{"id":142368,"date":"2014-12-02T15:22:53","date_gmt":"2014-12-02T15:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=142368"},"modified":"2014-12-02T23:23:40","modified_gmt":"2014-12-02T23:23:40","slug":"illusion-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/politics\/illusion-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"The Illusion of Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>JASON HIRTHLER<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A recent <a href=\"http:\/\/fair.org\/press-release\/no-debate-and-the-new-war\/\">article<\/a> in FAIR reviewed the findings of its latest study on the quality of political \u201cdebate\u201d being aired on the mainstream networks. It studied the run-up to the military interventions in both Iraq and Syria. Perhaps the arbiters of the study intended to illustrate what we\u2019ve learned since the fraudulent Iraq War of 2003. Well, it appears we\u2019ve learned nothing.<\/p>\n<p>FAIR spent hours painfully absorbing the misinformation peddled by such soporific Sunday shows as CNN\u2019s State of the Union, CBS\u2019s Face the Nation, NBC\u2019s Meet the Press, and ABC\u2019s This Week, plus some of the more popular weekly political programming including ADHD-inducing CNN\u2019s Situation Room, Fox News Channel\u2019s Special Report, the venerable sedative PBS NewsHour, and\u00a0MSNBC\u2019s Hardball. You know the cast of characters: glib George Stephanopoulos, forthright Candy Crowly, harrowing Wolf Blitzer, and stentorian Chris Matthews. Images of their barking maws are seared into the national hippocampus.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, 205 mostly government mouthpieces were invited to air their cleverly crafted talking points for public edification. Of them, a staggering sum of three voiced opposition to military action in Syria and Iraq. A mere 125 stated their support for aggressive action.<\/p>\n<p>Confining its data to the Sunday shows, 89 guests were handsomely paid to educate our benighted couch-potato populace. One suggested not going to war. It stands to reason that considered legal arguments against these interventions got the short shrift, too.<\/p>\n<p>The media consensus on Syria and Iraq isn\u2019t an isolated instance of groupthink. Far from it. It conforms to a consistent pattern, one that has at its core a deliberate disregard for international law and efforts to strengthen transnational treaties and norms regarding military action. (Although transnational law regulating trade is highly favored, for obvious reasons.)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2014\/12\/02\/the-illusion-of-debate\/\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JASON HIRTHLER A recent article in FAIR reviewed the findings of its latest study on the quality of political \u201cdebate\u201d being aired on the mainstream networks. It studied the run-up to the military interventions in both Iraq and Syria. Perhaps the arbiters of the study intended to illustrate what we\u2019ve learned since the fraudulent Iraq [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":142369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-142368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-politics","9":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}