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

[Tyler]

In which a Bloomberg reporter asks Hillary if the recent terror attacks were a Russian plot to elect Trump and Hillary says "Maybe!"

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/reporter-asks-clinton-whether-terror-attacks-were-secret-russian-plot-to-get-trump-elected/

McCarthy, at least, was proven correct by history.

[kao_hsien_chih]

I wonder if the problem is even more rotten than McCarthyism.

In a sense, most real "McCarthyism" (I always wondered about Senator McCarthy himself) is somewhat fraudulent. The censors don't usually believe in the propaganda themselves and often know how untrue the propaganda is. As far as I know, state security people in USSR were those who knew the truth better than anyone. The enforcers of the current trend really do seem to believe their own propaganda: they really do believe that they are safeguarding "the truth."

If the only problem were censorship, we can be at least somewhat hopeful that somebody somewhere knows that things really are rotten, and, if they are able and are sufficiently honorable, will try to do something about. How can you deal with people who are actively enforcing falsehoods because they really believe in them themselves?

[Anna]

It is heartening to know that there is a community of 'pilgrims.'
Thank you, Colonel Lang for the SST forum and for you being a guiding light.

[jld]

who voted for that?

Oh! Oh! Oh! What a shame!
What about the holy rules of democracy which we currently see in full bloom with the US presidential election and its wondrous prospective results?
Do you remember that Greek Democracy included lottery beside voting?
Given the prevailing idiocy, corruption and deviousness of both the "masses" and the "elites" some hapazard random occurence of good willing people is certainly no worse than an elected corps.
Until it ALSO decay and rot, of course, but until then we are good to go, and it can already be argued that the early Internet structures were better populated with competent and honest people than what we have now.

[jld]

Disagree, beside a few unavoidable leaks the "Great Firewalls" of China, Iran and Saudi Arabia seem to be working quite well.

[Balint Somkuti]

Sir,

please carry on as long as you can.

Because after the silencing of the last dissenting voice comes complete dictatorship.

Problem with MSM (political, economical and scientific alike) providing nothing but propaganda is that after the last credible opinion numbed or corrupted remains nothing but gossip and superstition. In other words end of the western, enlightened civilization.

[F5F5F5]

The trend I have seen growing in the media is the use of silence, or blackout. Certain facts or events are simply not reported or cease to be reported on, which almost necessarily involves intent.

[Pundita]

USA TODAY report filed 11:47 PM EDT from military aircraft:
Dunford says Syria cease-fire not derailed

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/09/19/top-us-military-official-syria-cease-fire-not-derailed/90719688/

What does it mean? I'd say it means Obama is very determined to go ahead with the US-Russia air campaigns. That would also mean either the airstrikes on the Syrian troops were an accident OR that Obama told Carter, 'One more time and I will personally see to it that you never eat lunch in this town again.'

As for the New McCarthyism -- bah, those people are so far behind the curve of events they're chasing their own shadows.

[Cee]

Robert Parry put his life and reputation on the line when he worked for Newsweek and tried to expose Iran contra. He isn't missed a beat.

[Old Microbiologist]

It depends on the election. IMHO, only with Trump is there any chance of the US having any semblance of freedom. Only he is able to throw off the chokehold of money and influence which drives politics today. Only he has the balls to reverse all of the Presidential Directives.

However, other mechanisms can be utilized to discourage sources such as TTG. Pressures can be exacted using other government agencies such as the IRS. Typepad could decide to close the account without explanation or nay right to know. Whatever. Worst case is a free thinking person who voices their opinions are labeled a suspected terrorist sympathizer and lose all Constitutional rights including protections against indefinite detention, asset confiscation, no right to trial and no right to attorney. These are enormous pressures used against people already including the leaders of Occupy Wall Street. So, there is precedence and evidence it is used at will. My guess is if HRC is elected we will enter a very dark period, perhaps a short one if she ignites WWIII, in which dissection will become treasonous. She has already voiced her desire to make it illegal to criticize her.

[oofda]

And in a related issue, today on Morning Joe, Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal, insisted twice that "the Saudis were fighting our war in Yemen." He asserted that if the Saudis weren't fighting there- that the United State would be.

BTW, Stephens is now the deputy editorial page writer at the WSJ-- and was editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post from 2002-2004

[The Beaver]

All

Now it all makes sense: about chemical weapons, the bias of the likes of Kim Ghattas(BBC)[claiming to have 3 anti-govt sources in Damascus - all with same lies] Holly Williams (CBS)[always from Gaziantep but quiet since the coup] Clarissa Ward(CNN)[all dressed up in black hijab to report on the opposition] the journos whether it is Le Monde (yep they gave samples of chemical weapons picked up in east Ghouta to Quai d'Orsay), NYT, WaPo, the news agencies like Reuters reporting on how bad the Assad govt is:

http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/09/20/exclusive-aleppo-media-centre-funded-by-french-foreign-office-eu-and-us/

This is ‘smart power’ in a nutshell – a brave new world where media fat cats, operating from plush London, Paris and Manhattan high rise offices, no longer need to get their hands dirty in a war zone, they have their “activists” and “citizen journalists” to do it for them.

The problem is, in the case of Aleppo Media Centre, by any professional or ethical measure, their reports are neither balanced nor are they objective. They are funded by the French Foreign Office, the EU and the US – all of which are heavily invested in the US Coalition military operation and ‘road map’ for Syria and the eventual regime change prize they all dream of.

snip

Based on all available evidence, western state-sponsored media is working as the PR agency to sell that idea to the deliberately misinformed public.

These same Syrian embedded and satellite mainstream media outlets are liberally bandying around the Hitler label for President Assad. A basic demonizing device that they and their SMART power teams have regularly employed for other regime change targets – Muamar Gadaffi [Libya], Saddam Hussein [Iraq], Slobodan Milosevic [Yugoslavia/Serbia] to name a few.

[posting testing]

posting testing.....you guys must be very important secret society.you should spend some time on 4 chan especially /pol.you just might learn something

[Old Microbiologist]

Please pardon the typos. Writing on an iPad while sitting peacefully on the Amalfi coast with IOS 10 deciding what words I meant to type.

[Old Microbiologist]

I think we still have boots on the ground there as we have had for a long time. http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/09/05/suspected-us-drone-strike-kills-9-militants-yemen.html

[kooshy]

Amalfi, Positano ? what a perfect place to watch the mad US elections, with my envy have it great

[Edward Amame]

Lemur

There have been stirrings on the Left regarding labor/economics since Occupy.

The Dem "breakup" was over Vietnam with Labor on one side and the beginnings of the New Left on the other. Starting in the 1970s, there was also a concerted effort on the right to break the Unions, which turned out to be pretty successful. With the loss of Union membership (and their dues), the Dems were left with only one other choice, to go to the same $$$ trough that the GOP was already in.

IMO, what had been good for the Unions had been good for the rest of middle class America. A spillover effect as it were. The lessening of Union influence on the Dems has not been good for American workers. We need some kind of something to replace the unions' lost political influence, to balance the scales. Right now the power is largely on the side of corporate titans. There haven't been a lot of reasons, economically, for working class Americans to vote Dem of late except to protect what's left of the social safety net (ie: Soc Sec, Medicare, public schools, etc). Which is why the GOP likes to make elections referendums on cultural (New Left) issues: abortion, gays, guns, etc.

[JJackson]

Agreed. SST may be a well read and well respected site but not on a scale that is a threat to the MSM. So few spend the time to find and follow the site, and its ilk, they are no counter-weight to those who suffer the drip, drip, drip water-torture of the MSM nightly news. If and when enough of the the public realise this is propaganda and start looking for an alternative narrative then we may be deemed a threat, for now we are a minor irritation.

[LeaNder]

been there. Didn't attract me. Are you paid for your advertisement here? Get some credit points? ;)

[Fred]

jld,

Nice rant. " some hapazard random occurence of good willing people..."
Yes, with a nice code of conduct that a self appointed do-gooder will use to take over the organization.

[Will]

no no no, we don't have boots on the ground- they are wearing shoes :)

[jld]

You didn't read to the end it seems, this is exactly what I mean by "decay and rot" but this doesn't happen until there are high priced valuables at stake, not (usually) by the founders, and then "voting" isn't any defence against this (Clinton Foundation anyone?).

[Will]

You have to respect people like Jimmy Stewart and "Tailgunner" Joe McCarthy that served on the bomber crews. The survival rate was not high. Jack Kennedy refused to criticize him and stood up for him.

He was on the wrong scent, but IMHO, he was still a patriot.

"FK's feelings became abundantly clear during a Spee Club reunion banquet at Harvard held in February 1952. When an after-dinner speaker remarked that he was proud Harvard had never graduated an Alger Hiss and even prouder that it had never produced a Joe McCarthy, JFK exploded in anger. Rising at his seat, he shouted, "How dare you couple the name of a great American patriot with that of a traitor!" This was a rare outburst from a man who prided himself on his cool, cerebral approach to policy questions. The other diners lapsed into shocked silence, and JFK departed without hearing the rest of the program."

[ToivoS]

Russians who visited the US after 1991 often commented that they were better informed about public affairs during the Soviet era than the Americans they met here. The reason was that they knew the press presented party propaganda whereas Americans believed what they read in the MSM.

[Cee]

Oofda,

Rand Paul ate his lunch. Thanks the background on Stevens.