Military Propaganda Pushed Me Off TV
In the fall of 2002, week after week, I argued vigorously against invading Iraq in debates televised on MSNBC. I used every possible argument that might sway mainstream viewers — no real threat, cost, instability. But as the war neared, my debates were terminated.
In my 2006 book Cable News Confidential, I explained why I lost my airtime:
There was no room for me after MSNBC launched Countdown: Iraq — a daily one-hour show that seemed more keen on glamorizing a potential war than scrutinizing or debating it. Countdown: Iraq featured retired colonels and generals, sometimes resembling boys with war toys as they used props, maps and glitzy graphics to spin invasion scenarios. They reminded me of pumped-up ex-football players doing pre-game analysis and diagramming plays. It was excruciating to be sidelined at MSNBC, watching so many non-debates in which myth and misinformation were served up unchallenged.
It was bad enough to be silenced. Much worse to see that these ex-generals — many working for military corporations — were never in debates, nor asked a tough question by an anchor. (I wasn’t allowed on MSNBC unless balanced by at least one truculent right-winger.)
Except for the brazenness and scope of the Pentagon spin program, I wasn’t shocked by the recent New York Times report exposing how the Pentagon junketed and coached the retired military brass into being “message-force multipliers” and “surrogates” for Donald Rumsfeld’s lethal propaganda.
The biggest villain here is not Rumsfeld or the Pentagon. It’s the TV networks. In the land of the First Amendment, it was their choice to shut down debate and journalism.
No government agency forced MSNBC to repeatedly feature the hawkish generals unopposed. Or fire Phil Donahue. Or smear weapons expert Scott Ritter. Or blacklist former attorney general Ramsey Clark. It was top NBC/MSNBC execs, not the Feds, who imposed a quota system on the Donahue staff requiring two pro-war guests if we booked one anti-war advocate — affirmative action for hawks.
I’m all for a Congressional investigation into the Pentagon’s Iraq propaganda operation — which included an active-duty general exhorting ex-military-turned-paid-pundits that “the strategic target remains our population.”
But I’m also for keeping the focus and onus on CNN, FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS, even NPR — who were partners in the Pentagon’s mission of “information dominance.” And for us to see that American TV news remains so corrupt today that it has hardly mentioned the Times story on the Pentagon’s pundits, which was based on 8,000 pages of internal Pentagon documents acquired by a successful Times lawsuit.
It’s important to remember that at the same time corporate TV outlets voluntarily abandoned journalistic ethics in the run-up to Iraq, independent media boomed in audience by making totally different journalistic choices. Programs like Democracy Now! featured genuine experts on Iraq who — what a shock! — got the facts right. Independent blogs and websites, propelled by war skepticism, began to soar.
As for the major TV networks, they were not hoodwinked by a Pentagon propaganda scheme. They were willingly complicit, and have been for decades. As FAIR’s director, I began questioning top news executives years ago about their over-reliance on non-debate segments featuring former military brass. After the 1991 Gulf war, CNN and other networks realized that their use of ex-generals had helped the Pentagon dazzle and disinform the public about the conduct of the war.
CNN actually had me debate the issue of ex-military on TV with a retired US Army colonel. Military analysts aren’t used to debates, and this one got heated:
ME: You would never dream of covering the environment by bringing on expert after expert after expert who had all retired from environmental organizations after 20 or 30 years and were still loyal to those groups. You would never discuss the workplace or workers by bringing on expert after expert after expert who’d been in the labor movement and retired in good standing after 30 years. . . . When it comes to war and foreign policy, you bring on all the retired generals, retired secretaries of state.
THE COLONEL (irritably): What do you want, a tax auditor to come in and talk about military strategy?
ME: You hit it on the nail, Colonel. What you need besides the generals and the admirals who can talk about how missiles and bombs are dispatched, you need other experts. You need experts in human rights, you need medical experts, you need relief experts who know what it’s like to talk about bombs falling on people.
Before the debate ended, I expressed my doubts that corporate media would ever quit their addiction to unreliable military sources: “There’s this ritual, it’s a familiar pattern, a routine, where mainstream journalists, after the last war or intervention, say, ‘Boy, we got manipulated. We were taken. But next time, we’re going to be more skeptical.’ And then when the next time comes, it’s the same reporters interviewing the same experts, who buy the distortions from the Pentagon.”
A few years later, during the brutal US-NATO bombing of Serbia, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! interviewed CNN vice-president and anchor Frank Sesno:
GOODMAN: If you support the practice of putting ex-military men, generals, on the payroll to share their opinion during a time of war, would you also support putting peace activists on the payroll to give a different opinion in times of war, to be sitting there with the military generals, talking about why they feel that war is not appropriate?
SESNO: We bring the generals in because of their expertise in a particular area. We call them analysts. We don’t bring them in as advocates.
It’s clear: War experts are neutral analysts; peace experts are advocates. Even when the Pentagon helps select and prep the network’s military analysts. Shortly after the Iraq invasion, CNN’s news chief Eason Jordan acknowledged on-air that he’d run the names of potential analysts by the Pentagon: “We got a big thumbs-up on all of them. That was important.”
Of all the excruciating moments for me — after having been terminated by MSNBC along with Phil Donahue and others — the worst was watching retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, NBC’s top military analyst, repeatedly blustering for war on Iraq. Undisclosed to viewers, the general was a member (along with Lieberman, McCain, Kristol and Perle) of the pro-invasion “Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.”
A leading figure in the Pentagon’s pundit corps, no one spewed more nonsense in such an authoritative voice than McCaffrey — for example, on the top-notch advanced planning for securing Iraq: “I just got an update briefing from Secretary Rumsfeld and his team on what’s the aftermath of the fighting. And I was astonished at the complexity and dedication with which they’ve gone about thinking through this.”
After the invasion began, McCaffrey crowed on MSNBC: “Thank God for the Abrams tank and the Bradley fighting vehicle.”
No federal agency forced NBC and MSNBC to put McCaffrey on the air unopposed. No federal agency prevented those networks from telling viewers that the general sat on the boards of several military contactors, including one that made millions for doing God’s work on the Abrams and Bradley.
Genuine separation of press and state is one reason growing numbers of Americans are choosing independent media over corporate media.
And independent media don’t run embarrassing promos of the kind NBC was proudly airing in 2003:
Showdown Iraq, and only NBC News has the experts. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, allied commander during the Gulf War. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, he was the most decorated four-star general in the Army. Gen. Wayne Downing, former special operations commander and White House advisor. Ambassador Richard Butler and former UN weapons inspector David Kay. Nobody has seen Iraq like they have. The experts. The best information from America’s most watched news organization, NBC News.
Jeff Cohen is the founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College. His latest book is Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media. He founded the media watch group FAIR in 1986.
Yeh? Well, it pushed me and my family AWAY from TV. We no longer spend 20 minutes of every hour watching commercials between the filler that passes for ‘content’ these days. Been off the cable for over 5 years now and wonder why the hell we were wasting our lives with it before then. We do still watch rented movies so have not kicked entirely….but we’ve sure cut back on our exposure to lies and commercials to purchase things we don’t need.
Two things:
1. Define the word “expert.” I become real skeptical when the Corporate Media pedestrianly throws around the word “expert.”
2. I got rid of my television. For seven years it sat in the closet. I brought it out for two weeks. I wish I could take back the time wasted during those two weeks (I did not watch it for very long each day because I have more important and intellectual things to do). So, I took it to a local charity - one of the best decisions of my life.
HOW ABOUT IF EVERYONE GOT RID OF THEIR TELEVISION SETS. CHEAPER OR NO CABLE BILL. $$$$$SAVED AND THE RATINGS PLUMMET FOR CORPORATE TV.
Forgive me, but we also went thru this with Gulf War I if anyone was paying any attention — !!!
WHY is anyone watching this junk — then or now????
Certainly don’t watch commercials; mute your TVs if there is something you absolutely have to see on TV “news” . .
something perhaps you are monitoring, but that’s all.
TURN OFF THE TVs, folks!!!
What goes for ‘News” these days is slanted opinions from big media; thought everyone KNEW that. Sometimes the only thing worthwhile watching is home improvement and gardening shows.
The fourth estate is the capitalist imperialists’s fifth column. We are long overdue for holding them accountable for their murderous actions.
I quit watching T.V after the first Gulf War. The commercials are too much to bear and the propaganda is insulting. I’m still searching though for an reliable, up-to-date, informative, anti-corporate news source.
The Mainstream Media is too convenient a scapegoat. The problem is not the media, it’s US! Read the CD article about Code Pink. Since the begining of this thing, expresssions of doubt, or questioning the official line has been met by savage responses by a fair slice of our fellow citizens. I was attending a conference in downtown Chicago just before the invasion, and the moderator referred angrily to the rabble down in the streets protesting the war and snarling traffice. Most members of the audience grumbled and growled in agreement. Around the time of the “shock and awe” phase, I was watching Peter Jennings on the evening broadcast, when he warned viewers that they might find the images he was about to present offensive and upsetting. What was he going to show us?! Dead Iraqi children?! A flattended Iraqi hospital?! No, the footage was of war protesters. The MSM has gone out of its way not to offend the patriotic, bigoted, and bloodthirsty sentiments of the American citizenry. The problem, again, folks is US! We are a sick and twisted people on a binge to get ours before its too late.
If you watch Corporate T.V.with very few exceptions, you are either being brainwashed or dumbing down your brain.For the most part, it is a vast wasteland of:(1).Calumy and lies. (2)Nonsense.(3) A perdition of your time.
People ask me which HD tv I am going to purchase. I tell them my current tv is twenty five years old and seldom watched and that I have no intention of buying another tv, nor a digital converter. It’s the only time being celibate ever felt good.
Duh, who do ‘top NBC\MSNBC execs’ work for?
General Electric owns NBC. General Electric is one of the world’s largest defense contractors.
Microsoft is GE’s partner in MSNBC. Microsoft is the world’s largest monopoly.
People act surprised by this. And they act like its a mistake that can be corrected with a few letters to the editors or outraged editorials. But, when NBC\MSNBC is owned by major corporations that do a lot of business with the US military, why would anyone expect the execs at these networks to make decisions that would hurt the bottom line at MS or GE?
We continually seem to expect that these corporations will act against their own best interests to act in favor of our best interests. Why, I haven’t a clue.
If you treat everything on these networks as propaganda designed to enhance the corporate bottom line, you’ll have it about right.
Me, I used the parental blocking features on my Tv systems to block these channels ages ago.
1987. That’s when my University chums turned me on to turning off the TV. That was a gateway - a gateway to a number of bizarre drunken artistic performance-art demolisions of the hardware itself. Saw one that involved a shotgun. Saw many that involved the roof of a building and a hard concrete surface. The last one I participated in involved a very well-constructed TV drop 4 storeys, take a bad bounce, and do $3000 damage to a cafeteria wall-of-windows. Eventually we all learn our lesson, sometimes the hard way.
Remember that show Second City, with that opening-sequence clip of an apartment building with dozens of TVs flying off the balconies, and smashing on the pavement below?
I also have an image in my mind that makes me laugh any time I need, of Elvis inventing “Instant Off TV”. Yup, still works like a charm.
Anyway, I do see a TV now and again, and am just shocked at the BS level. Fearmongering, glamourizing sociopathy, promoting insecurity. And shocked to see how viewers who are accustomed just lap it up like sweet spring water.
At Nuremberg, some of the defendants were leaders in the German media who had enthusiastically pushed the Nazi propaganda.
During the bombing of Yugoslavia back in the Clinton years, the pentagon got caught putting Army psy-ops personnel directly into the CNN newsrooms.
They just changed proceedures, but the goal remains the same. And the ‘goal’ of the US military is highly toxic to concepts like a ‘free country’ or ‘democracy’ or ‘a government of the people, by the people and for the people’.
Note, if you use it correctly, your TV can bring you Democracy Now, Free Speech TV, Bill Moyers, etc.
Like anything else, its a tool. It can be used to enhance productivity and creativity and free thinking. Or not.
I quit the network news cold turkey in May 2005, only watching video sections of the Katrina disaster that fall (no audio to avoid the spin). PBS is down to a trickle and will soon be gone too. BBC too. I feel I’m now better informed, less confused, and less mis-informed. Corporate network news is nothing but spin, propaganda and trash (and free advertising for the pharmaceuticals). It was obvious then and it is so now. The only way to avoid this mind trash is to stop watching it, boycott it, because it’s not going to change anytime soon. Not unless everyone turns it off at the same time.
Remember the scene from “Network” when everyone stuck their heads out the window at the same time and shouted “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more!”?
Unplug the Cable!!! It’s been over 7 years for me. Nothing but garbage for ‘content’, full of mis-information, dis-information, and as Chomsky says, an extremely narrow “window of acceptable discourse”. Throw it out. We watch movies we want, when we want, on DVD on the Computer. And, don’t even get me going on the Commercials…
May Day (international labor day) Take off from work and support the west coast longshoreman for a day in protesting the “war” in Iraq. You all give me hope! Good comments, people.
I’ve been off of cable for 16 years to the month with no regrets. During Gulf War I I didn’t even have a TV and relied exclusively on Shortwave Radio. There was no commercial access to the Internet then few websites, no audio streaming (hadn’t been invented yet)and no blogs. I bought the last Realistic DX-440 shortwave receiver in Texas just days before the war to listen to BBC, CBC, Deutche Welle, Radio Netherlands, Greece’s Foni Tis Hellenas, Radio Havana, Radio For Peace International from Costa Rica and importantly Pacifica Radio affiliate KPFT in Houston. No TV though. I learned the hard way after the Panama Invasion. Last “war” I enthusiatically supported. Well no more.
We would all be better informed if we turned off the TV. It’s not just the pablum that is passed off as entertainment, or the propaganda that is passed off as news. It’s about giving up control of your life. The TV, and now the Internet, are where we turn for answers to everything. Without the TV we would have to start thinking for ourselves. Not easy in a country where taking the easy way out is a philosophy.
Hoa binh
How naive. As if General Electric, the sixth largest Defense Department contractor, and the owner of NBC, MSNBC etc., would need to be “forced” to do the bidding of Cheneybush, who stated in Dec, 03:
“Companies from countries opposed to the conflict in Iraq will be barred from bidding for new rebuilding contracts worth $18.6bn, the Pentagon has said.”
In other words, GE had a choice - do what you’re told, or lose 78% of your total revenues. Cohen doesn’t consider that “force?” Maybe a better term would be economic terrorism…?
Let’s not forget - our energy policy was created in secret via Cheney and his gang of super-thieves without any input from anyone who wasn’t in it for the huge payoffs.
The CIA, FBI, and all military branches maintain “liaison offices” in Hollywood to ensure the “right message” is pushed. They do not need to overtly state the obvious: “right message” or else.
No, JC, you’re totally wrong - Big Corp Media was, and continues to be, forced to propagandize for the present war criminal occupiers of our White House.
I’d like to draw your attention to the first two frames of this brilliant and classic Calvin and Hobbes comic.
http://nonsequitur2.blogspot.com/2006/12/calvin-and-hobbs-opiate-of-masses.html
Calvin and Hobbs on Marx and Religion - though it’s really about TV.
The pimps and prostitutes walking the scuzziest streets of the scuzziest cities in America are Nobel Prize winners compared to the jackals and buzzards of the MSM.
If you have given up on the mainstream media and its increasingly abysmal journalistic standards, you could try an alternative…..
www.bbc.co.uk
or
www.aljazeera.net/english
I don’t watch news on TV because there isn’t any. I have become a pretty accomplished musician as a result….perhaps I’ll learn ‘War Pigs’ by Ozzy but no one wants to hear the truth about War Pigs in politics.
Cohen goes into great detail here on the subject of MSM-US military psy-ops collusion, great job Jeff, keep up the good work. But does it all surprise me? No. Like other folks say here before my posting, this type of propaganda was already happening during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Still, the NY Times article which really goes into such detail about this massive corporate media-US military propaganda operation in the run up to the Iraq invasion is…just…really sickening! Fucking lying through their teeth and deliberately brainwashing Americans. No wonder so many Americans have their head up their ass regarding Bush, the Iraq War, Fox News, etc. Just turn on the boob tube and be brainwashed. This country is so extremely fucked up right now…we have never lost our way and strayed so far from the ideals this country was founded on as we have since 2000.
There are some hidden nuggets on the information low-road.
Check PBS.org for listings of some excellent productions such as:
Bush’s War
Cheney’s Law
Sick Around the World
I also catch CSPAN’s Washington Journal call-in show (7AM EDT,daily) as a diagnostic probe of corpus USA. It provides a wide sampling of opinions held by people who are at least paying some attention to the world around them. Taken over the past 8 years, the gradual attitudinal shift has been interesting. The jingoistic majority of Bush worshipers has been steadily displaced by the disheartened, desperate and bewildered. Still ripe, I fear, for another round of demagoguery. And since we have no shortage of demagogues in waiting…
Ever seen those Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig cartoons that are WWII Propaganda? They don’t show those on TV anymore… But really, MilProp is an ancient technology.
Boy was I naive. I thought that the coverage after 9/11 and leading up to the Iraq war was just bad journalism. While I knew that most of the media (TV, radio, and print) was corporate owned and controlled, I still bought into the lie that shoddy journalism allowed the real stories from coming out. Oh, I knew and still know that that’s part of it, but thanks to this article for cluing me into the fact that the shit we are fed is very well thought out and orchestrated.
Someone above said that the problem is not the media, it is us. While I get this, I also know that the problem really is big media! It is the fact that big media is really nothing more than a tool to keep the people “entertained” and ignorant of the truth. And I know that big media is ALL major sources of “news”, including NPR and PBS.
No democracy can survive in such a situation. If I knew nothing else about what our government does to stifle true democracy, just knowing this instructs me that we are well on the road to fascism.
Mordechai Shiblikov: I’ll drink to that!
“No federal agency forced NBC and MSNBC to put McCaffrey on the air unopposed”
No, but a coporate agency did…NBC is a subsidiary of GE, the worlds second largest company, and the largest in the USA…also the largest military supplier in the world.
Side note: in 1945 GE was accused of criminal consiracy with Krupps, a major Nazi munitions firm. they artificially raised the cost of US Defense preparations while subsidising Hitler’s rearmament of Germany.
Big money,
Just to set the record straight, Marx never wrote “Religion is the opiate of the masses” What he did say was this:
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.”
Furthermore, in those days, “opium” was usually used in the context of “pain reliever” not “harmful addictive substance” as it is today.
I’ve become enamored with pamphleteering - short, concise brochures on various progressive issues - in order to bypass the mainstream media and get to persuadables on a range of issues. To teach them, say, about the Iraq occupation, or Israel-Palestine, or why impeachment is needed, etc.
Well, thanks, USAn, Calvin’n'Hobbes is perhaps not the best source of history. But I do like the TV’s witty comeback.
I’d say, TV these days is like the tubes that go into the backs of people’s necks in the Matrix. Keeps them pumped chock full of an illusion that has nothing to do with the world they are living in. ‘Cause if they knew about the world they really were living in, they might be more inclined to try to do something about it.
Based on the Blue Pill from that movie (which sends you back to delusion land), and the little blue pills that power today’s media, I like to refer to the vast majority of Corporate Broadcasting as “The Blue Pill Media”.
Cohen was one of the few with their fingers in the dikes that were holding back the flood of bombs and invasion, and now, over five years of occupation. Donahue and Moyers were oases of sanity. But, Donahue’s sanity was too much for MSNBC to tolerate.
It is not only TVland that is subject to censorship. Why aren’t films such as The Corporation and The Eleventh Hour (the latter which at least available for purchase on-line for only $4.99) available in video rental shops? Why isn’t The Revolution Will Not Be Televised on the coup on Chavez available on dvd? And, why has The World According To Monsanto disappeared from the internet? I viewed it immediately after being pointed to it by a commenter on CD. I wished I had saved it.
And, back to TV, if the networks were any more than pieces of crap, all of the above films and tons of others would be cycled on their stations like so many mediocre films are now ad nuaseum.
Currently, major web providers are aiding and abetting the strict censorship imposed by the Government in China. Amnesty International currently carries articles on this and provides means by which you can urge your Congresspeople to support a bill currently under consideration to curtail this collaboration.
Turning off your TV does not solve the problem. The problem is that we have this massive propaganda machine that masquerades itself as fair and balanced reporting. People take what they see on TV as fact. When a retired army general tells them something is true, many people, especially those who were socialized to respect and honor unquestioningly those very generals, believe them. We need to find ways to discredit this propaganda, to counter it, to interrupt it, to change it. Because while a few hundred/thousand enlightened souls may not be exposing themselves to the effect of this media manipulation, there are millions who are unwittingly being brainwashed by it. This is not just about one individual changing his or her actions, which amounts to putting our heads in the sand. It’s about all of us exposing the media for what it is. I thank the nuns in grammar school who told us about Soviet propaganda for helping me to see our government up to the very same tricks. I also thank FAIR for doing such a great job of exposing media hypocrisy. Now I see, when I am forced to watch CNN at my gym (because the TVs are on and right in my face) how there is a definite connection between the pro-war cheerleading and the commercials for sponsors like McDonnel-Douglass, the army, GE, big pharmaceuticals, etc..
“WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon has suspended a program that fed information about the Iraq war to retired military officers who appeared on U.S. television networks as independent analysts, the Defense Department said on Monday.”
I wonder why General Mayhem did that.
I’d like to suggest a new term for us to use to describe the MSM:
MAINSTREAM COMEDIA
I think it more accurately describes how truly laughable their programming has become.
The article and most of the comments following remind me of
nothing so much as the scene in Orwell’s 1984. Winston and
Julia have found this room above a shop where there is no
view screen. (TV) Then one day a large painting suddenly falls from the wall revealing a View screen upon which all
that Winston and Julia have been doing is visible to “Big
Brother” Makes you wonder about the new HDTV. don’t it?
All this old hippy watches on TV is Law and Order, CSI and
spin-offs there-of. When a commercial comes on, I have my
handy dandy “mute” button
Whatcha’ got?
20″, 27″, 32″, 40″, 42″, 50″ —- 60″ *five feet* of TV screen in your home?
DUMPING SEWAGE INTO YOUR LIVING ROOM 8 - 10 HOURS A DAY ??? !!!!!
Its no wonder American’s can’t think
Kill your TV
My wife and I were looking into getting rid of our television, so on a whim I called Comcast to see how much cheaper my bill would be. Ha! It would actually be about $15 more per month if didn’t have the cable TV and only the Internet. However, TV has gotten so bad that I might actually pay the extra $15 to get rid of the TV.
I’d love a 60″ screen to watch DVDs on. But I too stopped watching TV years ago.
Hey Old Hippy, you’re right on. I was thinking of 1984 also. And i’ve also been seeing the military ads
on TV, at least MST. The one that shows the unmanned drones protecting “us” from the evil
doers is the most dirturbing. Put out by the Air force. You too can man a joy stick that actually kills
other human beings. The ultimate video game isn’t it?
Legislation to enact the Fairness Doctrine (previously only an FCC Rule, which was eliminated by the Reagan Administration) and also enact the Equal Time Rule, so that candidates get equal time in debates and public affairs programs, should be among the highest priorities of the new administration.
The media reform groups should be advocating this reform primarily, not just emphasizing the abusive multiple ownership of tv and radio stations and newspapers in the same market. Even with so many outlets, they could not get away with what they do, if we had a law that was the Fairness Doctrine and one for Equal Time.
Any CDers within range of San Francisco should try to show solidarity with these folks on May 1.
This is the event our fellow CDer peaceman has been talking about in above post.
Think of it - a slap at Pelosi in her own back yard.
I wonder why CindyBabe has not mentioned it hmmmmm?
D’ya think Daniel D or KEM would come?
Clash ahead over longshore union war protest
George Raine, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Members of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union are proceeding with plans for a work stoppage at 29 West Coast ports on May 1 to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the fact that union leadership has withdrawn its request to waterfront employers that they accommodate closure of the ports.
Planning for the protest began in February when the Longshore Caucus, the highest decision-making body for the 25,000 members of the longshore division within the ILWU, overwhelmingly approved a resolution in support of a day of protest.
…… for remainder see:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/26/BUC610C2HA.DTL&hw=longshore&sn=001&sc=1000
Here’s something we can all do with our tax rebate: Support independent media.
Does anybody really believe anything that the so-called “experts” say anymore?
An excellent essay. One of very few to have been written on this important topic. Words do matter. According to the network executives: Retired military are “analysts” i.e. “experts”. Conversely, Experts in the field of human rights, are “advocates.”
There were many “experts” with expertise in both areas, at The Winter Soldier Hearings.
I certainly look forward to seeing them offer their expert “analysis” of the Iraq war, on cable and network television news.
(No, I’m not holding my breath. I’d die.)
For some other perspective on this topic, check out this website:
http://zenhuber.blogspot.com/
Commander Huber nails it. As usual.
Several years ago just after the second Gulf bonanza for the rich began, we were having a new roof put on our house. The roofer told us he would have to take down our satellite, but just for overnight, he promised to put it back up the next day, but we’d have to have the satellite people reinstall it. Hassle. We thought about it overnight. We told the roofer to leave the satellite in the carport. We called the satellite people to take it away. We save a TON of money. We have no TV reception at all. Period. Best thing we ever did!! We can still watch our favorite shows on DVD with NO commercials. We can follow the news on-line with Common Dreams, et al. To anyone reading this: throw your cable/satellite out and enjoy your life instead of being brainwashed into oblivion.
Cindy’s answer to above post - Yeah!!!!
“cindysheehan April 28th, 2008 7:08 pm
Why haven’t I mentioned it?
I have written a letter of solidarity to ILWU and I will be there to speak and march with my brothers and sisters.
Am I the CindyBabe you mention, Janelly?
Love
Cindy”
Speaking of 1984 - When I first read the book in the early 80s I wondered how televisions could be made to spy on people. Last year I bought a new laptop with built-in camera and microphone. Always tied into the internet through a DSL modem via a wireless router. Type and browse anything you like and your thoughts can be read from afar. Hello 1984 with a feedback loop that allows the propagandists to refine their efforts.
Curmudgeon99: Thanks. I’m hoping we have a big turnout. I wouldn’t work on Thursday if they paid me triple time! We have got to start somewhere, as you know. Emails, letters to the editors, phone calls, faxes, weekend marches haven’t helped after five and a half years. Direct action is what’s needed. Cindy will be there.
MSM is worthless except for local news, and even then many of the issues are slanted.
“Then one day a large painting suddenly falls from the wall revealing a View screen upon which all
that Winston and Julia have been doing is visible to “Big
Brother” Makes you wonder about the new HDTV. don’t it?”
It sure does. Maybe it’s just my diminished eye sight, I did not and do not see the “unbelievable fantastic difference in quality” that they talk about when I see one of those new TVs. I just know that I won’t have one because I gave TV up awhile ago. It was a revolutionary idea (at that time) that I heard of here, on this site. I thank you all for the brilliancy that you share.
Corporate media is owned by the same tiny class of millionaires and billionaires that completely controls Washington. That is why there are always so many former regime officials on corporate media.
Why don’t people join together in a class action against television channels. Things like fraud, deception, brain-washing, misrepresentation, trickery, manipulation, etc, are surely crimes against humanity?
As cigarettes and booze poison our bodies, television poisons our minds. We deserve better. Sue now while you can still think!
This comment has been brought to you by Dangerous Creation where, like CD, truth is valued.
PEACEMAN and/or CURMUDGEON99
Always wanted to see San Francisco.
Any suggestions for places to stay, should I find myself able to make it? A limited budget always means making judicious choices: the more one spends on lodging, the less one has left over for other, more interesting things.
Just as he stresses that no one compelled the media to slant its coverage so blatantly, I stress that no one compels you to watch said drivel. I gave up TV in ‘73, when I first moved abroad and never regretted it. I have no TV, no radio, no CDs and no MP3. My home is my refuge; the ambient noise is the wind in the palms, the birds singing and the distant sound of the surf sometimes (Maui). I’m a political activist in addition to my day job (principal) and don’t want to waste time in front of mind-controlling propaganda geared to fifth graders. For that, I pay and go to the movies!
My conservative friend who thinks he’s a democrat… yet unconsiously espouts just about every right wing catch phrase out there….. claims that he’s left of center BECAUSE he listens to NPR.
National Propaganda Radio. I realized something was amiss in the runup to war when NPR had just about 0 war dissenters in their coverage. All stories drew a pro-war conclusion.
Check out the station ownership of the stations NPR is carried on- Metro News. It has the monopoly on radio news across the country in every city. A MONOPOLY.
I believe NPR is conservative thinking, masquerading as a ‘lefty’ station. It’s a real false flag.
Did you know NPR puts out casting calls for different regional accents, east coast english, southern spanglish, english with cuban spanish, ect. They have actors read the 1st person quotes in some of their news stories. Problem is… they don’t disclose the fact that it’s a re-enactment vs. a true witness report in the broadcast you hear. Folks, what you’re listening to is nothing more than radio theater.
I only have a couple comments to add:
OK, we don’t watch MSM - but we’re not the problem. We’re only about 5% of the population. The rest of the people are the problem - and we’re not going to get them away from their addiction by attacking them. We have to TALK to our neighbors and suggest how they are being manipulated - without insulting them. That’s not easy, but it can be done.
Now to you liberals - I have a bone to pick with a lot of you. I tried working with the liberals before the war started - having lots of military friends and an international background, I knew there would be no way to unscramble the Iraqi omelet - once the disaster started, it could only escalate. So I respectfully asked liberals to follow a few rules in their protests and rallies - like dress neatly, print their signs professionally, and act and march as if they were in the military - that’s what conservatives (and most people) respect. Well, they were outraged, to say the least. (Ask Danny Schecter - I rattled his site with some of my observations!)
Well, it ended up like herding cats - that’s what it is like to work with liberals. Now I’m a progressive conservative (yes, there is such an animal, as well as traditional anti-war conservatives). I like neat and orderly, well-behaved and well-dressed, and an appeal that makes people feel SAFE AND SECURE. Which most liberal rallies ARE NOT.
Ever wonder why so many people are attracted to and respect the military? It’s not just the uniforms, although a certain conformity does give people a feeling of safety and security - that’s why police and firemen wear uniforms - they really don’t need them for identification, except identification with a well-ordered, well-trained, dependable agency. (This is also why McD’s has a standard menu, standard store models, and uniforms - that was from Day One of their existence.)
Now you all know Phil Donahue was wildly popular - even though he was required to have 2 fascists to every liberal in his show. So it’s not like the people were stupid or didn’t want anti-war information. The fascists had a plan - and they’ve followed it - just like the original Nazis did. And it works. Progressives have no such plan, tactics, or strategy - and they can’t get millions of people to phone in and write letters at a drop of a hat. That’s why the fascists always use churches to promote their agenda - they have an obedient, frightened, insecure group of people who self-identify with each other, readymade for anyone to use for any purpose. And the fascists know how to use them - especially the Evangelicals, who are the most frightened and insecure. (Notice they’re always trolling among the poorest and most vulnerable people - just like pimps.) But you can’t say that to their faces - you have to treat them with respect and tell them how their lives will be safer, better, and more moral if they follow our cause.
Anyway, MSM is hip-deep in the war machine. It’s not going to change when so much money is involved. They’re selling WAR because of all those multi-billion-dollar government contracts - they won’t respond to people unless A LOT OF PEOPLE complain, vociferously, consistently, and repeatedly. Then they might have to try to switch products - instead, because there is so little resistance, they just try a harder sell. They go rid of Phil Donahue for a reason - he threatened their meal-ticket. We have to do the same. And do it without scaring people - no unruly mobs, no scrawled signs, no screaming and yelling, no mad faces - any time we’re out in public. (And please don’t bring up statistics - they drive people crazy.) We need to make US seem the safer option - and then people will choose US instead of the fascists (who promise and deliver control - the trains ran on time in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.)
Military propaganda is not going to end until we have a better product to replace it. We need to offer a better option - and this has to be an EMOTIONAL appeal. That’s what people really respond to best. We need to adopt the conservative agenda, tactics, and strategy - but not the fascist goals, of course. That may be hard for liberals(or progressives) to do - but that’s what it is going to take! The truth sucks sometimes - and this is one of those times.
Fascism is unsustainable and doomed to fail. There is no question about that. But I’d rather not see our country end up like Germany and Europe during WWII - and I saw that. So stop preaching to the choir and start listening to the conservatives - who know how to get things done, even with a small minority. (Fascists are less than 5% of the poplation - in most countries.) We ARE the majority - we’re just not selling our product properly. Drop the ego-trip and start making the changes we need to WIN. Nobody is coming to save us - it’s up to us to do this, and we CAN get the rest of the people to support us.
I never had much interest in TV, and even dropped my PBS membership when they, too, got on the LIES bandwagon. But it’s out there - and it’s highly addictive. And dangerously twisted. It’s a real threat - and we can’t take it over. We’re going to have to win this the hard way - one person at a time.
Remember what Hitler told the protesters - “Your children will know nothing else.” That’s what we are dealing with today - at least 2 generations raised on neo-fascism, and the last 7 years with a full-blown psychopath in charge. What do you think the kids in school are learning about ‘our president’??? Do you think the teachers are telling kids that he’s a psychopath? A fascist? A monster like Hitler? Well, do you? You think TV is bad - check out your schools! That’s the first place the fascists invaded - and they had good reason to do so.
Okay, guys - see if you can punch holes in my statements. I challenge you to fault my reasoning.
You make good points. The only problem I see is that the fascists have co-opted technology on their side. And they use technology unabashedly, to it’s fullest extent of power, with no thought of ‘greeness’ or ’social justice’. A progressive on the other hand is restricted by their moral global conscious not to ‘over-use’ technology. Yet, the battles today are in the realm of overwhelming technology… media consolidation, military indismal complex, and unbridled resource consumption.
To put it another way…. on a hypothetical cross country whistle stop type ‘paint your bumper with a slogan’ campaign… A fascist would drive a Semi truck with a 50′ slogan on the side. A progressive would drive a Prius with about 5′ of slogan displayed. Ok, so that’s a fictitious and rather off the wall example but what I’m saying is that the enemy is playing by a different rule book. And the problem is their rule book knows no bounds- socially, morally, or environmentally. It’s akin to putting out a fire with a squirt gun.
So how do we operate in a globally environmentality friendly fashion, effectively against a fascist who has no remorse when it comes to using super machines, dirty tricks, and mega weapons?
fakedemocracy, you are right, NPR and Public Television have been taken over by the Right.
It only makes sense, since the commercials they run on the “NON commercial” public airwaves are often tied to military, chemical, Oil, genetically modified seeds, intellectual patent corporate giants, banks, investment firms and others trying to take over the world.
This week Public TV is playing an 18? part documentary series called “Carrier” about a US aircraft Carrier, “brought to you by the Navy” etc. Tonight they showed a recruitment ad, but it was just part of the show I’m sure. The executive producer is Mel Gibson (the actor/producer) who is now a US citizen and rabid Right wingnut. Welcome to the USA Mel, throw another Muslim on the Barby k?
ads from Boing (makes cruise missiles etc.) ADM(seeds) Chevron etc, Wall mart, Auto manufacturers on and on.
Bushco is trying to run the public airwaves into the ground, and soon the internets.
The news is informative in it’s own way. For example, when they all agree on a given story and it’s slant, they are giving you the lie, or it is a staged event providing a message they want you to believe.
When they take different sides, these are the divide and rule issues, to keep you fighting each other and ignoring the larger issues. At least one of that group, if not both, are targets of the elite, and not necessarily the one you think (eg FLDS event is a staged one most likely to resemble future families and social values)
Of course, you can shut off the news, Ignorance is bliss you may think, but it is also their strength.
As to know who is pulling the strings in the conspiracy behind the media and their propaganda, one only looks at who benefits from the favourable coverage in the news, or who seems to be most protected from accusations of wrong doing. I mean, you can’t question 9/11, or Israel. While you can criticize the Fed, you can not criticize the Rothschild system of banking that has gone global and allows money to control nations. You also are told that globalization and free markets are necessary (notice they don’t use free “competitive” markets), and there is no serious discussion against it.
So who is behind this. Consider the food and oil situation. Oil is high, prices have doubled in 11 months, this makes food and energy expensive, and supplies are tight because both Oil and Food are now controlled by cartels, meaning little competition. But they tell us the problem is not WTO and “free” trade, or free market cartels, but that we have too many people who are harming mother earth and giving her a fever called Global Warming, while we are running out of oil, both of which are myths.
What is the agenda? Consider in August 1988, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, otherwise known as the Prince of Genocide, was quoted ” “In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation.” In his book People as Animals — Philip compared his views to those of the Fabian genocidalist Lord Bertrand Russell, who had defined alleged overpopulation as the greatest threat to the oligarchical way of life.
When you look behind the curtain, you will see the Luciferian Wizard of the Illuminati, who seeks to end religion and break up your families, and eliminate surplus humanity not needed to provide for the oligarchs comfort and pleasure.
Maybe they are right, if people are too stupid not to figure things out, despite all that has happened, maybe the herd should be culled.
Here in the UK, we have been seeing more and more commercials for the armed forces. They normally involve individuals in far off lands - usually dark skinned - who tell a little story, of how the British army saved them from death/mutilation/rape/torture. At the end of the commercial, you see a Chinook flying out of a battle zone, and the words “join the best”.
Our news reports feature Prince Harry and his most amazing adventure in Afghanistan, where he faced Terry Taliban. There was an article last night about “Harry’s Heroes”, telling the story of a soldier who lost an arm and a leg in Afghanistan, but still believes that he did the right thing, and hopes to run in the London marathon next year.
Meanwhile we get to hear little or nothing, about the Iraqis/Afghan civilians who are still suffering.
Yes the media are partly responsible for this, but they are (as Cyon has pointed out) pandering to the lowest common denominator, the brainless masses, who gorge themselves on images of war, and may even enjoy them - after all, shock and awe was real, it wasn’t a movie.
SESNO: We bring the generals in because of their expertise in a particular area. We call them analysts. We don’t bring them in as advocates.
The CNN VP was effectively telling Goodman that CNN had already decided there was to be no controversy over the war, no debate. When a war is being executed there can be no debate because the nation is supposed to show a united front to look more intimidating to the victims to get them to surrender sooner and “save lives”. Then after the “democracy” rollout, CNN, McDonands, General Electric, Dow, Merck, Monsanto, Exxon and the rest can move in to “improve lives” further. So get with the program you lefties, you’re so “left behind”.
armybrat:
Your “argument,” such as it was, was merely a PSYOPS propaganda message; it certainly wasn’t an argument per se.
KILL YOUR TELEVISION….The media’s hands are as bloody as Bush/Cheney’s….”Journalists” would rather DIE than actually do any work, any work that requires a brain and a spine….So LET THEM!
“Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated”. Compliance is not an option, apparently for the mainstream mass media.
Ascott,
I have no particular suggestion for a place to stay in San Francisco. Maybe Curmudgeon99 has. The prices in the SF Bay area are high, and some travelers stay on the outskirts (the Peninsula) or across the Bay on the Alameda County side where lodging is a wee bit cheaper. Or, those motel/hotel magazines listing places in various towns might come in handy. I’ll be in that area today and check for places to stay, Ascott, and will return with information late in the afternoon and will post something for you. Thanks!
My husband and I quit listening to main stream media news years ago. He listens to 15 minutes of local news at dinner time. But, that’s it for the TV news. The news we get is online news. I remember the lead up to the Iraq War. It was disgusting the harping and carping that was going on. These people (Bush, cronies and MSM) were so transparent it was unbelievable so many American’s bought into the lie. Which only shows how gullible the average American really is. There was literally no evidence to back up their claims except what Bush was telling people. But, people I worked with bought it hook, line and sinker. But, the people responsible for the carnage will never be made to pay for their crimes against humanity. I just hope people have learned their lesson on being worked into a frenzy by war mongers bent on destruction. Because as long as this Administration and people like them are in office it’s going to be the same old roll-a-coaster ride!
armybrat - What I respect most is a person who keeps thinking and seeking truth and solutions for problems. It is a hard road. So even if we may disagree on some points, I respect you thinking and having the courage to put it out there. None of us has all the answers.
For many years I worked in hospitals. Although I feel that jeans would have been the perfect garment for my job, I dressed conservatively because it reassured many patients and their families that they were in professional hands. Superficial, maybe, but it is a real phenomenon. A little bit more marketing savvy would not hurt progressives.
So I agree that neat personal presentation makes one’s message more effective. As for marching like we were in the military - don’t know how unless there is great music. We need more music and more up to date music in the peace movement.
CYON/ANDY UK: There is a reason why education is a fundament of humanity’s evolution. Before public education, there was apprenticeship. The point being: the masses are like a malleable clay, and their thought process can be directed one way or another. Evolved and awakened souls take a more direct responsibility for their own enlightenment/education, but most are influenced by their cultural milieu. In America, that ambiance has been infiltrated every which way by images of gross power, sports macho, militarism, competition, personal ego-aggression, etc.
In other words, if life is a dance, then it takes 2 (forces) to tango. The media is a MAJOR influence in the “musical cues” that the vast majority move to. How does the dreamer RECOGNIZE the awakened state? So many are asleep… they do not know they are being lied to. As someone else commented (in this thread) they see these well-groomed generals speaking in hushed tones about war and BELIEVE them!
ARMY BRAT: I don’t have time to respond to your interesting post, but I’ll catch you later on some thread!
The fourth estate is nearly extinct. The only objective broadcast news that I get every week is one hour of Democracy Now! aired by a university radio station one hundred miles away. C-SPAN BOOK TV will also air the oppositional (to the prevailing warmongering) viewpoints of writers on the weekends. But I don’t know anyone else in my local community who watches/listens to these programs. The university radio station also broadcasts the outstanding “Alternative Radio” program, directly after Democracy Now!. It may be the last, best bastion of freedom of speech and freedom of thought.
Thanks, PEACEMAN.
Regardless of how things work out for me, certainly others can use the info!
Jeff Cohen, you were silenced. I haven’t read your book, so I don’t know the particulars. But if you were silenced, why not any other journalist who dared to challenge the system? I think the journalists know what they reporting to us (lies and propaganda) is wrong, but that they would be off the air, just like you, if they did resist. And, unfortunately, they don’t have the intestinal fortitude to stand up, band together, give up huge salaries or ask Democracy Now for a job. People are so human. There are only a handful like Ghandi and Kucinich.
All the big television stations are owned by big corporations that support the Bush administration and the Repulican (cult) party. Viacon owns CBS- which backs the Repulican party. Fox news is owned by Ruppert Murdock, another Bush lover. G.E. owns NBC, another Bush lover, who supported Bush and the Republican party just like all the others including ABC, owned by Disney, another big supporter of Bush and the Repulican party. I remember a journalist from Canada was told by all of these stations not to say anything against Bush and the war or he would never be allowed back to their stations for interviews. All of the true journalists were told this by the producer of the shows. Even PBS which is run by a Republican who by the way, manipulated the screen everytime Michael Moore was interviewed by Charlie Rose, I believe his name is. Everytime he interviewed MM the screen suddenly went blank after a few minutes into the interview and a different interviewie was being interviewed by Charlie Rose. ONce was when MM was to talk about his book on 9-11 and again on his movie about 9-11. And later, in front of Congressional leaders, the Repulican who ran PBS actually declared that he was the one who played with the satilite and made the changes to keep MM from doing his interviews. Charlie Rose evidently was aware of this both times and never mentioned it and allowed this to happen. Therefore, i believe he is one of the hundreds of journalists who are on the Bush and Republican parties payroll. I haven’t watched him since. He’s just a whore to Bush and his party, like hundreds of others. Is there a true journalist anymore that isn’t on the take from the lunatics who are running this country. They are bigger crooks than the mob. This country has gone to hell in a hand basket.
Armybrat
Good post overall.
You could take your own advice and package your message without unappealing details (we are “progressives” not ” you liberals”).
I disagree 100% with your characterization of educators being so complacent with Bush’s neocon agenda. Most of the teachers where I teach think of Bush as exactly what he is “a lying sack of 5h177le”.
I balance such harsh criticisms of Bush in front of my students to include all governments worldwide as “dishonest” and then turn the discussion into one of “why aren’t our checks and balances working?” I try to challenge them, “How can we be more proactive?”
Education is a key, but the hegemony of the mass media is all going against the progressive peace movement. We are tree-huggers and liberals, right?
I believe our last hope is this medium upon which we converse. If they “deregulate” the internet. I will get the hell out of the USA ASAP.
One of the more sad programs I saw was of military people who had lost limbs - yes plural in the occupation of Iraq. They were very happy in the thought that they could give to their country. It was so sad because these people were determined to go back into combat. A woman pilot especially, she had lost both legs and her dominate arm. She spoke again and again about how happy she was that with the one arm that she had left she could train herself to again pilot that plane as all that was needed was use of the joystick.
I think they all too the blue pill because they seemed so detached from their experience.
One of the more sad programs I saw was of military people who had lost limbs - yes plural in the occupation of Iraq. They were very happy in the thought that they could give to their country. It was so sad because these people were determined to go back into combat. A woman pilot especially, she had lost both legs and her dominate arm. She spoke again and again about how happy she was that with the one arm that she had left she could train herself to again pilot that plane as all that was needed was use of the joystick.
I think they all tool the blue pill because they seemed so detached from their experience.
Summer93, I either saw or read a piece a while back which I considered to truly be the Brave New World of psychology. It showcased the “progress” being made in returning seriously injured military personnel to combat.
This piece stressed the “advantages” of veterans once considered disabled returning to active duty, and of course featured testimonials from troopers, um, dying to go back to war. The case being made was that the traditional approach of discharging veterans was full of psychological pitfalls: the already-traumatized soldier, in this view, was doomed to suffer feelings of worthlessness, depression, alienation, survivor’s guilt, etc. By being ripped away from their buddies, and thrown back into civilian life, they had no motivation or incentive to enthusiastically participate in rehabilitation therapy.
Returning the patient to duty, on the other hand, gave them an incentive to get as well as possible in order to rejoin their buddies and continue with the mission. And, just as you noted, there were seriously wounded soldiers who happily bought into this lethal variation of the Stockholm Syndrome.
The creepy thing is that it seemed so “sensible”, even though it stood the ideas of healing and therapy on its head.
It is truly possible that we’re not far from having cyberpersons– part human leftovers, part machines– deployed in combat. The Borg are only semi-fictional these days.
Ascott and others:
Check out hostels in Bay Area here:
http://www.hostels.com/en/us.ca.ba.html
OR
http://sfhostels.com/events/event,1115/instance,2008-4-25/
I used to like to watch CNN, but eventually I realized that the news media was just playing the game, making money for the Big Wigs. Eventually I discovered Air America and that’s where not only do you get the news, but you get some real experts who aren’t afraid to investigate and ferret out what truth they can although it’s difficult nowadays since REAgan and his followers like Bushes and Clintons put a sock in the news. No longer does America see the real war, the real death and destruction. It’s not just the media, it’s the government (ask Cheney) that does not allow the truth out. Best bet: Mike Malloy and Thom Hartmann.
armybrat:
Not quite sure what to make of your post, you raise interesting points, but arent you basically advocating a ‘facist lite’ approach to dealing with issues? I mean you in a way want to coerce the ‘dumb masses’ into realizing that we progressives actually have society’s best interest at heart. However, like FAKEDEMOCRACY said, technology, including weapons, media and in general big bucks are all in the same people’s (from the top down of course) hands. So, how would you suggest convincing people to give up their phones, computers, many job functions, etc for the good cause? Or, instead of giving them up, pay someone else? I don’t get it. We are all pretty complicit in terms of what drives and has been driving these people towards more and more power right? I mean we probably all use GE products, or GE’s subsidiaries products….WTF
And uniforms, and neatly written signs?? Ok, really, s the last time someone was seriously hurt at a liberal rally in the States? And I don’t mean hurt by your ‘perceived’ lack of fashion sense…
“We have to do the same. And do it without scaring people - no unruly mobs, no scrawled signs, no screaming and yelling, no mad faces - any time we’re out in public.”
I do realize we are on the same side here, but taking up strategies/tactics that the right has seems like the wrong direction for anyone with any sense of respect and moral apttitude. Sometimes people yell when they are emotionally connected to an issue, thats kinda what makes us human, no? anything less would be weird as hell…
But I give it to you, the right, and neocons especially, know how to smile and use big words, and then when your stupid (not you per se, im just saying) ass turns around, they inact policies to benefit the top, and dick everyone else, i.e stab u in the back.. So is this what we should be doing. If so then i would no longer want the ‘progressive’ label. I’d take it to mean progressive neocon
During the build up to the war, all of the news stations were foaming at the mouth in anticipation of our invasion. I happened to be watching NBC on the day we invaded and I thought that Matt Lauer was going to pull down his pants and start pleasuring himself. I believe he was reporting from Qatar, wearing his military fatigues in the middle of a mideast desert scene with the symbol “Iraqi Freedom” waving in the background. Karl Rove couldn’t have written a better script. I turned the television off and I have never watched TV News, cable or network for anything other than traffic and weather. For anyone who hasn’t been able to figure out that the mainstream corporate media is nothing but a mouthpiece for the wealthy and powerful, I got a bridge to sell you.
Ascott,
Long day and I just returned home and saw Curmudgeon99’s two listings. May you find something suitable from this information. The weather was perfect in the SF Bay area with a slight breeze. We hope you enjoy your stay.
Curmudgeon99, Thanks!
Judi,
How right you are. I miss listening to Mike Malloy and think the world of Mike and Thom. I’ve read some of Hartmann’s books and he writes as well as he speaks. Have you ever listened to the Pacifica stations, Judi?
Their flagship is www.kpfa.org in Berkeley, Ca. Listener supported, commercial free!
Summer93,
A sad but touching post. Some people are convinced the end justifies the means and are convinced they are doing good while they aren’t. Could it be a latent desire to be part of “the group” and acceptance by the them rather than standing alone to question the motives of “the Groups” activities, especially after being an injured victim for doing the dirty work for the barrons of death and destruction?
pod,
Very good!
In response to a question above, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” is listed on Netflix.com, although not yet available, so you can only “save” it to your queue. I don’t know, but maybe the deal is that if enough people “save” it they order some copies.
Netflix has a lot of good documentaries, including many that I would consider leftist. They may also have rightist docs, don’t know as I haven’t looked. Subscription is $9 per month.
One of their documentaries I strongly recommend is “The Ground Truth,” in which Iraq veterans talk about what the war was really like for them. Some of them talk as if they lost their souls in Iraq. I wish there were some way to get everyone to see this. These people have been there, and they have credibility.
I don’t listen to radio, prefering quiet most of the time, but I know there are Internet radio stations. And there’s YouTube. Democracy Now is at http://www.democracynow.org. We do have options, it’s just that it takes time and energy to use them. I manage three political discussion email lists and one website, put out an occasional email newsletter on politics and have a blog, although it’s hard to find any time to put into it, even though I’m retired.
Most of the people I know, even in their 60s, are not retired, and they are running their asses off. Not a good way to live. People tell me they do not have TIME to absorb any more information or think much about politics. Perhaps that is a bigger problem than the mass media?
andrew.herman - I talked to teachers who complained that there were little Right Wing Fascist snitches in their classes that turned them in if they said anything against this administration.
To everyone else who still doesn’t ‘get it’ - keep on preaching to the choir if you want to do that. But if you want to win people over to our side, you have to give them what they want - not what YOU think they should want. A feeling of security is what all people crave first - can’t do anything if you think somebody is breathing down your neck. And unfortunately, humans are programmed to see ‘conformity’ (’they’ are one of ‘us’) as security - safety in numbers.
Liberals often underestimate how important it is to look right - hey, when you see a dark suit and a red tie, do you know which side that person is on? How about jeans and sloppy sweatshirts? I didn’t make these rules - I just observe them.
I want to win this one - we will anyway, since as I said, fascism doesn’t work. But if you want to still be acting like cats, then you’d better get used to losing. Sorry.
Speaking of the PBS series carrier, the “underwriting” csc is a dod contractor. At first I wasn’t going to watch a program geared on people who’s “mission” is to only kill, trust me I’ll win the arguement. But being an opening minded person I gotten through 30 seconds then I knew it was only propaganda. In the 5 th showing of the series, how weird that after talking about when that “awful day” happen the next pictures happen to be a desert and oil on fire. Yes the carrier was lucky to be in the area of Iraq but come on, I think by 2005, when the filming of the series took place that pushing the Iraq and “awful day” together is just a shame that PBS is now part of the Darkside. So about the tv, like anything moderation is the key. Adbuster tries to get the word out about their no tv for just a week, I think it in November. So take care all and remember to get out before the ss does come!!!
Big_Money
I remember those cartoons.
One was ‘Gremlins from the Kremlin’.