{"id":363471,"date":"2018-05-31T05:04:12","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T04:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=363471"},"modified":"2018-05-31T05:04:12","modified_gmt":"2018-05-31T04:04:12","slug":"americas-big-brother-news-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/americas-big-brother-news-media\/","title":{"rendered":"America’s Big-Brother ‘News’ Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

America\u2019s aristocratically controlled \u2019news\u2019 media hide the basic reality \u2014 that America\u2019s trillion-dollar annual federal military expense is a taxpayer-subsidization of U.S.-headquartered international corporations, taking that trillion dollars each year from the public, and giving it to the owners of those mega-corporations. Here is how it\u2019s done:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The way it works was well displayed, May 25th, on the opinion page of America\u2019s largest-circulation newspaper, USA Today<\/i>. Each of the three articles there presumed that the U.S. Government is fighting for the public\u2019s interests, and that the countries it invades or threatens to invade are evil. It is all, and always, propaganda for the U.S. military, which is the reason why the U.S. military is the most-respected institution in the United States, despite being the most wasteful and the most corrupt of all federal Departments<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

The U.S. public don\u2019t think of the military as being driven by the military corporations \u2014 Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, etc. \u2014 each corporation deriving that multi-billion-dollar profit annually from selling weapons to the U.S. and to its allied governments, but the public are indoctrinated constantly to think of the U.S. military instead in an admiring way, as if it were being led by and represented the U.S. troops who are operating those weapons to kill foreigners in countries that actually never had invaded nor threatened to invade America, and those troops are America\u2019s presumed heroes, when Americans rate the military as America\u2019s best institution<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

But this is no longer World War II \u2014 it\u2019s a very different time and country \u2014 when the U.S. was, at least to a substantial extent, a democracy, and it helped the Soviet and British Governments to defeat the fascist dictatorships, which wanted to become the capitalist global empire that the U.S. aristocracy now wants to be. America, now, is fascist<\/span><\/a> \u2014 the country that has invaded Vietnam and Iraq and Libya and Syria and Yemen, and that perpetrated coups in Iran and Indonesia and Chile and Ukraine, and many other countries, though none of those countries had ever invaded or threatened to invade America<\/b>. Sheer aggression has become America\u2019s bad habit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Continual wars are needed by Lockheed Martin and the other such government contractors; and, so, \u2018enemy\u2019 lands must be targeted by those weapons and those troops<\/b>, to kill millions of people there, and to destroy the infrastructure that provides the residents there sustenance. Otherwise, why would these weapons even be bought<\/i> (with taxpayers\u2019 money), at all? America\u2019s international corporations profit from it, but America\u2019s taxpayers pay the immense (over trillion-dollar annual<\/span><\/a>) tab for it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The market for these weapons cannot continually expand \u2014 meet corporate executives’ constant and (in the military field) cancerous growth-addiction \u2014 unless new targets for the public to fear and hate (Iran, North Korea, Russia, China, Venezuela, etc.) can be developed and intensified in its public\u2019s deceived mind. America\u2019s \u2018news\u2019 media perform that function, for corporate America, to open up extraction-lands (for oil, metals, etc.), and to establish new military anchors there (such as the U.S. now is doing, for example, in Syria\u2019s oil-producing region). This isn’t only for corporations such as Lockheed Martin, which manufacture those weapons, but it is also for corporations such as ExxonMobil, which are extractive industries and require extractions from countries all over the world, not merely within America.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here, then, is how this mass-indoctrination is done, to \u201cmanufacture the public\u2019s consent\u201d for continual invasion-and-occupation:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

The lead opinion-piece In the May 25th USA Today<\/i> was the editorial, \u201cOur View: Donald Trump, deal-breaker in chief\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and it established the tone and theme for the entire page, by mixing together, and confusing readers to apply the same standards to, commercial foreign polices such as tariffs, and military foreign policies such as denuclearizing North Korea (so as ultimately to conquer that nation). Consequently, USA Today\u2019<\/i>s editorial about Trump\u2019s cancellation of his summit with Kim Jong-un argued: “The list of broken or endangered agreements keeps growing: The Paris climate accord. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement.\u201d<\/i> Those multi-national agreements were presented in terms of Democratic-versus-Republican-Party domestic political conflict, as being the sitting Republican U.S. President\u2019s undoing of what the previous Democratic Party President (Obama) had done, and thus repositioned the issue subtly out of either the commercial or the military international field, into the American aristocracy\u2019s domestic squabbles. Here, this major U.S. \u2018news\u2019-medium was taking sides in the U.S. aristocracy\u2019s partisan split, and favoring the Democratic Party side of the U.S. aristocracy, against the Republican Party side of the U.S. aristocracy. But what does this intra-aristocratic domestic squabble have to do with U.S. relations with North Korea \u2014 the supposed topic here? America\u2019s aristocracy are united supporting conquest. However, there are differences of opinion about how to go about doing it. Then, the editorial said: \u201cIn other words, Trump’s pretty good at deal-breaking. It’s deal-making where he stumbles: Even as he pulled out of an agreement preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb, Trump pushed for an even more ironclad deal stripping North Korea of the same weapons. As enticements, he promised Kim major U.S. investments (‘His country will be rich’) and safety and security (‘He will be happy’) \u2014 strange offerings for a dictator who operates one of the world’s last, brutal gulag systems, imprisoning tens of thousands.\u201d<\/i> This editorial took a clearly partisan pro-U.S.-regime, anti-North Korean regime, PR stance, without so much as just mentioning that, even according to pro<\/i>-U.S. estimates, North Korea\u2019s percentage of population that are in prison is no higher than is America\u2019s percentage who are in prison<\/span><\/a>. So, \u201cone of the world\u2019s last, brutal gulag systems\u201d isn\u2019t clearly a worse one in that regard, than is the U.S. Government itself. All the propaganda (such as this in USA Today<\/i>) is pure uninformative and misleading indoctrination (PR), instead of being informative and trustworthy journalism. This \u2018news\u2019paper sides with America\u2019s aristocracy against North Korea\u2019s aristocracy, and with the Democratic Party faction of the U.S. aristocracy against the Republican Party faction of the U.S. aristocracy; but, this editorial provides no evidence for the particular prejudices it promotes. And it pretends to be about Trump\u2019s cancellation of that summit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Next on the editorial page was “Donald Trump is onto something\u201d<\/span><\/a> (or, on the printed page, \u201cOpposing view: \u2018Today\u2019s failure might be tomorrow\u2019s success\u2019\u201d), in which the editors\u2019 selected Republican Party propagandist, Kenneth Rapoza of Forbes<\/i>, argued \u201cTrump brought tariffs back to life. \u2026 Trump is trying to manage trade outcomes to the benefit of U.S. citizens.\u201d<\/i> How did Trump\u2019s tariffs-policy relate to the proposed summit between him and Kim Jong-un? Obviously, the editors of USA Today<\/i> didn\u2019t really care about that. This is how much they insult the intelligence of their readership (if not of themselves). The only difference between the pro and the contra here was the difference between the Democratic and the Republican Parties.<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, the third article was \u201cMy hope for this Memorial Day\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/span>, authored by PBS documentary film-maker Michael Epstein. He opened \u201cThe night before I left for Iraq, I put my two young daughters to bed.\u201d Then, after more irrelevancy, he noted that, \u201cI did not go to Iraq as a Marine or a soldier. I went as a filmmaker. Still, as I lay next to my youngest daughter, it struck me that if something were to happen to me in Iraq, \u2026\u201d Storytelling, like that, engages readers at the surface-level, and presses the buttons of readers\u2019 propaganda vulnerabilities, for the desired atmosphere \u2014 here, in order for this non-soldier writer to pretend he understands the problems that America\u2019s troops face. But then he incoherently proceeds to saying, in no relevant context, that he wants \u201cto regularly remind myself of the burden carried by the many for the benefit of the few\u201d \u2014 and he provides there no indication as to whom are \u201cthe many\u201d and whom \u201cthe few.\u201d One might try to guess that \u201cthe few\u201d are the small percentage of Americans who are in the military, but that wouldn\u2019t actually fit into the given context, because he\u2019s supposedly discussing instead \u201cthe burden carried by the many for the benefit of the few.\u201d Is he talking there about the burden carried by the many taxpayers, for the benefit of the few troops? But, those troops aren\u2019t actually the people who become enriched by America\u2019s invasions and occupations \u2014 the owners of U.S. military contractors such as United Technologies and Lockheed Martin, and of extractive industries, are those people, and they aren\u2019t even peripherally mentioned. Then, he continues this nonsense by saying, \u201cAs a nation we excel at waging war, yet we are criminally indifferent to its costs and consequences.\u201d But his article makes no mention of the \u201ccosts and consequences\u201d to the residents<\/i> in the lands where these troops invade and occupy, other peoples\u2019<\/i> lands \u2014 and that\u2019s the vast majority of the \u201ccosts and consequences\u201d of these invasions and occupations. His article simply ignores the death and destruction that the troops amongst whom he was embedded, were perpetrating upon the residents; he doesn\u2019t care about those victims, at all; they don\u2019t figure among his concerns; he doesn\u2019t mention them. He then refers to \u201c<\/span>Sebastian Junger, whose film about the Afghanistan War, \u2018Restrepo,’ which he co-directed with Tim Hetherington, is the gold standard for documentary war reporting.\u201d The film-maker of Restreppo was embedded with U.S. troops in 2007 during their occupation of Afghanistan fighting against the Taliban, which (though Epstein makes no mention of the fact) the U.S. and Sauds had created in 1979 in order to defeat the Soviets. U.S. troops were actually fighting against a monster that the U.S. and Sauds had jointly created, with assistance from yet another ally of the U.S. aristocracy: Pakistan\u2019s aristocracy.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Discordantly, another page in that same day\u2019s issue of USA Today<\/i> headlined “Afghanistan stabilization effort failing after 17 years of U.S. work, watchdog report says\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and reported that:<\/span><\/p>\n

“The U.S. government\u2019s 17-year effort to stabilize parts of war-torn Afghanistan has mostly failed, according to a report released Thursday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The damning report finds that much of the $4.7 billion spent on programs to stabilize areas cleared of insurgents has been largely wasted \u2014 some of it siphoned off by corrupt officials, some of it paying for projects that did more harm than good. All told, the U.S. government has appropriated about $126 billion to rebuild the country. \u2026 The huge flows of money into the impoverished country had the opposite effect of what was intended, the report says. \u2026 ‘By fueling corruption and the population\u2019s disillusionment with its government, the coalition undermined the very government it sought to legitimize and drove support for the insurgency,’ the report says.”<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

So: who benefited from this death and destruction? Of course, the owners of America\u2019s gigantic weapons-manufacturing firms did. And who suffered? Most of all, the residents in the invaded lands did, and do (though they weren\u2019t even tokens considered in USA Today\u2019<\/i>s \u2018journalism\u2019).<\/span><\/p>\n

There is nothing unique about USA Today<\/i>, in any of this. For example, on the day before they ran those articles, the New York Times<\/i> had bannered “North Korea Says It Will Give Trump \u2018Time and Opportunity\u2019 to Reconsider\u201d<\/span><\/a> and reported that \u201cNorth Korea appeared to shift the blame to the United States\u201d but provided no evidence that the blame belonged to anyone but<\/i> America\u2019s own President. How could North Korea have \u201cshifted the blame\u201d for Trump\u2019s sudden termination of preparations for that summit? The NYT<\/i> published that propaganda, treating its readers as fools who wouldn\u2019t notice the ridiculousness of their \u201cshift the blame\u201d accusation against North Korea. Those readers pay subscription-fees to subject themselves to such propaganda as that.<\/span><\/p>\n

On May 22nd, the independent investigative historian, Gareth Porter, had headlined \u201cHow Corporate Media Are Undermining a US-North Korea Nuclear Weapons Deal\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and he described the prior consistent record of U.S. major \u2018news\u2019 media, as serving, in the North Korean matter, the function of propaganda agents for the owners of America\u2019s giant weapons-making firms.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

America\u2019s aristocratically controlled \u2019news\u2019 media hide the basic reality \u2014 that America\u2019s trillion-dollar annual federal military expense is a taxpayer-subsidization of U.S.-headquartered international corporations, taking that trillion dollars each year from the public, and giving it to the owners of those mega-corporations. Here is how it\u2019s done: Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org The way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":363472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,519],"tags":[30,96,541,59,524,754,523,49],"class_list":{"0":"post-363471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-newswire","9":"tag-big-brother","10":"tag-cover-up","11":"tag-media","12":"tag-military","13":"tag-russia","14":"tag-syria","15":"tag-ukraine","16":"tag-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363471","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\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}