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Octafish

(55,745 posts)
Sun Aug 18, 2013, 09:31 PM Aug 2013

Time’s Senior National Correspondent Calls for Julian Assange to be Killed by Drone



Time’s Senior National Correspondent Calls for Julian Assange to be Killed by Drone

Washington's Blog, Aug. 18, 2013

What should we make of his statement? True,

It’s not Grunwald as an individual (although he’s proven himself to be a staunch defender of tyranny … and economic charlatans).

It’s the mindset of the entire political class.

Under both Bush and Obama, when bad government policy leads to bad results, the government manipulates the data … instead of changing policy.

As part of that effort – on the one hand – “reporters” who never criticize the government in more than a superficial fashion are protected and rewarded. And the government has repealed long-standing laws against using propaganda against Americans on U.S. soil. And the government also manipulates social media. More proof here and here.

CONTINUED with more links than you can shake a joystick at:

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/08/times-senior-national-correspondent-calls-for-julian-assange-to-be-killed-by-drone.html

TIME, home of fascists.
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Octafish

(55,745 posts)
4. In America, Journalists Are Considered Terrorists
Sun Aug 18, 2013, 11:12 PM
Aug 2013
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/09/in-america-journalists-are-considered-terrorists.html

Sounds weird to write, seeing how it should be obvious, but freedom of the press is the cornerstone of democracy. Seeing so few stand up for It makes me sick.
 

Rex

(65,616 posts)
6. He would fit right in with some of the comments here
Sun Aug 18, 2013, 11:27 PM
Aug 2013

some here really want to see blood drawn and they are flopping all over themselves waiting like sharks out of water.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
12. Agree 100-percent re Corporate McPravda.
Mon Aug 19, 2013, 12:15 AM
Aug 2013

Greedheads in service of warmongers and traitors. It saddens me to write, but Corporate Tee Vee is still where most Americans get most of their information, including their ideas about these two statues. Wonder what people would think were they to learn from the tee vee what pater and fils have really done with their power?



The Propaganda System That Has Helped Create a Permanent Overclass Is Over a Century in the Making

Pulling back the curtain on how intent the wealthiest Americans have been on establishing a propaganda tool to subvert democracy.

Wednesday, 17 April 2013 00:00
By Andrew Gavin Marshall, AlterNet | News Analysis

Where there is the possibility of democracy, there is the inevitability of elite insecurity. All through its history, democracy has been under a sustained attack by elite interests, political, economic, and cultural. There is a simple reason for this: democracy – as in true democracy – places power with people. In such circumstances, the few who hold power become threatened. With technological changes in modern history, with literacy and education, mass communication, organization and activism, elites have had to react to the changing nature of society – locally and globally.

From the late 19th century on, the “threats” to elite interests from the possibility of true democracy mobilized institutions, ideologies, and individuals in support of power. What began was a massive social engineering project with one objective: control. Through educational institutions, the social sciences, philanthropic foundations, public relations and advertising agencies, corporations, banks, and states, powerful interests sought to reform and protect their power from the potential of popular democracy.

SNIP...

The development of psychology, psychoanalysis, and other disciplines increasingly portrayed the “public” and the population as irrational beings incapable of making their own decisions. The premise was simple: if the population was driven by dangerous, irrational emotions, they needed to be kept out of power and ruled over by those who were driven by reason and rationality, naturally, those who were already in power.

The Princeton Radio Project, which began in the 1930s with Rockefeller Foundation funding, brought together many psychologists, social scientists, and “experts” armed with an interest in social control, mass communication, and propaganda. The Princeton Radio Project had a profound influence upon the development of a modern "democratic propaganda" in the United States and elsewhere in the industrialized world. It helped in establishing and nurturing the ideas, institutions, and individuals who would come to shape America’s “democratic propaganda” throughout the Cold War, a program fostered between the private corporations which own the media, advertising, marketing, and public relations industries, and the state itself.

CONTINUED...

http://truth-out.org/news/item/15784-the-propaganda-system-that-has-helped-create-a-permanent-overclass-is-over-a-century-in-the-making



Thankfully, to help spread light when the protectors of the First Amendment won't, Maria Galardin's TUC (Time of Useful Consciousness) Radio. The podcast helps explain how we got here and what we need to do to move forward, starting with putting the "Public" into Airwaves again:



Alex Carey: Corporations and Propaganda
The Attack on Democracy


The 20th century, said Carey, is marked by three historic developments: the growth of democracy via the expansion of the franchise, the growth of corporations, and the growth of propaganda to protect corporations from democracy. Carey wrote that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. And, in his manuscript, unpublished during his life time, he described that history, going back to World War I and ending with the Reagan era. Carey covers the little known role of the US Chamber of Commerce in the McCarthy witch hunts of post WWII and shows how the continued campaign against "Big Government" plays an important role in bringing Reagan to power.

John Pilger called Carey "a second Orwell", Noam Chomsky dedicated his book, Manufacturing Consent, to him. And even though TUC Radio runs our documentary based on Carey's manuscript at least every two years and draws a huge response each time, Alex Carey is still unknown.

Given today's spotlight on corporations that may change. It is not only the Occupy movement that inspired me to present this program again at this time. By an amazing historic coincidence Bill Moyers and Charlie Cray of Greenpeace have just added the missing chapter to Carey's analysis. Carey's manuscript ends in 1988 when he committed suicide. Moyers and Cray begin with 1971 and bring the corporate propaganda project up to date.

This is a fairly complex production with many voices, historic sound clips, and source material. The program has been used by writers and students of history and propaganda. Alex Carey: Taking the Risk out of Democracy, Corporate Propaganda VS Freedom and Liberty with a foreword by Noam Chomsky was published by the University of Illinois Press in 1995.

SOURCE: http://tucradio.org/new.html



If you find a moment, here's the first part (scroll down at the link for the second part) on Carey.

http://tucradio.org/AlexCarey_ONE.mp3

It's important for there to be more than a handful of companies providing "news." Democracy depends on it.

sabrina 1

(62,325 posts)
7. And this is the state of journalism today and the reason why no one takes America seriously
Sun Aug 18, 2013, 11:30 PM
Aug 2013

anymore.

Assange is a journalist, he published facts. A multi-award winning journalist who became a serious threat to the Ruling Class.

The more smears you see aimed at Journalists like Assange and Greenwald the more certain you can be that the Ruling Class is terrified of the truth.

And in some ways it is good news that they ARE this terrified, because it means they are still very vulnerable, despite all the power they have grabbed. The are still afraid, of the PEOPLE and when the PEOPLE have knowledge, they will no longer be able to control them.

People like Assange and Manning and Drake and Binney and Greenwald among others, are the key to the people getting that knowledge and that makes them enemies, not of the people, but of the Ruling Class whose crimes must be far more egregious than we already know, for them to be this desperate.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
13. Greenwald called for Cheney and the rest of the war criminals to be prosecuted.
Mon Aug 19, 2013, 09:36 AM
Aug 2013

Not too many "journalists" were brave enough to mouth those words, let alone put them in print.

Glenn Greenwald vs. Cass Sunstein -- Battle Royal, in their own words!

Those posting theirr thoughts on DU -- in posting the Truth -- represent a danger to those who live by the Big Lie.

You are the bravest of the brave, sabrina 1.

Union Scribe

(7,099 posts)
9. And he only deleted it once someone told him
Sun Aug 18, 2013, 11:44 PM
Aug 2013

that he was giving ammo to Assange's supporters. Then he retweets a bunch of people who bemoaned the unfairness of it all, painting himself the victim. The guy's just an all around ass.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
15. Thanks for the background, Union Scribe!
Mon Aug 19, 2013, 09:58 AM
Aug 2013

"Journalists" who see things in shades of green really, really bug me.

Many, once they make big money, all of a sudden seem to go along with the liars who make money off war.

One instance: No one followed-up with Bush when he said "Money trumps peace" at a press conference on Feb. 14, 2007.

IMO, that says everything about the Police State and its toadies like Michael Grunwald of TIME, the same company that went above and beyond the call of duty to pin the assassination of President Kennedy on a lone assassin.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
16. Money. Media Millionaires. Journalism by and for the 0.01 Percent...
Mon Aug 19, 2013, 04:52 PM
Aug 2013
Media Millionaires

Journalism by and for the 0.01 Percent

By Peter Hart
FAIR, July 1, 2013

Mainstream journalism is, we’re often told, in a state of severe crisis. Newsroom employment began to decline as a result of corporate takeovers in the 1990s. Then the digital revolution destroyed the advertising market, plunging the industry into serious doubt about its very business model.

But times aren’t rough all around. There are many pundits and TV anchors who are doing very well in the media world, racking up millions of dollars from their media contracts, book deals and lucrative speaking fees. Though they don’t generally approach the compensation packages awarded to network morning show hosts like Matt Lauer or evening anchors like Diane Sawyer, they’re not exactly hurting.

Of course, being the boss means the biggest payday—and media company CEOs have been posting unbelievable incomes. In 2012, CBS head Les Moonves made $62 million, Disney’s Robert Iger made $37 million and Rupert Murdoch of Fox took home a comparatively modest $22 million (New York Times, 5/5/13). Don’t feel sorry for Murdoch, though; as No. 91 on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people, with an estimated net worth of $11.2 billion, he’s unlikely to go to bed hungry.

The media business outstrips other industries in generously compensating its top executives (New York Times, 5/5/13), and those resources could of course be put to better use by hiring reporters. But that’s not the way the system works. And it’s not just the bosses getting rich. Indeed, many high-profile members of the media elite live a rather charmed life. The journalism business looks to be in a disastrous state—but the view from the top is just fine.

Thomas Friedman

New York Times foreign affairs columnist Tom Friedman has written a number of bestsellers, and regularly holds forth on outlets like public TV’s Charlie Rose show. All of the globe-trotting and yearning for a “radical centrism” in American politics—where sensible climate policies could be paired with cuts to social spending—have paid off handsomely.

CONTINUED...

http://fair.org/slider/cover-story-media-millionaires/

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
17. The Ideology Behind Michael Grunwald's Repugnant Assange Tweet
Mon Aug 19, 2013, 04:57 PM
Aug 2013
The Time correspondent wrote, "I can't wait to write a defense of the drone strike that takes out Julian Assange."

CONOR FRIEDERSDORF
The Atlantic, AUG 19 2013, 9:30 AM ET

On Saturday, Michael Grunwald, a senior correspondent at Time, stoked controversy by tweeting, "I can't wait to write a defense of the drone strike that takes out Julian Assange." The tweet triggered an immediate backlash among people who believe that murder is wrong, and that expressing preemptive delight at the prospect of defending murder is wrongheaded and repugnant. Shortly thereafter, Grunwald apologized to his followers, called his tweet "dumb," and deleted it. Folks on Twitter called for his job. Even though, as Amy Davidson noted at the New Yorker, "Grunwald seems a bit oblivious as to what was wrong with what he said," I'm allergic to anyone being fired over any one tweet, especially if they express regret for sending it.

We're all better than we are at our worst moments.*

It is nevertheless worth dwelling on his tweet a moment longer, because it illuminates a type that is common but seldom pegged in America. You see, Grunwald is a radical ideologue. It's just that almost no one recognizes it. The label "radical ideologue" is usually used to describe Noam Chomsky or members of the John Birch Society. We think of radical ideologues as occupying the far right or left. Lately a lot of people seem to think that The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald is a radical (often they wrongly conflate the style with which he expresses his views with their substance).

But Grunwald graduated from Harvard, spent a decade at the Washington Post, and now works as a senior correspondent at Time. How radical could someone with that resume possibly be?

Extremely so.

That doesn't mean that he's a bad guy, or that he shouldn't be a journalist. But as someone who finds Grunwald's ideology as problematic and wrongheaded as I'm sure he finds aspects of my worldview, I tire of the fact that people who share it are treated as pragmatic centrists while their critics, whether on the libertarian right or the civil liberties left, are dismissed as impractical ideologues.

SNIP...

Denying a particular American his Miranda rights, because we're really sure this one is guilty, and hey, terrorism!, is objectionable in different ways, which cannot be waived away with "the republic will survive." Preserving a culture of due process is, in fact, vital to the survival of a free society. No single violation is fatal, but Grunwald appears oblivious to the danger of undermining the culture, and to how radical it is to call for one-off departures of convenience from long established norms. Using the same logic, one could argue that, hey, torturing Dzhokar Tsarnaev might've prevented further tragedy, and it isn't like the republic wouldn't survive another waterboarding!

CONTINUED...

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/the-ideology-behind-michael-grunwalds-repugnant-tweet/278790/

PS: What kind of a soulless lout would look forward to the demise of another human being? What kind of journalist would look forward to the demise of a fellow journalist? I trace the nation's psychotic break back to Nov. 22, 1963.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
18. Wouldn't want to set any precedents that actually were toward justice, certainly.
Mon Aug 19, 2013, 05:07 PM
Aug 2013
MICHAEL GRUNWALD AND THE ASSANGE PRECEDENT PROBLEM

POSTED BY AMY DAVIDSON
AUGUST 18, 2013, The New Yorker

EXCERPT...

It was troubling, too, to read Grunwald’s tweet on a day when journalists were being threatened, detained, and set upon in Cairo—accused of being terrorist sympathizers, spies, or underminers of public safety—for reporting on the violence of the government’s assault on the Muslim Brotherhood. Would words like those have appeared in Grunwald’s defense of a drone strike? This is a dangerous time for journalists; Time itself sends people places where missile strikes and bombs are not just rhetorical ammunition.

Journalists are in legal danger, too. The Obama Administration has, in its practices, embraced the position that the leaking of classified information to reporters is a problem properly addressed with the Espionage Act. Bradley Manning was convicted under it even though the government failed on a charge of aiding the enemy. Edward Snowden, the N.S.A. leaker, has been charged with two violations of the Espionage Act, for starters. Snowden’s leaks made a crucial discussion about the N.S.A.’s overreach possible. President Obama said in a press conference last week that he didn’t consider him a “patriot”; others have openly called him a traitor. And the Administration has come close to calling reporters who work with leakers members of spy rings.

Peter Maass, in a profile of Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker to whom Snowden turned with his files, describes how she was stopped and harassed at border crossings for years before even meeting him, perhaps because of filming that she did in Iraq—but who knows why. [Update: David Miranda, a Brazilian citizen, was detained for nine hours Sunday while transiting Heathrow Airport under a section of the U.K.’s Terrorism Act, apparently because he is the partner of Glenn Greenwald, who also worked with Snowden, and had just visited Poitras; British authorities questioned him about the N.S.A. leaks, according to the Guardian.]

The other part of the equation is our drone regimen and the legal rationales that the Obama Administration has constructed for targeted killings—including the killings of Americans. In a post a few months ago, I asked whether an Administration white paper defending the extra-judicial killing of Americans abroad—people whom it had decided were a threat and involved with Al Qaeda or “associated forces”—could be used to justify, say, a drone strike against a journalist who was about to reveal classified information. The Administration has denied that reading of the paper, but it appears that it could indeed justify such an action; it is too easy to imagine a future President pointing to the language of the white paper as a precedent. And that just concerns Americans: foreigners have less protection.

Put those two halves together—pushing investigative journalism into the category of espionage and enemy activity; targeted killings to chase threats—and it seems possible that Grunwald could someday get a chance to write that defense, perhaps not with regard to Assange (we are not about to launch a drone strike in London, where he is now) but to someone similar to him.

CONTINUED...

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/08/michael-grunwald-and-the-assange-precedent-problem.html

As for media-directed foreign policy, oh yeah, one name does come to mind.
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