Dara Macdonald (2021-09-24). Regulating Obscenity Has Never Worked, Why Do We Think it Will Work Now? counterpunch.org Censorship is censorship no matter the intention behind it. While there's plenty of abhorrent material on the internet that no one wants to defend, creating laws — or worse — a bureaucracy to find and remove such content will likely lead to mission creep, ideological capture, or just plain inefficiency. This has been true of

Media Lens (2021-09-24). Gaslighting The Public: Serial Deceptions By The State-Corporate Media. dissidentvoice.org During last week's Tory Cabinet reshuffle, ITV political editor Robert Peston inadvertently summed up the primary function of political journalists: 'I simply pass on' His tweet was in reference to a ministerial source saying that Priti Patel was 'not looking happy'. She remained in her job as Home Secretary. Peston's phrase was a tragicomic echo …

Ben Debney (2021-09-24). Is Australia's Anti-Lockdown Movement a Creature of Corporate Dark Money? counterpunch.org 'Mainstream media' is the bugbear of choice for the anti-lockdown movement; it associates the facts of epidemiological science with media propaganda, and so avoids having to address the rationale for lockdowns in its own legitimising narratives. In sociology, the process of constructing an exclusionary binary between the known and unknown is called 'Othering.' This is

Robert Koehler (2021-09-24). Women's Rights: Afghanistan and Beyond. counterpunch.org Suddenly there's major concern across the country — from the mainstream media to every last rock-ribbed Republican — for the rights of Afghan women and girls to be able to work, to go to school. Oh my God, we've given Afghanistan back to the Taliban! Even George W. Bush found his way back into the

sputniknews (2021-09-24). US Mainstream Media Silent as Book Suggests Authenticity of Hunter Biden Emails on Burisma, China. sputniknews.com Earlier this week, the editorial board of the New York Post touted that at least two emails reportedly retrieved from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden had been confirmed as authentic by a "person who had independent access" to the emails in question.

Sue Bolton (2021-09-24). Far-right throws up new challenges for unions. greenleft.org.au Mainstream commentary about the almost daily anti-vaccination rallies in Melbourne this week has avoided analysing the complex motivations of the demonstrators and failed to suggest sensible ways of responding, argues Sue Bolton.

_____ (2021-09-23). US Militarism's Toxic Impact On Climate Policy. popularresistance.org President Biden addressed the UN General on September 21 with a warning that the climate crisis is fast approaching a "point of no return," and a promise that the United States would rally the world to action. "We will lead not just with the example of our power but, God willing, with the power of our example," he said. | But the U.S. is not a leader when it comes to saving our planet. Yahoo News recently published a report titled "Why the U.S. Lags Behind Europe on Climate Goals by 10 or 15 years." The article was a rare acknowledgment in the U.S. corporate media that the United States has not only failed to lea…

WSWS (2021-09-23). Scientists find new evidence of the natural origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. wsws.org The discovery by an international team of scientists further discredits the claims, promoted by the corporate media and the Trump and Biden administrations, that the pandemic originated in a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Ari Paul (2021-09-23). Press Response to 'Tax the Rich' Dress Proves AOC's Point. zcomm.org Corporate media's response indicates that they are worried that history might be on Ocasio-Cortez and her dress's side…

Jeremy Kuzmarov (2021-09-23). The U.S. May Have Lost the Military War in Syria, But Has Won the Propaganda War at Home by Portraying Its Murderous Invasion as a Moral Crusade. globalresearch.ca

WSWS (2021-09-23). Scientists find new evidence of the natural origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. wsws.org The discovery by an international team of scientists further discredits the claims, promoted by the corporate media and the Trump and Biden administrations, that the pandemic originated in a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Ari Paul (2021-09-23). Press Response to 'Tax the Rich' Dress Proves AOC's Point. zcomm.org Corporate media's response indicates that they are worried that history might be on Ocasio-Cortez and her dress's side…

Jeremy Kuzmarov (2021-09-23). The U.S. May Have Lost the Military War in Syria, But Has Won the Propaganda War at Home by Portraying Its Murderous Invasion as a Moral Crusade. globalresearch.ca

Rodney Atkinson (2021-09-22). Covid Cases Fall in the Least Vaccinated Countries. globalresearch.ca

Anonymous103 (2021-09-22). Global Research: Mounting Censorship of Independent Media. southfront.org Illustrative ImageDear SF readers, | We would like to share with you the appeal of our friends from We are living a major Worldwide crisis and at the same time we are living history. Over the past few months, independent media — including Global Research — has felt the sting of increased online censorship, in the form of a crackdown on news that challenges official government narratives. | Truth in media is a powerful…

Robin Andersen (2021-09-22). After 20 Years of Failed War, Corporate Media Still Give Wars of Empire a Pass. counterpunch.org When Taliban fighters swept across Afghanistan in a little over a week and entered the capital city of Kabul on August 15, 2021, they surprised the US media, the Biden White House, and the military. Desperate to get out of the country, those who had worked with the US-backed Afghan government fled to the airport in Kabul, running across the tarmac and swamping the runways. US corporate media covered the chaos with images of hundreds of people jamming the runways and clinging onto aircraft or forcing their way into military transport planes. Focusing on the spectacle of the war's end, in three days Afghanistan rec…

Staff (2021-09-22). Venezuelan Red Cross Denies Fake News About "Colossal Outbreak" (COVID-19). orinocotribune.com Recently, a message, attributed to Alberto Urquiola, director of the Venezuelan Red Cross, has been circulated on various social media such as WhatsApp and Twitter. The message states that there is a "colossal COVID-19 outbreak" in Venezuela and that the number of deaths in Caracas' Poliedro (sports complex) and in other care centers in the city is high. | This has been an attempt to spread the perception of chaos and of a health and social crisis in the country, providing numbers of COVID-19 related deaths and infections much above the official numbers on the pandemic at the national level. Such fake news only i…

_____ (2021-09-22). Racism Denies Common Prosperity In The United States. popularresistance.org Mainstream U.S. media frequently depicts China as a "closed off" country that treats ethnic minorities with contempt and oppression. The New York Times took this baseless accusation further in an op-ed published on September 9 that claimed China was closing itself off from the world and rejecting the English language. No verifiable proof was offered beyond reforms to the education system that seek to address economic and social stressors faced by Chinese families. | The op-ed argued that China's decision to place tighter regulations on its private tutoring and examination process is a sign that the country is clo…

scorinoco (2021-09-22). European Union: Servile to Their Masters. orinocotribune.com Statement by the Cuba Support Group Ireland after the European Parliament adopted new resolution against Cuba, following Washington's anti-Cuba policy. | The United States, frustrated at not having obtained results on July 11, in its plans to promote a popular anti-revolution movement in Cuba, when they prepared a strong propaganda machine through social networks with the aspiration of repeating their experience in Ukraine. | Faced with this defeat, they undertook the task of increasing their well-worn crusade of "lack of freedom" and "human rights violations" on the Island, with the employment of their lackeys i…

scorinoco (2021-09-22). Paulo Freire's Centennial: Political Pedagogy for Revolutionary Organizations. orinocotribune.com By Derek Ford — Sep 17, 2021 | All revolutionary processes are educational. From organizing meetings and study groups to writing protest speeches and propaganda before the revolutionary moment to creating new revolutionary educational and cultural institutions and training teachers and specialists after the seizure of power, revolution is educational through and through. Yet exactly what kind of educational operations does revolution entail, and how can we understand and practice them? | It is precisely these questions that Paulo Freire addressed in his classic work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. | One hundred…

Anonymous103 (2021-09-22). BBC Submarine Drama Is The Anti-Russian Propaganda Machine In Action. southfront.org Illustrative Image | Written by Johanna Ross, journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland. | The scene: a British nuclear submarine. A detective has been sent to investigate the death of a sailor. When she asks the Naval Commander why there needs to be so much secrecy, as Britain is not at war, he responds 'That is an illusion. We have always been at war'. | The series, entitled '

Sam Macdonald (2021-09-22). Learning from Cambodia's COVID-19 Response. fpif.org From Europe to the Asia-Pacific, what looked like light at the end of the tunnel earlier this year has given way to rising infections and an uptick in mortality rates as the highly infectious Delta strain has taken hold. Countries that appeared to be controlling the virus are now scrambling to limit the spread as a new wave overwhelms already strained health care systems. | But one country appears to be bucking the global trend. The Kingdom of Cambodia is pushing back against the COVID-19 fourth wave and is seemingly on the brink of an economic turnaround to near pre-pandemic levels. Despite a per-capita GDP of o…

Anonymous Contributor (2021-09-22). Berkeley, CA: Inside the Fight to Save 1921 Walnut St. itsgoingdown.org New documentary looks at the fight to save 1921 Walnut Street tenants from eviction in so-called Berkeley, California. photo via Indybay.org 1921 Walnut St. is a 112 year old rent-controlled apartment building in downtown Berkeley home to several long-term tenants. In 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, the University of California (UC)…

George Ochenski (2021-09-22). GOP Extremism is Backfiring Badly. counterpunch.org By now people have plenty of examples of the GOP's idea of governance, which consists of opposing everything that doesn't fit their myopic ideology. Here in Montana we're headed back toward Lockdown City thanks to the utter failure of our Republican-controlled executive and legislative branches of government. But evidence is quickly mounting that GOP extremism

Anonymous007 (2021-09-22). Kalashnikov Developing Brand-New Neural Network-Controlled Assault Rifle. southfront.org Illustrative image. Click to see full-size image | Russia is developing a new assault rifle that will use a neural network AI, Sergei Urzhumtsev, chief designer of the Kalashnikov Concern JSC, said."We have already created individual elements of the system. We have demonstrated them for the first time, including to the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, as part of a closed display at the Army-2021 international military-technical forum, which was recently held in Kubinka," he said. | These are systems wi…