- Even in Cairo and Alexandria they are familiar with the
details of the O.J. Simpson saga. Thanks to the intense coverage of the
trial, half the adult population of the known world can probably pass the
California bar examination. From Brazil to Mongolia, Simpson has become
a household name. Not because the rest of the world has a clue about Monday
Night Football. But because CNN and FOX, the titans of the infotainment
business, competed to make the Peterson murder case and the Simpson trial
news of international import.
-
- Any randomly chosen Perry Mason episode has more intrigue
than the Laci Peterson story. But what FOX and CNN search for is cheap
news cheaply produced. Using focus groups and the like, they zero in on
any story that has soap opera potential and requires no more resources
than a one-man camera crew.
-
- With so many Peterson angles to cover, they also manage
to avoid probing certain topics. As the media titans have morphed into
a virtual shadow government, they have developed an unhealthy appetite
for burying real news. O.J. Simpson and Laci Peterson are just convenient
funerary tools of the trade.
-
- Imagine the political impact if a certain Rupert Murdoch
woke up one fine morning and decided that he would become a crusading liberal
or a human being. Better still; contemplate the transformation in public
perceptions if FOX made a business decision to hire real journalists. How
would the political landscape be changed if CNN recruited qualified pundits
who did not have the neo-con seal of approval?
-
- For starters, such titanic changes in the mass media
industry would send shock waves through America and across the planet.
Before the cable revolution, Americans were among the most vocal individualist
free thinkers in the history of the human race. From Tom Paine to Ralph
Nader to Abbie Hoffman, the United States had a tradition of giving an
ear to dissident voices. The ideological divide between Democrats and Republicans
was as wide as the Grand Canyon. Now the land of the free and the home
of the brave has been transformed into a media controlled one party state.
Rupert Murdoch, an immigrant bigot, who landed on our soil by way of his
native Australia, is for all practical purposes more politically powerful
than the Senate.
-
- Consider the recent scandals that the media titans 'forgot'
to cover.
-
- 1. The Plame affair. For those who still remember, a
couple of senior administration officials committed a felony by publicly
outing a CIA agent because her husband had the courage to confront the
administration on the bogus 'yellow cake' story. The two felons, who obviously
still pose serious national security risks, are still roaming the halls
of the White House unidentified and undisturbed by Attorney General Ashcroft.
For the record, Ashcroft was assigned the task of burying the whole messy
affair. This mother of all Watergates sits on the shelf with no takers.
-
- 2. The Liberty cover-up story. After three decades of
participating in the cover up of Israel's premeditated assault on the USS
Liberty, Captain Ward Boston broke his silence to confirm that Johnson
and McNamara went to extreme measures to prevent a real investigation.
This should have been the scandal of the year. In a signed affidavit, Boston
revealed that he was given orders to ignore the facts and whitewash an
Israeli war crime that killed thirty seven Americans and left 174 wounded.
-
- 3. The OSP intelligence scam. A series of recent articles
by retired USAF Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski revealed that the
Office of Special Plans, set up by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, and
staffed by the neo-con cabal, was involved in cherry picking intelligence
reports to make the case for war against Iraq. She also revealed that Judith
Miller of the New York Times and Charles Krauthammer of the Washington
Post played a part in leaking the OSP's fraudulent 'findings' to the public.
Which explains why neither of these two media giants cares to probe the
OSP circus within the walls of the Pentagon. Her articles, which will probably
end up as major academic references for future historians, are regular
features on AntiWar.com and LewRockwell.com. I have yet to see even a single
reference to her work in the mass media press.
-
- 4. The scandal of the Neo-con coup d'etat. Considering
the web of deceit weaved by the neo-con priesthood that now control America's
temples of power, it is extraordinary that only a few American journalists
have spent anytime investigating this dangerous conspiratorial group who
call themselves the 'cabal'. Never in the history of the republic, has
such a tiny incestuous cabal of operatives been so dominant in determining
the destiny of the nation. With a couple of think tanks, they have managed
to conquer the capital of the most powerful state in the world and take
virtual command of the armed forces of the United States. Draft dodging
Likudnik punks like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle now have the power
to retire four star generals who take issue with their battle plans. Almost
all these operatives, including Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle and Libby, can
be traced to the American Enterprise Institute, a pundit factory financed
by a radical Likudnik, Irving Moskowitz, who operates bingo halls in Florida.
Granted, the warped pro-Sharon agenda of the neo-cons would never have
become American Foreign policy without the sponsorship of FOX, CNN, The
New York Times, The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. Yet, it
is still amazing that only a few journalists, like Jim Lobe and Justin
Raimondo, have bothered to document the Machiavellian intrigues of this
treasonous cabal.
-
- 5. We don't do body counts. To date, the Bush administration
refuses to divulge the number of Iraqi civilian and military casualties.
They refuse to provide even rough estimates of the price Iraqis paid for
their 'liberation'. Ironically, the Pentagon has all kinds of estimate
for the unidentified phantom insurgents that confront American troops thirty
or forty times a day. The underlying logic for the refusal to count Iraqi
casualties is that many more Iraqis were murdered by Saddam's vicious regime.
Apparently, the US government has decided to value the life of an Iraqi
using Saddam's scale of measurement. We kill em but can't bother to count
them. If you want to get an idea of the scale of the carnage, visit http://www.iraqbodycount.net.
-
- 6. The ban on press coverage of American soldiers who
paid the ultimate price. Most of these kids went to war as righteous avengers
carrying with them postcards of the WTC in flames. They believed in their
mission and they trusted the 'adults' who assured them that Saddam was
behind the mayhem on 9/11. But the president and his closest advisers,
concerned that the 'Dover Test' would strain his re-election campaign,
decided that the fallen should not be honored with public acknowledgement
of their sacrifice. The president also doesn't do hospital visits for the
thousands of American soldiers who have been wounded in this war of choice.
-
- 7. British press gives Blaire a free ride. What did Blaire
know about the cooked intelligence by the chefs at the Office of Special
Plans (OSP)? How likely is it that he didn't have a clue that Paul Wolfowitz
and Douglas Feith were cherry picking intelligence findings to make a case
for war? Why is Blair's complicity in giving a wink and nod to the OSP
ignored by the usually feisty British media? It could have something to
do with English press laws that prevent journalists from writing on certain
subjects relating to national security. But there is nothing that would
prevent American journalists from taking up the slack and pursuing Blair's
complicity in engineering deliberate 'intelligence failure'. For once,
American hacks have an opportunity to scoop their British rivals and they
don't even bother to show up for the Plame Games.
-
- 8. Sanitizing Sharon's war crimes. The Prime Minister
of Israel started his war crime spree in 1953 by blowing up every single
house in an inhabited village named Qibya. Sixty-nine innocents, mostly
women and children, had their homes dynamited over their heads. Also on
his rap sheet are the three-day orgy of mass murder at Sabra and Shatila
and the indiscriminate bombardment of Beirut in 1982. And the slaughter
in Jenin, Nablus and Gaza. The list goes on. Yet he is lauded in the mainstream
press as a 'man of peace' (President Bush). Thomas Friedman (AKA Thomas
Fraudulent) considers him a reincarnation of De Gaulle. William Safire
passes him off as a 'conservative' clone of Churchill, a man of 'restraint'
who has certain 'talents'. He was not the only American journalist who
urged 'Sharon to be Sharon' a la Qibya and Sabra and Shatila. Many others
joined in the chorus to cheer Sharon's war crimes on the pages of the New
York Times, The Daily Ruse. Deborah Sontag portrayed him as an affable
grand papa who likes to spend his weekends building fences. These days
you can find grand papa Arik building Apartheid walls financed by American
tax dollars. William Orme Jr. calls him 'the best field commander of his
generation.' He meant to say 'Killing Field Commander', but it didn't get
past Sulzberger's editors. After his election, the Times lead editorial
praised Sharon's 'conservative credentials'. Has any journalist bothered
to grill Sulzberger and his crew on their slavish affection for Sharon
of Qibya?
-
- 9. The Mark Rich affair. If ever there was a story that
exposed the corruption of our political class by the financiers who dole
out billions to bankroll political campaigns, it was the eleventh hour
pardon of Mark Rich by Bill Clinton. This was not only a big story, it
had all kinds of fascinating twists and turns involving Rich's 'services'
to the Mossad. Clinton's defense largely rested on Rich's 'good conduct'
affidavits from Israeli politicians and generals, including Barak. So,
if you ever plan to become America's number one tax dodger, abandon your
American citizenship, flee American justice and take refuge in Switzerland,
make sure you have an ex-wife who has the doe to pay off POTUS for a pardon.
In any case, this scandal long ago vanished from the front pages.
-
- 10. The Enron Scandal. If you don't remember the details,
you never had a chance to read all about it. This was not just a scam against
investors. Many employees who spent a lifetime working for utility companies
acquired with inflated Enron stocks were left with no pensions. The number
of prominent politicians involved in this rip off was the reason it was
swept under the carpet. Want to read all about it? Sorry, it's not deemed
fit to print by the media moguls.
-
- 11. The dot.com bubble. The dot.com craze promoters ended
up looting millions of IRA and 401-k plans. The mass media titans, who
had a major stake in inflating the bubble, directly participated in the
greatest swindle in American History. It made the S&L fiasco look like
minor league practice. Levine, the Chairman of Time Warner, reaped a windfall
from the merger with AOL. So, did you think CNN was going to follow up
on that story?
-
- 12. Jason Blaire and William Safire. So Blaire had a
flair for fiction. But consider William Safire owning up to writing speeches
for Ariel Sharon, a serial war criminal. When George Will was caught writing
speeches for Reagan, a major media frenzy was unleashed. But Sanitizing
Sharon's war crimes is just par for the course at The New York Times, the
Daily Ruse. If you want to hire a journalist who doubles as a war criminal,
give Safire a call.
-
- 13. The commission to investigate the attack on the World
Trade Center has been obstructed by the Bush administration. If it weren't
for the relatives of the victims of 9/11 who insisted on a probe, the commission
would never have seen the light of day. The New York Times recently reported
the appointment of Ex-Senator Bob Kerrey to the commission without mentioning
his war crimes in Vietnam. Certainly, the survivors of the Thang Phong
massacre would not be amused. The assault on the World Trade Center was
not just a terrorist attack but also a war crime against defenseless civilians.
It does great dishonor to their memory to have a Vietnam era war criminal
appointed to the 9/11 commission. But why would Sulzberger decide to ignore
the Senator's war record? Does it give the New York Times leverage over
the commission's findings? They don't report. So you decide.
-
- 14. There were no WMDs, no Iraq/Qaida link and no evidence
that Saddam had anything to do with the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Yet seventy
percent of Americans were persuaded to support the Iraq war based on the
belief that all the above were proven facts. How did that happen? If you
continue to get your news from FOX, there is a high probability that you
still believe these canards. As far as Murdoch is concerned, yesterday's
lies are good enough to recycle as tomorrow's 'fair and balanced' fabrications.
That man is probably the most dangerous con artist in the history of the
world. So why don't you see his competitors going for his throat? Because
they market pretty much the same message. Except that they do it with a
Thomas Friedman accent.
-
- 15. Twenty Five million protestors against the war were
denigrated and ignored by the war mongering neo-con pundits on FOX and
CNN. A few Likudnik media barons managed to drown out the voice of millions
of peace activists around the world. So much for power to the people. Where
was the outrage over this overt snub to the democratic process? Next time
you want to stop a war, demonstrate in front of Wolf Blitzer's 'War Room'.
Pelt CNN's headquarters in Atlanta with tomatoes and eggs. Block the enterance
to FOX studios. Organize boycotts against their media products. Stop paying
your cable bill. Burn effigies of Murdoch, Sulzberger and Graham. If you
want to change the policies of a media controlled state, forget about the
state, go for the media barons. This war was their war. They wanted it.
They got a free ride from the Pentagon to film war as Reality TV. Who can
forget the immortal words of Aaron 'arson' Brown of CNN? On the eve of
the war, he drooled about how it was 'a perfect moment for journalism'.
Maybe if his draft dodging Sharon worshiping ass was under fire in Baghdad,
he would choose to have other types of perfect moments.
-
- 16. Over the course of the last few years, the Bush administration
has admitted that the United States supported the Generals in Argentina,
Greece, Guatemala and Chile. Reports have recently emerged about how Henry
Kissinger gave the nod to the Argentine Junta to continue 'disappearing'
their dissidents. Snuffing out 30,000 Argentines was just a little afternoon
chore for Henry the Wicked, America's answer to Rasputin. Of course, Henry
continues to appear as a pundit on CNN.
-
- 17. Bush recently revealed that for the last sixty years
America has accommodated repressive regimes in the Middle East. None of
this is news to Greeks, Latin Americans or Arabs. But did you come across
a single mass media 'journalist' who bothered to inquire as to the nature
of American 'accommodation'? It must have taken hours for the Bush spin
masters to come up with that one word apologia. A policy of 'accommodation'
makes it sound like we were giving these dictators and absolute monarchs
discount hotel vouchers while they were going about the nasty business
of brutalizing their people and ripping off the wealth of their nations.
-
- 18. When Saddam actually used chemical weapons during
the Iraq/Iran war, American military advisers were on the ground assisting
him in directing the projectiles to their destination. This was briefly
reported in the New York Times. But the subject matter escaped the notice
of our pundit class.
-
- 19. Remember Mazar El Sharif, the POW prison camp in
Afghanistan. Ever hear of a prison riot with a five percent survival rate?
The reason for the riot was that word reached the camp that Taliban prisoners
who had surrendered were suffocated in the unventilated trucks transporting
them to Mazar El Sharif. So, the American Air Force was called in to put
down the prison uprising. One of the survivors was John Walker, the American
Taliban who got so much press coverage. The whole 'incident' would probably
have not been covered if it weren't for the novelty of discovering a Bay
Area kid among the ranks of the enemy. Even so, little concern was shown
for the ninety five percent of the Afghan POWs who perished in the camp.
-
- 20. The Toledo Blade recently ran a series of articles
exposing the cover-up of Vietnam era war crimes committed by American soldiers
who were part of the elite 'Tiger Force'. Guess who was the Secretary of
Defense who closed the book on the investigation? Here is a hint. President
Ford appointed him. The answer is Donald Rumsfeld. Has a single American
journalist ask him about his role in that cover-up?
-
- 21. Richard Perle is not only a draft dodging deviant
war party extremist who likes to snub Generals whom he deems unworthy of
estimating troop requirements. It turns out he was lining his pocket while
promoting his Likudnik creed. But he still remains a mover and shaker who
advises the administration on national security and military issues. We
now know of his involvement with the Hollinger group, the media empire
controlled by that right wing freak of nature, Conrad Black. Perle, along
with Kissinger sit on the Hollinger board. Black is currently under investigation
for embezzling money from his own company. Richard Perle's own company,
Trireme, had sweet heart deals with Hollinger and Boeing. The Hollinger
holdings include the Likud's semi-official party paper, The Jerusalem Post,
where Perle is a director. The British press, especially the Guardian,
is actively covering this story. But there is hardly a peep on this side
of the pond. If we are lucky enough, and things go the way they ought to
go, both Richard Perle and Conrad Black will face criminal charges. Lock
em up says I. And throw in a couple of dozen mass media pundits to keep
them company and take notes.
-
- 22. The many Halilburton scandals. Choose your poison.
Cheney cooks books at Halliburton. Shareholders sue Vice President and
SEC investigates. No bid contracts awarded to Cheney's company. Cheney's
company overcharges Pentagon for fuel. Haliburton gets cost plus contracts
from Pentagon. Poor old Spiro Agnew. He was forced to resign on the strength
of a single scandal dating back to when he was governor of Maryland. For
more heney/Halliburton scandals, read Pratap Chatterjee's excellent article
"Halliburton Makes a Killing on Iraq War". http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=6008
-
- 23. Current Budget deficit. A half a trillion reason
why one should pay attention to the fiction of 'cost free' tax cuts for
the rich. When Reagan was sworn in 1980, the total accumulated Federal
deficit was one trillion dollars. That covered the expense of World War
II, The Korean War, The Cold War, Vietnam, The Great Society, building
the country's highway infrastructure and deficit spending to boost the
economy out of the Great Depression. The original Clinton era forecast
was for a current budget surplus of 200 billion dollars for 2003. The difference
amounts to just a little 700 billion dollar 'Bush tab' to pass on to the
kids. That works out to about seven thousand dollars per kid. Put seven
thousand monopoly dollars in their Christmas stocking and let them know
how much you love them for paying your bills.
-
- 24. Bush goes AWOL. Now this is a killer story. There
is a whole Internet site dedicated to this story, http://www.awolbush.com.
Considering this president's passion for war, you would think this would
be a blockbuster. The site claims that "It's well documented that
George W. Bush never showed up for National Guard duty for a period of
approximately one-year, possibly more, in 1972-1973. Despite all the talk
about 'honor and dignity,' Bush seems to have a problem meeting his commitments."
The operators of the site obviously have a great sense of humor and if
you want a good laugh, they certainly deserve a long visit.
-
- That was just off the top of my head. I suppose if one
took the time to research it, It would be easy enough to come up with another
hundred or so scandals that should have priority over the Laci Peterson
story. It is not my intention to belittle the vicious nature of Scott Peterson's
crime or to diminish the impact on her family and those who loved her.
But the list above does not even begin to touch the concerns of environmentalists,
civil libertarians and advocates for the poor.
-
- The bottom line is that CNN and FOX and a few other infotainment
giants now have the power to determine the public agenda. They have a terrible
track record of flexing their media muscle to sweep major scandals away
from public scrutiny. None of these media titans will modify their fraudulent
content anytime soon. Even if they were to tell you the truth tomorrow,
they will be back marketing their canards next week. Besides, why should
we forgive them for yesterday's deception?
-
- The only real solution is to diminish the impact of their
franchise and their brand names. Cut them down to size by attacking the
credibility of their 'stars'. Mock them and their seedy brand of journalism
into oblivion. Challenge the media controlled state by staging massive
demonstrations in front of their pundit factories. The peace movement should
not even bother with marches on Washington. Yesterday's tactics were for
a different era. The age of the media controlled state requires a switch
of focus to the media barons and their cronies. If you want a different
kind of government, hunt for a different kind of FOX. Why let a sleazy
immigrant bigot like Murdoch mutilate the political landscape of America
and by extension the world. Take away his FCC license and deport his racist
ass. Than watch a kinder gentler more beautiful America emerge from the
grasp of the mass media freaks who have disfigured her beauty.
-
- - Ahmed Amr is an American and the former editor of NileMedia.com.
His writings have focused on the mass media's iron grip on the state. He
is currently roaming the planet in search of an honest newspaper. He contributed
this article to Media Monitors Network (MMN).
-
- © 2003 Ahmed Amr
-
- http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/2962/
-
- http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=14142&mode=nested&order=0
|
