James F. Tracy: Progressive Journalism's Legacy of Deceit

Progressive left media persist in acting as propaganda outlets for the US NATO destabilization of Syria, thus placating a politically conscious audience that might otherwise be mobilized against acts of imperialism and violence. The historical record suggests how this is not the first time "Progressive publicists" were used to sell a war. A recent report in the UK Guardian by Charlie Skelton explains that Western news outlets remain willing victims or accomplices in a propaganda campaign for US -NATO led Syrian intervention being carried out by skilled and well financed public relations practitioners. According to Skelton, the spokespeople, the experts on Syria, the democracy activists. The people who urge and warn and call for action against the Assad regime are themselves part of a sophisticated and well heeled public relations effort to allow NATO forces to give Syria the same medicine administered to Libya in 2011. They are selling the idea of military intervention and regime change, Skelton reports, and the mainstream news media is hungry to buy. Many of the "activists" and spokespeople representing the Syrian opposition are closely, and in many cases financially interlinked with the US and London, the very people who would be doing the intervening, which means information and statistics from these sources isn't necessarily pure news. Its a sales pitch, a PR campaign. If one thinks that a revelation of this magnitude would be cause for other Western news media to reassess their reportage of the Syrian situation, they would be greatly mistaken. Amy Goodman's Democracy Now is a case in point. Since the beginning of the Arab Spring, color revolutions the foremost broadcast venue of independent progressive Left journalism in the United States has used the reportage to obfuscate and thereby advance the campaign for regime change in Egypt, Libya, and now Syria.