Saturday, January 06, 2018

Yes Virginia, it's a Dangerous World

Rereading a history of newspaper self-censorship in service to American Empire (link)  

"Freedom of the press" in America is mirage, PR & bullshit.

Is it reasonable The New York Times still is patting itself on the back after publishing the Pentagon Papers 47 years ago? Thanks, but a long time's passed - (generations back, to the days of Brezhnev, and when gas in America cost 40¢ a gallon) - what have you done for us lately?   Far too little - this century's NYT bosses spinelessly serve America's ruling elite...

A key quote comes from Bill Keller of his stint as Executive Editor of The New York Times:

"Three years after 9/11, we, as a country, were still under the influence of that trauma, and we, as a newspaper, were not immune. It was not a kind of patriotic rapture. It was an acute sense that the world was a dangerous place."

Yes, the world was (and is) a Dangerous Place.
Our secret government is very dangerous.

Keep the citizenry ignorant, and you steal away our oversight capability from us.

Treating the public as ENEMY extended the corruption of Bush & Obama governments. We continue enriching the officials as individuals, and rewarding their corporate & military support systems.

Disregard and contempt for the public by media giants is unsurprising. Expect the Ochs-Sulzberger family and The New York Times to feed you sugar-coated bullshit... and the Murdochs & Fox / News Corp are even worse. Corporate media has steadily eliminated experiments with public interest oversight: The Washington Post ombudsman was eliminated in 2013, The New York Times public editor was axed mid-2017.

Neither has corporate media done enough to secure unimpeded public access to worldwide news & information, now threatened by recent FCC surrender of "net neutrality" ... Media & big ISP (internet service providers such as Verizon, Comcast, Spectrum or AT&T) work to build their mega-corporations. Allowing internet repackaging by the ISP carries our nation of sheep substantially closer to the slaughterhouse.