{"id":387597,"date":"2018-12-03T16:21:26","date_gmt":"2018-12-03T15:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=387597"},"modified":"2018-12-03T16:21:26","modified_gmt":"2018-12-03T15:21:26","slug":"when-americas-press-contradicts-americas-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/when-americas-press-contradicts-americas-president\/","title":{"rendered":"When America’s Press Contradicts America’s President"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

On November 16th, the Washington Post<\/i> headlined that \u201cCIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi\u2019s assassination\u201d<\/span><\/a> and reported that \u201cThe CIA\u2019s assessment, in which officials have said they have high confidence, is the most definitive to date linking [Crown Prince] Mohammed [bin Salman] to the [murder] operation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, after almost a full week of silence on that, U.S. President Trump, on November 22nd, denied that the CIA had come to any conclusion, at all, about whether Saudi Crown Prince Salman had ordered the murder of Khashoggi: Trump said<\/span><\/a> \u201cThey did not come to a conclusion. They have feelings certain ways. I have the report \u2026 They have not concluded. I don\u2019t know if anyone\u2019s going to be able to conclude that the Crown Prince did it.\u201d Congressional Democrats promptly responded to the President\u2019s statement, by repeating<\/span><\/a> what the Washington Post<\/i> had said, and telling CNN, \u201cThe CIA concluded that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia was directly involved in the assassination of Khashoggi. They did it with high confidence, which is the highest level of accuracy that they will vouch for.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

America\u2019s voting public believe whomever they want to believe, which is almost always the politicians and newsmedia that the given individual votes for and obtains news from. In such a country, objective reality is hard to find, because the crucial evidence is hidden from the public. For example, the CIA\u2019s report on the Khashoggi murder is hidden from the public. Neither the Government nor the press trust the public enough to allow the public to see anything of the actual report itself. So, voters can only go by whatever prejudices they have. Therefore, in America, prejudices reign, and it happens because the Government and the press don\u2019t trust the public enough to present the actual evidence to them. Either a person trusts the Government, or the person doesn\u2019t. But what is \u201cthe Government,\u201d in such a case as this? Is it the WP<\/i>-alleged assertion of what \u201cthe CIA\u201d supposedly said, or is it instead the U.S. President, who says that the CIA didn\u2019t assert any such thing? And, if you don\u2019t trust what one side, in such a case, calls \u201cthe Government,\u201d then it\u2019s easy for that side to label you \u201cunpatriotic,\u201d even if you happen to be a patriot asserting the truth, and \u201cthe Government\u201d happens to be the actual traitor against its own public, such as the U.S. Government itself has been proven to be<\/span><\/a> (and not only<\/i> about such matters as 2003\u2019s \u201cWMD in Iraq\u201d<\/span><\/a>, in which the U.S. Government was clearly traitorous<\/span><\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n

When the Washington Post<\/i>, on November 22nd, reported<\/span><\/a> Trump\u2019s comments about the CIA\u2019s report, the newspaper didn\u2019t even include Trump\u2019s denial, which was quoted here, but instead gave only fluff from Trump, such as \u201cI hate the crime, I hate the coverup. I will tell you this: The crown prince hates it more than I do, and they have vehemently denied it.\u201d That newspaper merely paraphrased Trump, didn\u2019t actually quote him, about the important parts of the President\u2019s statement there. The newspaper opened its \u2018news\u2019-report with \u201cPresident Trump on Thursday contradicted the CIA\u2019s assessment that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi.\u201d But there was only that one-word paraphrase (\u201ccontradicted\u201d). That\u2019s all there was, in the entire thousand-word \u2018news\u2019-report, none of his actual statement about the CIA\u2019s report on the killing of Khashoggi. Reporters like this should be fired, but they won\u2019t be if the purpose of hiring and retaining them is to hide the actual evidence from the public, by providing only paraphrases (in this case, a mere one-word paraphrase) for the crucial parts, instead of presenting the actual evidence itself (by quoting it directly). The WP<\/i> excluded anything like Trump\u2019s statement that \u201cThey did not come to a conclusion. They have feelings certain ways. I have the report \u2026 They have not concluded. I don\u2019t know if anyone\u2019s going to be able to conclude that the Crown Prince did it.\u201d Instead, their mere paraphrase of that, alleging that Trump \u201ccontradicted the CIA\u2019s assessment\u201d didn\u2019t present either a quotation from the CIA\u2019s report, or a quotation from the President, much less (as would have been required in an authentic news-report on an alleged contradiction, such as this) both, so as to allow subscribers to judge for themselves whether or not the President had \u2018contradicted\u2019 what the CIA\u2019s report had actually said. In other words: that was a fake<\/i> \u2018news\u2019-report in the Washington Post;<\/i> it presented no credible news<\/i>, but only evidence-less fluff, about this important matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018News\u2019-media such as that are part of a political culture that\u2019s based not on science \u2014 a society in which individuals make public-affairs judgments on their own, on the basis of the actual evidence being presented to them \u2014 but that\u2019s based instead purely on faith. It\u2019s a religious (or faith-based) political culture, not a scientific one. That\u2019s to say: judgments are based on whatever the individual\u2019s prejudice<\/i> happens to be. Judgments by the public are not based on the evidence, because the evidence is actually being hidden from the public. Obviously, there is no accountability \u2014 it\u2019s not even possible<\/i> to have accountability in such a political culture, because the evidence is being hidden from voters.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the night of Friday, November 23rd, Trump \u2014 his Administation \u2014 released the long-awaited \u201cFourth National Climate Assessment\u201d<\/span><\/a> from a panel of 300 climatologists, and it calculated, for example<\/span><\/a>, that Phoenix, Arizona, during 1976-2005, averaged around 80 days per year above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and that if we do everything possible to minimize fossil-fuels-usage, that average will be around 125 such days annually between 2070 and 2100, but otherwise it will be around 150 days annually, which is almost twice as many sizzling days per year as compared with the period 1976-2005.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On Monday, November 26th, CNN headlined “Donald Trump buried a climate change report because ‘I don’t believe it\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/a> and reported that, \u201c\u2018I don’t believe it,\u2019 Trump told reporters on Monday, adding that he had read \u2018some\u2019 of the report. It\u2019s a report which had been \u201cproduced by 13 agencies within the Trump administration \u2014 the result of Congress, in the 1980s, mandating that this sort of report be submitted every four years as a sort of reference point for lawmakers and legislators.\u201d This news-report from CNN was real, not fake like the Washington Post\u2019<\/i>s was on the Khashoggi matter, and it linked to the evidence, including to the actual study itself, and to Trump\u2019s statement that he doesn\u2019t believe it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here, then, is an actual example of authentic news-reporting, which is credit-worthy and not simply to be taken on mere trust (like the Washington Post\u2019<\/i>s \u2018news\u2019 about Trump\u2019s \u2018contradicting\u2019 his own CIA\u2019s report). But will Trump\u2019s voters still have faith in him, despite his clear divergence from the professionals on climatology, the scientists who are experts in these types of matters? Obviously, such a President (one who rejects the overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion on a scientific topic) is an actual crackpot; but will his voters believe him simply because they want<\/i> to believe him \u2014 because they\u2019re people of faith and he here happens to be peddling their particular belief \u2014 because they\u2019re not<\/i> people of science? Then how can democracy even function, with such a public? Only authoritarianism (a faith-based regime) can function, in such a country as this.<\/span><\/p>\n

On November 26th, the most Trumpian \u2018news\u2019-medium of all, Breitbart, didn\u2019t even report Trump\u2019s \u201cI don\u2019t believe it,\u201d but did include, on November 26th, a November 25th \u2018news\u2019-article bannered “Experts on Climate Change Assessment: \u2018Every Conclusion of This Latest Government Report Is False\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/a>, which opened:<\/span><\/p>\n

The federal government\u2019s Fourth National Climate Assessment, released on Friday, has gained praise from leftists and left-wing environmental groups as a dire warning of the coming death and destruction in the United States if we don\u2019t stop global warming.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

But critics of the report, including scientists, have slammed it as \u201cexaggeration,\u201d bad science and even said its conclusions are \u201cfalse.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis latest climate report is just more of the same \u2013 except for even greater exaggeration, worse science, and added interference in the political process by unelected, self-serving bureaucrats,\u201d Tim Huelskamp, president of the Heartland Institute said in statements released by the free-market think tank following the report\u2019s release. \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Nothing was said there about the Heartland Institute\u2019s being funded by far-right billionaires including many who own or are heavily invested in oil and gas corporations<\/span><\/a>. These people have a financial stake in downplaying the environmental threat that\u2019s posed by their products. Very few climatologists are members of that particular propaganda-operation. It\u2019s fake, as an \u2018authority\u2019 about anything. Clearly, Trump represents those fossil-fuels corporate owners, not the public \u2014 not even the voters who had voted for him. All Americans have a real stake in the truth about the global-warming issue. All people everywhere do.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is an authentic democracy possible in such a country as this, where it\u2019s so easy for liars to win and keep public offices? All that the liars have to do is to pump to the public the deceits that the billionaires they serve want them to pump. The politicians who do that will be the ones who are in serious contention to become winners, because their political campaigns will receive all the funding that\u2019s needed in order for them to be in serious contention. The politicians who are honest won\u2019t be among the ones who are in serious contention \u2014 it\u2019ll be like America\u2019s Government actually is<\/span><\/a>.<\/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":"

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org On November 16th, the Washington Post headlined that \u201cCIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi\u2019s assassination\u201d and reported that \u201cThe CIA\u2019s assessment, in which officials have said they have high confidence, is the most definitive to date linking [Crown Prince] Mohammed [bin Salman] to the [murder] operation.\u201d Then, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":387598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,519],"tags":[74,654,64462,541,526,49,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-387597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-newswire","9":"tag-climate-change","10":"tag-global-warming","11":"tag-khashoggi","12":"tag-media","13":"tag-propaganda","14":"tag-usa-news","15":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387597","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=387597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":387600,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387597\/revisions\/387600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}