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Wednesday, August 30, 2017

John Nolte: Antifa Teams up With Big Business and Big Media for ‘Corporate Fascist Rampage’

http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2017/08/29/john-nolte-antifa-teams-big-business-big-media-corporate-fascist-rampage/

John Nolte: Antifa Teams up With Big Business and Big Media for ‘Corporate Fascist Rampage’



Senior Writer John Nolte talked about his return to Breitbart News, the left’s war against free speech, and the current state of Hollywood with SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Tuesday’s edition of Breitbart News Daily.

Marlow reminisced about how he and Nolte were among the first members of the Breitbart News team, with Nolte serving as inaugural editor for the Big Hollywood section. After a year and a half away, Nolte returned to Breitbart with an article on Monday entitled “5 Reasons Why Trump’s Pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio Is Awesome.”

Sizing up the current political environment, Nolte said: 
“There is no bottom the media is not willing to hit in order to take their version of the country back.” “I think that the great definer of how low the media is willing to go is Antifa,” he continued. “You have in Antifa what is basically a left-wing terrorist group, a vigilante group, spreading out across the country to shut down – through chaos, violence, and riots – any opinion they don’t agree with.”

“Now, none of us sympathize with neo-Nazis. But it’s not just neo-Nazis,” he observed. “And by the way, neo-Nazis should have a right to peaceably express themselves, no matter how noxious their views. But it’s not just neo-Nazis, it’s Trump supporters.” 

“One of the great undercovered stories during the whole Charlottesville episode was that the day after Charlottesville, in another city – I think it was Seattle – a bunch of Trump supporters held a rally, and Antifa also went over there and beat the hell out of those people, and shut them down,” Nolte recalled. “Those weren’t neo-Nazis. Those weren’t neo-Confederates. Those were just Trump supporters, and violence was used to shut them up and to stop it, and the media just doesn’t care.”

“This is the same media that freaked out because middle-aged people gathered together for the Tea Party, and I think the most violence we ever saw there was them picking up their own litter,” he said. 

“The media is part of the Antifa conspiracy because you can see it. You can see it across all media platforms: the ever-expanding definition of the ‘alt-right,’ the ever-expanding definition of ‘hate speech,’ the Southern Poverty Law Center labeling opposition to same-sex marriage ‘hate speech’ – which, by extension, labels the Christian church a hate group. As the media says ‘maybe it’s OK to commit violence against Nazis and the alt-right and haters,’ they’re also expanding the definition of the alt-right and hate to include traditional conservative views,” he warned.

Marlow played an astonishing audio clip of CNN hosts implying that Islamic terrorists were somehow inspired to use cars as murder weapons by the man who drove into a crowd in Charlottesville when of course the “car jihad” strategy was pioneered by Muslim terrorists long ago.

“Listen to the language that they use: the white supremacist who allegedly used his vehicle as a weapon, and the alleged white supremacist, they just label that ‘a white supremacist used his car to murder someone.’ But when it came to the Barcelona terror attack, they used the word ‘apparently,’” Nolte pointed out. “That’s another area where you’re seeing the left drift away from due process, from the rights of the accused.”

“We don’t know what happened in Charlottesville,” he elaborated. “We don’t know if that person who used his vehicle in that way, what his intentions were. Now, it looks to me like he’s guilty as hell, because he backed up and did it again. We don’t know what was in his mind, and intent matters.” 

“If I were going to write a headline at Breitbart about this, you would tell me to use the word ‘alleged,’ because he has not been convicted yet, and that’s the word we use,” Nolte told Marlow. “We all learned that during the Richard Jewell case, that no matter how guilty someone looks, you wait. The media’s just not doing that anymore.” 

“So maybe that guy was panicked. I don’t know. I doubt it very, very much. But as a journalist, these are the cautions that you use, and the media is even throwing those away while they wonder what the motive of a guy is who yells ‘Allahu akbar!’ before stabbing a bunch of people. That’s another area where we’re seeing the media devolve into what really is becoming a vigilante group,” he said.

Nolte agreed with Marlow’s proposition that the media has effectively become the party of the left, the primary force behind the left-wing policy agenda, as the actual Democrat Party fades away.

“You just don’t hear from Chuck Schumer. You just don’t hear from Nancy Pelosi,” Nolte noted. “Both of them are so bad on TV. I think that’s why the media said, ‘Okay, you guys need to hold my beer, we’ll take care of this.’”

“Every pretense of objectivity has been thrown out the window. You even have people who defended the objectivity of the media for years admitting that now. It’s just over. The fight now is at least out in the open,” he said. 

“It’s a fight between the media institution, which is still very powerful, and those of us on the Internet. That’s why they’re attacking those of us on the Internet. They’re trying to shut us down. They’re going after our advertisers. They want to give all these left-wing corporations a veto power over the First Amendment,” he cautioned. 

“It’s going to be a pitched battle. Like I said, when you have the media cheering on Antifa, when you have Chuck Todd bringing the guy on Meet the Press and treating him seriously as he talks about how it’s okay to meet peaceful neo-Nazis, peaceful white supremacists, peaceful quote-unquote ‘hate groups’ with force – meaning violence – you can see where this is all headed,” Nolte warned.

Marlow and Nolte discussed a topic of profound mutual interest, the control of free speech by corporate entities – once the subject of dystopian fiction, but now accepted without much complaint by the dominant media culture because the corporations in question have left-wing leadership.

“Corporations are given veto power over the First Amendment,” said Nolte. “It is now okay to fire someone if they went to a rally where a bunch of neo-Nazis got together to protest the taking down of a statue. Even though we don’t know what this person’s personal views are, even if the person is a neo-Nazi, I think the idea of firing someone – we’re not talking about a job where he expresses his opinions, we’re talking about a job where he bags groceries, or whatever it was. It’s a slippery slope of firing someone over his personal political beliefs, and we don’t even know if he’s a neo-Nazi.”

“That gives corporations a veto power over free speech,” Nolte argued. “Corporations that remove their sponsorship, these boycotts, that gives corporations a veto power over free speech.” 

“But the most troubling thing happening is that Twitter and Facebook, and most especially Facebook, have become the Ma Bells of the 21st Century,” he continued. “They’re the telephone. You know, when I grew up, all you had was the telephone. They are the means by which people communicate with one another now.” 

“Those two corporations are, again, aligned with media: expanding the definition of hate speech, expanding the definition of the alt-right, and using that sort of moral imprimatur to monitor our communications, to say ‘No, you can’t say this, and you can’t say that. If you do say that, we’re going to cut your telephone wire, and then you’re not going to communicate with anyone,’” he said.

“The lazy conservative argument to that is that a corporation should be allowed to run its company how it pleases. But what do you do when suddenly we’re living in the world of Robocop, and Demolition Man, where corporations have all this power, all this control, and are so necessary for us to communicate with each other?” Nolte asked.

“How many websites would die without the ability to post their posts on Facebook? And then there’s the issue of the Daily Stormer, which is a disgusting neo-Nazi website. No one will serve their site anymore,” he continued, prompting Marlow to interject with the news that the Daily Stormer has gone offline, evidently for good.
Marlow noted that the Daily Stormer has tried to boycott Breitbart News for employing gay writers. Nolte chuckled that they probably would not have a very high opinion of his own marriage to a Mexican, but the important point is defending free speech for one’s adversaries, not just for friends.

“You have the media ever-expanding these definitions, so if these corporations have the power to make the Daily Stormer disappear, what’s next?” Nolte wondered. “Because we’re slowly all being aligned with the Daily Stormer because of our opinion on gay marriage, or our opinion on statues. That is a huge veto power to give to these mega-corporations. It’s like a dystopia, like Robocop, where these corporations have this unbelievable power. The media goes right along with it and gives them the cover that they need to use that power in ways that continue to be more troubling.”

“No one sympathizes with neo-Nazis. No one sympathizes with the Daily Stormer. But the whole idea of American free speech is that we defend the worst of the worst because we understand the slippery slope argument,” he declared.

“Now that corporations have control of free speech, it’s a very sticky issue. The Supreme Court has already ruled that Facebook and Twitter can’t deny sex offenders a right to their site, so it should be interesting to see if this ends up going to the Supreme Court as well. Maybe it should,” he suggested.

“Whatever happened to that saying that I don’t agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it?” Nolte asked. “The liberal ideal of free speech, it’s gone. The liberal that Big Business is evil, it’s gone. The liberal ideal of due process for the accused, ask George Zimmerman. It’s gone.”

“It’s not Democrats. It’s not rank-and-file Democrats. It’s not everyday people. A lot of Democrats I know are pretty disgusted by this behavior,” he noted. But when you have the media on the side of this stuff, that is everything. That’s all that they need to continue this corporate fascist rampage.” 

“The media is totally out of control. I don’t know how you can fight the media except with more speech. I think the media understands that they’re losing the argument, and that’s why they’ve moved in this direction. That’s why Chuck Todd is giving cover to people who claim that violence is okay. That’s why they’re expanding these definitions and pressuring, pressuring, pressuring Facebook and Twitter, because they can’t win the argument, so they’re going to just shut the argument down,” said Nolte.

Nolte talked about his decision to return to Breitbart News after working happily at the Daily Wire with Ben Shapiro.

“It really was the best job I’ve ever resigned from,” he said. “But the two sites, the Daily Wire and Breitbart News, are two very different sites. Both are successful, both have hit the target of what they want to do. It just felt to me like choosing between the Army and the Navy.” 

“I was over there for about a year and a half. Like I said in my piece at the Daily Wire, I just feel better fighting on the water – in other words, joining the Navy as opposed to the Army. I have nothing but good things to say about Ben, and I have nothing but good things to say about the Daily Wire,” he declared.
“It’s just about where my very narrow skill set, which I think you can sum up with the word ‘belligerence,’ fits best, and where it can be the most effective,” Nolte said with a laugh. 

“I just thought it could be more effective at Breitbart. I think we’re at a point where all hands are on deck. We’re in a pitched battle now. They’re trying to take down Trump – in other words, they’re trying to overturn a duly elected president, remove a duly elected president and overturn an election through fake news, through lies. All hands have to be on deck,” he urged. 

“I just felt that I would be more effective – and I say this in the humblest way possible, I don’t want to pretend that I’m some sort of nuclear weapon or anything like that, but just whatever I can contribute, I would contribute more effectively at Breitbart,” he said. “It’s great to be back. It feels right.”
Speaking as a longtime film fan and critic, Nolte offered a bleak assessment of one of the left’s major cultural power bases, Hollywood. He said film studios have “painted themselves into a corner” with the summer-blockbuster model.
“They killed off the movie star: the idea that a face or a name on a poster can bring in people,” he explained. “They killed off these mid-budget movies, and they put all their marbles into these franchise films that cost $250 million to produce and promote, and they need $650 million in returns to make a profit. There’s only so many franchises out there, only so many universes you can create. People are tired of them.” 

“Now what’s Hollywood going to do? What do they have left? It’s not like they have some sort of a bush-league team out there that they can call up. Hollywood is in very, very big trouble. People are getting out of the habit of going to the movies. That’s their fault, and it’s a quality issue more than any other issue,” Nolte judged.

A. Z. Mohamed : Two New Totalitarian Movements: Radical Islam and Political Correctness


  • The attempt in the West to impose a strict set of rules about what one is allowed to think and express in academia and in the media -- to the point that anyone who disobeys is discredited, demonized, intimidated and in danger of losing his or her livelihood -- is just as toxic and just as reminiscent of Orwell's diseased society.
  • The main facet of this PC tyranny, so perfectly predicted by George Orwell, is the inversion of good and evil -- of victim and victimizer. In such a universe, radical Muslims are victimized by the West, and not the other way around. This has led to a slanted teaching of the history of Islam and its conquests, both as a justification of the distortion and as a reflection of it.
  • Thought-control is necessary for the repression of populations ruled by despotic regimes. That it is proudly and openly being used by self-described liberals and human-rights advocates in free societies is not only hypocritical and shocking; it is a form of aiding and abetting regimes whose ultimate goal is to eradicate Western ideals.
Political correctness (PC) has been bolstering radical Islamism. This influence was most recently shown again in an extensive exposé by the Clarion Project in July 2017, which demonstrates the practice of telling "deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them in order to forget any fact that has become inconvenient" -- or, as George Orwell called it in his novel, 1984, "Doublespeak."



This courtship and marriage between the Western chattering classes and radical Muslim fanatics was elaborated by Andrew C. McCarthy in his crucial 2010 book, The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.

Since then, this union has strengthened. Both the United States and the rest of the West are engaged in a romance with forces that are, bluntly, antagonistic to the values of liberty and human rights.

To understand this seeming paradox, one needs to understand what radical Islamism and PC have in common. Although Islamism represents all that PC ostensibly opposes -- such as the curbing of free speech, the repression of women, gays and "apostates" -- both have become totalitarian ideologies.

The totalitarian nature of radical Islamism is more obvious than that of Western political correctness -- and certainly more deadly. Sunni terrorists, such as ISIS and Hamas -- and Shiites, such as Hezbollah and its state sponsor, Iran -- use mass murder to accomplish their ultimate goal of an Islamic Caliphate that dominates the world and subjugates non-Muslims.

The attempt in the West, however, to impose a strict set of rules about what one is allowed to think and express in academia and in the media -- to the point that anyone who disobeys is discredited, demonized, intimidated and in danger of losing his or her livelihood -- is just as toxic and just as reminiscent of Orwell's view of a diseased society.

These rules are not merely unspoken ones. Quoting a Fox News interview with American columnist Rachel Alexander, the Clarion Project points out that the Associated Press -- whose stylebook is used as a key reference by a majority of English-language newspapers worldwide for uniformity of grammar, punctuation and spelling -- is now directing writers to avoid certain words and terms that are now deemed unacceptable to putative liberals.
Alexander recently wrote:
"Even when individual authors do not adhere to the bias of AP Style, it often doesn't matter. If they submit an article to a mainstream media outlet, they will likely see their words edited to conform. A pro-life author who submits a piece taking a position against abortion will see the words 'pro-life' changed to 'anti-abortion,' because the AP Stylebook instructs, 'Use anti-abortion instead of pro-life and pro-abortion rights instead of pro-abortion or pro-choice.' It goes on, 'Avoid abortionist,' saying the term 'connotes a person who performs clandestine abortions.'
"Words related to terrorism are sanitized in the AP Stylebook. Militant, lone wolves or attackers are to be used instead of terrorist or Islamist. 'People struggling to enter Europe' is favored over 'migrant' or 'refugee.' While it's true that many struggle to enter Europe, it is accurate to point out that they are, in fact, immigrants or refugees."
To be sure, the AP Stylebook does not carry the same weight or authority as the Quranic texts on which radical Islamists base their jihadist actions and totalitarian aims. It does constitute, however, a cultural decree that has turned religious in its fervor. It gives a glimpse, as well, into the intellectual tyranny that has pervaded liberal Western thought and institutions.

The main facet of this PC tyranny, so perfectly predicted by Orwell, is the inversion of good and evil -- of victim and victimizer. In such a universe, radical Muslims are victimized by the West, and not the other way around. This has led to a slanted teaching of the history of Islam and its conquests, both as a justification of the distortion and as a reflection of it.

As far back as 2003, the Middle East Forum reported on the findings of a study conducted by the American Textbook Council, an independent New York-based research organization, which stated:
"[Over the last decade], the coverage of Islam in world history textbooks has expanded and in some respects improved.... But on significant Islam-related subjects, textbooks omit, flatter, embellish, and resort to happy talk, suspending criticism or harsh judgments that would raise provocative or even alarming questions."
Thought-control is necessary for the repression of populations ruled by despotic regimes. That it is proudly and openly being used by self-described liberals and human-rights advocates in free societies is not only hypocritical and shocking; it is a form of aiding and abetting regimes whose ultimate goal is to eradicate Western ideals. The relationship between the two must be recognized for what it is: a marriage made in hell.
A. Z. Mohamed is a Muslim born and raised in the Middle East.

Nima Gholam Ali Pour : The Fake News Media of Sweden


  • In most democratic countries, media should be critical of those who hold power. In Sweden, however, the media criticize those who criticize authorities. Criticism is not aimed at the people who hold power, but against private citizens who, according to the journalists, have the "wrong" ideas.
  • TV4 and all other media refused to report that it was Muslims who interrupted the prime minister because they wanted to force Islamic values on Swedish workplaces. When the Swedish media reported about the event, the public were not told that these "hijab activists" had links with Islamist organizations. Rather, it was reported as if they were completely unknown Muslim girls who only wanted to wear their veil.
  • The Swedish media are politicized to the extent that they act as a propaganda machine. Through their lies, the Swedish media have created possibilities for "post-truth-politics" in Sweden. Instead of being a neutral party, the mainstream Swedish media have lied to uphold certain "politically correct" values. One wonders what lifestyle and political stability Sweden will have when no one can know the truth about what is really going on.
In February 2017, after U.S. President Donald Trump's statements about events in Sweden, the journalist Tim Pool travelled to Sweden to report on their accuracy. What Tim Pool concluded is now available for everyone to watch on YouTube, but what is really interesting is how the Swedish public broadcasting media described him.

On Radio Sweden's website, one of the station's employees, Ann Törnkvist, wrote an op-ed in which Pool and the style of journalism he represents are described as "a threat to democracy".

Why is Pool "a threat to democracy" in Sweden?
He reported negatively about an urban area in Stockholm, Rinkeby, where more than 90% of the population has a foreign background. When Pool visited Rinkeby, he had to be escorted out by police. Journalists are often threatened in Rinkeby.

Before this incident, in an interview with Radio Sweden, Pool had described Rosengård, an area in the Swedish city of Malmö heavily populated by immigrants, as "nice, beautiful, safe". After Pool's negative but accurate report about Rinkeby, however, he began to be described as an unserious journalist by many in the Swedish media, and finally was labeled the "threat to democracy."

One might think that this was a one-time event in a country whose journalists were defensive. But the fact is that Swedish journalists are deeply politicized.
In most democratic countries, media are, or should be, critical of those who hold power. In Sweden, the media criticize those who criticizes those who hold power.

In March 2017, the public broadcasting company Sveriges Television revealed the name of a person who runs the Facebook page Rädda vården ("Save Healthcare"). The person turned out to be an assistant nurse, and was posting anonymously only because he had been critical of the hospital where he worked. Swedish hospitals are run by the local county councils, and thus when someone criticizes the healthcare system in Sweden, it is primarily politicians who are criticized. Sveriges Television explained on its website why it revealed the identity of the private individuals behind Facebook:
"These hidden powers of influence abandon and break the open public debate and free conversation. Who are they? What do they want and why? As their impact increases, the need to examine them also grows."
It is strange that Sveriges Television believes that an assistant nurse who wants to tell how politicians neglect public hospitals, is breaking "the open public debate and free conversation". This was not the only time that the mainstream Swedish media exposed private citizens who were criticizing those who hold power.

In December 2013, one of Sweden's largest and most established newspapers, Expressen, announced that it intended to disclose the names of people who commented on various Swedish blogs:
"Expressen has partnered with Researchgruppen. The group has found a way, according to their own description, without any kind of unlawful intrusion, to associate the usernames that the anonymous commentators on the hate websites are using to the email addresses from which comments were sent. After that, the email addresses have been cross-checked with registries and authorities to identify the persons behind them."
The term "hate websites" (hatsajterna) is what that the mainstream media uses to describe some of the blogs that are critical of Islam or migration.

It is one thing to be critical of bloggers who you may consider have racist opinions. But exposing the people who have written in comments sections of various blogs in one of Sweden's biggest newspapers is strange and terrifying.

Researchgruppen has clear links to Antifascistisk Aktion (Antifascist Action), a group which, according to the Swedish government, consists of violent left-wing extremists. For their efforts to expose private individuals in the comments section, Researchgruppen received the Guldspaden, a prestigious journalistic award in Sweden.

Jim Olsson was one individual exposed in Expressen simply because he wrote something in a blog's comments section. A 67-year-old docent in physical chemistry, Olsson received a home-visit from Expressen with a camera and microphone present. A private citizen with no connection to any political party or organization, he exposed by Sweden's media because he had written the following in the comments section:
"The Swedish asylum system rewards swindlers with a permanent residence permit. There are, of course, swindlers flooding Sweden."

The Swedish newspaper Expressen accessed databases of website commenters, targeted critics of immigration, and confronted them at home. The above screenshot is taken from a video on the Expressen website, published under the headline "Jim Olsson writes on hate sites."

Another private individual, Patrik Gillsvik, with no political links, was exposed and fired from his job because, in a blog's comments section, he wrote:
"I would like to join the structural prejudices of the majority in society and state that gypsies are inventive and witty entrepreneurs who can enrich our culture -- yes, and then they steal like ravens, of course!"
Although the statement can be criticized for being unacceptably racist, what is unique is that the mainstream media in a Western democracy can expose private individuals because they wrote something in a blog's comments section. Criticism is not aimed at the people who hold power, but against private citizens who according to the journalists have the "wrong" ideas.

Moreover, each of these private citizens, who have had their lives ruined because they wrote something distasteful in a comments section, serves as a warning, so that others will not dare to make the mistake of posting something politically incorrect on a blog.

It is shocking that in a democracy, the media acts this way, but that is how Swedish -- and, increasingly, other Western media -- operate these days.

In addition to punishing private individuals who, according to the them, communicate "wrong" ideas, the media celebrate and support people who have the "right" ideas.
On May 1, 2017, Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Löfven was interrupted by a number of hijab-wearing activists who were protesting a verdict of the Court of Justice of the European Union that employers are entitled to prohibit staff from wearing a hijab. Given that Sweden's prime minister cannot directly influence the Court, and that one should not interrupt the country's prime minister when he speaks, one would think that these "hijab activists" might be criticized in the media.
TV4, a national TV-channel and one of the first media outlets to report this incident, refused to say that those who interrupted the prime minister were wearing the Islamic veil. The title of TV4's clip was "Demonstrators Interrupted Löfven speech". The sub-headline read as follows: "Female protesters screamed out their anger against the prime minister and wondered where the feminist government was."

From the text, it is not clear that these activists demonstrated against the verdict of the Court of Justice of the European Union; that all activists wore a hijab, or that they screamed, "Stand up for Muslim women's rights!" However, information that these activists were wearing hijabs and protesting the verdict of the Court of Justice of the European Union was on their Facebook page and YouTube. Nevertheless, TV4 and all other media refused to report that those who interrupted the prime minister were Muslims who were interrupting the prime minister because they seemingly wanted to force Islamic values on the Swedish workplace.

The day after their protest, in an interview with Radio Sweden, these activists had the opportunity to explain why they protested -- but were not asked any critical questions. The next day, an Expressen columnist, Maria Rydhagen, compared one of the hijab-activists glowingly with one of the founders of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, Axel Danielsson. Rydhagen wrote the following about Jasmin Nur Ismail:
"Then, on Monday, the protest of the girls was perceived as only an incident. But imagine if it was the start of something big? Perhaps history was being written, there and then? Imagine if Jasmin Nur is the Axel Danielsson of 2017. Hero and rebel. In that case: Was it not a pity to remove her with the help of the police?"
As the media refused to write anything negative about the protest against the prime minister, this author began to investigate the matter. It took half an hour to find out several important things which were never mentioned by the Swedish mainstream media. Jasmin Nur Ismail had written about the incident on her Facebook page shortly after the protest. Who was behind the protest was not a secret.

The demonstration had been organized by the Hayat Women's Movement and a network called, "The Right to Our Bodies". The Hayat Women's Movement was founded by Aftab Soltani, who in March 2017 was one of the speakers at a much-criticized annual Islamic event in Sweden, Muslimska Familjedagarna (Muslim Family Days). The event was blamed by both the left and the right for inviting hate preachers, anti-Semites and Muslim radicals as speakers. Another speaker at this Islamic event in March 2017 was Jasmin Nur Ismail, a heroine of the Swedish media. Muslimska Familjedagarna was organized by the Islamist Ibn Rushd Educational Association, the Islamic Association of Sweden (Islamiska Förbundet i Sverige) and Sweden's Young Muslims (Sveriges Unga Muslimer).

Jasmin Nur Ismail, hailed as a heroine in Expressen, is a public figure. Southern Sweden's largest newspaper, Sydsvenskan, described her in an October 2016 article as an "activist, anti-racist and writer". According to Sydsvenskan, Jasmin Nur Ismail's political role-model is Malcolm X. During the Swedish Forum for Human Rights in 2016, Jasmin Nur Ismail was, in a panel discussion, the representative for Malmö's Young Muslims -- in turn, a subdivision of an Islamist organization, Sweden's Young Muslims.

Swedish newspapers did not write a single word that the person and organizations behind the protest against Sweden's prime minister had links with Islamist organizations. When the Swedish media reported about the event, the public were told that these hijab-activists were completely unknown Muslim girls who only wanted to wear their veil.

THE MALMO MOSQUE


Mainstream Swedish media outlets simply do not report some things. When the largest mosque in Scandinavia was opened in Sweden's third largest city, Malmö, the news about this was first published in the Qatar News Agency and The Peninsula on May 3, 2017. The reason that Qatar's media wrote about it was because Qatar financed a large part of the mosque. On May 5, an article about this mosque was published in Breitbart. On May 6, one day after Breitbart reported the news and three days after the Qatari media reported the news, the Swedish terrorist expert Magnus Ranstorp sent a tweet about this mosque, but he linked it to the Qatari media. At this time, there are still no Swedish media outlets that have reported anything about the largest mosque in Scandinavia.
On May 8, the Swedish blog Jihad i Malmö wrote about the mosque and its Qatari financing. On May 9, the Swedish blog Pettersson gör skillnad wrote about the mosque. At the same time, the Norwegian author and activist Hege Storhaug, who is critical of Islam, wrote about the mosque and noted that the Swedish media had not yet written about it:

"I had expected that the Swedish media at the very least would mention the opening of Scandinavia's largest mosque with positive words. But no, not a word in Swedish mainstream media, as far as I have noticed. You have to go to the English version of Arabic media to get some limited information, like Qatar News Agency."
By the time I tweeted about it on May 10, the mainstream Swedish media still had not widely reported it. On May 15, I wrote an article on it for the news website Situation Malmö, run by the Sweden Democrats party branch in Malmö. With one hour's research, I managed, through what the mosque had published on Facebook, to discover that one of the leading Social Democrat politicians in Malmö, Frida Trollmyr, a municipal commissioner with responsibility for culture, recreation and health, had been at the mosque's opening. Representatives of the Qatari government also attended, but the mainstream Swedish media still had not reported anything about it.

On May 17, two weeks after the Qatari media had written that Scandinavia's largest mosque had been built in Malmö, twelve days after Breitbart had written about the event, and two days after my article, the Sydsvenskan newspaper wrote about the mosque opening. You could not read the article, however, if you had not paid for "premium-membership" to this newspaper.

One can see this omission as an unfortunate coincidence, but it is strange when Breitbart succeeds in communicating more information about Malmö than southern Sweden's largest newspaper, Sydsvenskan, headquartered in Malmö. Why would the Swedish media not write about the mosque? It was certainly not a secret. There was no explanation from the Swedish media or anyone else. Yet, these media outlets did not hesitate to expose the names of private citizens who wrote inappropriate opinions on a public commentary page.

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There are journalists in Sweden who change their views as soon as the government changes its opinion. Göran Greider, a journalist and editor, active in the public debate in Sweden for more than 30 years, wrote the following in August, 2015, about migration policy:

"The European governments who say no to increasing the number of refugees received not only show a shameful lack of solidarity. They are also silent when they decline to rejuvenate their populations."

In November 2015, only three months later, when the Swedish Government was forced to change its position in migration policy because of the migration crisis, Göran Greider wrote:

"But even the left, including many Social Democrats and members of the Green Party, have sometimes been characterized by an unwillingness to discuss the great challenges that receiving refugees, in the quantity we have seen lately, implies for a society. No one wants to be a nationalist. No one wants to be accused of running the errands of Sweden Democrats, or racism. But in this way, people on the left, who are so broadly for bringing in refugees, have often locked themselves out of a realistic discussion."

There is nothing wrong in reconsider one's opinion. But it has become common for Swedish journalists frequently to have opinions that favor certain political parties – often the Social Democrats, the Left Party and the Green Party. The issue is not even about values. People who work for the mainstream Swedish media are ready to reconsider their values so long as it helps certain parties to stay in power. This is far from what is presumably the media's main task in a democracy.

How is it that no newspaper is rebelling against this order? It would be a good business proposition; such a media outlet could potentially gain financial benefits. The Swedish establishment is, after all, not popular. Well, we can look at the example of someone who tried.
In February 2017, a financier, Mats Qviberg, bought a free daily newspaper, Metro, usually distributed in subways and buses in Sweden. In May, he gave an interview to the newspaper Nyheter Idag, considered by the Swedish establishment to be "right-wing" or "populist". In his interview, Qviberg gave a slight playful hint that Metro might in some way cooperate with Nyheter Idag.

The consequence of the playful statement was that the Green Party in Stockholm County Council threatened that Stockholm County would stop handing out Metro in Stockholm's subways. A columnist stopped writing for the paper. Other media outlets started to wonder out loud if Metro were becoming a racist platform. Before the month of May was over, Qviberg had sold his shares in Metro. That politicians would punish an owner of a newspaper who had "wrong" views did not surprise anyone in Sweden; the situation was not worth mentioning. In Sweden, even owners of newspapers are supposed to follow the political order.

In June 2017, the leader of the Sweden Democrats (SD), Jimmie Åkesson, spoke in Järva, a district in Stockholm dominated by immigrants. The Sweden Democrats is a social conservative party in the Swedish parliament; it supports, among other matters, a restrictive migration policy. While Åkesson was speaking, there were protests against him; and among the protesters were various placards. In a photograph of Radio Sweden's van, inside it was an anti-SD placard. On it, one could read "Jimmie = Racist". The explanation from Radio Sweden was:
"Someone put a sign on Ekot's (a news program on Radio Sweden) car in Järva on Sunday evening. It was taken down and put into the car and then thrown away on the way from there."

You can have a discussion about why Radio Sweden spends its time discarding placards that left-wing protesters use. Is that what journalist are supposed to do when they are covering a story? In the end, however, it does not matter. The people's confidence in the mainstream media in Sweden is being eroded as we write.

A new study from Institutet för Mediestudier shows that 54% agree, or partly agree, that the Swedish media are not telling the whole truth about problems in society linked to migration. Instead of the media accepting that they are biased and starting to change their ways, the media continue to attack citizens who appear critical.

In June 2017, the editorial writer of Aftonbladet, Anders Lindberg wrote an editorial titled, "Hitler did not trust the media either," in which he equated the critics of the Swedish media with Nazis. Anders Lindberg, after working 10 years for the Social Democrats, resigned as the Communications Ombudsman for the Social Democrats in 2010, to start operating as an editorial writer for Aftonbladet. He is so well-known for what his critics view as unusual versions of the truth that he has the privilege of writing for Sweden's largest newspaper. In 2015, he described the issue of organized begging, a visible problem in northern Europe, as "legends and folklore". Today there is no party that denies that organized begging is a real problem.

I have often difficulties explaining to many of my American friends and colleagues how the Swedish media work. Often, there may be clear examples of antisemitism and other unsavory behavior. The first question I always get is: Why is the media not writing about this? The answer is simple.
 The Swedish media are politicized to the extent that they act as a propaganda machine.
It may not be a propaganda machine in the traditional sense of the word, with propaganda ministers and an official Ministry of Propaganda. In Sweden, many of the journalists and editors are either old established political party employees, as Anders Lindberg, or simply ideologically indoctrinated and therefore extremely biased. The Swedish propaganda machine punishes those who have the "wrong" opinions and celebrates those who have the "right" opinions.

What happened to Tim Pool was a part of how media works in Sweden. As long as he said the "right" things, the Swedish media gave a positive picture of him. When he started to have the "wrong" opinion, the propaganda machine started doing its work and Pool became "a threat to democracy".

There are of course more examples that show how sick the Swedish debate-and media-climate has become. In such a negative environment, there are many casualties. The first is obviously the truth. When people start to understand that the mainstream media are lying, they turn to alternative media. Alternative media outlets, however, also usually have political agendas. A democracy cannot survive well only on biased media. A democracy desperately needs mainstream media outlets that inform its citizens and criticize people who hold power. That is something Sweden does not have today.

A large portion of the Swedish population are apparently aware of this and do not trust the media. Through its lies, the Swedish media have created possibilities for "post-truth-politics" in Sweden.
Instead of being a neutral party, the mainstream Swedish media have lied to uphold certain "politically correct" values. 
The result is an atmosphere where many people believe that everything that the media says has a political agenda. When the mainstream media in Sweden lie shamelessly, where can one go to find the truth?
One wonders what lifestyle and political stability Sweden will have when no one can know the truth about what is really going on.

Nima Gholam Ali Pour is a member of the board of education in the Swedish city of Malmö and is engaged in several Swedish think tanks concerned with the Middle East. He is also editor for the social conservative website Situation Malmö, and is the author of the Swedish book "Därför är mångkultur förtryck"("Why Multiculturalism is Oppression").