Western media are fast losing whatever credibility and prestige they once may have had not only at home, where their audience keeps shrinking, but also in the Global South, where their mendacious and frankly ridiculous coverage of China and Russia is met with disbelief. If propaganda works on the assumption that a lie told a thousand times eventually becomes the truth, when it's exposed as a lie the liars hope that it will soon be forgotten. That's often the case, but those who have been lied to multiple times tend to develop a defence mechanism to cope with the stress and anxiety that accompanies the abuse of their trust: they tune out these serial liars. Thanks to people-to-people exchanges, travel and trade between Russia/China and the Global South, narratives spun by Western media clash with first-hand experience which is then related to one's social circle at home. In Asia, Africa and Latin America social and family relations remain stronger than in Western atomized societies, which might explain why it's harder for Western media to smear China and Russia in the Global South. Just take the fake news about "empty" streets and shops in Shanghai supported by a few photos taken from certain angles at a certain time of the day. A few US media outlets absurdly stated that Shanghai - a metropolis of 25 million people and China's financial hub - is a "ghost town" and claimed that "China is in trouble". Clearly this was a clumsy attempt to defame the Chinese financial market and the country's international image. But any business visitor to Shanghai knows that the city is a bustling place and will simply tune out Western media because they have proven yet again their lack of credibility. @LauraRuHK

During the visit of President Bashar al Assad in China, a strategic alliance between #Syria ad #China was signed, next to dozens of other agreements.

Syria plays a key role in the Belt and Road Initiative when it comes to the Eastern Mediterranean. i.e. West Asia.

I remember a conversation with #VonderLeyen in 2019 when I presented a demining project to her, then German Minister of Defence. All she had to say was the following: "Assad must go".

And this doctrine is apparently still upheld in Brussels and 27 EU governments. So they certainly missed the train of reality.

I was recently in Syria, the state has survived all the years of war and terrorism. Farmers till their soil, children go to school and the streets are in good shape, better than in Lebanon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3akG36T5UQg

"When fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jackboots. It will be Nike sneakers and smiley shirts." (George Carlin) ▪️Fascism is the merger of state and corporations to enforce a dominant ideology and today the corporations that hold the power to enforce it on a global level are predominantly American. They work in sync with the intelligence agencies of a handful of Western governments to decide what people can or cannot read and watch, which content creators should be censored, banned, demonetized. The Russell Brand's case shows that anyone, even a privileged content creator with millions of followers (a gold mine for YouTube) can be targeted on the basis of unproven allegations regarding his offline behaviour. Russell Brand hasn't been convicted of any crime, is innocent until proven guilty, but following a concerted media campaign aimed at destroying his reputation, the pre-crime unit at YouTube proceeded to deprive him of his source of income. In the dystopic world created by digital platforms that are pre-installed in most digital devices you buy, the only right you have still got is the right to boycott them and look for alternatives. @LauraRuHK

Alastair Crooke: ENORMOUS Tensions in Ukraine, USA’s Increasing Isolation & Europe Becoming a Vassal
https://rumble.com/v3kggn1-alastair-crooke-enormous-tensions-in-ukraine-usas-increasing-isolation-and-.html

One year ago.

Sy Hersh cracked it, via his Deep State sources.

Everyone in the Global Majority knows who did it.

And still they get away with it.

In this geopolitical roundtable on Rogue News, Alex Krainer, Joaquin Flores, Martin Sieff and Matt join V the Guerilla Economist to break down current, past and future dynamics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9IHcMWmiuo

Karl Kraus, who diagnosed and denounced the toxic role journalism played in fomenting World War I, wrote "How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print." In the early 20th century diplomats wielded much more power than they do today, they were still playing a central role in shaping foreign policy, there were no think tanks. Kraus used the term ‘Katastrophe der Phrasen’ (Catastrophe of Clichés) to describe how the use of clichés and stereotypes by journalists and in everyday language leads to war. The most enduring and misleading clichés about Russia are the product of Western racism and ignorance about the country. When Russians are racialized as "Asiatic" to stir up Russophobia in Ukraine and in the West, when Russia is portrayed as a backward, barbaric country you can be sure that the peddlers of these clichés know next to nothing about Russia. The Orwellian "Ignorance is Strength" was supposed to keep the masses blind and the Party in power, but when the Party believes the lies it tells the masses, the result is war and...defeat. Sun Tzu said "Know the enemy and know yourself in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril." The West's ignorance of Russia, its history and culture, doesn't bode well. @LauraRuHK