The Military-Mass Media Complex

[reprehensor]

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0506-06.htm

by Guy Reel

In 1961 President Eisenhower famously warned of the dangers of an overly strong military- industrial complex. He cautioned that inseparable ties between the military and for-profit arms merchants could distort national policies and priorities, leading to negative "economic, political, even spiritual" consequences.

As the Bush administration ignores the warnings of the past by contracting out an unprecedented number of military obligations to private firms, we have seen Eisenhower's warned-of disasters unfold. This has led not only to the humiliation and degradation of Iraqi prisoners (in a country we said we were liberating) but has caused untold damage to American prestige and even severely compromised the safety of the American men and women who are unwittingly putting their lives on the line for - the military-industrial complex. The spiritual consequences that Eisenhower warned about are becoming even more apparent, with national and local right-wing demagogues spewing radio novels of garbage about the traitorous Democrats, rampant with paranoia and delusions, as their callers ring in their dittos and curse the rest of the world.

Eisenhower has received a sort of folk-hero status as a result of his farewell address, and deservedly so. But today we have a more insidious, possibly even more damaging, alliance unfolding - what could be called the military-mass media complex.

Not long ago, the American press was the best in the world. But within the past ten years or so, its interests have coincided too closely with state interests, so that in many cases it has become a vehicle for the government. This development, one would think, would alarm conservatives who profess a distrust of government. Yet they seem all too happy to let the press abandon its watchdog role, as long as it fits with their agenda. Their distrust of government apparently does not include a distrust of that most laborious of government bureaucracies, the military.


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[Kolesar]

1. I think we have to attack the media after the election

We are going to have to tear apart the media conglomerates after the election. If our candidate tries it before November 2, he will surely get Gored. We have seen how the media can place their selected candidate in office.