Cleaning out the four figure items in my sent messages folder, I came across one from you “What is a media whore?” and it occurs to me a few examples might be useful.
America has the tightest press control I’ve ever seen anywhere, with the BBC in full cooperation. Even the Pakistanis are allowed to know when their leader is being impeached, but after two three hour sessions in the Senate drawing up a bill of impeachment of Bush, and previously of Cheney, no whisper of this has been allowed in the TV news, the print media, i.e., the newspapers, or by any of the candidates in the election, with the full cooperation of the BBC.
It’s the fact that only the paid hacks (i.e., whores) of the news media, TV, papers, Internet, are ever given any reporting time that allows this to happen.
Rafik Hariri was a typical and very real Lebanese patriot, using his great wealth to rebuild the country. Israel has him assassinated without much trouble, got Syria blamed for it with the help of the above whores, got a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon forced by the western powers, which left Lebanon helpless against the Israeli invasion and the dropping of one million cluster bombs to make ordinary life and agriculture almost impossible. (You may remember Blair and Condy Rice saying No, no, no cease fire, let it go on for a few more days to clean out the rats nest.) The fact that Olmert made such a dog’s dinner of the Israeli invasion, being better at pocketing bribes than running wars, doesn’t change that.
A declared Israeli aim, supported by the Americans, is to establish an Israeli air base in the north of Lebanon, near Tripoli, which is why the really hard fighting has been going on there in the refugee camp where the base is supposed to go.
Names are always important, which is why Hamas, who won the Palestinian election in a landslide, are always referred to as “Palestinian militants,” never as the freely elected Palestinian government, which is what they are. Only the losers of that election are allowed to turn up at international gatherings and be called “Palestinian leaders.”
McCain did propaganda broadcasts for the Viet Cong to get himself released from the prison camp. No one is allowed to mention this. The Reverend Jeremiah Wright, an ex Navy Seal (special operations operative) and Vietnam veteran, on the other hand, who insists loud and clear it is America that is the bad actor throughout the world, is attacked so hard that Obama, who used to attend his church, is forced to disown him.
Here’s how it works. The comedian Bill Maher had a satirical weekly program, “Politically Incorrect,” on one of which he asked a guest how the US pilots, dropping satellite guided bombs on pre selected targets before turning to go home, could be regarded as more brave than the 911 team flying planes into buildings knowing their own death would result. Ridiculous!
The corporations insisted that Bill Maher be fired and the program terminated, threatening to withdraw their advertising. MSNBC had no realistic alternative to complying – without advertising the program had no income.
Bill Maher joined the ranks of non persons, still occasionally invited as a guest on various programs, since he remained more accurate and funnier than anyone else, but essentially unemployed and unemployable.
What he said was obvious, but nationalists have no interest in logic or the obvious. Only American soldiers are ‘brave’ whatever they do. Their opponents are always cowardly and deluded.
That Americans are forced to pay for the rubbish on their TV, but have no say in what goes on it, is as irrelevant as that nationalism is only the longer form of Nazi, "Die Nazionalistische Sozialistische Partei," or National Socialists. The principles of Dr. Goebbels, minister of propaganda to Mr. Schickelgrubr, that whether something is true or not, even whether it is obvious nonsense, does not matter, are in control. If it is repeated often enough everyone will believe it passionately.
Is Obama going to be any different? Not known yet, but probably not.
Obama’s African background is that he’s a Luo, the minority tribe in Kenya, where the Kikuyu are the ruling majority, and he also has lengthy experience of Indonesia. (Until Germany has a Turk as chancellor, or France has an Algerian president, that’s a much needed demonstration that things can happen in America that Europe is too hidebound and sclerotic to allow.)
If you think about how you would survive as a Luo, you get a clear picture of Obama’s strategy.
A picture of what NOT to do is Aung Sang Suu Ki in Burma (Myanmar), where several critics have pointed out that her dogged persistence has resulted in twenty years of nothing happening; the generals have got stronger, thousands are slaughtered, only an invasion of the country by the western powers can achieve any results, but the western powers are too concerned with keeping their snouts in the trough to do any such thing. Air strikes on wedding parties in Afghanistan, the poorest country in the world, to keep open the dream of western control of central Asia and its oil and gas pipelines is more in their line.
Obama has done what Aung Sang Su Ki might have done and didn’t, gone along with the generals, agreed with all the crap they presented, formed an alliance with them, elbowed her way to a seat at the table, and started slowly to support harmless looking but different initiatives, including strong links outside the country.
Obama’s main danger remains assassination, the American way, openly supported by many at McCain/Palin rallies, and the hinting at which finished Hillary’s campaign. Even the secret service can’t completely guard against that. The Luo way of survival is to recruit your main opponents into your government, giving them a place at the trough, so that they have more reason NOT to kill you, since they might not have as good a deal without you there.
That’s why the first appointment was with the most dangerous of opponents, the Israeli Mossad guy as head of staff, controlling who gets to see you and who doesn’t, and he’s now perhaps recruiting Hillary as head of the State Department, and maybe McCain for something else. If all your enemies have got places in your government, maybe that makes you as safe as you can be, and exerting as much control over them as possible.
As Lincoln said of a general he didn’t like but wanted on his side “It’s better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.”
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