{"id":180515,"date":"2015-09-11T13:28:44","date_gmt":"2015-09-11T13:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=180515"},"modified":"2015-09-11T13:28:44","modified_gmt":"2015-09-11T13:28:44","slug":"rupert-murdochs-fox-news-says-refugee-crisis-is-putins-scheme-the-backstory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/rupert-murdochs-fox-news-says-refugee-crisis-is-putins-scheme-the-backstory\/","title":{"rendered":"Rupert Murdoch\u2019s Fox News Says Refugee Crisis Is Putin\u2019s Scheme. The Backstory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Eric Zuesse<\/p>\n<p>The show aired on September 5th, and interviewed their contracted expert:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Screen-Shot-2015-09-10-at-11.14.12-AM.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"CToWUd\" src=\"https:\/\/ci6.googleusercontent.com\/proxy\/7ZrBzid4__A4ktVE4v_rlnLledgMIA9R2rryigMr8Q9w1mrLF2aM9h9M0FrPttgBDr8LDuC1oGUvOoXOC8sNFB5kDIOQG0DjAsvr4KLdtIlfrQux25Ka-kK1ITRluhD8-QrMhjhrB6a01IIauDD3YIgMp80kBdGI3A=s0-d-e1-ft#http:\/\/www.washingtonsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Screen-Shot-2015-09-10-at-11.14.12-AM.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2015-09-10 at 11.14.12 AM\" width=\"1010\" height=\"785\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Screen-Shot-2015-09-10-at-11.54.45-AM.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"CToWUd\" src=\"https:\/\/ci4.googleusercontent.com\/proxy\/T0CsypXmtc0nDZqF8ilKxLcID2mehejuVs7rpcDlh1JgMLnqyZRuT76zmoOpP1XajLYWiyR9QGboLJOyA0MQl-OuJMqM2FpFDorOG2YgwY3l78Q5ENGNCNSn6Zq-_qRNZsYLrR7z9_ElRftKQMoseqvr0GG9I5H0EA=s0-d-e1-ft#http:\/\/www.washingtonsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Screen-Shot-2015-09-10-at-11.54.45-AM.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2015-09-10 at 11.54.45 AM\" width=\"1013\" height=\"786\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/video.foxnews.com\/v\/4466018186001\/european-union-leaders-struggle-to-deal-with-migrant-crisis\/?#sp=show-clips\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/video.foxnews.com\/v\/<wbr \/>4466018186001\/european-union-<wbr \/>leaders-struggle-to-deal-with-<wbr \/>migrant-crisis\/?#sp=show-clips<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"8-RyOaFwcEw\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"US support of violent neo-Nazis in Ukraine: Video Compilation\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8-RyOaFwcEw?start=2&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><strong>TRANSCRIPT<\/strong>, starting at <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1332350246\"><span class=\"aQJ\">4:45<\/span><\/span>:<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1332350247\"><span class=\"aQJ\">4:45<\/span><\/span>, Interviewer:\u00a0<i>The other place that nobody seems to want to go these days is Russia and China, and Russia and China are both the two countries that have really gotten behind Assad, and certainly try to prop him up and those kinds of things; and as we look at pictures from China\u2019s military day parade [posted onscreen], how much of this is Russia and China trying to slough off these refugees on Europe and everybody else \u2026 to try to gain political and global capital?<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>McFARLAND: Well, in China I think less so, but Russia, certainly, because we\u2019ve seen even in the last week that Russia has increased its military presence in Syria. Russia is trying to prop up the Assad government, like the Iranians are; and so Russia is sending military equipment; it\u2019s sending it by sea, it\u2019s sending it overland, it\u2019s sending it by air, to try to prop up the Assad government to continue the fighting.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Q: To continue the refugee crisis?<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>MCFARLAND: Oh, sure, exactly.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>THE BACKSTORY:<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Whereas back in 2002 and 2003, the U.S. aristocracy\u2019s biggest push for \u201cregime change\u201d was to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq; and whereas in 2011 the biggest push for \u201cregime change\u201d was to remove Muammar Gaddaffi from power in Libya; and whereas next in 2011 the biggest push for \u201cregime change\u201d became to remove Bashar al-Assad from power in Syria; and whereas in 2013 the biggest push for \u201cregime change\u201d became to remove Viktor Yanukovych from power in Ukraine; the biggest push for \u201cregime change\u201d now is to remove Vladimir Putin from power in Russia.<\/p>\n<p>Media-lies have been crucial to them all.<\/p>\n<p>On 2 October 2003, the media-watch organization,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/worldpublicopinion.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">worldpublicopini<wbr \/>on.org<\/a>, headlined \u201cMisperceptions, the Media\u00a0and the Iraq War: Study Finds Widespread Misperceptions on Iraq\u00a0Highly Related to Support for War: Misperceptions Vary Widely\u00a0Depending on News Source: Fox Viewers More Likely to\u00a0Misperceive, PBS-NPR Less Likely.\u201d In fact, the people who\u00a0received their news primarily through NPR or PBS exhibited the\u00a0lowest\u00a0rate of misperceptions, and Fox News Channel viewers\u00a0exhibited the\u00a0highest\u00a0misperceptions-<wbr \/>rate: Whereas 77% of NPR\/PBS\u00a0listeners\/viewers gave correct answers on all three factual news\u00a0questions asked, only 20% of Fox News Channel viewers did; and\u00a0whereas only 23% of the NPR\/PBS audience got one or more of these\u00a0three factual questions wrong, 80% of Fox viewers did.<\/p>\n<p>So, the George W. Bush Administration forced NPR and PBS to adhere more fully to Bush\u2019s (the U.S. aristocracy\u2019s) line.<\/p>\n<p>NPR\u2019s David Folkenflik reported, on NPR\u2019s \u201cMorning Edition\u201d 20 May\u00a02005, that, the \u201cculture gap became evident as long as two years ago.\u00a0At one closed board meeting, according to two former CPB officials,\u00a0Tomlinson suggested bringing in Fox News Channel anchor Brit\u00a0Hume to talk to public broadcasting officials about how to create\u00a0balanced news programs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This Bush gang had no objection whatsoever to moving toward\u00a0fascism; after all, it\u2019s where they had personally come from. Eric\u00a0Boehlert headlined at <a href=\"http:\/\/salon.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">salon.com<\/a> on <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1332350248\"><span class=\"aQJ\">May 26th<\/span><\/span>, \u201c\u2018Fair and Balanced\u2019\u00a0\u2013 the McCarthy Way,\u201d and he reported: \u201cCPB head Kenneth\u00a0Tomlinson, who is leading a jihad against \u2018liberal bias\u2019 in public\u00a0broadcasting, and one of his two new ombudsmen both worked for\u00a0the late Fulton Lewis, a reactionary radio personality associated with\u00a0Sen. Joe McCarthy.\u201d Tomlinson, in fact, had \u201cworked as an intern for\u00a0Lewis,\u201d and the new Tomlinson-appointed ombudsman, William\u00a0Schulz, was an executive colleague of Tomlinson\u2019s at\u00a0<i>Readers Digest<\/i>,\u00a0and before that, \u201cwas a writer for Lewis.\u201d These two men had, in fact,\u00a0first met nearly 60 years ago, as acolytes of this fascist radio\u00a0commentator, who was comparable to today\u2019s Rush Limbaugh. \u201cIn\u00a01949, the\u00a0<i>New Republic<\/i>\u00a0noted that Lewis\u2019 \u2018wild charges were part of\u00a0his campaign over many years to smear in every way possible the\u00a0[FDR] New Deal, the [Truman] Fair Deal, and everybody not in\u00a0accord with the most reactionary political beliefs.\u201d Furthermore,\u00a0\u201cAccording to a flattering 1954 biography of the broadcaster, \u2018Praised\u00a0and Damned: The Story of Fulton Lewis, Jr.,\u2019 Lewis was \u2018as close to\u00a0Senator Joseph R. McCarthy as any other man in the national scene.\u2019\u00a0<i>Look<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0magazine agreed, calling Lewis one of McCarthy\u2019s\u00a0\u2018masterminds.\u2019\u201d That, of course, positioned Lewis \u2013 and, by\u00a0extension, Tomlinson and one of the two PBS\/NPR ombudsmen \u2013\u00a0far to the right of the then-mainstream Republicans, such as Dwight\u00a0D. Eisenhower. Of course, George W. Bush himself represented this\u00a0very same far-Right Republican Party contingent, which \u2013 thanks to\u00a0decades of financial contributions from aristocrats like Scaife and\u00a0Coors, building the fascist intellectual infrastructure \u2013 subsequently\u00a0became today\u2019s Republican mainstream.<\/p>\n<p>Word was now out, among journalists throughout the world, that\u00a0President Bush aimed to turn his country\u2019s public broadcasting\u00a0system into a domestic propaganda organ; and so, on <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1332350249\"><span class=\"aQJ\">May 30th<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0The\u00a0<i>New York Times<\/i> headlined \u201cOmbudsmen Rebuff Move by Public\u00a0Broadcasting,\u201d and reported \u2013 datelined <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1332350250\"><span class=\"aQJ\">May 27th<\/span><\/span> from London \u2013\u00a0that: \u201cAn [international] association of news ombudsmen has rejected\u00a0an attempt by two ombudsmen from the Corporation for Public\u00a0Broadcasting to join their organization as full-fledged members,\u00a0questioning their independence. The Organization of News Ombudsmen, which represents nearly a hundred print and broadcast\u00a0ombudsmen from around the world, more than half of them from the\u00a0United States, voted at its annual conference here last week to change\u00a0its bylaws to allow full membership only to those who work for news\u00a0organizations,\u201d which excluded representatives from CPB, because \u201cit does not itself gather or produce news.\u201d Observed one member,\u00a0who happened to be the ombudsman from NPR, \u201cWe want members\u00a0who are responsive to readers, not to governments or lobby groups.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<i>Los Angeles Times<\/i> media critic David Shaw took a broad\u00a0historical view of this matter, headlining<span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1332350251\"><span class=\"aQJ\">May 29th<\/span><\/span> \u201cThere\u2019s a\u00a0\u2018Nuclear Option\u2019 for PBS\u2019 Woes,\u201d opining that no PBS at all would\u00a0be better than a PBS that\u2019s a propaganda organ for the White House,\u00a0and reminding readers: \u201cThe Bush administration is not the first to\u00a0challenge the independence of PBS. Back in the 1970s, the Nixon\u00a0administration was so estranged by PBS coverage of Watergate and\u00a0the Vietnam War that it stacked the board of the Corporation for\u00a0Public Broadcasting with Nixon sympathizers. \u2018There were\u00a0tremendous fights, with the Nixon administration trying to prevent\u00a0public television from doing any public affairs programming at all,\u2019\u00a0Lawrence Grossman, the former president of PBS, subsequently told\u00a0the\u00a0<i>New York Times<\/i>. The Bush administration, which has already\u00a0accomplished the heretofore seemingly impossible by becoming even\u00a0more media-averse than the Nixon administration, seems determined\u00a0to surpass the wizard of Whittier and Watergate in bringing the CPB\u00a0to heel as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Shaw, like other major-media commentators about the\u00a0national media, had previously stood by in silence, during 2002 and\u00a02003, while America\u2019s major media cavalierly spread amongst the\u00a0U.S. public, as virtually unchallenged, the false rumors coming from\u00a0the Bush Administration, and from its allies such as the Bush-Administration-financed group of exiles, the Iraqi National Congress,\u00a0saying that Iraq\u2019s leader Saddam Hussein had been proven to be\u00a0storing huge quantities of weapons of mass destruction and to be\u00a0working in cahoots with Al Qaeda to threaten the United States.\u00a0However, now, just a few years later, these very same \u201cnews\u201d media\u00a0were so frightened at the rising extent of this Administration\u2019s control\u00a0over their \u201cnews,\u201d that these commentators were publicizing what\u00a0those fascists were doing to force them, \u2018journalists,\u2019 into a military lock-step. This change in atmosphere was stunning; America\u2019s press were\u00a0now trying to extricate themselves from the prison they had only\u00a0recently helped to construct for themselves.\u00a0They didn\u2019t think that they might get caught up in the prison that they had helped construct to contain the general public.<\/p>\n<p>On 9 May 9 2005, Eric Alterman headlined in\u00a0<i>The Nation<\/i>,\u00a0\u201cBush\u2019s War on the Press,\u201d and he observed that, contrary to\u00a0conservative cant, \u201cMedia insiders appear to like Bush a great deal\u00a0more than the public does.\u201d He was correct there (Bush\u2019s public\u00a0approval ratings were then around 45%), and likewise correct in\u00a0concluding that, \u201cThe press may be the battleground, but the target is\u00a0democracy itself.\u201d Even if conservatives had hired the major media\u2019s\u00a0executives, there was a growing discordancy between the objectives\u00a0of this government and of the press, and worries were thus rising\u00a0within the press that things were now perhaps going too far.<\/p>\n<p>On <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1332350252\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Friday June 10th<\/span><\/span>, the\u00a0<i>New York Times<\/i> headlined \u201cPanel\u00a0Would Cut Public Broadcasting Aid,\u201d and reported: \u201cA House\u00a0Appropriations panel <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1332350253\"><span class=\"aQJ\">on Thursday<\/span><\/span> approved a spending bill that\u00a0would cut the budget for public television and radio nearly in half. \u2026\u00a0The cuts in financing went significantly beyond those requested by\u00a0the White House.\u201d Republicans said that this was necessary \u201cat a time\u00a0of growing deficits,\u201d but Democrats \u201ctook a different view.\u201d In any\u00a0event, this move proved that the assault on public broadcasting wasn\u2019t\u00a0just a Bush initiative; it was a Republican Party Crusade, going even beyond the Republican President\u2019s thrust. Democrats\u00a0managed to reverse most of the cuts. However, the overtly\u00a0conservative media cited this restoration as \u2018proof\u2019 that public\u00a0broadcasting was in bed with the Democratic Party, just as Kenneth\u00a0Tomlinson and the rest of the Bush team were claiming.<\/p>\n<p>On <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1332350254\"><span class=\"aQJ\">June\u00a025th<\/span><\/span>, Sam Singer, of the overtly conservative\u00a0<i>Chicago Tribune<\/i>,\u00a0headlined \u201cBattle Lines Are Forming Over Public TV, Radio,\u201d and\u00a0reported that \u201cthe Corporation for Public Broadcasting\u201d (which was,\u00a0in a sense, misleading \u2013 the\u00a0<i>actual<\/i> targets here were instead PBS and\u00a0NPR) was \u201creeling from a House effort to cut its funding and a series\u00a0of attacks over perceived political bias.\u201d Singer, slyly using there the\u00a0passive tense, didn\u2019t note that this supposedly \u201cperceived\u201d bias was\u00a0being\u00a0\u201cperceived\u201d\u00a0<i>by\u00a0the Bush Administration<\/i>. However, he did\u00a0observe that \u201cCPB Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson, an outspoken critic\u00a0of PBS\u2019 content, seems determined to force changes at PBS and\u00a0NPR,\u201d and that \u201cDemocrats and others are waging a battle \u2026 to\u00a0curtail Tomlinson\u2019s influence.\u201d Singer\u2019s article implicitly agreed with\u00a0Tomlinson\u2019s charge that this conflict was simply between\u00a0\u201cDemocrats\u201d versus \u201cRepublicans\u201d; it wasn\u2019t at all between democracy versus fascism. Karl Rove could have written this article:\u00a0its implicit viewpoint was that public broadcasting ought to represent\u00a0the party in power, and that this party used to be Democrats, but was\u00a0now Republicans, and so Republicans were now simply claiming\u00a0what was theirs, no different than Democrats had previously done.\u00a0Perhaps this kind of fraudulent \u2018reporting\u2019 was what Kenneth\u00a0Tomlinson meant by \u2018balance\u2019; but what the Republicans were now\u00a0doing had actually no precedent whatsoever in anything that any\u00a0Democratic presidential administration had ever done \u2013 such a view\u00a0of \u2018history\u2019 was merely a lie, more conservative mythmaking. The\u00a0<i>Chicago Tribune<\/i>\u2019s \u2018reporter\u2019 mentioned, in passing, that \u201cTomlinson\u00a0also has come under questioning for naming Patricia Harrison, a\u00a0former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, to\u00a0head CPB. Democrats argue Tomlinson is guaranteeing it will have a\u00a0partisan nature by bringing in a former GOP partisan.\u201d The false idea\u00a0here was that Harrison was merely \u201ca former\u201d partisan, and that there\u00a0was nothing unprecedented about appointing such a partisan political\u00a0hack as the head of CPB. These lies were all deception by\u00a0implication, rather than by assertion; the technique is classic\u00a0propaganda \u2013 very professional, but\u00a0not\u00a0as journalism, professional\u00a0only\u00a0as propaganda.<\/p>\n<p>The Republican Party\u2019s takeover of the CPB then faded from the\u00a0news, for three months, until Paul Farhi headlined, but buried deep\u00a0inside the\u00a0<i>Washington Post<\/i>, on 27 September 2005, \u201cCPB Taps Two\u00a0GOP Conservatives for Top Posts,\u201d and reported: \u201cA leading\u00a0Republican donor and fundraiser was elected chairman of the\u00a0Corporation for Public Broadcasting yesterday, tightening\u00a0conservative control over the agency that \u2026 is supposed to act as a\u00a0buffer against outside political influence. \u2026 The board also elected\u00a0another conservative \u2026 as its vice chairman. \u2026 With the changes, conservatives with close ties to the Bush administration have assumed\u00a0control of every important position at the agency. \u2026 \u2018It\u2019s mind-boggling,\u2019 Ernest J. Wilson II, one of two Democrats on the eight-member board, said in an interview.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1332350255\"><span class=\"aQJ\">October 30th<\/span><\/span>, three groups\u00a0\u2013 Common Cause, The Free Press, and the Center for Digital\u00a0Democracy \u2013 jointly issued a press release headlined \u201cCronyism\u00a0\u00a0and Secrecy Run Rampant at Corporation for Public Broadcasting:\u00a0New president fills the CPB offices with partisan propagandists;\u00a0Inspector General\u2019s report on political meddling by ex-chairman\u00a0[Kenneth Tomlinson] kept from the public.\u201d The viewpoint expressed\u00a0was: \u201cThe CPB is being governed more like a private, secret society\u00a0than an agency supported by taxpayers.\u201d For more than a year, there\u00a0was a pause regarding the Republican war against PBS. Then, on 5\u00a0February 2007, <a href=\"http:\/\/tvweek.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">tvweek.com<\/a> bannered \u201cBush Proposes Steep Cut to\u00a0PBS Funding,\u201d and Ira Teinowitz reported that, \u201cPresident Bush is\u00a0reopening the fight over government support of public television,\u00a0unveiling a 2007 government fiscal year budget that would cut\u00a0federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by nearly\u00a025 percent.\u201d This cut would be 31% \u201cwhen cuts in related programs\u00a0are added.\u201d Leaving PBS and NPR to depend more and more on\u00a0support from the large corporations, which were controlled by\u00a0executives who donated overwhelmingly to the Republican Party,\u00a0would virtually compel those networks to become even more\u00a0politically compliant than they already were.\u00a0(And this is what happened.)<\/p>\n<p>If anything, the Bush Administration\u2019s war against public\u00a0broadcasting was due to public broadcasting being not sufficiently\u00a0biased, rather than to its being too biased. On <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1332350256\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Thursday November\u00a010th<\/span><\/span>, of 2005, the trade journal,<i>\u00a0Broadcasting &amp; Cable<\/i>, had headlined\u00a0\u201cSurvey Says: Noncom[mercial] News Most Trusted,\u201d and opened:\u00a0\u201cSome Republicans \u2026 have griped about the fairness and balance of\u00a0public broadcasting\u2019s news, but \u2026 A Harris telephone survey\u00a0commissioned by the Public Relations Society of America and\u00a0released <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1332350257\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Thursday<\/span><\/span> found that 61% of the general public generally\u00a0trusted news on PBS and NPR, while 56% trusted papers like the\u00a0<i>Washington Post<\/i>,\u00a0<i>Wall Street Journal<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0or\u00a0<i>New York Times<\/i>, and 53%\u00a0trusted the commercial broadcast and cable news operations.\u201d Bush\u2019s\u00a0war against public broadcasting reflected nothing but his desire to\u00a0increase, even further, the ratio of propaganda to news. Despite PBS\u00a0being slanted toward the Right, it was less so than was commercial\u00a0broadcasting. (That\u2019s no longer the case.)<\/p>\n<p>Six days later, on November 16th of 2005, the\u00a0<i>Wall Street Journal<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0headlined (also buried inside the paper) \u201cReport Concludes\u00a0Tomlinson Broke Law Involving PBS,\u201d and reported: \u201cThe former\u00a0head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting violated federal law\u00a0and internal ethical guidelines by improperly interfering with\u00a0programming to include more shows featuring conservatives and by\u00a0using \u2018political tests\u2019 in hiring decisions, according to CPB\u2019s\u00a0inspector general.\u201d Just the day before that, on the 15th \u2013 which was\u00a0the very same day when the IG\u2019s report was released \u2013 the media\u00a0blogger Timothy Karr, at mediacitizen.blogspot, had headlined \u201cCPB\u00a0Report Tells Only Part of Story,\u201d and he stated: \u201cMissing from the report\u00a0is email traffic between Tomlinson and White House political advisor\u00a0Karl Rove, reportedly provided to Inspector General Kenneth Konz\u00a0by investigators at the State Department. This evidence, which\u00a0reveals the White House\u2019s hand in manipulations of public\u00a0broadcasting programming [and this involved the State Department; it was about international matters, which are the category of national affairs that an aristocracy is more concerned about than any other, because aristocrats control international corporations], is still under lock and key at the heavily\u00a0partisan CPB.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On 30 August 2006, the\u00a0<i>Washington Post<\/i> bannered \u201cTomlinson\u00a0Cited For Abuses at Broadcast Board: CPB Ex-Chief Put Friend on\u00a0Payroll, State Dept. Says.\u201d Paul Farhi reported that, \u201cA year-long\u00a0State Department investigation has found the chairman of the agency\u00a0that oversees Voice of America and other government broadcasting operations improperly used his office, putting a friend on the payroll\u00a0and running a \u2018horse-racing operation\u2019 with government resources. &#8230;\u00a0Although the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the Corporation\u00a0for Public Broadcasting are unrelated entities, Tomlinson\u2019s alleged\u00a0violations overlapped both federal agencies. He conducted CPB work\u00a0and \u2018personal matters\u2019 while working for the Broadcasting Board, and\u00a0directed BBG employees to do the same. &#8230; The investigation also\u00a0found that Tomlinson \u2013 a former\u00a0<i>Reader\u2019s Digest<\/i> editor and\u00a0longtime Republican ally of White House political adviser Karl Rove\u00a0\u2013 helped hire a friend as a BBG contractor without the knowledge of\u00a0other board or staff members. &#8230; The most sensational complaint\u00a0against Tomlinson might be that he used government resources to\u00a0support his stable of thoroughbred racehorses, potentially violating\u00a0federal embezzlement laws. &#8230; A White House spokeswoman, Emily\u00a0Lawrimore, said Bush continues continues to support Tomlinson\u2019s\u00a0pending renomination as BBG chairman.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>America\u2019s major commercial media were especially concerned\u00a0about Bush\u2019s attempt to enslave public broadcasting, because any\u00a0success in that effort would mean that commercial \u201cnews\u201d media\u00a0would have even less freedom-of-action than they currently did \u2013\u00a0which already was not much.<\/p>\n<p>On 4 October 2006, Fairness &amp; Accuracy In Reporting\u00a0headlined \u201cStudy: Lack of Balance, Diversity, Public at PBS\u00a0NewsHour,\u201d and reported: \u201cThe NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS\u2019s\u00a0flagship news program, &#8230; fails to provide either balance or diversity\u00a0of perspectives \u2013 or a true &#8230; alternative to its corporate\u00a0competition.\u201d For example, \u201cRepublians outnumbered Democrats by\u00a02-to-1\u201d among their guestlist. A news story from the AP on this study\u00a0noted that it found that, \u201cIn stories about the Iraq war, people who\u00a0advocate a U.S. withdrawal were outnumbered by more than five-to-one.\u201d The FAIR study covered the period between October 2005 and\u00a0March 2006; throughout that period almost exactly half of\u00a0respondents to the ongoing USAToday\/Gallup Poll, when they were\u00a0asked, \u201cDo you think the U.S. should keep military troops in Iraq\u00a0until the situation is stabilized, or do you think the U.S. should bring\u00a0its troops home as soon as possible?\u201d chose the latter. So,\u00a0approximately half of the guests on PBS should have been advocating\u00a0withdrawal, too. But obviously, Republican thuggery was having its\u00a0intended effect upon PBS: a pronounced conservative slant. Perhaps\u00a0this slant wasn\u2019t as conservative as was that of the corporate media,\u00a0but it was still conservative.<\/p>\n<p>If fascism ever is, or becomes, the reality in the U.S., then the\u00a0nation\u2019s media won\u2019t even call it \u201cfascism\u201d; it\u2019ll be called merely\u00a0\u201cconservatism,\u201d and its practitioners won\u2019t be called \u201cfascists,\u201d but\u00a0simply \u201cRepublicans\u201d \u2013 the American public will never be\u00a0informed, by their \u201cnews\u201d media, what has actually happened to their\u00a0country. (And they weren\u2019t.)<\/p>\n<p>This struggle between the press and this Administration was\u00a0subterranean, and it occurred on many different fronts. The very\u00a0ability of the \u201cnews\u201d media to function as news media was now being\u00a0eroded away, and so the presslords inevitably recognized that even\u00a0<i>they<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0were now losing their freedom. They didn\u2019t like this. On 24\u00a0April 2005, the\u00a0<i>Boston\u00a0Globe<\/i> headlined \u201cIn War\u2019s Name, Public\u00a0Loses Information,\u201d and reported that, \u201cFederal agencies under the\u00a0Bush administration are sweeping vast amounts of public information\u00a0behind a curtain of secrecy in the name of fighting terrorism, using 50\u00a0to 60 loosely defined security designations that can be imposed by\u00a0officials as low-ranking as government clerks. \u2026 There is no system\u00a0for tracking who stamped it, for what reason, and how long it should\u00a0stay secret. There is no process for appealing a secrecy decision.\u201d\u00a0One of these classifications was \u201cNot for Public Dissemination.\u201d Another was \u201cFor Official Use Only.\u201d The provisions of the Freedom\u00a0of Information Act could now be ignored at will, merely by\u00a0employing one of these 50 to 60 classifications.<\/p>\n<p>On 21 June 2007, <a href=\"http:\/\/americanprogressaction.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">americanprogressaction.org<\/a> headlined\u00a0\u201cConservatives Dominate The Airwaves\u201d and linked to a joint study\u00a0by the Center for American Progress and the Free Press, titled \u201cThe\u00a0Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.\u201d It documented that\u00a0radio had a higher penetration than any other medium in the U.S., that\u00a0talkradio was second only to country music as the dominant radio\u00a0format, and that \u201c91 percent of the total weekday talk radio\u00a0programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive.\u201d Furthermore, it documented that this fascism wasn\u2019t due to talkradio\u00a0audiences being overwhelmingly conservative (they were only\u00a0slightly to the right of the general American public), but rather to the\u00a0takeover of radio stations by huge chains of radio stations, which were far more\u00a0conservative than the public: Salem, Cumulus, Citadel, and Clear\u00a0Channel. Even the most liberal of the big chains, CBS, was 74%\u00a0conservative and only 26% progressive in the programs it aired.\u00a0Salem, Cumulus and Citadel were 100% conservative. The largest\u00a0chain, Clear Channel, was 86% conservative. The<\/p>\n<p>fascist propaganda pouring out of America\u2019s highly\u00a0concentrated \u201cnews\u201d media was a veritable ocean to drown any truth.<\/p>\n<p>Nor was this President backing down from his bald program to\u00a0use tax dollars to produce propaganda packaged and given away to\u00a0\u201cnews\u201d media as \u201cnews\u201d stories. This program just expanded. On 18\u00a0July 2005, the\u00a0<i>New York Times<\/i> headlined \u201cPublic Relations\u00a0Campaign for Research Office at E.P.A. May Include Ghostwritten\u00a0Articles,\u201d and reported, \u201cThe Office of Research and Development at\u00a0the Environmental Protection Agency is seeking outside public\u00a0relations consultants, to be paid up to $5 million per year\u201d to \u201cghost-write articles \u2018for publication in scholarly journals and magazines.\u2019\u00a0The strategy \u2026 includes writing and placing \u2018good stories\u2019 about the E.P.A.\u2019s research office in consumer and trade publications.\u201d The\u00a0reporter, Felicity Baringer, asked the editor of\u00a0<i>Science<\/i> magazine what\u00a0he thought of this: \u201cHe found the idea of public relations firms\u00a0ghostwriting for government scientists \u2018appalling.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After Bush\u2019s 2004 \u201celectoral\u201d win, the boom was finally coming\u00a0down on American democracy. On 8 August 2005, Todd Shields, at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mediaweek.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">mediaweek.com<\/a>, headlined \u201cFCC Hires Conservative Indecency\u00a0Critic,\u201d and opened, \u201cThe Federal Communications Commission has\u00a0hired an anti-pornography activist and former lobbyist for groups that\u00a0push for Christian precepts in public policy.\u201d They had employed, \u201cas\u00a0a special advisor in the FCC\u2019s Office of Strategic Planning and Policy\u00a0Analysis,\u201d Penny Nance, a board member of Beverly LaHaye\u2019s\u00a0Concerned Women for America. The group \u201cdescribes its mission as\u00a0\u2018helping \u2026 to bring Biblical principles into all levels of public\u00a0policy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Politically organized Christians had floated this \u201ccompassionate\u00a0conservatism\u201d into office upon a sea of aristocratic money, which\u00a0wasn\u2019t really compassionate at all, and the regime was now baring its\u00a0theocratic\/aristocratic fascist teeth, even over the presslords.<\/p>\n<p>The result was sometimes unpredictable. For example, the\u00a0<i>Washington Post\u2019<\/i>s columnist David Broder had a long history of\u00a0serving up pablum to his readers, as bland as can be. However, after\u00a0the House restored $100 million to the budget for the Corporation for\u00a0Public Broadcasting to support NPR and PBS, Broder headlined on\u00a030 June 2005, \u201cThe Price Of Public TV\u2019s Win,\u201d and he boldly noted\u00a0that Republicans had taken this money out of the hides of poor\u00a0children. \u201cAs Ralph Regula, the Ohio Republican who heads the\u00a0Appropriations subcommittee that drafted the bill, said, \u2018That takes\u00a0away from young people\u2019s training opportunities\u2019 \u2026 to gain \u2026\u00a0living-wage jobs.\u201d Broder also noted that the Democrats had tried,\u00a0but failed, to restore this $100 million via eliminating some of the\u00a0recent tax-cuts for millionaires, and that \u201cIt was defeated on a party-line vote.\u201d Broder was even so bold as to close by saying: \u201cIt\u2019s one\u00a0more instance of the prevailing political culture \u2013 controlled by a\u00a0budgetary and tax system that puts the lowest value on the needs of\u00a0those who are the most vulnerable.\u201d The difference between that\u00a0statement, and saying that the United States had become a fascist\u00a0country, was merely terminological; he chose not to use the clear terminology.<\/p>\n<p>The United States had entered historic new territory after nearly\u00a050 years of aristocratic\/theocratic mass-indoctrination of the\u00a0American people, which had occurred with the full support and\u00a0cooperation of the nation\u2019s presslords. There was now doubt; the old arrangements finally started to become questioned. Things were no\u00a0longer settled. This was a real change of mentality. Only recently,\u00a0there had been a total passivity of the U.S. press: it propagandized for\u00a0the President\u2019s Medicaid prescription drug plan; it propagandized for\u00a0his fabricated accusations against \u201cSaddam\u2019s weapons of mass\u00a0destruction\u201d; it served as an extension of the White House press\u00a0office on many other of the President\u2019s fraud-based programs. But\u00a0this passivity was now finally replaced by a rising fear within the\u00a0press, that the U.S. might be transforming into a fascist state, which\u00a0could threaten the press itself. The presslords themselves were at last\u00a0becoming disturbed.<\/p>\n<p>However, this President was already near to his goal of a\u00a0totalitarian lock-down. Consequently, what could the press do, at such\u00a0a late date? They had already given him the rope to hang not just the\u00a0public, but themselves. He took it. The American press that stenographically transmitted to the American public the U.S. government\u2019s lies about \u201cSaddam\u2019s WMD\u201d is continuing as if it hadn\u2019t been\u00a0<i>sufficiently<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0compliant. America\u2019s great victories in overthrowing Gaddafi and Yanukovych are now supposed to be followed by Assad, and then Putin.<\/p>\n<p>And European nations take this leadership as their own, instead of abandoning the U.S., abandoning NATO, and abandoning the U.S.-controlled EU; abandoning all the mega-corporate, U.S.-aristocracy-controlled, international-corporate fascist system \u2013 and now they willingly take in the millions of refugees from the bombs that the U.S. had dropped in Libya and Syria, and that the U.S.-installed rabidly anti-Russian government in Ukraine is dropping onto the areas of the former Ukraine that have rejected the U.S.-imposed (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8-RyOaFwcEw\" target=\"_blank\">in February 2014<\/a>)\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/obamas-ukrainian-stooges\/\" target=\"_blank\">government<\/a>\u00a0in Kiev.<\/p>\n<p>And the next target is Putin.<\/p>\n<p>So: that\u2019s the backstory behind the lie that Putin instead of Obama caused those millions of refugees pouring into Europe.<\/p>\n<p>And, in German \u2018news\u2019 media, Bashar al-Assad and ISIS are being blamed for it, because practically no German is so media-deluded (like America\u2019s conservatives are) as to think that Putin is to blame for it; and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/off-guardian.org\/2015\/09\/10\/video-german-man-could-not-bear-media-lies-about-refugees\/\" target=\"_blank\">here is a German who states in very clear terms how rotten he thinks Germany\u2019s \u2018news\u2019 media are<\/a>\u00a0(though America\u2019s obviously are even worse).<\/p>\n<p>\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p>Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Theyre-Not-Even-Close-Democratic\/dp\/1880026090\/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1339027537&amp;sr=8-9\" target=\"_blank\"><i>They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/a><i>,<\/i>\u00a0and of\u00a0<i>\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B007Q1H4EG\" target=\"_blank\"><i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eric Zuesse The show aired on September 5th, and interviewed their contracted expert: http:\/\/video.foxnews.com\/v\/4466018186001\/european-union-leaders-struggle-to-deal-with-migrant-crisis\/?#sp=show-clips TRANSCRIPT, starting at 4:45: 4:45, Interviewer:\u00a0The other place that nobody seems to want to go these days is Russia and China, and Russia and China are both the two countries that have really gotten behind Assad, and certainly try to prop [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,1622],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-180515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-featured"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}