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Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg Says that the Government Has ORDERED the Media Not to Cover 9/11
It's big news that the Pentagon Papers have finally been released by the government.
But the statements from Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg about 9/11 have not been covered by the corporate media.
As Fire Dog Lake's Jeff Kaye writes today:
The
entire 9/11 field of inquiry has been vilified, poisoned over the
years by ridicule, sometimes fantastic conspiracy mongering, and
fearfulness by journalists of approaching the material, lest they be
branded as irresponsible or some kind of conspiracy freak. As a result,
little work has been done to investigate, except by a small group of
people, some of whom have raised some real questions ...
Similarly, Air Force Colonel and key Pentagon official Karen Kwiatkowski - who blew the whistle on the Bush administration's efforts to concoct false intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction - wrote (page 26):
I
have been told by reporters that they will not report their own
insights or contrary evaluations of the official 9/11 story, because to
question the government story about 9/11 is to question the very
foundations of our entire modern belief system regarding our government,
our country, and our way of life. To be charged with questioning
these foundations is far more serious than being labeled a disgruntled
conspiracy nut or anti-government traitor, or even being sidelined or
marginalized within an academic, government service, or literary
career. To question the official 9/11 story is simply and
fundamentally revolutionary. In this way, of course, questioning the
official story is also simply and fundamentally American.
Several months after 9/11, famed news anchor Dan Rather told the BBC that American reporters were practicing "a form of self-censorship":
There
was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tires around
peoples' necks if they dissented. And in some ways the fear is that
you will be necklaced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of
patriotism put around your neck. Now it is that fear that keeps
journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions.... And
again, I am humbled to say, I do not except myself from this criticism.
What we are talking about here - whether one wants to recognise it
or not, or call it by its proper name or not - is a form of
self-censorship.
The head of CNN agreed:
Keith Olbermann said:
You
can rock the boat, but you can never say that the entire ocean is in
trouble .... You cannot say: By the way, there's something wrong with
our .... system.
Former Washington Post - and now Huffington Post - columnist Dan Froomkin wrote in 2006:
Mainstream-media
political journalism is in danger of becoming increasingly
irrelevant, but not because of the Internet, or even Comedy Central.
The threat comes from inside. It comes from journalists being afraid
to do what journalists were put on this green earth to do. . . .
There’s
the intense pressure to maintain access to insider sources, even as
those sources become ridiculously unrevealing and oversensitive.
There’s the fear of being labeled partisan if one’s bullshit-calling
isn’t meted out in precisely equal increments along the political
spectrum.
If mainstream-media political journalists don’t
start calling bullshit more often, then we do risk losing our primacy —
if not to the comedians then to the bloggers.
I still believe
that no one is fundamentally more capable of first-rate
bullshit-calling than a well-informed beat reporter - whatever their
beat. We just need to get the editors, or the corporate culture, or
the self-censorship – or whatever it is – out of the way.
The
Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who uncovered the Iraq prison torture
scandal and the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam, Seymour Hersh, said:
"All
of the institutions we thought would protect us -- particularly the
press, but also the military, the bureaucracy, the Congress -- they
have failed. The courts . . . the jury's not in yet on the courts. So
all the things that we expect would normally carry us through didn't.
The biggest failure, I would argue, is the press, because that's the
most glaring....
Q: What can be done to fix the (media) situation?
[Long
pause] You'd have to fire or execute ninety percent of the editors
and executives. You'd actually have to start promoting people from the
newsrooms to be editors who you didn't think you could control. And
they're not going to do that."
Veteran reporter Bill Moyers criticized
the corporate media for parroting the obviously false link between
9/11 and Iraq (and the false claims that Iraq possessed WMDs) which the
administration made in the run up to the Iraq war, and concluded that
the false information was not challenged because:
"the
[mainstream] media had been cheerleaders for the White House from the
beginning and were simply continuing to rally the public behind the
President — no questions asked."
Of course, the corporate media is always pro-war.
Since 9/11 provided a justification for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Yemen and elsewhere, the mainstream media doesn't want to question the
government's version of events.
As Tom Brokaw notes:
All wars are based on propaganda.
What Does Ellsberg Say?
Ellsberg says that the government has ordered the media not to cover 9/11:
Ellsberg seemed hardly surprised
that today's American mainstream broadcast media has so far failed
to take [former FBI translator and 9/11 whistleblower Sibel] Edmonds
up on her offer, despite the blockbuster nature of her allegations
[which Ellsberg calls "far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers"].
As Edmonds has also alluded, Ellsberg pointed to the New York
Times, who "sat on the NSA spying story for over a year" when they
"could have put it out before the 2004 election, which might have
changed the outcome."
"There
will be phone calls going out to the media saying 'don't even think of
touching it, you will be prosecuted for violating national security,'" he told us.
* * *
"I am confident that there is conversation inside the Government as to 'How do we deal with Sibel?'" contends Ellsberg. "The
first line of defense is to ensure that she doesn't get into the
media. I think any outlet that thought of using her materials would go
to to the government and they would be told 'don't touch this . . . .'"
He supports a new 9/11 investigation.
He says that the case of a certain 9/11 whistleblower is "far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers". (Here's some of what that whistleblower says.) He also said that the government is ordering the media to cover up her allegations about 9/11.
And
he says that some of the claims concerning government involvement
in 9/11 are credible, that "very serious questions have been raised
about what they [U.S. government officials] knew beforehand and how
much involvement there might have been", that engineering 9/11 would
not be humanly or psychologically beyond the scope of those in
office, and that there's enough evidence to justify a new,
"hard-hitting" investigation into 9/11 with subpoenas and testimony
taken under oath (see this and this).
Alternative Media Is Not Much Better
It is not just the corporate media.
I
have had the owners of highly-regarded alternative media companies
confide in me privately that they don't believe the government's version
of 9/11, but that are scared of discussing it publicly because they
don't want to be tarred-and-feathered for discussing "conspiracy
theories".
Even writers like Glenn Greenwald - who are good on so many issues - won't touch it.
Of course - as Ellsberg points out - "Secrets ... can be kept reliably ... for decades … even though they are known to thousands of insiders”. Indeed, the whole label "conspiracy theory" is just an attempt to diffuse criticism of the powerful.
People used to understand this. As the quintessential American writer Mark Twain said in a more rational age:
A conspiracy is nothing but a secret agreement of a number of men for
the pursuance of policies which they dare not admit in public.
Of
course, as thousands of top American military officers,
counter-terrorism officials, intelligence officers, congressmen,
structural engineers, and others have publicly said, the government's
story about 9/11 makes absolutely no sense. See this, this, this and this. And family members of people who died on 9/11 - and many New Yorkers - want a new investigation.
But you'll never hear that in the corporate media.
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Real news... pretty scary
http://youtu.be/mSvvmrB7qEg
heres the video - does not loook good
http://www.beyondnuclear.org/home/2011/6/8/floodwaters-rise-at-ft-calhoun-nuclear-power-plant-nebraska.html
Nice blog! Thanks. Damn, I haven't heard a thing about the Ft Calhoun business:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSvvmrB7qEg&feature=youtu.be
I noticed that too. I'm unfamiliar with USNRC levels for categorizing incidents so I have no idea what a "level 4" alert is, but it's been going on for 10 days and the FAA has closed the airspace 2 miles around the nuclear plant. MSM, when they bother reporting it, is describing it as "electrical problems".
Whoever junked this should have their junk slammed in the silverware drawer.
Judging from the low score and junks you're getting not many ordinary people want to hear the truth either, makes me wonder why do they come to ZH in the 1st place, or maybe they don't know what's this all about
Actually some people come to a place like ZH to enable themselves to remain in denial about the bigger issues. It's the equivalent of walking into the cold water but only up to your ankles. There, I'm in the water and I'm admitting to some evil intentions and skulduggery by the powers that be. But some of that stuff is just too crazy.
It's sort of like blowing a few psychological levee's and letting the water flood some areas deemed expendable in order to save other psychologically more important 'dry' areas.
Bargaining is another way to look at it.
It's tough to wake up one morning and discover that your Daddy is really Hannibal Lecter. Tyler, how about putting partial differential equations in the captcha - keep out the riffraff.
Worse, that he is Hannibal Lecter and he is quit capable of eating you as well.
Imagine if you have spent your entire life believing that despite all the screw ups and corruption, your government will ultimately try to save you from the evil outside. Then one morning you wake up only to discover yourself sleeping with the very evil you fear most and s/he has very hungry eyes.
The realization brings new meaning to 'information overload'.
If you were really stupid enough to believe that stuff about the government you deserve to go down with it. Get the F out of your confort zones worms before you are FORCED OUT.
Your comment reminds me of something I just read today from someone who fled the USSR: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/confession_of_a_reluctant_tea-par...
Powerful essay from an escapee of the Soviet Union speaking about being American 24 years her escape. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
They suffer ...
" THE HORROR... THE HORROR "
These damaged and deluded AmeriKlans are unable to come face to face with orchestrated and official state Terrorism... at the base of all covert governments.
If mainstream-media political journalists don’t start calling bullshit more often, then we do risk losing our primacy ... to the bloggers.
"Bullshit sniffers are the shot-callers of the WORLD!!!"
MSM...irrelevant since September 11th, 2001
Banana,
iRRELEVANT !
NOTmsm have been calling BS for years...Folks will just have to wake up.
I was ran over by a bike (just saying)...Fear knows no end?