to counter active measures by the Russian Federation to exert covert influence over peoples and governments (with the role of the Russian Federation hidden or not acknowledged publicly) through front groups, covert broadcasting, media manipulation, disinformation or forgeries, funding agents of influence, incitement, offensive counterintelligence, assassinations, or terrorist acts. The committee shall expose falsehoods, agents of influence, corruption, human rights abuses, terrorism, and assassinations carried out by the security services or political elites of the Russian Federation or their proxies.
Glen Ford observed, "Every category listed [above], except assassinations and terror, is actually a code word for political speech that can, and will, be used to target those engaged in 'undermining faith in American democracy' -- such as Black Agenda Report and other left publications defamed as 'fake news' outlets by the Washington Post [article on PropOrNot]."
This Disinformation and Propaganda Act created the innocuously named Global Engagement Center, operated by the State Department, Pentagon, USAID, the Broadcasting Board of Governors [renamed US Agency for Global Media], the Director of National Intelligence, and other spy agencies. This Center oversees production of fake news supporting US imperial interests, focused primarily against Russia and China (such as Uyghur genocide and Russiagate), but also against Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and others. Verifiable reports exposing US regime-change operations and disinformation are often outright censored or labeled pro-Russian or pro-Chinese propaganda.
National security-state propaganda against Russia surged after it aided Syria in thwarting the US-Saudi war against the Assad government. It reached levels of hysteria with the fabricated Russiagate stories designed to sabotage the 2016 Trump presidential campaign. Seymour Hersh disclosed that the widely covered news of Russian hacking of DNC computers in 2016 was CIA disinformation. Hersh confirmed from FBI sources that Hillary's emails were taken by Seth Rich and offered to Wikileaks for money, and that the fake-news story of Russian hacking was initiated by CIA head John Brennan. However, exposures of the Clinton-neocon-national security state Russiagate fake news were themselves written off as disinformation concocted by pro-Russian operators.
An example of Global Engagement Center work may be a recent smear against anti-imperialists as agents of Russia appeared in The Daily Beast. It targets Lee Camp, Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, and others: "Propaganda peddlers rake in cash and followers at the expense of the truth and oppressed people in Ukraine, Xinjiang, and Syria" because of their accurate reporting that goes against the US propaganda line.
Other articles may indicate this government Disinformation Center use of the third camp left in the tradition of Operation Mongoose. George Monbiot's article in The Guardian fit the billing: "We must confront Russian propaganda - even when it comes from those we respect - The grim truth is that for years, a small part of the 'anti-imperialist' left has been recycling Vladimir Putin's falsehoods."
Louis Proyect crusaded for Syria regime change, and against those opposing the US war on the country as being part of a "red-brown alliance." Proyect often relied on British Foreign Office-funded Bellingcat for his articles, writing, "The Bellingcat website is perhaps the only place where you can find fact-based reporting on chemical attacks in Syria." Proyect defended "Syrian revolution" "socialist" Anand Gopal, of the International Security Program at the New America Foundation, funded by the State Department and corporate foundations, and run by Anne-Marie Slaughter, former State Department official.
Democracy Now , which also repeatedly relied on Anand Gopal as a news source, has long received foundation money, and we see the self-censoring effect this has on its former excellent anti-war journalism degenerating into compatible leftism.
Another product of this government-corporate aid for this Democratic Party "lesser evil" left may be NACLA's articles smearing the Nicaraguan government. NACLA Board Chair Program Director is Thomas Kruse of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. In 2018, NACLA, New York DSA, and Haymarket Books hosted anti-Sandinista youth activists while on a tour paid for by rightwing Freedom House.
In These Times, which receives hundreds of thousands in foundation money, ran similar articles smearing socialist Cuba. It claimed Cuba was "the Western Hemisphere's most undemocratic government" - not Bolsonaro's Brazil or Chile with its police who blinded pro-democracy protesters, not Colombia's death squad-supporting government, not Honduras' former coup regime nor Haiti's hated rulers.
Haymarket Books, which produces many third camp left books, receives Democratic Party-aligned think tank and nonprofit money via the pass-through Center for Economic Research and Social Change. The Grayzone reported that the DSA, Jacobin Magazine, and Haymarket-sponsored Socialism conference featured NED and State Department-funded regime-change activists.
Jacobin editor Bhaskar Sunkara is former vice-chair of the Democratic Party's reform-oriented DSA. In 2017 the Jacobin Foundation received a $100,000 grant from the Annenberg Foundation, set up by billionaire publisher and Nixon administration U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain Walter Annenberg.
This milieu includes New York's Left Forum, and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, underwritten by the German government.
Bob Feldman revealed corporate financing for the Institute of Policy Studies, The Nation, In These Times, NACLA, Middle East Research & Information Project (MERIP), Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), Progressive, Mother Jones, AlterNet, Institute for Public Accuracy, among others.
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