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How the Corporate Media Continues to Use the Russia Scapegoat as a Distraction from Status Quo Failure

How the Corporate Media Continues to Use the Russia Scapegoat as a Distraction from Status Quo Failure

Countless observers have noted the obvious fact that the corporate media’s all-encompassing obsession with anti-Russia hysteria is partly just a shameless campaign to prevent change within the Democratic Party by blaming its loss on an outside enemy as opposed to the oligarch-coddling, corrupt disaster it nominated. While true, the strategy is far bigger than that. So called Western elites have failed miserably across the globe, and the only way to retain their undeserved positions of power (many should be in jail), is to create and promote a mindless, highly emotional, non-domenstic distraction. Enter Russia.

Ken Wilber perfectly articulated the failure of our discredited status quo in his recent ebook, which I quoted extensively from in my recent post, How a Breakdown in Liberal Ideology Created Trump – Part 1. He noted:

The problem very quickly became what Integral Metatheory calls a “legitimation crisis,” which it defines as a mismatch between Lower-Left (or cultural) beliefs and the Lower-Right systems (or actual background realities, such as the techno-economic base). The cultural belief was that everybody is created equal, that all people have a perfect and equal right to full personal empowerment, that nobody is intrinsically superior to others (beliefs that flourished with green). Yet the overwhelming reality was increasingly one of a stark and rapidly growing unequality—in terms of income and overall worth, property ownership, employment opportunity, healthcare access, life satisfaction issues. The culture was constantly telling us one thing, and the realities of society were consistently failing to deliver it—the culture was lying. This was a deep and serious legitimation crisis— a culture that is lying to its members simply cannot move forward for long. 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Billionaire-Owned, Corporate Media is as Worthless as Ever

The Billionaire-Owned, Corporate Media is as Worthless as Ever

I think the U.S. citizenry is being afflicted by a sort of mass insanity at the moment. There are no good outcomes if this continues. As a result, I feel compelled to provide a voice for those of us lost in the political wilderness. We must persevere and not be manipulated into the obvious and nefarious divide and conquer tactics being aggressively unleashed across the societal spectrum. If we lose our grounding and our fortitude, who will be left to speak for those of us who simply don’t fit into any of the currently ascendant political ideologies?

From the post: Lost in the Political Wilderness

Rather than focus its journalistic energy on chronicling the economic insecurity plaguing so many of our fellow Americans, the billionaire-owned corporate media appears entirely obsessed with chattering endlessly about Russia conspiracy theories and domestic coup plots. Instead of looking in the mirror and admitting how its countless errors and propaganda pushing led to multiple humanitarian disasters over the last couple of decades, the oligarch-owned mainstream media insist upon a narrative that Trump the individual is at the root of our problems, as opposed to an entrenched executive branch with excessive power. This is because the mainstream media isn’t actually concerned about our cancerous, systemic metastasizing statism, it merely doesn’t want Trump in charge of it. I, on the other hand, want to dismantle that unconstitutional state entirely and transfer power to the American people where it belongs — self-government. Does anyone actually think for a second the media would be this adversarial if Hillary won?

This weekend’s article by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times represents a sort of coming out party for the billionaire-owned, corporate media.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

7 Reasons that the Corporate Media Is Pro-War

7 Reasons that the Corporate Media Is Pro-War

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2po3B1moCd8/RjTV7HVpRoI/AAAAAAAAADM/w6dbnilmYXk/s1600/Amediawar.jpg

American media is always pro-war:

Can you name a single paper, or a single TV network, that was unequivocally opposed to the American wars carried out against Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Panama, Grenada, and Vietnam while they were happening, or shortly thereafter? Or even opposed to any two of these seven wars? How about one?

In 1968, six years into the Vietnam War, the Boston Globe (Feb. 18, 1968) surveyed the editorial positions of 39 leading U.S. papers concerning the war and found that “none advocated a pull-out.” Has the phrase “invasion of Vietnam” ever appeared in the U.S. mainstream media?

In 2003, leading cable station MSNBC took the much-admired Phil Donahue off the air because of his opposition to the calls for war in Iraq.

Why?

There are seven reasons that the mainstream media and many of the largest “alternative” media websites are all pro-war.

1. Self-Censorship by Journalists

There is tremendous self-censorship by journalists.

A survey by the Pew Research Center and the Columbia Journalism Review in 2000 found:

Self-censorship is commonplace in the news media today …. About one-quarter of the local and national journalists say they have purposely avoided newsworthy stories, while nearly as many acknowledge they have softened the tone of stories to benefit the interests of their news organizations. Fully four-in-ten (41%) admit they have engaged in either or both of these practices.

Similarly, a 2003 survey reveals that 35% of reporters and news executives themselves admitted that journalists avoid newsworthy stories if “the story would be embarrassing or damaging to the financial interests of a news organization’s owners or parent company.”

Several months after 9/11, Dan Rather told the BBC that American reporters were practicing “a form of self-censorship”:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Fed Sends a Frightening Letter to JPMorgan and Corporate Media Yawns

The Fed Sends a Frightening Letter to JPMorgan and Corporate Media Yawns

Jamie Dimon, Testifying Before the Senate Banking Committee on June 13, 2012

Jamie Dimon, Testifying Before the Senate Banking Committee on June 13, 2012 Over Massive Derivative Losses at the Depository Bank of JPMorgan Chase

Yesterday the Federal Reserve released a 19-page letter that it and the FDIC had issued to Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, on April 12 as a result of its failure to present a credible plan for winding itself down if the bank failed. The letter carried frightening passages and large blocks of redacted material in critical areas, instilling in any careful reader a sense of panic about the U.S. financial system.

A rational observer of Wall Street’s serial hubris might have expected some key segments of this letter to make it into the business press. A mere eight years ago the United States experienced a complete meltdown of its financial system, leading to the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. President Obama and regulators have been assuring us over these intervening eight years that things are under control as a result of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation. But according to the letter the Fed and FDIC issued on April 12 to JPMorgan Chase, the country’s largest bank with over $2 trillion in assets and $51 trillion in notional amounts of derivatives, things are decidedly not under control.

At the top of page 11, the Federal regulators reveal that they have “identified a deficiency” in JPMorgan’s wind-down plan which if not properly addressed could “pose serious adverse effects to the financial stability of the United States.” Why didn’t JPMorgan’s Board of Directors or its legions of lawyers catch this?

It’s important to parse the phrasing of that sentence. The Federal regulators didn’t say JPMorgan could pose a threat to its shareholders or Wall Street or the markets. It said the potential threat was to “the financial stability of the United States.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Boomer Retirement Meme Is A Big Lie

THE BOOMER RETIREMENT MEME IS A BIG LIE

As the labor participation rate and employment to population ratio linger near three decade lows, the mouthpieces for the establishment continue to perpetuate the Big Lie this is solely due to the retirement of Boomers. It’s their storyline and they’ll stick to it, no matter what the facts show to be the truth. Even CNBC lackeys, government apparatchiks, and Ivy League educated Keynesian economists should be able to admit that people between the ages of 25 and 54 should be working, unless they are home raising children.

In the year 2000, at the height of the first Federal Reserve induced bubble, there were 120 million Americans between the ages of 25 and 54, with 78 million of them employed full-time. That equated to a 65% full-time employment rate. By the height of the second Federal Reserve induced bubble, there were 80 million full-time employed 25 to 54 year olds out of 126 million, a 63.5% employment rate. The full-time employment rate bottomed at 57% in 2010, and still lingers below 62% as we are at the height of a third Federal Reserve induced bubble.

Over the last 16 years the percentage of 25 to 54 full-time employed Americans has fallen from 65% to 62%. I guess people are retiring much younger, if you believe the MSM storyline. Over this same time period the total full-time employment to population ratio has fallen from 53% to 48.8%. The overall labor participation rate peaked in 2000 at 67.1% and stayed steady between 66% and 67% for the next eight years. But this disguised the ongoing decline in the participation rate of men.

In 1970, the labor participation rate of all men was 80%, while the participation rate of women was just below 43%.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Don’t Give a Damn About the TPP? You’re Going to Wish It Gave a Damn About You.

Don’t Give a Damn About the TPP? You’re Going to Wish It Gave a Damn About You.

1. Who’s in the Super Bowl?

2. Who should be president next year?

3. What was just signed in New Zealand that, if ratified, will let corporations overturn U.S. laws, speed up the destruction of the environment, outsource jobs, encourage slavery, eliminate food safety standards, make medicine cost even more, censor and restrict the internet, impede reform of Wall Street, and make those 20 people who own as much as half the country even richer at your expense?

This is a clear-cut case where Meatloaf is just wrong. Two out of three really is bad.

TPPA c2331

Former U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, and others who had seen all or part of the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, used to say that just making it public would stop it dead. But that depends on a number of factors, I think. The TPP has now been made public. Twelve nations have just gone ahead and signed it. And their hope is to see their governments ratify it during the next two years.

The destruction wreaked by NAFTA can be seen in thousands of hollowed out towns across the United States, if you trust the bridges to get you there and are willing to risk drinking the water. But public discussion of NAFTA’s impact is not a popular topic in the corporate media, consolidated post-NAFTA and worsened ever since.

The 1993 corporate media debate over whether or not to create NAFTA looks bizarre to us today. You can go back and watch Vice President Al Gore (pro-NAFTA) debate wealthy crank Ross Perot (anti-NAFTA) on television.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Miracle of American Oil”: Continental Resources Courted Corporate Media to Sell Oil Exports

“Miracle of American Oil”: Continental Resources Courted Corporate Media to Sell Oil Exports

document published by the Public Relations Society of America, discovered by DeSmog, reveals that from the onset of its public relations campaign, the oil industry courted mainstream media reporters to help it sell the idea of lifting the ban on crude oil exports to the American public and policymakers.

Calling its campaign the “Miracle of American Oil,” the successful PR effort to push for Congress and the White House to lift the oil exports ban was spearheaded by Continental Resources, a company known as the “King of the Bakken” shale oil basin and founded by Harold Hamm. Hamm served as energy advisor to 2012 Republican Party presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Miracle of American Oil

Image Credit: Public Relations Society of America

The campaign launched on December 16, 2013, the 40th anniversary of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo, and won the prestigious PRSA Silver Anvil Award.

According to the document, submitted to PRSA to detail the logistics and reach of the PR effort, it was “designed to influence public policy and/or affect legislation, regulations, political activities or candidacies — at the local, state or federal government levels.”

And it all began with a kick-off dinner in Washington, D.C., hosted by Continental Resources and attended by some of the most influential mainstream media energy reporters in the United States.

Regular readers of the Washington oil and gas industry beat will find the names of the dinner attendees, disclosed in the document, familiar.

Miracle of American Oil

Image Credit: Public Relations Society of America

“The campaign not only served as a catalyst to correct public misconceptions, but it also propelled crude oil exports to the top of the U.S. Senate’s agenda,” Continental boasted on the PRSA document.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Democracy Or Oligarchy – You Decide

Democracy Or Oligarchy – You Decide

In the interests of clarifying what it is that America has become, we offer this…

 

 

So which one sounds more accurate?

 

Seizing an alternative: Obviously unlawful US/UK wars of the present (2 of 7)

Seizing an alternative: Obviously unlawful US/UK wars of the present (2 of 7)

The following is my paper for the Claremont Colleges’ conference, Seizing an Alternative Toward an Ecological Civilization, with open registration to the public on June 4-7, 2015.Paper title:

‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ political collapse: Seizing an alternative to OBVIOUS unlawful wars, bankster looting, lying corporate media

I’ve divided the paper into sections:

Recognizing The Emperor’s New Clothes as THE STORY of today (1 of 7)

Obviously unlawful US/UK wars of the present (2 of 7)

Obviously unlawful Israel wars on Gaza (3 of 7)

War lies to hide obviously unlawful wars: propaganda as usual (4 of 7)

Bankster looting: fundamental fraud that “debt” is “money” (5 of 7)

Lying corporate media: required propaganda trying to hide naked empire (6 of 7)

Integrity for the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (7 of 7)

This section is: Obviously unlawful US/UK wars of the present (2 of 7)

**

US/UK/Israel unlawful wars all started with lies: 

“No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion.” – President Kennedy, June 10, 1963

Unlawful Wars of Aggression: The US/UK/Israel “official story” is that current wars are lawful because they are “self-defense.” The Emperor’s New Clothes fact here is that “self-defense” means something quite narrow and specific in war law, and US/UK/Israel armed attacks on so many nations in current and past wars are not even close to the definition of “self-defense.”

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

50 Reasons We Should Fear the Worst from Fukushima

50 Reasons We Should Fear the Worst from Fukushima

Fukushima’s missing melted cores and radioactive gushers continue to fester in secret.

Japan’s harsh dictatorial censorship has been matched by a global corporate media blackout aimed—successfully—at keeping Fukushima out of the public eye.

But that doesn’t keep the actual radiation out of our ecosystem, our markets … or our bodies.

japanfukushima

Speculation on the ultimate impact ranges from the utterly harmless to the intensely apocalyptic.

But the basic reality is simple: for seven decades, government Bomb factories and privately-owned reactors have spewed massive quantities of unmonitored radiation into the biosphere.

The impacts of these emissions on human and ecological health are unknown primarily because the nuclear industry has resolutely refused to study them.

Indeed, the official presumption has always been that showing proof of damage from nuclear Bomb tests and commercial reactors falls to the victims, not the perpetrators.

And that in any case, the industry will be held virtually harmless.

This “see no evil, pay no damages” mindset dates from the Bombing of Hiroshima to Fukushima to the disaster coming next … which could be happening as you read this.

Here are 50 preliminary reasons why this radioactive legacy demands we prepare for the worst for our oceans, our planet, our economy … ourselves.

 

1. At Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945), the U.S. military initially denied that there was any radioactive fallout, or that it could do any damage. Despite an absence of meaningful data, the victims (including a group of U.S. prisoners of war) and their supporters were officially “discredited” and scorned.

2. Likewise, when Nobel-winners Linus Pauling and Andre Sakharov correctly warned of a massive global death toll from atmospheric Bomb testing, they were dismissed with official contempt … until they won in the court of public opinion.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

READING I.F. STONE ON EARTH DAY: WHY WE STILL WON’T GET ANYWHERE UNLESS WE CONNECT THE DOTS

READING I.F. STONE ON EARTH DAY: WHY WE STILL WON’T GET ANYWHERE UNLESS WE CONNECT THE DOTS

One week ago, I was honoured to receive an “Izzy Award” for “outstanding achievement in independent media and journalism.” The annual award, which this year also went to David Sirota for his groundbreaking investigations into political corruption in the U.S. pension system, is named after the great muckraker I.F. Stone (“Izzy” to his friends).

In past years, the award has gone to people who do a far better job of embodying the legacy of Stone’s investigative reporting than I (Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill among them). But as I said at the ceremony at Ithaca College, I doubt the judges have given the honour to anyone whose grandparents would have been more thrilled. Without fail, my late grandfather Philip Klein would read I.F. IF StoneStone’s Weekly to my late grandmother Annie while she knitted some new creation.

In preparation for the ceremony, I read some of Stone’s environmental writing, and came across a piece that seems very worth sharing today. It’s the speech he gave on April 22, 1970—the very first Earth Day. Never one to mince words, Stone’s speech was titled “Con Games.”

Picture the scene: it’s the Sylvan Theater on the grounds of the National Monument in Washington, D.C. Millions have participated in Earth Day events across the country and thousands are now gathered on the National Mall to listen to music (including Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs) and hear rally speeches from political heavyweights.

It is in this joyous and self-congratulatory atmosphere that a curmudgeonly I.F. Stone, by now a full-fledged icon on the left, takes the stage. And he unapologetically rains on the parade, accusing Earth Day of providing cover for escalating war and calling for a movement willing to demand “enormous changes—psychological, military, and bureaucratic—to end the existing world system, a system of hatred, of anarchy, of murder, of war and pollution.”

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

NBC’S CONDUCT IN ENGEL KIDNAPPING STORY IS MORE TROUBLING THAN THE BRIAN WILLIAMS SCANDAL

NBC’S CONDUCT IN ENGEL KIDNAPPING STORY IS MORE TROUBLING THAN THE BRIAN WILLIAMS SCANDAL

Throughout 2012, numerous American factions were pushing for U.S. intervention in Syria to bring down the regime of Bashar Assad, who throughout the War on Terror had helped the U.S. in all sorts of ways, including torturing people for them. But by then, Assad was viewed mostly as an ally of Iran, and deposing him would weaken Tehran, the overarching regional strategy of the U.S. and its allies. The prevailing narrative was thus created that those fighting against Assad were “moderate” and even pro-Western groups, with the leading one dubbed “the Free Syrian Army.”

Whether to intervene in Syria in alliance with or on behalf of the “Free Syrian Army” was a major debate in the West through the end of that year. Then-Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry was openly discussing ways for the U.S. to aid the rebels to bring about regime change. Sen. Joe Lieberman was saying: “I hope the international community and the U.S. will provide assistance to the Syrian Free Army in the various ways we can.” Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while ruling out direct military intervention, said: “[W]e have to redouble our efforts outside of the United Nations with those allies and partners who support the Syrian people’s right to have a better future.”

A U.N. resolution calling for Assad to step down was supported by NATO states but vetoed by China and Russia, who were concerned that it would be depicted as a “regime change” endorsement to justify Western military intervention. By the following year, John Kerry, by then Obama’s secretary of state, was arguing that direct U.S. military action in Syria against Assad — a full-scale bombing campaign — was a moral and strategic imperative.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How Reliable Is Reuters?

How Reliable Is Reuters?

People see their own nation, and foreign nations, through the filter of the press that’s available to them; so, if that filter is systematically distorting (distorting in ways that most of the others similarly do), then democracy cannot function, public opinion can be manipulated and warped; and wars might even start that shouldn’t — something Americans have tragically been experiencing lots of, during recent decades, such as when we invaded Iraq in 2003 (just to cite the most famous of many examples).

A typical Reuters ‘news’ report will be examined here, in order to determine how high the journalistic standards of the Reuters ‘news’ organization actually are. Reuters is an internationally respected ‘news’ organization, as reliable as any major ‘news’ organization in the U.S. and Europe — thus, it’s a good source to provide a case-example.

The particular report, dated Thursday, April 16th, is titled “Russia blames U.S. for security crises and turmoil in Ukraine.”

Its first sentence is a simple and true statement of fact: 

“Top Russian officials accused the United States on Thursday of seeking political and military dominance and sought to put blame on the West for international security crises, including the conflict in east Ukraine.”

 

The second sentence is anything but factual: it is instead contemptuous of the Russian speakers and of what they said, yet offering no evidence that what they said was false, nor is it offering evidence in support of the report’s own contemptuous attitude toward them: 

“Evoking Cold War-style rhetoric, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said a drive by the United States and its allies to bring Kiev closer to the West was a threat to Moscow and had forced it to react.”

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘It’s our money’ podcast: be educated on monetary/credit reform or continue looting by oligarchs

‘It’s our money’ podcast: be educated on monetary/credit reform or continue looting by oligarchs

Human beings are looted by asset-hole oligarchs literally by the trillions every year.

These lying sacks of spin are the .01% banksters, and “leaders” of government and corporate media.

Human beings will either continue being looted and lied-to, or earn voices for justice from basic education that includes how to create what we use for money:

Debt-free money is creating money as a positive number, while public credit creates what we use for money as a negative number. Both are useful tools for good-faith experimentation to manage an economy’s money supply.

The following podcast from the Public Banking Institute’s It’s our money includes this basic education required for economic freedom:

http://itsourmoney.podbean.com/e/they-own-you-040815-1428939237/

If the public cannot, or will not, demand control over money then freedom is not possible because the only freedom possible is slavery to those who command money creation as we witness today:

 

The UK Guardian is Earth’s third most-read on-line newspaper. In a revealing article with rare admittance of the central facts, The truth is out: money is just an IOU, and the banks are rolling it in, the author explains what the Bank of England and US Federal Reserve admit (when you press for the truth):

What we use for money is created as debt by private banks.

This system is like adding negative numbers forever. The aggregate debt only gets larger, and will never be repaid because this is what we use for money. Also, as we see today, the interest and debt total become so tragic-comic we can’t get close to affording to pay.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

When Is a Corporate Media Group Too Powerful? — Global Issues

When Is a Corporate Media Group Too Powerful? — Global Issues.

But others view it as a worrisome case of undue influence of media corporations on the formation of journalists.3

Last June GFR Media, Puerto Rico’s largest media company, gave a five-million-dollar grant to the Communications School of Universidad del Sagrado Corazón (USC), one of the country’s leading private universities. Upon receiving the grant, the university changed the school’s name to Ferré Rangel School of Communication, after the Ferré-Rangel family, which owns GFR Media.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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