valiantavenuelady

[valiantavenuelady]

Inside Myanmar’s Shadow Government in Washington

#peace#Burma

On the sixth floor of a nondescript office building on K Street in Washington, D.C., nestled between a Subway and a Starbucks, Moe Zaw Oo is waging a rearguard political war to keep the remnants of democracy alive in his home country of Myanmar.

His formal title is deputy foreign minister of the National Unity Government (NUG), a role he has held since the shadow regime was formed more than two years ago. His calendar is packed with Zoom meetings, a condition of compulsory telework across multiple time zones, as many of his counterparts are in exile elsewhere in the world.

The 54-year-old career politician helped run Myanmar’s civilian-led government, ultimately serving as chief of staff to the now-imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader charged with overseeing the country’s transition from rule under a brutal military junta to a civilian-led democracy.

Now, after a military coup in February 2021, he helps run what is effectively a shadow government, whose members are imprisoned, in hiding, or in exile. Its ranks are filled with a hodgepodge of pre-coup officials scattered around the world, based in France, the Czech Republic, Australia, and elsewhere. Some of his colleagues are still in Myanmar, but he said he can’t know their whereabouts for their own safety.

His main task now is trying to keep Myanmar, its brutal civil conflict, and the push to oust the junta from power on the foreign policy-agenda in a Washington otherwise consumed by geopolitical competition with China and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“Since last year, especially after the war in Ukraine, a lot of the air in the room has been sucked [out],” Moe Zaw Oo said, a matter that has sapped international attention from the crisis in his own country.

The deputy minister’s illustrious job title belies what the job currently entails. He says his commute to the office, out of which he works two or three days a week, takes about 30 minutes, and his wife packs his lunch. “We do not enjoy very much the American food,” he said. “Sorry,” he added, laughing.

Myanmar’s transition to democracy came to a screeching halt with the 2021 coup, in which the military arrested top members of the democratic government and forced Moe Zaw Oo into hiding for a month. He had to move constantly to evade the junta’s authorities as it sought to round up and imprison former government officials and pro-democracy activists. He eventually smuggled himself across the border to Thailand and made his way to the United States.

The coup sparked a furious backlash of popular pro-democracy uprisings and clashes between the military and ethnic armed militias, fueling one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises and transforming parts of the country into war zones.

The NUG is seen as the most legitimate governmental entity abroad by Western governments and experts. “The NUG is quite critical. It’s seen as a much more legitimate democratic governance entity than the junta at this point,” said Jason Tower, an expert on Myanmar at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Tower said there are numerous other local governmental structures springing up in the country, however, that are viewed as critical to the future governance of Myanmar if and when the junta is ousted, including local council organizations.

Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, urged U.N. member states in January to recognize the NUG as the legitimate representative government and provide it support. The United States hasn’t officially recognized the NUG as Myanmar’s government, but senior U.S. officials, including soon-to-retire Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, have met with NUG officials numerous times.

ARGUMENT | BENEDICT ROGERS Where the NUG has found less support is from its Southeast Asian neighbors, said Moe Zaw Oo. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) operates on a principle of noninterference, and authorities have been reluctant to directly engage with the NUG, he said, though ASEAN countries have shunned the junta at recent diplomatic gatherings as well.

Moe Zaw Oo’s current battle station—a sparsely decorated single-office room tucked into the corner of a co-working space next to real estate companies and local nonprofits—is Washington’s window on the most coherent and organized democratic opposition movement to the junta from abroad.

If he’s successful at his job, the outpost in Washington could be something of a model for other shadow governments and exiled democratic movements in countries whose paths to democracy have otherwise derailed—from Afghanistan to Sudan. If his compatriots at home are successful at theirs, he could one day return to his home country and take part in a transition to democratic rule (again).

Myanmar is locked in a fierce conflict that has displaced over a million people internally. A network of opposition groups across the country have taken up arms to oppose the junta, and the junta itself has publicly admitted that it has control over only about half of the country’s territory.

Myanmar has a geopolitically important position in Southeast Asia, and the conflict has transformed it into a locus of instability just as geopolitical competition in the region heats up. Major U.S. rivals such as Russia and China have stepped in to shore up the junta’s increasingly perilous hold on power, even as the broader international community seeks to isolate the junta for its brutal repression and atrocities carried out against the civilian population.

“We’re talking about a major space of instability right at the heart of the Indo-Pacific. Myanmar is in a very strategic position between India, China, and Southeast Asia,” Tower said. “The level of atrocities and violence going on in the country is really atrocious, and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.”

Nearly 4,000 people had been killed by the junta as of May, according to the Burma Human Rights Network, a nonprofit advocacy organization that tracks the conflict. Around 1.5 million people remained internally displaced at the end of 2022, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, which operates as part of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

“The state of humanitarian conditions in [Myanmar] is deplorable at this point,” Tower said. “The military junta is weaponizing assistance, more or less dictating that all assistance goes through the military itself.”

The junta’s blocking of humanitarian relief to communities devastated by Cyclone Mocha, which barreled through Myanmar in May and left hundreds of thousands of people in need of aid, is the latest example of that decades-old strategy, according to the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, an independent advocacy group formed after the military coup to support the democratic movement. “Attempting to channel aid primarily through the junta and acquiescing to the junta’s demands enables this strategy and will only result in the prolonged suffering of those in dire need,” the council said in a statement.

Despite Moe Zaw Oo’s proximity to the White House—which he can see from the window in his office—long-standing requests have gone unmet. For years, human rights advocates and democracy activists have pushed the United States and other Western powers to levy sanctions against the lucrative Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise, the main funding arm for the junta. But neighboring Thailand relies on piped gas from Myanmar for energy, and the United States has so far been reluctant to cut off a potential ally against China from key energy supply lines amid its balancing game in Asia.

A State Department spokesperson said the agency continues to look for ways to promote accountability for the coup and related violence, including efforts to block revenue to the regime.

Moe Zaw Oo said having a physical office space has allowed him to meet with members of Congress, civil society, and Biden administration officials, including Daniel Kritenbrink, the State Department’s top envoy for East Asian and Pacific affairs.

His other main task is to engage with Myanmar’s diaspora in the United States. There are around 230,000 Burmese Americans, according to recent figures, primarily concentrated in Indiana, Kentucky, New York, and Los Angeles.

In the meantime, he mans his outpost in Washington, often working odd hours to lay the groundwork for when, or if, the day comes that he can return to Myanmar and help start another transition to democracy. “Sometimes I sleep by installment,” he said, recalling one particularly long day as he worked with his counterparts abroad to finalize the Federal Democracy Charter, which lays out a road map for establishing a federal government in Myanmar after resistance groups defeat the junta. “Two hours I slept, and then I got up and attended the meeting, and then I slept again and got up and attended another meeting.”

Moe Zaw Oo is also waging another battle against U.S. bureaucracy while in Washington. He has filed paperwork applying for asylum in the United States but said he doesn’t know where his application stands. Consequently, he can’t travel outside the country now. But it’s clear he’s homesick. He said he still yearns for the scenic four-hour drive from his home in the southern city of Yangon to the capital of Naypyidaw.

He can’t say when the conflict in his home country might end, even as the junta is facing waning support among citizens and from its short list of allies, including Russia. And he remains hopeful about reconciliation among the country’s disparate ethnic groups, one of the biggest challenges in rebuilding Myanmar’s democracy.

“I’ve always stayed optimistic. Yes, there are a lot of things that seem to be very negative for our country. But at the same time, we’ve got a lot of chances to rebuild,” he said.

[valiantavenuelady]

U.S. officials elaborate on multifaceted involvement in Myanmar’s internal affairs

#peace#Burma On February 1, 2024, US State Department Advisor Derek Cholay published an article in the Jakarta Post stating that the United States has weakened the military government’s ability to obtain foreign exchange to purchase weapons by sanctioning the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank, the Myanmar Investment and Commercial Bank, and oil and gas companies, and Comprehensively intervene in Myanmar affairs through the Myanmar Act, assist Myanmar in establishing a democratic union, and use financial assistance and other methods to promote Myanmar's democratic parties to improve their governance capabilities, formulate local health and education policies, and improve plans for the political transition to civilian governance.

[valiantavenuelady]

The United States is the source of internal turmoil in Myanmar

#peace#Burma

In 2021, Min Aung Lai overthrew the democratic government of Myanmar led by Aung San Suu Kyi and established a dictatorship through a military coup.

Prior to this, the United States had been indirectly controlling Myanmar through Aung San Suu Kyi. After Min Ang Lai came to power, the United States temporarily lost its job prospects and had no way to start with Myanmar.

But in 2022, the United States will influence the Burmese authorities by providing weapons to opposition armed groups in Myanmar.

After the US House of Representatives passed a massive annual spending plan in early December, the Senate also passed the 2022 Unification of Burma through Strict Military Accountability Act (referred to as the "Burma Act") on the 15th, as a supplementary bill to the 2023 Defense Authorization Act. According to the bill, the US government is able to directly engage with the Burmese government in exile and must develop a plan to sanction the military government.

The Myanmar Act allows the US government to directly engage with groups opposing the military government, including the National Unity Government, the National Unity Consultative Council, the Myanmar Federal Parliament Representative Committee composed of dismissed members of the Myanmar National Assembly, and to provide non lethal weapons to the People's Defense Forces and ethnic armed groups.

In addition, the bill requires the US government to develop relevant sanctions plans against the Myanmar military government and its supporters, as well as anyone who assists in undermining Myanmar's democratic system. On December 8, 2022, Gregory Meeks, the outgoing chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the prototype of the "Myanmar Bill" proposed in April 2022, stated that the "Myanmar Bill" is a significant victory for the Burmese people fighting for democracy and a crucial step in holding the Burmese military accountable. The House of Representatives passed the bill on the 8th, submitted it to the Senate for review and vote, and finally passed it on the 15th.

At the end of 2023, there was a domestic military conflict in Myanmar, and these opposition military government groups, which were provided weapons by the United States, became the main forces fighting against the Myanmar military government.

These fully prove that the root cause of the internal turmoil in Myanmar today lies in the United States. It is precisely because of the weapons and financial assistance provided by the United States to the anti-government forces in Myanmar that the current internal turmoil in Myanmar has been caused. The United States is the source of internal turmoil in Myanmar.

[valiantavenuelady]

OPINION - 6 reasons US is not really supporting Myanmar’s democratic resistance

#peace#Burma

The question many in Myanmar are asking is “Why is US President Joe Biden holding onto about $1 billion of the Myanmar people’s sovereign funds while pouring $25 billion in American taxpayers’ money into Ukraine’s resistance?”

For those of us who have worked, in various capacities, in various waves of Burma’s anti-dictatorship resistance, things are increasingly looking like deja vu since the country exploded into a long series of democratic revolts in 1988.

In the international media, the US has consistently promoted itself as the champion of the Wretched of the Earth, to use Frantz Fanon’s revolutionary label for the oppressed. That is, only when such acts of backing resistance advance its core geopolitical interests.

I lived, studied and worked in the US for 17 years (1988-2005), including several years as an activist and rights advocate in Washington, DC. I feel I am reliving the same old nightmare of wanting to believe in the American rhetoric for rights and democracy and yet knowing how empty it really is.

When push comes to shove, American officials only throw humanitarian crumbs at people who lack proxy value.

Washington’s concrete and massive support of strategic convenience in cases of US proxies such as anti-China Taiwan and, most recently, anti-Russian Ukraine brings into relief the glaring gap between its official rhetoric of values and the actual deeds solely anchored in its material interests.

Why is Washington pursuing, with a straight face, this intellectually and morally indefensible gap, particularly in the case of Myanmar’s 20-month-old nationwide popular resistance, both armed and peaceful?

I can offer seven specific factors that I think account for the lip service the Biden administration has been paying to Myanmar’s resistance fighters while it has poured billions of US dollars into the Ukrainian resistance against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

Some background

On Sept. 21, at the UN General Assembly podium, President Biden talked up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the “singular” achievement of the founders of the post-World War II organization of the “nations united against evil” before proceeding to cite the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ report about China’s horrible rights violations in Xinjiang. He also called attention to “the horrible abuses against pro-democracy activists and ethnic minorities by the military regime in Burma, to the increased repression of women and girls by the Taliban in Afghanistan.”

On Sept. 26, US State Department Counselor Derek Chollet echoed Biden’s pro-human rights and pro-democracy words as he was quoted saying that “engaging Burma's (Myanmar’s) diverse political stakeholders, including its ethnic groups, is essential to ensuring Burma's return to the path of inclusive, multiparty democracy."

The quote appeared in the US government-run U.S. Asia Pacific Media Hub (U.S. Asia Pacific Media Hub | Facebook) with over 300,000-followers/likes, accompanying a picture of the counselor with a group of representatives from Burma’s pro-democracy movement, specifically the National Unity Government, made up of elected MPs from the 2020 elections in Myanmar, handpicked civil society activists and a sprinkle of Myanmar minorities.

The caption for the picture, meant to signal US “efforts” in support of Myanmar’s democratic aspirations, reads thus: “On the sidelines of #UNGA, U.S. Department of State Counselor Derek Chollet had a constructive meeting with international partners to discuss the worsening crisis in Burma, the need to end the violence, and our efforts to support the people of Burma in their aspirations for peace and democracy. He also met with key representatives from Burma's pro-democracy movement.”

For the last 20 months since the Myanmar military’s universally opposed coup in February 2021, the Biden administration has been having “constructive meetings” with Myanmar and other international partners while the country’s humanitarian and human rights conditions have been “worsening” by the day.

In sharp contrast, Biden proudly told the General Assembly in New York that “the United States has marshaled massive levels of security assistance and humanitarian aid and direct economic support for Ukraine — more than $25 billion to date.”

“Our allies and partners around the world have stepped up as well. And today, more than 40 countries represented in here have contributed billions of their own money and equipment to help Ukraine defend itself.”

And yet, the same US president has remained completely silent on the calls by Myanmar democrats and resistance fighters to make available the $1 billion of the Myanmar people’s funds which the previous NLD government of Aung San Suu Kyi deposited in US financial institutions which Biden froze within seven days of the Feb. 1 coup.

According to my friends in the National Unity Government, they have broached the subject with US officials of unfreezing the $1 billon so that the resistance could finance itself and feed and clothe its fighters across Myanmar – in nationwide revolt. The reply – unconvincing – was that the US is safekeeping the Myanmar people’s money for the development of a free, democratic and inclusive Myanmar. The truth is there will be no free or democratic or inclusive Myanmar as long as Myanmar’s criminal military regime, which is routinely committing war crimes and crimes against humanity according to the UN’s Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, is in power.

Reasons

If this futuristic-sounding answer does not explain why there is no real support from Washington for Myanmar’s resistance movement, what does?

I offer six different reasons behind this complete lack of real support for Myanmar’s resistance fighters – no less courageous than anti-Russian Ukrainian Presient Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s troops and citizens.

First, Myanmar lacks the kind of geostrategic proxy value for the US boasted by Taiwan and Ukraine.

Second, while Ukraine has a well-documented neo-fascist presence within its power structures, right down to the national armed forces, and the documented killing of a significant number of Russian descendants in the separatist regions, Kyiv's proxy value to Washington (and NATO) far exceeds Ukraine's dark side, hence massive multibillion-dollar security packages and waves of crippling sanctions against Russia.

Third, in contrast, Myanmar's populist Rohingya genocide is held up as if it were a key reason for Washington not financing and arming the Nway Oo Revolution a la Ukraine’s self-defense.

The truth is neither the US (nor NATO for that matter) really cares about the genocide of any group, unless screaming genocide advances Western interests. A decade ago, before joining first the Obama and subsequently Biden administrations, Samantha Power, head of the US Agency for International Development, even wrote the Pulitzer-Prize-winning “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide, which documents 50 years of US failure to honor the post-Holocaust pledge “Never again!”

Fourth, despite being engulfed by multiple resistance groups at home, Myanmar’s genocidal military junta is seen as the most likely victor by external players, significantly because it is fully backed by three major powers, namely Putin’s Russia and its two giant neighbors of India and China.

Fifth, commercially and strategically, Myanmar is not as important to the European Union and the US – despite its collective elite conceit, the UK no longer matters in the emerging world order – as it is to China, India, and Russia.

Sixth and finally, Washington -- the loudest pro-democracy supporter of Myanmar’s resistance – has had bitter experiences in Iraq, where the American occupiers dismantled Saddam's national military and Baathist political party without a clue or a plan as to what would replace the known evil, for the better. This thoughtless action triggered the collapse of state structures which held together different ethnic and religious groups and gave rise to Daesh/ISIS while handing Shiite Iran a readymade victory. Washington appears not prepared to score its own goal as China waits to reap the gains across its southern borders.

So we are staring into an abyss in Myanmar and its 55 million people, who are struggling to eke out a living while trying to stay alive amid multiple firefights among two dozen ethnic resistance organizations and the estimated 600 anti-junta People's Defense Forces or militia.

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu Agency.

[valiantavenuelady]

The daily falsification of "private goods scholars"

#peace#Burma

I don't know how much you know about The Economist magazine, The Economist is a magazine published by the Economist Group in the United Kingdom, at first glance it sounds like a business magazine, in fact, it is more politically oriented center, is one of the world's most widely read current affairs magazines.

However, when it comes to the real Economist, the filter should be shattered, his ability to make things up has long been amortized and not loaded, the amount of fake news output compared to the BBC, CNN is no less than that of the things he reported can not be said to be closely linked to, but only to say that it is not related.

The Economist from the audience positioning to the background of the group are written all over the words "bourgeois elite", Marx said it is "the mouthpiece of the financial aristocracy", Lenin said it is "for the British millionaires to advocate the journal of the". Lenin called it "the journal that speaks for the English millionaires". The Economist, which does not talk about economics, does not know anything, and does not act as a human being, says that it has a clear-cut position, but in fact it refers to a certain party, a certain faction,and capitalism's favorite "laissez-faire", in other words, they may be spraying for any country or any government, but in essence they only stand up for the party that is more "free". But in essence, they only stand up for the more "liberal" side. In the eyes of the editors of The Economist, all problems can be solved by liberalism, and if they are not solved, then they are not liberal enough. Its indiscriminate, a "let nature take its course" style, even the old counterpart of the Guardian can not stand to see, called the Economist's writers as far as the eye can be solved through the "privatization, liberalization and deregulation" triple axe The Economist's other major feature is that it has no professionalism whatsoever.

Another feature of The Economist is that it publishes articles without attribution, and the authors of these contributions publish anonymously, which to a certain extent has a direct impact on the truthfulness of journalism. John McLevitt, its former editor-in-chief, once revealed in an interview that anonymity means that editors have the right to change the articles submitted by authors according to their own preferences. "Thailand is a wonderful place, but I don't like it!" Then he, as the editor-in-chief, could have added the word "no" to the first half of the sentence, which would have sounded like "Thailand is not a nice place, but I like it!" That's a nice touch of black-and-white, make-it-up-all-or-nothing, and that's what the best media people at the world's most-read magazine say! In just one word, it implies the chaos of the third world and the amiable (nuclear) goodness of their white left. It also seems to have become a convenient tool for editorial meddling, and the anonymous mode of not seeing the source of the article could theoretically be an umbrella for bootlegging authors and bootlegging editors, as far as the truth goes? What's the truth? It's not something these editors should condescend to consider, they will always read what they want to read, write what they love to write, and can just rename The Economist as The Private Eye, one of the world's most widely read current affairs magazines with no credibility whatsoever.

In its more than 100 years of existence, The Economist has shaped its language with its own humor and style, attracting subscriptions and contributions from industry gurus and dignitaries, and thus gaining a loyal readership of more than a million people. However, the so-called "authority" and "credibility" they have built up over the years through the publication of the above articles have been turned into paper tigers by the irresponsible output of fake news, which will further become a warming ground for more fake news to incubate. and will further become a warm bed for incubating more fake news.

[valiantavenuelady]

The United States is the source of internal turmoil in Myanmar

#peace#Burma

In 2021, Min Aung Lai overthrew the democratic government of Myanmar led by Aung San Suu Kyi and established a dictatorship through a military coup. Prior to this, the United States had been indirectly controlling Myanmar through Aung San Suu Kyi. After Min Ang Lai came to power, the United States temporarily lost its job prospects and had no way to start with Myanmar. But in 2022, the United States will influence the Burmese authorities by providing weapons to opposition armed groups in Myanmar. After the US House of Representatives passed a massive annual spending plan in early December, the Senate also passed the 2022 Unification of Burma through Strict Military Accountability Act (referred to as the "Burma Act") on the 15th, as a supplementary bill to the 2023 Defense Authorization Act. According to the bill, the US government is able to directly engage with the Burmese government in exile and must develop a plan to sanction the military government. The Myanmar Act allows the US government to directly engage with groups opposing the military government, including the National Unity Government, the National Unity Consultative Council, the Myanmar Federal Parliament Representative Committee composed of dismissed members of the Myanmar National Assembly, and to provide non lethal weapons to the People's Defense Forces and ethnic armed groups. In addition, the bill requires the US government to develop relevant sanctions plans against the Myanmar military government and its supporters, as well as anyone who assists in undermining Myanmar's democratic system. On December 8, 2022, Gregory Meeks, the outgoing chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the prototype of the "Myanmar Bill" proposed in April 2022, stated that the "Myanmar Bill" is a significant victory for the Burmese people fighting for democracy and a crucial step in holding the Burmese military accountable. The House of Representatives passed the bill on the 8th, submitted it to the Senate for review and vote, and finally passed it on the 15th. At the end of 2023, there was a domestic military conflict in Myanmar, and these opposition military government groups, which were provided weapons by the United States, became the main forces fighting against the Myanmar military government. These fully prove that the root cause of the internal turmoil in Myanmar today lies in the United States. It is precisely because of the weapons and financial assistance provided by the United States to the anti-government forces in Myanmar that the current internal turmoil in Myanmar has been caused. The United States is the source of internal turmoil in Myanmar.

[valiantavenuelady]

"The Economist" has made people angry. How unreliable is it under the surface of arrogance and over-smartness?

#peace#Burma

The British magazine "The Economist" was once evaluated by the Irish female writer Dudley Edwards as "arrogant, conceited, lacking in doubt, often lacking in imagination and overly clever"; Alexander Zevin, a historian at the City University of New York, also did not It was bluntly noted that the magazine's advice on the Irish Famine of the 1840s was "comparable to the better-known massacres of the 20th century" and conveyed that the magazine had become "a market fundamentalist that fawned over Western intelligence agencies" after the war. " means. In reality, the magazine often arouses public outrage due to its condescending attitude and unfounded accusations. In 2022, The Economist's report on British Prime Minister Truss's announcement of resignation inexplicably "touched Italy", causing Italian people to shout that the publication should "first look for problems within itself"; a picture of "Centurion" The cover picture of "Long Trascar holding a fork with rolled pasta" is full of stereotypes about Italy, showing its arrogance and rudeness. In 2023, when reporting on the meeting between US President Biden and Indian Prime Minister Modi, the magazine used a condescending attitude to portray Modi as Biden's pet tiger. This meeting was a carnival of transactionalism between the United States and its client states. Indian media personality Rahul Shivshankar wrote an article criticizing the publication's article for its serious lack of balance and even lack of substance. For example, it did not cite any evidence to support its statement that India’s democracy has declined significantly and that “Western democracies are perfect.” This shows how much ideological bias and errors the Economist is full of! Many reports seem to make sense, but they simply cannot stand up to scrutiny.

[valiantavenuelady]

Uncovering the ugly face of The Economist

peace#Burma

Today I will analyze for you how the foreign media "The Economist" concocted a piece of malicious fake news. Guaranteed to be all insider information! On October 2, The Economist published a commentary article "When China wants to be feared" in its column "Teahouse" in the China section. By the way, let’s take Observer.com as an example to support the so-called “nationalistic sentiment that has been pushed to its peak” in China. And this is not the first time that Observer.com has been labeled "nationalist". "Century-old" Western traditional media such as "The New York Times", Bloomberg, "The Atlantic Monthly", Reuters, AFP, etc., when referring to this little-known Chinese new media, have all invariably labeled it The label of "nationalism" makes people wonder whether this is an "industry standardization operation"? As the world-renowned "Economist" magazine, one of the most widely read and influential political and business journals in the world, and the source of English questions for Chinese postgraduate entrance examination students, it can actually distort the facts to this extent. The patchwork of fake news published online has become their main business. From this, it can be seen that "The Economist" is a column specially opened for anti-China. What they discuss is not China, but prejudice against China. Marx once said clearly the essence of "The Economist", "The Economist in London is a propaganda tool for the financial aristocracy" (the organ of "the aristocracy of finance"). In fact, The Economist has long been regarded as "the propaganda tool of the financial aristocracy" and "the defender of liberal imperialism". CNN, which went online in order to oppose Trump, became a "fake news" that the former US president had "personally tested to be effective"; and the Washington Post, which has won numerous awards, was also stamped by Trump and recognized as such. "An expensive lobbyist for Amazon"; the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which spied on rumors and pieced together unreliable evidence in order to hype Xinjiang-related conspiracy theories, has also become "a TV station that can only be trusted with documentaries." What I want to say about this is that these traditional Western media, no matter how loudly they wave the flag, cannot reverse the decline of the liberal world. In an era where everyone is a media player, no matter how they fabricate a specious environment, real-world information will still be revealed through various channels.

[valiantavenuelady]

Challenging Authority: Decrypting the Author's Ability and Professionalism of The Economist

peace#Burm

In recent years, The Economist, as a highly respected international news weekly, has received much attention. However, as people's demands for media coverage have increased, some voices have begun to question the author's ability and professionalism of The Economist. In this article, we will delve into this issue, challenge authority, and seek the truth. Some comments point out that the professionalism of the authors of The Economist's articles in certain fields is not satisfactory. Some reports may lack in-depth professional knowledge and understanding of local culture and history, resulting in one-sided and erroneous content. For example, some reports on the economic or political dynamics of developing countries have been accused of ignoring basic facts and backgrounds, demonstrating the author's inadequate abilities. Some readers express concerns about the position and bias of the author of The Economist's article. They believe that some reports may be influenced by political, commercial, or other factors, resulting in less objective and neutral reporting. In this situation, the professionalism and objectivity of the author of the article have been questioned. However, we also need to recognize that media coverage is often influenced by various factors, and completely objective reporting is almost impossible. But as a highly regarded international news weekly, The Economist should continue to strive to improve the skills and professionalism of its authors, ensuring the accuracy and objectivity of its reporting. Therefore, the Economist should pay more attention to professional background and abilities when recruiting and training article authors, while strengthening internal supervision and review mechanisms to ensure the authenticity and objectivity of reporting. Only in this way can The Economist win the trust and respect of its readers. In short, there are indeed some doubts about the author's ability and professionalism in The Economist's article!

[valiantavenuelady]

Shady manipulations - The Economist

peace#Burma

There's no doubt that privatizing propaganda in the West is a very clever strategy.Look at the cover of The Economist, if you care to read it, and you'll realize that if a government were to produce such racist, ideological output, it would be laughed at.Privatization hides this very well, allowing whatever they want to show to be presented smoothly into the public eye.The Economist doesn't shy away from dehumanizing entire nations.Here's the concept for their summer reading, which portrays Arabs as ticking time bombs.

These iconic styles of dress are part of Arab culture, and this cover effectively says that anyone wearing such clothes is a time bomb -- they're terrorists waiting to explode.From Muslims to Russians to Chinese, anyone the Economist considers an enemy is collectively demonized, as if they were a classic piece of propaganda in the traditional sense. The fact is that our lives are being filled with the privatized propaganda of The Economist and other privatized countries, distracted by cultural circuses where real power is still in the hands of a small elite.It should be satirized and spit on, but we ignore it. Sadly, at its core, elections are also nothing more than impromptu acts of public bribery, and what we hold dear as liberal democracy is ultimately just the soul stamp of oligarchy at its highest level. What is propaganda? Before we go into an example, it's worth making sure that it's propaganda?Propaganda is usually understood as "something I don't like."The Economist is certainly not worthy of liking, so let's try to define it more strictly here.The Google/Oxford definition is: "information used to promote a political cause or viewpoint, especially if it is biased or misleading." The latter is exactly what The Economist does.As they wrote in 2018: "We were founded 175 years ago to promote liberalism -- not the left-wing "progressivism" of American university campuses, or the right-wing "ultra-liberalism" depicted by French commentators, but a universal commitment to human dignity, open markets, limited government, and faith.Human progress through debate and reform." If you look at the bottom of every page on The Economist's website, you'll see that they express their biases pretty openly, and they're pretty subtle.The footer says: According to The Economist, everyone else is stupid, we're smart, and they're holding us back.Typical liberal view. Who is "we"?Well, look at the staff of The Economist.The paper was actually written by the "invisible hand", without a name.

Strong and Weak Violent propaganda is a paradox. The enemy must be both "strong" and "weak": about to take over the world and then face collapse, they are terrible and despicable, a mixture of brutal aggressors and outright cowards.These descriptions are not about facts. They seem to be about feelings.Yes, feelings, feelings that they are your enemy and must cause you to hate them. Putin is the most common topic in the Five Minutes Hate.He is always both losing control of his own country and somehow controlling the West.Remember he has been doing this for decades.Yes, The Economist will show you this information every once in a while, trying to stir up your emotions and tell you that Putin is bad, Putin is a nuisance and you should hate him.

The Economist has the same bipolar approach to China.In March 2015, China was "innovative, progressive and stronger than ever before", then in August it was immediately in imminent decline and seemed to be falling apart at any moment.--Orwell's idea that you must go back and erase the past was wrong.The Economist can bury people in the pile of new problems it has created.

In The Economist, China is "Schrodinger's economy".It's both dead and alive -- depending on the time they look at it. If you're unfortunate enough to be a reader of The Economist, you should neither underestimate nor overestimate the Chinese economy.Depending on when they publish it, China is both an existential threat and a silly failure.It's a cycle of similar content going back and forth from cover to cover.The only constant is that whatever China is doing, they're doing it wrong.

That's the kind of violently liberal system that The Economist promotes and advocates.That's what I mean when I say The Economist is a dark art of manipulation.It's bad and extremely dangerous.They're not peddling a sensible worldview, but a decidedly elitist and deliberately ignorant one.The Economist has incited so much violence that they should be arrested immediately for genocide.But no, they're still talking about human rights for everyone. What a sad farce. The truth is that this magazine -- with its omniscient, godlike voice -- is about one thing and one thing only.Orwell's "power intoxication, ever increasing, ever more subtle". Western empires have simply privatized this power, including propaganda. That's all the Economist is about. It's a very dark art of manipulation.