Today RT America anchor Liz Wahl resigned on air, claiming she disagrees with the channel's editorial stance. And here's what I have to say about it.
These days it takes a lot of courage to work for RT. Never before have I seen RT and its journalists bullied like this. See for yourselves what they did to poor Abby. First, she openly voiced disagreement with Russia's stance on air - and was virtually made an American hero. But then Abby reminded everyone how much she disagrees with America's stance as well, adding she takes pride in working at RT, where she is free to express her views. Less than an hour passed before Abby had her name dragged through something I have difficulty finding a decent name for this late at night. The US mainstream media even went as far as claiming we had orchestrated the whole thing as a publicity move. They labeled Abby a conspiracy theorist, bringing to light her past as an activist. In less than 24 hours, they first sang her praises and then excoriated her. All of this in front of her colleagues, including Liz Wahl. How do you think they felt watching that?
Yesterday I spent quite some time explaining to a
New York Times correspondent why I consider Russia's position to be right. I'm Russian. I support my country and I will fight for the truth for as long as it takes. Neither Abby, nor Liz, nor many other employees are Russian nationals, but foreign. And now their country is likening my country to Nazi Germany. For many years they have worked for RT in good faith, proving every day that a voice that stands out from the mainstream media can be beautiful and strong, attract an audience that grows daily.
These are the people who were the first to tell their country about the Occupy movement, who were detained at protest rallies, handcuffed for hours and then tried in court for doing their job. These are the people who were outraged by US hypocrisy in Syria, Libya - you can finish the list yourself - and reminded the world who used chemical weapons most often, even resorting to nuclear bombs. These are the people who did things the Western mainstream media would have never done. But those were peaceful times. And now we've got a genuine war going on - no, thank God, it's not in Crimea.
It's a media war. Every single day, every single hour the guys who work for us are told, "You are liars, you are no journalists, you are the Kremlin propaganda mouthpiece, you've sold yourselves to the Russians, it's time you quit your job, and everybody is laughing at you, so change your mind before it's too late."
Comment: The vehemence RT staff are confronted with daily from their Western counterparts is something SOTT.net has been up against daily in the alt.media community, particularly since we began researching and writing about the psychopathic nature of the dominant forces in this world. RT's stance is as admirable as it is unusual: a 'mainstream' media outlet that reports
the news in an effort to inform people rather than confuse them. We put 'mainstream' in quotation marks because while it has the clout to compete with the dominant media, for a large organization its ethos is rather exceptional, especially amidst the pathos of just about all the rest of 'modern civilization'. It has not yet succumbed to ponerization
*, as Al Jazeera did in a
CIA coup of sorts sometime in 2010, though as we've seen, individual members capitulate under the pressure. It is unsurprising that they should be two of its US members based in Washington, DC, surely one of the most psychopathic enclaves on the planet.
Kudos, RT.
* 'Ponerization', a description of the process from Political Ponerology
The first step in the ponerization of a group often appears as a moral distortion of the group's original ideology. The existence of simplistic concepts (e.g., whether moral or legal) blocks any ability for critical thought in relation to the existence of psychopaths or their possible influence on the initial warping of the group's ideology. Such doctrinaire concepts are prevalent in the neoconservative ideology. For example, "You're either with us or against us (in the War on Terror)" and the completely arbitrary use of the labels "terrorist," "terrorist sympathizer", and "suspected terrorist."
In the case of the RT journalists, both of whom appealed to moral reasons for their actions, one appealed to the simplistic, doctrinaire, jingoistic assertion that she was "a proud American", while the other used what's called a 'paramoralism', in which she placed Russia's justified defense of ordinary people from psychopathic invasion in economically and culturally connected Ukraine on a par with America's unjustified invasions for personal gain in numerous unconnected countries, and under false pretexts, in the process selecting and substituting readily available data that exposes each behaviour to be fundamentally different, not identical.
Just as it is normal in the life of any human to experience a decline in psychological or physiological resistance (thus leading to moral failings or bacteriological infection), groups experience such crises. The pressure leading to such crises may be caused by the influence of other groups, a heightened hysterical condition, or a general spiritual crisis in the environment.
The resulting weakness in proper reasoning and critical thinking skills leaves an opening for the activity of psychopaths and characteropaths. Their influence then results in a further decline in moral and intellectual functioning. The absurdity of such a dynamic can be seen in the fact that Richard Cheney, an obvious psychopath, was allowed to hold the position of vice-president. Even when he shoots a hunting partner in the face, the media and public will studiously rationalize his coarse and psychopathic behavior.
When such individuals are treated as normal, more perceptive individuals will leave the group. When the group has become sufficiently pathological, members will either perceive its new direction in moral terms (e.g., "We must kill them all on the principle of justice and democracy"), or as a form of psychological terror. As more healthy people leave the group, taking on more counter-revolutionary positions, individuals with psychological anomalies join, removing their masks of sanity ever more often. Without adequate knowledge, normal individuals who have been ejected from such a group will suffer immensely, cut off from their original ideological reason for joining. Infected with unhealthy emotions and pathological material, they can assume positions opposite to those which they formerly followed.
New members are psychologically screened. No one with too much independence or psychological normality is allowed in the group. (Such screening should have taken place to root out psychological deviants in the first place.) Detractors are treated with paramoral condemnation. In short, the patients have overtaken the asylum.
Comment: See how the private media of Venezuela have been instrumental in spreading lies and easing former coups: