@Anybody whom it may concern

An interesting note on the MSM (in fact MSNBC) and their motivations for what they publish and where, MSNBC’s Anti-War Censorship: A Reminder.

I read Scahill’s Pakistan article and his subsequent blog post, and will admit it was an interesting read.

I’ve previously shared my opinion of Scahill’s coverage of Blackwater, and the same criticism is applicable to this latest article: its sensationalistic, he panders to his progressive audience, and relies on weak sourcing. In this article he makes Blackwater into some kind of uber-villain while failing to illustrate that BW is a tool to aid the implementation of US policy – it’s like saying the mall security guard runs the mall. By continuing his BW fetish (which has sold many books and boosted his career) he underplays threads he uncovered to what would be significant news stories in and of itself.

Here’s a reprint of the comment I left in his blog about the post:

“Mr. Scahill,

Moreover contacting the embassy for comment would be a courtesy, being that it is the US embassy in Islamabad that is going to bear the brunt of any public response (from a deluge of media inquiry to potential violence) of the controversial and anonymously sourced information lacking ground-verification that is contained in the article.”

When our heads aren’t being filled with that toxic slop, we’re told tales of horror about Muslim boogiemen that want to slit our throats because they love death more than living.

Scared witless and shitless, cowering in fear, which gives the wealthy elite the cover it needs to ransack this country’s wealth.

John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero”

As soon as your born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,

A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,
They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool,
Till you’re so fucking crazy you can’t follow their rules,

A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.

When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear,

A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you’re so clever and classless and free,
But you’re still fucking peasents as far as I can see,

A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.

There’s room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill,

A working class hero is something to be.
A working class hero is something to be.
If you want to be a hero well just follow me,
If you want to be a hero well just follow me.

[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ‘0 which is not a hashcash value.

I nominate Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader. Which reminds me, we must also fight against being labelled “spoilers”!

I think Nader and the recent group Single Payer Action have great ideas about using experts/leaders in direct activism. Click HERE to read about what they do and don’t do.

An example about the CIA, Operation Mockingbird from the 1950s, is linked below. Remember, when the intelligence community has a program they like, media exposure doesn’t kill it. They lie to the public (Panetta’s lies about the murder squad), rename it, add another level of secrecy, and soldier on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

As for the Power Elite, a term Kristina Borjesson employs, they are connected across the CIA-NSA, the presidency, major corporate players (military, “security,” media, and banksters [yes, they deserve the “st” in the term]), the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission.
- Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller in 1973, stated in a book: “The nation-state as a fundamental unit of man’s organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.” That was in 1971! THEY have made a lot of progress since then. The quote is from the following link.
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/22-obamas-trilateral-commission-team/

KBorjesson doesn’t seem to know how to answer Peter B. Collins’ pursuit of a plausible link between Viacom, Summer Redstone, and Rather’s retreat from Borjesson’s story for HDNet. I don’t know about Rather’s and HDNet’s reason(s). But plausible linkage certainly exists in the fact that major media ownership and directoring is, we can say, incestuous and collusive. Many sit on each other’s boards of directors. Also, remember that the decisionmaking is not only direct collusion. It includes spouses, sisters, sisters-in-law, fathers, etc. (One example: Philip Graham (a young suicide, reportedly) directed the Washington Post. He had a military intelligence background. The WPost company came to him by marriage to Katharine Graham. The WPost currently continues its collusion with the CIA et al. Obviously. True journalist Jeremy Scahill connects Blackwater’s – Xe’s – founder Erik Prince in similar fashion.)

And I didn’t mention the Bilderberg Group yet.

The average citizen cannot absorb all of the above. Someday, we’ll have to present it to the public as a chillingly exciting lecture series. Meanwhile, only a minority of us have the time to research this, cull the wheat from the chaff, link it, and understand it. And I say: WE must act on it.

Ironically, the power elite’s decision to puppetize Obama into the presidency has created a historic opportunity for us. Obama’s silver-forked-tongued speeches inspired a MAJORITY of voting citizens in our country to wake up, to have hope again, and to believe that good change was possible. He betrayed them. (And me. Yes, I was duped, too. Last year, I didn’t have the time for research. This year, I do.) That MAJORITY is mostly jaded now, but still awake. A core group can attract them before they return, in disgust, to slumber. That core group is us.

We must force a change in leadership, and from a position of leadership we must inform the citizens of this awful truth. As we do this, we must avoid being tarred as “conspiracy-theory whackos.” Therefore, we need a core group of leaders and doers who have integrity, bravery, and unity of purpose.

WE have a historic opportunity.

See: The Century of The Self

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/century_of_the_self_episode_1.shtml

Nothing new here for anyone who has had their eyes open.

Add to the mix that the CIA has infiltrated all the media and does not deny it, and one can see that these new organizations are completely compromised as sources for fact.

The myth created around 9/11 is a perfect example of how the “official narrative” (all lies) has been put out and people simply refuse to even want to see the blatant contradictions, lies, holes, inconsistencies and absurdities in their 19 militant Islamic hijackers with boxcutter conspiracy. And the “official report” was thousands of pages of lies which has been debunked by hundreds and hundreds of engineers and scientists and this is still not even taken seriously… even by the left.

We are living in a post 1984 Brave New World and the internet which appears to be the single shining light to reveal truth and expose lies will soon be taken away when they realize how powerful a tool it can be for bringing light to the fascism which is clamping down more and more each day.

The collapsing economy will force the fascists to go nasty and the people with absolutely nothing else to loose will begin to get very restless, that is the ones who don’t drug themselves to death.

Another idea is that the comment link to a story links to a forum type board like in sites as the well known Ars Technica

Personally I like the Ars Technica idea better.

@ Mizgin: As always, right on. Bovard’s piece nails it nicely.

@Simon: I think ‘internet’ provides that possibility: reversing the trend. But then ahain, 1000000s of sites, and very hard to sift through and determine trustworthiness/reliability…Some purposely try to see misinformation, some due to naivety & stupidity, some due to blinded partisanship, some due to loyalty to funders….Again, very hard to sift through them and select.