Reminds me of something Orwell wrote:

The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies-all this is indispensably necessary.

--George Orwell, 1984

Mark

What is the status of your request for an interview with Williams or an NBC spokesflack?

Glad you liked that.

Glenn has never been uncivil to my knowledge, nor would I characterize what he does as ever approaching a "screed" as omooex suggested. Steven Rockford said he only read and agreed 100% with Glenn, Floyd, and Silber. I don't read Floyd but I would. He's a good writer. Silber, on the other hand, is a good example of an uncivil and hysterical drama and angst screed generator as I've ever seen. I can't stomach him. Glenn's training and years of practice in legal writing, as opposed to other forms, are something he must work to overcome to some extent but they also serves him well in this new endeavor, in my humble opinion.

Jose Canseco?

OK I have to ask, what does an irresponsible former baseball player have to do with the price of rice?

-- shooter242

Rice? Fuck rice. Try schadenfreude. You could be next, Shooter.

Hey Iokannan, get a grip. I can tell by your post (and your archived comments) that you either “are” Glenn Greenwald or someone who sleeps with him.

Grip gotten, but for the record I'm neither Glenn nor his partner.

Setting aside your obvious resentment,

Not resentment; fatigue. Simple, all-too-human fatigue with all this madness.

Apologies for any offense caused.

What a bizarre comment... Glad you appreciate Glenn's work but

Greenwald!

I have been a member of Salon for years now, and all I can say is that Glenn Greenwald is the best political analyst/journalist that I know of. This guy is a relentless stud.

(Some unsolicited advice: Keep it up, dude, but have someone around you (a trusted reader) who helps you keep your tone civil. In the long run, you will far more effective and respected if you do so.)

-- deucey

Where has his tone ever been uncivil?

You, like many American, have this idealized, almost child like, antiquated idea of civility and it is no mystery why. It keeps you from opening your mouth when you should to the benefit of those who would prefer you remain silent.

George Washington's Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation were the exercises of a 16 year old schoolboy in 18th century colonial America.

http://www.history.org/Almanack/life/manners/rules2.cfm

They are of no value to anyone today except those who would prefer you sit down and shut up. Washington engaged in drinking, profanity, dancing, card playing and wenching like any good colonial American back then or typical Amercian today.

If he were here today he would be swearing up a storm and kicking asses and taking names, starting with the incompetent fucks in the White House, most of the press and media and the useless trolls who haunt blogs like this.

http://www.fathom.com/course/10701018/index.html

Grow the fuck up, already.

-- L.W.M

____________________________________________________________

And no doubt, Thomas Jefferson would have already beat the living shit out of Deadeye ;-)

Old TJ had a bit of a temper, I hear.

ain't that the truth.

At least news actually occurs on those comedy shows. Not so much any more on the "real" news shows.

They (meaning the Institutional News Media) keep misusing their diminishing power to propagandize for their own Palace government, and to promote their own agendas within the Palace. We, the People, are scrutinized like bugs, if we're acknowledged at all. And if one of us should rise to their notice, more often than not, their instinct is to crush him or her to atoms. (Viz: Rev Wright.)

And my question is: why do any Americans put up with it?

Yes, fewer and fewer DO put up with it, but so many of the leaders (in congress and throughout society) are still absolutely in thrall to the whims and desires and demands and customs of the Palace Media, to the point where they dare not do anything or say anything that will earn them media "scrutiny". Instead, they tip toe and they yield, and they tailor their commentary and criticism to the acceptable parameters that have been laid down for "appropriate" comment and criticism. (This was an art form when Republicans ruled all three branches of government and of course the entire corporate hierarchy of the world. They told you in no uncertain terms what you were permitted to criticise and how and how often, and if you deviated, you were shunned, ignored or crushed.)

My point is that we shouldn't put up with it at all.

Years ago a highly creative team formed "Take Back The Media" in response to some of the more egregious outrages of the pre-and-post Bushevik Era. (Google it) They made quite a splash with repeated and very compelling challenges to Big Media hegemony and propaganda. But it always seemed to me their premise was wrong. Their challenges were based on the assumption that We, the People "owned" the Media, and that the Media had somehow been captured by corporate and Republican elements, and that we could somehow take it back.

Uh. No.

We -- as in the People -- have never "owned" or controlled the Big/Institutional Media in this country; we can't very well "take back" what was never ours. The Big Media has always been owned by and served the interests of wealth and power, never the interests of the People in general. Sometimes, in some cases, the interests of wealth and power may coincide with some of the interests of the People, but never have the Big Media been on our side. They exist to tell us what people of wealth and power want us to think and want us to do.

That's still an extraordinarily difficult concept for some people on the progressive end of things to grasp. We can (and do) create our own media, and that media can (but does not necessarily) reflect the interests of the People, and we can criticise the Big Media to our heart's content, but "taking it back?" No. Not gonna happen. It was never ours.

We find news where we find it, and that is sometimes on those comedy shows. But more and more, news we really care about is coming from sources abroad, domestic sources that were once considered radical, independent media, some exceptional Big Media efforts (McClatchy, for example), and a good deal of it is filtered through blogs like this one.

We aren't "taking back" the Media. We are becoming it.