We Have Met the Enemy…And It is the News Media. So, Are We Going to Fight Back?

[McCamy Taylor]

Anyone who reads my journals knows that I believe that Karl Rove and Bush-Cheney bought the corporate media in 2000 with promises of media mergers (that they have never delivered). They punish critical press and reward propaganda through the FCC. Right now, they are using the MSM to rig the 2008 election. The press (and that includes the journalists on TV) is a big fat liar ---and this is nothing new.

Karl Rove learned to use the American News Media to conduct dirty election tricks when he was working on the 1972 Nixon re-election campaign with people like Lee Atawater. For those who think that the theories I have put forward in recent journals are far fetched, here is what the media whores have done in the past for the RNC.

Carl Bernstein wrote for the Rolling Stone in 1977 (the New York Times later confirmed)

http://danwismar.com/uploads/Bernstein%20-%20CIA%20and%20Media.htm

The history of the CIA's involvement with the American press continues to be shrouded by an official policy of obfuscation and deception . . . .

Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were William Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Henry Luce of Time Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the Louisville Courier-Journal and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting Company, the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, The Miami Herald, and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald-Tribune. By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with The New York Times, CBS, and Time Inc.
He ends the article by writing that the CIAs official policy of having the press write domestic disinformation stopped in 1973 after Watergate, but new CIA director George Bush started a covert policy of domestic disinformation. All for stopping the Reds, of course.

Dick Nixon used CIA operatives within the press like Seymour Freidin to spy on Democratic candidates campaigns in 1972, paying him $10,000 according to columnist Jack Anderson.

http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/8425/CIAPRESS.HTM

Lucianne Golderg, of Linda Tripp/Monica Lewinsky fame was also a paid spy for Nixon.

http://www.umsl.edu/~thomaskp/plwordr.htm

Goldberg was exposed in 1973 as "a spy for Nixon while she traveled with the press corps" covering McGovern's 1972 campaign. It was at this time that she said she worked for NANA (North American Newspaper Alliance), and supplied an address for NANA which "is the same as her current residence" in Manhattan. Watergate investigators "said the Nixon campaign paid her $1,000 a week."
Not mentioned in today's story is the relevant fact in 1972, as today, Lucianne Goldberg was snooping for sex. She told the late Anthony Lukas (Nightmare, p. 161) that the Nixon people "were looking for really dirty stuff...who was sleeping with whom, what the Secret Servicem men were doing with the stewardesses, who was smoking pot on the plane -- that sort of thing."

And then there were reporters who dished up biased stories or downright lies about the Democratic candidates. Like Bob Novak.

http://www.salon.com/media/1998/01/08media.html

ERIC ALTERMAN

The flip side of these wet kisses was a neo-McCarthyite rampage that Novak undertook against liberals of all stripes. In 1972, readers were treated to Novak's description of SNCC as an organization "substantially infiltrated by beatniks, left-wing revolutionaries and -- worst of all -- by Communists." The New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, he wrote, "is studded with past and present Communist Party members." A McGovern rally was attended by "McGovern zealots with long hair, bizarre costumes and peace signs." In one of the most influential political columns of all time, Novak quoted a Democratic senate colleague of McGovern's labeling his politics those of "acid, amnesty and abortion." The label stuck and it helped sink McGovern. Richard Dougherty, a former McGovern aide, insists the quote was fabricated. McGovern told me he believed the same thing. The authors later conceded that McGovern's position on pot was "ambiguous" and admitted that he "opposed marijuana whenever asked." By way of explanation, Novak said, "We are not under any compunction to give a balanced report." Was Novak inventing this famous quote? There's no way to know for certain.
Many of the CREEPS dirty tricks would not have worked if the corporate media had not been there to publicize them, as Time Magazine did in this front page article from May, 1972.

The right wing media has been attempting to portray Obama as some kind of left wing radical in campaign season. He was dubbed the most liberal senator, recently (he is not) and this "fact" has been all over talk radio and Fox. His church has been the talk of the right wing since last year, too, and there have been rumors of alliances with Cuba, Iran and other radical groups, as well as repeated charges that he is unAmerican. And we are not even into the general election yet. Oh, and the Washington Post first brought up the issue of drugs over a year ago.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,879073,00.html

Humphrey's camp fostered an impression that McGovern was too radical to be taken seriously for the nomination.
No one accused Humphrey of organizing a smear campaign, but he did set the theme: "The McGovern record speaks for itself. A candidate can't be quoted two ways." A more specific formulation: McGovern is pro-marijuana, pro-abortion and pro-amnesty for draft resisters. "This is the McGovern record," said an advertisement in the Roman Catholic archdiocesan newspaper in Omaha. The ad was placed by the Citizens Concerned for Preservation of Life. At the same time, McGovern's promise to cut the defense budget by $32 billion alarmed residents around the Offutt Air Force Base, headquarters of the Strategic Air Command.
McGovern understood the significance of the attack. He repeatedly and specifically explained himself. In doing so, he did not alter the substance of his previous stands, although he may have shifted his emphasis to placate more conservative Democrats. Previously McGovern had said that "abortion is a private matter which should be decided by a pregnant woman and her own doctor. Once the decision is made, I do not feel that the law should stand in the way of its implementation." But on a Nebraska television program he said that there should be some restrictions: "You can't let just anybody walk in and " request an abortion."

Recognize the dirty trick and the media smear? Humphrey says that McGovern is trying to trianglate. That is a pretty benign charge. Times rewrites that as Humphrey calls McGovern a radical. And then Times implies that Humphrey paid for the billboard---though more likely than not it was paid for my Nixon's illegal campaign money. This is the kind of stuff that the RNC and the MSM are doing to the Democratic Primary this season.

Here is a list of some of the dirty tricks played on the Muskie campaign to drive him out of the election early, since Nixon wanted to run against the more liberal McGovern.

http://www.woodstockjournal.com/elections.html

Note that the list includes having Republican operatives infiltrate Democratic candidate’s campaigns to steal info and conduct dirty tricks, having others steal info, spreading lies about the candidate, spreading smears about other Democrats which are attributed to the Democrat you are really trying to target (to make him look a dirty campaigner). The Nixon campaign went so far as to give Muskie drugs, the effects of which Thompson describes in his book Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72. Accuse the candidate of making racially or ethnically charged slurs.
Here is the actual playbook that Pat Buchanan (now a commentator on MSNBC who often is called upon to discuss the Democratic Primary) drew up for Nixon in 1972 outlining the dirty trick strategy for CREEP to use.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/stories/buchananmemo.htm

"They should be able to help put demonstrations together, get leaflets out, start rumors, and generally foul up scheduled events -- and add to the considerable confusion and chaos that will inevitably exist."
It continued:
"The preparation of attacks on one Democrat by another -- and 'endorsements' of one Democrat by another, which has to be repudiated, are examples of what can be done. Nothing should be done here, incidentally, which can seriously backfire and anything done should be cleared by the highest campaign authority. The Secret Service, it should be noted, will be all over Miami; and any activity will have to take into consideration their capabilities.
"We should guard here against a) anything which enables the Democrats to blame us for the mess which takes place in Miami Beach; b) anything which can be traced back to us and c) anything which is so horrendous as to damage us, if the hand is discovered."
snip
With funds supplied by Nixon's personal lawyer, Segretti crisscrossed the country under assumed names, planting spies, disrupting rallies and creating divisiveness among the Democrats with false press releases, bogus letters and fake ads. After plea bargaining, he drew a six-month prison term for fabricating literature in the Florida primary. One was a letter on the campaign stationery of Sen. Edmund S. Muskie (D-Maine) accusing Sens. Henry M. Jackson (D-Wash.) and Hubert H. Humphrey (D-Minn.) of sexual misconduct.
Minor Republican rivals such as then-Rep. Pete McCloskey (R-Calif.) were also fair game in Buchanan's view. His White House papers include a Dec. 15, 1971, memo to Haldeman and Mitchell outlining "an anti-McCloskey campaign in New Hampshire." One idea, Buchanan said, would be to find a way of getting a gay rights group or the Black Panthers or the radical Students for a Democratic Society at Dartmouth "to contribute a grand or so to the McCloskey campaign" and then alert the highly conservative Manchester Union Leader about the donation.

The bad endorsement was played on Obama, when a minister who was formally allied with Bush became allied with Obama, endorsed him--then revealed that ran an anti-gay program. This was designed to embarass Obama within the Democratic community. Keep in mind that some of those who have made comments that have embarrassed the candidates may have had reasons to do so---like blackmail from the SEC or DOJ.

Note that all of the corporate media outlets that were involved in 1972 and several of the journalists---Pat Buchanan, Bob Novak—are involved in this year’s election, as is Karl Rove. In addition, there is now FOX News, the Drudge Report, the whole Moonie news empire, and a vast right wing internet network to aid the corporate media in its work. Using the American News Media to control public opinion during a Democratic primary and general election has never been easier.

I will skip through more recent history, just remind everyone that Ted Koppel and Nightline held the nation hostage night after night to enable Reagan to take office (thanks to help of some cash from David Rockefeller and a hostages for votes deal brokered by Bush Sr.) When the exiled president of Iran revealed the conspiracy a couple of years later, only NPR reported the story. The news media dutifully covered Willie Horton as news. It went after Whitewater and Monica. It called Al Gore a liar and Kerry a waffler and the Swiftboat Vets “truthful”. It told the nation “move along here, there is nothing to see” in Ohio, 2004.

And now we are being asked to believe them when they tell us that our two Democratic nominees, who seemed so stellar last fall, are a 1. scheming, money grubbing war mongering bitch queen from hell who secretly keeps Black slaves in her basement and 2. a scary coke snorting Black Muslim separatist who would be scarier if he actually had the ability to do anything besides talk. Yes, this is what the corporate media is saying. If you do not believe me, go spend twenty hours reading Media Matters. Or spend an hour reading my recent journals about the news media’s lies regarding the two remaining candidates. And while you are at it, read “The Press v. John Edwards” about the way that the MSM drove the “Muskie” from the race early, because Rove was afraid that the Republicans could not beat him.

Bob Novak’s role in the current election cycle is a special one. He is the guy who keeps writing---and then appearing on FOX News—to announce that Hillary is about to unleash a smear on Obama. As if anyone associated with the Hillary Clinton campaign would talk to this old drunken traitor except to tell him “Get lost!” A few days later, the Moonie Times or Drudge or the Washington Post has a story culled from Obama’s autobiography or gossip or lies claiming that Obama is a Muslim who attended a radical terrorist training school.

I present this as proof that Bob Novak is working hand in hand with the Karl Rove 2008 FEAR---Force to Elect Any Republican (my name). Drudge, Rev. Moon, Fox News and some reporters such as Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, George Will, Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer are almost certainly in on the plan. If they are not aware of the whole scope of the operation, they are taking orders from FEAR.
I have had people here cite a NYT article which said that Hillary and Drudge are in bed together. The article claims as “proof” the fact that Drudge had Hillary’s campaign finance statements 20 minutes before the rest of the press once. Review the link about the dirty tricks played on Muskie. You will see at least two ways in 1972 that secret campaign information could have been obtained---through the mole working within the Democrat’s campaign or via the chauffeur paid to copy documents. Nowadays, it is even easier, since a computer virus would allow a computer system to be hacked. Or the secret room at AT&T could get the info and forward it to Drudge. Or there could be a spy among the Secret Service as there was among Ted Kennedy’s people in 1972 according to this link

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-54879237.html

There is no reason why Hillary would profit from giving her numbers to Drudge 20 minutes before the rest of the press, but if the RNC could steal the numbers and give them to Drudge, it would add credence to the lies when Drudge does stuff like publishing stories about Obama's Muslim ties---along with claims that "Hillary the bitch queen held a gun to our head and made us do it."


I have read posters at DU claim that Hillary has the power to force the MSM to say and print whatever she wants. This is silly. She is wealthy but so is Obama. She is not mega-rich like the Bushes or like the telecom giants, and she has no power over the telecoms. Bush--and Karl Rove--- have the power to tell the news media what to do or say through the FCC.

How exactly did Nixon force publications like Time and networks to say that McGovern was dangerously out of touch or that Humphrey was doing dirty tricks? The same way that Karl Rove forces them to do his bidding now. He threatened their pocket books. From the above link.

Following his epochal Silent Majority speech on Nov. 3, 1969, Nixon took umbrage when some commentators on network follow-up roundtables were unimpressed with his address. Because of their disdain for his proclamation of Vietnam successes, he decided to declare war on the media, sending out Vice Pres. Spiro T. Agnew to assail the "nattering nabobs of negativism" from New York who were considered essentially un-American. More importantly, the President dispatched Colson to read the riot act to network presidents, threatening them implicitly with license-renewal difficulties unless they treated Nixon more fairly. They did buckle under to Colson's demands, at least for a little while, with CBS, for example, agreeing with his contention that Americans did not need "instant analysis" from journalists to tell them what their president had just said.
In addition, Colson was able to convince CBS chairman William Paley to shorten a potentially damaging series on Watergate in the fall of 1972. As for the Washington Post, which almost singlehandedly kept the story alive that autumn, Nixon told his aides, the newspaper was "going to have problems.... They have a television station ... and they're going to have to get it renewed." In January, 1973, of the four stations challenged for license renewal, three were owned by the Post.

This is how Rove got the idea before the 2000 election to court the telecom bosses by promising them unlimited media mergers…if they showed bias towards W. That is how “Gore is a liar” was born. That is how he got them to Swiftboat Kerry and hide the Ohio 2004 exit polls. That is how he hopes to keep them on the side of John McCain---and man who never met a telecom lobbyist he could not love.

Right now, the boards of Democratic Underground are filled with Republican plants, people who wallow in the anonymity that an internet message board provides. Some of them bash Obama. Some of them bash Hillary. Meanwhile, the corporate media refuses to let either candidate address the issues, presenting to the nation one manufactured sensation after another. Drudge edits Sen. Clinton’s words about a question she should never have been asked----Obama’s religion is his business---and the press has a new smear. FOX buys a minister's sermons and airs them outside the church---and the press goes at it again. There is no favoritism here. The news media is attacking the Democratic Party, not either candidate. Their goal is exactly the same as it was in 1972. An angry, divide Democratic Convention. A crippled nominee, who will leave with half of the party convinced that he or she does not represent them.

For those who think that this is far fetched, remember two things. One, Karl Rove’s biggest weakness is his lack of creativity. If something works once, he will repeat it again and again. It is his predictability that makes him so easy to defeat---if you know how to anticipate him. I knew that this was coming last fall. Two, the press did this for Dick Nixon back in 1972, when the telecommunications industries were not the mega-conglomerates that they are today. If there was money to be made from FCC favors then, image how much more money---and how much more greed---must be working behind the scenes now.

Democrats must stop their infighting. We are like a bunch of gladiators who have been thrown into the ring by the imperial masters who have enslaved us and told us to fight. If we join forces and turn our combined outrage on the news media, it will have to back down, because it sells an artistic product, and art needs two to exist. Without a buyer/patron, it can not flourish, and Democrats make up over half of this country. If we call bullshit on them and their lies and their deceptions and their baiting, it becomes Pravda. At that point, the individual men and women who work for them---who have reputations to think about and egos which bruise---will refuse to pander anymore to the FEAR machine. That was what happened with Watergate. The men and women of the press corp turned on the system which owned them--and they became heroes instead of pawns. Exulting in their newly won freedom, for almost fives years afterwards, they functioned in a state of semi-autonomy.

Even the corporate media can not function without its journalists. Just look at the artistic quality of the work that comes out of FOX. The people there are semi-illiterate, second rate. No journalist wants to be reduced to that. No one wants to become the next John Solomon, so tainted by his own tainted stories that he has to become an editor for the Washington Times.

The way to attack the news media is to let the individual journalists who are turning out the propaganda know that it is propaganda. That includes writers on the left who are crafting splitter, divisive bullshit like “John Edwards is a loser”. Refer to them by name. They put their name on their work, because they want to get recognized. They want acclaim. If Charles Krauthammer wants to promote Big Lies about all three Democratic nominees, then he should be recognized for it. If Howard Fineman calls Hillary “Nixonian” after Drudge has edited her comments to distort them, Fineman needs to have people tell him what Nixonian is all about. If Tweety does a whole show about Obama and cocaine as a way to express phony outrage over some comments that Shaheen made to a reporter, he needs to be asked how his behavior is better than Shaheens?

Forget Craig Crawford. Attack the messengers, before the messengers destroys our Democratic Party and democracy. We can not attack the telecoms economically. Their news operations are too small a part of their total revenue generating potential. And sponsor boycott will not help for the same reason.

The corporate media's Achilles' heel is its journalists. Most have an artistic temperament and a fierce desire to be recognized as stellar reporters. Few like the thought of ending up like Bob Novak. It is time to stop denouncing the MSM as a package deal and start dishing out the praise and criticism where they are due---to the individual men and women who put their names on the columns and who tell the stories. With a little work and a lot of integrity, they can follow in the path of Sy Hersch---but they have to be nudged in that direction by us, the consumer.

[AndyTiedye]

1. Very Very Kicked and Recommended

:kick:

[pansypoo53219]

2. 1st we

have to kill the gnews.

[lonestarnot]

3. Have another!

K & R

[DaLittle Kitty]

11. Kicked And Recommended... AGAIN! It IS the Media Stupido's!

:puke:

[kster]

4. Perfect operation, steal the election with secret vote counting machines

then have the corporate owned media pound it in our heads that the "soccer moms" or the "Nascar Dads" made up for all the electronically stolen votes.

No one says "we should Hand Count them votes", because they (the media) convinced us that those two groups gave them the election.

Which group will it be next time?

K&R

[McCamy Taylor]

5. Reminds me, Nader on the ticket allows them to steal evotes beyond the margin of error

That is why they want him on the ballot so desperately. They are recycling the articles that appeared in right wing style journals from 2000---you know, business journals, the kinds of publications that GOPers with money read--that say "If Nader runs polls say he will cost Democrats the election!" The polls probably do not even exist. What the articles really mean is that Republicans need to send $$$ to Nader so that he can get on the ballots.

Once he is on the ballots, the GOP can shave another 4-5 points off the Dem's totals and give it to Nader above the margin of error---that will help McCain a lot if he is really losing.

[kster]

9. Absolutely, Clinton or Obama will beat McCain no matter what

Clinton wins against McCain by a good margin so Corporate only has to reduce her numbers with their secret vote counting machines so that the populace feels divided, with Obama he wins with a far greater margin, making it impossible to use just the machines to make it appear close, Obama nomination is where they have to bring in another candidate to siphon off votes, because using just the secret vote counting machines to manipulate the election would to obvious.

This election is all about keeping Americans feeling divided, because that is how they are able to control us.

Clinton or Obama will beat McCain, its by how much that Corporate is concerned about.

[live love laugh]

14. Yep. But vote theft is not wasted on Republicans only. It is also used

in dem contests and even in foreign contests to remove the impression that voter fraud is only a Republican phenomenon. It is a statistical improbability that we would have had as many neck and neck elections as we have seen in local and national and even primaries in the past eight years. I was disgusted to hear Ed Schultz explain away Hillary's unexplainable seeming win over Barack by stating that people voted for her because they liked the idea of the 3AM call. I'm thinking how the )*))*$ does he know that? No research or even polls were released to back up what he claimed. The media just makes shit up. So, as you say, it is a matter of time before we will see and hear some made-up shit about why McCain won over Hillary or Obama.

[defendandprotect]

6. Actually, you could sense that you were getting nothing from these publications ---

and most of them I dropped ---

Unfortunately, I didn't read enough Rolling Stone -- !!!

but you knew something was wrong ---

and while I NEVER even heard of Novack, leave alone watch him, that's also true of a lot of others mentioned. I've never watched the Sunday TV shows --- except the few times when we had Malcolm X around or during the 60's and 70's when you could still see someone like James Baldwin or some other truth teller on TV.

HOWEVER, I do think that there was major damage done and the stuff I remember is Kissinger's . . . "Peace is at hand" . . which was a lie.

Oddly enough, the LIFE Magazine switching of the JFK coup slides . . . to make it look like the president's head moves forward pretty much backfired on them because it drew attention to the
probably complicity of LIFE/Luce -- the FBI -- and the coup itself.

But look at all the stuff you've presented --- all the lies --- and they still haven't been able with political violence and election stealing to defeat the liberal/progressive movement -- anywhere --- !!!!! Even with a bought and paid for Congress --- !!!!

But, I do want to say that the MOST harmful stuff has been the stuff unseen . . .

*The immediate attempt to destroy the United Nations --- killing of Dag Hammarskjold ---
* The JFK coup which went uninvestigated, of course ---
* The unchallenged Cold War which JFK put out of business ---
* The CIA from the day it went into action and all of its foul deeds and I doubt we know anywhere
near all of it --- and that includes "Operation Gladio" -- bad enough -- but as Malcolm X suggested, I'm pretty much of the opinion that Operation Gladio has been moved into America.
* An underlying involvement of corrupt government officials in the drug trade, probably long before
they gave us the "Drug War" ---
* Nixon's secret deal to keep the Vietnam War from being settled after LBJ called a "bombing truce"
before the elections
* The fact that Bill Moyers and Pierre Salinger both understood Nixon to be "clinically psychotic"
and did nothing about it as far as alerting the public
* Nixon's unprotested ability to pick his own successor in Gerald Ford ---
* And the information from documents now that the CIA was funding certain Congress members ---
Strom Thurmond and Gerald Ford thru the Hughes Tool Company/Howard Hughes.
* In other words, the heavy presence of slush funds for the right-wing which came from taxpayer dollars!!!
* Nixon's secret slush fund from Prescott Bush and the other GOP members who hired Nixon to do
his dirty work
* Jimmy Carter's failed attemps to rescue the hostages --- three attempts, I believe -- which
failed for questionable reason --- and should be seriously questioned
* The Zbigniew Brzezinksi/Carter Administration's actually seeking the war in Afghanistan . . .
as Zig tells it . .. "the US went into Russia six months -- 6 months -- before the Russians
came in and we did so in order to try to BAIT the Russians into Afghanistan, in hopes of giving them a Vietnam-type experience." What kind of insanity is that?
* Reagan's/Poppy Bush/Gates and others dealings with the Iranians in the "October Surprise" which
kept the hostages in Iran until the minute Reagan was president and Carter was out ---
* The failure of the "free press" to explain to the public their stake in the New Deal regulations which Reagan was overturning --- and failure to challenge the right-wing propaganda or to identify
it as such
* The oil industry's lies and propaganda in regard to Global Warming --- including the NY Times
unholy alliance with ExxonMobil in permitting the Op-Ads to appear on the Op-Ed pages almost daily
at one time. There were huge sums of money invested in this propaganda which continues on even now.
And, further, the policy of the NY Times that no "ads" could be the subject of any Letter to the Editor which may challenge the propaganda in the ad.

Grenada, Panama, Gulf War I --- which by the way cost $45 Billion and Japan contributed $9 Billion, if I recall correctly . . .
None of this challenged by the "free press" ---

Clinton --- I'm sure everyone here can fill in the blanks on that one ---

And the most successful of all the dirty tricks ...
computer voting --

The computers came in during the mid-1960's . . . so we've had stolen elections since then
http://www.constitution.org/vote/votescam__.htm


This is still something which the "free press" has not told the American public ---

Jim & Ken Collier were journalists looking for a story on the election and they decided that one
of them should run for office in their state of Florida which they did. On election night, as
they watched the returns, they saw their results take a large jump -- which was quickly followed
by a computer breakdown! When the counts were resumed, their figure was dropped down again.
They began an investigation and finally wrote a book on what they discovered - the book was
immediately suppressed on hitting the book stores.

You can read or scan the book at the website which the family keeps going to inform the public --

REMEMBER, VOTE STEALS BY COMPUTER GO BACK NOT TO 2000 BUT TO THE MID-1960'S. . . !!!

[defendandprotect]

7. recommend ---

[Triana]

8. K & Friggin R

Passing it on, too. DAMN well done.

[NM Independent]

10. And thanks to FISA

I'll be surprised evertime I see you. :tinfoilhat:

Thanks so much for all this information. Only being 30 there are some things I just wasn't around to see, and have no clue about. How 'bout that Cheney/Rove/Nixon connection. I always wondered why people involved with Nixon were allowed back in the Whitehouse

[Karenina]

12. K&R!!!

[Echo In Light]

13. Twas always thus...

"The modern susceptibility to conformity and obedience to authority indicates that the truth endorsed by authority is likely to be accepted as such by a majority of people, who are innately obedient to authority. This obedience-truth will then become a consensus-truth accepted by many individuals unable to stand alone against the majority. In this way, the truth promulgated by the propaganda system - however irrational - stands a good chance of becoming the consensus, and may come to seem self-evident common sense." ~ David Edwards, author of Burning All Illusions

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media_control_propaganda/Media_Control.html

[McCamy Taylor]

18. Except in times of crisis---like Watergate. Then authority equaled LIES.

People who grew up during Watergate (like me) do not read the news the way that other people do. We read it like people who grew up in the Soviet Union reading Pravda. We do not ever take it at face value. That is the challenge that the MSM faces now---and that is the power which the Democratic Party needs to tap into. As the economy circles the toilet bowl, you will see more younger people willing to challenge the status quo, since the American Dream they were promised has turned out to be a nightmare. The Great Depression opened eyes all across the country. The photographers that went across the country as part of the public works project photographing the unseen US, showing the face of poverty (which the MSM had kept hidden before the 1930s) also changed the way that Americans see , as did John Steinbeck in Grapes of Wrath and so many other social reformer artists and writers. They helped found the generation of King, Malcolm, JFK, LBJ, Cronkite. There was a reason McCarthy went after "reds" in the entertainment industry. The boss needs Pravda to survive.

If we, the art consumer/reader (in the Rolande Barthe sense)/critic reject the work of media whores and laud the work of the journalists who turn out quality non biased accurate product, those artist/journalists will respond to the demands of their consumer public. The same power hungry media giants existed in the years during and after Watergate that exist now, but the journalists sensed that there was a demand for something more, something better and they could not help but try to meet that demand. It is the nature of the artist.

[Echo In Light]

27. While it's true that even in a closed system the people can apply pressure to the Few Big...

I don't see it happening here in the U.S., a quickly closing "open" system {police state measures accepted via high doses of propaganda/fear}, as the average consumer/reader - the public mind - has been so effectively conditioned with our system's use of Orwellian Newspeak, down to the impulses, as to accept the blatantly illogical and immoral as something else entirely.

I mean, perhaps on a visceral level people understand the corruption, but on average, def do not understand the aims of the corporate/state nexus, the nuts and bolts of how power operates. When these points are outlined, the system's self defense mechanism-talking points kick in within the public mind and disavow/deny/deem the messenger as a "crazy conspiracy theorist."

In other words, many can acknowledge corruption, but when faced with the specifics, tend to either deny or tune out. The human race is at a rather odd and potentially lethal pass, to be sure ... and the clock has been ticking for decades already.

[elleng]

31. I wish I could agree with your optimism

that the Dem party would tap into the challenge, that significant numbers of younger people are willing to challenge the status quo. My children aren't there yet; maybe one daughter is thinking about what I've said about MSM, but older daughter 'hates' hrc and supports O. (I feel strongly about neither, but about others earlier knocked out by MSM.)

You are right, of course, about the nature of the artist, but how many are there today? I'm afraid we today are confronting problems without the 'additional' social problems of the 60s that made it 'easier' to attract artists who then attracted we younger people, who would address 'political' matters like war. (I'm referring to musical artists of the time, Dylan, Baez, Seeger, and writers/poets, Ginsberg, Giovanni, Baldwin, Baraka, etc.)

I agree with Echo in Light, #27:

any can acknowledge corruption, but when faced with the specifics, tend to either deny or tune out. The human race is at a rather odd and potentially lethal pass, to be sure ... and the clock has been ticking for decades already.'

Thank you

[shimmergal]

15. This is a super, super series!

It needs to be published--real-time published--so it can reach citizens who aren't part of DU!

As you point out, we've been so media-manipulated that even if a Democrat manages to win the Presidency this time, half of the party will feel bitterly disappointed and alienated. That's a handicap a new administration does not need!

Win or lose, a high priority afterwards needs to be reducing the influence of the MSM. And I agree with you, McCamy, that its wannabees in the "progressive " press and blogs are seduced by the possibility of making it to the big time, and distort their coverage accordingly. TV has been toxic to the whole election process. I've seen this going on from 1968 on, but beginning in 2000, it's really been egregious. How much better off would the U.S. and the world be today, if the MSM hadn't done that pile-up on Gore for being stiff and a liar, and put a gloss of normality on Little Boots?

You're probably right that the journalists are its Achilles heel, and our best targets for turning things around for a while. But we need a strategy that goes beyond that, long-term; a think-tank or organization that looks into new ways of getting info. across to the public.

During the Nevada caucus coverage, the ignorance of the MSM journalists and pundits about what was going on here, and why, was obvious. I have to assume it's just as lacking when they cover other places (with the possible exception of NY City and inside-the-beltway.) So you get news coverage that's not only slanted by Rovish manipulation, but wrongheaded because too many journalists are just too lazy, or too rushed, to check out the demographics etc. of events they're reporting on.

So---you've put it all together masterfully--please look into getting it published, at minimum thru a small press or e-press that does POD. We need to spread your message!

[McCamy Taylor]

20. I write. Anything else distracts me. Feel free to reproduce anything I write anywhere.

[Hatchling]

16. k&r

[The Wizard]

17. And if they can't win with a corrupt media

they still have voting devices that operate on secret proprietary code.
First we render the vote inoperative by making deliberate mistakes while voting in Repube districts. Keep asking for a correction.

[Gonnuts]

19. Case in point ...

This morning I got through on C-SPAN with an editor and journalist from the AP. I mentioned that there's a not unwarranted perception that the media in this country is now nothing more than a shill for a faux-fascist government posing as a democracy and pointed out the Sibel Edmonds case as an example. I asked if the journalist knew who I was taking about - he said he didn't, which of course floored me, because either he was lying or he's willfully ignorant. The commentator at this point asked me to elaborate and I went on to explain Sibel's case and how someone who is in the profession of journalism could not be aware of a case that was featured on 60 Minutes and the London Sunday Times did a three week front page article on exposing treason at the highest levels of our government and this so-called journalist professed to know nothing about it just proved my point.

Needless to say they cut me off.

[McCamy Taylor]

21. During the Gonzo hearings, I called CSPAN, told them he would be W.'s personal attorney. An AG who

would be the WH counsel is not a good thing, right? I said that on national TV and the guys on CSPAN cut me off, too.

Later that afternoon, Chuck Schumer made the exact same point during the hearings..

A couple of years later, Gonzo was out on his ass for doing what? Acting as the White House counsel when he should have been the AG. CSPAN is Pravda, too.

[McCamy Taylor]

22. Read the Hardball transcript from tonight. Matthews and Fineman--two of Rove's players--

are trying to sow seeds of dissension within the ranks of the Democrats by claiming that only the delegate count counts. Superdelegate count does not count.

The problem is that there are not enough delegates in play because the RNC forced Florida to hold its primary early. So neither Obama nor Hillary can win. To say that a simple of majority of the delegates wins is changing the rules that everyone claims is so important. Superdelegates exist to settle these tie situations in which no one wins. Super delegates include some Party officials for a reason---they are there to be above the influence of people like Howard Fineman and Tweety who are telling viewers "If they do not chose Obama, you should riot in the streets of Denver so that your Democratic convention is just like Chicago 1968. Because we, the guys at the MSM would just love to cover another gladiatorial battle like that, yes we would."

These guys aren't just media whores. They are media pimps.

I an appalled to see Chris Matthews and Howard Fineman telling me how my Democratic Party is supposed to work. Talk about huztpah! However, the MSM has been telling us for months that Superdelegates do not count.

I think that both Fineman and Matthews deserve to be singled out for their service above and beyond the call of duty for the RNC this election season.

[McCamy Taylor]

23. And once again Tweety ignores the Irish-American matriarchy causing Catholics-->Hillary

Matthews and Buchanan are maligning their own Catholics, implying that they vote for Hillary only because they are old fashioned Conservatives. However, in New Hampshire it was the Irish-American matriarchy that gave her the win. Catholics in the US are often Irish/Scottish and that means strong women and a tendency to support strong women candidates.

Tweety and Buchanan know that but they will not say it. They want to spread the splitter rumor that Hillary's Catholic support is all racist redneck support. They are utterly beneath contempt. They even claimed, without any supporting evidence that her Catholic support is all old Catholic support. I would like to see some evidence of this, please.

[McCamy Taylor]

24. Margaret Carlson "It is when she isn't who she is" that Hillary rises in the polls.

She just said this on Hardball

OK, I think what we are witnessing is that all journalists want to be Oscar Wilde. They see every moment on TV (especially) as their opportunity to utter that memorable quote that will get them etched into the golden footnote of history. And so they scramble to come up with snappy little lines like this which might sound good in hard boiled fiction but which have no place at all falling from the lips of someone who calls herself a serious journalist.

How on earth can anyone tell us whom anyone is? We do not even know ourselves? Margaret Carlson can not claim to know the real Hillary. What is the real Hillary? Bill's wife? The Senator? The presidential candidate? The mother?

What is Margaret Carlson on the toilet? When she is sleeping? In labor?

What Margaret Carlson meant to say is "It is when she makes it impossible for the mainstream media to characterize her as an evil bitch queen from hell who has ice water flowing in her veins by talking to people about what really concerns them and showing honest compassion and emotion"---but that would not be catchy. It would not be hip. It wouldn't make it into the golden footnotes of history.

Carlson could do a lot better than she does. She has a real talent and she wastes it.

[unapatriciated]

28. Thank You and REC REC REC

Many on this board have been blaming the Florida voters, when it was the repugs who forced the date change in their primary. A lot of this in-fighting could have been avoided if the DNC had approved the waiver (like they did for NV) that florida had requested. I don't know how they are going to solve this but it needs to be resolved or we run the risk of alienating millions of voters in Florida. I too grew up in the 60's and voted for the first time in 1972 and remember all to well how they derailed McGovern. I just wish more at DU would wake up and see who our real enemies are, none of them have a D next to their names (except maybe Lieberman).

[calimary]

32. MANY media pimps. AND whores.

I always think about the fawning of the White House Press Corpse after Helen Thomas spoke the truth early-on, and dared to ask bush an uncomfortable question, and she was literally sent to the back of the room. The Dean of the White House Press Corps, who'd covered every president, and presided over every presidential press conference since the JFK days, whose very voice opened AND closed each formal news conference, and she's banished from her traditional, decades-established front-row-center seat as the Queen Mother of the court. And worst of all, NOBODY ELSE SAYS A WORD. NOT A PEEP OUT OF ANY OF HER COLLEAGUES. NOTHING.

I searched at that time. I looked at Howard Kurtz and elsewhere in the Washington Post, New York Times - back when Paul Krugman was a lone voice among the columnists who was openly critical of bush and not towing the "company line." I looked at, and for, any semblance of access to the front pages by any opposing views. I didn't find many. Let me also say I'm sure my search wasn't anywhere near world-class, and I'm sure I missed a lot. Sometimes I was around here, going through links and reading other resources and perspectives offered by people here, and sometimes I'd be tied up elsewhere for days. So I don't have a perfect, round-the-clock picture. But what I found and what I saw indicated to me that there was precious little truth-telling about bush that ever saw print or made air - video or audio. In fact, in more severe cases, people lost their jobs flat-out, for failure to fawn over bush. There was a local print reporter whose newspaper fired him for having the gall to write that bush was AWOL on 9/11 - suddenly missing in action for hours before turning up again to "reassure" a deeply traumatized nation. He got fired for doing that. Christiane Amanpour suddenly was off on assignment all the time and never made air. She pretty much disappeared from CNN. Katie Couric while still on the "Today" show was reined in severely.

I think I've posted here before about the Michael Moore event my husband and I attended in which Michael Moore spoke - around Christmas of 2004 I think it was. He was onstage with John Dean, who served as moderator. And he talked about having gone on "Today" to be interviewed about his then-just-released film "Fahrenheit 9/11". He mentioned how the press was actively muzzled and passively intimidated into not telling the truth about how hostile the reception was to bush's first inauguration. Does anybody here remember seeing the coverage on the "Nightly News" or "Evening News" or whichever newscast of record back then, and hear how protestors crowded the inaugural route and forced bush's limo to stop cold in the middle of the boulevard? Anybody remember all the signs and the anti-bush slogans on them - lots of visible outrage against an election that for many was regarded as stolen? Anybody remember hearing a White House reporter stand there and report that bush had to sneak in the back door of the White House because the crowds of protesters were making things look and sound unpleasant out front. Anybody remember seeing any coverage of all those clearly fascinating visuals? Anybody? When we left the theater, after seeing it with a big crowd, you could hear the reaction when the movie showed all those things - from footage Michael Moore collected from newsrooms where the footage had been taken in but never made air. He talked about that in the Couric interview. Then the interview ended and they cut to commercial and were taking their lapel mikes off and she leans over to him and confides "oh, you're so right!" and went on to elaborate about how she, too, had been seriously sat upon to get with the company line. Evidently, she told him, someone from the White House had called the NBC brass after she'd interviewed some bush administration official, and the caller complained about the tone of voice she used during the interview. She then got a memo from "upstairs" as she put it, telling her to cool it, apparently in no uncertain terms. Michael Moore said he turned to her, dumbfounded, and said "why don't you say something? You're Katie Couric! You're one of three people in the entire country who can't be fired! You could do an op/ed piece about it in the NYTimes or something!" And her response, he said, was "someday I will." Someday.

Someday may come, and then she'll write her mea culpa book, as will a whole bunch of other people about how they were fooled or misled or used or betrayed or made to do something they really didn't wanna do but didn't have the nerve to say something or were only following orders. Or, as we've already seen from the hapless henchman dougie feith, it was everybody else's fault, and very minimally, even microscopically his. But the press was either actively muzzled as Couric experienced, or people got out-n-out fired for printing or reporting some inconvenient truth. Or it was more subtle. Helen Thomas gets a near ostracism. Nobody, not one of her peers, objects. Not even a fart out of the whole sorry lot. Phil Donahue is canned from MSNBC, even while having the best ratings on the network, because the brass is uncomfortable with the anti-war sentiments of the host. All sorts of those things. On the other hand, Bob Woodward and Judy Miller of the NYTimes get all kinds of access because they're either on their knees sitting at the foot of the "great man" taking eager notes, or willingly belching out propaganda freshly manufactured by the White House Iraq Group - and people like that nice young man dougie feith.

The Helen Thomas thing just burns me up inside. How dare they? Helen Thomas deserves a great deal more respect than that. And she was among the first, if not THE first, to call bush the Worst President, Ever. She wrote an early column after observing him for awhile, that drew that conclusion. Back when nobody else dared.

I'm a retired reporter. This is just hideous to me. Really shameful and disgraceful.

[Oeditpus Rex]

33. Since you're a retired reporter, I'm sure you know

there's no honor among thieves or egos. I was a reporter and editor for 10 years, and not once did I witness a reporter standing up for another — not even within the same newspaper.

I'd bet the rent that when Thomas was sent to the back of the class, everyone else facing forward giggled — under their breath, of course. I'm sure there was shock, too, and perhaps some pity, but I'd wager the only "respect" she got was the averting of eyes, and maybe the odd "Hang in there." The dominating sentiment, I'm sure, was "I get to move up one!" — or, at least, "There, but for the grace of god, go I."

Thomas was "Wally Pipped," Pipp being the first baseman who was benched in favor of a kid named Lou Gehrig in 1925. You think Gehrig felt sorry for his predecessor? Reporters, like ballplayers, compete for jobs, money and fame, and if the road to those is lined with the shells of their colleagues, that's the way it goes.

Pipp's contract, by the way, was sold to Cincinnati the following season. He finished his 15-year career there, hitting .291, .260 and .283 — not bad for an old man of 35. (There's an analogy in there someplace.)

[waiting for hope]

25. So very true.

K&R!

[bluesmail]

26. Kick! & R

I don't remember the "acid, amnesty, and abortion" thingy but then I was a pretty young voter.

[Fireweed247]

29. Can we revoke their licenses for lying?

Then sell the stations, newspapers to the highest (non corrupt) bidder? The profit gained from the sale combined with when we recoup the profits from the war profiteers, we can set the economy back on track.

[Oeditpus Rex]

34. Newspapers require no license

except for a business license.

There's no equivalent of the FCC for print media.

[PinkTiger]

30. Media is plural, not singular. nt

[Kurovski]

35. Kick. (nt)

[redstate_democrat]

36. kick

[BillORightsMan]

37. Media and the CIA

Go read some of this:

Origins of the Overclass

~snip~
The Media

Journalism is a perfect cover for CIA agents. People talk freely to journalists, and few think suspiciously of a journalist aggressively searching for information. Journalists also have power, influence and clout. Not surprisingly, the CIA began a mission in the late 1940s to recruit American journalists on a wide scale, a mission it dubbed Operation MOCKINGBIRD. The agency wanted these journalists not only to relay any sensitive information they discovered, but also to write anti-communist, pro-capitalist propaganda when needed.

The instigators of MOCKINGBIRD were Frank Wisner, Allan Dulles, Richard Helms and Philip Graham. Graham was the husband of Katherine Graham, today’s publisher of the Washington Post. In fact, it was the Post’s ties to the CIA that allowed it to grow so quickly after the war, both in readership and influence. (8)

~snip~
It would be impossible to elaborate in this short space even the most important examples of the CIA/media alliance. Sig Mickelson was a CIA asset the entire time he was president of CBS News from 1954 to 1961. Later he went on to become president of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, two major outlets of CIA propaganda.

The CIA also secretly bought or created its own media companies. It owned 40 percent of the Rome Daily American at a time when communists were threatening to win the Italian elections. Worse, the CIA has bought many domestic media companies. A prime example is Capital Cities, created in 1954 by CIA businessman William Casey (who would later become Reagan’s CIA director). Another founder was Lowell Thomas, a close friend and business contact with CIA Director Allen Dulles. Another founder was CIA businessman Thomas Dewey. By 1985, Capital Cities had grown so powerful that it was able to buy an entire TV network: ABC.

For those who believe in "separation of press and state," the very idea that the CIA has secret propaganda outlets throughout the media is appalling. The reason why America was so oblivious to CIA crimes in the 40s and 50s was because the media willingly complied with the agency. Even today, when the immorality of the CIA should be an open-and-shut case, "debate" about the issue rages in the media. Here is but one example:

In 1996, The San Jose Mercury News published an investigative report suggesting that the CIA had sold crack in Los Angeles to fund the Contra war in Central America. A month later, three of the CIA’s most important media allies — The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times — immediately leveled their guns at the Mercury report and blasted away in an attempt to discredit it. Who wrote the Post article? Walter Pincus, longtime CIA journalist. The dangers here are obvious.

This has been going a long, long time.

How can it be explained when the entire room laughed at bu$h's Press Club Dinner where he was looking for WMD "Is it under here? Nope. Or here?" and the recent gwb song-n-dance or the M.C. Rove episode?

Be the Media
www.FreePress.net

:patriot: