Rixstep
	`About \| ACP \| Buy \| Industry Watch \| Learning Curve \| News \| Products \| Search \| Substack`

Home » Learning Curve » Red Hat Diaries

'Vladimir Putin Ate My Baby'

Things hotting up even more; someone runs for it.

Get It

Try It

'VLADIMIR PUTIN ATE MY BABY' - that's the equivalent of what the UK headlines read this morning as Sky News showed television viewers all the front pages.

Poor Vladimir, asleep in his home near Moscow, blissfully unaware of what he'd done.

Sara Firth resigned from RT this week after working for them for five years, right after concluding her studies. It was too much of a struggle with management, she said, referring at least once to them as the 'rotten core'.

Sara has been followed by a great many people as she's jumped from local London to harrowing areas in the Middle East. Sara is one fine reporter.

Sara met Amanpour this week to tell a story viewers can know nothing about.

'You can't just go out and get the story', she told Amanpour. They want the story to turn out a certain way.

That's never happened anywhere else before.

Here's the clip with Sara and Amanpour. Note that Amanpour, seeming to welcome Sara to the 'west', can't herself resist the temptation to smear and twist inside six minutes.

05:10 'You're not the only one to have resigned over this Ukrainian crisis, over Crimea, a couple of others resigned as well, they also were criticised...'

One resigned. Liz Wahl. The Twitter swarm soon found out it had been a fit-up with a young neocon. Of course the US media were all over it. But she's the only one to have resigned.

Abby Martin blurted out on air that she was against all military invasions but did not resign. Martin said she spoke to her boss beforehand and got permission to air her opinion. Again the US media gobbled it up, but in this case, Martin gave them a real shellacking. Martin also qualified her remarks by admitting she didn't have much of clue about what was going on in Crimea, a tidbit self-evident to anyone following the story.

RT management offered her a trip to Ukraine and Crimea if she wanted to get better acquainted with the situation, but she declined; this the US media of course twisted, saying Martin was forced to travel to those countries.

Neither Liz Wahl nor Abby Martin were criticised.

05:54 'Let's just say that one of the more outlandish things your former network has been reporting is that this was an attempt to shoot down a plane in which Vladimir Putin was flying.' (Firth not given an opportunity to respond - end of interview)

This is the story in question:

Reports that Putin flew similar route as MH17, presidential airport says 'hasn't overflown Ukraine for long time'
https://archive.today/cWonU

Stories did circulate that Putin had flown over the area at approximately the same time; the theory was debunked by staff at the presidential airport.

So much for Amanpour's quest for the truth.

Things were chaotic that morning in the RT studios in Moscow; one somewhat haggard Rory Suchet came in to assist Sean Thomas in the wee hours; his blank expression in the camera told all. Stories were flying in from all directions; RT researchers, like at any news bureau, are many. The story of the coincidence in the way the planes look and the supposed proximity time-wise were worth mentioning, which is about as far as it ever got. For now.

But that doesn't mean mentioning the story is a bad thing - it was just one of several theories tossed about early that morning.

For Amanpour to take cheap shots at another network, considering her own track record... Let's just say that the ending of Gilmore Girls wouldn't be written the same way anymore.

But Sara is talking about 'censorship' before the news reaches the cameras. She's talking about management essentially telling people what they're supposed to find before they go looking for it. Any student of RT knows that they wouldn't dare a twist or lie outright in actual live transmission - look what happens when someone resigns.

Sara is talking about 'censorship in selection' behind the scenes, before stories reach the cameras. Unfortunately there is little any outsider has to go on.

What can be ascertained is that the essential narrative of Ukraine, in all salient points, is the same as being told by John Pilger, Ray McGovern, Charles Shoebridge, and so many others. No one knows what news sources they use, but it's more than obvious that those are highly intelligent people who can sift through the lies of the US and UK MSM with little difficulty. John Pilger went on record to say that this is in fact the job of someone interested in what's happening in the world - hear the story from several sites. Barring complete transparency as WikiLeaks can offer, this is the remote second best alternative.

Let us please not forget that it was RT who supported Julian Assange all these years. That there are excellent clips with Alyona Minkowski smashing the US MSM to bits for their foolish reactions. Let us not forget that it was RT who first bought a licence to Julian's 'World Tomorrow' show. And let us never forget that it's been Russia and no one else who's protected Edward Snowden.

And as we remember that, let's also call to mind how desperate the US acted in trying to nab Snowden, forcing down the presidential jet of Evo Morales, itself a violation of international agreements, and how that was even possible: by twisting the thumbscrews on any number of European countries to deny Morales entry to their airspace. Even Austria, where Morales finally landed, was forced by the US to inspect the aircraft on arrival.

The US acted as a global police force, and most countries of the world, insofar as they're not totally corrupt, vehemently oppose such a world order.

It's not uncommon to watch a smattering of Sky, Bloomberg, BBC, CNN, Euronews, CNBC, CCTV, RT, and AJE. Some have the shows one likes, others do some things better. RT's coverage on the night of MH17 totally lacked anything about Gaza, whereby the need to flip channels rather often.

But stacked up against the rest, AJE and RT come off with flying colours. One cannot say what's missing on any one particular channel, but what's not on one channel is likely to be on the other. And neither channel would dare attempt the type of media blackout going on concertedly in the US and the 'west'.

Sky, Bloomberg, BBC, CNN, Euronews, CNBC, CCTV: they show precious little about the ongoing slaughter in the Ukraine. Nor will they tell you about the rising exodus from the country by the frightened citizenry. Jen Psaki and her assistant have consistently denied there being any refugee situation in Donbass, and it's likely that those watching Amanpour's approved channels would not know what's wrong with such a statement.

But this documentary - available for download - tells a different story. So different in fact that you'd have to envision a cast of thousands to make this a fake. This is the truth of what's going on in eastern Ukraine, the truth the US media and their lackeys would rather you didn't know, for obvious reasons.

http://rt.com/shows/documentary/173488-thousands-civilians-fleeing-ukraine/

There are many famed journalists at RT today. Larry King has his show. He boasts that he's finally able to ask the questions he wants to ask. Something Amber Lyon discovered the hard way doesn't work with the US media, in this case Amanpour's CNN. She got the sack for not sticking to the White House narrative.

You can briefly see Amber there with a luminary from Bahrain, Nabeel Rajab, behind the wheel of their car. Rajab was imprisoned, right after his show with Assange, for tweeting something the US-backed regime in Bahrain didn't like.

http://assange.rt.com/episode-four/

And as Amber tells it, CNN got paid to propagate for White House involvement in Bahrain, location of an important US naval base. But this was something she had to find out on her own, as CNN management were tight as a clam.

Amber's Bahrain ground crew were laid off by CNN after their work on Amber's documentary (which CNN refused to air) and others in her crew were harassed, beaten, and even had their homes burned down.

But of course you're not going to hear the US MSM go on about that.

More recently - in fact very recently - CNN's reporter in Gaza was reassigned out of the area for showing and reporting and commenting on things that CNN (and thereby the White House) didn't want people to see and hear. Namely the people on the hillsides cheering as the bombs rained down on the Gaza people.

https://archive.today/VUX7v

Her outrage was evidently not suitable. Watch her report here.

'Israelis on hill above Sderot cheer as bombs land on #gaza; threaten to 'destroy our car if I say a word wrong'. Scum.'

Magnay's been reassigned to Moscow.

The day before, NBC News pulled one of their reporters, Ayman Mohyeldin. Here's Cenk Uygur talking about it. CNN got criticised by Israeli sites for Mohyeldin's work which they condemned as 'too balanced'. 'NBC News is an abomination', says Cenk.

Not to speak of Phil Donahue and so many others who years earlier got sacked for opposing the US invasion of Iraq, Cenk reminds us. 'You're risking your career if you go outside establishment thought. That's the main crime of Ayman Mohyeldin in this case: he actually did journalism.'

But as Sara says, there are good people at RT. Indeed. Good and very brave people. Not everyone is cut out to be a war zone reporter, but Maria Finoshina, Paula Slier, Peter Oliver, and Alexey 'Yaro' Yaroshevsky definitely are. Who could forget how Yaro missed being killed by sniper fire as he got ready for his live broadcast from his hotel room overlooking the Maidan - by less than two metres? How he calmly led the cameraman to the window and to the wall to show the bullet holes? Who can forget the absolute bravery of Maria who went undercover to interview Syrian al-Qaeda insurgents in Libya? Who could, for that matter, ever forget the exchange between Yaro and Peter Oliver walking through hellish Maidan late at night:

Yaro: Hey man you should have worn your helmet! Oliver: Hey man I'm so ugly already, it can't get worse.

Or who can forget the tireless reporting from the shelled areas of Donbass by South African Paula Slier, showing people what's going on, speaking to the locals, letting the viewers hear their stories?

These are all things you won't get on the sanitised US MSM.

Not to speak of RT's colourful high-caliber presenters. Such as Rory Suchet and Thabang Motsei and so many others.

Vladimir Putin once came to visit the brand new offices of RT in Moscow. Staff on hand had a surprise waiting: they sat him down and asked questions of him.

Barack Obama might turn up on Jay Leno for a chuckle, but those exchanges are carefully scripted. Not as likely here. Putin has an ability to sit with people and journos and just talk with them. Once per year, Russian media hold a marathon Q&A with their president. Millions of questions are sorted, with those asked most often rising to the top. This year they ambushed him with Edward Snowden. To his credit, he didn't use an interpreter: he said he understood the question rather well, even if Snowden's accent was a bit difficult.

Putin's been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times, something those who feed on the US MSM will never understand. He's also incredibly popular in his country, another thing the US MSM will never get into.

Putin rescued his country out of disaster. Once Ronnie got through bullshitting Gorby, the country started to fall apart, Yeltsin took over, and western economists were brought in to institute a type of 'IMF' austerity programme. The result was about 10 million people died. Life expectancy was reduced to 55 (fifty five). By the time Putin came to power, the oligarchs - the same kind ruling Ukraine today - had taken a big chunk of the nation's wealth.

Putin stabilised the situation. So much so that it was a no-brainer for Crimeans to vote for application to join the Russian Federation. All received new Russian passports free of charge; their standard of living and benefits went up considerably; and most importantly, they were finally protected from the Nazi beast to the west.

It's impossible to understand the situation in Ukraine without knowing of their Nazi history. Crimea, a part of Russia already in the 1700s, is primarily Russian. The Russians, both on the German eastern front and in Crimea, fought the Nazis and ultimately won - to the cost of over 26,000,000 lives lost. (The US lost less than 1,000,000 throughout the war.)

But in Ukraine, especially in western Ukraine, it was a different story. This is the land of the 'Banderites', of 'Banderstadt', where people still worship their hero Stepan Bandera. Bandera was a Nazi who worked with the German Nazis. His cruelty was feared by the Germans. The Banderites were never purged; they continue to this day to espouse fascism and national socialism.

So much so that two of Ukraine's most influential parties take their message from the Banderites: Svoboda and Right Sector. Svoboda is slavic for 'freedom'. That's the new name of that party. Until recently, they called themselves the 'Socialist National Party', an intentional reference to German national socialists (Nazis). They've been condemned by the European Union. Yet time and again, one sees their leader posing for photographs with Victoria Nuland and John McCain. The truth of the matter - the ugly truth - is that the US installed the first fascist neo-Nazi government anywhere since World War Two.

And that doesn't even count the Right Sector, who are more a militia than a party, and who in terms of atrocity leave the Svobodans behind. They assassinate their own when it behooves them; they're behind the massacres in Mariupol and Odessa, amongst other places; and today they occupy key positions in the Ukrainian government that the US installed. They're the ones running the show internally in the country.

None of this - or very little of it - is likely to have made the US MSM to any significant extent. And yet it's out there - it might be at RT, or more likely will be in the general media. All one has to do is check it out and corroborate it.

And even that doesn't get to the bottom of the Ukraine disaster. Ukrainians are fiercely antisemitic, something dating back hundreds of years when Jews were used to collect taxes and mete out spirits. The people developed a huge resentment against them. Those times are surely gone, but the Ukrainians - the Banderites - haven't yet buried the axe.

Ronnie once promised Gorby that NATO wouldn't expand one inch to the east. NATO, an organisation to protect Europe from a land invasion by Russia who'd just lost almost 30,000,000 people in the war, was formed six years before Russia countered with the Warsaw Pact, and by then there was a tangible threat from the west.

Sweden's Carl Bildt has been instrumental in NATO expansion, NATO today extending right to Russia's borders, even threatening Russia's Black Sea Fleet. The Black Sea is the closet Russia can get to the Mediterranean, save for a repair base in Syria. And given the aggressive behaviour of the US, neither are things Russia will part with. Any more than the US will part with their huge base in Bahrain. To name but one example.

The US today have over one hundred active ongoing conflicts on this planet, with some 800 military bases located in some 150 countries. And Putin's the aggressor? Putin took over a country in ruins. His mandate's to get people healthy again, to see that the people prosper. He doesn't have time for US-style imperialism, and from all evidence available, he's far too smart for that anyway.

Now try telling the neocons in Washington. Who don't even think like him (or like ordinary human beings). Try telling the McCains and the Nulands and the Kagans and the Kristols. Try telling the very same people who want Assange assassinated.

Something could very well happen in this chaotic 'civilised' world - something could happen that suddenly catapults the human species into a new era where there isn't one leader but where all countries are leaders. It could happen. But the US neocons won't go down without a fight, and they'll have their so-called 'journos' at the ready to spin whatever they do.

Best of luck to Sara Firth.