| Notes | Book |
It seems probable that only a few people control the Media in the USA. Maybe it's members of the CIA. Maybe it's Rupert Murdock and friends. Maybe it's someone we don't even know about. It's almost certain that these Mad Media Gods are Statists. A cursory analysis of almost any mass news source can easily prove the Statist bias. Some media outlets support slightly different methods of worshipping the almighty state, but their similarities far outweigh their differences.
Whoever these Mad Media Gods are, they have the ability to shape the perceptions of hundreds of millions of people in the USA. They managed to convince the majority of the American People that Saddam Hussein was personally responsible for 9-11 in spite of a total lack of supporting evidence. They have managed to convince the public that the death of around 5000 people is a enough justification for two wars while each year around 430,000 people are killed by tobacco, 100,000 by alcohol, and 40,000 by cars each year. The state is not at war with tobacco, booze, or cars. It is at war with marijuana, which has not been proved to cause any deaths at all.
Through control of information, the Mad Media Gods can exert considerable influence over what people do. Those in control of this media empire have failed to guard themselves against the most dangerous aspect of having such power—believing their own lies.
They created a fantasy Iraq that was saturated with deployed weapons of mass destruction ready to be used against the USA. Ninety-five percent of the people of this fantasy country were repressed republicans ready to cheer American solders after Saddam had been eliminated, and support whatever government the USA wished to install.
The real Iraq was entirely different. Saddam was more interested in palaces than weapons of mass destruction. There may have been weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but it is now obvious that there were no weapons of mass destructions deployed and ready to be used. Many people hated Saddam's rule, but many people hate any government including the one in Washington DC.
Much has been made of the fact that there are children incarcerated in Iraq, but there are also children incarcerated in the USA. Some are even being tried as adults and being charged with death penalty offenses. With one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, the US has little room to talk.
Jason Blair was thoroughly embedded in this tsunami of disinformation, and it is little wonder that he thought little of fabricating stories. He knew that honest reporters would neither prosper nor hold their jobs, but he violated the format of fabrication. He was supposed to take a set of facts about a situation, emphasize the ones that supported the current party line, obfuscate or ignore the ones that didn't and create a framework that seemed superficially logical, but came to the conclusion the state wanted instead of the conclusion the facts dictated. Creating your own facts that can be easily proven false is forbidden, but twisting and distorting the analysis is required. No wonder he got confused.
Most Americans don't have a clue about what is really going on in Iraq, and most don't care. Most Americans don't know and don't care what goes on in Washington DC. Most Americans were perfectly happy to rob the Iraqis of their oil at the point of a gun. Like most criminals, they didn't foresee the negative consequences of their crimes. Like most criminals, they had words to disguise their criminality. It was liberation, not invasion. It wasn't about the oil. Iraq was as dangerous to the USA and the world as Hitler's Germany.
That the Iraqi people might take long-term exception to this robbery seems not to have crossed their minds. That a substantial part of the rest of the world might be willing to help the Iraqis reclaim their property and their dignity seems to also have escaped their attention, along with the fact that the USA as a major debtor nation is in a very vulnerable position economically.
A civilized society needs proof beyond reasonable doubt to convict someone of even the most minor of crimes, and yet we are asked to support invasion and looting of a whole nation based on shadowy, secret “intelligence” that is not even made public. It now seems obvious that the President didn't know any more than we did, and it may well have been the other way around. It would be hard to find a clearer example of hypocrisy. Do we subscribe to the idea that all people are created equal, or the notion that US citizens are more equal than Iraqi citizens?
It's quite understandable that the media soaked masses might have these illusions since these fantasies have been pounded into their brains for years, but it is surprising to many that the people who control the media and political power would also be delusional. Evidently they are. They seem to have been completely prepared to deal with the Iraq of their dreams and totally unprepared to deal with the reality. There was obviously no coherent plan to deal with the lack of deployed weapons of mass destruction. There was no plan to deal with the resistance of an invaded people. There was no plan deal with the plummeting prestige of the USA in the world. There was no understanding of the fact that going to war against Iraq to bring democracy to Iraq against the democratic will of the majority of the people of the world was such a transparent contradiction that it would be condemned by most of the people of the world and even many of their criminal rulers. There was no appreciation of the real dangers we face now that we are perceived as an Evil Empire by most of the world.
Some say this the lack of deployed weapons of mass destruction proves our leaders are either deceitful or incompetent. I think the actual situation is worse. Our government is deceitful, incompetent and brutal, and proposes to repair the damage it has done with further applications of deceit, incompetence and brutality. The Mad Media Gods seem ready to continue to rewrite history and twist logic to make that seem reasonable. It is a moot point whether they do this on orders from the state, or the state carries out its crimes on the orders of the Mad Media Gods, but I don't think it matters. They will all be found wanting if judgment day ever comes.
Perhaps our political leaders would make better decisions if they paid less attention to their own propaganda. Those who are in power and wish to remain in power might have a better chance if they tuned out of Fox News and read Lew Rockwell instead.