The new McCarthyism

 

"Traditional U.S. journalism and the American people are facing a crisis as the preeminent American newspaper, The New York Times, has fully lost its professional bearings, transforming itself into a neoconservative propaganda sheet eager for a New Cold War with Russia and imposing a New McCarthyism on public debate.

The crisis is particularly acute because another top national newspaper, The Washington Post, is also deeply inside the neocon camp.

The Times’ abandonment of journalistic principles has become most noticeable with its recurring tirades about Russia, as the Times offers up story after story that would have embarrassed Sen. Joe McCarthy and his 1950s Red-baiters."  Robert Parry

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What we are looking at is an evident Borgist attempt to make the US into a "Muffled Zone" in Solzhenitsyn's memorable phrase.  The goal appears to be to shut down the emerging "new press" in order to make the government's narrative the only narrative.

Will SST  be here much longer?  Who knows.  pl

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/09/07/new-york-times-and-the-new-mccarthyism/

Comments

[Fred]

"Will SST be here much longer?"

Given that the Obama administration is giving up control of ICANN it probably won't. To turn a phrase, the march of the progressive Utopians , those with revolutionary dreams of the hope and change, continues. I'm sure we can trust all those foreign governments. This is just one more gift to the newly elected president.

[BabelFish]

One of my fully liberal friends just posted a question on FB regarding the WP's ethics in draining Snowden's material and story for profit and a Pulitzer and now campaigning for his prosecution. That appears to fit quite nicely with the Tailgunner Joe heritage.

[crf]

America has not been coping with uncertainty very well lately. The New York Times is just reflecting that national trend. People, including reporters, would like to believe that the more important a thing is, the more certain we can be about its parameters.

[Edward Amame]

Not just the NY Times and WaPo. I've often had to turn off the morning BBC news because of their too-regular anti-Russian reporting. I filed an online complaint to the BBC and called WNYC (which carries it) to lodge a complaint about it too.

[The Beaver]

Colonel,

May be that's the reason you are getting Trolls ( strike that, bots) posting testing on the threads.

After all, guess who does what and needed advice:
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-19/paul-combetta-computer-specialist-who-deleted-hillary-clinton-emails-may-have-asked-reddit-for-tips.

Also check what the Daily Poison ( Daily Beast) posted:

The U.S. military currently is investigating whether the Syrian troops it supposedly bombed on Saturday were, in fact, former prisoners turned into makeshift conscript soldiers for Syrian President Bashar al Assad. That’s according to two U.S. defense officials who spoke with The Daily Beast on condition of anonymity.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/19/u-s-may-have-killed-prisoners-not-troops-in-syria-strike.html

Anonymous sources don't realise that soldiers are conscripts in Syria , except those who decided to leave the country or join the rebels.

[VietnamVet]

Colonel,

Please keep yourself going as long as you can. I sadly miss CP’s and WRC’s comments. Losing SST will be devastating. Yet, at some point the contradictions between being the world’s hegemon and the survival of mankind will force censorship of the internet. Only ripping the New World Order out of the fabric of western government can prevent it.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign slogan “Stronger together.” is a variation on Benito Mussolini’s “Fasci - strength through unity”. This says it all. The left has absolutely no power in America now that Bernie Sanders was silenced. The “Deplorables” still do. They nominated Donald Trump and he is in the race despite concerted attacks against him by corporate media.

With four nations involved it is obvious that the coalition attack on the Syrian Arab Army was no mistake. The “Mad Max” convoy of American forward air controllers, military contractors and armored tanks is the spearhead of the Turkish/American/Qatar seizure of Raqqa by November to elect Hillary Clinton. The fundamental problem is that the Sunni rebel fighters yelling “pigs” at the convoy are supposed to be the ground troops to defeat the Islamic State. Fat Chance. If the rebels go to Raqqa, it will be to let their beards grow back. After a quarter century war, I do not see the Fertile Crescent Sunnis voluntarily accepting new Ottoman overlords backed by NATO.

[MRW]

I consider Bob Parry a “Living National Treasure,” an honor the Japanese bestow upon their artists, writers, craftsmen, poets, doctors, scientists, and leading significant thinkers.

But just to give you the background, it was Stephen Cohen who first posited the The New McCarthyism. His wife is publisher and editor-in-chief of The Nation where Cohen first published it about five weeks ago.

Cohen appears on The John Batchelor Show every Tuesday night at 10 PM EST. WABC-AM Radio NYC. The Podcasts are available the next day. Details in right panel on Batchelor’s site.

Cohen has said on Batchelor’s show that Trump is the "only sane" geopolitically aware presidential candidate even though “I am not going to vote for him,” and “my entire family disagrees with me.” Cohen despises Clinton, Power and Susan Rice. I can hardly wait until tomorrow night to hear what he’s going to say about Power’s outburst on Saturday night.

[Kooshy]

Colonel LANG, IMHO, at the end of the day the new free private media likes of SST, MOA, Consortium News, will win this battle, the genie is already out of the bottle, that is unless the Borgist can restrict and licence use of Internet, like an FCC licensing,that would be the new McCarthyism. I can't imagine and or compare the level of accessibility to news and information between today and back in 70s and 80s when I became interested to curent events. obviously to for the folks who care. So it's just fair for NYT or likes to tow and write what Borg asks them to write as long as they don't to close and restrict what we want to say or write, even with government/ Borg suport advantage they have

[HawkOfMay]

This is a good summary of the where the ICANN governance ended up.
http://www.internetgovernance.org/2016/02/19/the-transition-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

From The misguided freakout over ICANN:

Internet protocols at large aren’t implemented through anyone’s fiat; they are generated through open processes channeled through unincorporated organizations like the Internet Engineering Task Force (motto: “We reject kings, presidents, and voting: we believe in rough consensus and running code”), and then implemented through the actions of hardware and software makers.

The Internet is a collective hallucination, one of the best humanity has ever generated. To be sure, it is delicate in many ways, with its un-owned character threatened from many quarters. But rest easy that ICANN isn’t one of them.

[Kooshy]

IMO, all over the world, all governments/ systems/ Borgs etc. which in the past covertly and or overtly were able to control the information Channels to thier liking with the advent of Internet are at the loosing end. Same thing happened to shah, he was able to restrict and control the print and broadcast even to a point outside of Iran, but at end information was transferred/ smuggled via cassette tapes that he couldn't control.

[Fred]

Hawk,

"An independent judiciary." Just like the WTO court.
https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/dispu_e.htm

who voted for that? Nothing to worry about. who needs voting. Or oversight of the judges. I'm sure there is similar "collective hallucination" over Trans-Pacific Partnership.

[Tom Cafferty]

Why would you think that the press and media would do anything different than promote the status quo and/or the personal obsessions of their owners/masters? Make money, distract the herd, push the conventional wisdom, support the status quo, rinse and repeat. Don't think truth and rationality comes into the equation in any manner.
Don't think the Borg will shut you down. Net neutrality will go the way of the fairness doctrine and antimonopoly laws. No one will be able to find SST as the web gets colonized and controlled. You will end up in some outer exurban low traffic ghetto of cyberspace. That's how the Borg works. Keep it alive, but cut the oxygen supply.

[Ishmael Zechariah]

Col. Lang,

An old Turkish proverb says that "you cannot plaster the sun with mud". SST provides, through honest and (mostly)rational discourse, a glimpse of the realities the Borg really wishes to hide. I am sure the Clappers, Clintons, Nuland-Kagans, etc. do not like being called out on their lies. As such, both SST and its band of pilgrims might be targets. IMO, however, ultimately the Borg cannot win. If current trends continue, soon no amount of propaganda would be able to overcome the rising global despair. In is possible that the inherent economic dilemmas will cause a societal re-balancing; we might be headed for another dark age, thanks to the (mis)guidance of the current elites who own the media/government/capital. I hope SST and groups like it will survive and grow, defusing the worst of such a crisis.
Ishmael Zechariah

[doug]

After watching Samantha's tirade, which would have been embarrassing for a non-diplomat I am forced, after all these years of reading the excellent posts by Col. Lang and the many great commenters that respond, to finally hit the tip jar. It's overdue.

[wisedupearly]

Normally the NYT would pay little attention to private media but these are anything but normal times. Namely the survival of NYT and other mainstream media companies is uncertain. Certainly the current trend is downward.
The threat of extinction can trigger irrational behavior and it would be far too easy for the Borg to claim that "dangerous agents have been leading people astray with misleading commentary. Reporters and commentators must be state accredited. All sites that offer interaction must be allow the comments to reviewed by the authorities before being posted." Maybe they are already doing the last part.
Evolution informs us that the organisms that survive are those that self-correct and self-repair. The Borg is our cancer.

[ex-PFC Chuck]

I've read that there are lapel buttons and bumper stickers in Britain that read, "Is is true? Or did you hear it on BBC?"

[mike]

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Putin's Yedinaya Rossiya party has today won 353 (out of 450) seats in the Duma.

[Brunswick]

>>WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans' trust and confidence in the mass media "to report the news fully, accurately and fairly" has dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history, with 32% saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. This is down eight percentage points from last year.<<

http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx

Most of the MSM coverage of Foreign Affairs, Politics, even Economic's has been wretched for a long time.

As long as there is an interest, and willing "Citizen Journalists" to write, there will be sites like SST.

Thank you Col. Lang.

[Bill H]

Related: Sixty Minutes did a segment last night that should have been titled, "Do You Really Want Donald Trump's Finger On This Button?" I watched as much of their access to "top secret rooms" as I could and then turned it off.

[plantman]

The astonishing success of Donald Trump shows that the establishment media is losing its grip....which must have the plutocrats concerned.

Watching a PBS program the other night, 6 panelists were gathered to discuss the presidential election. The presumption was that "public" TV would make some effort to demonstrate balance, but, instead, all six analysts were pro Clinton and stridently anti Trump

Do the producers of these circus-sideshows really think they are making headway with the American people??

Its hard to know but the data suggests otherwise.
Trump is still neck n neck with the Hillard even though 100% of the media is against him.

We've entered a brave new world, and I say "Bravo"

[Norbert M Salamon]

Sir:
it is highly unlikely that the so called contribution of British and Danish air forces is believable,
1., Only the US has a-10
2., Denmark's F16- are only for Iraq's theatre.
3., I do not believe that Britain has F-16 in ME
4., Russia/Syria only report F-16 and A-10 planes on attack.
\
If am wrong forgive the error please.

[Will]

The Col. is the best. the "Borg" epithet was a classic linguistic kill. The pix at the corner of the posts is always a masterpiece, and sometimes an education in itself.

i have a digital subscription to the NYT and the Washpo. i'll keep the Washpo b/c it's only $12 a year till August when it goes up to $90. got it on my calendar to cancel it in July. I think i'll cancel the NYT now. It is utterly worthless. free McClatchy is a lot more balanced.

i'd really like to read the Israeli Haaretz and the Beirut Daily Star. But they are behind a paywall. When I want a different take or to dig deeper, i try debka. sometimes, they are somewhat reasonable. Sputnik, saker, fort-russ are good. Started using twitter again- laura rozen has lots of stuff tho i disagree with most of it. i'll probably get banned. need to stop commenting on her site. Elijah Magnier (?) is good. But the most awesome is Col Cassad. don't know where he gets his stuff. Chrome browser hesitates on translating him but the Yandex browser is terrific. The twitter subject brings on a comment. Wonder what happened to Patrick Bhazrd (sp?). hope he's ok.

[Lemur]

Ron Unz and Mencius Moldbug have both argued persuasively McCarthy was right in principle - the US *was* penetrated at a high level by Soviet Intelligence. McCarthy's problem was that he was looking in the wrong places, and went about the whole thing like a bull at a gate.

I see no reason to cede this point, especially since McCarthy was the conduit through which the fear of God entered the Left at that time. (Hollywood only allows the truth to be spoken by its villains, and never was that more the case than General Ripper if we interpret his his theory of bodily fluids compromise figuratively).

Now of course 'new McCarthyism' is a great propaganda term for the pro-Trump camp to deploy since it fits Clinton nicely into the narrative of 'the paranoid style in American politics'.

To be clear, the Democrats claims are totally unfounded, but for those of us who are conservatively inclined, we should privately distinguish between the two cases.

[Lemur]

"The left has absolutely no power in America now that Bernie Sanders was silenced."

It depends what you mean by 'left'. There's certainly a very active, successful left of the #currentyear - BLM, multicultrualists, the ever lengthening list of sexual minorities bound up in initialisms like LGBTQBBC, and so on and so forth. (As Michael Tracey quipped on twitter, Clinton is an "intersectional militarist". Women, gays, transvestites, and ethnic minorities will be doing the dying and killing in the next military adventure, not just those "f****** white males.")

But there is certainly no left presenting pro-labour champion. Trump presents as right wing but I would argue is far more pro-worker than any of his primary competitors and Clinton. He's even to the left of Sanders in the American political context on foreign policy.

[johnA]

You are one of the first I have seen to note this.

I stumbled into it and observed about 5-6 min of it and was wondering WHY NOW and I guess they have a part two coming next week?

Soon we will be "duck and covering" again it seems.
I can no longer fit under my 4th grade desk!