Meanwhile, a phenomenon that I’d call "malignant journalism" is thriving in America. Not only does it feed itself on fake news and try to feed others with it, but also has anti-Russian sentiments. It’s profitable financially. The audience eats up the horror stories, the ratings rise, and the US military industrial complex receives crazy orders. Again, it’s jobs. Everyone wins.
It’s clear that those journalists who aren’t ready to participate in this conspiracy are declared to be enemies. The US has many tools to use against them. One of them, is to declare them a foreign agent, as the US did last autumn with the Russian English-language TV channel, RT. A forceful solution.
But everything falls apart when a direct conversation begins. An example is this week's interview of RT's chief editor, Margarita Simonyan by the American TV channel CBS.
- Let's talk about Russian interference in our election. Which our intelligence agencies tell us happened.
- And you believe them, just like you believe that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Didn't you believe that? Continue to believe that Russian interference in American elections happened. In five years, you will know that it didn't.
- It's also Facebook (запрещена в РФ), and Twitter say the same thing now.
- I can't deny that there could be Russian media that had their opinion on Twitter, on Facebook, whatever, broadcast. Is that bad? Is that illegal? Isn't that what the American media do as well? British media supported Hillary. No problem with that. No interference. Nothing. French media supported Hillary. No problem with that. Some Russian media supported Trump, "Oh my God!".
- Did RT support Trump?
- No, RT did not support Trump. With RT, our fault is that RT did not support Hillary either.
Europe isn’t far behind. Taking advantage of the fact that Merkel in Germany has been losing her positions since autumn, the French president takes control of the Old World ideology.
In the traditional New Year's address to journalists in the Elysee Palace, Emmanuel Macron divided all of the countries in the world into three groups for simplicity. He called the best ones, in his opinion, including France, "liberal democracies." The secondary group, including the US, is "illiberal democracies." Russia is, of course, in the third category, "authoritarian regimes." According to Macron, the last two groups pose a threat to freedom of speech. This president of the "liberal democrats," Macron, in an absolutely authoritarian manner, took away the accreditation of journalists from RT and Sputnik.
Emmanuel Macron: "We must fight against any destabilization attempts coming from channels controlled by foreign states, or under their influence".
Furthermore, Macron called for tighter control of information on the internet. One tool is a new law that will allow the French regulatory authorities to require Internet resources to confirm the "identity of authors and those behind them." Well, it's all quite authoritarian. But how else to defend liberalism? Not through the freedom of speech? Hooray, France!
