Justin Raimondo remarks on the irony of the American and European medias complaining about the Russian media and what passes for Russian democracy:
We are bombarded on an almost daily basis with anti-Russian, anti-Putin propaganda in the mainstream media, falsely claiming that the “independent” media is being curtailed by the Kremlin. Yet there is no government censorship in Russia; no newspapers or television stations have been closed down by the authorities. Putin’s critics are exercised over the alleged lack of “freedom of the press” because the Russian owners of privately owned media outlets exercise the same editorial control that private owners exercise in the West.
For the American media to complain that their Russian counterparts are too subservient to the government is a classic case of pot-kettle-black. It wasn’t the Russian media that wore flag lapel buttons while reporting the start of a major military assault and shamelessly transmitted government propaganda disguised as “news reporting” to a frightened and shamelessly manipulated public. It wasn’t the Russian media that put Judy Miller’s tall tales of Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” on the front page of the New York Times as the rest of our “free” and “independent” journalists followed dutifully along. If Russia’s reporters are government lackeys, then their Western brothers and sisters are cut from pretty much the same cloth….
If the Council of Europe is so concerned about the state of democracy in the world, then let them look into the practices of the European Union, which seem to involve repeating an election until one gets the “right” result.
Raimondo is the most underrated columnist in America today. If you’re not reading him on a regular basis, you are seriously missing out.