For several years now PANA's campaign in favour of the right of the Irish people to have their own independent foreign policy with positive neutrality as its key component, where we have focused on opposing the use of Shannon Airport and Ireland's integration into the EU/US/NATO military structures have been ignored by the corporate media. This process reached an even greater level of censorship than usual when PANA commissioned RedC (a mainstream polling company that normally gets its results covered) to ask the people their views on Irish neutrality and the US/EU war on Syria. The fact that the survey showed that 78% of the people supported neutrality and 67% opposed arming the Syrian rebels, was apart from the Irish Examiner, the Journal and An Poblacht, totally ignored by RTE and the rest of the corporate media.

Our campaign against the doctrine of perpetual war, these never ending imperialist wars by the EU/US/NATO axis continue with the suport of the Irish Government largely because they have the total backing of virtually the entire Irish corporate media. For example, not a single newspaper in Ireland is opposed to the use of Shannon Airport in these wars. The problem however for these warmongers, as can be seen from the massive opposition to the decision of the UK, France and the US to bomb Syria, opposition that forced them to change their mind, was the ability of the UK and US to use social media to mobilse popular opposition and bypass the corporate media. The Irish peace movement including PANA has not come anywhere near this use of the social media. PANA TV is just a small effort to try and build an Irish dimension to the social media that opposes the doctrine of everlasting war as preached by RTE, the Irish Times, Fox News etc.

Eoin Mc Donnell
Connolly Media Group

PANA TV from Connolly Media Group on Vimeo.