TV Military ‘Analysts’ Are Part of What Ike Warned AgainstA New York Times report shines a light on how the military-industrial complex tries to shape broadcast news. - CommonDreams.orgSunday, April 27, 2008 by the Maine Sunday Telegram
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They were the faces of nine retired military officers (there were more inside the paper) who appear regularly on network and cable television news to give viewers informed, independent assessments of the war in Iraq.
At least that was the idea.
What viewers have been getting, the Times revealed, is something quite different. The paper reported convincingly that some retired officers appearing as “military analysts” have been pushing Pentagon propaganda in return for continued access to top officials and financial benefit for themselves.
According to the Times report, “Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department.
“In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated,” the report said. “Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access. A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public.”
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, an enthusiastic golfer in his presidential years, left behind more than spike marks on the White House floor. He stood at a convergence in American history. He knew it. And he gave voice to a solemn warning, delivered in 1961, three days before he left office.
Eisenhower, a renowned World War II general, declared, “Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.
“In the councils of government,” he warned, “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. ...
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
government program to corrupt the free flow of information that serves
Propaganda at Home - CommonDreams.orgTuesday, April 22, 2008 by The Boston Globe
Anyone who has watched the military analysts hired by TV networks has heard rosy assessments of the war in Iraq. The similarities between their judgments and the Pentagon’s are not coincidental. As The New York Times demonstrated by suing the Pentagon to obtain 8,000 pages of documents, those analysts were enlisted by the Defense Department in a psychological warfare operation targeting the domestic audience. And, as the newspaper reported Sunday, many of the retired military officers appearing on news shows were using their access to the Pentagon and the airwaves to procure lucrative contracts for some 150 defense contractors, which employed them as consultants, board members, lobbyists, or executives.
This is no subtle attempt to influence public opinion. It is a government program to corrupt the free flow of information that serves, in a healthy democracy, to inoculate the public against official lies, bad policy, and misbegotten wars.One straightforward corrective would be for TV news executives to require full disclosure of their analysts’ business interests as well as their contacts and junkets with military and government officials. Ideally, the television news shows would not have to rely on paid outside experts. They should trust their own reporters to gather news from disparate sources, and to interview former and serving officers who can offer informed commentary from diverse viewpoints.
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This is a tactic more suitable for Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In fact, the Pentagon’s manipulation of the media has been more deft than the Kremlin’s because it was better hidden.
In the end, the government’s disguised lies have done more damage to American democracy and the national interest than to any foreign enemy. History’s epitaph for the Pentagon’s psywar operation will be: “We fooled ourselves.”
Anyone who has watched the military analysts hired by TV networks has heard rosy assessments of the war in Iraq. The similarities between their judgments and the Pentagon’s are not coincidental. As The New York Times demonstrated by suing the Pentagon to obtain 8,000 pages of documents, those analysts were enlisted by the Defense Department in a psychological warfare operation targeting the domestic audience. And, as the newspaper reported Sunday, many of the retired military officers appearing on news shows were using their access to the Pentagon and the airwaves to procure lucrative contracts for some 150 defense contractors, which employed them as consultants, board members, lobbyists, or executives.
This is no subtle attempt to influence public opinion. It is a government program to corrupt the free flow of information that serves, in a healthy democracy, to inoculate the public against official lies, bad policy, and misbegotten wars.One straightforward corrective would be for TV news executives to require full disclosure of their analysts’ business interests as well as their contacts and junkets with military and government officials. Ideally, the television news shows would not have to rely on paid outside experts. They should trust their own reporters to gather news from disparate sources, and to interview former and serving officers who can offer informed commentary from diverse viewpoints.
...
This is a tactic more suitable for Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In fact, the Pentagon’s manipulation of the media has been more deft than the Kremlin’s because it was better hidden.
In the end, the government’s disguised lies have done more damage to American democracy and the national interest than to any foreign enemy. History’s epitaph for the Pentagon’s psywar operation will be: “We fooled ourselves.”
Thursday, April 17, 2008
question that came out of right-wing talk radio and Sean Hannity on TV, but was delivered by former Bill Clinton aide Stephanopoulos.
Greg Mitchell: The ABC Debate: A Shameful Night for the U.S. Media - Politics on The Huffington PostPosted April 16, 2008
In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years, ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia. They, and their network, should hang their collective heads in shame.
Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the health care and mortgage crises, the overall state of the economy and dozens of other pressing issues had to wait for their few moments in the sun as Obama was pressed to explain his recent "bitter" gaffe and relationship with Rev. Wright (seemingly a dead issue) and not wearing a flag pin -- while Clinton had to answer again for her Bosnia trip exaggerations.
Then it was back to Obama to defend his slim association with a former '60s radical -- a question that came out of right-wing talk radio and Sean Hannity on TV, but was delivered by former Bill Clinton aide Stephanopoulos. This approach led to a claim that Clinton's husband pardoned two other '60s radicals. And so on. The travesty continued. ...
More than Half Agree with Obama's Comments ... [while media, Clinton and McCain try to drive controversy ...
Obama’s Explanation of “Controversial” Remarks Moves Democrats and Independents ...-- Among All Parties: More than Half Agree with His Comments -- Flemington, NJ, April 14, 2008
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Do you agree with Senator Obama’s comments regarding working class voters in states like Pennsylvania?
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Do you agree with Senator Obama’s comments regarding working class voters in states like Pennsylvania?
POST VIEWING OF VIDEO
| Democrats | Republicans | Independents |
Yes | 64% | 38% | 56% |
No | 22% | 46% | 29% |
Not Sure | 14% | 16% | 15% |
Instead of focusing on... jobs ... schools,... taxes ... manufacturing ... HRC’s spin on Obama’s words (elitism) ... McCain puerile attacks ...
Robert Reich's Blog: Obama, Bitterness, Meet the Press, and the Old Politics | Sunday, April 13, 2008
... The stagnation of middle-class wages and the expansion of povety. Male hourly wages began to drop in the early 1970s, adjusted for inflation. The average man in his 30s is earning less than his father did thirty years ago. Yet America is far richer. Where did the money go? To the top.
Are Americans who have been left behind frustrated? Of course. And their frustrations, their anger and, yes, sometimes their bitterness, have been used since then -- by demagogues, by nationalists and xenophobes, by radical conservatives, by political nuts and fanatical fruitcakes – to blame immigrants and foreign traders, to blame blacks and the poor, to blame "liberal elites," to blame anyone and anything.
Rather than counter all this, the American media have wallowed in it. Some, like Fox News and talk radio, have given the haters and blamers their very own megaphones. The rest have merely "reported on" it. Instead of focusing on how to get Americans good jobs again; instead of admitting too many of our schools are failing and our kids are falling behind their contemporaries in Europe, Japan, and even China; instead of showing why we need a more progressive tax system to finance better schools and access to health care, and green technologies that might create new manufacturing jobs, our national discussion has been mired in the old politics.
Listen to this morning’s “Meet the Press” if you want an example. Tim Russert, one of the smartest guys on television, interviewed four political consultants – Carville and Matalin, Bob Schrum, and Michael Murphy. Political consultants are paid huge sums to help politicians spin words and avoid real talk. They’re part of the problem. And what do Russert and these four consultants talk about? The potential damage to Barack Obama from saying that lots of people in Pennsylvania are bitter that the economy has left them behind; about HRC’s spin on Obama’s words (he’s an “elitist,” she said); and John McCain’s similarly puerile attack. ...
... The stagnation of middle-class wages and the expansion of povety. Male hourly wages began to drop in the early 1970s, adjusted for inflation. The average man in his 30s is earning less than his father did thirty years ago. Yet America is far richer. Where did the money go? To the top.
Are Americans who have been left behind frustrated? Of course. And their frustrations, their anger and, yes, sometimes their bitterness, have been used since then -- by demagogues, by nationalists and xenophobes, by radical conservatives, by political nuts and fanatical fruitcakes – to blame immigrants and foreign traders, to blame blacks and the poor, to blame "liberal elites," to blame anyone and anything.
Rather than counter all this, the American media have wallowed in it. Some, like Fox News and talk radio, have given the haters and blamers their very own megaphones. The rest have merely "reported on" it. Instead of focusing on how to get Americans good jobs again; instead of admitting too many of our schools are failing and our kids are falling behind their contemporaries in Europe, Japan, and even China; instead of showing why we need a more progressive tax system to finance better schools and access to health care, and green technologies that might create new manufacturing jobs, our national discussion has been mired in the old politics.
Listen to this morning’s “Meet the Press” if you want an example. Tim Russert, one of the smartest guys on television, interviewed four political consultants – Carville and Matalin, Bob Schrum, and Michael Murphy. Political consultants are paid huge sums to help politicians spin words and avoid real talk. They’re part of the problem. And what do Russert and these four consultants talk about? The potential damage to Barack Obama from saying that lots of people in Pennsylvania are bitter that the economy has left them behind; about HRC’s spin on Obama’s words (he’s an “elitist,” she said); and John McCain’s similarly puerile attack. ...
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