Assange to host Russian talk show

Glyphwright

Emanation of Tranquility
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December 14, 2010
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Well, the story has come full circle. An unsuccessful (due to a startling lack of interest) revolutionary and an outspoken critic of USA politics was finally hired by a Russian TV channel designed to spread shameless Soviet-style propaganda into the Western world. Visiting the "Russia Today" website I saw a curious selection of stories: "Hurt Iran, and don’t stop hurting Russia", "English Premier League: No country for old Russians?", and "‘I’m ready to die for my ideals’ - Medvedev". Indeed, any channel that exists to voice Medvedev's passion for committing self-sacrifice in the total absence of any sort of danger to his office let alone his life, would certainly see a media attention whore like Assange among the ranks of its employees. Russia Today: good old Soviet propaganda, now with Western allure!
 
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Oh how the mighty have fallen! :)
 
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RT is biased, no doubt. But less biased than Fox news, imho. At least on RT I hear new stories that are shocking, interesting, fresh, but unreported in the West, whereas on Fox News I hear stuff that "Pravda" would have been ashamed to call 'information' in the days of the USSR. Other US "news" stations have drivel about reality TV, celeb gossip, and the odd talent show highlights. With some special interest propaganda spin on a Reuters headline thrown in (in doses that its ADD afflicted audience can cope with). RT has a lot of truth, especially when the story does not directly relate to Putin and his siloviki clique.

As for Assange - he shows that if you piss the USA off, laws - even in moderate European states like Sweden and Britain - seem to get warped to find some crime that would possibly fit you. And there is no way support money can ever flow to you, because all channels are US-controlled. Sort of like what happens when you piss off Putin and his KGB chums, except a bit less drastic. For the moment.
 
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Assange is a paranoid asshat who managed to blow the Swedish incident totally out of proportion. The case would likely had been written off long ago if he had bothered to go to a hearing at a police station, but since he thinks that Sweden is full of black helicopters waiting to get him he rather starts a media campaign against the country, and the anti- crowd across the world is eager to believe his gasbaggery.

He would fit perfectly at Russia Today.

EDIT: He would have gotten a Polonium lunch long ago if he had been doing the same things to Russia:p Being anti-American is relatively risk free and gathers a huge following among the anti- set and the hard left…
 
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It baffles me how people are completely unaware of the extents the Russian power clique would go to defend its own unrestricted power, caring naught for such trifles as laws or basic senses of morality or sanity. Had Assange been leaking Russian diplomatic cables and talking about the Russian government the way he talks about the USA, he would have been ripped apart verbally, legally, and then physically, his memory vilified and demonized until the end of time by all the Russian state propaganda. The Russian Cleptocracy is a dangerous thing to mess with.
 
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Wait, RT is less biased than FOX? RT is the fucking state-owned news agency of the god damn Kremlin. Their entire raison d'etre is to fuck with the west/NATO. FFS! Why don't you support the KCNA or PressTV while you are at it?

As shitty as FOX is, it's far more trustworthy than RT.
 
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Ownership does not equate to bias. The BBC is owned by the state, yet its reporting is mostly trustworthy. As I said, RT is less biased on the whole, ie especially taking into account stories that are not directly related to Russian domestic matters. Whereas Fox cannot be trusted to report anything right, domestic or foreign. They sunk way below RT the day they photoshopped a weasel's head onto De Villepain's body when reporting the UN meeting where France wasn't sure if the evidence for WMD's was strong enough to justify war.

IF ownership = bias to you, then look at Fox's owner, Rupert Murdoch, and the extent of US media he owns. Then compare his publicly stated personal, economic, political, social and ethnic views to what goes on Fox and the rest of his media empire.

I doubt there is any nation on earth stupid enough to actively and voluntarily select something as outrageously biased as Fox, as their primary source of information -- besides the Americans. When the Russian had communism, they had no choice but to watch state media. However unlike the Americans and Fox, the vast majority knew that most of what they were watching was pure spin and propaganda.

Use RT wisely (selectively) and you'll get a fresh perspective on a whole load of issues. You cannot use Fox wisely.
 
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I'd trust FOX any day over Russia Today. Sorry, their entire goal is to screw with the West. It honestly stuns me how blind you are to the BS they "report". They're not a credible news agency. They proudly push forward the conspiracy theory bullshit of people like Alex Jones and David Icke. They've defended 9/11 conspiracy theories, etc. The network is trash designed to appeal to the paranoid lunatic and the ardent hater of the West.

FOX News is awful, but I'd trust them over RT any day. The British government has little editorial control over what BBC does and says, whereas the Kremlin has absolute control over RT.
 
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Why are we talking about trusting either one? It's like trusting one of two liars, where you're discussing which one has told the most/biggest lies.

Bottom line: I don't trust either one of them.
 
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Yes, exactly, which is the least outrageous liar. However RT is an irrelevance, watched by a few thousand people in their Singapore hotel room while on stop-over, whereas Fox is the entire information intake of 50% of the population in the world's most powerful nation (militarily).

Re 9/11 conspiracy theories - at least these were given air time somewhere. I'd rather hear the theorists out, google the science for myself and dismiss them, than have Fox withhold the whole debate from me, and tell me we just need to invade more arabs to make it all right.
 
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Being an irrelevance doesn't make it any less outrageous. At least Americans can choose which news network to watch, sorting the biased and the more credible, something the Russians cannot do, considering that their entire media sphere is EXACTLY like Russia Today, or worse. For some reason, the Russian state has always required its citizens to be an obedient unthinking mass, a natural resource to be spent, wasted and squandered as needed. And now Assange is taking money from this power clique to legitimize their burglarizing of the Russian budget and their obstructionist, conflict-seeking, directionless international policy.
 
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At least Americans can choose which news network to watch, sorting the biased and the more credible, something the Russians cannot do, considering that their entire media sphere is EXACTLY like Russia Today, or worse. For some reason, the Russian state has always required its citizens to be an obedient unthinking mass, a natural resource to be spent, wasted and squandered as needed.

Russians can watch anything they like. There is no great firewall stopping them from visiting any news site they like (with google translate, if necessary), nor are there any laws prohibiting the use of satellite dishes. Most Russians I know get their intake from Euronews in Russian, or are smart enough to realize that politics is just another form of mafia (therefore something they have little passion for). They seem to be apolitical (cynical, jaded), which makes them seem far more rational than the often near-lunatic left- or right- wing Americans, faithfully banging one of their two party drums with fervor and glee.

The Russian state has indeed tended to be autocratic, and the people there seem to like a strong (brutal?) hand at the tiller. Many lament the Yeltsin years as ones of weakness and aimlessness. I don't think the Russians have enough passion and sophistication to ever turn their country into a democracy even at the watered down levels we have.

That so many Americans freely choose to watch Fox out of all the dozens of English language options open to them is chilling.
 
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