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The Myth Of The Free Press
Authored by Chris Hedges, originally posted at TruthDig blog,
There is more truth about American journalism in the film “Kill the Messenger,” which chronicles the mainstream media’s discrediting of the work of the investigative journalist Gary Webb, than there is in the movie “All the President’s Men,” which celebrates the exploits of the reporters who uncovered the Watergate scandal.
The mass media blindly support the ideology of corporate capitalism. They laud and promote the myth of American democracy - even as we are stripped of civil liberties and money replaces the vote. They pay deference to the leaders on Wall Street and in Washington, no matter how perfidious their crimes. They slavishly venerate the military and law enforcement in the name of patriotism. They select the specialists and experts, almost always drawn from the centers of power, to interpret reality and explain policy. They usually rely on press releases, written by corporations, for their news. And they fill most of their news holes with celebrity gossip, lifestyle stories, sports and trivia. The role of the mass media is to entertain or to parrot official propaganda to the masses. The corporations, which own the press, hire journalists willing to be courtiers to the elites, and they promote them as celebrities. These journalistic courtiers, who can earn millions of dollars, are invited into the inner circles of power. They are, as John Ralston Saul writes, hedonists of power.
When Webb, writing in a 1996 series in the San Jose Mercury News, exposed the Central Intelligence Agency’s complicity in smuggling tons of cocaine for sale into the United States to fund the CIA-backed Contra rebels in Nicaragua, the press turned him into a journalistic leper. And over the generations there is a long list of journalistic lepers, from Ida B. Wells to I.F. Stone to Julian Assange.
The attacks against Webb have been renewed in publications such as The Washington Post since the release of the film earlier this month. These attacks are an act of self-justification. They are an attempt by the mass media to mask the collaboration between themselves and the power elite. The mass media, like the rest of the liberal establishment, seek to wrap themselves in the moral veneer of the fearless pursuit of truth and justice. But to maintain this myth they have to destroy the credibility of journalists such as Webb and Assange who shine a light on the sinister and murderous inner workings of empire, who care more about truth than news.
The country’s major news outlets—including my old employer The New York Times, which wrote that there was “scant proof” of Webb’s contention—functioned as guard dogs for the CIA. Soon after the 1996 exposé appeared, The Washington Post devoted nearly two full pages to attacking Webb’s assertions. The Los Angeles Times ran three separate articles that slammed Webb and his story. It was a seedy, disgusting and shameful chapter in American journalism. But it was hardly unique. Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, in the 2004 article “How the Press and the CIA Killed Gary Webb’s Career,” detailed the dynamics of the nationwide smear campaign.
Webb’s newspaper, after printing a mea culpa about the series, cast him out. He was unable to work again as an investigative journalist and, fearful of losing his house, he committed suicide in 2004. We know, in part because of a Senate investigation led by then-Sen. John Kerry, that Webb was right. But truth was never the issue for those who opposed the journalist. Webb exposed the CIA as a bunch of gunrunning, drug-smuggling thugs. He exposed the mass media, which depend on official sources for most of their news and are therefore hostage to those sources, as craven handmaidens of power. He had crossed the line. And he paid for it.
If the CIA was funneling hundreds of millions of dollars in drugs into inner-city neighborhoods to fund an illegal war in Nicaragua, what did that say about the legitimacy of the vast covert organization? What did it tell us about the so-called war on drugs? What did it tell us about the government’s callousness and indifference to the poor, especially poor people of color at the height of the crack epidemic? What did it say about rogue military operations carried out beyond public scrutiny?
These were questions the power elites, and their courtiers in the press, were determined to silence.
The mass media are plagued by the same mediocrity, corporatism and careerism as the academy, labor unions, the arts, the Democratic Party and religious institutions. They cling to the self-serving mantra of impartiality and objectivity to justify their subservience to power. The press writes and speaks—unlike academics that chatter among themselves in arcane jargon like medieval theologians—to be heard and understood by the public. And for this reason the press is more powerful and more closely controlled by the state. It plays an essential role in the dissemination of official propaganda. But to effectively disseminate state propaganda the press must maintain the fiction of independence and integrity. It must hide its true intentions.
The mass media, as C. Wright Mills pointed out, are essential tools for conformity. They impart to readers and viewers their sense of themselves. They tell them who they are. They tell them what their aspirations should be. They promise to help them achieve these aspirations. They offer a variety of techniques, advice and schemes that promise personal and professional success. The mass media, as Wright wrote, exist primarily to help citizens feel they are successful and that they have met their aspirations even if they have not. They use language and images to manipulate and form opinions, not to foster genuine democratic debate and conversation or to open up public space for free political action and public deliberation. We are transformed into passive spectators of power by the mass media, which decide for us what is true and what is untrue, what is legitimate and what is not. Truth is not something we discover. It is decreed by the organs of mass communication.
“The divorce of truth from discourse and action—the instrumentalization of communication—has not merely increased the incidence of propaganda; it has disrupted the very notion of truth, and therefore the sense by which we take our bearings in the world is destroyed,” James W. Carey wrote in “Communication as Culture.”
Bridging the vast gap between the idealized identities—ones that in a commodity culture revolve around the acquisition of status, money, fame and power, or at least the illusion of it—and actual identities is the primary function of the mass media. And catering to these idealized identities, largely implanted by advertisers and the corporate culture, can be very profitable. We are given not what we need but what we want. The mass media allow us to escape into the enticing world of entertainment and spectacle. News is filtered into the mix, but it is not the primary concern of the mass media. No more than 15 percent of the space in any newspaper is devoted to news; the rest is devoted to a futile quest for self-actualization. The ratio is even more lopsided on the airwaves.
“This,” Mills wrote, “is probably the basic psychological formula of the mass media today. But, as a formula, it is not attuned to the development of the human being. It is a formula of a pseudo-world which the media invent and sustain.”
At the core of this pseudo-world is the myth that our national institutions, including those of government, the military and finance, are efficient and virtuous, that we can trust them and that their intentions are good. These institutions can be criticized for excesses and abuses, but they cannot be assailed as being hostile to democracy and the common good. They cannot be exposed as criminal enterprises, at least if one hopes to retain a voice in the mass media.
Those who work in the mass media, as I did for two decades, are acutely aware of the collaboration with power and the cynical manipulation of the public by the power elites. It does not mean there is never good journalism and that the subservience to corporate power within the academy always precludes good scholarship, but the internal pressures, hidden from public view, make great journalism and great scholarship very, very difficult. Such work, especially if it is sustained, is usually a career killer. Scholars like Norman Finkelstein and journalists like Webb and Assange who step outside the acceptable parameters of debate and challenge the mythic narrative of power, who question the motives and virtues of established institutions and who name the crimes of empire are always cast out.
The press will attack groups within the power elite only when one faction within the circle of power goes to war with another. When Richard Nixon, who had used illegal and clandestine methods to harass and shut down the underground press as well as persecute anti-war activists and radical black dissidents, went after the Democratic Party he became fair game for the press. His sin was not the abuse of power. He had abused power for a long time against people and groups that did not matter in the eyes of the Establishment. Nixon’s sin was to abuse power against a faction within the power elite itself.
The Watergate scandal, mythologized as evidence of a fearless and independent press, is illustrative of how circumscribed the mass media is when it comes to investigating centers of power.
“History has been kind enough to contrive for us a ‘controlled experiment’ to determine just what was at stake during the Watergate period, when the confrontational stance of the media reached its peak. The answer is clear and precise: powerful groups are capable of defending themselves, not surprisingly; and by media standards, it is a scandal when their position and rights are threatened,” Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky wrote in “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media.” “By contrast, as long as illegalities and violations of democratic substance are confined to marginal groups or dissident victims of U.S. military attack, or result in a diffused cost imposed on the general population, media opposition is muted and absent altogether. This is why Nixon could go so far, lulled into a false sense of security precisely because the watchdog only barked when he began to threaten the privileged.”
The righteous thunder of the abolitionists and civil rights preachers, the investigative journalists who enraged Standard Oil and the owners of the Chicago stockyards, the radical theater productions, such as “The Cradle Will Rock,” that imploded the myths peddled by the ruling class and gave a voice to ordinary people, the labor unions that permitted African-Americans, immigrants and working men and women to find dignity and hope, the great public universities that offered the children of immigrants a chance for a first-class education, the New Deal Democrats who understood that a democracy is not safe if it does not give its citizens an acceptable standard of living and protect the state from being hijacked by private power, are no longer part of the American landscape. It was Webb’s misfortune to work in an era when the freedom of the press was as empty a cliché as democracy itself.
“The Cradle Will Rock,” like much of the popular work that came out of the Federal Theatre Project, addressed the concerns of the working class rather than the power elite. And it excoriated the folly of war, greed, corruption and the complicity of liberal institutions, especially the press, in protecting the power elite and ignoring the abuses of capitalism. Mister Mister in the play runs the town like a private corporation.
“I believe newspapers are great mental shapers,” Mister Mister says. “My steel industry is dependent on them really.”
“Just you call the News,” Editor Daily responds. “And we’ll print all the news. From coast to coast, and from border to border.”
Editor Daily and Mister Mister sing:
O the press, the press, the freedom of the press.
They’ll never take away the freedom of the press.
We must be free to say whatever’s on our chest—
with a hey-diddle-dee and ho-nanny-no
for whichever side will pay the best.
“I should like a series on young Larry Foreman,” Mister Mister tells Editor Daily. “Who goes around stormin’ and organizin’ unions.”
“Yes, we’ve heard of him,” Editor Daily tells Mister Mister. “In fact, good word of him. He seems quite popular with workingmen.”
“Find out who he drinks with and talks with and sleeps with. And look up his past till at last you’ve got it on him.”
“But the man is so full of fight, he’s simply dynamite, why it would take an army to tame him,” Editor Daily says.
“Then it shouldn’t be too hard to tame him,” Mister Mister says.
“O the press, the press, the freedom of the press,” the two sing. “You’ve only got to hint whatever’s fit to print; if something’s wrong with it, why then we’ll print to fit. With a he-diddly-dee and aho-nonny-no. For whichever side will pay the best.”
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being owned by buffet and murdoch implies its not free at all and quite the opposite actually. prison planet.
Freedom's just another word
For nothing left to lose...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_the_Messenger_(2014_film) the movie link on the cia's importation of the cia's cocaine into gov. bill clinton's arkansas. this is how the disgusting bill clinton and his wife of convenience shoehorned their disgraceful selves into the presidency as a gift from bush on over silence on iran contra. the media is still silent.
The joke is the Klintons are very close and friendly with the Bush klan. The Bushes are Conn's version of the Kennedy's but far far worse. I used to not really care for JFK but now I know the reasons they killed him.
Cookie cutter media. Step out of line and they'll take you away...
And Google "News" needs to be renamed "Google Propaganda"...
MSM coverage of Ukraine in general, and MH017 in particular, being the latest illustration................
The Press has never been free.
It's always been paid for.
I hope the irony is clear to one and all...
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/meet-the-press/
yes indeed indian.
i maintain that the press, broadly defined, is freer than it has ever been. i can read this website, the russian times, aljazeera. veterans today, the jerusalem post and stormfront, for free, delivered inside my home.
i used to read the new york times and think how much better informed i was because it was better than the local paper!
"Freedom's just another word
For nothing left to lose..."
Totally asinine saying.
The most important thing you can lose is your freedom.
At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,
Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.
Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.
And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfilment.
You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,
But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.
And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?
In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes.
And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?
If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.
You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.
And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.
For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride?
And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.
And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared...
Kahlil Gibran
Excellent stuff Alaric....Khalil sure had a way with word-song...
Agreed. The melodic tempo of his work is almost hypnotic.
Had a feeling you would weigh in on this.
All the best ORI.
:-) You too AB.
If you have not, check this out:
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/of-words-and-sword-mad-men/
We the people need to take our money printing press back from the Chosenite parasites...
Remember Weimar
Free Press? Ha! That's a good one. The matrix is on our television screens at home and on AM radio dials in our cars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community
Free America is a bigger joke. Over half the population are slaves to corporate America.
The other 49% are slave to the government. The 1%, not so much.
The 1%. Chosenite parasites
Remember Weimar
sounds like a short sale situation.
On December 10, 2004, Gary Webb was found dead from two gunshot wounds
to the head.[36] Sacramento County coroner Robert Lyons ruled that it was suicide,
What total and utter nonsense.
Kennedy was on to the Chosenites...
http://smile.amazon.com/JFK-9-11-Years-Deep-State/dp/1615776311/ref=sr_1...
http://www.rense.com/general60/move.htm
"When Richard Nixon, who had used illegal and clandestine methods to harass and shut down the underground press as well as persecute anti-war activists and radical black dissidents, went after the Democratic Party he became fair game for the press."
The Obama Administration spied on the Associated Press and other news organizations but nothing changed after the revelations.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/opinion/spying-on-the-associated-press...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/22/obama-s-war-on-journali...
The Obama Administration's press restrictions are significantly worse than past administrations. Other than some reporters complaining, nothing has changed.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/18/white-house-secrecy-journalists...
The overwhelming majority of journalists in the U.S. are Democrats with just 7% identifying as Republicans.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/05/06/just-7-percent...
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/scalliwag/200908/why-most-journalist...
bush was no champ (free speech zones) but obama is worst.
Weally, Bush did not trust the CIA or Secret Service. He started Homeland Security and the Patriot Act.
Bambi is just exercising what Bush gave him. True, he is no better, but worse, Not !!! He didn't fix it.
If the sheep ever get slapped out of their government induced coma there will be a whole lot of fur flying. The French Revolution is not something to wish for but I think that is the plan for the Jacobins.
"Are you or have you ever had any association with the Tea Party, Republicans, Blue Dog Democrats, NRA, believe in a higher power then the state, Independent Party, Von Mises Institute, Zero Hedge, Chris Hedges, Professional Bowlers Association, NHRA, Eat red meat, hunt, fish, opposite sex, or own sharp scissors?"
Another Revolution in the American Colony? That would be perfect - a perfect chance to rewrite the Consititution. A perfect chance for the Imperial Powers That Be to dig in even deeper. What is missing from the America narrative is the aweful truth that the CIA really is an arm of MI5 and that it has been operating in HRMs best interests since its inception. The FRB is an arm of HRMs BOE. The US Military is now just another legion in HRMs Military. These truths are obvious to any discerning eye. How else does America get so many Order of the Templar into positions of power? The Ivy Leauge of Liars, Murders and Thieves has been churning these out for 'merica hundreds of years now.
True that.
That's exactly why the Bible is free- God's own book.
As opposed to:
"being owned by buffet and murdoch implies its not free at all and quite the opposite actually. prison planet."
Learn to differentiate.
seek truth read the bible. got it
It turns out Watergate was not what it appeared. Nixon, who knew that the CIA and Johnson were complicit in the assassination of JFK, asked for the CIA's records in order to protect himself. So the CIA trumped up the Watergate breakin in order to get rid of Nixon. Apparently they had tried repeatedly to assassinate him but failed. The Washington Post, long known as the outlet for CIA "news" was chosen to be the outlet for bringing down Nixon.
The purpose of all media is to make money. In some cases this means getting clicks by any means necessary
And the purpose of money beyond our basic needs is power. Their is no greater power than the ability to tell us what to believe, what to value, who to bow to.
I agree. But power isn't necessarily strength. Being strong means being able to see outside of the bullshit and bow to no one.
The purpose of established media in America is to lobotomize the public. If it was just about making money, someone would start telling the truth and gain a huge following.
Anyone that tells the truth will disappear by tomorrow morning...
I'd like to believe you, but I haven't seen it yet.
The truth is as unpopular as Ebola. People want quick fixes and ways to blame others for their problems and failings.
"I'd like to believe you, but I haven't seen it yet."
Open your eyes.
Gary Webb
Michael Hastings
Serena Shim
Umm, Gary Webb?
Gary Webb wrote a three-part series called “Dark Alliance,” in August 1996 for the San Jose Mercury News, one of the flagship newspapers of the then-mighty Knight Ridder chain. Webb’s story made the extraordinary claim that the Central Intelligence Agency was responsible for the crack cocaine epidemic in America. What he lacked was the extraordinary proof. But at first, the claim was enough. Webb’s story became notable as the first major journalism cause celebre on the newly emerging Internet. The black community roiled in anger at the supposed CIA perfidy.
Then it all began to come apart. The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, in a rare show of unanimity, all wrote major pieces knocking the story down for its overblown claims and undernourished reporting. Gradually, the Mercury News backed away from Webb’s scoop. The paper transferred him to its Cupertino bureau and did an internal review of his facts and his methods. Jerry Ceppos, the Mercury News’s executive editor,wrote a piece concluding that the story did not meet the newspaper’s standards — a courageous stance, I thought. “We oversimplified the complex issue of how the crack epidemic in America grew,” Ceppos wrote. “Through imprecise language and graphics, we created impressions that were open to misinterpretation.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gary-webb-was-no-journalism-hero-...
Washington Post? Of course the WP is going to say that. That's the whole point of the OP. The MSM tells lies.
Updated list of murdered American journalists.
Gary Webb
Michael Hastings
Serena Shim
Michael Ruppert
Phillip Marshall
Some more dead Americans who knew too much.
Whistleblower Deaths Connected To 9/11/
The MSM calls Russia a lawless rogue state when the real rogue state can be found on the Patomac.
And how did the CIA get all those people to buy the drugs? Takes a lot of guns to the head to get that done.
FORWARD SOVIET!
This is an excellent point namely "what are journalistic standards and ethics in the PURSUIT of truth."
Sensationalism does sell...and we all have the data on SUBSCRIPTIONS
to show how the Washington Post, NY Times, LA Times, etc are TOTAL BUSINESS FAILURES.
So when I see the suiciding of a Journalist...and they are LEGION today I ask myself "what value to say...AN ECONOMY...is their to words once devoid of WONDERFUL LIES is superseded by AWFUL TRUTHS." (Goebells and Hitler's "phantom Armies" come to mind.)
The answer would be VERY BAD NEWS FOR THE JOB CREATORS.
So we know..."the CIA targeted all the jiggers for crack extermination." Aha! Interesting!
Hmmmmm. LOOKS LIKE THEY'RE DOING FINE!
This country used to be filled with the most wonderful lying sacks of shit...nay, verily....it's all Payola now. "And the money is shit too!"
The question for ALL OF US should be "hey, ASSHOLE JUDGE! YOU SAY I RAPED THAT CUNT WHILE I SAY SHOW ME THE NSA FILE SO I CAN I PROVE MY INNOCENCE!"
(If indeed you are innocent.)
(Being quiet now) "isn't that the least we can ask from our Justice system?"
Bloomberg, CBS, NBC, ABC (owner of Zero Hedge)....Bill Gates....I DEMAND TO KNOW WHAT HALLENED TO MY MISSING KITTEN FLUFFY!
AND I AM BEING TOTALLY SERIOUS WHEN I SAY THIS I MIGHT ADD.
"Because i my daughter loved our kitten fluffy...AND WHEN FLUFFY DIED IT HURT ME TOO!"
In other words Justice ultimately is a response to how we FEEL about things...and when we FEEL tyranized, enslaved, SUICIDED...we FEEL like a great INJUSTICE is being done.
CALL THIS COURT TO ORDER BEFORE WE ALL KILL OURSELVES!
How many cattle and sheep have revolted from their handlers, abandoned their feed trough and ran for the woods? We are livestock, and media is in place to reinforce value systems that keep us at their feed trough. We at least subliminally understand our existence yet our indoctrination, our domestication, keeps us passively corralled.
Manipulated by how we prioritize our moral senses.
Those of us who only emphasize liberty are hard to manipulate - we are puppets with only one string attached and liberty is not something politicians want to talk about.
I have a basic need to store away time (excess money after taxes) to do with what the fuck I want so I can get taxed on it again for spending it.
Fiat currency: taxed when it's earned, taxed when it's saved, taxed when it's spent. There's no aspect of it that isn't taxed.
If you have believed that a free press has existed in the land of the free at any time since Operation Mockingbird in the 1950s, you may want to evaluate the extent of your drug use:
"You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month." - CIA operative discussing with Philip Graham, editor Washington Post, on the availability and prices of journalists willing to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories. "Katherine The Great," by Deborah Davis (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1991)
"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." -- William Colby, former CIA Director, cited by Dave Mcgowan, Derailing Democracy
Jusr recently, the CIA flexed its power over the free press of the West:
Since the beginning of the week, the three most influential mass circulation newsmagazines of the United States, Britain, and Germany—Time, The Economist, and Der Spiegel—have published cover stories that combine wild accusations against Vladimir Putin with demands for a showdown with Russia.
The most striking and obvious characteristic of these cover stories is that they are virtually identical. The CIA has scripted them all. The stories employ the same insults and the same fabrications. They denounce Putin’s “web of lies.” The Russian president is portrayed as a “depraved” mass murderer
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/07/30/pers-j30.html
‘Global media control allows US to sell black for white’: Putin’s key Valdai quoteshttp://rt.com/news/199028-putin-speech-best-quotes/
The Eviseration of The Smith Mundt Act accelerates the Pure Evil Criminal Psychopathic CIA's PsyOp, False Narratives & Propaganda Mind Control.
We are empty vessels, waiting and hoping to be told what to believe, told what will make us happy.
That bottomless hole in our souls can be filled with newer appliances and prettier cars. Television exists to create hunger to forment desire, to question our lifestyle to compare them to the dreams they paint and found all lacking.
Television exists only to make you feel inadequate, and then they will sell you whatever you think you need to fix you.
Its a treadmill to hell and satan's on all 5,000 channels. Then you wake up and all your years have passed and you are old and frail and empty and you lived your life before a television screen dying to live.
wake up and live or sit and watch and die, the choice is not on your remote.
Turn it off and walk away and become not of their world, but of yours.
Well said TMP....
Tell a Lie Vision....
Here is some boundary pusing viewing (literally!!!) ;-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwRkZ0pMXGE
TV especially American TV is also there to get you used to the violence of the police state and maintain the myth of justice.
Go ahead, leaving out "reality" TV, count the number of cop shows in prime time. You can count the fantasy super heros as well. Says a lot about America, don't you think?
The guy who was put in charge of Op Mockingbird was Cord Meyer. His wife was a society dame and who was pretty hot was having an affair with JFK and paling around with Timothy Leary. She and JFK were doing LSD. Mary Pinchot. Her brother in law was Ben Bradlee of Wa Post.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Pinchot_Meyer
After JFK was killed - they whacked her. Ben Bradlee rush to her apt to get her diary.
Oh and the Watergate story with Wa Post and the two reporters?
Ben Bradlee got the file dropped in his lap by See Eye Aye. Why? Nixon's tariffs. The elites did not like them and Nixon had to go. The Deep Throat and reporter sleuthing and all of the other stuff was total bullshit.
My guess if Nixon F'ed with the Federal Reserve and fiat paper like JFK and President McKinley then he would have been taken out.
Janney's principal thesis is that Meyer and Kennedy were deeply in love and experimented with drugs together. Partly as a result of his relationship with Meyer, an avowed pacifist, Kennedy began to question the American military buildup that characterized the Cold War, according to Janney.
Like others before him, Janney posits that Kennedy's assassination was the result of a CIA plot to eliminate the only man in the way of the agency's total control over U.S. foreign policy. Those same forces, Janney argues, viewed Meyer, an intimate confidante of the late president, as a similar threat.
"Understandably preoccupied with Jack’s assassination, she maintained a collection of 'clippings of the JFK assassination' in the bookcase in her bedroom, next to the place where she kept her diary," Janney writes. "The lingering question was how far Mary had gone in her investigation, and what impact it might have had."
Janney's theory is that an Army lieutenant and suspected CIA hit man named William Mitchell shot Meyer. The author says this hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that neither the U.S. military nor Georgetown University, where Mitchell said he was a professor, have any record of him. Damore claimed to have spoken on the phone with Mitchell in 1993, and told his lawyer that Mitchell confessed to him that Meyer's murder was "standard CIA procedure."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/19/mary-pinchot-meyer-jfk-mistress...
if memory serves, upton sinclair wrote of how the press was rigged, way back in the 1910s or 1920s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOBR0KTMU8c
+1 for using the word "perfidious" in a sentence. I must admit I had to grab the ol' dictionary to look it up.
Fishmonger
Yeah, that Chris boy got some real learning.
No difference between an American press where outlets are free to - and daily do - heap scorn and praise upon Obama and his policies and a Soviet Union V2.0 media in which only praise is ladled out for Putin and his policies?
Hmm.... :-)
Let me correct that for you. You mean an American press that may heap scorn on Obama, but refuses to investigate any of the dozens of scandals surrounding him, from the Birth Certificate to Benghazi. Or perhaps you mean the American press that heaps scorn on Putin, but refuses to say anything good about him, or even look in an objective manner at his very sensible (compared to USA'a) foreign policy.
Why do I have to go to RT or PressTV to find out what's really going on? Just askin'.
Bob, let me correct your willful blindness for you (and give you a desperately needed paddling at the same time). You can go to CNN, MSNBC or Fox to read the good and bad about Obama and his policies.
But you can never - NEVER! - get anything except fawning adoration of Putin and his policies from Russia Today.
See how that works?
Wouldn't know anymore my bitch cable co.TWC dropped RT
Again, Bob, that's willful blindness: RT is available online as well.
Need a loaner calorie, or do I have to come up with all the initiative?
the same people who own the msm own the politicians
"Its a Big Club," and we ain't in it................
The Jooze Nooze. Eddie Bernays would be proud of his monster child.
Its not that the press is not free, its that the overwhelming majority of so called journalists self censor and kill stories that would ruin their fascist utopia. We all remember last year's revalation from Sharyll Atkinson where her personal computer would come to life on its own during odd times of the night. It was obvious that someone working for Hussein Shinolah Ebola or Valerie Jerkitt had hacked her computer to see what she was writing about that would make their little boy look bad. As it turns out, they not only were looking at her files and using the camera and mike to easvesdrop but they planted classified documents to incriminate her should the need to really silence her arise. So Snowden should feel free to return to the US for his "fair trial"? So where is the outrage from CBS and every other so called journalist?
Yeah, like the way they censored themselves after 911 and never asked Bush the Lesser or President Cheney any tough questions about what really happened that day? Nor did they press on the obvious bullshit Colon Poweel sold them before the Iraq War? I love how you right wingers see only those "liberal" aspects of the media that fit your agenda, while never seeing their ass kissing of the neo cons. It's about the corporate agenda.
So George, you saying there's no liberal bias in the media? You saying that 90% of those working in media do not vote liberal? Really? The media crawled up and in every orafice of the Bush administration. If no criminal charges were filed its because they had nothing. Something completely different than what we see currently.
No, there is no liberal media, it's a stupid catchphrase. Corporate media is what we have and it ain't liberal
P.S. No charges have been lodged against any in the O adm., you think they also are guilty of nothing?
So when we poll media employees and 90% tell us they vote liberal, that means nothing? Yes corporate interests are represented as they own the media and everything else, but do not fool yourself into believing there is not an ideological agenda behind those pushing their themes. Yes they enrich themselves and empower themselves doing so, but they are also advancing their agenda which is centralized controlled and it really doesn't matter in whose name it is. Money is power. Power is control.
The difference between Bush's lack of charges and Obama's is that the media was looking everywhere for incrimination of Bush. That is not happening with Obama. Those few lone voices in media trying to expose his shit are removed and destroyed if possible. To ignore this difference is to highlight one's own liberal bias. You can deny it but you can't make it not true.
no the press is not free, they are bought and paid for with tax dollars and corporate funds.
They are bound by two leashes but one master.
They are dogs salivating at the bell, hoping for steak and not an electric shock to their scrotum, but either way they will be motivated and they will do their masters bidding.
They are presstitutes and corporate whores, distracting attention, discussing as little as possible as shallowly as possible for as short a time as possible. They are the Gate Keepers.
A free press owned by 5 corporations, seems a bit disengenious to anyone still capable of the occasional sense of curiousity about the nature of the empire. Its not the news, its just propaganda 24/7. Tv and radio are just tools to keep you immersed in the constant manipulated horseshit you think is reality. step away from the bigscreen. set yourself free.
walk away while you still may.
The editors are key. They choose the stories, edit the stories, reward and discipline the "journos".
You mean Webb was "suicided". Fixed it for you Chris.
Michael Hastings...I did not know him but he must have been a good man for they killed him since he was not one of them. May he rest in peace and haunt the evil doers until they go home to hell.
One of many, real courage.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/BODIES.html
the body count
RIP Michael C. Rupert.
RIP
Michael Hastings.
Here is a central villainy -- call it "America the Backstabbed"
http://patrick.net/forum/?p=1223928
If the news seems me be more skewed lately it may be the government is more involved it writing it. For decades a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government's mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences.
On July 2, 2013 that taboo came silently to an end with the implementation of a new law passed in January. This unleashes thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption. This "reform" was criticized by many human rights activist as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts. More on the implications of this new law in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/07/when-propaganda-and-surveillance.html
gov is owned and operated by & for benefit of?
All you readers need to know is that this article is excerpted from Truthdig, which extols itself as "News site providing: expert coverage of current affairs; thoughtful, provocative columnists, presented from a progressive point of view." If this is the best Progressivism can do (Progressivism, of course, being a one-word oxymoron), then this article is proof that the human race is reverse evolving into pond scum.
Journalism panders to intellectual savagery.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/higher-education-panders-to-intellectual-s...
you could shorten that up a bit.
Journalism panders....
If we can't ignore it we'll report it
we are the news....
RIP to all of the whistleblowers...those who fell from tall buildings with a single push: Those who were nail gunned at close range: Those who's cars suddenly took off at high speed: Those who were forced to play hangman: Those who are shot and made to look suicided.
They all had guts...something our presstituted media darlings will never have.
Yeah, like David Halberstam, an investigative journalist who was killed in a taxi cab "accident" in Oakland, CA a few years ago. Cab driver just walked away, though, thank god. This incident has never been truly investigated, as far as I'm concerned.
Menlo Park
No shit...poly Sci 101 pablum....step it up Tyler
Obama admin told it's mainstream media outlets to keep quiet about Ebola before the election.
"All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake “public opinion” for the benefit of the bourgeoisie."
— Vladimir Lenin
6 Oligopolies Control 90% of America’s Media
(This includes all TV, Newspapers, Radio and Movies)
Comcast; News Corp; Disney; Viacom; Time Warner; CBS
The mainstream media owes servile fealty to their masters, expect nothing more!
As with everything else in life, the press will only be truly free when it becomes absolutely worthless.
Getting close, neh?
where did American culture go?
Once we were full of music and art and ideas and now we empty.
The only surplus we produce is lies, damn lies and statistics
CNN, Fox, MSNBC, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Washington Times:
1. None are funded by the US Government
2. All speak critically from time to time (in the case of Fox, most of the time) of Obama and his policies.
Russia Today:
1. Funded by Russian government.
2. Features a robust assortment of articles lauding Putin and his policies.
You just don't get it. Your caught in the right/left dissonance, its free if its corporate/private nonsense, it is meaningless. The corporate media if critical, is only critical in a way that suits their agenda, it is about reducing and narrowing the debate on any meaningful issue. We have no real choice, we chose a pepsi or a coke prez, democrat or republican, the difference is meaningless and is only for the optics of choice. The point of our press is to appear independent when offering a very narrow prescribed perspective, again there is no challenge to the mainstream propaganda model. The prescription is enforced by shareholders, advertisers and it coincides with the interests of government which is business. As for RT, so, it is an expected bias. The same could be said about PBS, NPR and NBC or any other major news outlet that is 'not very critical' of Barry the Bomber. Expect the bias, they all have one.
@Moccasin
You're right that Amerikan Patriot doesn't get it. Amerikan Patriot is either a cognitive infiltrator or a fellow traveler on here to stir the pot on anti-Putin rhetoric.
That poster uses CFR and NATO psyops talking points verbatim.
Just ignore him and only feed him downvotes.
You just don't get it, Bob. All media has a bias, but Russia Today and the rest of the Russian media are constitutionally INCAPABLE of reporting ANY anti-Putin news. That's right, none. That's not bias, it's PROPAGANDA.
Even the NY Times occasionally runs an anti-Obama or Obama administration story.
Wow
Yes sir, AP, who but the American media has the daring do and gumption to speak critically of the stupid Negroid asshole in the White House?
Maybe if Putin had just a tiny fraction of Obama's leadership disability Pravda would be all over him like Roger Ailes on a donut.
Putin dissolves state news agency, tightens grip on Russia media
(Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin tightened his control over Russia's media on Monday by dissolving the main state news agency and replacing it with an organization that is to promote Moscow's image abroad.
The move to abolish RIA Novosti and create a news agency to be known as Rossiya Segodnya is the second in two weeks strengthening Putin's hold on the media as he tries to reassert his authority after protests against his rule.
Most Russian media outlets are already loyal to Putin, and opponents get little air time, but the shake-up underlined their importance to Putin keeping power and the Kremlin's concern about the president's ratings and image.
The head of the new agency, to be built from the ashes of RIA Novosti, is a conservative news anchor, Dmitry Kiselyov, who once caused outrage by saying the organs of homosexuals should not be used in transplants.
"The main focus of ... Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today) is to highlight abroad the state policy and public life of the Russian Federation," said a decree signed by Putin.
Sergei Ivanov, the head of the presidential administration, told reporters that the changes were intended to save money and improve the state media.
But the new organization has strong similarities to APN, a Soviet-era news agency whose role included writing articles about "the social-economic and cultural life of the Soviet people and items reflecting Soviet society's point of view on important internal and international events".
RIA said in an English-language article about Putin's step: "The move is the latest in a series of shifts in Russia's news landscape which appear to point towards a tightening of state control in the already heavily regulated media sector."
Rossiya Segodnya's focus on building up Russia abroad could solidify Putin's grip on information by further limiting sources of news for Russians whose TV screens are dominated by state-controlled channels.
Putin's decree appeared to have little effect on the two other major Russian news agencies, state-run Itar-Tass and private Interfax, but it could benefit both by making RIA's replacement less of a competitor domestically.
Itar-Tass is the successor of the Soviet official Tass agency, while Interfax has more leeway as a private agency but is restricted by the Kremlin's dominance.
NEWS BOSS COURTS CONTROVERSY
A prominent member of parliament, Alexei Mitrofanov, described Kiselyov as a "powerful propagandist" but said this was a good thing and that he was suitable for the job.
In his third term, after weathering protests led by urban liberals, the 61-year-old Putin has often appealed to conservatives and championed the Russian Orthodox Church as a moral guide for society.
Kiselyov has proved a loyal Putin supporter as a television presenter, at times making provocative remarks. In 2010 he said homosexuals should be banned from donating blood or sperm and last year said they should also be banned from donating organs.
Putin has been Russia's dominant leader since he was first elected president in 2000. He began his third term in the Kremlin in May 2012 after stepping aside to serve for four years as prime minister because of constitutional limits.
The opposition staged big street protests against him for several months from December 2011, following a parliamentary election they said was rigged. The demonstrations have faded but Putin's popularity ratings have declined from their peak during his first two terms - from 2000 until 2008.
The Kremlin extended its grip over radio and television broadcasting on November 26 when the media arm of state-controlled Gazprom bought mining tycoon Vladimir Potanin's Profmedia.
Through the deal, the ex-Soviet gas ministry - now Russia's largest firm by revenue - will add TV and radio stations, cinemas and film production and distribution assets to a sprawling portfolio built up around commercial channel NTV.
The Kremlin already funds an English-language TV channel called RT which was initially known as Russia Today. It is not clear whether the two will operate separately and RT's head, Margarita Simonyan, said she had been unaware of the move.
The new organization will be created in RIA Novosti's headquarters in central Moscow. The fate of its journalists and other employees was not immediately clear.
RIA Novosti was created as the Soviet Information Bureau in 1941, after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and issues reports in Russian and foreign languages.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/09/us-russia-media-idUSBRE9B80I120131209
Russia tightend foreign ownership rules for various 'media'. We have similar laws in the USA and Canada.
There is no American nor Canadian MSM source that publishes 100% positive "news" about its leaders, Bob.
I swear, teaching these Zero Hedge liberals to think is a full time job....
Your first mistake was citing reuters, stopped reading after that. You did not read the article obviously, otherwise you would have been aware of your mistake in citing corporate media on any topic.
Your second mistake was quoting a news souce owned by the Rothschilds, who sit on the throne of the Illuminati, and are out to destroy Putin and Russia (as well as the U.S.). Amerikan Patriot my ass. Your posts are idiotic, without any factual support, and insulting to boot. You're either a Zionist or CIA troll or a fucking idiot. In either case, you degrade the level of the conversation, and inhibit the exchange of useful information. Do yourself and everyone else a favor and go somewhere else.
Not a single announcement will reach the public without our control. Even now this is already being attained by us inasmuch as all news items are received by a few agencies, in whose offices they are focused from all parts of the world. These agencies will then be already entirely ours and will give publicity only to what we dictate to them.
- Protocol 12:4 The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The House of Rothschild bought Reuters news service in the 1800's. Within the last 20 years, Reuters bought the Associated Press. Now the Elite own the two largest wire services in the world, where most newspapers get their news. The Rothschilds have control of all three U.S. Networks, plus other aspects of the recording and mass media industry according to research by Eustice Mullins in his book 'Who Owns the TV Networks'.
Bob, with all your unsupported babble about the 'Rothschilds' and the 'Illuminati', I'm likely your only source for news on a given day, so stick close.
I can read the entire range of opinions about Obama and his policies on Reuters. Does that make the Illuminati schizophrenic, or does it simply reveal you to be the idiot you are...?
Digest that whilst I have a bite to eat.
Being able to read into middle age guarantees a free press.
http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/2008/12/most-influential-human-in-last-tho...
Reading this blog with your glasses illustrates it .
Licensing reading glasses might seem to be an alternative , but been done
In China .
Didn't work .
the freedom of the mythic press, (we cover everything, all the time, and in depth)
"An astute person at Zerohedge.com website posted: “Orwell vs Huxley: Maybe They Both Got It Right, 8,000 hits. Hippo vs Crocodile at the water hole Killing Frenzy, 32 million Hits. Miley Cyrus, Wrecking Ball video, 700,000,000 hits.” Absorb those numbers for a moment and you become almost hopeless. Almost.
"Today, those in power are desperate to maintain control of their fiat money system through media propaganda, an oppressive police presence, and false flags followed by worldwide military invasion/occupation.
"The propagandized people in the West have no idea of the fate toward which their demented governments are driving them,” wrote Paul Craig Roberts recently.
"People from every walk of life and social standing are beginning to ask painful questions: “Is the Cockpit audio from MH17 released yet?” asked commenter Ebworthen, at Zerohedge.com. “Where is that audio and / or transcripts?"
"More than two weeks have passed since the New York Times mentioned MH17 in a feature story. "The U.S. government has grown strangely quiet on the accusation that it was Russia or her allies that brought down the Malaysian airliner with a Buk anti-aircraft missile," wrote Ron Paul..."
The American Media Is The Enemy Of The American PeopleWhat did Jefferson say? Better that a man read nothing at all than to read only newspapers. Or something like that.
Yes, Hohum. You are spot on. It was Jefferson. The only Prez I have any love for.
This Progressive bullshit needs to be outed for what it is: prima facie crap, mere juvenile (late Middle School or early High School) hyperbole.
As unintentional comedy, however, it works. Also, if the author meant to fool the typical brainless Progressive into thinking the article means anything, it works. As an indictment against the total fucking drivel that is contemporary Progressives, it, too, works; ie, the article itself discredits Progressivism. As anything else, it fails.
The mainstream media is Progressive. The MSM protects radical Progressivism and Progressives. It defends the Progressive culture. The MSM has a great, slobbering love affair with the prime Progressive: Obama.
The author alludes to Watergate and the bullshit fable of CIA involvement in smuggling cocaine into the US to help the Sandanista rebels. These scandals can be counterpointed with scandals occurring right now: The IRS suppression of conservatives speech, the needless deaths of hundreds of veterans caused by VA incompetence, and the blatant attack on journalists, currently typified by the revelations of Sharyl Atkinson. Any 3 of these scandals is more portentious than Watergate or CIAgate.
Why aren't these scandals front-page news? Because the Progressive MSM knows that these scandals were caused by Progressives, and thus needs to protect Progressivism and the prime radical Progressive, Obama.. If these scandals happened during a Republican administration, they would be front-page news, trumpted 24/7/365 by dozens of Progressive-controlled media outlets.
You disagree? Well, recall the Valeria Plame incident, and contrast it to the 3 scandals noted above. Plame was a pimple on the ass of a virus inside a prion compared to the 3 scandals perpetrated by Progressives.
Progressives lust for an ever larger, more powerful and instrusive gov't that they control. The MSM agrees with this goal.
Our biggest fear should be Progressivism, and the authoritarian, undemocratic federal gov't that Progressives are in the process of creating.
I can tell you watch a lot of Glenn Beck and read TheBlaze.com as probably your only news source.
Blame the whole agenda on "progressives". Nevermind the big banks or the roundtable groups... it's progressives behind it all. Ha! That's what's comical.
Quit looking at the puppet show and look at its masters.
i think livefreediefree is doing opposite talk .....
Good, 9th. You have your baseless, unwarranted suppositions. I can now put a check mark in the 'brain-dead' column for your name.
Our biggest fear is idiots like you who perpetrate the myth of right versus left. It's bullshit designed to keep dimwits like yourself fighting the wrong people, so that you never get your head out of your ass long enough to notice your pocket has been picked and you are a debt slave and pawn of the Illuminati.
Why are Hollywood and our universities dominated by Progressives? Because Progressives love their fantasy world (ie, Hollywood) and the non-real world (aka, utopias) that universities foster/fester. Thus, Progressives are most comfortable living in a fantasy utopia.
Tha above article is a prime example of willful Progressive blindness. In the real world, the MSM is dominated by Progressives. 90-95% of mainstream journalists are liberals (aka, Progressives) very sympathetic to the prime Progressive, Obama, and his agenda. What is Obama's agenda? This article from the Heritage Foundation (a respected conservative think tank, not some wacko right-wing fringe group) condenses a core Progressive philosophy: The Progressives wanted to sweep away what they regarded as this amateurism in politics. They had confidence that modern science had superseded the perspective of the liberally educated statesman. Only those educated in the top universities, preferably in the social sciences, were thought to be capable of governing. Politics was regarded as too complex for common sense to cope with. Government had taken on the vast responsibility not merely of protecting the people against injuries, but of managing the entire economy as well as providing for the people's spiritual well-being. Only government agencies staffed by experts informed by the most advanced modern science could manage tasks previously handled within the private sphere. Government, it was thought, needed to be led by those who see where history is going, who understand the ever-evolving idea of human dignity.
Filtered thru the above prism, it should be obvious to anyone who lives in reality (ie, not you) that almost everything Obama has done has been tailored to actualize the above philsophy.
Progressives crave a gov't run by experts; ie, themselves. Progressivism is Authoritarianism.
In your fantasy utopia, Progressives like you have constructed enemies; ie, you intellectually decided who your enemies should be, and then you constructed them to be the embodiment of your utopian fantasy. These enemies are no different than the bad guys in video games, only dangerous within the games themselves, as are your bad guys within your fantasy utopia itself. My bad guys live in the real world, and are actively working to deny me my human rights, and my individual freedom and liberties.
One example: Without carbon dioxide, plants would die, yet the EPA ruled carbon dioxide was a pollutant, and the fucking US Supreme Court affirmed that decision. My God! The ruling was a blatantly undemocratic and authoritarian power grab by the EPA, and they got way with it. We the People had absolutely no fucking say in that decision, but Progressives sure did. If Progressives had their way, We the People might as well by deaf mutes with no forebrains.
To reiterate: The MSM is dominated by Progressives and Progressivism. I agree with you that the MSM is our enemy, but not because the MSM is controlled by corporations. That POV is febrilism incarnate.
Sorry, bubba, but I need to interject reality here. I know, you'd rather live in your fantasy utopia, but reality is so much better. When you mature, you'll find that you'll agree with me. Anyway, from the Washington Post: Sharyl Attkisson’s computer intrusions: ‘Worse than anything Nixon ever did’
Worse than Watergate? Then, why aren't her allegations front page news? My thesis: The MSM, particularly CBS, needs to protect Obama's Progressive gov't from the truths that Attkinsson has unveiled.
You know Google, right? Well, Google "Sharyl Attkisson" under their News category. Despite Attkisson's bombshell allegations, peruse the list of media outlets covering the story. In my quick perusal of the 50+ hits, only the Washington Post and the UK's Daily Mail are doing it; the rest are right-wing sites. Where are the rest of the MSM outlets? If you accept my thesis that the MSM is dominated by Progressives and Progressivism, you know the answer.
To save you the time and trouble of a response, let me state your objection: Of course, Attkisson's allegations are being reported by only right-wing wacko sites because her allegations are typical extremist right-wing crap.
Let's particularize, Gadfly
Our biggest fear is idiots like you who perpetrate the myth of right versus left
You're the one living in a utopian fantasy. Your entire philosopjy is myth. In the real world, there are authoritarian forces (the Left) lusting to control gov't and, by inclusion, We the People, too. We Righties fight them. This left-right divide has been omnipresent in history, and will exist when the last hydrogen atom in the universe fuses into helium.
It's bullshit designed to keep dimwits like yourself fighting the wrong people, so that you never get your head out of your ass long enough to notice your pocket has been picked and you are a debt slave and pawn of the Illuminati.
Thanks for the 2 ad hominems. Typical Progressive. When you lose the argument, you fling ad hominems like Obama flings lies.
free press - definition - a media press that is free to do whatever it likes.
free press - objectives - propaganda machines masquerade as journalism or ... free press.
free press - ownerships - wall street elites and washington cartel.
free press - targets - everyone, everywhere, anytime.
free press - methods - "news" outlets, ngo, "experts", "activists", internet etc etc
free press - operatives - "journalists", "reporters", "commentators", "experts", "activists", "eyewitness", "reliable source", "analyst" etc etc.
free press - really a good thing ?
free press - do we really need it ?
free press - really free and fair ?
free press - anyone ?
Yeah, I've got a great book, "Crusaders, Scoundrels...Journalists," which covers everyone Hedges brings up except Julian Assange - the book was published before he entered the scene, or he'd surely have been included - and it's wonderful. MSM folks are not included in this tome, greatfully.
Over here in Zee Faterland, the State Sponsered (which one is now forced to pay for) is worse than the clichéd and villified 'Pravda' of m ycold war youth.
Watching the bald manipulation and the naked innuendo on parade during the Ukraine razzle-dazzle made me wonder if Josef Goebbels was, in fact, cyanided way back when. In many ways the Germans are more engaged than Awe Yanks but my experience has shown me that the rotten globalist agenda is rolled out here about two years later then in the land of the free.
Dino Media is dead but just doesn't know it yet.
yet the media parrots out the ebola propaganda and everyone here who should know better takes the bait hook line and sinker.
Hedges is a socialist propagandist, unhappy that every piece from every MSM does not preach virtues of coercive collectivism, earnings confiscation & redistribution.
See you in the funny papers!! (Not if I see you first!)
<< a popular Russian saying was "v Pravde net izvestiy, v Izvestiyakh net pravdy" >>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda
My fav is the Bartiromo gush about how well the markets are doing every morning. Gotta love state propaganda.
Throughout history, psychopaths, sociopaths and character-disordered individuals have ruled societies. And, they rule ours.
"Americans are too broadly underinformed to digest nuggets of information that seem to contradict what they know of the world. Instead, news channels prefer to feed Americans a constant stream of simplified information, all of which fits what they already know. That way they don't have to devote more air time or newsprint space to explanations or further investigations... Politicians and the media have conspired to infantilize, to dumb down, the American public. At heart, politicians don't believe that Americans can handle complex truths, and the news media, especially television news, basically agrees. The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth."
Mass media has become an accomplice to mass murder.
We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth.The drug "industry" is run as a single integrated world operation, from the opium poppy to the nickel bag of heroin sold on an inner-city street corner. Not only is illegal drug traffic under the control of a single world network, but opiates traffic in particular is without doubt the best-controlled production and distribution system of any commodity in international trade, illegal or legal. Book: Dope, Inc.
"How the Drug Empire Works" The Mena Connection:
http://youtu.be/i7gW7QwevFI
Yes, US oligarch regime is brainwashing people in manyways, but still there is possible alternatrive information sourse in US. But not in Russia under Putin regime:
Here is how Putin regime oppresing information in Intrenet:
Everything You Need to Know About Russia's Internet Crackdownhttp://globalvoicesonline.org/2014/07/05/russia-internet-censorship-laws...
Putin regime is one of most oppresive regimes and emeny to individual freedom:
http://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/3691/en/russia-at-the-up...
Russia at the UPR: Repeal oppressive laws restricting the rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association - See more at: http://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/3691/en/russia-at-the-up...The vast majority of MSM files under presstitutes. The main problem is that the majority of news outlets just recite the pre-filtered, propagandized, and elite-approved news agency releases (Reuters et al) and then either spin it a bit to the left or the right. Independent journalism is for the most part dead - that function has now the much feared "blogosphere" - although there too is much propaganda (including this site).
It is nice that everyone sits here in the asylum and feeds off each other --- building on this grand fallacy of us v. them. The reality is that there are too many nutcases among "us" and too many reasonable people among "them" for me to feel the need to be connected to this club. The government did not blow up its own citizens on 9/11 and there was no conspiracy to addict black people in the city. Anti-corporatism can equally be plagued with foolishness and contrived messaging. It just hasn't grown itself enough to hold weight.
The elite in the media, politics and business are all trained by university and college professors, as such they all have the same training and world view. Alvin Gouldner called them the "new class." We have basically a single faction that controls our news, government and runs our businesses. They are not the Bourgeoisie, because they don't own the means of production, they run the means of production in place of the bourgeois - share holders. You know them, people with 401ks, IRAs, retirees and trust funders.
The incentives for the new class are far more pernicious then the bourgeois. They don't own the companies they run, and so they don't have a real stake in them, especially since if they run it into the ground, they get their bonus and simply move to another company, running that one into the ground as well. IBM after Watson anyone?
There are no negative consequences when the new class executives break the law, that is reserved for the share holders. Goldman Sachs seems to be fined a billion dollars a month for law breaking yet no one goes to jail! It is only the share holders who are punished - the new class managers get bigger bonuses. No wonder the law breaking never stops.
One last point... Nixon was destroyed because he had the stones to prosecute Alger Hiss, not because he attacked a faction of the power elite. The new class writer of this article would have us forget that episode, giving us the idea it is only republicans who are underhanded. Which in itself is underhanded... isn't it?
Here are a couple of links to back up my last point...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/10/27/usa-todays...
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/27/highly-sophisticated-hacking-...
Chris Hedges is still a fucking socialist.
Don't forget, if you buy a gift or two or ten for yourself, it's fine! You deserve it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM8L7bdwVaA