I'd like to address the comedy that is the "fake news" "news" story which seems to have really gathered steam when Hillary Clinton went off her rocker before the US elections. Since then it has grown into this:
1) Government asserts a version of events
2) An alternative source challenges that assertion and provides a counter narrative which is immediately labelled toxic "fake news".
3) The censorship, vilification and silencing of any individual or web site which is not pumping out the exact same version of events to the US / UK government.
A democratic government should be fearless of counter narratives put forward by its citizens, if its version is correct. Surely facts alone will be their witness, and indeed in time, witness testimony from the scene will surely eventually back up and completely verify their account, and the alternative versions will lose credibility?
Of course, once investigated, upon analysing the available data, there might well be opposing views on the same data. Rather than see this as a sign of a healthy democracy, this seems to pose a different set of worries for our modern governments in the west. This is puzzling to me, because democracies are supposed to embrace variance of opinions, and are suppose to cherish the ability of everyone to bring their opinion to the table for rigorous debate, aren't they?
Surely everything is open for discussion and interpretation of known facts? Surely the most robust argument will win the day? Incidentally, Trump and May worshippers, tweeting "you are paid by the Kremlin", "you are a maniacal despot apologist" or similar abuse does not constitute a 'robust argument'. In fact, I'm going to take this a stage further. Speaking as someone who is attacked in this manner every day, I'm going to give you a taste of your own medicine, to see how that flies.
If you are supporting and enabling the behaviour of NATO countries in Libya, Iraq and Syria, knowing what we now know from the infamous and sadly toothless #Chilcott inquiry;
@Theresa_May @DonaldTrump @BBC, @Newsnight, @Channel4News @Skynews @CNN @TheTimes @TheGuardian @Washingtonpost @Newyorktimes
...you are choosing to ignore decades of literature that points in the other direction and time and time again documents in finest detail this obsession with bogus regime change. For reasons best known t only to yourselves, you are brazenly ignoring thousands of reports, books, lectures, films, witness testimony, university theses, statistics and analysis; all of which suggest that this interventionalism is wrong, to the point of being illegal, profanely immoral and completely undemocratic. You are also brazenly pouring scorn and derision upon the terrible loss of life resulting from Iraq being invaded under false pretexts, by calling for it happen all over again in Syria.
For reasons best know to yourselves you have set your propaganda and bullshit radar to "sleep" mode, and turned off your crtical thinking skills, to become obedient stenographers for John Bolton, Dick Cheney, Netanyahu,The Bush Cabal, Rupert Murdoch and co. You are in fact, apologists for a genocidal hegemony spreading terror, torture chaos and death all over the globe with impunity, but absolutely fook all legitimacy of any kind because let's face it... who's going to check anyway? Your own cronies? Hardly worth the airfare I suspect. I can imagine the train of thought goes something like this: "we got away with it in Iraq. It'll be fine to pull that one again. After all, what are Mr. and Mrs. Nicely of Rotherham going to do about it? They'll never find out. They can't exactly go to Syria and have a look for themselves, can they... Feck it anyway, just drop the bombs."
I really don't know of an act of contrition meaningful enough to make amends, or any sort of worthy apology to the world for this level of shameful complicity to a devastating war machine that just will not stop killing.
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