Interesting. What comes to mind is that we should never embrace a
news source, no matter how similar our positions are. That becomes a
problem when we get into topics where I need information in order to
decide if my source is reliable. For me, I hold a rather synical view
of all governments. Cuba might be muy one exception, but I'm sure I
can find plenty of folks who would talk my ear off about the abuses in
that fair land.
After watching NPR slide toward the concervative side, I swore I'd
quit listening to them. But my choices were really no choice at all.
So for better or worse I tune in the 6:00 AM NPR news. And either at
5:00 or 7:00 A.M. I listen to Democracy Now. And at 9:00 A.M., if I'm
not too busy, I listen to Thom Hartmann and his rant of the day. I
seldom stay with Thom, unless someone like Richard Wolff comes on,
because the callers are sort of like the Sports Fans on talk radio.
"Hey hey, hows bout them republicans?"
Carl Jarvis
On 2/23/21, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
This article verifies what I've been observing and writing about regardingInteresting. What comes to mind is that we should never embrace a
Democdracy Now on this list. I believe that the change began around 2011
and
that coincides, perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, when the female co
host, whose name has slipped my mind, joined the program, I think.
Interestingly, Alan Nearn was on last night's Flashpoints, which I listened
to, this morning. He was talking about what the US had done in Guatemala
because of the death of Sister Ortiz. He used to be a regularly featured
guest on DN, talking about all of the misdeeds of the US in various
countries. He still occasionally appears on the program, but only very
occasionally.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Miriam Vieni
Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2021 1:30 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] emocracy Now amplifies State Department
propaganda campaign against China behind progressive cover
Democracy Now China propaganda cold war
Democracy Now amplifies State Department propaganda campaign against China
behind progressive cover DANNY HAIPHONG.FEBRUARY 22, 2021
While Democracy Now hosts US gov't-funded pundits to spread humanitarian
interventionist propaganda about Xinjiang, an analysis by The Grayzone
found
most of the outlets's China coverage is sharply negative The U.S. has
claimed a humanitarian "Responsibility to Protect" to justify military
operations in the name of saving civilian lives from evil dictators. Most
notable have been the brutal U.S.-led wars in Libya and Syria which
destabilized entire regions in the name of "civilian protection"
and "promoting democracy." These operations relied heavily on
self-described
human rights NGO's and media outlets to cultivate support among liberal
sectors of the US intelligentsia. Sadly, Democracy Now has been among the
most influential and insidious outlets carrying water for the humanitarian
interventionist agenda.
The flagship program of the left-wing Pacifica radio network, Democracy Now
(DN) and its founding host, Amy Goodman, are regarded as standard bearers
of
grassroots progressivism. However in recent years the show has become a
reliable platform for uncritical regime change propaganda, demonizing
targets of US empire from Syria to Nicaragua while sending a correspondent
to embed with US-backed "rebels" in Libya. Now that China is in the
crosshairs of the US, DN is playing host to virtually any piece of
humanitarian agitprop that Washington can conjure up, while publishing a
regular serving of sharply negative stories about Chinese government and
society.
A review by The Grayzone of every China-related report and interview
Democracy Now aired in the past year found that 3 out of every 4 painted
China in a decidedly negative light, often echoing narratives emanating
from
the US State Department. Perhaps its most inflammatory and factually
questionable report appeared this February amid an escalating wave of
anti-China propaganda.
Democracy Now amps up Cold War fever with dubious cast of US govt-sponsored
guests On February 4th, DN aired a story on the latest moral outrage out of
China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. It was a report from the BBC, the
British Foreign Office-funded media giant that was exposed by The Grayzone
as a UK intelligence contractor. Instead of questioning the BBC's report,
which appeared custom-tailored to generate public support for the new Cold
War, Democracy Now uncritically amplified it.
DN's story opened with the BBC's interview of Tursunay Ziawudun, the
singular source for accusations of "mass rape" in so-called re-education
camps in Xinjiang. Democracy Now repeated the US-based exile's claims as
fact without any investigation into the credibility of the source. Ziawudun
is no stranger to the Western press. In fact, prior interviews with
Ziawudun
reveal several glaring inconsistencies that place her credibility as a
source into question.
Ziawudun was first interviewed by a human rights organization in Kazakhstan
called Atajurt. The group possesses no formal website or information about
donors, only social media accounts. In 2018, directors of Atajurt junketed
to Washington DC to meet with the National Endowment for Democracy and
various anti-China influencers.
Neither Ziawudun's interviews with this organization nor her testimony to
the CIA-created Radio Free Asia mention rape at all. In a feature with
Buzzfeed in February of 2020, Ziawudun stated, "I wasn't beaten or abused.
The hardest part was mental. It's something I can't explain - you suffer
mentally. Being kept someplace and forced to stay there for no reason. You
have no freedom. You suffer."
Ziawudun's reflection on her experience changed character after she became
involved with the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP). The UHRP was created
and is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a US
intelligence passthrough that was established under the watch of former CIA
director William Casey.
The Grayzone exposed the Uyghur Human Rights Project as part of a
consortium
of groups operating under the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) umbrella, and
funded to the tune of tens of millions of dollars a year in US government
money to promote the narrative of a Uyghur genocide carried out by China's
government.
In September 2020, the UHRP resettled Ziawudun in the United States, flying
her from Kazakhstan to the Washington DC area. "Ms. Tursunay is a critical
witness.," the US government-funded organization declared in a press
release. "Her testimony will be vitally important for future
atrocity-crimes
determination processes and tribunals."
In a CNN report based on her contradictory claims alleging a Chinese policy
of "systematic rape," her Chinese passport briefly appeared on screen. It
showed that after all her alleged travails, she was granted a ten year visa
to travel abroad as she pleased. Yet CNN reported she "walked across the
Kazakh border" in 2019, creating the impression she had to escape from
China
to tell her horror story. In a subsequent broadcast of its report, CNN
blurred out Ziawadun's passport issue date.
Democracy Now did not mention Ziawudun's apparent recruitment by the US
government or her dramatically shifting story in its coverage. Instead, it
invited a cast of guests from the Washington's anti-China echo chamber on
to
discuss her story.
Among them was so-called "linguist," Abdulweli Ayup, who spent two years in
the United States as a fellow for the Ford Foundation and has interviewed
more than a half-dozen times with Radio Free Asia, a US government
propaganda network founded by the CIA. Ayup's biography was published in a
lengthy report by the Uyghur Human Rights Project, the same NED-backed
organization which helped Tusurnay Ziawudun resettle in the United States.
U.S. academic Darren Byler rounded out Democracy Now's panel on the BBC
report. Byler is a fellow at the Wilson Center, a DC-based think tank
funded
by the US Congress, the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates, and a host of
Wall Street big banks including Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase.
Former U.S. General and CIA director David Petraeus and BP share important
council positions for the organization.
Byler is a regular source of quotes advancing the US government's Cold War
posture against China. He has framed Beijing's counter-terrorism policy in
Xinjiang as the political and military equivalent of the United States'
post
9/11 War on Terror, omitting the historical context of dozens of
documented
mass casualty attacks by the separatist Al Qaeda affiliate known as the
East
Turkestan Islamic Front in the region between the years of 1990 and 2016.
He
was even quoted in an article by the State Department-funded Coda Story
attacking The Grayzone alongside other US government sponsored anti-China
pundits.
An email to Democracy Now staff requesting a comment on its relentless
parade of anti-China coverage and steady stream of dubious, US
government-sponsored guests went unanswered.
Content analysis: 76% of Democracy Now's China coverage is sharply negative
Democracy Now's coverage of China over the past year has been almost
entirely negative. A content analysis by The Grayzone of DN headlines
directly referencing China from February 1st 2020 to the present reveals
that 54 of 69 (78 percent) presented a sharply negative spin on events. The
vast majority of the stories focused on "human rights" in Hong Kong and
Xinjiang, echoing narratives generated by the US national security state.
Some emanated directly from hardline Trump administration officials like
Mike Pompeo and John Bolton.
The other fifteen DN stories could be considered "neutral" in tone. They
centered on developments surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Even here,
however, DN's bias toward China stood out. For example, in a headline about
a small outbreak of Covid in China in April 2020, DN editors placed scare
quotes around the word "imported" in order to cast doubt on Beijing's claim
that the virus originated abroad. Meanwhile, the outlet has offered nothing
but praise for the pro-US government of Taiwan's successful pandemic
response.
While Democracy Now appears to have deemed the US's Cold War-style policies
toward China as unworthy of criticism, the flagship progressive program
found time to host so-called Xinjiang expert Adrian Zenz in 2019. Zenz, a
far right Christian fundamentalist member of the Victims of Communism
Memorial Foundation who claims to "led by God" against the Communist Party
of China, is an odd guest for a supposedly left-wing program.
Adrian Zenz Uyghurs China Christian fundamentalist Democracy Now describes
Zenz, a far-right employee of the Victims of Communism Foundation, as an
"independent researcher"
In analysis of Zenz's research paper accusing China of forced sterilization
and genocide in Xinjiang, The Grayzone's Gareth Porter and Max Blumenthal
found wanton manipulation of data, major errors and a number of missing
footnotes. Despite his clear credibility issues, Zenz is without question
the most cited source in the U.S. and West on all matters relating to
Xinjiang.
Democracy Now provided Zenz a platform despite the fact his most constantly
repeated claim that over one million Uygurs are being detained in
"concentration camps" was based on a mere two sources: a total of eight
interviews conducted by the NED-backed, Washington DC-based Network of
Chinese Human Rights Defenders and a single television report from a
Turkish-based Uygur exile organization.
Under the Trump national security doctrine, which has been largely retained
by the Biden administration, the US proclaimed China and Russia to be the
greatest threats it faces on the global stage. The truth is that China's
emphasis on poverty alleviation, multilateral cooperation, and economic
growth coupled with its growing political independence is seen as an
existential threat to the United States' continued hegemony. As the US
charts a dangerous course toward war with China, authentically independent
investigative journalism and activism is required to prioritize peace over
access to the powerful.
Unfortunately, while Democracy Now has marketed itself as "the exception to
the rulers," it is functioning as little more than a force multiplier for
the State Department, amplifying Cold War narratives on China behind
progressive cover.
