A Discussion Without an Agenda - The Media is Contributing to the War Hysteria

by
       Phillip Todd

      Our guest is Jack Hanick recently completed the development of a state of the art television network in Moscow, built without government funding. Its evening news program broadcasts to 65 million homes in Russia across eight time zones. Previously Jack was a TV director, where he won the New York Emmy in 1994 for best director. His biography of Desmond Tutu also won a New York Emmy. He is considered an American expert on Russia. (Additional comments by John Pilger.)

PT - Tell our readers about your recent experiences in Russia.

JH - I moved to Moscow two and a half years ago. I went to Russia to  build a non-government funded news channel with editorial views consistent with the Russian Orthodox Church. I have completed that task and returned to the west.

PT - Everyday we hear in our news media stories of Russian aggression, what is going on there?

JH - America is heading for war with Russia.

JP - The world is facing the prospect of major war, perhaps nuclear war, with the United States clearly determined to isolate and provoke Russia and eventually China.

PT – We are being told that Russia is doing this.

JH - There are two sides to this story. I believe that American and western journalists from all political persuasions are not offering critical analysis.

PT – Is that a polite way of saying we are not being told the truth?

JP - This truth is being turned upside down and inside out by journalists. We have war by media; censorship by media; demonology by media; retribution by media; diversion by media - a surreal assembly line of obedient clichés and false assumptions.

PT – The Russian people, aren't they also are as dis-informed as we are in the west? We are told that they have no free press at all.

JH - Americans believe that Russians are fed propaganda by the state-controlled media. If Russians only could hear the truth, the thinking goes, they would welcome the US position. This is not so. There are more than 300 TV stations available in Moscow. Only 6 are state-controlled. The truth is that Russians prefer hearing the news from the state rather than the Internet or other sources. This is different from almost any other country. It is not North Korea where the news is censored. Each night during the Crimea crisis, anyone could watch CNN or the BBC bash Russia.

JP - Why has so much western journalism succumbed to propaganda? Why are censorship and distortion standard practice? Why is the BBC so often a mouthpiece of rapacious pow York Times and the Washington Post deceive their readers? These are urgent questions.

PT – What is your view on the situation in Ukraine?

JH - With regard to Ukraine, Russia has drawn a red line: It will never allow Ukraine to be part of NATO. Russia sees the US as the aggressor, surrounding Russia with military bases in Eastern Europe at every opportunity since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The US sees Russia as the aggressor against its neighbors. Any small misstep could lead to war. I see both sides of this escalating conflict and unless there is a change in thinking, the result will be catastrophic.

JP - The suppression of the truth about Ukraine is one of the most complete news blackouts I can remember. The biggest Western military build-up in the Caucasus and eastern Europe since world war two is blacked out. Washington's secret aid to Kiev and its neo-Nazi brigades responsible for war crimes against the population of eastern Ukraine is blacked out.

PT – How did we reach this critical point in such a short time?

JH - When I first arrived, the relationship between the US and Russia seemed normal. As an American, my ideas were welcomed, even sought after. Then Russia passed a law that prevented sexual propaganda to minors. This was the start of tensions. The LGBT lobby in the West saw this law as anti-gay. I did not. The law was a direct copy of English law and was intended to prevent pedophilia, not consenting relationships between adults. Gay relations in Russia are not illegal (although not accepted by the majority of the public). Regarding gay protests, they were restricted from view of children. I saw this in the same way that we in America restrict children from seeing “R” rated films. The punishment for breaking this law is a fine of less than $100. Double-parking a car in Moscow carries a heavier fine of $150. Nonetheless the reaction was overwhelming against Russia.

PT – The commentary most in the west heard was very different. One could hear that statement and make the assumption that the gay community is the west, particularly in the United States, could be the spark that drives us to WWIII?  It only took a spark and mis-information to ignite the first world war.

JH -The (gay inspired) boycott of the Sochi Olympics was the West’s way of discrediting Russia. Russia saw this boycott as an aggressive act by the West to interfere with its internal politics and to embarrass Russia. Sochi was for Russians a great source of national pride and had nothing to do with politics. For the West, this was the first step in creating the narrative that Russia was the old repressive Soviet Union and Russia must be stopped.

PT - But Russia today is not the old Soviet Union.

JH -  This is the mistake that will cost America dearly and it is the assumption that Russia has the same ambitions as the Soviet Union. The cold war strategy used against the Soviet Union cannot be repeated with the same result. The Soviet Union was communist and atheistic. Modern Russia has returned to its Christian roots. There is a revival in Russian Orthodoxy with over 25,000 new churches built in Russia after the fall of Communism. On any Sunday, the churches are packed. Over 70% of the population identifies themselves as Orthodox Christians. Combine this religious revival with renewed Nationalism and Russia is growing in self-confidence. The Marxist ideology followed by the Soviet Union was evangelistic. Only when the whole world became communist will Marxist principles be realized. For this reason, the Soviet Union needed to dominate the whole world. For modern Russia, world domination is not its goal. Russia wants to keep its Russian identity and not lose it to outside forces.
JP - We need to look in the mirror. We need to call to account an unaccountable media that services power and a psychosis that threatens world war.