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Brian Williams’ Lie: The Bigger Picture
What should we make of Brian Williams’ admission that he lied about his helicopter being forced down in Iraq?
Initially, he may have lied about other things, as well.
But there’s a bigger story here …
Mainstream reporters are ALWAYS pro-war, acting as cheerleaders for the military-industrial complex and propagandists for the government.
Christian Christensen writes today:
Williams’ sad attempt to inject himself into the fabric of the violence is getting more ink and airplay than the non-existence of WMD did back in the early-to-mid 2000s: a lie that provided the justification for a military action that has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.
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The current focus on an inane untruth told by one celebrity news anchor has overshadowed the bigger picture about the US media and Iraq.
Digby notes that Williams’ Iraq lie served the pro-war narrative:
The lie about William’s getting shot down reinforced several ideas and narratives.
1) Iraq is a scary place and needs control. Reporters need to be embedded with “the troops” for their own protection. The green zone briefing tent gives the media what they need to know. Shorthand for staying put? “Remember what happened to Brian Williams.”
2) We need to fight these people, they are fighting us.
“They aren’t throwing flowers and sweets at us you peace-loving hippies! They SHOT AT BRIAN WILLIAMS! Of COURSE we had to kill everyone in the area!”
3) People with “skin in the game” sell the war better. Some in the military knew it was a lie, but why spoil Williams’ great story? “Let the baby have his bottle.”
4) Excitement! Ratings! Stories about people trying to kill rich innocent journalists are exciting! People at home can feel better about killing Iraq’s when America’s Favorite 30 Rock guest star is almost killed.
Getting the perspectives of the poor innocent Iraqis is boring and makes people at home feel bad. I’m falling asleep just typing that sentence.
5) The biggest relate-able celebrity is always used to pitch the story. Want to tell a story about the massive tsunami in another country? Tell the story of the white supermodel caught in it.
6) Use the “missing white woman” story for war. The decision by NBC and Williams to co-opt a real person’s experience was useful to get the public’s attention and empathy using someone they could relate to.
NBC and Williams might even have justified the lie saying it was representative of others’ real story that wouldn’t get covered without celebrity.
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Clearly this story could have been corrected many times in the past, but think about who would have had to do it and what they risked doing it earlier. Then think about how we can force earlier corrections.
Both the military brass and the NBC brass contributed to this “mistake.”
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Say you were there, either in Williams’ helicopter or the one actually forced down. When you see the story you go to your commanding officer and say, “That’s NOT what happened!” The officer thinks, “Does correcting this help or hurt our relationship with the media? Does it change the public’s perception of what is happening here?”
If the officer calls out Williams and asks for change what happens? Awkward! Maybe the officer just lets it slide and tells the solider to not bring it up since it’s true in general for people in some choppers, just not specifically for Williams.
Here’s the deal, the military media contacts aren’t the truth police, they aren’t NBC fact checkers. It’s not their job to get the media’s facts right. On the other hand, if the story made them look bad they would demand the truth, or negotiate some kind of deal. “We won’t tell anyone about your little fib, don’t tell anyone about our big lies.”
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Say you were a cameraman on the chopper with Williams and knew the story was BS. You tell the producer who thinks, does correcting this “mistake” help or hurt the story to the American public? What about NBC’s and Williams’ credibility?
How will the NBC brass feel finding out that the “brave reporter” story they have been hyping is a lie? Remember, NBC is the network who fired a top-rated money-making show because they didn’t want to be seen as anti-war.
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Of course smart people might ask, “Hey, if they made up stuff about the last war, might they be doing the same now with ISIS?” Shut up. Shut up. Shut up! I can’t believe you aren’t shutting up already!
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Getting swept up in a pro-war narrative doesn’t just happen. It takes a lot of people who encourage it and keep it going. We will need narrative busters for current and future wars. People who can tell the truth and help thwart a easily lead media.
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Finally, Williams’ lie wasn’t a mistake for the pro-war forces, it was a valuable gift, worth 100’s of millions of dollars given by NBC to military contractors (one of whom, GE, was its parent at the time).
(NBC is over-the-top in glorifying war.)
Glenn Greenwald pointed out in 2008 that Williams is an establishment hack:
Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson and company are paid to play the role of TV reporters but, in reality, are mere television emcees — far more akin to circus ringleaders than journalists. It’s just as simple as that. David Halberstam pointed that out some time ago. Unlike Yellin, Donahue and Banfield, nobody needed to pressure the likes of Williams, Gibson and Russert to serve as propaganda handmaidens for the White House. It’s what they do quite eagerly on their own, which is precisely why they’re in the corporate positions they’re in.
Greenwald said of Williams in 2012:
He cleanses and glorifies American government actions, especially military actions, with his reverent, soothing, self-important baritone …
Brian Williams doesn’t occupy the position he occupies — as America’s Most Serious and Visible News Anchor — despite his vapid glorification of American political and military leaders; he occupies it precisely because he’s so good at doing that. That’s the prime requirement of this job.
(FAIR provides a humorous example of Williams’ pro-war cheerleading: “Despite what Williams claimed … the invasion [of Iraq] did not actually spark a wave of democratization in the Middle East that made ‘even the harshest critics of President Bush…admit maybe he’s right about freedom’s march around the globe.’ “)
Greenwald also tears into Williams for pushing propaganda on Iran, and interviewing paid defense analysts without revealing their financial incentives.
And Justin Raimondo lambasts Williams as a shill:
Williams was a reliable foot soldier in the neocons’ war on truth.
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“No one in their right mind, [Williams] believed, would want America to pull out tomorrow. He did not want America to withdraw from Iraq.” Of course he didn’t: he and the rest of the flag lapel pin-wearing “mainstream” media had too much invested in the War Party’s success.
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The Williams record in covering up the sickening horrors wreaked by the US military in its never-ending campaign to re-order the world to Washington’s liking goes way back. When NATO jet fighters bombed a passenger train in Serbia – by “mistake” – killing a dozen and wounding dozens more, Williams intoned that visuals of the train attack “are so graphic that we cannot show them on television for fear of upsetting viewers.”
Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil – that’s how the trained monkeys of our “mainstream” media treat the depredations of US imperialism: there’s no need to “upset” the delicate sensibilities of Americans, who might be disabused of their rulers’ beneficence. Better to view these crimes through the Vaseline-covered lens of a committed shill. Williams isn’t a reporter: he’s a cosmetician, whose job it is to prettify the ugly truth.
In 2003, as the neocons were crowing that the war they’d spent the last decade ginning up was a triumph, Williams was joining the chorus:
“They are calling this the cleanest war in all of military history. They stress they’re fighting a regime and not the people, using smart bombs, not dumb, older munitions. But there have been and will be accidents.”
By the end of it, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians had been slaughtered – by “accident,” no doubt.
Not content to cheerlead from the sidelines, Williams played the role of a scout eagerly pointing out potential targets:
“… And there’s a new weapon in this war: Arab media, especially al-Jazeera. It’s on all the time, and unlike American media, it hardly reflects the Pentagon line. Its critics say it accentuates civilian casualties and provokes outrage on the Arab street.”
A week later a US missile struck a generator at Al Jazeera’s Baghdad office, killing one reporter and wounding another.
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The man, in short, is a confirmed liar – but the confirmation took place years before being caught out in this latest prevarication.
A CIA operative told Washington Post editor Philip Graham … in a conversation about the willingness of journalists to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories:
You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month.
Bottom line: Williams is just another presstitute.
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Brian has a job waiting at Pravda.
NBC is American Pravda. My gramps always hated John Chancellor, called him the All-American God. I'm sorry he's not alive to see American Pravda die. Drive a stake through it's heart, it's through!
It will not die for a long time, too much money in it. The Plutocrats hold most of the wealth.
The sheeple want to trust. The sheeple want to be lead. The sheeple want to hear myths. Williams obliged.
The flaw is in the sheeple's craving for leaders.
A MSM "journalist" (i.e. overpaid shill for TPTB) sacked for lying????
That's like being booked for speeding at the Indi 500, FFS.
Do they give Purple Hearts to MSM embedded correspondents if their hair gets mussed?...
Probably, and also they get many millions. The honest ones like Chris Hedges, who have the guts to reveal the inner workings of the plutocracy, are relegated to little-read backwater blogs.
Since when did the American people care about being lied to? And since when did the media start caring about telling the truth?
Brain Williams has been voted to become the Martha Stewart of the financial world.
Once we deal with him, all the problems will be gone...
I don't know anything about being in a helicopter or being in combat or getting shot by an RPG, but you can see the damage here at 1:17
Brian Williams 2003 Report On Helicopter Incidenthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdrtoy8P3po
I think they all had to land because of an impending sand storm. Period. For eveything else, there's bullshit.
Chopper pilot voice had that "Lunar Landing" feel to it.
According to a civilian who was in the chopper with the hole in it, Williams arrived a half hour to an hour AFTER the chopper with the hole in it was forced down.
The NBC crew took some pictures of the Chinook with the RPG hole in it (that had been sitting there for up to an hour) did a few interviews and Williams and the NBC crew re-boarded their chopper and flew off.
Now this from 2007:
"It gets me to thinking, I've been very lucky the way my life has turned out, I've been very lucky to have survived a few things that I've been involved in, at a perception a few minutes ago, I was remembering something I tend to forget, the war with Hezballah in Israel, a few years back, where there were Katuyshka rockets passing just beneath the helicopter I was riding in. A few years before that, you go back to Iraq, and I looked down the tube of an RPG that had been fired at us and it hit the chopper in front of ours."
He looked down the tube...of an RPG...that had been fired at them...lol.
"I always tell the truth. Even when I lie." --Tony Montana
Not one atom of sympathy. Take him down, Homeless and digging in trash cans for porn.
During that time period, it must have been really tough to be a competing career-entertainer-news-anchor type person following that Katie's Innards docu-drama. (Like ABBA following AC/DC's opening act, maybe)
Who even watches this piece of shit?
Distraction and feints from the MIC and banksters as to this asshole. Fuck him.
This article is a shameful assault on America's most beloved, trusted, and iconic journalist.
Are you not aware that Williams laid the fundamental theoretical foundation for quantum mechanics while rescuing puppies from a burning house as a volunteer fireman?
He then taught the oldest puppy how to play Totentanz by Franz Liszt on the grand piano.
And if I were you, I'd worry about defaming a guy who can slap the snot out of Chuck Norris with one hand while performing pediatric neurosurgery on cojoined twins with the other.
Just sayin'.
Nice try there, but you are confusing Brian Williams with Hunter Biden.
I miss Walter Cronkite.
https://gigaom.com/2015/02/06/brian-williams-was-an-anachronism-even-bef...
lol...gotta admit that was a good one, crawling on his hands & knees under a cloud of smoke inside a burning building, cradling two puppies. I don't even know how that works.
I'm just glad one of them grew up to be Vinny the Pit Bull ;-)
Brian is - the world's most interesting man
The NY Post headline said it best : He has a nose for news - showing Williams in a photo with an appropriate Pinocchio nose.
I can't wait till Jon Stewart reacts to this news. :^)
George Washington's Blog should consider running a story about how Obama slipped-up last Sunday and admited that the US played a role in orchestrating the coup in Kiev. The powers that be are taking us to war on the lie that Russia was/is behind everything and none other than the goofball-in-chief Obama has demonstrated that's nothing but propaganda. This is a hgue story that might even throw a spanner into the propaganda machine but sadly, too few alternative media publishers have picked it up.
Feel free to reprint this if you wish:
http://thenewsdoctors.com/?p=277507
BHO may join JFK and Abe Lincoln if he keeps telling the truth.
Obama: America “Brokered a Deal to Transition Power in Ukraine”
LMAO at O'Barry at his little prayer breakfast thingy.
"Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ."
Not quite sure why he attempted a centuries old moral equivalency or his half a century year old attempt to insert slavery into the Bible as justification or why he would portray muslims then & now as backward thinking neanderthals...lol...but regardless, his drone strikes have killed more muslims in six years than the Spanish Inquisition did in its three hundred and fifty year span.
His total, cuz the MSM used to luv its body counts:
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2015/02/02/almost-2500-killed-covert-us-drone-strikes-obama-inauguration/
The Spanish Inquisition, 2,250:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3809983.stm
I think the "high horse" must have kicked him in the head ;-)
Under Jim Crow the rate of black murders and rapes of whites was about 10% of its current level.
Now class, what conclusions can we deduce from this?
That white on black murders & rapes back then were under reported?
I'm more interested in this moral equivalency and relativism he always tries to posture with, he certainly didn't bring up why the Crusaders went on crusade, why, its almost as if the muslim conquests of peaceful tribes, nations and peoples never even happened, as if Hindu Kush doesn't mean Hindu killing, slavery indeed.
The "folks" all just sorta kinda looked around and said "Hey, this Mooohamid fellow certainly has it goin on. Lets do dat."...lol.
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To my anonymous junkers, which part of my comment offends you most, the part where I would enjoy raking your ass over the textual "equivalence" of hot coals or "relatively" calling your peaceful prophet a murderous douchebag? ;-)
Do the junkers also know that Muhammad married a thirteen year old and his aunt (she had the family business and was the one who told him that his epilepsy meant he was a prophet). Islam started as a gang of robbers and killers that were taking out Muhammads competion. Recruiting was easy, kill the men, rape the women and keep the loot. Hey! Sounds like ISIS!
No, they probably don't know any of that. They (like King O'Barry) prefer to stay safely ensconced in their ethical & moral relativism of today, their prison of the mind from the past.
Clearly, these marauding bands of christians attacking the peaceful muslims freedom of speech, press & religion in Paris and elsewhere must be stopped! We care not if christians lose their heads, the christian must learn why they are hated and accept their new role as dhimmi...lol...its amazing, it really is.
But enough doom & gloom, a feel good story...
http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/02/michigan-man-receives-new-car-ditches-21-mile-walk/#more-115703
...sometimes good things happen to good people ;-)
Revoke Jim Crow laws.
Black vote.
Female vote.
Abortion approved.
Gay is OK.
I can't take too much more "progress".
Lighten up on ol' Williams, how bad can he be-------http://floppingaces.net/most_wanted/brian-williams-likes-watching-his-da...
Sounds like the pathetic Lena Dunham is a product of her environment.
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Classic public relations damage control.
He's apologised, so there's the background narrative.
Now get him the hell out for a couple of months.
Bring him back on weekends and slowly weasel him back into the news, let the haters hate as the spin will be played, and it all dies down.
Done.
Next.
•?•
V-V
http://www.mrctv.org/blog/fog-war-my-twitter-responds-brian-williams-lies
This piece of news was timed to keep the discussion off Greece standing up to the ECB. The media wants to be sure the Fed is never challenged, the bankers never challenged. Just like the CIA torture report was released when legislation was going through to gut Frank-Dodd and Citibank had actually wrote legislation that was passed in Congress.
Whenever there is a piece of "news" that comes through that grabs the attention of the populace look around the corner- something far more important is happening that TPTB want to go unnoticed.
... plus... Congress is probably sneaking through some new theft, while the media have citizens' attention directed toward the juicy gossip.
4 min - Short Comedy
http://youtu.be/CjVVNuraly8
remember they way they set up Dan Rather with the Bush national guard deferment scandal. the real reason that happened was that Rather was drawing most of their news budget for his own celebrity anchor pay. im sure a lot of the big banks have the same ticking time bomb, guys like blankenfien and dimon, while they layoff people at the bottom, or outsource the work. its not just a 1% problem, school districts are also top heavy, administrators make huge salaries while teachers are stuck with oversize classroooms, you wonder why johnny cant read.
Yes well, you "need" all that upper level boilerplate to "sift" through that shit heap of CFR regs. Something that once was, im told, a locally controlled function. Take heart, the whole notion of public education is headed toward obsolescence anyway. I read it on the internet.
Amen. I like Jimmy Carter, because I think he is genuinely trying. But the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and sometimes I think he is (and was) so naive (especially about big-government) that he shot us all in the foot, particularly when he created the USA Department of Education. Disband it.
I agree about School Districts. Top-heavy with "educators" who certainly do not teach Eighth Grade Basic Math or Reading, but who did get "Doctor of Education" degrees with fill-in-the-blank classes and know where the money is hidden. And they aren't about to leave and go find a real job where they aren't insulated from customers. But many of them started off as "good old boy" athletes or coaches, and they all go to the same church, so they won't ever HAVE to leave, as long as they ALWAYS circle the wagons. THIS is why people vote for Jeb Bush and his private schools, which are NOT top-heavy with these "educators" (but will probably, gradually, become top-heavy with CEOs). I hate to think that Jeb Bush's solution is the best the USA can do, but maybe it IS the best the USA can do. Because the local newspaper owners are also in the same club, and therefore always recommend in School Board elections candidates who keep the "good old boy" "educators" around.
Ok now you guys are stretching it. Look Williams is a habitual liar like Biden (claiming to see bodies floating past his window in the French Quarter of NOLA is a complete lie). Please don't keep trying to inject whatever fantasy you harbor into this.
Pathological lying virus has spread from the arrogant narcissistic divisive liar in chief fudgepacker to the arrogant narcissistic MSM talking heads.
You're right. It's all just a bit of a laugh. It's not like we're going to put Al Franken into the Senate....
And here's what Brian Williams' offspring is doing for fun and profit:
http://www.wwtdd.com/2015/01/brian-williams-breaks-silence-on-analingus/
Except he's motorboating the PTBs ass (while asking you, gentle viewers, to take a MIC double fisting).
But seriously folks, Brian either screwed someone royally, or this was a really needed distraction from some worse horrors. Well, there's lots of horror, no superbowl distraction, and no one really cares about the latest ISIS beheading productions. Just why do they need to wring out so much money so fast from us?
No this dirt bag is part of a disinformation campaign conspiracy. Another Theory turning out to be fact.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/02/05/cowardly-despicable-american-...
Taking this theme and running with it, the possibility POTUS is Muslim and before all is said and done, but some dust has settled, the body count of disruption will practically match the 270 million murdered by them over 800 years. In 8 short years of 2 terms in office. Sort of like exponentially multiplying debt trillions of dollars.
That's the crime of Brian Williams and their culture of lies. Monumental coverups, how can they live with their lies. Yet perhaps it portends the: give em enuff rope and they will hang themselves (my favorite default hope) plays into it. Psychopaths be what they may, could their soul and psyche turn on itself as an involuntary reflex? It may have been his daughter's extreme reveal that triggered a self sabatoge. The neat and tidy veneer spread wide open.(pun intended)
Telling lies or telling truths either one can be used for propaganda mind control techniques, and that's the spell they are under. Their misery just loves our company.
Oh man that's a good one! Prime PCR.