCVDduaHVORHM/edit> , recommended by our friends... Anyway, the air liner is out of news and out of mind by now, and this means it was an accident or a failed provocation by Kiev or Washington, for otherwise we would hear about it." When I first saw a headline to the effect that South Africa's Anton Harber is saying that our media is too "mainstream", I thought that Harber, himself a major architect of the same, actual, South African media "mainstream", must have had a "Damascus experience". But no. What Harber is, incredibly, trying to say is that, and I quote, "In South Africa, we have a growing, increasingly dominant network of ANC-supporting media" ('Many media outlets are pro-ANC <http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/many-media-outlets-are-pro-anc-1.1739128 #.U_gquvm1ZtE> ', SAPA, IOL, 21 August 2014). What do you do when a professor tells such a big lie? Let's look at the situation. The screaming anti-ANC chorus includes the "Times" newspapers, the Mail and Guardian and its electronic outlets, the Independent newspapers (Oh, yes: they are some of the worst, and they are all over the country), the City Press and its Afrikaans-language sisters, the Citizen and the Sowetan, and many more. The SAFM radio is constantly anti-ANC, and in its news, you find that you are listening to the colonial-Imperialist BBC! The situation is even worse than this. Behind the titles there is a cadre of journalists and "analysts", black and white, who have all been groomed and trained to be oppositionist, for decades past. The small New Age is the exception that proves the rule, and it is weak and naïve. It has to draw from the same pool of oppositionist-trained journalists. Harber would probably try to claim that the Independent Group is pro-ANC because the proprietor is black. But the evidence of the political line of the Independent Group is face up on every news-stand, every day: It is grossly, vulgarly anti-ANC. Harber's nose is so high in the air that he thinks he can ignore this plain truth, and instead project a "big lie", and it works with a lot of people. In the comments below the articles you can see that many racist whites do really believe that the majority of the media are against them. This is very similar to the USA, where the media act solidly together, in the way that Israel Shamir describes, yet there are US equivalents of Haber by the dozens every day being given space to big-lie that the same US media is "liberal", meaning in US parlance, communist! It can only be that the Harbers of this world, and the US Harbers, lie about what they are doing for tactical reasons. They must tell you that they are the underdog, because they are jealous of the underdog position that they have forced upon everyone else! It's contemptible! Now they talk about "diversity", for themselves! They want even more dominance! This is the same Professor Harber who this week called for South Africa to make war on Swaziland. That makes him a war criminal. Such a mixture of war-criminal and media liar is exactly in accordance with the USA Imperial formula. VC -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. 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