More CNN Psy-Ops: The Terrorists Are Coming...

[KharmaTrain]

I first caught this report on Lou Dobbs and again on Aaron Brown...it's a report about "chatter" on Al Queda websites (sic) with "experts" looking at computer screens and supposedly reading to us what they say.

According to these "experts", these sites are "discussing" attacks on hospitals, schools, airports...the places where large groups of people meet. The report goes further to claim that the terrorists are ready for a big war against the United States and that these attacks are going to be of a scale we can't imagine.

While I have no doubts there are Arab groups that would love to settle scores for our intervention into their culture, and now land, and it's important that we see these threats (a specific website was also singled out), but the big brother message and techniques are what is getting to me.

This morning, I woke up, tossed on CNN (it's that or infomercials at 4am) and sure enough, there was that report again. Not only once, but I caught it a second time before I clicked off to C-SPAN at 6am. You could even see the look of "concern" on the anchorbabe...obviously told to look that way by that little RNC voice in her earpiece.

I wish I was as up on my McLuan and Orwell as I used to be, but there's a definite spin these past couple days of spreading fear and making sure it sticks. For a long time I'd dismiss the charges of CNN being biased, but that was before 9/11...since then, the skew at this network (especially during the day) is getting blatant.

The real scary part is the chicken little game this regime is playing. Should there be an attack (and this include the McVeigh-type nuts who are plentiful) then this regime will hop on it's lying high horse and spin how it's got things under control...and how it's us "libruls" who brought this whole thing on.

Kudos to the many who've posted other strings in recent days noticing the nuanced biases that are being presented on the cable networks, and hopefully others here are starting to view this bias as well...and the evil manipulation that is being done.

To those who say "turn it off"...it's that "see no evil" attitude that allowed the right wing to embed itself so deep into the media and now uses it to dominate through fear.

Sorry to sound so dire on a beautiful morning...just seems it's been getting awfully thick out there the past couple days.

Cheers!

[chelsea0011]

1. Terrorist warnings are now throw-away news

CNN does a laundry list of targets and then does nothing to explain the reports or ask the big question "why is this being released to the public". This news does nothing for the public. It has almost like the administration has become the boy who cried wolf. The only logical reason to release "nothing terrorist warnings" is to keep the public on edge and the administration can be perceived as "on the job of fighting terrorist" when nothing could be further from the truth. How much money has been wasted on Iraq when it all could have been used to tighten up security against real terrorism?
These clowns that run our country only want the public to get two issues this year. Kerry waffles( I heard it again on CNN this AM) and we are all about to be killed if we don't re-select the current President who only has our welfare and well-being on his empty mind. Insert sarcasm here.

[dbt]

7. If the Regime wanted to PROTECT us,

none of this would get out at all. bu$hco would do what Clinton did: grab the Bad Guys without saying a word.

One of the first principles of War is that you say nothing that might remotely tip your hand. Moreover, what you DO say is calculated to force your enemy into a wrong move.

:wtf:
dbt

[gandalf]

2. I agree that CNN & Co are marketing the "war on terror"

Sometime they might underestimate their audiences.

How can websites "discuss" attacks? Do they mean discussion forums? Are we to believe that the terrorists openly discuss terrorist attacks via forums? That seems somewhat incredible and absurd.

In the REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 it was claimed that the al Qaeda terrorists adhered to operational security (Report Of The Joint Inquiry Into The Terrorist Attacks Of September 11, pp. 6, 196-7).

Certainly discussing attacks via forums is not the same as adhering to operational security.

[gandalf]

3. More on psy-ops and marketing:

Truth, lies, and the legend of 9/11, Chaim Kupferberg

Very long, but a must read for everybody interested in psy-ops and terror marketing.

[mikehiggins]

4. Can you imagine how hard it would be

to mount a successful, wide-scale coordinated terrorist attack within the United States? Even the 9/11 attack was only partially successful, despite the horror of the tradgedy perpetrated by the attackers.

Two of their targets went down. One target had to be shifted (like B-29's bombing alternate targets in WWII). One plane went down when the passengers realised what was happening and staged a counterattack.

This when the ENTIRE United States was WIDE OPEN to the terrorists, not at all the situation today.

(my money on the anthrax thing, by the way, is a single gunman, like the Unibomber, and probably someone on the fringes of the US right wing, considering the targets)

That day is not this day. Today we are in a state of hyper-vigilance (remember the Middle Eastern students turned in to the Feds by an overly anxious waitress?) and paranoia. Are there really large numbers of AQ "sleeper cells" hidden around the US ready to leap into action at the call of a mullah? Yeah, of course. They're the ones helping Elvis hide out at the same time.

There may be terrorist attacks in the coming months but the odds are that they will be limited in extent and scope, and more likely to fail than not.

But, hey! If they blow up a polling station in Debuque I think we should cancel all elections for the duration of the crisis.

Makes sense to me...

[gandalf]

5. That is true only if you assume

that the attacks are not mounted from within.

Even that is, of course, a very complex operation. But I think the US have very able intelligence agencies.

[KharmaTrain]

6. Paranoia Strikes Deep

Great observations, and to dig a bit further...

If one is to believe that our military really wasn't as asleep on 9/11 as it's being portrayed (meaning the PA flight was shot down), there were a ton of clues left around before that date that would now be a major red flag. Any Arab-looking or sounding man in this country is suspect by a vast majority of this population; thus flight schools, drinking at bars and buying large quantities of any explosive substance is going to be noticed and fast. Yes, things are far different today.

I agree with your call that the Antrhax was both internal and right wing motivated. Isn't it something how little those who fear "terrorism" rarely invoke Oklahoma City...and the terror that attack was intended to do and who did it. To think McVeigh was a lone wolf is another media lie.

Yes...all the "reports" we get seem to follow a pattern now. First, there's the leak of a possible raising of the terror warning or a "major address" (that's how both Asskroft and Ridge's remarks were framed on CNN) that lacked any locations or even what targets would be more likely than others. Surely, these slueths would have been able to intercept chatter that would see the word "bridge" or some name (just like the plots the Clinton administration foiled) that would provide a clearer picture. Of course that doesn't serve the real objectives of this regime...diversion and fear.

My hopes are raised when I see strings like this...that there are others seeing what I am, and we can start speaking out about it.

[luaneryder]

8. Not tuning in works for me

I have no TV and still see enough sham alerts on the internet to call BS. Like you said, the news readers are told not only what to say, but how to deliver it, facial expressions and all. The fear factor is doing a number on those who are gullible and glued to their sets. Like you I never thought I'd call CNN biased, but when I visit someone who has their sets tuned to it the bias is blatantly clear.

[KharmaTrain]

10. I've Had CNN Since 1983...

Last night I heard the ultimate shot at their own past...a report about those who don't fulfill their pledges to charitable organizations. The "theme" was non-profits that get burned by phony donations and companies that go out and collect. At the tail end was a shot that "Ted Turner once pledged billions to the UN that he never gave"... Now digest that one.

IIRC, Turner didn't give money, but stock options...many that included Time Warner stock that went into the dumpers in 2001. The value of that donation, as well as his own wealth decreased tremendously. Also, that money wasn't supposed to be a grant, but used as an endowment. But why let facts get in the way of yet another shot at those who "hate the president".

The greatest double standard around now is the Whoopi Goldberg crap. "The outrage" was predictable...almost scripted. Of course, excerpts are used out of context and then the label "Hollywood" is tacked on as some real insult. Might be worth compiling a dictionary here of the buzzwords that are so prevelent in these broadcasts.

I'd say it's idealism driving this, but I've seen how this sausage is made, and it's pure greed and opportunism going on here. The corporates have too much invested and at stake with this regime and can't afford to lose their access and monopolistic laws (called "deregulation").

[Guaranteed]

9. I have to admit that I saw the report you're referring to, and it

actually affected me.

I'm flying to California July 24th, right before the Dem convention. I'm a little uneasy about it.

[porphyrian]

11. $0.02

"To those who say "turn it off"...it's that "see no evil" attitude that allowed the right wing to embed itself so deep into the media and now uses it to dominate through fear."

I don't think this is a fair association at all. CNN is very concerned about who watches it and who doesn't because that is how they make money - charging for commercial airtime which is priced based on the number of drones they calculate will be plopped in front of the tube during any given time slot. People who choose not to consume CNN, or any other corporate media, are living examples of exercising another option. Telling others to do the same, whether to free them from the mass mind rape or to just shut them up, is not a form of the "see no evil" attitude that allowed the fascist coup.

The political parties that abandoned two thirds of the American populace for those they perceived as consistant voters are responsible for the fascist coup. Had career politicians wooed the common man to the polls rather than the corporations to their fundraisers, this would be an entirely different America. Instead, we have one big orgy of money worship and favor trading, leaving most of the people in the country feeling as if they cannot make a difference. If you're going to point fingers, point them at the career politicians who are responsible, not the people who suggest you exercise your free will while you still have it.

[KharmaTrain]

12. This Is Like Push-Polling...

Money has corrupted, but it always has...it's just how consumed our culture has become with either the gaining of money or the keeping it that is the ultimate bloodsport in this country and world.

I see a similar grumbling among Democrats as I did among Repugnicans in 1994. It was nurtured and then perverted by Gingrich and the NeoCons that found ways to embed their messages through the media, that turned words like Liberal, Feminist and even Democrat as a dirty word. Just listen to the wingnut calls each morning on C-SPAN or any hate radio show to see how well the marriage of corporate media and politicians have worked.

I blame Clinton for selling out in the DeRegulation bill of '96 that led to a lot of the media consolidation that exists today. It enabled Clear Channel to amass 1200 stations, networks to go from programming conduits (strictly prohibited on how they syndicated their programming) to mega-media, multi-channel monsters and controls a lot of the levers on how information is broadcast to the nation and the world.

Yes, there is a certain percentage of audience ratings that come into play here...and that CNN, in specific, is very susceptible to the ebbs and flows of the sales and marketing department that are the real powers at that and any network. If being liberal means lots of money, then that's the way the network will slant. A case could be made for Comedy Central...and it's definite liberal tilt as being a case of programming targeted for a specific market. But that's "entertainment" (although many here will say The Daily Show is more factual than anything on CNN)

I'll bet there's a marketing study...focus group research and phone polling that is showing that during the day the "audience profile" of the network is white male...thus the marketing assumption that it's conservative and Pro-Bunnypants. There's the assumption (and I've seen data that will support it) that "liberals" (better known as "professional") aren't major TV viewers (like the "I don't watch TV" types...or at least respond that way when marketed) and not easy targets to sell to advertisers. But that's getting into way too much sausage for this early in the morning.

Cheers! Thanks for your .02 (mine is tagged to the Canadian Dollar)