I have always been boggled by the fact that the craziest and the most fringe conspiracy theorists get so much airtime on this YouTube channel, RussiaToday.
I just wondered what exactly compels these people to interview Paul Craig Roberts, Gerald Celente, and other fringe maniacs, particularly from such a well maintained news office.
I also wondered why a channel called RussiaToday worries only about Americans all the time.
So it turns out that they are funded by the Government of Russia. They say so bluntly.
Let’s see. The Government of Russia funds a YouTube news channel that focuses on every doomsayer who portends the end of United States. While American news media or the American government no longer could give a damn about Bosnia, RussiaToday only talks about how “American propaganda” blocks facts about the Bosnian war.
Oh Russia, what have you done? Your own country is heavily bureaucratised, crippled by heavy regulations that prevent entrepreneurs from rising, still running on commodities businesses, and confined abroad to making friends with tiny Third World nations like Libya for little support. How much of the dirty American laundary can you cheerfully see before you start cleaning your own?
This is the most shallow thing I have ever seen a government of any nation do in plain sight - fund a news channel for the sole purpose of getting some Scadenfreude over a country four times richer, without a declining population birth rate, without a sex ratio heavily skewed towards women, and without the highest homicide rate in the world.
Russian taxpayers paying for Schadenfreude? Are Russians here not outraged?
If you did not explicitly say so I could easily rewrite this paragraph for the country with the most powerful and expensive bureaucracy in the history of the world:
Oh ???, what have you done? Your own country is heavily bureaucratised, crippled by heavy regulations that prevent entrepreneurs from rising, still running on commodities businesses, and confined abroad to making friends with tiny Third World nations like Israel for little support. How much of the dirty Russian, Iranian, North Korean, etc laundary can you cheerfully see before you start cleaning your own?
The Russians in the early part of this century hinting and have gone to outright shouting at the USA to become a more free and free market oriented country as it had been in the past instead of the Fascist Lite bureaucracy it is quickly becoming.
The other day, Max Keiser, I think it was, not so subtlely blamed the US for the Holocaust before playing a commercial about the Russians liberating the camps.
It’s all in English. The Russian livestock are no more likely to peruse it than they are Western media, which is far more critical of Russia than it is of the West.
It’s propaganda intended for consumption by the enemy’s livestock. America is also a whore for capitalism in their export-only propaganda, and not quite so much domestically. God, even this country (South Africa) does the same thing… Reciting neo-liberal truisms when they go begging to the IMF or whatever, and then calling for nationalisation of the goddam gold mines at home.
It’s a good spring-board if nothing else. The first problem of news is just being aware of what’s happening, of note. Once you’re aware, then you can do more research to try to understand what’s really going on and look past the spin.
RT is not a “youtube channel”, it is a 24 hours satelite news programme. It started out as the global TV arm of the Russian state news agency - RIA Novosti, but is now autonomous.
Bosnia and Herzegovina continues to be a protectorate of the Contact Group which appoints its colonial overal ruler, foreign High Representative who continues to threaten to depose the democratically elected head of its Serb entity, to acuse him of scheming its independence and to push through centralist legislation. A few thousands foreign troops remain on the ground (the country has no military itself) and the US and George Soros funded ICTY continues to do its work to retroactively justify international intervention and push its warped version of history. Currently on trial for “a joint criminal conspiracy” is the whole top level of the former breakaway Croat Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia. US funded media (South East European Times, Radio Liberty…) and NGOs launched in the 1990s continue their work and dumb, exploitative movies continue to be plotted inclunding most recently by Angelina. Hardly “not giving a damn”. But hey, you didn’t hear about it in Bombay Times so it doesn’t exist, eh?
Which is something Russians, including their head of state will readily admit.
Eg: “I also note that our penal system still has a whole number of problems and I hope that my proposals will go at least some way towards preventing possibilities for corrupt law enforcement officials to use arrest and pre-trial imprisonment for raider purposes, because we all know that there are more than enough such cases. Corrupt officials get the word from an entrepreneurs competitor, put the entrepreneur behind bars, and then let him out after he coughs up a certain sum. Thats how the scheme works. If you know such examples you can share them with us if you want, but the time has come to put an end to this anarchy. I will submit a draft law on this matter to the State Duma within the next few days.” -Medvedev, February 2010
Libya? … What are you talking about?
Russia’s partners are the CSTO countries and the SCO countries. It also has good relations with Ukraine, Syria and Vietnam. It partnered with Germany for the building of the important North Stream pipeline. It recently entered into a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan. Get your geography straight.
Actually American economy is at least 6 times greater than Russian, but the Russian homicide rate is not even near the highest in the world.It’s population pyramid is skewed towards the females, but greatly so only after the age of 45 so that is of no practical consequence and not really worth a mention.
Don’t be a smart-pants. It is the only news channel actually worth watching. I recall interviews with a multitude of good and knowledgeable antiwar people; Justin Raimondo, Alexander Cockburn, Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan, Michael Chossudovsky, Andrew Bacevich… They probably gave more air to the Ron Paul’s campaign and libertarians in general than any other channel, their stuff gets linked on the LRC blog and the Ron Paul Forums more often than stuff of any other station (bar maybe Fox Business since they gave the judge a slot). It is the one place that will hold interestinge Global Warming debates. And is the only place where you can see panels discussing Afghanistan or Iraq that do not work off totally idiotic premises. It attracted the free market, antiwar Max Keiser. But you wouldn’t know that since you haven’t actually watched more than half an hour of it, but have instead seen three segments and then rushed here to be clever.
Russian state launched RT to try to counter western bull, but it knows that any outlets it funds will be stigmatised as Kremlin mouthpieces. RT Knowing it will be subject to this characterisation works hard for its credibility. With a millstone of this stigma around its neck it could never be effective at its role as just a mirror hack job of the attrocious (but celebrated) western outlets, it can only suceed by being more truthful than they are. This is what it is trying to do and given the quality of its competition is doing easily.
It is terrible that people are being taxed to fund this, but the product is reasonably good (I say only ‘reasonably good’ because it is really the attrocious “competition” that makes it shine) and I only wish some of the good stuff on it would rubb off Russian policy makers (but not exactly holding my breath).
Marko, I really did have no idea about the still active work done by US in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Croat. Thanks, and I think I should look further.
However, it’s not like American funded media is having its effect. Just a while ago, reports came that Bosnian Muslim students are being taught a history totally devoid of the “Srebrenica massacres” and a top Bosnian Muslim in a government bluntly said that there were no massacres or any clear and sure sign of those massacres having happened.
I guess you could do your best to mess with people’s minds, and they could turn out perfectly okay.
Even without knowing about funding I could have told you that the Russian government controls the agenda(one way or another) at RussiaToday, it is obvious from just watching it for any lengh of time. The news always mirrors (in a relativly subtle way) government concerns. And the documentaries are just gloryfied tourist ads. The fringe people you mention usually share the traits of somehow running counter to the narritive of American power in some way. Which is why they have covered Ron Paul so much. They just love the idea of America getting out of its ‘‘near abroad’(read sphere of influence/empire)’. As they are at the moment in Eastern Europe and central Asia. True story, I turned on the TV last night & it was some cheap political/economic phone in/web cam in show and all I heard was RON PAUL. I found that quite funny that as an Englishman the only place on my standard digital service I will hear Ron’s name(including american new channals) is Russia today. Of cource they did not know what they were talking about. The guest was an islamic women & during the conversation on the host suggested(and the guest agreed) that Ron Paul is against the paying of interest?? And other complex financial products said to be responsible for the crisis. Just plain weird.
I appeciate the Russains skill at propaganda anyway, the chinese have a similar channel except they are just really bad not only at propaganda but news in general.(with the exception of their tourist ‘‘documenteries’’’ which are quite well done)’ There was a report & interview on chinese inflation which managed to be bad on almost every level. From the badly delivered questions to assumptions behind them which even the mainstream economist answering found odd. In all seriousness though it is quite worrying if CCTV is indicitive of the general level of economic awareness in China.
I just wondered what exactly compels these people to interview Paul Craig Roberts, Gerald Celente, and other fringe maniacs, particularly from such a well maintained news office.
Russia today , press tv and the bbc etc are sattelite and internet news channels spewing the propaganda of their respected countrys , no more need be said.
Liberte, Lew Rockwell does do that. But LRC looks enough like a third rate website to excuse throwing in silly articles in there.
On the other hand, you’ll never see their articles on Mises.Org. That’s a good thing, let Mises.Org be the respectable site, and LRC be the free-for-all for communists, card-carrying socialists, rightwingnuts, ultranationalists, and JBSers who want to jump in with their own piece of mind.
I think nationalist is a sufficient word, and ‘ultra’ was a needless qualification on my part. However, it was meant to give a negative connotation.
I meant the sort of people who condemn US imperialism on one hand, but then also see international private enterprises and voluntary trade an extension of such imperialism. The sort who need to abuse a few of their illusions. There’s plenty of the kind in India.
