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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Wake up and smell the brainwashing.
I believe few here are asleep. And if we were brainwashed, well, I don't think we'd be here in the first place. I think you've misread Glenn Greenwald, today's post, his archives and your fellow commenters.
Other than that, man, that was a dead-on comment!
I guess that's the difference between me and you, Commenter Guy From Page One... but I personally find "these people are idiotic" scathing sarcasm hilarious.
instead of Glenn because Glenn forgot to participate in the preliminary round of Dancing with the Stars.
From the Barstow article:
Only when the invasion met unexpected resistance did General McCaffrey give a glimpse of his misgivings. “We’ve placed ourselves in a risky proposition, 400 miles into Iraq with no flank or rear area security,” he told Katie Couric on “Today.”
Mr. Rumsfeld struck back. He abruptly cut off General McCaffrey’s access to the Pentagon’s special briefings and conference calls.
General McCaffrey was stunned. “I’ve never heard his voice like that,” recalled one close associate who asked not to be identified. He added, “They showed him what life was like on the outside.”
Given how dependent his paycheck from Veritas and others is upon access to the Pentagon, this little anecdote should be damning. As soon as he deviated from Pentagon talking points, he was cut off. Well, we can't have that. Not if our livelihood depends on it:
Within days General McCaffrey began to backpedal, professing his “great respect” for Mr. Rumsfeld to Tim Russert. “Is this man O.K.?” the Fox News anchor Brit Hume asked, taking note of the about-face.
For months to come, as an insurgency took root, General McCaffrey defended the Bush administration. “I am 100 percent behind what the administration, what the president of the United States, is doing in Iraq,” he told Mr. Williams that June.
How can anyone look at this and deny the problem with a straight face? I don't give a crap about this man's private ethical dilemmas and business relationships. The main problem is that those dealings ended in inducing him to lie to the public about his misgivings about the war, including before the war began, when shaping public opinion was crucial to building support for it. Then, when challenged, he resorts to upholding the very credentials of trustworthiness he so egregiously abused for profit?? I hate to sit here and re-state the case, but the more I read, the more I am outraged.
How many bad apples does that make on Bush's watch so far???
And as ever, the proof is in the pudding: how many of these "bad apples" have ever been held accountable?
If NBC does not support this sleaze, then they should come out and slap it down fast.
The fact that they do not come out and slap it down PROVES that they support it.
QED.
Same with Bush and his "bad intelligence" on WMDs, or his "bad apples" at Abu Ghraib, etc etc. Nobody has ever been held accountable because it was all sanctioned at the top level.
The proof is in the pudding, and the rotting, stinking, 8-years-old putrid pile of pudding is totally inedible because of all the bad apples in the mix.
Two observations about NBC and Russia. Other readers might be in a position to comment on them:
1. Madow Show: Although liberal on most issues, the Washington consensus view that "Russian aggression" was the root cause of the Georgia crisis is not something the show seems to have probed. Watching one show in particular, I got the sense that this line of thinking was "out of bounds."
2. Tom Brokaw interview with Turner: Did anyone catch Brokaw's reaction when Turner questioned why the US had unilaterally decided to place Star Wars technology in E Europe?
Perhaps I am reading too much into the above points, but I get the impression that it's rather important for to network that viewers see the Russians in a certain way. I'm asking whether the network's general openness to liberal views does not stop when the topic turns to Russia.
Interestingly, US obsession with "Russian aggression" in the face of documented facts (Glenn has highlighted these) only makes any sense to me when I consider the bleak prospects for the US defense industry if it has no big power enemy to contend with. (NBC owner GE being a major defense contractor....) I explore this question in a blog post:
http://jotman.blogspot.com/2008/09/world-according-to-northrop-grumman.html
Fundamentally, I don't think it's OK for media companies to have far larger stakes in other industries like defense. I think it's wrong. It seems to me that the supposedly liberal tilt of MSNBC, could well be covering over a certain blind spot. (Glenn says viewers can take this bias into account, but how many will think to?). The bottom line is that should the US get into a war with Russia, none of the many "progressive issues" which MSNBC trumpets will matter anymore. Moreover, even a Cold War with Russia could lay to rest our hopes of tackling big issues like climate change. The major issues of our times require great power cooperation.
*****
One final observation (not related to Russia, but relates to the topic of NBC expert advisers): I noticed that Chris Matthews had this NSA agency guy on the show one day, and he was introduced as a regular MSNBC contributor. From what the guy was saying to Chris, I got a bit creeped out. It brought to mind Olbermann's U-turn on FISA the moment Obama caved.
More and more, mainstream and cable news is competing with the Internets, commercial-free movie channels, Netflix, etc. I believe that the information age we are experiencing will change the face of TV news quite rapidly.
Who's to stop another entrepreneurial project like "YouTube" from becoming a news source? Why can't we have citizen news? We could call it InterTubes News! Or something. We have no lack of talent out here. Many a frustrated journalist-cum-broadcaster could become an "anchor" for a Web-based news channel. It would be cheap to produce, and most talented people would probably volunteer or work cheap to make a go of it.
God knows we have enough amateur videos on YouTube to last us 10 lifetimes. We don't need another video of your cat chasing its tail.
We should grab our video cameras (can I borrow one?) and produce a news show. We could link the site to all the big news blogs and create an audience for it. I can think of ten stories that deserve immediate attention that are being woefully neglected by MSM.
At the risk of being cliche, "If you build it, they will come."
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
