Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

“(The Scottish) Daily Sketch”, front page, 20 August 1942

As far as I can see, my mother only had one newspaper clipping in her scrapbook from before 1950. This was a Daily Sketch front page from 20 August 1942. Nazi and Communist regimes are often accused of ‘propaganda’. Without making a detailed analysis of the newspaper report, the article states:

“Objects Achieved.”

“Nazis Lose 82 Planes.”

“German PROPAGANDA (my capitals and block letters) unable to make other capital out of the turn of the operation has taken is claiming that the raid was an invasion attempt which they have frustrated.”

Wikipedia is not known for being a ‘radical’ or a ‘pro-Nazi’ website. However, it contradicts the Daily Sketch.

“Aerial and naval support was insufficient to enable the ground forces to achieve their objectives.” It seems that this was another fiasco of Churchill’s (not quite as bad as Dunkirk though). Wikipedia reports that “the operation was a fiasco (my bold letters) in which only one landing force achieved its objective; some intelligence including electronic intelligence was gathered.”

Report of Casualties

The Daily Sketch article emphasizes the German casualties, whereas the Allied casualties were catastrophic; this was a pure case of using the soldiers as ‘cannon fodder’ (reflecting a dictator’s tactics in the 2022/2023 Ukraine invasion).

“Within ten hours, 3,623 of the 6,086 men who landed had been killed, wounded, or became prisoners of war.” The Daily Sketch article reports that “Nazis lose 82 planes (in LARGE BLOCK CAPITALS (…) we lose 95 (in small print). According to Wikipedia this was a gross distortion of reality (or a piece of PROPAGANDA); Wikipedia states that: “the RAF lost 106 aircraft against 48 German losses.”   

John Fagan imprisoned for telling the truth

While looking at my mother’s newspaper extract, I noticed something on page 2. John Fagan was sentenced to 30 days in prison for refusing to spread the lies of the British government and its lackeys (the newspapers) during the war. In other words, he dared to commit the crime of telling the truth. John had said that the government had not provided ATS⁶ girls with proper accommodation.

Propaganda and Fake News at Present

How does this newspaper article fit into our context? I don’t have a hypothesis for this. Perhaps my mother felt euphoric after the birth of her first son two months earlier. The PROPAGANDA of the British populist tabloids had ‘tricked’ ‘ordinary’ people like my mother into believing that the Germans would soon be defeated. In this context, one can think of the populist press and media in the UK and the US today, such as The Sun and Fox News,⁷ respectively. They primarily focus on ‘propaganda’ – or rather ‘fake news’ and ‘tricking’ ‘ordinary’ people.

I don’t read Fox News, but a brief search on the Internet will quickly reveal they are involved in political shenanigans. They focus much of their energy promoting a web of lies to deceive the public. One of these was promoting the ‘Big Lie’; that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.⁸

Telling lies can be costly: “Last week, Mr Murdoch’s Fox News agreed to pay more than $US 787 million ($1.2 billion) to settle a lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems over airing false claims following the 2020 presidential election.”⁹

Community and Capitalist Media

In conclusion, this newspaper article can serve as a reminder that it is not only Orwell’s ‘Big Brother’ dictatorial regimes (Russia and China) that have ‘propaganda machines’. Just as Russia uses private companies (the Wagner Group) to commit war crimes in other countries, such as the recent illegal invasion of Ukraine, the countries in the ‘democratic’ West use private companies (the media) to spread various lies. In other words, the Russian invasion is spinning a web of media lies, reported in both the Communist and Capitalist media.

COVID-19 Cover-up

I won’t delve into the tangled web of the Internet to find examples. I’m sure the educated reader is able to do this themselves. But one blatant example is worth mentioning – the Chinese ‘cover-up’ of Covid-19 cases in that country. This disinformation campaign has been so blatant that it could not even fool a 5-year-old with learning disability.

This cover-up says something about how the Chinese leadership view the ordinary people in their country, as ‘disadvantaged 5-year-olds’.¹⁰ This web of lies propagated by the Chinese Communist Party shows a total lack of interest and care for the health and lives of ordinary Chinese people. Moreover, it shows a total lack of interest and care for the health and lives of people in other countries that will unfortunately receive visits from sick and infectious Chinese.

If one was to stretch a point – one might even go as far to say that the lifting of travel restrictions by the Chinese Communist government is a warlike plan to infect people in other countries, resulting in deaths. In fact, this has been a ‘sub-theme’ of the Covid-19 pandemic; to what extent can it be some kind of ‘biological warfare’?¹¹

Of course, we are entering the world of conspiracies here, so I won’t delve further into this topic. But this is hardly a ‘conspiracy theory’; the use of chemical weapons in World War One is well-documented.¹² In recent years, there have been many instances of the Russian government poisoning people in the political opposition. One of the most recent example being the poisoning of the oligarch Roman Abramovitch (the former owner of Chelsea F.C.) He was poisoned while he was in Ukraine discussing various peace alternatives.¹³ Of course, this is just the ‘tip of the iceberg’. 

The use of poison to dispose of unwanted political opponents was common in Medieval Europe. In this context, this provides us with a clue as to why Russia keeps poisoning people? In other words, Russia is still stuck in the Middle Ages. The country is run by a feudal despot.

Possible Future of Russia

To sum up here – regarding disinformation issued by national agencies and media, I have noticed, as of May 2023, contradictory news emerging from Russia. I am no ‘futurist’ or ‘Russia expert’; however, it seems there will perhaps be a danger in enlisting private armies (the Wagner Group) to fight for the ‘national’ cause. In other words, this use of a privatized army in Russia may result in a split internally in Russia. It seems unlikely that the dictator will withdraw his forces from Ukraine. It also seems unlikely that Zelensky will agree to any ‘peace agreement’ that involves the Russians still illegally occupying Ukrainian land. Lastly, it also seems unlikely that the West will cease to support Ukraine.

Thus, logically, any changes in the war will, from my amateur viewpoint, will be dependent on internal changes in Russia, Ukraine, or the West; if not, it maybe from other unexpected external changes, such as Chinese aggression in the East. 

Sources

¹ The Daily Sketch was a British national tabloid newspaper, founded in Manchester in 1909 by Sir Edward Hulton, which ceased publication in 1971. The Sketch was Conservative in its politics and populist in its tone during its existence through all its changes of ownership. Wikipedia. 

² As described in Orwell’s 1984 (1949). 

³ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieppe_Raid

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ I did a brief search on the Internet and discovered that John “John was a champion of ex-servicemen.  He led a group of homeless people to Holyrood Palace, demanding that they be accommodated there!” http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_edin/1_edinburgh_history_-_recollections_edinburgh_new_town_princes_street.htm So it seems he was imprisoned for trying to defend the rights of homeless ATS women who were enlisted in the British Army. 

⁶ The Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS; often pronounced as an acronym) was the women’s branch of the British Army during the Second World War.

⁷ The Sun and Fox News are controlled by Rupert Murdoch and the Murdoch family who use their media channels to propagate their right-wing views.

⁸ https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/post/2812/fox-news-potentially-expensive-embrace-of-stop-the-steal

⁹ “Financial Review”. Apr 26, 2023. https://www.afr.com/ Read: 19 May 2023.

¹⁰ “As cases explode, China’s low COVID death toll convinces no one”: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/world/ Read: 12 January 2023. 

¹¹ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8300139/ Read: 13 January 2023. 

¹² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chemical_warfare Read: 13 January 2023. 

¹³ See the Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/roman-abramovich-and-ukrainian-peace-negotiators-suffer-symptoms-of-suspected-poisoning-11648480493Read: 13 January 2023. 

¹⁴ “Resentment in Russian army grows as Wagner Group claims ‘credit’ in Soledar”: “Times Radio”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukKJ07zrvFI Watched: 12 January 2023.