Imperialist Propaganda and the Ideology of the Western Left Intelligentsia: From Anticommunism and Identity Politics to Democratic Illusions and Fascism

Gabriel Rockhill and Zhao Dingqi

Monthly Review | 2023, Volume 75, Number 07 (December 2023)

Zhao Dingqi: During the Cold War, how did the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conduct the “Cultural Cold War”? What activities did the CIA’s Congress for Cultural Freedom carry out, and what impact did it have?

Gabriel Rockhill: The CIA undertook, along with other state agencies and the foundations of major capitalist enterprises, a multifaceted cultural cold war aimed at containing—and ultimately rolling back and destroying—communism. This propaganda war was international in scope and had many different aspects, only a few of which I touch on below. It is important to note at the outset, however, that in spite of its extensive reach and the ample resources dedicated to it, many battles have been lost throughout this war. To take but one recent example that demonstrates how this conflict continues today, Raúl Antonio Capote revealed in his 2015 book that he worked for the CIA for years in its destabilization campaigns in Cuba targeting intellectuals, writers, artists, and students. Unbeknownst to the governmental agency known as “the Company,” however, the Cuban university professor it had slyly honey-potted into promoting its dirty tricks was actually pulling one over on the cocksure master spies: he was working undercover for Cuban intelligence.¹ This is but one sign among many others that the CIA, in spite of its various victories, is ultimately fighting a war that proves hard to win: it is attempting to impose a world order that is inimical to the overwhelming majority of the globe’s population.

The British media’s complicity in Israel’s slaughter in Gaza

Just like with the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, the British public cannot trust the media to provide accurate, critical or historically contextual coverage of the war on Gaza, asserts IAN SINCLAIR

Morning Star | December 07, 2023

Al Jazeera recently reported it had received a letter from eight Britain-based journalists employed by the BBC highlighting double standards of the BBC’s coverage of Palestinian and Ukrainian civilians, and how terms such as “massacre” and “atrocity” have been “reserved only for Hamas.”

PRINTED in full by Jadaliyya, on October 24 Rami Ruhayem, a BBC correspondent based in Beirut, sent an extraordinary email to BBC director general Tim Davie, raising “the gravest possible concerns” about the corporation’s post-October 7 coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

“It appears to me that information that is highly significant and relevant is either entirely missing or not being given due prominence in coverage,” Ruhayem argued. “This includes expert opinion that Israel’s action could amount to genocide, evidence in support of that opinion, and historical context without which the public cannot form a basic understanding of the unfolding events.”

How Empire Fabricates Atrocities

Review of AB Abrams’ Atrocity Fabrication and Its Consequences: How Fake News Shapes World Order

Kim Petersen

The Greanville Post | June 18, 2023

Syria in ruins, thanks to US bombing and its injection of terrorists (aka “moderate rebels”).

Another atrocity. Yesterday, the dam holding back the waters for the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station was destroyed releasing a massive flood surge, imperilling people and places below the dam on the Dnieper River. Both sides blamed each other. From the Russian standpoint, it makes no sense to blow up the dam. According to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, it was a desperate attempt to improve the defensive positions of Ukrainian forces. It is the latest atrocity in this war. On 26 September 2022, the Nord Stream pipelines were blown up. [A huge ecological crime] Ukraine and western monopoly media blamed Russia. Again, it makes no sense that Russia would blow up pipelines to deliver its gas. Reputable journalist Seymour Hersch made clear his case that the United States, aided by Norway, sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines. Russia is no longer blamed.

As Venezuela Mends Ties With Latin Neighbors, Western Media Turn Up the Propaganda

Ricardo Vaz

FAIR | June 22, 2023

Venezuela’s Maduro government has slowly and steadily regained its diplomatic standing in recent years, overcoming US endeavors to turn the country into a pariah state as part of its regime-change efforts.

Nevertheless, Washington remains hell-bent on ousting the democratically elected Venezuelan authorities, and has kept its deadly sanctions program virtually intact. And Western media, which have cheered coup attempts at every step of the way (FAIR.org, 6/13/22, 5/2/22, 6/4/21, 4/15/20, 1/22/20), remain committed to endorsing US policies to the bitter end.

This commitment was on full display recently when President Nicolás Maduro was hosted by Brazilian President Lula da Silva, in a major blow against the campaign to isolate Venezuela. Lula added insult to injury by condemning what he called the “narrative” of authoritarianism and lack of democracy that had been built around Venezuela to justify sanctions and regime change.

A New Era of Radically Independent Journalism

Glenn Greenwald

[THIS IS POSTED HERE FOR NON-PROFIT, NON-COMMERCIAL, EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE.]

Why the Media Don’t Want to Know the Truth About the Nord Stream Blasts

Jonathan Cook

The Greanville Post | April 11, 2023

No one but the terminally naïve should be surprised that security services lie – and that they are all but certain to cover their tracks when they carry out operations that either violate domestic or international law or that would be near-universally rejected by their own populations.

Which is reason enough why anyone following the fallout from explosions last September that ripped holes in three of the four Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea supplying Russian gas to Europe should be wary of accepting anything Western agencies have to say on the matter.

In fact, the only thing that Western publics should trust is the consensus among “investigators” that the three simultaneous blasts deep underwater on the pipelines – a fourth charge apparently failed to detonate – were sabotage, not some freak coincidental accident.

Common Sense, Not Conspiracy Theories, Accounts For Africans’ Embrace Of Russian Media

And China’s help to provide Africans with free TV, even in remote villages, is making a new life possible.

Andrew Korybko

The Greanville Post | April 15, 2023

Children watch TV in a village in Cote d’Ivoire. The Wan Cun Tong project cooperates with some 500 villages in Cote d’Ivoire. (Photo: Courtesy of StarTimes; see story in Appendix below)

The New York Times condescendingly implied that Africans lack the media literacy to discern the difference between fact and fiction in their latest piece about why they’re embracing Russian media. Titled “How Putin Became a Hero on African TV”, it pushes the conspiracy theory that there’s supposedly a shadowy Kremlin-concentric plot at play to explain this growing trend, which denies Africans any agency with respect to deciding for themselves which information products to consume.

It’s not difficult to figure out what’s going on as long as observers aren’t blinded by wishful thinking fantasies like those that continue to influence many Western commentators. It’s common sense that Africans would gravitate towards alternative sources of information to learn more about events across the world after rightly coming to suspect the US-led West’s Mainstream Media (MSM) of ulterior motives.

Assange Is The Greatest Journalist Of All Time: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE | April 05, 2023

It’s funny how former Israeli PM Ehud Barak just deleted a tweet admitting that Israel has nuclear weapons at the same time The Washington Post reports that US allies have a “don’t talk about Nord Stream” policy because of the answers it would turn up. There are so many open secrets that everyone knows but isn’t allowed to acknowledge publicly.

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The world’s most famous journalist was just deprived of a visit from Reporters Without Borders because the British prison he’s being kept in “received intelligence that they are journalists,” and yet all we ever hear about is how Russia and China mistreat journalists. Julian Assange is the world’s greatest and most famous journalist and he’s in prison solely for the crime of doing good journalism, but sure, let’s all spend our time shaking our fists at far away “authoritarian regimes” for imprisoning journalists.

Tucker Carlson: The Media’s Job Is To Control!

The Jimmy Dore Show | March 18, 2023

Bush-Era Neocons Should Shut The Fuck Up About Iraq (And Everything Else)

Caitlin Johnstone | March 15, 2023

David Frum and Max Boot, two neoconservatives who helped grease the wheels for the invasion of Iraq, have some thoughts they’d like to share with us as we approach the 20th anniversary of that horrific and unforgivable war. Both of these perspectives can be read in widely esteemed mainstream publications, because everyone who was responsible for inflicting that war upon our species has enjoyed mainstream influence and esteem to this very day.

Both men concede in their own ways that the war was a mistake, while simultaneously cheerleading the US proxy war in Ukraine that has brought humanity closer to nuclear armageddon than it has been at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Both men mix their Iraq War retrospectives with war apologia, historical revisionism, and outright lies. And both men should shut the fuck up. About everything. Forever.

Frum’s article is posted in The Atlantic, where he is a senior editor, and it is titled “The Iraq War Reconsidered“. Frum is credited with authoring George W Bush’s infamous “Axis of Evil” speech, which marked the beginning of an unprecedented era of US military expansionism and “humanitarian interventions” in geostrategically valuable nations after 9/11.