In a recent article on Booman Tribune that was basically about how leftiness shmoon should try to understand (and thus forgive) our poor, beleaguered, well meaning, weak-kneed president because he finds himself bent over a barrel with his ass all in up the air due to the fact that he has compromised himself into almost total powerlessness, Booman wrote:
When he blames Congress, he should be clear that Congress can function if we put the right people in office.
Yeah, but…without radical media reform “we” cannot put the right people in office, including a president. The fact of the matter is that a 500 lb. media gorilla named “Catch 22” is sitting in every corner of every political discussion in this country.
When was the last time that you heard any substantive criticism of the media system as it stands in the U.S. from anyone who must win an election in order to be able to do their job and collect their paycheck?
Never.
That’s when.
Read on.
The national media absolutely, positively dictate which people…and which ideas…will win elections, from the higher state levels right on through the presidency. The higher the office, the more the mass media are a decisive factor.
Who and what controls that media?
The corporate system controls it. Owns it. Corporate advertising sustains it. Media executives either kowtow to corporate interests or they are gone. Media producers and editors either obey their bosses or they are gone as well. Media reporters have the choice of toeing the particular corporatist line of their station/network/publication or they also disappear. The fates of Peter Arnett and several of his CNN producers were not lost on the rest of the media workers. Bet on it.
Operation Tailwind
In 1998 Arnett narrated a joint venture between CNN and Time magazine, NewsStand, which described what he called “Operation Tailwind”.
The report, titled The Valley of Death, claimed that the United States Army had used Sarin against a group of deserting U.S. soldiers in Laos in 1970. The report was expressly approved by both CNN Chairman Tom Johnson and CNN President Rick Kaplan. In response, The Pentagon commissioned another report contradicting CNN’s. CNN subsequently conducted its own investigation which concluded that the “journalism [in the Valley of Death] was flawed” and retracted the story. Three or more of the individuals responsible for the “flawed” report were fired or forced to resign. Arnett was reprimanded.
The co-producers of the report, April Oliver and Jack Smith, were dismissed. They sued Time Warner, the parent company of CNN, claiming they had been wrongfully fired and Time Warner ultimately paid millions of dollars to settle their lawsuits, along with other suits brought by military personnel who claimed to have been libeled in the Oliver/Smith report. Senior producer Pam Hill and others resigned. Oliver was later quoted by the World Socialist Web Site (International Committee of the Fourth International) as saying that: “His [Arnett’s] firing was a direct result of Pentagon pressure. Perry Smith [a retired USAF major general and former CNN consultant who resigned in protest over the Tailwind report] told the Wall Street Journal last July that CNN would not get cooperation from the Pentagon unless Peter Arnett was fired. […] They will do anything to stem the flow of information.
—snip—
Interview in Iraq
On assignment for NBC and National Geographic, Arnett went to Iraq in 2003 to cover the U.S. invasion. After a press meeting there he granted an interview to state-run Iraq TV on March 31, 2003, in which he stated:
” Now America is reappraising the battlefield, delaying the war against Iraq, maybe a week and rewriting the war plan. The first plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another plan… So our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States. It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments. “– Peter ArnettWhen Arnett’s remarks sparked a “firestorm of protest”, NBC initially defended him, saying he had given the interview as a professional courtesy and that his remarks were “analytical in nature”. A day later, though, NBC, MSNBC and National Geographic all severed their relationships with Arnett.[12]
In response to Arnett’s statement on Iraqi TV, the corporation stated:
“It was wrong for Mr. Arnett to grant an interview with state-controlled Iraqi TV, especially at a time of war and it was wrong for him to discuss his personal observations and opinions.”Arnett responded:
“My stupid misjudgment was to spend fifteen minutes in an impromptu interview with Iraqi television. I said in that interview essentially what we all know about the war, that there have been delays in implementing policy, there have been surprises.”
The moral of these stories? (And many, many others as well.)
Publicly and effectively criticize the lies of the economic imperialist machine in the mass media and you will lose your job.
Romney Jr. said “Corporations are people” last night. He is being widely criticized for that statement, but…probably without knowing it…he was dead right. Corporations are people, and most of those people are very well paid. Not well paid enough to be truly independent, though. Just well paid enough to have a good credit rating. Enough to have a mortgage, a couple of cars bought on credit, a retirement plan, children who “need” to go to expensive so-called institutions of higher learning, etc.
In other words they are up to their asses in debt, most of these people. Thus they are truly controllable no matter how heartfelt their opposition may be to the policies that they are paid to support.
So…what’s the way out of this particular Catch 22-style cul-de-sac?
Fight the media.
The public must defeat the media.
How?
Sigh…
BOYCOTT THE MOTHERFUCKERS!!!
But NOOOOOOooooo…
My whole “NEWSTRIKE/MEDIASTRIKE/CULTURESTRIKE” idea just sits there, stymied by the massive hypnomedia-induced trance state under which almost everyone who lives in this benighted country exists.
Oh…well…yammer yammer yammer…what a wonderful idea! Yawn. Hilda!!! Time for the Letterman Show!!!
And it’s forgotten in an instant. Back to MediaTranceland, where everything is reduced to the equivalent of a a few self-consciously lame current interest jokes followed by astoundingly well produced commercials that advertise the very things that keep this entire country in debt and thus controllable.
Wake the fuck up.
The news is full of stories about “animals” in the streets of our allies and/or “heroes” in the streets of our enemies rioting against…well, generations-long poverty is what is at the base of everything from the Arab Spring right through London’s bad-ass summer. And who is in the streets? People with not much left to lose, usually.
But people who do have something to lose? Even if it’s a credit rating that will allow them to over-consume for another year or decade or lifetime?
In the streets?
Hell no!!!
Not when the brickbats are flying they’re not. Bet on it.
They’d rather watch the action on their brand new wide screen TVs and then listen to one or another pack of hired monkeys prattle on to them about what it all really means.
Here is what you are really watching. Once in a while even the most effective hypnomedia systems let a little reality escape into their programming. Note well the absolute panic in the interviewer’s voice when she realizes that Mr. Howe also has nothing much left to lose and thus he is going to dare to speak the truth of the matter on…GASP!!!…The Mighty BBC Disinfo Wurlitzer!!!
Check it out.
The BBC tried to disappear this clip. Luckily the internet is not…yet…under the total control of the corporate control mechanisms, so the clip viraled out into the mainstream. However, that control grows greater with each eruption of uncontrolled, mass dissatisfaction with the status quo. I will guarantee that we…you and me, sweet fellow non-violent lefitinesses…are under constant surveillance right here on little ol’ Barack O’Centric BooBamaman Tribune.
Bet on it.
Should we…Heaven forfend!!! …start talking about real, effective anti-media action the controllers would be all over us like white on rice.
Luckily, we’re not. We are…most of us…just a bunch of media-addicted middle class DemRat geeks looking to blow off a little steam.
Good thing, too.
Otherwise we might actually be forced to back our shit up with some kind of real action.
But NOOOOoooo….
Keep clomp, clomp, clomping down that Media Zombie Highway, friends.
Whadda buncha maroons!!!
That wascally wabbit, signing off.
Wake the fuck up!!!
It’s past time.
Bet on it.
Later…
AG
