EDITORIALS—
The ever-disgusting state of the “free press” —
“Guilty! Guilty! Guilty”— proclaim a thousand voices from their high perches.
The loud bipartisan consensus is: “Snowden’s a traitor!”, and the vituperation extends from the center to the very rim of the system, defining the American media as a bona fides totalitarian system of mass communications.
By Patrice Greanville
Glorified news reader Scott Pelley. It’ll be a cold day in hell when he and his confreres dare criticize the system.
Not content with ganging up on NSA whistleblower Ed Snowden using its overpaid pundits, anchormen, and five-star “journalists” the corporate media can’t resist trotting out any available voice it can grab to add credibility to their character assassination. Students of CIA dirt recognize that media smears are dangerous, straight from its time-tested amoral propaganda manual, and that, by blackening the name or creating a lynching atmosphere toward certain political figures (or entire nations) such propaganda can easily pave the way for real attacks and physical elimination. The shameless dishonesty of the corporate media comes through in brilliant technicolor when we observe its highly selective stigmatizations.
Thus while President Allende, Fidel Castro, the Sandinistas, and more recently Hugo Chavez, Saddam H., Gaddafi, Iran’s Ahmadinejad and Syria’s Assad, have all been mocked and demonized, heavyweight criminals that the Washington mafia endorses are given a pass or even open support. This selectivity, of course, extends to entire nations and ideologies. And while plenty of articulate dissenters can be located in America and “the West” without much trouble, none are ever allowed inside the sacrosanct perimeter of the national debate, nor offered sufficient time to explain their positions.
[pullquote] As a leading member of the lynching mob, NBC has now trotted out even lightweight programs like “The Professionals,” supposedly the voice of the (educated) “man in the street”, to justify its one-sided condemnation of Ed Snowden. In that NBC is marching in lockstep with the rest of the “free press”, which will not tolerate injuries to the propaganda system protecting the global empire. [/pullquote]Such consideration should give a responsible journalist pause, but the corporate media are not staffed with real journalists or people of sturdy decency but with thinly veiled propagandists for the corporate status quo, blatant fools or cynical opportunists. For the ultimate triumph of capitalist propaganda, US-style, has been to infect so many minds that just about anyone hired or allowed on television will already carry the loyalist virus, or some sort of disabling character deficiency in abundance, making any vetting for ideological purity somewhat superfluous.
The examples below come from television, the pre-eminent medium of mass disinformation and indoctrination in the United States, since print media —in sharp decline for decades—occasionally offer more nuanced and even closer-to-the-truth accounts of contemporary reality. (Warning: Half-truths may be more insidious than straight lies or omissions, but that’s another story.) Since in the United States, in particular, the “free press” enforces a sort of diffused McCarthyism in support of the imperial establishment’s goals and methods, it’s not surprising to find even the periphery of the great media constellation occupied with witnesses shouting their condemnation of Ed Snowden’s daring act.
Let’s examine a couple of these modern autos-da-fé.
Loyalist Genuflecters #1: NBC’s The Professionals
The role of this bunch is to represent “educated, reasonable opinion” supposedly mirroring the public’s attitudes toward specific issues. Unfortunately, from the start the very composition of the panel cast doubt as to its ability to reach even such modest goals. Let’s take a look at the current members:
DONNY DEUSTCH
Hyperegotist Donald “Donny” Deutsch (born November 22, 1957)[1] is an American advertising executive and television personality. Deutsch is the chairman of Deutsch Inc., an advertising agency founded by his father, which he sold to the Interpublic Group of Companies in 2000 for US$ 265 million.[2]
This guy’s specialty—apart from frequently being a strident, obnoxious jerk— is to be a crony to many of tv industry’s top honchos, and corporate media in general. Being part of the advertising industry, this is of course a natural fit, and that’s how he’s wormed his way into limelight. An intellectual mediocrity of the first order (perhaps his only true distinction), Deutsch, with more than a quarter billion dollars in net worth, is an unapologetically opinionated imperialist establishmentarian, with all the toxicity that that implies. It’s a fair bet that in a truly meritocratic media system this idiot would be invisible. Donny’s opinion? “Snowden’s a traitor with capital “T’!”
STAR JONES
According to her suspiciously inflated Wiki profile, Star Jones (previously Star Jones Reynolds; married to an investment banker), born March 24, 1962, “is an American lawyer, journalist, writer, and television personality. She is known for her former role as a co-host of the ABC weekday morning talk show The View from 1997 to 2006. She was one of sixteen contestants of the fourth installment of Celebrity Apprentice, coming in fifth place.[1]”
But whatever the official resume may say, the basic truth is simpler. Jones is one of those aggressive Horatio Alger-type, upper-middle class blacks that the establishment likes to embrace and display on its media & political universe, if only to burnish the myth that individual success is alive and well in America. As can be readily assumed, Jones is a strident conservative.
And there’s more. Impeccably and ostentatiously insensitive to the plight of animals, Jones was named to PETA‘s “worst dressed” list four years in a row.[12] An anti-fur ad from PETA featured drag queen Flotilla DeBarge dressed as Jones in a spoof. Jones threatened to sue PETA and DeBarge as a result of the ad.[13] As a bourgeois feminist avatar, Jones, on account of her fides as a dyed-in-the-wool careerist, was named the national spokesperson for the National Association of Professional Women in January 2012.[14] Jones has since participated in chapter meetings in Florida, California and New York, where she recorded interviews that were aired nationally. Jones’ opinion of Snowden? “He’s criminal!”
DR. NANCY SNYDERMAN
Possessing true quality as a person, Dr. Snyderman is the odd man out on the panel. She’s normally the voice of reason on many issues that require some thinking. A woman of undeniable beauty (her movie star telegenicity didn’t hurt when it came to getting gigs on tv), Nancy L. Snyderman, MD (born 1952)[1] is an American physician and broadcast journalist. Since 2006, she has been the chief medical editor for NBC News, and frequently appears on NBC‘s Today and MSNBC to discuss medicine-related issues. Snyderman is also on the staff of the otolaryngology-head and neck surgery department at the University of Pennsylvania, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is certified by the American Board of Otolaryngology in head and neck surgery, and specializes in head and neck cancer. Snyder’s take on Snowden? Actually her real opinion is not clear since she directed attention elsewhere.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patrice Greanville is The Greanville Post’s founding editor.
_______________________________________
Loyalist Genuflecters #2: Joy Behar, on Current TV
A Panel of 3 with 3 attackers
Joy Behar’s show is deceptively named “Joy Behar’s ‘SAY ANYTHING!’. As this panel proves, it’s anything but. Readers should recall that Current TV (recently acquired by Aljazeera) was home to quasi-alternative views, embracing hosts like Keith Olbermann, Bill Price, etc. So much for corporate-owned “anti-establishment” media.
http://youtu.be/A6ACwXTeXdk
OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT
On the heels of House Speaker John Boehner decrying Snowden as a “traitor,” Joy Behar, Robert Zimmerman and Boris Epshteyn discuss NSA leaker Edward Snowden’s decision to flee to Hong Kong and the possible implications of his choice. Behar, Zimmerman and Epshteyn share the same view that Snowden should not have released confidential NSA files and speculate on his motives.
“Why escape?” questions Behar, while Zimmerman expresses concern that Snowden has jeopardized “important intelligence gathering of information and does create a climate that puts millions in jeopardy.”
Epshteyn thinks anti-Snowden sentiment is bipartisan sentiment: “What is great to see is the agreement that’s coming out right now, there is a consensus between Republicans and Democrats,” he says.
While others have shown support for Snowden’s decision to expose the NSA’s electronic surveillance of people worldwide, Zimmerman wants Snowden held accountable: “I don’t see any way that he CAN’T be convicted of serious crimes,” he says.
Epshteyn wonders if financial compensation fueled Snowden’s choice: “I wouldn’t put it out of the question that he’s getting paid by somebody,” says Epshteyn.
SOURCE: http://current.com/shows/joy-behar/videos/robert-zimmerman-on-nsa-leaker-edward-snowden-at-the-end-of-the-day-hes-a-coward/
<https://www.greanvillepost.com/videos/behar-snowden.flv>
This flooded me with memories of your inaugural hard-copy edition of Cyrano’s Journal in ‘82, a masterful indictment of the mainstream press. Nothing has changed for the better, dear brother. The professional prostitutes out there, who have the audacity to call themselves journalists, demonstrate the veracity and sagacity of Cyrano’s critique three decades ago. As I reflect on our respective publications over the years, a common thread was sounding the alarm vis-a-vis “hired guns” masquerading as journalists and historians—which, as Zinn spoke eloquently to, has been an integral part of our culture since its inception. Now the results are manifest… Read more »
Nice going Patrice… from your encapsulation to the specific citations–a piece that needs “airing” again and again. Encapsulated thus: “…while plenty of articulate dissenters can be located in America and “the West” without much trouble, none are ever allowed inside the sacrosanct perimeter of the national debate, nor offered sufficient time to explain their positions. “Such consideration should give a responsible journalist pause, but the corporate media are not staffed with real journalists or people of sturdy decency but with thinly veiled propagandists for the corporate status quo, blatant fools or cynical opportunists.” And, of course, it’s not just the… Read more »
In 2005, during my first of 7 trips to both sides of The Wall in Israel Palestine, I began reporting on Israeli Nuclear Whistle Blower Mordechai Vanunu’s ongoing struggle for his right to leave Israel. Although Vanunu deactivated his Facebook account in May 2012, and despite the Cause “FREE MORDECHAI VANUNU” being hacked [as was my 2 MAC’S] the Cause which is also dedicated to remind the world of US collusion in Israel’s policy of Nuclear Ambiguity/DECEPTIONS -we have tripled in membership and are now known as “TNT: Telling Nuclear Truths” I also ran for US HOUSE 2012, in the… Read more »