Attacking the Press & Pressing the Attack

[H2O Man]

Attacking the Press & Pressing the Attack

{1} "According to Advertising Age, about 75 percent of commercial network television time is paid for by the 100 largest corporations in the country. Many people do not react to this statistic as being important. But consider that there are presently 450,000 corporations in the United States, and some 250 million people, representing extremely diverse viewpoints about lifestyle, politics, and personal and national priorities. Only 100 corporations get to decide what will appear on television and what will not. These corporations do not overtly announce their refusal to finance programs that contain views disconsanant with their own; their control is far more subtle. It works in the minds of television producers who, when thinking about what programs to produce, have to mitigate their desires by their need to sell the programs to corporate backers. An effective censorship results."
--Jerry Mander; In the Absence of the Sacred; Sierra Club Books; 1991; page 78.

In yesterday's essay on the role of the media in the Plame scandal, I noted that individual journalists were playing significant roles in a case about national security. Today, I would like to further examine how corporations which often represent the interests of the government, tend to exercise an "effective censorship" over the corporate media.

In many ways, this is part of an on-going conflict in the corporate media. Reporters have tended to be liberal, while editors tend to be conservative. More, the owners of the media sources, whether a television station or a newspaper, are interested in the capital made on their investment. That means they are interested in selling ads by producing "news" that corporations will invest in, and which the public will consume.

Thus, while there have been some significant changes in the 15 years since Mander published his book, in most ways, the corporate media remains the same. The 24-hour, 7-days a week cable news channels, such as CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, make minor adjustments in programming. Tucker Carlson goes from CNN at 5 pm/est to MSNBC at 11 pm/est, and Bob Novak goes to Fox. But, in general, these shows serve the same basic corporate news menu, with no more variety than the menu of McDonalds and Burger King.

{2} "I told Mr. Fitzgerald that Mr. Libby might have thought I still had security clearance, given my special embedded status in Iraq. At the same time, I told the grand jury I thought that at our July 8 meeting I might have expressed frustration to Mr. Libby that I was not permitted to discuss with editors some of the more sensitive information about Iraq."
-- Judith Miller; My Four Hours Testifying in the Federal Grand Jury Room; NY Times; 10-16-05.

Judith Miller is the best example of the prostitution of journalism that I can think of. Her feelings of pride at having a security clearance, and her frustration at not being able to share information with her editors, makes it quite clear that Judith was not working primarily as a journalist in Iraq -- nor in the build-up to the war, or in her part in the Plame scandal. Yet the confusion in loyalties, between the art of journalism and intelligence, is nothing new.

People would do well to read books by author David Wise from the 1970s. He was the White House correspondent for the Herald Tribune during the Kennedy administration, and a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. He wrote “The Politics of Lying,” and co-wrote “The Invisible Government”; these books about the intelligence agencies role in the corporate media, which were best-sellers, were widely credited with “bringing about a reappraisal of the role of the CIA in a democratic society.” (Random House)

On page 200 of his 1976 book “The American Police State,” Wise tells of how William F. Buckley Jr. “did not reveal to his readers that he was a former CIA agent, and that the column was based on a memorandum he had received from his former boss in the CIA, then still working for the Agency, but later to become famous – E. Howard Hunt, Jr. …. Hunt and Buckley became close friends and Buckley was the godfather of Hunt’s children.”

Older readers will likely remember how intelligence agencies in the 1960s used an art known as “perception management” to mold the public’s view of issues such as the civil rights struggle, and the anti-war movement. Likewise, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover attempted to manipulate media sources to discredit progressive leaders like Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

{3} “ ‘Sixty-one percent, Ed,’ Buchanan responded. ‘Sixty-one percent. Just the biggest landslide in recent history, and if it hadn’t been for Watergate, it would have been more.’

“ ‘You did it dirty.’

“ ‘A little spying, Ed. That’s politics. I’ll bet you guys had the binoculars on Shula (the Miami Dolphin football coach) at the Super Bowl. You had the glasses out on the other side of the stadium and you didn’t even win.’ “
--Patrick Buchanan to Edward Bennett Williams; All the President’s Men; Pocket Books; 1974; page 286.

It should come as no surprise that a discussion of the media, dirty politics, and the Plame scandal should include a mention of Watergate and Bob Woodward. The above quote is particularly interesting, in light of the fact that Patrick Buchanan led many of the efforts to manipulate the national media in the Nixon administration. He had a small group of well disciplined people who would respond to any article that was considered offensive to Nixon, by either writing letters to the editor, signing and sending letters Buchanan wrote for them, or calling editors to complain about journalists considered to be administration enemies.

While Buchanan’s group was not considered to be tied directly to other White House intelligence operations, it is easy to see how it helped to coordinate the administration’s media goals. It has also served as the model used by the republican administrations that followed in the 1980s to the present time. What is interesting is that democrats have rarely put similar operations into play – a small group of disciplined citizens can have an impact on how the corporate media sells its product. That may be an interesting topic for a later essay.

{4} “How do you publicly counter a guy like that? As ‘senior advisor,’ Rove would be involved in finding out. Technically, Rove was in charge of politics, not ‘communications.’ But, as he saw it, the two were one and the same – and he used his heavyweight status to push the message machine run by his Texas protégé and friend, Dan Bartlett. Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was sent out to trash the Wilson op-ed. ‘Zero, nada, nothing new here,’ he said. Then, on a long Bush trip to Africa, Fleischer and Bartlett prompted clusters of reporters to look into the bureaucratic orgins of the Wilson trip. How did the spin doctors know to cast that lure? ….”
-- Howard Fineman; Rove At War; Newsweek; 7-25-05; page 30.

The Plame scandal has given the American public good reason to examine the relationship between the Bush2 administration, the intelligence agencies, and the corporate media. A brief look at the names of the journalists involved supports that claim: Bob Novak, Judith Miller, Matt Cooper, Chris Matthews, Andrea Mitchell, Walter Pincus, Clifford May, and Bob Woodward. Not to mention CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

Just as David Wise questioned famous journalist William Buckley’s failure to inform his readers of his status in the intelligence community, we have good reason to question – for but two examples – why Bob Woodward failed to tell the public, or his bosses, about his role in the Plame scandal, or why Judith Miller failed to be frank with her readers or her editors. Who are these “journalists” really representing?

I do not think that it follows that ALL the corporate media is without value. On MSNBC, both Hardball and Countdown have had valuable information on the Plame case. David Schuster’s reporting has been of high quality in recent months in particular. But we need to find a balance between ignoring it totally, or accepting it without question.

{5} “Two top Bush administration officials who played an active role in the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, have been removed from their jobs, career State Department weapons experts who have spoken to investigators during the past two years about the officials role in the leak, according to a half-dozen State Department officials.”
-- Jason Leopold; Plame Whistleblowers Targeted by Administration; TruthOut; 2-24-06

There are a couple of questions that I believe we need to consider. The first is, in light of the fact that progressive media sources – such as TruthOut and Raw Story – cover stories that document the administration’s targeting it’s opponents, is it realistic to think there may be efforts to compromise or damage the reputation of these progressive news sources? And, second, how might concerned citizens best access and balance the news they receive, from both corporate and progressive media sources?

On some of the progressive/democratic internet sites I participate on, there are calls to boycott or ignore the corporate media. There are also conflicts between some representatives of progressive media sources, which range from petty to serious. I am convinced that the corporate media is of value. And I am concerned that as we approach the 2006 election season, there will be increasingly sophisticated attempts to damage progressive media sources.

In upcoming essays, I will go into greater detail about my opinions and concerns. At this time, I am hoping that readers will share their thoughts. I would remind people that this is a topic where there are not black and white, right or wrong answers. A variety of opinions is a good thing.

Thank you.

[im10ashus]

1. Bookmarking for later.

First half of this is wonderful. I can't wait to finish and comment! :hi:

[blm]

2. Important to note that KnightRidder reported the WH cooked intel books

and the Downing Street Memos and their largest investor - a friend of BushInc - put the pressure on the company to break up and sell it off in little pieces.

This is almost certainly retaliation for doing their job.

[Me.]

3. 2 For 2 H.

As for the corporate media, there has been since 2000, a concerted effort to peel back the truth and replace it with B*** illusions. Friends who worked at NBC and ABC said they were under very tight scrutiny and orders about what they could report and how far they could go. One day last week I watched the Today show, in stunned amazement that they completely ignored th Dubai story, which was becoming huge, in favor of stories about 11 women who had the same sperm donor and an addiction to neatness.

[Me.]

5. Part 2

For the media to truly become the one we want, on the corporate level, it has to become worth their while to tell the truth. And it isn't only a matter of access to power or pleasing an administration,else they wouldn't have been so willing and able with the Bill Clinton witch hunts. What do you think will, if anything, get them to change their tune?

[H2O Man]

8. Those are interesting questions.

In large part, my position is that we need to stop thinking about how to make the corporate media into something other than what it is. That is, of course, part of human nature -- we often look at people, and think that we can change them, and, in doing so, improve them. But that is pretty rare. Of course, I say that based upon years of working in human services .... and dealing with adults who were convinced they could improve their SO/spouse, or mold their children, or even therapists who were silly enough to think they could "cure" their clients.

In fact, all we can do is change ourselves. In post #4, our good friend "Greg" actually comments, in an interesting way, on this very issue. We come into a fight, find out the other person is "fighting dirty," and we are stunned .... first stunned because we think it is against the rules to cheat, and then stunned because we have been slammed with a cheap shot. We need to change.

We need to change our manner of viewing the corporate media. It is that which it is. It is a tool that is often used against us, but it is also one that we can -- at times -- use to our advantage. So we may not have to change our tune, so much as fine tune our tactics.

[Me.]

9. we may not have to change our tune, so much as fine tune our tactics.

And we do this how.....?

[H2O Man]

13. Now there is an

easy question. (grin)

Gandhi used to say, "What you think, you become." And Malcolm X used to say that black leaders couldn't expect to achieve progress by telling people to take specific actions; rather, he taught, you have to change the way people think, and then they will take steps towards progress. And that, of course, was Malcolm's way of saying about groups just what Gandhi said about individuals.

In order to stimulate change in the way people think, one has to be able to communicate with them. In order to communicate effectively, you need to speak the language that your audience understands. You cannot speak French to a person who only understands English, and expect to communicate in any meaningful way. Likewise, one cannot speak DU to someone who only speaks CNN, and expect to communicate a message that will get that person to think differently. This does not imply that we should make CNN our primary tongue -- but rather, that we need to learn to communicate on other levels. For there are few who speak DU who do not understand the Plame scandal, just as there are few who speak Fox who care. It is the other group we need to target.

In 2004, I used to say that in politics, there are three groups: those who agree with you; those who disagree with you; and the "undecided." You always target the third group. That's what we need to do -- to target the undecided folks, who are also often uninformed. To inform them, we must be able to communicate ....

[ms liberty]

19. Very timely - I have been trying to work this problem out in my life...

I've been thinking in this direction recently. We need to take control of the message, on a national level right down to one-on-one conversations, which is what I've been pondering.

But when you're trying to talk to someone about it, I alway have the problem of where to start. Where is the best place to start? This is the most complicated damn mess I've ever seen, how do you explain it? These things can't be condensed to fit on a post-it note, and without the details it sounds like so much tin-foil hattery.

As an adult college student, I have opportunities, but most of these people in my (red rural area) don't have any idea what is really going on, or have a twisted version.

excellent essay, BTW - your insight is invaluable. I look forward to the next installment.

[H2O Man]

21. Good questions.

You raise interesting points. One of the things that comes to mind is that most of the teachers at our colleges and universities enjoy having one or more "adult students" in their classrooms. It's not simply that older students usually take educational opportunities more seriously than young folk .... but it is also because older people often will take the same set of "facts," and arrange them in a number of sequences, until they find the best fit.

Now, that may sound simplistic, but it is important. I worked for decades in human services. And frequently, whether I was dealing with a 19 year old inmate, or a 38 year old parent, I would listen to them describe a situation, detailing what they thought was important, and figuring out their construct in my mind. Then, I would "re-arrange" those same facts, and present a slightly different construct. And that is really the key to helping others with insight .... not so much "new" things, but putting things in a "new" or different way.

Now let's look at an example on DU. I started here on Dec 30, 2003, an important day in the Plame scandal. While I've been interested in participating in discussions on a diverse number of topics, I've always been most interested in the Plame case. And one evening, in a thread that someone else started, I mentioned a line from a one-page essay in Time. In the essay, Joe Klein noted that the conflict between the administration and some in the intelligence agencies had increased when Novak exposed Plame; then he mentioned, in an almost purposefully "off-hand" manner, that she had been involved in an on-going investigation into the sale of WMD components at the time.

By pulling that single line out, and placing it at the center of the discussion, it changes everything. That became the foundation of the infamous "Plame Threads" of the summer of 2004. Even many of the informed, open-minded readers of DU had not appreciated the full significance of the outing of Valerie Plame until that small, off-hand sentence was pulled from the shadows, and examined closely.

[xchrom]

10. corporations pay cheap, cheap rent for the public's

airwaves.

part of the problem lies therein.

cable companies operate as monopolies -- another problem.

deregulation has added more than a little to woes we're talking about.

there is power within congress to restrict some here -- and break-up over there.

[H2O Man]

17. Right.

I agree fully that the cheap rent for the public's airwaves is a big part of the problem. It is a form of private control over the public "commons," in which the few capitalize on the natural resources which belong to everyone.

[Gregorian]

4. Democrats don't do that because they aren't forcing an agenda.

The truth doesn't require an agenda. As I read your article, I saw a boxing match between a Republican and a Democrat, in the 70's. The Democrat gets cranked. And before very long, he realizes that his opponant has something solid in his gloves. Probably brass knuckles. He came to the match to play fair. To report the truth. But it took another match before realizing this was modus operandi for the Republican opponant. And the Democrat had to think about how to deal with it. We still like to play by the rules.

But when the corporations that own the media outlet are military oriented, it is in their best interest to have bullets flying. And I don't see many corporations which are not militarily involved. At least that has always been my perspective on it.

Not only that, but there is a trickle down censorship. The reporters don't need for their supervisor to come to their office and let it be known what will and won't be tolerated in their reporting. They know. And they censor themselves accordingly.

I doubt I'm adding to anything that everyone already knows. He who has the gold, rules. And until we find a way to crack through that, and shine a light on the truth, we will keep going down the same road. Will we put on the brass knuckles? It seems that the only alternative is to get back to the Fairness Doctrine. Otherwise, almost all of what is on the news channels is not much more than entertainment.

[WiseButAngrySara]

6. Excellent comments. n/t

[WiseButAngrySara]

7. K & R & Bookmarked! Great Article again, WaterMan...n/t

[Just Me]

11. Well, I'd like to see our progressive news sources gain a broader,...

,...audience, establish a greater reach. I refer most all my friends and constituents to those progressive sites, which helps spread that health/wealth of information, I supppose.

In my mind, the progressive sources should behave as the new leaders in journalism. It would be nice if they had a bit more economic backing but that may very well come over time.

[H2O Man]

14. I agree.

It is important not just to read TruthOut, or to participate on DU. As you note, we need to help increase their economic foundation. Now, of course, some of us are in a better position to do that than others. But for many, these are hard times, and it isn't a time when people can send large donations. But when we look to history, we find that there are examples of when poor people are able to put their small donations together, and to become a larger, more powerful force than perhaps anticipated. The best recent example may have been Howard Dean's use of the internet, and his ability to pool the small donations of people who did not want the "business as usual" approach of the democratic party.

[DaveT]

12. Excellent work.

It is neither possible nor desirable to boycott the corporate media out of existence. I certainly agree with H20 Man's suggestion that the progressive community should not just throw up our hands in frustration at how the News Business operates in the 21st Century.

There was never a "golden age" of fearless, truthful journalism.

The paradigm that I grew up with (born 1953) is gone -- it was a cold war consensus that accepted the two party system as just about perfect; that communism was the embodiment of evil; that "Civil Rights" was a plausible issue with two sides; that "our" foreign policy was based on both morality and common sense.

These baseline assumptions also included a wholesale endorsement of the Social Contract expressed by the New Deal -- and this former point of media consensus had the effect of marginalizing the Far Right Wing of the day. The John Birch Society was dismissed as a cult of kooks, for example.

One of the central tenets of this now defunct media world view allowed Woodward and Bernstein to challenge the Bush Administration -- we had a two party system that was run by generally honorable people. To ferret out dishonesty and criminality was, by definition, news.

All of this drove the far right wing batty for decades. This frustration created the myth of the "Liberal Media" -- most dramatically expressed by the highest ranking felon in modern American history, Spiro Agnew.


It is pretty easy to demonstrate that these animating assumptions behind the Cold War Media World View are no more "true" than the current paradigm that considers the "War on Terror" a legitimate intellectual and historical basis for public policy.

No, today we just have a different set of lies, but these lies are intended to work differently than the previous set of lies.


As citizens in (up to now) a democratic republic, we have to come to terms with the reality that "the news" is a product manufactured by corporations which have both a motivation and a ready means of slanting the news for their own political objectives. Personally, I cringe every time I read another DU (or other lefty forum) post that complains about how the media is not doing its "job" or, worse, fumes away into despair because "the media" will never change.

As always, progressive politics is a frontal assualt on the power of money.


What changed between 1974 when Nixon was driven out of the White House and 1999 when the GOP failed to drive Clinton out of office was that nature of the Money Interest changed. Instead of the Cold War, Smokestack America News Industry of the New Deal Social Contract era, the Gingrich/Bush2 GOP and the Post Telecommunications Act Media are both creatures of the New Money -- the faction that was affirmatively marginalized by the Old Money, Two-Party system.

This new paradigm has reversed the marginalization -- whereas resistance to the New Deal and atavistic Xenophopia were once defined as kookery, now anybody who dares to suggest the the New Deal was a very good thing and that its legacy is worth preserving and even expanding is now Officially a Joke.


Being mad at this state of affairs is not a strategy for subverting it.




Personally, I think the most important project by far is to spread the message that the corporate media is lying to you. That was the starting point for the Right's ascendency. We need to institutionalize alternative information dissemination and create a self confident new paradigm that puts the Corporate Lies into proper perspective.

Capitalism is infinitely malleable. When the Non-Wingnut majority succeeds in creating a credible network of information distribution, you will see that Roger Ailes will no longer be able to define the news in America, and all the current assumptions behind editorial decisions will morph into something different again.

It seems like a huge project only because it requires that upwards of 100 million people change their view of what "the media" is.

When you realize that there was no such thing as "the media" a scant 40 or 50 years ago, and you realize that the Right Wing successfully did exactly this over the last 20 years, it is actually much easier to accomplish than most people today assume.

[H2O Man]

16. Your post reminds me

of one of my favorite sections from the late Vine Deloria's classic "We Talk, You Listen":

"The New Left has tried to create a sense of revolution in the nation by shouting slogans and marching up and down the streets. But when the hated establishment is left secure in its citadel, certain that it cannot be dislodged, then it has very little reason to pay attention to them and maintains the power to suppress them. The New Left should use the system to create uncertainty in the minds of Congressmen it dislikes so that all would tend to change lest lightning strike them in their next election.

"In a comparable manner the executive branch of thegovernment could easily be changed if sufficient pressure were applied to it through the proper channels. When we speak of America as a democracy, we often fool ourselves. While we vote for our Senators, Congressmen, and Governors, we do not get a chance to vote for the multitude of civil servants which they are able to appoint. Thus the majority of the people in the system are placed there without citizen approval.

"This fact should not cause people to give up on the system. Simply because a man is appointed to a position, or through the drudgery of years has followed the Peter Principle and risen to his level of incompetence, does not mean he is immortal. There has never been a syste yet that would not gladly sacrifice one of its own for a moment's peace, no matter how brief. If the system is to be changed, then those who would change it should pinpoint its weak spot, its blockage points, and place all the pressure on that one point until the blockage is cleared. ....

"Every system has certain procedures by which it regulates its internal life. Each system is based upon the mathematical assumption that a certain problem can occur only so often, and therefore only a certain amount of staff is needed to keep the total operation running. Martin Luther King, Jr. used this weakness of the system to great advantage ...." (pages 65-7)

[Binka]

22. Excellent Post Dave T Please Contribute More Often!

This is one of the most succinct and powerful posts I've ever read here. I appreciate your powers of observation. You have been paying close attention! Thanks always to H20 for getting the ball rolling.

[calimary]

15. Always interesting stuff, H20 Man.

Kick!

[radio4progressives]

18. H2OMan You have opened an important window on a key element of CM

I especially appreciate you making note of how the intelligence community, have had their hands in the business of manipulating the media (I would have included not only the FBI and the CIA but the NSA as well) particularly during the 60's and 70's - we should never assume that these activities ended with the myriad of intelligence investigation hearings in Washington during the Church committee hearings or adjunct intelligence investigative committee hearings.

Appreciate the very important nuggets of factoids as examples, such as William F Buckley having never disclosed his role publicly with the agency prior to his "public" career as a "journalist". (Of course William F. Buckley always has the CIA's "secrecy oath" to fall back on if he is ever confronted, but that should be considered bullshit because the whole point of Buckley's role as a "journalist" was to promulgate anti-communist propaganda - most especially during the Viet Nam "conflict", proponent of the so called Domino Theory canard.

In the late 70's, Carl Bernstein wrote was then considered a startling expose published in the Rolling Stone, about the infiltration of the CIA in the American Media (New York Times, etc).. I think i have a version of that article somewhere on file, if i find it, i'll post it here.

I might quibble with you a bit as to the value of corporate media, except as something progressives need to monitor. Not for the purpose of "news" consumption, but as a source requiring decoding, to determine what intelligence community is up to. In other words, what stories are they creating, and to determine what the purpose is, beyond the obvious intention to "deceive" the public.

Was this Dubai port issue an example of the intelligence use of psy ops, or was it a bona-fide story being reported on and covered in an organically by real journalists? If it was a psy ops, what was actually going on vis a vis sleight of hand? (I'm not saying the Dubai ports issue was a false flag operation, i'm merely asking myself the question, and trying to figure it out)

As far as progressive media, alternative media - one of the most important things for everyone to remember is that the FIRST thing that was targeted and INFILTRATED by the FBI and the CIA was the Left Press, alternative press. Ramparts is not the only Left publication which fell victim to mass and destructive infiltration, but it was the first known to have been successfully infiltrated by scores of agents posing as left journalists. I suppose i should provide links, but i don't have the time at the moment- all one needs to do is google Ramparts, FBI infiltration, Co-Intel Pro etc..

In recent hit pieces against Raw Story on DU, my first reaction was that an operation was going on - we've been here before.

It's up to us old timers to pass on the information to the next generation, so they are better armed than we were in the 60's.

The most important issue you left out of your otherwise excellent post, was who the ownership of the cable and broadcast television stations. That's not a small matter it's very significant, and i believe that we need to address those issues as well as contemplate launching an boycott of their advertisers. But it has to be well organized i think before it can have a hope to be effective.

The only final point in this post I'd like to make is to further expound on your point with regard as to how important it is for progressives to read the traditional "progressive" journals with as much of a critical eye as we do mainstream press - again it's getting back to infiltration of the intelligence community posing as journalists (not necessarily referring to "former" CIA agents, but others who have not revealed their involvement with the intelligence community, such as David Corn, Marc Cooper and other off the radar - "Gate Keepers" such as Chip Berlet.

[H2O Man]

20. There was a wonderful example

of what you speak of recently in The Nation (Feb. 20), in the form of Max Holland's "The JFK Lawyer's Conspiracy." The March 20 edition has a number of letters that expose the "intel-driven agenda" that Mr. Holland pimps for. The best of the letters was by Mark Lane, who I think has been one of the best critics of the "perception management" that attempts to convince us to believe in fictional accounts of Dallas and Memphis.

23. money and reporters

The reason progressive media and forums such as DU are good news sources is because they are not tied to money. And even though there may be a lot of fluff on some forums or political agenda for some people, still you can filter much of that out or find writers who you trust. With corporate media, money rules, and though the reporters may say that have oath to truthfulness, often they are pressured to not report certain things, or to come across as un-biased. Also as Octafish has noted, often times the hardcore reporters are dropped from major media because they don't put out what the editors want them to.

Overall, I would say corporate media will be pressured by the writers for completely independent news sources, because they are a growing force. I think Washington Post and New York times must be ashamed of themselves and hopefully won't repeat exactly the Judith Miller or Woodward scenario, at least for a while.

I am not a hardcare political junkie anyway, but I can't stomach nightly news or even Lehrer anymore.

[glitch]

24. K & R for the whole thread. nt

[mzmolly]

25. I think the first thing we should do is hold the media accountable,

and recognize them when they do their jobs. Media matters is a good starting point regarding accountability. It would be fabulous to have a show in the MSM that does the same thing ey?

I agree it's not a black/white issue and boycotting "Matthews" for example isn't going to get us anywhere. Further, if a boycott is to be successful we would likely want to boycott the COMPANIES/CORPORATIONS that own various media outlets - however, any such boycott would have to be large enough to make an impact.

Thanks again H2Oman - very interesting information! :hi:

[Festivito]

26. Do they believe they do good for their country?

I suggest they do so believe.
It might be as much their forte, as it is their Achilles' heel. But, I digress.

Insidious that we'd all want to do good, but we cannot, or do not, or do not try to, or will not, agree on what would be good.
Our egos will intercede for our collective failure.

Will our fight be for good, or the good as we see it, as much as they see their fight is for their good?
IOW, will we achieve: the despot is dead, long live the new despot?
Only to have the pendulum swing back and forth at ever widening intervals.

Nice work of trying to get us to think.
Perhaps we'll learn how to make us all think.

Thank you.

[Me.]

27. Misguided Intentions

do not, in mho, give a pass when those intentions include world dominance, waging war on countries that have not attacked us, dead Americans, misery and hell for Iraqis, people detained for years without legal recourse or trials, spying on their own people, raiding the treasury and creating treason by illegally revealing the identity of a noc in order to get back at her husband, hide their deeds, and stop her from doing the valuable work that was an asset to her country, our country.

[Festivito]

28. Wasn't asking for a pass, just a sad deep understanding.

Are you sure that you do not want world dominance of truth, justice and maybe some egalitarianism?
Would you wage war to achieve some of this on countries that stop your ideas?
(Would you have stayed out of WWII and let Hitler reign?)
There would be dead Americans.
Misery and hell.
Detainees, no due process, spies, taxation without accounting, whistle blowers harmed, treason flaunted, ...

One man's misguided intentions is another man's good intentions.