EU Votes
For Citizens To Fund Their Own Brainwashing
By Finian
Cunningham
November
27, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
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"RT"
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A fledgling
group set up by the European Commission to allegedly
counteract “Russian propaganda” is to be expanded
with more public cash and resources. European
citizens will be funding mechanisms inducing their
own ignorance and misinformation.
This
week, the European Parliament in Strasbourg
voted by a dubious majority for a cash injection
to expand the work of a media watchdog aimed at
“debunking Russian
propaganda.”
The
little-known media group, reportedly comprising 11
“diplomats,” was established a year ago by
the all-powerful, but unelected European Commission.
The media unit has, therefore, no electoral mandate.
It is potentially holding sway over how 500 million
EU citizens will be able in the future to access
news and public information.
In
particular, it is evident the said EU media program
is motivated by an extreme Russophobia bias. Working
in tandem with this media watchdog is another
coterie of seven parliamentarians
headed by the rabidly anti-Russian Polish MEP
Anna Fotyga. The 57-year-old
member of the right-wing Alliance of
Conservatives and Reformists in Europe within the EU
Parliament has been regularly accusing Russia of
“aggression” in Ukraine and toward Europe
generally.
Fotyga’s
self-appointed media group, dominated by eastern
European anti-Russian interests, produced a
report earlier this year entitled “EU strategic
communications with a view to counteracting propaganda.”
It makes for hysterical reading accusing Russian news
networks RT and Sputnik of being Kremlin propaganda
tools for sowing division and discord among EU member
states.
The
report states: “The Russian
government is employing a wide range of tools and
instruments, such as think-tanks [...], multilingual TV
stations (e.g. Russia Today), pseudo-news agencies and
multimedia services (e.g. Sputnik) [...], social media
and internet trolls, to challenge democratic values,
divide Europe, gather domestic support and create the
perception of failed states in the EU’s eastern
neighborhood.”
It was
largely this tendentious “study” that formed
the basis for the European Parliament’s resolution this
week to expand funding for the media program to
“debunk Russian propaganda.”
How much new
money is being disbursed to the media watchdog is not
clear. But ultimately it will be funded by EU citizens
whose taxes underwrite member governments’ financial
contributions to the Brussels-based 28-nation bloc.
Notably,
the EU Parliament vote this week was far from
convincing. Some 304 MEPs voted for extra funding to the
“anti-Russian propaganda” group, while 179 MEPs
voted against. A further 208 parliamentarians abstained.
That suggests widespread apprehension among lawmakers
about the function and credibility of
“debunking Russian propaganda.”
So, here we
have an outcome whereby a minuscule group of unelected
faceless bureaucrats and ideologically driven
politicians, who evidently have an ax to grind against
Russia, are able to shape a vital area of foreign policy
for the entire EU bloc and furthermore to significantly
impinge on the public’s right to access information
freely.
The charges of
“Russian state-sponsored propaganda” have been
inflamed with recent
claims by Western leaders like US President Barack
Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel that “fake
news” is undermining Western democracy. These claims
have in turn followed months of reports from various
NATO-linked think-tanks which have
allege that Russian news services are fronts for
Kremlin-inspired disinformation.
Political
pressure is now being brought to bear on internet and
social media providers, such as Google and Facebook, to
ban “fake news” from their networks. Germany’s
Merkel has even
declared this week that she intends introducing
legislation that will force internet service companies
to “regulate fake news.”
It is not clear
how far this development will go. Western-based internet
companies may yield and impose blanket censorship.
Another question is what are the limits on designating
which information and sources are considered “fake”?
The political
atmosphere of Russophobia being whipped up by Western
leaders, NATO-connected think-tanks and now EU
parliamentarians – and the actual fingering of Russian
news services like RT and Sputnik as “illegitimate
sources” – is all setting the stage for the banning
of Russian media.
In reports this
week, the EU media watchdog that is being expanded to
“counter Russian propaganda” said
that it would be employing ways of “alerting
internet users to false information.” Presumably,
that involves hiring online commentators (trolls) who
will add disparaging comments to news articles deemed to
be Kremlin propaganda. Apparently, there are no moves
yet to demand that internet providers actually delete
content. But that full-blown censorship would seem to be
only a short step away, given the relentless
anti-Russian atmosphere and claims by Western leaders of
“fake news” eroding democracy.
The insidious
nature of what is unfolding is illustrated by the
alleged incident of Belgian NATO fighter jets bombing
Syria last month. On October 18, the village of
Hassadjek in Aleppo was reportedly hit by air strikes
that killed six civilians, according to local sources.
Several news
services, including Reuters, subsequently carried
reports in which Russia’s Ministry of Defense
accused Belgium of carrying out the strikes as part of
the US-led coalition purportedly bombing Syria to combat
jihadi terror groups.
The Russian
information appeared to be substantive, providing
flight and radar data that reportedly identified the
Belgian warplanes. Belgium’s ambassador was summoned
in Moscow to explain why the Belgian government
appeared to be stonewalling with denials that its
air force was involved in the deadly attack.
Disturbingly,
the news reports of the alleged Belgian air strike
on the Aleppo countryside last month are
described as an example of “fake news”
by the EU media watchdog during this week’s
parliamentary vote to endorse more funding for the
unit.
This has
huge sinister implications. Any news report or
analysis – no matter how substantive or factual –
that happens to offend the political sensibilities
and reputation of EU governments are thus liable to
be labeled “fake.” And therefore subject to
censorship.
What about
reports on Western governments supplying jihadi
terror groups with weapons? Or reports on how
Western media are colluding with terrorist
propaganda fronts like the White Helmets to
fabricate allegations of Russian violations in the
liberation of besieged Syrian city Aleppo?
All
such reports can be verified and documented. But
because they happen to offend official Western
claims about their involvement in Syria, then such
“offending” reports can be merely dismissed
as “Russian propaganda.”
This
marks an audacious license by European and American
authorities to grant themselves immunity from media
criticism and scrutiny – simply by invoking a
subjective, politicized claim that Russian news is
“fake” and
“propagandistic.”
Meanwhile, this week Ukrainian President Petro
Poroshenko was being
hosted in Brussels by EU leaders during which he
warned: “The European
Union is under very severe attack from Russia.”
There is no
hint of awareness among European media outlets and
the EU’s own media watchdogs that Poroshenko’s
tedious tirades constitute a glaring case of
“fake news.”
Dystopian future beckons in which EU citizens are
obligated to fund unelected media controllers who
will deprive them of critical news and information,
while at the same time sluicing citizens with the
most gratuitous anti-Russia propaganda.
The upshot
is that EU citizens are gradually forced into paying
for their own brainwashing.
No wonder a
growing number of citizens are becoming alienated
from the EU’s oligarchic rule. It is acting like a
tyranny that needs to be torn asunder.
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