Violent Protests, Civilian Torture And Shady Agent Provocateurs: What’s Going On In Ukraine?

Ukrainian police face protesters. Credit: Flickr, Spoilt Exile

In light of Russia’s decision to launch a military operation against the Western-backed Ukrainian government, I’m re-posting an article written eight years ago on the events leading up to the Ukrainian conflict. It’s important to remind ourselves that this civil war has been raging for almost a decade, and is far more complex than the mainstream media would have you believe.

January 2014: This week four protesters died in Ukraine, the country at the centre of a political tug-of-war between Russia and Europe. More have allegedly been tortured by the state during anti-government protests which are spinning dangerously out of control.

Campaigners took to the streets in the capital Kiev in November, after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych decided not to go ahead with a planned treaty with the European Union. Many Ukrainians were hopeful that a new alliance with the great Western power would open up new trade deals, boost the economy and give them the benefit of free travel and work opportunities within the E.U once their membership was secured.

But Russia didn’t like this proposed alliance, putting pressure on Yanukovych to think twice about it. The two neighboring countries have a long and intertwined history, being strong allies allied and inextricably linked through the Soviet Union until its eventual collapse in 1991. Ukraine is a fertile country with a strong agricultural industry and is often known as ‘the breadbasket of Europe’. As the third largest grain exporter in the world, it’s not surprising that both Europe and Russia are in fierce competition to benefit from cheap trade deals. In the end though, Russia’s blackmailing of Ukraine over the E.U treaty – even offering them cheaper gas imports as a reward for continued loyalty to Moscow – worked well. Yanukovych bowed to Russian demands and declared he wouldn’t go ahead with the proposals (for now, at least).

Journalism is Dead. Long live the Truth!

Six years ago, I quit my career in media to start working in health and social care. Unlike journalism, which requires you to wade through a cesspit of bullshit and negativity on a daily basis, support work is refreshingly positive and rewarding. This life change was the consequence of a decade-long awakening to several truths: Firstly, my opinion is worth no more than anyone else’s. Secondly, personal evolution is needed far more than political revolution. Thirdly, there really was no media outlet worth writing for anymore.

Journalism is dead, I decided. F**k the corporate media – and f**k the Indy media, too. Citizen journalism is the future. That’s the conclusion I came to, and as time has passed, I’ve only become more convinced of it. With hindsight, I realise that what I’d labelled writer’s block was just a symptom of the grief I was feeling over the death of journalism itself. 

I started my Journalism degree on 14th September 2001, just three days after 9/11. There it was on the TV, replayed over and over again: Death, destruction, shock, fear, confusion, hysteria. It was the end of life as we knew it. The end of global harmony, the end of taking a burka-wearing Muslim at face value, the end of critical thinking, the end of live and let live. The end of history itself.

It was a terrible time for humanity, but the most exciting time ever to study journalism. In addition to learning how to craft articles (ie, how to manipulate the masses), I studied the science of language. I was particularly fascinated by classes that delved into issues of politics and power: how words are carefully chosen to sway public opinion, how linguistic devices can be used to hypnotise an entire population, how speeches can be used to gain popular support for illegal wars.

Language is an incredibly powerful tool. It can turn neighbour against neighbour, instill fear and hatred, and cover up grotesque lies. I spent every waking minute analysing Bush’s gung-ho war speeches, Blair’s deceitful warnings about WMD in Iraq, and comment from so-called respectable media outlets on why invading Iraq and Afghanistan was the ‘right thing to do’.

I learned about the Journalism industry’s code of conduct and the importance of media ethics – a concept which seems laughable twenty years later. I studied media law and the history of the industry going back to the printing press, looking at how our current systems of media monopolization and corporate globalisation have impacted honest reporting.

I’d dreamed of writing for The Guardian since I was a kid, but the fact that the world had just changed forever was to ruin that fantasy, because understanding how the media industry works ultimately caused me to despise it. The iconic, infamous image of those burning planes consuming the twin towers didn’t only mark the beginning of the end of our civilisation, they also sounded the death toll of journalism as it once was: ethical, accountable and investigative.

By the end of my degree course in 2005, I had nothing but contempt for the mass media. From the in-yer-face fear-mongering and sensationalism of the red tops to the extremely covert (yet equally powerful) propaganda peddled  by ‘leftie’ broadsheets, I didn’t believe a word any more. I’d come to believe that the industry’s power over our perception of reality is the biggest threat to all the things I hold dearest: peace, truth, freedom and justice. I wasn’t scared of Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden; I was scared of Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch.

The monopolization of the press (fewer individuals or organizations controlling increasing shares of the mass media) is growing year by year. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s right wing, neo-liberal politics are reflected in his 175 newspapers, and endorsed by pundits on the 123 TV channels he owns in the USA alone. One rich, corrupt man’s perspective consumed by millions of people across the globe. It’s a grotesquely all-encompassing monopoly, leaving no doubt that Murdoch is one of the most powerful men in the world. What’s worse is that his power doesn’t start and end with his media interests.

One of the most disturbing things to emerge from the infamous News International phone hacking scandal was the exposure of numerous shady connections between press tycoons and top politicians. The case exposed a quagmire of corruption, ‘chumocracy’ and corporate intimidation, with details emerging of the media mogul’s threats to various politicians who didn’t do his bidding, of secret meetings and clandestine friendships. How can senior journalists do their job of holding politicians to account when they are holidaying together or rubbing shoulders at private dinner parties? They can’t, and they never intended to.

The purpose of the mainstream media is the same as any other industry in a Capitalist society: to make profit. It’s time to let go of any naive notions that the press exists to inform, educate and entertain us. Profit is the goal, followed closely by the quest for consolidation of power, the exertion of control over law-makers, and the manipulation of public opinion (often as a means to these ends). Mainstream publications make the vast majority of their profit from advertising (typically around 75%), meaning it’s these super-rich advertisers and powerful shareholders who dictate editorial content – not journalists, and certainly not consumers.

Considering the UK government has spent millions of taxpayer pounds on mass media advertising during this ‘pandemic’, the conflict of interest is clear. As (ex-Fleet Street journalist) Chris Sweeney writes: ‘It will surprise most Brits that the nation’s biggest advertiser is not Amazon, Apple, or Nike – it’s the government. That’s across all forms of advertising…Between the start of lockdown and July 2020, the government spent £44 million in three months. In context, that was a 5,000 percent year-on-year increase.’

Consider what impact this has on editors and journalists holding politicians and other powerful people to account. BBC journalist Andrew Marr acknowledged the dilemma in his autobiography, writing: ‘The biggest question is whether advertising limits and reshapes the news agenda. It does, of course. It’s hard to make the sums add up when you are kicking the people who write the cheques.’

Historically, journalism has a vital role to play in a healthy democracy. It’s an industry that once prided itself on comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. It’s an industry traditionally devoted to uncovering the truth at any cost. Great activists like Julian Assange and John Pilger know that. Whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden know that. Yet those who embody the true spirit of journalism are frequently persecuted by the mainstream media.

Michael Grunwald of Time magazine tweeted in 2013 that he ‘can’t wait to write a defense of the drone that takes out Julian Assange,’ while The New York Times’s Andrew Ross Sorkin demanded Ex-Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald’s arrest for his bravery in publishing the Edward Snowden files. Is it ironic to hear these ‘journalists’ expressing contempt for some of the most important journalism in the last decade? Not when you see them for what they are, the puppets of a dying empire. Salon magazine’s David Sirota called this phenomena ‘The Journalists against Journalism Club’ and commented: ‘Because these voices loyally promote the unstated assumptions that serve the power structure…their particular opinions aren’t even typically portrayed as opinions; they are usually portrayed as noncontroversial objectivity.’

This is exactly what you see every time you turn on the TV or read a popular daily newspaper. But objectivity cannot exist in an industry whose primary motivations are profit, political control, power consolidation and manipulation of the masses. The only press that is truly free is the independent publication with no corporate advertisers, board of directors, shareholders, sponsors, or CEOs.

I’ve been very lucky in the past to earn a decent living by freelancing for progressive indy magazines; being able to freely criticise the status quo rather than being subject to censorship by those with a vested interest in maintaining it. But the alt media is not the solution to this (dis)information war either. Click-bait articles and advertising spam, ‘news’ scraped from Reddit, plagiarism, callous team discussions about how to squeeze tons of money out of readers, publishing articles full of errors, taking on writers who can’t research, spell, or proofread: all of these things are standard procedure in the world of alt-media journalism.

The total lack of respect for primary sources within the indymedia industry is mind-boggling, too. I want to tell new stories, not regurgitate old ones. You think writers do any research nowadays? They don’t. They’re ordered to scrape Reddit for anything that has the potential to go viral, and it’s usual in the alt press to be asked what your source is when submitting an original piece of work. I don’t want to be told to go find a primary source for an article I’m pitching just to prove it’s a subject worth writing about. That’s not journalism.

As I wrote about long ago here, the corporate media wields immense power over both people and government – but I’ve learned over time that the alternative media is also biased and corruptible.  Since becoming entirely disillusioned with both, I’ve come to believe that the future is citizen journalism.

We need a source of news which is based on no other motive than to inform and educate. It’s a means of information produced entirely by the people, for the people: a people’s press. Citizen journalism is often called democratic, participatory or collaborative journalism. It’s inclusive to anyone with a blog or social media account and is a form of activism in itself, because it bypasses and boycotts the system’s mouthpiece in favour of creating new systems of information that serve us all. For this reason it’s also known as guerilla or street journalism. The idea of a global citizen journalism platform is an idea I’d daydreamed about setting up during the Occupy movement, but it never felt like the time was right.

Now though, we have a global propaganda war and a bad case of mass hysteria to resist. Keyboard warriors of conscience are very much needed! Digging deep into inconvenient facts and disseminating censored information is vital in the fight against mass hypnosis (or is it mass psychosis?). So if anyone reading this is feeling the urge to research, to write, to document, to photograph, to dare to think a thought they haven’t fed to you, to find and plant revolutionary seeds of truth, do it. The world needs you!

For more reasons why none of us can trust traditional forms of media, check out my original post from 2011. Like everything else on my site, this article is open sourced and completely available to repost anywhere, with the following conditions: Credit to the author, a link to the original, and absolutely no editing of the original without a note making it clear what was edited and when. 

Are intentional communities the answer to all humanity’s problems?

Is the old system crumbling before our eyes? Are we witnessing the first labour pains of a new world? Is there an unspoken, collective awareness that knows we’ve passed a point of no return? It certainly seems like there’s no going back to the old normal, and clinging on to it for dear life will only prolong the birthing process (and pains) of the new paradigm. 

What does the future look like for humanity? Will there even be a humanity? It’s easy to torment ourselves with negative visions of an apocalyptic nightmare, but we need to bring our attention and focus back to the heart and to focus only on the solution. So many are awakening to a very simple truth: we must get back to our wild roots, because ‘progress’ is not synonymous with ecocide, and there is great opportunity in chaos! 

Our future is inextricably linked to the survival of the planet. It’s a symbiotic, co-dependent relationship; she nurtures us and showers us with gifts, and she wants – no, needs – us to reconnect with her and reciprocate that love. As botanist Robin Kimmerer puts it, ‘the exchange of love between Earth and people calls forth the creative gifts of both. The Earth is not indifferent to us, but rather calling for our gifts in exchange for hers – the reciprocal nature of life and creativity.’ Rather than hurting and pillaging Gaia through destructive systems made of power and greed, we should take on the role of steward and protector. Each human being has the freewill to choose a relationship with Gaia where we give as much as we take, and only ever take what we need. 

It’s surprising how little we need to survive: water, shelter, warmth and food. None of this is complicated, and anything is possible with determination and patience – from the small things like chopping wood and growing your own vegetables, to the bigger projects like building your own straw bale home. But we don’t just want to survive, we want to thrive! We thrive when we are creative and feeding the soul with things it loves. We thrive when we have freedom to choose, which is not only a birthright, but a sacred Universal Law. We thrive when we give and receive love – to other people and especially to mother nature, by spending time with her and feeling humble and grateful and in awe of her presence.

If you have a sense of frustration, hopelessness, anger, resentment towards society, how about turning it into a worthwhile dream? What does your Utopia look like? Could you build it? Or is it already out there somewhere, just waiting for you to join? There are thousands of intentional communities all over the world. Someone just like you had a vision, got hold of some land, built something amazing, and opened it up to like-minded people to come and share their little piece of paradise. They had an intention to form a community, for whatever reason, and every time a community is formed, it makes a positive ripple of change in the world that can’t be underestimated. 

Buckminster Fuller famously said: ‘You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.’ We are in such a toxic relationship with consumerism that we’ve managed to convince ourselves that we can’t live without it. If the supermarkets ran out of food, if global inflation caused mass unemployment and homelessness, if your gas and electricity supplies and your access to water were cut, what would you do? 

Our corrupt, archaic systems depend on us depending on them. Just imagine what would happen to the old system if enough people chose to live life in a new and natural way, having freedom and being self-sufficient in every way. The system would be defunct and crumble overnight. Capitalism needs us far more than we need it, and that’s where our power lies. Some would say that the most effective way to protest for change is to turn your back on this society, ignore it altogether, and build something wonderful that makes it unnecessary. 

If you’d like to start your own community from scratch, there are ways and means of getting your hands on some cheap land, which is the most difficult part of the process. If money’s an issue, form a collective. If you do have some cash and dream of living in a forest, check out www.woodlands.co.uk and sign up to their email alerts – there are some serious bargains from time to time! We love this video too, which shows how you can use British common law to claim a free plot of woodland in your own local area. For those of you in the States, this video explains a different legal loophole allowing someone to buy land with no money.

Whether you fancy joining a co-existing tribe or setting up your own, the beauty is that there is an intentional community out there for everyone. If you care deeply about one specific issue, if you hold certain political ideals, if you follow a strict diet, if you are religious, if you’re atheist, if you’re LBGTQ, if you’re passionate about permaculture, the chances are there’s a unique place out there full of people like you. You can find listings and information for intentional communities all over the planet (including which are newly forming and which are open to new members) by visiting www.ic.org. 

Travel: Spring fairs and fiestas in Andalucia, Spain

Spring is almost underway, which in Andalusia means only one thing: Fiesta time! From El Día de Andalucia on February 28 right up until September, many colourful ferias, carnavales, fiestas and romerias can be enjoyed all over the province.

Whether it’s consuming ridiculous amounts of sherry, watching a flamenco extravaganza or firework display, prancing horses or street parade, Andalusians know how to celebrate in style- and you’ll find they don’t need much excuse for a good knees-up! Various Saint’s days, deliverance from the sea or from the Moors, and the harvesting of products like grapes, cherries, chestnuts and olives all provide the perfect reason to throw a party.

Yes, animals do experience complex emotions!

Here are some very moving videos relating to a previous post on animal sentience, and  the government’s recent vote concluding animals are incapable of emotion. That includes pain, apparently. Get ’em told, Jane Goodall…

1. The chimpanzee who died from a broken heart

2. Another chimpanzee, this time almost dead – but she suddenly perks up when reunited with an old human friend…

3. Chickens have been scientifically proven to have empathy, and they make decisions based on what is best for the group. They have the same emotional intelligence as your average seven year-old human.

4. A summary of scientific evidence for animal sentience, findings showing that animals feel ‘boredom, contentment, anticipation, intentional behaviours’ and much, much more. In 2012, Stephen Hawking was amongst many scientists who signed a document declaring that animals are just as conscious and sentient as ourselves.

5. Here are some teenage dolphins getting high on pufferfish: ‘They appear totally blissed-out by the experience’. Although this doesn’t relate to empathy or pain, you could argue that chasing fun through recreational drug use (and the sharing of the pufferfish between the group) shows a certain level of intelligence (and community) that rivals our own.

The Tories may be devoid of emotion, but animals certainly aren’t

I’ve just discovered that as part of the British government’s withdrawal from the EU, it’s voted to scrap legislation that protects animals as sentient beings. Of all the laws the illegitimate Tory party could possibly repeal, I was surprised to discover that this one seems to have hit me the hardest. It’s incredulous that ministers have agreed that non-humans ‘cannot feel pain or emotions,’ stripping them of all rights and legal protection formerly provided by Europe. I wish I could force Theresa May and her cruel ilk to read the hundreds of scientific studies which clearly show the reverse-  some of which I featured in an article on this topic a couple of years ago. I’ll repost it here, with a suggestion that the Tories are the only (non?) humans incapable of compassion and empathy. My dog (and my cat, and maybe even my hamster) would beat all of them hands down in any contest related to emotion. I bet your pets would, too.

Everything you think you know about animals is wrong: How science is forcing us to reconsider the twin myths of human superiority and dumb creatures

Human beings are the most intelligent of all the world´s species, that’s the narrative we tell ourselves. We deserve our superior status over other animal species because of the following scientific truths: only humans are self-aware and feel empathy; we are unique in our abilities to use language and tools; only we can recognize ourselves in a mirror and understand the passing of time.

However, advances in cognitive ethology (the scientific study of animal intelligence, emotions, behaviours, and social life) have now disproved these ´truths´, showing that many other creatures also display a complex range of emotions, highly evolved communication skills, compassion for others, and intelligence that rivals- or even surpasses- our own. These ground-breaking studies force us to ask some uncomfortable questions about our place in the world, and have caused leading experts to call for a radical rethink of the way we treat other animals.

Communicative mice, kindly rats and compassionate chickens

Among the findings are that yes, fish do feel pain , and not only that but acidic water actually makes them nervous. Chickens are not only very intelligent, they can also feel each other´s pain, and they demonstrate physiological signs of concern and distress at the suffering of their young.

Similar conclusions were drawn in a cruel study of mice who were doused in acid. Not only were the empathic rodents more sensitive to the pain of their peers than to their own agony, but researchers also suggested they “might be talking to each other” about their pain, too. Take a moment to let that sink in….

And while rats don´t have the best of reputations, there is much research to suggest they too are compassionate, communicative and highly intelligent. One group of scientists found that, given the choice, rats prefer to free others from a cage rather than help themselves to candy. What´s more, the rats had not been taught to open the cages in advance. Researcher Peggy Mason noted: “That was very compelling … It said to us that essentially helping their cagemate is on a par with chocolate. He can hog the entire chocolate stash if he wanted to, and he does not. We were shocked.”