marmar
marmar's JournalWar by Media and the Triumph of Propaganda
War by Media and the Triumph of Propaganda
Monday, 15 December 2014 10:15
By John Pilger, Truthout | Op-Ed
The times we live in are so dangerous and so distorted in public perception that propaganda is no longer, as Edward Bernays called it, an "invisible government." It is the government.
Why has so much journalism succumbed to propaganda? Why are censorship and distortion standard practices? Why is the BBC so often a mouthpiece of rapacious power? Why do The New York Times and The Washington Post deceive their readers?
Why are young journalists not taught to understand media agendas and to challenge the high claims and low purpose of fake objectivity? And why are they not taught that the essence of so much of what's called the mainstream media is not information, but power?
These are urgent questions. The world is facing the prospect of major war, perhaps nuclear war - with the United States clearly determined to isolate and provoke Russia and eventually China. This truth is being turned upside down and inside out by journalists, including those who promoted the lies that led to the bloodbath in Iraq in 2003.
The times we live in are so dangerous and so distorted in public perception that propaganda is no longer, as Edward Bernays called it, an "invisible government." It is the government. It rules directly without fear of contradiction, and its principal aim is the conquest of us: our sense of the world, our ability to separate truth from lies. ............(more)
The complete piece is at; http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/28011-war-by-media-and-the-triumph-of-propaganda
American Torture -- Past, Present, and… Future?
from TomDispatch:
American Torture -- Past, Present, and… Future?
Beyond the Senate Torture Report
By Rebecca Gordon
It’s the political story of the week in Washington. At long last, after the endless stalling and foot-shuffling, the arguments about redaction and CIA computer hacking, the claims that its release might stoke others out there in the Muslim world to violence and “throw the C.I.A. to the wolves,” the report -- you know which one -- is out. Or at least, the redacted executive summary of it is available to be read and, as Senator Mark Udall said before its release, “When this report is declassified, people will abhor what they read. They’re gonna be disgusted. They’re gonna be appalled. They’re gonna be shocked at what we did.”
So now we can finally consider the partial release of the long-awaited report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about the gruesome CIA interrogation methods used during the Bush administration’s “Global War on Terror.” But here’s one important thing to keep in mind: this report addresses only the past practices of a single agency. Its narrow focus encourages us to believe that, whatever the CIA may have once done, that whole sorry torture chapter is now behind us.
In other words, the moment we get to read it, it’s already time to turn the page. So be shocked, be disgusted, be appalled, but don’t be fooled. The Senate torture report, so many years and obstacles in the making, should only be the starting point for a discussion, not the final word on U.S. torture. Here’s why.
Mainstream coverage of U.S. torture in general, and of this new report in particular, rests on three false assumptions:
1. The most important question is whether torture “worked.”
2. U.S. torture ended when George W. Bush left office.
3. The only kind of torture that really “counts” happens in foreign war zones.
Let’s look at each of these in order. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175934/tomgram%3A_rebecca_gordon%2C_the_torture_wars/
There’s Good Reason To Hate Republicans
from In These Times:
There’s Good Reason To Hate Republicans
In our era of polarization, one party is guiltier than the other.
BY SUSAN J. DOUGLAS
I hate Republicans. I can’t stand the thought of having to spend the next two years watching Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Ted Cruz, Darrell Issa or any of the legions of other blowhards denying climate change, thwarting immigration reform or championing fetal “personhood.”
This loathing is a relatively recent phenomenon. Back in the 1970s, I worked for a Republican, Fred Lippitt, the senate minority leader in Rhode Island, and I loved him. He was a brand of Republican now extinct—a “moderate” who was fiscally conservative but progressive about women’s rights, racial justice and environmental preservation. Had he been closer to my age, I could have contemplated marrying someone like Fred. Today, marrying a Republican is unimaginable to me. And I’m not alone. Back in 1960, only 5 percent of Republicans and 4 percent of Democrats said they’d be “displeased” if their child married someone from the opposite party. Today? Forty-nine percent of Republicans and 33 percent of Democrats would be pissed.
According to a recent study by Stanford professor Shanto Iyengar and Princeton researcher Sean Westwood, such polarization has increased dramatically in recent years. What’s noteworthy is how entrenched this mutual animus is. It’s fine for me to use the word “hate” when referring to Republicans and for them to use the same word about me, but you would never use the word “hate” when referring to people of color, or women, or gays and lesbians.
And now party identification and hatred shape a whole host of non-political decisions. Iyengar and Westwood asked participants in their study to review the resumés of graduating high school seniors to decide which ones should receive scholarships. Some resumés had cues about party affiliation (say, member of the Young Republicans Club) and some about racial identity (also through extracurricular activities, or via a stereotypical name). Race mattered, but not nearly as much as partisanship. An overwhelming 80 percent of partisans chose the student of their own party. And this held true even if the candidate from the opposite party had better credentials. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/17426/theres_good_reason_to_hate_republicans
Getting ugly at Halas Hall
The future of Bears coach Marc Trestman and general manager Phil Emery were cast into further questioning this week, when offensive coordinator Aaron Kromer and the staff dealt with his awkward admittance that he has disparaged struggling quarterback Jay Cutler to an NFL Network reporter.
Kromer's tearful apology to the players, and his uncomfortable press conference Friday, drew further attention to what has been a tumultuous tenure for Trestman and Emery, which several sources has included a failure of leadership.
While Cutler took the high road when he met with the media Friday, privately he has been fuming at this latest media tempest, and it hard to imagine him working with Kromer beyond the duration of this last season. Furthermore, clauses included in Bears coaching contracts regarding guidelines for dealing with the media could result in a case for Kromer's termination “for cause,” while Cutler will be watching very closely to see what changes, if any, occur to the staff, with his contract essentially guaranteed through 2015.
The episode with Kromer highlights what has been a bizarre season for the Bears, who have suffered numbers blowout defeats. There has been little to no pushback from the head coach on general manager against slumping star players, sources said, Trestman's laid-back style to allowing players to govern their own locker room has blown up -- with the roster construction devoid of necessary chemistry -- and some mistrust brewing between players and the staff. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/writer/jason-la-canfora/24886866/jay-cutler-upset-over-festering-issues-between-bears-players-coaches
Some Sunday morning hero worship......in quotes:
Real Heros......
[font size="4"]Independent media can go to where the silence is and break the sound barrier, doing what the corporate networks refuse to do.[/font]
-- Amy Goodman
[font size="4"]“The genius of the current caste system, and what most distinguishes it from its predecessors, is that it appears voluntary. People choose to commit crimes, and that's why they are locked up or locked out, we are told. This feature makes the politics of responsibility particularly tempting, as it appears the system can be avoided with good behavior. But herein lies the trap. All people make mistakes. All of us are sinners. All of us are criminals. All of us violate the law at some point in our lives. In fact, if the worst thing you have ever done is speed ten miles over the speed limit on the freeway, you have put yourself and others at more risk of harm than someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of his or her living room. Yet there are people in the United States serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses, something virtually unheard of anywhere else in the world.” [/font]
-- Michelle Alexander
[font size="4"]We live in a fragmented society. We are ignorant of what is being done to us. We are diverted by the absurd and political theater. We are afraid of terrorism, of losing our job and of carrying out acts of dissent. We are politically demobilized and paralyzed. We do not question the state religion of patriotic virtue, the war on terror or the military and security state. We are herded like sheep through airports by Homeland Security and, once we get through the metal detectors and body scanners, spontaneously applaud our men and women in uniform. As we become more insecure and afraid, we become more anxious. We are driven by fiercer and fiercer competition. We yearn for stability and protection. This is the genius of all systems of totalitarianism. The citizen’s highest hope finally becomes to be secure and left alone.[/font]
-- Chris Hedges
[font size="4"]If Americans actually understood the structure of our taxes, they would not only become angry, they might also find our economic and political systems intolerable because they are the cause of our unjust tax codes ... We could revolutionize the financial conditions of every American city and town—solve all or most of its tax revenue problems—if the property tax system were simply extended from tangible property to also include intangible property. If you want some quick solutions to our nation's fiscal problems, that would be one. Even on the simple basis of fairness, how can we justify having a property tax system that exempts the intangible property owned mostly by the richest amongst us? What a prime example of the Occupy movement's central point about the economic injustice perpetrated by the 1 percent against the 99 percent. [/font]
-- Richard Wolff
[font size="4"]It's a form of tyranny. But, that's the whole point of corporatization - to try to remove the public from making decisions over their own fate, to limit the public arena, to control opinion, to make sure that the fundamental decisions that determine how the world is going to be run - which includes production, commerce, distribution, thought, social policy, foreign policy, everything - are not in the hands of the public, but rather in the hands of highly concentrated private power. In effect, tyranny unaccountable to the public.[/font]
-- Noam Chomsky
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