Propaganda and division on the Left, with Youri Smouter

“On the Barricades” s06e17

In part two of this week’s release of “On the Barricades,” Youri Smouter of 1+1 and host Maria Cernat, who is a media analyst, have a theoretically-informed and historically based discussion beginning on the question– how propagandized are we, especially during the bombardment of media on the war in Ukraine? Why can’t those on the left discuss rationally about Ukraine, without biting each others’ heads off? Something of a similar nature occurred with Jeremy Corbyn’s being framed as an antisemite and the leftist debate becoming immediately aimlessly divided.

While in the last decades, the establishment practically denied major research about how the media and technology are designed to exploit our vulnerability in order to get us to buy things– now the funded “regulation” and research is centered on protecting us from Russian propaganda. How does the media not only propagandize us to support the war but also to close ourselves off from rational political debate? The left has allowed itself to sink into a morass of sectarian tribalism, wherein a group associated with a view becomes not worth listening or talking to, on grounds of good and evil– and what is the way out and through to a criticism that’s systemic as opposed to moralistic?