“Instead of brave freedom fighters, protesters in Western countries were branded as far-Right extremists and street fighters.”
This happened to me in the summer of 2020. The disgust I feel for western media is only rivalled by the contempt I have for passive bystanders who stood by and did nothing.

Welcome to the Gaslightenment. The failure here is not government – politicians are doing what they always do. What we are experiencing is the self-immolation of mainstream journalism. At the Munk debates held in Toronto last week Taibbi and Murray won a resounding victory establishing that the msm cannot be trusted and – proving the point – the msm did not even report it. The rot must be cut out – and indeed people are turning away from them in droves. But the fragmented mess of a populace that can no longer even agree on the boundaries of civilized debate may not survive the operation. As Leonard Cohen once said, “you’re not going to like what comes after America”.

American media does what its owners – Democrats in and supporting of government – tell it to do. There are countless hilarious video mash ups of multiple “news” mouthpieces using identical phrasing. You’d think they’d be embarrassed, but that emotion has disappeared from certain segments of society, as the article deftly notes.

The double standards and hypocrisy of Western governments are mirrored by their willing propaganda machines, the MSM.
As the writer points out, these so-called journalists seem to be completely tone-deaf to the absurdity of their contrasting portrayals of the lockdown protests. Of course one man’s terrorist may be another man’s freedom fighter……..but surely not the same man?

The media knows exactly what it’s doing. Orwell described it well in 1984:
A little Rumpelstiltskin figure, contorted with hatred, he gripped the neck of the microphone with one hand while the other, enormous at the end of a bony arm, clawed the air menacingly above his head. His voice, made metallic by the amplifiers, boomed forth an endless catalogue of atrocities, massacres, deportations, lootings, rapings, torture of prisoners, bombing of civilians, lying propaganda, unjust aggressions, broken treaties. It was almost impossible to listen to him without being first convinced and then maddened. At every few moments the fury of the crowd boiled over and the voice of the speaker was drowned by a wild beast-like roaring that rose uncontrollably from thousands of throats. The most savage yells of all came from the schoolchildren. The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker’s hand. He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremendous commotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The agents of Goldstein had been at work! There was a riotous interlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled underfoot. The Spies performed prodigies of activity in clambering over the rooftops and cutting the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys. But within two or three minutes it was all over. The orator, still gripping the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed. 
The thing that impressed Winston in looking back was that the speaker had switched from one line to the other actually in midsentence, not only without a pause, but without even breaking the syntax. 

Thank you for drawing attention to this glaring contradiction in the opinions of the media elites. They have assumed the role of moral arbiters in recent times, calling out those who disagree with their views as political and moral outlaws. They are largely unchallenged in their presumed moral high ground, and this is what enables them to be blind to their own inconsistencies.

I’m sure all those Mumsnet users who decided not to give their children the MMR vaccine will be delighted to learn that The Guardian now thinks they are elements of the radical right.

So many Western lockdowners upset about China. Mostly they seem to feel like the state ‘welding people into their homes’ (usually delivered with such dramatic flair) is so much worse than the UK way – just arresting them if they leave – but why?
I suppose these people also think it’s wrong for a man to hit his wife, but perfectly fine if he doesn’t allow her to have her own bank account?
The China situation is just the logical outcome of lockdowns. That was the point. We can’t let them get away with this.

And yet I find that many articles I have read add the caveat that perhaps Xi is not that wrong, that hospitals will be overwhelmed, that it doesn’t have much choice etc. We have examples in the Spectator and here too.
One has to go past the headline…

Good job the general publish has such a short term memory then
(Sarcastic comment – but that’s how they get away with pandering to the latest new new – never let the truth get in the way of a good story and all that malarky)

The MSM should be taken to task for not recognizing that the Chinese protesters are right wing extremists.