{"id":5767,"date":"2023-03-10T19:50:10","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T17:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/?p=5767"},"modified":"2023-03-13T12:01:10","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T10:01:10","slug":"i-once-admired-george-monbiot-but-his-grim-trajectory-shows-us-where-politics-is-heading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2023-03-10\/i-once-admired-george-monbiot-but-his-grim-trajectory-shows-us-where-politics-is-heading\/","title":{"rendered":"I once admired George Monbiot. But his grim trajectory shows us where politics is heading"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subtitle\"><em><strong>In an age of distortion, major columnists have powerful tools and a responsibility. His latest column on Russell Brand is an object lesson in how that can go wrong<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>What\u2018s been the most significant threat to journalism \u2013 the lifeblood of a free society \u2013 over the past decade? Maybe we can turn to George Monbiot, the doyen of the British liberal-left, for an answer.<\/p>\n<p>He has a weekly column at the Guardian newspaper in which he exposes the abuses of state and corporate power. This critically important topic is surely something he has addressed at length.<\/p>\n<p>And indeed, he has. But strange to report, what I assumed to be the most dangerous development for journalism in my lifetime has not registered at all on his Guardian-supplied radar.<\/p>\n<p>The United Nations\u2019 most distinguished legal experts have separately determined that Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, has endured both prolonged \u201carbitrary detention\u201d and life-threatening \u201cpsychological torture\u201d for years at the hands of the British state.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">My latest: Sweden did not intend to prosecute Assange because it never had a case, writes UN expert. The aim was to trap him in an interminable process of non-prosecution while confining him in ever-worse conditions while the public was turned against him <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/qGOLynClIO\">https:\/\/t.co\/qGOLynClIO<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1522135669308538882?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 5, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<div class=\"tweet-header-text\">\n<p>Assange, who has exposed more crimes by Western states than any other journalist in history, has been silenced for the best part of a decade. Should he be extradited to the United States, as the British courts have so far approved, he faces spending the rest of his life in solitary confinement in a super-max jail.<\/p>\n<p>What is his offence? According to the Trump and Biden administrations, any journalism that exposes their crimes must be redefined as \u201cespionage\u201d. Should Washington win this battle, any journalist making too much trouble for the US empire \u2013 and that could include Monbiot or me \u2013 can be snatched off the streets anywhere in the world, renditioned to the US and locked out of sight for good.<\/p>\n<p>But apparently none of that has been worth a Guardian column from Monbiot, even though Assange\u2019s persecution has been taking place in slow-motion for years. Instead Monbiot dedicates his latest column to a far more important, far graver matter. He promoted the article on Twitter with the question: \u201cWhat the hell has happened to Russell Brand?\u201d<\/p>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-5768\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/monbiot.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"520\" height=\"536\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/monbiot.jpg 520w, https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/monbiot-291x300.jpg 291w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 520px) 100vw, 520px\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<h3 class=\"header-with-anchor-widget\"><strong>Smearing progressives<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GeorgeMonbiot\/status\/1634091769611599873\" rel=\"\">answer<\/a> is apparently that Brand, as well as the independent journalist Glenn Greenwald, have become \u201cmore dangerous than the actual fascists\u201d of the far right. Greenwald, let\u2019s remember, brought us Edward Snowden\u2019s revelations, showing that the US national security state, aided by Big Tech, was secretly surveilling all of us in violation of American law.<\/p>\n<p>Implicit in Monbiot\u2019s critique is that Brand and Greenwald are also more of a threat to democracy than the national security state itself, the same one secretly spying on us and slowly killing Assange after he shone a light on their best-kept secrets.<\/p>\n<p>Monbiot has form. For several years, he has been regularly smearing the other few icons of the progressive left, such as linguist Noam Chomsky and investigative journalist John Pilger. Now, it seems, it is comedian Russell Brand\u2019s turn to come under Monbiot\u2019s scalpel.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Monbiot has never written a column on the worst assault on press freedom in a generation: the political persecution of Julian Assange. Soil erosion, he said, took precedence. Now he&#39;s prioritised a witchhunt of left heretics on Ukraine over Assange&#39;s freedom. He&#39;s an utter fraud <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/OtJ7pTE6gx\">pic.twitter.com\/OtJ7pTE6gx<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1499098509701701637?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 2, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Once again, Assange will just have to wait for another day \u2013 if he doesn\u2019t have a second and worse <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mirror.co.uk\/news\/uk-news\/breaking-julian-assange-stroke-jail-25675807\" rel=\"\">stroke<\/a> than the first brought on by years of confinement and psychological torture.<\/p>\n<p>As an aside, let us also note that the Guardian initially illustrated Monbiot\u2019s column denouncing Brand\u2019s \u201cgrim trajectory\u201d with an image of the comedian standing alongside Stella Moris, Assange\u2019s partner and the mother of his two children. They were together at a protest outside parliament against Assange\u2019s continuing detention in Belmarsh high-security prison. As far as is known, Monbiot did not make the time, as Brand did, to protest Assange\u2019s silencing.<\/p>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-5769\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/assange-copy-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"520\" height=\"384\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/assange-copy-2.jpg 520w, https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/assange-copy-2-300x222.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 520px) 100vw, 520px\" \/>\n<p>I have criticised Monbiot plenty of times before in this space, not least for his previous attempts to smear the progressive left and his <a href=\"https:\/\/jonathancook.substack.com\/p\/how-the-left-became-cheerleaders\" rel=\"\">playground analysis <\/a>of the West\u2019s corporate war lobby and the endless foreign wars it has promoted. You can read those critiques <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/tag\/george-monbiot\/\" rel=\"\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/?s=George+Monbiot\" rel=\"\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But I want to focus this time on the more general causes of a widening rift on the left \u2013 something Monbiot\u2019s latest column inadvertently clarifies. The key tweet in a long thread by Monbiot publicising his column is here:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">3. Even if his take doesn\u2019t always align with theirs, his choice of subjects generally does. Think of an issue, however ridiculous, that animates the US far right: you\u2019re likely to find it on his channel. Think of a major issue of no interest to them: it\u2019s unlikely to feature.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; George Monbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GeorgeMonbiot\/status\/1634090787364323331?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 10, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Even if his [Brand\u2019s] take doesn\u2019t always align with theirs [the far right\u2019s], his choice of subjects generally does. Think of an issue, however ridiculous, that animates the US far right: you\u2019re likely to find it on his channel. Think of a major issue of no interest to them: it\u2019s unlikely to feature.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is classic misdirection. But before we get to that, let us see how Monbiot expands on his theme:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A remarkably high proportion of [Brand\u2019s] guests are the culture warriors the far right loves. So what\u2019s going on? I think it\u2019s simple. This is where the numbers are. If you want bigger audiences for your videos, the far right\u2019s culture war tropes are the way to get them.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t believe for a moment that his transition is ideological. I think it\u2019s cynical. He has, as I see it, become a culture war entrepreneur, channelling issues and guests guaranteed to attract large audiences.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3 class=\"header-with-anchor-widget\"><strong>Guardian falsehoods<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>For starters, let\u2019s not assume leftwingers are \u201ccynical\u201d for wishing to grow their audiences. That should be the left\u2019s ambition if it is serious about meaningful social and political change.<\/p>\n<p>Certainly, Brand, like Greenwald and the popular podcaster Joe Rogan, also castigated by Monbiot, have a business model that has doubtless increased their wealth. But doubtless too, they could have enriched themselves in other, possibly easier, ways.<\/p>\n<p>Brand, for example, could have simply continued developing a Hollywood career. Greenwald could have put his principles aside and stayed at the Intercept, which paid him a small fortune even as it <a href=\"https:\/\/greenwald.substack.com\/p\/my-resignation-from-the-intercept\" rel=\"\">censored Biden-critical articles<\/a> in violation of its agreement with him.<\/p>\n<p>Monbiot has a business model too. That has involved sticking with the Guardian newspaper at all costs, even as it has been repeatedly exposed peddling establishment-serving misinformation.<\/p>\n<p>For example, it published a provable falsehood that a Trump aide, Paul Manafort, visited Assange while the Wikileaks founder was arbitrarily detained in the Ecuadorean embassy. It was one of many examples of the Guardian seeking to discredit Assange with the left so that the left would be less likely to protest his persecution.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Remember the Guardian&#39;s blockbuster that Manafort secretly visited Julian Assange 3 times in the Ecuadorian Embassy? Everyone now knows that story is not just false but a joke, but Guardian never retracted it because journaliste hate Assange so who cares. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/PvHYD56DYv\">https:\/\/t.co\/PvHYD56DYv<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ggreenwald\/status\/1109654910725967874?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 24, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The Guardian is deeply mired in establishment attempts to demonise Assange, as I have repeatedly explained (such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2020-09-26\/guardian-assange-denial-deceptions\/\" rel=\"\">here<\/a>). That collusion has not prodded Monbiot into resigning from the paper. Should we characterise that failure as \u201ccynical\u201d \u2013 his critique of Brand and Greenwald. Or is it really ideological? More on that in a moment.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"header-with-anchor-widget\"><strong>The game is up<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>So let us get to the nub of Monbiot\u2019s criticism: that Brand and Greenwald are engaging with political issues and figures that interest the far right. Charitably, Monbiot <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GeorgeMonbiot\/status\/1634090364188385280\" rel=\"\">admits<\/a> that \u201cRussell himself is not on the far right. But he is warming his hands at the far right\u2019s flaming torch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This blurred framing is intentionally misleading. As Monbiot implicitly concedes, the political issues and figures Brand and Greenwald focus on are the most popular found on social media. And because social media is the preferred medium of the younger demographic, those issues and figures are also presumably the ones that most grab the attention of younger generations.<\/p>\n<p>So in short, Monbiot is attacking Brand and Greenwald for engaging with the political subjects that are most visible to, and most discussed by, younger audiences.<\/p>\n<p>Is that not a good thing? Brand and Greenwald are taking the left\u2019s fight to where most young people are, not leaving that space to the far right to exploit unchallenged.<\/p>\n<p>The reality is that the far right, first under Donald Trump and now through hybrid mainstream and social media stars like Tucker Carlson, have appropriated the concerns of the progressive left \u2013 unaccountable corporate power, dysfunctional politics, media collusion with the establishment, the war industries \u2013 and harnessed them to their own cause.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, they have done so for entirely cynical reasons. They understand that young people sense the political and media systems are rigged. They understand that declining living standards are hitting the young hardest. They understand that the planet\u2019s eco-systems are collapsing. They understand that turbo-charged capitalism offers no solutions and are determined to deflect attention from its real crises.<\/p>\n<p>What Monbiot terms the far right \u2013 some of it, beyond Trump and Carlson, is simply the disillusioned libertarian right \u2013 address these issues, even if they do so out of a mixture of bad faith and incompetence.<\/p>\n<p>The Trumps and Carlsons want the discredited status quo to remain largely the same, but they also know the game is up. So they cosplay dissent to buy time \u2013 they steal ideas traditionally associated with the progressive left so they can pose as opposition to the technocratic establishment, which itself is cynically posturing as the rational, sensible centre.<\/p>\n<p>These are the true \u201cculture wars\u201d Monbiot claims to be concerned about: a divided establishment at war with itself. On one side, the \u201centrepreneurial\u201d establishment hopes to recruit support by playing up xenophobic, racist tropes among the alienated, naive and disillusioned. And on the other, the \u201ctechnocratic\u201d establishment hopes to recruit support by playing up the threats of \u201cfake news\u201d and \u201cPutin assets\u201d to older voters who smugly assume they will continue reaping the benefits of Western colonialism.<\/p>\n<p>This phoney culture war masks two establishment visions of how best to continue a different war, a class one. It is MSNBC vs Fox News. It is designed precisely to exclude the progressive left, to keep it invisible.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"header-with-anchor-widget\"><strong>Hushed whisper<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Brand and Greenwald demand the right to stand outside this artificial structuring of our politics. They are trying to steal back the political concerns that were appropriated \u2013 cynically \u2013 by the right.<\/p>\n<p>And it will be no easy task, for two reasons. One is that the pair are mostly denied a platform by the establishment media.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">There&#39;s a reason why establishment pundits can&#39;t understand <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rustyrockets?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@rustyrockets<\/a>&#39;s worldview, so resort to screaming &quot;far-right!&quot;. There&#39;s also a reason he has his ]show on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rumblevideo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@rumblevideo<\/a>, where &#8211; after just 6 months &#8211; his audience size exceeds many cable shows:<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/a60kPwT4YF\">pic.twitter.com\/a60kPwT4YF<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ggreenwald\/status\/1632095569152811008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 4, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>When Brand recently appeared on the Bill Maher show, he exposed the blinkered worldview of the centrist host and the other guest \u2013 an MSNBC journalist \u2013 in a gently mocking way that appeals to viewers. Doubtless, it is one reason such invitations are increasingly rare for him.<\/p>\n<p>Nowadays Greenwald can only find a platform on the Tucker Carlson show on Fox News, where he is allowed to reach the mainstream right. But liberals who are so quick to shout him down for doing so never campaign to make sure his cutting critiques of the US domestic and foreign policy establishment are hosted on their own channels instead.<\/p>\n<p>There is another reason why the task facing Brand and Greenwald is so difficult. Because those few figures supposedly on the left who have mainstream media platforms, such as Monbiot, have largely abandoned that task when it really matters.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">My latest: Whenever it truly matters \u2013 from Julian Assange to Jeremy Corbyn \u2013 George Monbiot cripples the left <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UqNop4rGin\">https:\/\/t.co\/UqNop4rGin<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1579761700307599363?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 11, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<div class=\"tweet\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/twitter.com\/jonathan_k_cook\/status\/1579761700307599363&quot;,&quot;full_text&quot;:&quot;My latest: Whenever it truly matters \u2013 from Julian Assange to Jeremy Corbyn \u2013 George Monbiot cripples the left &quot;,&quot;username&quot;:&quot;Jonathan_K_Cook&quot;,&quot;name&quot;:&quot;Jonathan Cook&quot;,&quot;date&quot;:&quot;Tue Oct 11 09:11:54 +0000 2022&quot;,&quot;photos&quot;:[],&quot;quoted_tweet&quot;:{},&quot;retweet_count&quot;:499,&quot;like_count&quot;:988,&quot;expanded_url&quot;:{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/jonathancook.substack.com\/p\/whenever-it-truly-matters-from-assange&quot;,&quot;image&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1200,h_600,c_limit,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff2fc138a-6591-42c4-8724-7a51e851b0af_500x365.png&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Whenever it truly matters, from Assange to Corbyn, George Monbiot cripples the left&quot;,&quot;description&quot;:&quot;Aside from his passion for the environment, Monbiot\u2019s position on every major issue chimes precisely with his employer, the Guardian. He is not his own man. He\u2019s owned&quot;,&quot;domain&quot;:&quot;jonathancook.substack.com&quot;},&quot;video_url&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true}\">\n<div>\n<p>Monbiot has never raised his voice beyond a hushed whisper about Assange\u2019s entombment in Belmarsh prison, saying \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/georgemonbiot\/status\/1313039569172996098\" rel=\"\">soil loss<\/a>\u201d is more of a priority \u2013 as well as, it now seems, attacking Russell Brand.<\/p>\n<p>Also, Monbiot blew with the wind on Jeremy Corbyn, the only political leader in living memory who showed any interest in challenging the establishment on issues it considers crucially important.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I was thrilled when Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour Party, but it has been one fiasco after another. I have now lost all faith.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; George Monbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GeorgeMonbiot\/status\/824616302010658816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 26, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Those include the UK\u2019s participation in endless overseas wars; its ploughing of taxpayers\u2019 money into nuclear missiles the UK does not even control; British support for an Israel that demands the right to oppress the Palestinians in return for projecting western power into the oil-rich Middle East; and austerity as a pretext for redistributing yet more of the common wealth to a tiny elite.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike Monbiot, Brand and Greenwald have decided it is pointless pandering to the smug centre that assumes a few reforms, via a Joe Biden or a Sir Keir Starmer, will stop the rot. But that means venturing on to the battlefield of the right and seizing the initiative from it.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"header-with-anchor-widget\"><strong>Cognitive capture<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Monbiot would better understand what Brand and Greenwald were doing if his thinking were not so captured by the technocratic centre. He has become yet another partisan in the internal wars of a divided establishment.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s Monbiot flaunting his own cognitive capture by the establishment \u201cleft\u201d:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">8. I can\u2019t help noticing that most of the people who say \u201cleft? right? It\u2019s all meaningless, man\u201d are those who have made a major shift from left to right. Denying that left and right exist any longer seems to be a form of self-justification.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; George Monbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GeorgeMonbiot\/status\/1634092107571888128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 10, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I can\u2019t help noticing that most of the people who say \u2018left? right? It\u2019s all meaningless, man\u2019 are those who have made a major shift from left to right. Denying that left and right exist any longer seems to be a form of self-justification.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This from a \u201cleft\u201d columnist who has repeatedly swallowed wholesale the line that western powers are waging a humanitarian fight \u2013 rather than one for their interests, for control over resources \u2013 in their endless Middle East wars and proxy wars.<\/p>\n<p>This from a \u201cleft\u201d columnist who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2020-10-06\/monbiot-guardian-assange\/\" rel=\"\">betrayed<\/a> the <a href=\"https:\/\/thegrayzone.com\/2023\/02\/03\/opcw-smoking-gun-backfires\/\" rel=\"\">OPCW whistleblowers<\/a> to prop up a key western imperial narrative after those whistleblowers revealed that the international chemical weapons body had caved to US pressure and doctored its report. The goal was to shift the blame for an alleged 2018 attack in Douma in Syria from the most likely culprits, Islamic jihadists, to Bashar al-Assad\u2019s government to justify intensifying yet another regime change war by the West.<\/p>\n<p>This from a \u201cleft\u201d columnist who simple-mindedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2022-10-27\/cheerleaders-us-imperialism\/\" rel=\"\">peddles<\/a> the western narrative that Ukraine is <em>only<\/em> fighting a war of liberation against Russian invasion, ignoring both that recent Ukrainian governments have been waging a domestic war against the country\u2019s ethnic Russian population in the east and south, and that Nato has been aggressively expanding towards Russia\u2019s borders for years, with Ukraine as the ultimate prize, to neutralise Moscow\u2019s nuclear deterrent.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Nearly a year into the Ukraine war, the western narrative of an &#39;unprovoked attack&#39; by Moscow has become impossible to sustain <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/xTaHEibKax\">https:\/\/t.co\/xTaHEibKax<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1612786157133111297?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 10, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The truth is that younger audiences, those not reliant on the BBC, the Guardian and the Daily Mail for their knowledge of the world, no longer buy these self-serving narratives, even if Monbiot is employed to do so.<\/p>\n<p>Telling too that, after Monbiot dedicated several of his thread posts about his new column to suggesting that Brand and Greenwald had adopted their current positions only because they want to become \u201cthe new <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GeorgeMonbiot\/status\/1634092650860093440\" rel=\"\">winners of the digital economy<\/a>\u201d, Monbiot goes on to accuse the most distinguished journalists of an earlier, pre-digital age \u2013 Robert Fisk, John Pilger and Seymour Hersh \u2013 of doing exactly the same thing.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">14. Glenn once put in the hard yards. He was a brilliant investigative journalist. But, like some others (Pilger, Fisk, Hersh) who once did great work, he appears to have found that he can do less and gain more: telling a particular demographic what it wants to hear.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; George Monbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GeorgeMonbiot\/status\/1634093386549415941?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 10, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Greenwald \u201cwas a brilliant investigative journalist. But, like some others (Pilger, Fisk, Hersh) who once did great work, he appears to have found that he can do less and gain more: telling a particular demographic what it wants to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Monbiot is referring above to Hersh, the legendary investigative journalist who has just revealed \u2013 on Substack, because no establishment outlet will publish it \u2013 the details of how the US <a href=\"https:\/\/seymourhersh.substack.com\/p\/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream\" rel=\"\">blew up<\/a> the Nord Stream pipelines.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, establishment media like the Guardian, ignoring Hersh\u2019s credible account, have expended precisely zero effort in investigating what happened but have instead peddled the entirely fanciful conspiracy theory that Russia blew up its own energy infrastructure. Liberal media, including the Guardian, now <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/mar\/07\/officials-believe-pro-ukraine-group-sabotage-nord-stream-pipelines\" rel=\"\">highlight<\/a> the equally preposterous claim that a few guys in a yacht carried out a supremely complex act of international terrorism, and managed to conceal their tracks from the West\u2019s all-seeing surveillance systems.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">How do we know Hersh&#39;s investigation is right that the US carried out a major act of international sabotage in blewing up the Nordstream pipeline?<\/p>\n<p>Because after ignoring Hersh&#39;s account, establishment media is now advancing ludicrous alternative stories <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/i6yCsoxHwb\">https:\/\/t.co\/i6yCsoxHwb<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1633473594289270784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 8, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"header-with-anchor-widget\"><strong>Establishment pile-on<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Demanding our pity and admiration for his own self-sacrifice, Monbiot <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GeorgeMonbiot\/status\/1634094160998178816\" rel=\"\">concludes<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2018Labouring your whole life\u2019 in journalism is less glamorous and certainly less lucrative. But it allows you to live with yourself, to retain your self-respect, to know you are trying to make things better, rather than flooding the zone with shit to grow your audience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Except Monbiot is part of a vast conglomeration of corporate media outlets that seek to control the public discourse as tightly as the US seeks to control other countries\u2019 access to the lubricant of the global economy, oil. The newspaper he uses as his platform to reach a large audience <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2021-02-11\/guardian-sack-columnist-israel\/\" rel=\"\">sacks journalists<\/a> for writing critically about Israel. It worked overtime to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2020-08-10\/how-the-guardian-betrayed-not-only-corbyn-but-the-last-vestiges-of-british-democracy\/\" rel=\"\">destroy<\/a> the only political leader ready to end corporate tyranny over Britain. It <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2020-09-02\/media-assange-persecution\/\" rel=\"\">smears<\/a> leading dissidents and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/commentisfree\/2019\/apr\/20\/badly-behaved-houseguest-julian-assange\" rel=\"\">trivialises<\/a> their plight. Its main writers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2023\/mar\/05\/nato-putin-fight-russia-ukraine-war-pulling-punches\" rel=\"\">aggressively promote<\/a> war. And its dependency on luxury advertising conspires in the destruction of the planet.<\/p>\n<p>Monbiot is no hero, and his latest column is not daring, truth-telling journalism. Rather, it is just another phase in a liberal establishment pile-on, as journalists like Monbiot desperately try to retain their credibility in the face of challenges from independent journalists like Greenwald and Brand who are ready to tackle not just the right\u2019s pieties but the liberal-left\u2019s too.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NewStatesman?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@NewStatesman<\/a> article is entitled &quot;We Have Lost Russell Brand.&quot; The &quot;we&quot; appears to be &quot;the left&quot; (I never knew NS was the avatar and membership-arbiter of &quot;the left&quot;).<\/p>\n<p>What&#39;s fascinating are the views now identified as hallmarks of the &quot;far-right&quot;<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/1frio1OYde\">https:\/\/t.co\/1frio1OYde<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ggreenwald\/status\/1633108814508572674?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 7, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>A recent New Statesman article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newstatesman.com\/comment\/2023\/03\/have-lost-russell-brand\" rel=\"\">berated<\/a> Brand for betraying the left because he supposedly promotes \u201cevery right-wing signalling trope\u201d, by attacking \u201cthe ghoulish media; the dishonest and untrustworthy pharmaceutical industry; the West\u2019s shameful treatment of Julian Assange and \u2018American hero\u2019 Edward Snowden.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As Greenwald notes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>For as long as I can remember, those views &#8211; contempt for corporate media and Big Pharma, anger over mistreatment of \u2018heroes\u2019 Assange and Snowden &#8211; were deeply associated with the Western left.<\/p>\n<p>It is indeed true that all those views &#8211; hatred of corporate media, distrust of globalized (multi-national) corporate giants, holding the US Security State in contempt and its adversaries as heroes &#8211; are now right-wing markers. Much has indeed changed. But Brand and I haven&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, distrust of the motives of the US\/NATO proxy war in Ukraine is also a far-right signifier. Here we have yet another inversion: the liberal-left reverses western security agencies, globalized corporations and their wars as benevolent. Only the \u2018far right\u2019 distrusts them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Monbiot\u2019s column is stuffed with similar misrepresentations to the New Statesman\u2019s, as well as the gross over-simplifications of which he accuses Brand. Watch this <a href=\"https:\/\/rumble.com\/v1k2yhr-oh-fck-hes-at-it-again.html\" rel=\"\">video<\/a>\u00a0dismissed by Monbiot as \u201ca rant against Bill Gates\u201d. In fact, it\u2019s a very funny digression on how the billionaire becoming the largest private owner of farmland in the United States might not be an entirely good thing, especially in a time of food crisis.<\/p>\n<p>Another <a href=\"https:\/\/rumble.com\/v12wgb1-this-is-why-trump-is-still-relevant.html\" rel=\"\">video<\/a> that seeks to understand why Trump still has so much political weight, while criticising the substance of his policies, is mischaracterised in knee-jerk fashion as \u201cappearing to support Trump\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Monbiot\u2019s criticism of Brand for his choice of targets is laughable. Why is the Guardian columnist so keen to defend the World Economic Forum founder, Klaus Schwab; or former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; or the former US chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci; or a World Health Organization financially captive to the Big Pharma lobby; or, even more bafflingly, the Covid-profiteering pharmaceutical giant Pfizer?<\/p>\n<p>The truth is Monbiot has become just another advocate for managerial, technocratic liberalism \u2013 a liberalism that has been entirely discredited since the financial collapse of 2008, and is now the target of contempt and ridicule from that same younger demographic and figures like Greenwald and Brand.<\/p>\n<p>Monbiot is desperate to maintain his credibility. And he imagines he can keep it a little longer by widening the circle of people on the left he smears: from Chomsky and Pilger, Fisk and Hersh, to Brand and Greenwald. But the only person he is damaging is himself, narrowing his relevance down to a group of liberal cultists, those who still believe that the very same people who destroyed our world are the ones who will fix it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an age of distortion, major columnists have powerful tools and a responsibility. His latest column on Russell Brand is an object lesson in how that can go wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5768,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[61,48,18,50,51,47],"class_list":{"0":"post-5767","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-george-monbiot","9":"tag-glenn-greenwald","10":"tag-guardian","11":"tag-julian-assange","12":"tag-left-politics","13":"tag-russell-brand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5767"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5777,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5767\/revisions\/5777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}