Category: Media

Crossposted at The Progressive Electorate.com

    Sometimes art imitates life, and as far as fiction goes, “Going Rogue” by Sarah Palin is truly a work of art just as a plate of dinner thrown at the wall can be, in a sense.

   “I’m very disappointed. I think it was very rude. She could have at least apologized, and she didn’t even do that,” said Teresa Hedrick. […]

   “We bought two books from Borders to have our receipt and our wristband to get it signed tonight,” said one woman. “My books are going back to Borders tomorrow.”

   “We gave up our entire workday, stayed in the cold. My kids were crying,” said one man. “They went home with my wife. She was out here in the freezing cold all day. I feel like I don’t want to support Sarah.”



ThinkProgress.org

    Nothing screams Maverick and Leadership louder than throwing supporters under the bus just moments after they bought your crappy ghost written book, does it? How else does one gain the approval of the masses in politics without proving that you are capable of making the tough decisions to get the public’s attention, and then as soon as you have the masses approval, showing the guts to make tough decisions like kicking them to the curb ASAP like the useless, duped saps that they are. That isn’t indifference, it’s political strategery, you betcha. (Written in Palinspeak for any potential RW lurkers)

    Gods, it’s like they cloned Bush as a woman.

    My only guess after hearing of this story is how Fox News will make this look like a crowd of angry protesters railing against the Government.

    Just one more bit of proof that the one thing Sarah Palin does well is quit half way through the job while leaving people mystified as to why people support Sarah Palin in the first place.

FAIL.

Our favorite irascible media tyrant is in the news once again, and once again it’s time for me to bring you a story of doing one thing while wishing for another.

In a November 6th interview, Sky News Australia’s David Speers spent about 35 minutes with the CEO of NewsCorp, Rupert Murdoch; the conversation covering topics as diverse as software piracy, world economics, the role of Fox News (and Fox NewsPinion©) in American politics, a strange defense of Glenn Beck, and, not very long afterwards, an even stranger defense of immigration.

We have heard a lot about the…how can I put this politely…challenges Murdoch seems to face associating factual reality with his reality, and we could have lots of fun going through his factual misstatements-but instead, I want to take on one specific issue today:

Rupert Murdoch says he hates it when people steal his content from the Internet to draw readers to their sites…which is funny, if you think about it, because he has no problem at all stealing my content (and lots of yours, as well) for his sites.

Recent Obama Administration attacks against the Chamber of Commerce, and, more notably, Fox News have been greeted with perfunctory attention and notice by the major media outlets.  Though a few pundits and experts chimed in to state their case in the immediate aftermath of Team Obama’s war on bias, few were willing to really say what they believed.  Reaction from the chattering classes and the peanut gallery was largely negative and unfavorable of the decision but one got the feeling that many expressed heavily disingenuous views.  Invoking Nixonian tactics in a critique reveals more about current station than All the President’s Men and Women.  In an era where every network and news agency is under increased pressure to maintain advertising revenue and, let we forget, often running significant deficits due to competition with electronic sources of information, caution prevents a major ratings war or uppercut.  In another time, a direct challenge by the White House might have fueled a bare-knuckle brawl among the heavyweights, following its bold example, but at the moment the best one can expect is a holding pattern and resulting uneasy truce.  Peace might be explained away as journalistic ethics, but ethics often are disregarded if monetary advantage is an option.      

Low-octane, under the radar sniping that frequently resorts to passive-aggression is the most obvious sign of the friction between politicians and purveyors of content.  As a result, the major cable networks have largely resisted the temptation to go after each other.  Striking from a defensive posture, MSNBC recently ran effective ads that directly contradicted Fox News’ claim that the 9/12 Tea Party demonstrations in Washington, DC, were not sufficiently covered by other outlets.  MSNBC was, however, careful not to go for the jugular.  To cite another example, despite recent attempts to modernize its programming and its look, CNN still takes a frequently unsatisfying middle ground between centrism and more progressive reporting that frequently comes across as artificial and plebeian in all the worst ways possible.  Still, CNN runs self-serving promo ads on a regular basis that tout its status as number one cable news network, making particularly mention of those under its employ who have won numerous awards and accolades.  This may be so, but CNN in many ways is the proverbial sleeping giant and it will take more than a direct challenge or surprise attack to fully rouse it from its self-satisfied stupor.  CNN was the first on the scene and as a result its demographic is often older and beholden to brand loyalty, but if it continues to lose younger viewers, it will find itself hemorrhaging revenue.      

Returning to the President’s attack on Fox News, one would expect the network, despite its obvious disdain for labor unions, to be solid in its hatred for President Obama.  However, a chink in the armor appears to have developed.  One of its reporters has declined the opportunity to directly engage the President in hand-to-hand combat.  The question remains whether or not he is violating policy or merely exercising a liberty he has the right to embrace.  It is also possible that this decision is a coordinated attempt designed purely to make President Obama look like a child and make Fox News seem like the rational adult in the matter.          

Returning to the relative surface placidity of Fox News versus Barack H. Obama, et al,

Fox News Channel correspondent Major Garrett called himself a “conscientious objector” in his network’s fight with the White House after a brief interview with President Barack Obama Wednesday during which the topic never came up.

One wonders also if this is merely a shrewd tactical move or indicative of larger trends within Fox News.  Much exists behind the scenes that we simply aren’t privy to and whether the Obama Administration has struck a deal with Fox News is purely speculative because no one’s talking.  Naturally, at least one conservative pundit has taken the opportunity to take a condescending swipe at the President’s strategy and perceived lack of satisfying and successful victories in foreign policy.  It is the intention of many on the right to paint our President as little more than an empty suit.    

Tongue in cheek, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said the interview “constitutes the most important truce in our history since the Korean armistice of 1953.”

“We are South Korea in this particular analogy,” he said.

To be completely honest, however, Fox News has never truly embraced an all out battle royal with the Obama Administration.  While it continues to be snidely dismissive of its policies and eager to run stories with a healthy dollop of right-wing distortion, it has never counter-attacked with any kind of ferocity.  When the immediate charges were levied against Fox News, namely that it was merely a propaganda wing of the Republican party, it became at most a two-day story, and notably reached no fevered pitch of nastiness.  Clearly, no one really wanted to run with the story for very long.  The truth is that the media had nothing to gain and quite a bit to lose if it pushed back too hard.  

Any means of information dispersal has to justify its own existence from time to time and anything that might cause some degree of doubt on behalf of viewers or readers is poisonous.  Opening up a major dialogue about the role of the media in daily life is the last thing any of the mainstream outlets wanted in this situation, which is unfortunate because I think it’s a long-overdue topic that the American people need to debate and then decide for themselves.  Fox News’ stated objective is noble enough, until one realizes that it is cynically manipulative at best.  We report, you decide?  I suppose it depends on what one means by “reporting.”  The easiest populist tactic in the toolbox of any politician is the act of criticizing the media for unfair and unbalanced treatment.  The irony, of course, is that the media, and by this I notably remove Fox News for the most part, is frequently criticized for fueling baseless fears as a means of pushing back against accurate, damning revelations.  It is notably not held accountable for its real limitations and real shortcomings.          

Snide commentary aside, one isn’t sure whether this revelation constitutes victory, stalemate, or submission.  The powers that be in this circumstance are shadow figures who always talk off the record and never wish to be identified.  Nothing could be less transparent than the motives at play or the ultimate decision.  Still, if conditions continue to deteriorate regarding the quality of content and a resulting shift towards partisan bias rather than impartiality, expect some major wars to break out that will not be assuaged by back-stage politics.  If, at some critical juncture in the near future it seems like there’s not enough money or enough oxygen to go round, one can be sure the gloves will be coming off and staying off.

In case you missed it, Texas has now banned gay marriages.  Oh wait, that isn’t all — they have now banned ALL marriages in Texas!

AUSTIN – Texans: Are you really married?

Maybe not.

Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for attorney general, says that a 22-word clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state.

Here is the money quote from the legislation:

The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that “marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.” But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares:

“This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.“

Is marriage dead in Texas due to hate?

It has been a bountiful week for those who still vehemently back the PNAC doctrine and the phony war on terror is back with a vengeance. Friday’s surprise announcement by the Obama administration Justice Department that the big bad planner of the 9/11 attacks is going to be tried in New York City and a GASP civilian court sent shockwaves through the fascist right and set off a flurry of puckering assholes that loudly rang out from Washington to Tel Aviv. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the reputed mastermind behind the false flag black op that took place over eight years past and rebooted American history much to the glee of the war freaks will be leaving Guantanamo Bay and coming to the Big Apple in what will likely be the biggest rally of Deathers, Birthers and teabagger terrorists in history. They won’t have to doctor any crowd photos for this one, you can bet that marching orders are already being cut, Christian Zionist phone trees are ablaze and the imbecile polemicists like Krauthammer, Kristol and Goldberg will be shrieking with manufactured outrage worth every damned penny to the Military Industrial Complex and the Israeli right-wingers who subsidize the drivel that is grist for the genocide machine.

SEATTLE (FNS)–Longtime activist Geov Parrish unexpectedly revealed to the crowd gathered to celebrate his 50th birthday Friday evening his impending plans to end his decades-long career as a public issues advocate in exchange for new opportunities in the field of corporate communications management and image development.

The announcement appeared to be even more shocking to the glitterati gathered for Parrish’s 50th birthday extravaganza at Seattle’s tony Rainier Club than the fact that the event was sponsored by longtime Parrish nemesis Frank Blethen, publisher of the “Seattle Times” and a frequent target of Parrish’s acerbic criticism regarding the state of corporatocracy and its negative impact upon the state of the Nation.

A new commercial venture and three new business relationships were unveiled: a corporate communications consultancy, tentatively to be named “I Am The State!”, is to be opened in the next few weeks, after suitable office space is located, with the United States Chamber of Commerce and The Seattle Times Company as the first two business associates; additionally, Parrish will be joining the Board of Directors of the Strangelove Foundation, an organization devoted to maintaining the purity and essence of our precious bodily fluids.  

Ever seen a guy who was boiled alive?   No?   Well, now you can say you have:

This is a guy that the Uzbeks tortured to death by boiling him alive.   This is what the CIA is hiring the Uzbeks to do to people, in order to extract false, manufactured “confessions” out of them.

What do these confessions say?   Why they say the following:

They were being told to confess to membership of al-Qaeda …

They were told to confess that they’d been in training camps in Afghanistan …

And they were told to confess that they had met Osama bin Laden in person.

How conveeenient!    So let’s get this straight, follow along, please:   The United States’ CIA grabbed people off the streets from all around the world, shipped them to Uzbekistan, and outsourced the torture to the real pros.    The CIA decided (as did the Bush administration) that having someone else do this made it “legal”.    They typed up “confessions” of what they wanted these poor saps to “confess” to, then tortured them by boiling them alive, raping them with broken bottles, and torturing their children in front of them, until the people would sign these confessions.    Said “confessions” were then turned over to the proper government authorities who could then point to the “confessions” as “evidence” to justify the military presence, and actions, in the bogus “WAR ON TERROR”.  

Paul Craig Roberts was a prominent member of the Reagan administration.  

He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as the “Father of Reaganomics”. He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service. He is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology and he holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. He was a post-graduate at the University of California, Berkeley, and Oxford University where he was a member of Merton College.

In 1992 he received the Warren Brookes Award for Excellence in Journalism. In 1993 the Forbes Media Guide ranked him as one of the top seven journalists in the United States.[1]

Smart guy, right?  Smarter still that he turned on his masters and now speaks his mind, and the truth (as he knows it) to anyone who will listen.

Check out what he’s saying about 9/11, and propaganda.

An article in the journal, Sociological Inquiry, casts light on the effectiveness of propaganda. Researchers examined why big lies succeed where little lies fail. Governments can get away with mass deceptions, but politicians cannot get away with sexual affairs.

The researchers explain why so many Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, years after it has become obvious that Iraq had nothing to do with the event. Americans developed elaborate rationalizations based on Bush administration propaganda that alleged Iraqi involvement and became deeply attached to their beliefs. Their emotional involvement became wrapped up in their personal identity and sense of morality. They looked for information that supported their beliefs and avoided information that challenged them, regardless of the facts of the matter.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler explained the believability of the Big Lie as compared to the small lie: “In the simplicity of their minds, people more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have such impudence. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and continue to think that there may be some other explanation.”

What the sociologists and Hitler are telling us is that by the time facts become clear, people are emotionally wedded to the beliefs planted by the propaganda and find it a wrenching experience to free themselves. It is more comfortable, instead, to denounce the truth-tellers than the liars whom the truth-tellers expose.

This is why we see the extreme emotions displayed at a place such as Dailykos, where people get absolutely hysterical when anyone brings up the facts of 9/11.  That is the power of good PSYOPS, and it is why the military has a PSYOPS division.  

9/11 was a trauma for everyone.  We were all wedded to what we thought happened that day, and our minds and our brains adjusted, as best they could, to what we thought was the reality of it.  When we start to learn that what happened that day may have been completely different than what we not only believed, but what we mourned and grieved, we get angry.  

They’re like the emotions you’d experience if you found out someone you loved, who you thought was dead, who you had mourned and grieved, had actually staged their death.  You’d be pretty pissed.

The psychology of belief retention even when those beliefs are wrong is a pillar of social cohesion and stability. It explains why, once change is effected, even revolutionary governments become conservative. The downside of belief retention is its prevention of the recognition of facts. Belief retention in the Soviet Union made the system unable to adjust to economic reality, and the Soviet Union collapsed. Today in the United States millions find it easier to chant “USA, USA, USA” than to accept facts that indicate the need for change.

Or to change “Obama!  Obama!  Obama!” than to recognize that Obama is just another one of “them”.  

The staying power of the Big Lie is the barrier through which the 9/11 Truth Movement is finding it difficult to break. The assertion that the 9/11 Truth Movement consists of conspiracy theorists and crackpots is obviously untrue. The leaders of the movement are highly qualified professionals, such as demolition experts, physicists, structural architects, engineers, pilots, and former high officials in the government. Unlike their critics parroting the government’s line, they know what they are talking about.

Here is a link to a presentation by the architect, Richard Gage, to a Canadian university audience.  The video of the presentation is two hours long and seems to have been edited to shorten it down to two hours. Gage is low-key, but not a dazzling personality or a very articulate presenter. Perhaps that is because he is speaking to a university audience and takes for granted their familiarity with terms and concepts.

Those who believe the official 9/11 story and dismiss skeptics as kooks can test the validity of the sociologists’ findings and Hitler’s observation by watching the video and experiencing their reaction to evidence that challenges their beliefs. Are you able to watch the presentation without scoffing at someone who knows far more about it than you do? What is your response when you find that you cannot defend your beliefs against the evidence presented? Scoff some more? Become enraged?

Another problem that the 9/11 Truth Movement faces is that few people have the education to follow the technical and scientific aspects. The side that they believe tells them one thing; the side that they don’t believe tells them another. Most Americans have no basis to judge the relative merits of the arguments.

Now he brings up something I’ve written about here, more than once:  The Lockerbie bomber case.

For example, consider the case of the Lockerbie bomber. One piece of “evidence” that was used to convict Magrahi was a piece of circuit board from a device that allegedly contained the Semtex that exploded the airliner. None of the people, who have very firm beliefs in Magrahi’s and Libya’s guilt and in the offense of the Scottish authorities in releasing Magrahi on allegedly humanitarian grounds, know that circuit boards of those days have very low combustion temperatures and go up in flames easily. Semtex produces very high temperatures. There would be nothing whatsoever left of a device that contained Semtex. It is obvious to an expert that the piece of circuit board was planted after the event.

The Lockerbie case was similar to 9/11 in that people swallowed the government story, digested it, integrated it with their horror and grief at the tragedy, and now what they believe about the case is part of their actual belief system.  To throw evidence at them that their belief system is actually flawed makes them angry.  They feel insulted.

And now he gets to something that has confounded me for quite some time:

What I find puzzling is the people I know who do not believe a word the government says about anything except 9/11. For reasons that escape me, they believe that the government that lies to them about everything else tells them the truth about 9/11. How can this be, I ask them. Did the government slip up once and tell the truth? My question does not cause them to rethink their belief in the government’s 9/11 story. Instead, they get angry with me for doubting their intelligence or their integrity or some such hallowed trait.

The problem faced by truth is the emotional needs of people. With 9/11 many Americans feel that they must believe their government so that they don’t feel like they are being unsupportive or unpatriotic, and they are very fearful of being called “terrorist sympathizers.” Others on the left-wing have emotional needs to believe that peoples oppressed by the US have delivered “blowbacks.” Some leftists think that America deserves these blowbacks and thus believe the government’s propaganda that Muslims attacked the US.

I think he’s right about the emotional needs of people being a part of this, but he stops far short of the emotional truth of it.  Like I said above, people mourned the event, they grieved it, they emotionally digested it until what they thought was the truth about it became a part of them.  

To hear something that suggests that your very reality, that which you think is literally “the world that exists around you” is actually not true, is going to be met with fierce emotional resistance.  There’s going to be a knee-jerk emotional response of “no!”  To use the word “denial” to describe this would be somewhat accurate, but this is actually something far more powerful than simple garden variety denial.

And this is what the propagandists understand.

And that is why they have power over us.

It is, perhaps, the greatest power you can have over people.  It is greater than the power of force, because people will fight force.  Force is obvious.  Using force against people results in a similar knee-jerk emotional reaction, but against you.  Good propaganda results in them cheering for you, as I saw somewhere else (here?) it’s like the chickens rooting for Colonel Sanders.  

Now THAT’S power.

In the next section he talks about this power, but he attributes it to the power of the government.  I attribute it to the power of the media.  For most people, their window to the world, quite literally, is their television set.  Their sense of reality beyond their little tiny slice of the world is the television.  If they don’t see it on television, it’s not “real” and it didn’t really happen.  We all know what I’m talking about because almost all of us, whether we care to admit it or not, experience this to some degree or another.  I know I do, still, to this day (conditioning is hard to lose).   People simply do not question the media.

As far as I can tell, most Americans have far greater confidence in the government than they do in the truth. During the Great Depression the liberals with their New Deal succeeded in teaching Americans to trust the government as their protector. This took with the left and the right. Neither end of the political spectrum is capable of fundamental questioning of the government. This explains the ease with which our government routinely deceives the people.

Democracy is based on the assumption that people are rational beings who factually examine arguments and are not easily manipulated. Studies are not finding this to be the case. In my own experience in scholarship, public policy, and journalism, I have learned that everyone from professors to high school dropouts has difficulty with facts and analyses that do not fit with what they already believe. The notion that “we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead” is an extremely romantic and idealistic notion. I have seldom experienced open minds even in academic discourse or in the highest levels of government. Among the public at large, the ability to follow the truth wherever it may lead is almost non-existent.

The US government’s response to 9/11, regardless of who is responsible, has altered our country forever. Our civil liberties will never again be as safe as they were. America’s financial capability and living standards are forever lower. Our country’s prestige and world leadership are forever damaged. The first decade of the 21st century has been squandered in pointless wars, and it appears the second decade will also be squandered in the same pointless and bankrupting pursuit.

Would be US media.

We saw it in the run up campaign which got us into Iraq and Afghanistan.

We saw it in the bail out plan for Bernie Madoff type Wall Street ponzi scammers.

We are seeing it now, the marketing plan for swine vaccines.

And I’m going to tell you about the next evolution of media, mandatory volunteerism.

Come to think of media is more than a single drug but a class of opiates taylored to your preference.  For “right-tards” we have Fox, for “whoosie” liberals we have MSNBC and for insane lunatics like me Alex Jones, Infowars.

Well here’s some serious rain on humanity’s latest parade:   Cell phones can indeed give you cancer.

Who will tell the children?

In a decade long, landmark study, it turns out that long term use of cell phones ‘significantly increases risk’ of tumors.

Great.

How much you want to bet that people just decide to ignore this?

I mean, who wants to give up their cell phone?

The “funny” thing (not funny ha-ha but funny queer) about this is that they just don’t know how to break it to the public:

Publication of the results of the £20million investigation have been delayed over disagreements how best to present the conclusions.

Maybe they should spend another ten years and twenty million pounds doing a study on how to tell the cell-phone loving public.  

I’m sure the corporatocracy would gladly delay this as long as possible.

And it’s sort of embarrassing for the governments as well:

The findings are expected to put pressure on the British Government, which has always insisted that mobile phones are safe to use.

Sorry, I realize this is bad news.   But something we should all be aware of.

Might want to spread it around.

So, Thomas Friedman, our ever wrong NYT pundit decided to give is ever wrong opinion on Iraq, again.

In the comment section, me and a poster named Patriot have been discussing terrorism, Iraq, oil, you name it.  The article itself is crap, but, the comment sections may give people help in how to counter wingnut lunatics they encounter.

(Author note:  Those here at docudharma have seen what my posts look like when I get a bit drunk.  And no, I’m not now, but, do apologize for posting the last two drivels.)

Now… class is open…