[Peace-discuss] What's so special about Jimmy Dore these days?

[J.B. Nicholson]

I wrote:
> There are a lot of shills and establishment-friendly repeaters who go along with
> establishment narrative & fake news. Russiagate, Brazil's "Operation Car Wash" 
> exposé, exposing the fake Syrian gas attack, the ongoing torture and imprisonment
> of Julian Assange, and a proper view of recent economic scandals (including 
> #ForceTheVote, Amazon labor organizing/union creation/union busting, and what 
> happened in the CARES Act) are a few of the biggest stories of the past 5 years.
> But the establishment media has covered them all badly (and some not covered at
> all, on purpose). CNN, BBC, (MS)NBC, Democracy Now, Disney, PBS, The Young Turks,
> Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Intercept are some of the
> establishment propagandists who will distract you or flatly ignore important
> stories.

In https://youtube.com/watch?v=TZRomf7vkWg ("Former Employee BLASTS 'Democracy Now' 
For Pushing Establishment Propaganda") Aaron Maté and Jimmy Dore pointed out how 
Democracy Now (DN) is just another Russiagator with a self-debunking "Russian hackers 
targeted election systems in all 50 U.S. states" story 
(https://www.democracynow.org/2019/7/26/headlines/gop_blocks_election_security_bills_as_senators_warn_russia_targeted_all_50_states) 
which Aaron Maté called "stenography".

I don't agree with Maté when he said at 4m 49s in 
https://youtube.com/watch?v=TZRomf7vkWg:

> Aaron Maté: [...] it's like they've forgotten everything that made them so great!
> You know, which was exposing all this stuff. Now they're peddling it! And it all
> happened in the Trump era. It all happened in the Russiagate era. It happened, you
> know, and again -- I don't think it's because they sold out to money or whatever
> else, I just think Trump broke a lot of people's brains. Russiagate was presented
> as the thing that was gonna bring Trump down. It was presented as the explanation
> for Trump's victory and then the answer to his presidency because it was going to
> do him in because Mueller was going to find a secret conspiracy. And people like,
> unfortunately, Amy Goodman and Democracy Now got duped by it and got duped into
> going along with it and into promoting the most vile world views that they used to
> once expose. It's crazy and it's not just with Trump and Russia, they also did
> that with Syria too; their coverage on Syria has been just awful.

I think that this explanation requires more psychological justification than has been 
backed with evidence.


Danny Haiphong has criticized DN on DN's China coverage in 
https://blackagendareport.com/democracy-now-provides-progressive-cover-state-department-propaganda-campaign-against-china 
which begins:

> The show has become a reliable platform for uncritical regime change propaganda,
> demonizing targets of US empire from Syria to Nicaragua.
> 
> “DN often acts as a force multiplier for the State Department.”
> 
> The U.S. has claimed a humanitarian “Responsibility to Protect” to justify
> military operations in the name of saving civilian lives from evil dictators. Most
> notable have been the brutal U.S.-led wars in Libya and Syria which destabilized
> entire regions in the name of “civilian protection” and “promoting democracy.”
> These operations relied heavily on self-described human rights NGO’s and media
> outlets to cultivate support among liberal sectors of the US intelligentsia.
> Sadly, Democracy Now has been among the most influential and insidious outlets
> carrying water for the humanitarian interventionist agenda.
> 
> The flagship program of the left-wing Pacifica radio network, Democracy Now (DN)
> and its founding host, Amy Goodman, are regarded as standard bearers of grassroots
> progressivism. However, in recent years the show has become a reliable platform
> for uncritical regime change propaganda, demonizing targets of US empire from
> Syria to Nicaragua while sending a correspondent to embed with US-backed “rebels”
> in Libya. Now that China is in the crosshairs of the US, DN is playing host to
> virtually any piece of humanitarian agitprop that Washington can conjure up, while
> publishing a regular serving of sharply negative stories about Chinese government
> and society.
> 
> “DN is playing host to virtually any piece of humanitarian agitprop that
> Washington can conjure up.”
> 
> A review by The Grayzone of every China-related report and interview Democracy Now
> aired in the past year found that 3 out of every 4 painted China in a decidedly
> negative light, often echoing narratives emanating from the US State Department.
> Perhaps its most inflammatory and factually questionable report appeared this
> February amid an escalating wave of anti-China propaganda.