https://znetwork.org/author/davidedwards/ Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and Strategy Thu, 23 Oct 2025 17:12:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.png https://znetwork.org/author/davidedwards/ 32 32 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/reversing-the-truth-the-gaza-ceasefire-and-british-complicity-in-genocide/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/reversing-the-truth-the-gaza-ceasefire-and-british-complicity-in-genocide/#respond Thu, 23 Oct 2025 15:58:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1290331 We live in a time when truth is reversed in plain sight. Black is declared white, and white is declared purple with pink polka dots. Immunity appears to be assumed on the basis that a sufficient proportion of the screen-addled population is too gullible or distracted to notice. Thus, continuing the Nobel Committee’s ignoble tradition [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/reversing-the-truth-the-gaza-ceasefire-and-british-complicity-in-genocide/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/sixth-form-politics-the-propaganda-blitz-awaiting-green-party-leader-zack-polanski/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/sixth-form-politics-the-propaganda-blitz-awaiting-green-party-leader-zack-polanski/#respond Thu, 02 Oct 2025 15:52:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1289418 On 2 September, Zack Polanski, a former Liberal Democrat who joined the Green Party in 2017, was elected leader of the party in a landslide, with 85% of the vote share. Polanski defeated Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns, winning 20,411 votes against their 3,705 in a ballot of party members. From May to July 2025, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/sixth-form-politics-the-propaganda-blitz-awaiting-green-party-leader-zack-polanski/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israeli-massacres-of-starving-palestinians-seeking-food-aid-comparing-the-bbc-and-haaretz/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israeli-massacres-of-starving-palestinians-seeking-food-aid-comparing-the-bbc-and-haaretz/#respond Thu, 10 Jul 2025 15:57:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1285998 On 27 June, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an article that demolished many of the conceits held by ‘mainstream’ journalists about Israel’s assault on Gaza. The BBC’s response to the report was a breathtakingly clear example of its willingness to suppress publicly available information in order to protect a key ally of the British government, even when [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israeli-massacres-of-starving-palestinians-seeking-food-aid-comparing-the-bbc-and-haaretz/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-selfie-yacht-greta-thunberg-and-the-merchants-of-smear/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-selfie-yacht-greta-thunberg-and-the-merchants-of-smear/#comments Thu, 19 Jun 2025 15:55:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1285216 If there’s one thing the ‘impartial’, ‘independent’ ‘free press’ can’t stand, it’s someone – citizens, journalists, politicians, celebrities, anyone – protesting the West’s wars. The one-size-fits-all smear deployed to define and dismiss the concerns of these troublemakers – people who often pay a high price for their dissent – is ‘narcissist’. Consider the case of [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-selfie-yacht-greta-thunberg-and-the-merchants-of-smear/feed/ 2 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/erasing-gaza-genocide-denial-and-the-very-bedrock-of-imperial-attitudes/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/erasing-gaza-genocide-denial-and-the-very-bedrock-of-imperial-attitudes/#respond Thu, 12 Jun 2025 15:56:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1284910 Noam Chomsky offered a rule of thumb for predicting the ‘mainstream’ response to crimes against humanity: ‘There is a way to calibrate reaction. If it’s a crime of somebody else, particularly an enemy, then we’re utterly outraged. If it’s our own crime, either comparable or worse, either it’s suppressed or denied. That works with almost [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/erasing-gaza-genocide-denial-and-the-very-bedrock-of-imperial-attitudes/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/wurden-wir-alle-deutsch-sprechen-the-case-against-fighting-for-sir-keir-starmer/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/wurden-wir-alle-deutsch-sprechen-the-case-against-fighting-for-sir-keir-starmer/#respond Thu, 20 Mar 2025 15:55:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1281286 Former BBC Newsnight diplomatic editor Mark Urban covered wars in Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. He has written books with titles like ‘Generals: Ten British Commanders Who Shaped the World’, ‘Rifles: Six Years with Wellington’s Legendary Sharpshooters’ and ‘The Tank War: The British Band of Brothers’. He has also served in the Royal Tank Regiment [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/wurden-wir-alle-deutsch-sprechen-the-case-against-fighting-for-sir-keir-starmer/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/orange-peace-is-donald-trump-a-racist-misogynistic-ethnic-cleansing-climate-denying-opponent-of-war/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/orange-peace-is-donald-trump-a-racist-misogynistic-ethnic-cleansing-climate-denying-opponent-of-war/#respond Thu, 27 Feb 2025 16:58:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1280311 In January 1961, in his farewell address, US president Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that, as a result of the Second World War and the ensuing Cold War, the United States had ‘been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions’. But the consequences had not been foreseen: ‘This conjunction of an immense military [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/orange-peace-is-donald-trump-a-racist-misogynistic-ethnic-cleansing-climate-denying-opponent-of-war/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/manufacturing-consent-for-regime-change-in-syria/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/manufacturing-consent-for-regime-change-in-syria/#respond Sat, 11 Jan 2025 15:33:30 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1278271 Monitoring corporate media performance for 25 years – week after week, war after war – has done little to diminish our dismay at the robotic automaticity of ‘mainstream’ enthusiasm for US-authored regime change. Each time, without fail, thousands of media commentators function, not as critical-thinking individuals, but as cookie-cutter cogs in a propaganda printing machine [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/manufacturing-consent-for-regime-change-in-syria/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/burn-in-hell-henry-kissinger-social-media-warrior-mode-and-the-case-for-compassion/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/burn-in-hell-henry-kissinger-social-media-warrior-mode-and-the-case-for-compassion/#comments Thu, 05 Dec 2024 16:57:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1276647 Left-progressives writhe in agony when the usual suspects to the right of the ‘mainstream’ media ‘spectrum’ continue to pour bile and abuse on the likes of Howard Zinn, Edward Herman, Harold Pinter, Robert Fisk and John Pilger in the immediate aftermath of their deaths. Where is the humanity, decency, respect? Can politics not make allowances [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/burn-in-hell-henry-kissinger-social-media-warrior-mode-and-the-case-for-compassion/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/spains-climate-catastrophe-a-glimpse-into-the-near-future/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/spains-climate-catastrophe-a-glimpse-into-the-near-future/#respond Thu, 14 Nov 2024 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1275325 In the 35 years since we first protested for action against climate change on the streets of London, we have often wondered what it is exactly we are trying to avert. Sometimes, notably in the wee small hours, we have tried to imagine how a destabilised climate might one day cause society to collapse. Would [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/spains-climate-catastrophe-a-glimpse-into-the-near-future/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/everyone-in-gaza-is-sick-injured-or-both-israels-2-1-million-victims/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/everyone-in-gaza-is-sick-injured-or-both-israels-2-1-million-victims/#respond Wed, 25 Sep 2024 13:55:06 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1272815 On 20 July 1982, an IRA bomb exploded beneath a bandstand on which 30 military bandsmen of the 1st Battalion, Royal Green Jackets were performing in Regent’s Park, London. Six of the bandsmen were killed instantly and the rest were injured; a seventh later died of his wounds. Eight civilians were also injured. Although directed [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/everyone-in-gaza-is-sick-injured-or-both-israels-2-1-million-victims/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/straight-as-a-die-giving-starmer-a-free-pass/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/straight-as-a-die-giving-starmer-a-free-pass/#respond Thu, 11 Jul 2024 15:58:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1269150 The BBC’s banner headline reporting the UK’s 4 July general election result was clear: ‘Chris Mason: “Starmer tsunami” and civility after brutality’ This alliterated nicely but gave the misleading impression that there had been a massive display of public support for Keir Starmer. Mason’s own analysis pointed elsewhere: ‘The story of this election is one of an [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/straight-as-a-die-giving-starmer-a-free-pass/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/did-the-west-provoke-the-ukraine-war-sorry-that-question-has-been-cancelled/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/did-the-west-provoke-the-ukraine-war-sorry-that-question-has-been-cancelled/#respond Thu, 27 Jun 2024 15:59:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1268498 Is it possible for an entire ‘mainstream’ media system – every newspaper, website, TV channel – to completely suppress one side of a crucial argument without anyone expressing outrage, or even noticing? Consider the following. In February 2022, Nigel Farage, former and future leader of the Reform UK party, tweeted that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was: ‘A [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/did-the-west-provoke-the-ukraine-war-sorry-that-question-has-been-cancelled/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/this-is-a-sharp-time-israels-day-of-joy/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/this-is-a-sharp-time-israels-day-of-joy/#respond Thu, 20 Jun 2024 15:59:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1268090 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/this-is-a-sharp-time-israels-day-of-joy/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-media-lens-chamber-of-propaganda-horrors/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-media-lens-chamber-of-propaganda-horrors/#respond Fri, 26 Apr 2024 15:56:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1265537 Tourists visiting Spanish cities like Córdoba, Toledo and Sevilla have the option of whiling away an hour or so at a ‘Museum of the Inquisition’, sometimes known as a ‘Gallery of Torture’. For around three euros, visitors can view an exotic range of devices used to impale, immolate, strangle and dismember human beings in the name [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-media-lens-chamber-of-propaganda-horrors/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israels-flour-massacre-when-a-crime-becomes-a-tragedy/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israels-flour-massacre-when-a-crime-becomes-a-tragedy/#respond Thu, 14 Mar 2024 15:58:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1263584 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israels-flour-massacre-when-a-crime-becomes-a-tragedy/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/john-pilger-a-majority-of-one/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/john-pilger-a-majority-of-one/#respond Sat, 13 Jan 2024 16:20:04 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1260705 Last week, the Observer reported that the slogan ‘united we will win’ is a fixture on Israeli screens ‘for most TV news and talk shows’. Raviv Drucker, one of Israel’s leading investigative journalists, commented: ‘In general, the Israeli media is drafted to the main goal of winning the war, or what looks like trying to win the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/john-pilger-a-majority-of-one/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/genocide-the-gaze-from-the-abyss/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/genocide-the-gaze-from-the-abyss/#respond Thu, 07 Dec 2023 16:59:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1258988 Left-progressive websites don’t always get it right. Take Media Lens, for example. In October, we discussed the corporate media invention of so-called ‘disinformation experts’. We lampooned the claim that although journalists are ‘working within profit-maximising, billionaire-owned, advertiser-dependent, government-subsidised media, they are nevertheless exposing “disinformation” without the slightest trace of bias’. Last May, the BBC unveiled just such an initiative: [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/genocide-the-gaze-from-the-abyss/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/are-hamas-a-terror-group-are-they-a-terror-group-answer-the-question-2/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/are-hamas-a-terror-group-are-they-a-terror-group-answer-the-question-2/#respond Thu, 23 Nov 2023 16:55:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1257979 In an interview this week on Talk TV, Piers Morgan subjected Jeremy Corbyn to an extraordinary barrage of questioning: ‘Are Hamas a terror group? Are they a terror group? Answer the question! Are they a terror group? Are they a terror group? Are they a terror group? Are they a terror group? Why can’t you [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/are-hamas-a-terror-group-are-they-a-terror-group-answer-the-question-2/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/gaza-a-graveyard-for-children/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/gaza-a-graveyard-for-children/#respond Thu, 09 Nov 2023 16:59:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1257183 An authentic democracy cannot be psychopathic because most people are not psychopaths. Most people would not vote to kill, wound and displace hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians for power, profit or territorial gain. Most people do not accept the great lie of ‘pragmatism’: that ‘the anarchical society’ of international relations mandates psychopathic violence: If [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/gaza-a-graveyard-for-children/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-achilles-heel-of-propaganda-julian-assange-nick-cohen-and-russell-brand/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-achilles-heel-of-propaganda-julian-assange-nick-cohen-and-russell-brand/#respond Thu, 12 Oct 2023 15:26:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1255623 In the second decade of the 21st century, after much empty talk of ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’, it was discovered that people weren’t even capable of governing their own media consumption. Huge, artificially intelligent computers revealed that while 49.5% of the population was drowning in a ‘post-truth’ sea of ‘disinformation’, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-achilles-heel-of-propaganda-julian-assange-nick-cohen-and-russell-brand/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/climate-collapse-the-grim-silence-of-our-leaders/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/climate-collapse-the-grim-silence-of-our-leaders/#comments Thu, 14 Sep 2023 15:56:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1254060 None of us has previously witnessed a barrage of extreme weather events of the kind that has been devastating lives across the globe this summer. Canadian wildfires the size of Austria, a Hawaiian town incinerated by a hurricane-fuelled firestorm, a Greek island devastated by three years of rainfall in a single day, a Libyan town washed into [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/climate-collapse-the-grim-silence-of-our-leaders/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/i-hope-to-god-i-am-wrong-climate-change-going-through-the-roof/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/i-hope-to-god-i-am-wrong-climate-change-going-through-the-roof/#comments Thu, 06 Jul 2023 15:58:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1248935 Why are we at Media Lens utterly terrified by climate collapse while other people we know are mildly concerned, blithely indifferent or cockily contrarian? The simple answer is that we are doing this full-time and ‘doing this’ includes reading the unfiltered reports and thoughts of top climate scientists on social media all day, every day. [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/i-hope-to-god-i-am-wrong-climate-change-going-through-the-roof/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/raising-the-price-martin-amis-and-the-post-9-11-cataclysm/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/raising-the-price-martin-amis-and-the-post-9-11-cataclysm/#respond Thu, 01 Jun 2023 15:59:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1246881 The death of novelist and essayist Martin Amis on 19 May triggered a ‘mainstream’ wave, not just of admiration, but of adoration. It is clear from the obituaries that Amis died with his reputation intact and untarnished. In tweeting a link to his obituary for the Guardian, the Independent’s former literary editor Boyd Tonkin captured [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/raising-the-price-martin-amis-and-the-post-9-11-cataclysm/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/souls-for-sale-the-times-interviews-noam-chomsky/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/souls-for-sale-the-times-interviews-noam-chomsky/#respond Thu, 04 May 2023 16:52:33 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1245564 In a society built on lies, the search for truth is a game. Consider the debate surrounding alleged ‘threats’ to the BBC’s ‘independence’, even as the BBC itself reports of its outgoing chairman: ‘As for Mr Sharp’s departure, I understand conversations between the BBC and the government have been had in recent days. You’d expect [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/souls-for-sale-the-times-interviews-noam-chomsky/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-beautiful-outpouring-of-rage-the-observer-the-great-peace-march-and-nord-stream/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-beautiful-outpouring-of-rage-the-observer-the-great-peace-march-and-nord-stream/#respond Thu, 23 Feb 2023 15:39:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1239964 The 20th anniversary of the illegal, unprovoked US-UK war of aggression on Iraq comes at an awkward time for a UK press currently suppressing the truth of the illegal, provoked Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s particularly awkward for our fearless watchdogs to recall the great anti-war march of 15 February 2003 when, in 2023, they [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-beautiful-outpouring-of-rage-the-observer-the-great-peace-march-and-nord-stream/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/harry-the-traitor-and-lynch-the-grinch-the-corporate-medias-automatic-smear-machine/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/harry-the-traitor-and-lynch-the-grinch-the-corporate-medias-automatic-smear-machine/#respond Thu, 26 Jan 2023 13:12:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1237891 If we were to choose a hill to die on, it would probably not be in defence of a British prince. In truth, we don’t need to like or support – and may even abhor – the targets of media bias highlighted in our analyses. Our goal is simply to provide examples that most clearly [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/harry-the-traitor-and-lynch-the-grinch-the-corporate-medias-automatic-smear-machine/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-medium/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-medium/#respond Thu, 24 Nov 2022 14:50:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1232690 On November 15, as 90 Russian cruise missiles struck at Ukraine’s energy network, a companion US-UK propaganda blitz blamed the Russian missiles for the deaths of two workers on a farm in Poland. This was a big deal. Poland is a member of Nato and Article 5 of Nato’s treaty reads: ‘The Parties agree that [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-medium/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/wicked-leaks-part-2-how-the-media-quarantined-evidence-on-bp-and-cancer-in-iraq/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/wicked-leaks-part-2-how-the-media-quarantined-evidence-on-bp-and-cancer-in-iraq/#respond Thu, 03 Nov 2022 16:24:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1224545 In Part 1, we described how state-corporate media non-reporting of evidence relating to the sabotage of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines on September 26 was an example of how the truth on key issues is increasingly being quarantined from public awareness by ‘mainstream’ media. At first sight, our second example might appear to contradict [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/wicked-leaks-part-2-how-the-media-quarantined-evidence-on-bp-and-cancer-in-iraq/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/wicked-leaks-part-1-how-the-media-quarantined-evidence-on-nord-stream-sabotage/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/wicked-leaks-part-1-how-the-media-quarantined-evidence-on-nord-stream-sabotage/#respond Thu, 27 Oct 2022 15:42:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1223621 Last week, Alex Nunns, author of ‘The Candidate – Jeremy Corbyn’s Improbable Path To Power’ and former Corbyn speechwriter, described the current assault on democracy within the Labour Party: ‘What’s happening in the Labour Party is new. The Labour right, having had the shock of their lives in 2015, are now intent on eradicating the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/wicked-leaks-part-1-how-the-media-quarantined-evidence-on-nord-stream-sabotage/feed/ 0