I performed a quick search and didn't find any similar diaries. I'll gladly delete if this has already been covered.
My incredulousness rapidly growing daily, in part with help from great diaries like those coming from The Troubador, I am challenged this AM to extend my jaw beyond the floor after reading this account from the NYT regarding Russia's state TV and its "surprising," apparently slant free coverage of recent protests.
I'm quite honestly at a loss as to how I should present this, but here goes.
While the American media (and our government) continue to either summarily ignore or paint as irrelevant the major movement against income inequality and corruption in this country - with help from its control structure, the unholy blob that is the combination of American business and American politics - it somehow feels empowered to project its ironic curiosity of how state run media in Russia appears capable of the exact opposite. That opposite being the apparent, largely objective coverage of similar protests ongoing in Russia. As the NYT puts it:
For more than a week, Moscow has witnessed some of the largest protests against the Kremlin in years. Yet, until Saturday, most government channels, if they reported on the demonstrations at all, tended to portray protesters as rebels and lawbreakers, with at least one report warning of people arming themselves with improvised bombs.
Does the bolded portion, the emphasis of the diarist, sound familiar? One needn't only turn to Fox News or Republican politicians to find portrayals similar to the description above of Occupy protests across the country. Replace the "rebels and lawbreakers" with "DFH's" and jealous ingrates," and improvised bombs with paint, phantom "projectiles," the intolerable violence of seated protesters with "weaponized" locked arms and signage offensive to the power and financial elite.
Had Russian state television chosen to broadcast only the scenes in which tensions were identifiable, or peaceful protesters were arrested, entrapped or provoked, or law enforcement raised tension with a consistent series of disproportionate force and overreactions, what would you have? You'd have what the American media finds acceptable to legitimize its ongoing attempts at undermining peaceful American protesters. Protesters threatening the system that keeps the same media at the very top of our increasingly privatized class system, and a media entity inherently thought to be much more capable of objectivity than one tied to a government. Embarrassing, unless you're the American media and journalistic integrity is selectively applied according to how it benefits your business.
Indeed, the privately owned NYT itself chose to characterize the Oakland Port shutdown with an image of fires and language of "clashes" on its front page, saving the fact that the march had been, ahem, 99% peaceful for one paragraph in the article body, perpetuating the ongoing media effort at negatively branding the movement. That, of course, only scratches the surface. And with recent, bizarrely satirical statements like this one coming from an American government which has been completely silent on civil, human and constitutional rights violations occurring on a daily basis against its citizens, learning the following from newly minted "opposition leader" Boris Nemtsov either boggles the mind or explains quite a bit about how our government is operating. Or both. Go ahead and look for the quote on major American media websites. It wasn't even covered because it's that ridiculous. Most of the search results are alt media. Emphasis by diarist.
“They showed me on Channel 1 and said I was an opposition leader, which is already a breakthrough,” said Boris Y. Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister in the 1990s who has not been shown on government-controlled television, save for perhaps in court or handcuffs, for perhaps a decade. “They’re already calling me from Washington and asking what’s going on.”
Ok. What exactly is it that Washington is calling about, and who is calling? Granted, the who can potentially explain much in this context, but the implication on its face is that our politicians, our media and others are wondering why it is that Russian state TV seems to have abandoned standard marginalization tactics employed by governments all over the world, however hypocritically they are decried by our own. Is it the media, baffled at how Russian journalists are willing to tell the truth? Our government, incapable of understanding why a state agency would give a voice to its citizens? The striking aspect of this for me is that despite the reality of income inequality and corruption in government in this country, an epiphany such as this, and the courage to follow through on it, seems completely impossible for American media. And equally so for our citizen facing government, fronting the range of corporate cabals that promote, buy, and write our legislation.
While journalists, community leaders and protesters are brutalized, falsely imprisoned and silenced our own media and government are completely silent. At the same time, the rights of their counterparts in Russia are respected and, at least to some extent, their true intentions are broadcast on of all things a state run television entity.
In short, the American model of peaceful protest is only acceptable to American media and government when it is used outside of the United States. Faced with the need to report these events but still marginalize the efforts of protesters seeking change in this country, how does the media draw contrast, slap the wrist of its countrymen and justify such coverage of protests abroad?
“Today’s protest was a lesson for everyone,” said Andrei Medvedev in the evening broadcast of Rossia 1. “It turns out that, to express your dissatisfaction with the authorities, it is possible to gather on a square after getting permission from those same authorities. And to keep order, all you really have to do is give a polite admonition.”
We are told that the difference between violence here, and responsible coverage and crowd control of protests in Russia, is a permit from the state. Never mind the fact that they'll just continue to ignore you. The thinly veiled criticism, and additional distraction from the power elite, is that the people didn't file a notice of advance warning that they'll be ready to be pepper sprayed.
We have a country folks that is on a delusional trip that Hunter S. Thomson would be proud to, sarcastically, call his own.
Perhaps this is all just a massive co-optation effort on behalf of the Russian Government, realizing that they can allow their country to spiral further down the rabbit hole or coalesce to the extent possible by spreading power more equitably. Before anyone uses this as disqualifying however, that's not going to be good enough for me. If we in this country are so lost that the absence of a permit is delegitimizing and constitutes a license to commit violence, too many of us have been cognitively whitewashed. Regardless of the excuses, it's another embarrassing moment for how damaged our political process is by the overwhelming influence of corporations and their money on same, and a stark example of just how badly damaged it is, when "tear down this wall" is now about Wall Street (I'm admitting to stealing that from someone else, not sure who) instead of the physical partitions of a war long since over.
Meanwhile, Republican LGBT AstroTurf is smoked like crack by our media, the NYT runs cover stories on rank hypocrites like Megyn Kelly, and our government only believes in our constitution as it applies to other countries. The power structure in this country asked for demands. They got them if they weren't clear enough already. You can see them again below in video form. It doesn't matter what it comes packaged as. For all of the calls for demands, major American media outlets still ignore, belittle and undermine while publishing their own hypocrisy for all to see. Or for all who wish to see it.
Just another day filled with the sick irony of a country indeed under attack from within, by corporate and political greed and hubris. I do hope that when the history is written here, those that had opportunities and, more importantly, oaths of responsibility to stop this from happening receive the criticism they justly deserve.
With that, here's what they asked for, most of which I resoundingly agree with.