For those of you who think that you are getting accurate U.S. foreign policy news stories on NPR, think again. NPR, like most other new outlets, has annointed itself a stenographer for the U.S. government. Glenn Greenwald proves this point beyond debate by dissecting a recent NPR store on Iran. It would all be laughable were the stakes not so serious. Here is an excerpt from Greenwald's story. I highly recommend following the link to his entire story:
This morning, Temple-Raston began her report by noting — without a molecule of skepticism or challenge — that Iran is accused (by the U.S. government, of course) of trying to assassinate the Saudi ambassador on U.S. soil (a plot traced to “the top ranks of the Iranian government”); there was no mention of the fact that this alleged plot was so ludicrous that it triggered intense mockery in most circles. She then informed us that Iran is also likely responsible for three recent, separate attacks on Israeli officials. These incidents, she and her extremely homogeneous group of experts from official Washington explained, are “red flags” about Iran’s intent to commit Terrorism — red flags consistent, she says, with Iran’s history of state-sponsored Terrorism involving assassinations of opposition leaders in Europe during the 1980s and the 1996 truck bombing of an American military dormitory in Saudi Arabia (note how attacks on purely military targets are “Terrorism” when Iran does it, as are the assassinations of its own citizens on foreign soil who are working for the overthrow of its government; but if you hold your breath waiting for NPR to label as Terrorism the U.S. assassination of its own citizens on foreign soil, or American and Israeli attacks on military targets, you are likely to expire quite quickly). All of this, Temple-Raston announces, shows that Iran is “back on the offensive.”
Author Chris Hedges argues that the American Empire is following the trajectory of all empires; we are expanding beyond our capacity to sustain ourselves. We have run up deficits we have no way to repay. We are "hollowing the country out from the inside." Nearly one-third of Americans are living in poverty. We are destroying quality education. We are reaching a "terminal point." Unless we change our course, we will face collapse. The current electoral system is not a legitimate place for seeking meaningful reform, not given the state of money-dominated elections.
Those captive to images cast ballots based on how candidates make them fee. They vote for a slogan, a smile, perceived sincerity, and attractiveness, along with the carefully crafted personal narrative of the candidate. It is style and story, not content and fact, that inform mass politics.
Hedges points out that the structure of the corporate state is thoroughly immunized from meaningful change from a Democrat like Barack Obama, no different than a Republican like George W. Bush. We are facing a bi-partisan-approved looting of the U.S. Treasury by Wall Street and domestic spying. Obama's health care bill is no exception, having been written by corporate lobbyists (4 min) It is "essentially the equivalent of the bank bailout bill written for the insurance and pharmaceutical industry, with $400 million of subsidies." Under the new system, corporate insurers can hold sick children hostage while bankrupting their parents (5 min).
Hedges often criticizes liberals. He explains: The liberal class was never designed to function as the political left. (min 6). It was designed to function as the political center. In the early 1900s liberals were quite vocal and held significant political power. They produced publications with wide circulation. There were several dozen socialist mayors in America. He argues that America got involved in WWI, despite any serious public support, because American bankers had loaned substantial money to Great Britain and France, and they didn't want to lose their money. (min. 7).
As the century went on, politicians followed the 1922 advice of Walter Lipman to use propaganda "to manufacture consent." There's no need to throw many people in prison when you can "herd" them using war-related-emotion rather than facts or reason. (min. 9). A meaningful liberal class, provoked by radical and populist movements, would make piecemeal and incremental reform possible to benefit the needs of the working class. Such radical movements are rare these post-Red-Scare days, and there is thus no longer any bulwark to "protect us from the corporate state."
We have turned from an Empire of Production to an Empire of Over-Consumption. We non longer have true liberals. Instead, we have faux liberals, people who "speak the language of traditional liberalism like Bill Clinton, yet serve the interests of the corporate state." (Min 12). Hedges offers the following evidence of Clinton's assaults on the working class: NAFTA, destruction of welfare, deregulation of the FCC, destruction of the banking system (the US differs from Canada, which did not tear down the firewall of Glass-Steagall). The U.S. has allowed hedge funds to take over its banks). To top things off, Barack Obama "essentially codifies the destruction of both domestic and international law put in place by the Bush Administration," a severe assault on civil liberties, including the right of the Executive branch to carry out assassinations and the new military detention act, which allows Americans to be indefinitely detained if accused of being a "terrorist," an absurdly nebulous charge.
As a result, we now live under "inverted totalitarianism," which "does not find its expression through a demagogue or charismatic leader, but through the anonymity of the corporate state." In our inverted totalitarianism, corporate forces pretend to pay homage to the iconography and patriotism of America, but "have so corrupted the levers of power that as to render the citizenry powerless." (min 14).
Here is the creed of modern liberals:
The creed of impartiality and "objectivity" that has infected the liberal class teaches, ultimately, the importance of not offending the status quo. The "professionalism" demanded in the classroom, in newsprint, in the arts or in political discourse is code for moral disengagement.
What modern day liberals end up doing, according to Hedges is giving deference to institutions like Goldman Sachs ("a criminal enterprise") and other "power centers that long ago walked away from responsible citizenship." He includes the following industries: coal companies, chemical plants the pollute rivers or Wall Street. This allegiance has left the modern liberal class "not only useless, but despised by large segments of American society." Modern liberals (including traditional liberal institutions such as liberal churches, the press, labor unions, education and American culture generally) posit themselves as the "moral voice of the nation, but have failed miserably." (min 16). According to Hedges, modern liberals "want to empower people they've never met. They liked the poor, but they didn't like the smell of the poor." (min 20).
While evangelicals often champion a gospel of greed and personal empowerment . . . Liberals "often speak on behalf of oppressed groups they never meet, advocating utopian and unrealistic schemes to bring about peace and universal love. Neither group has much interest in testing their ideologies against reality.
What I have described above is from the first 25 minutes of the video discussion, which lasts almost three hours.
We speak with Thomas Drake, who was targeted after challenging waste, mismanagement and possible constitutional violations at the National Security Agency, but the case against him later collapsed. Drake was one of several sources for a Baltimore Sun article about a $1.2 billion NSA experimental program called "Trailblazer" to sift through electronic communications for national security threats. "My first day on the job was 9/11. And it was shortly after 9/11 that I was exposed to the Pandora’s box of illegality and government wrongdoing on a very significant scale," Drake says. . . .
In a major embarrassment for the Department of Justice, his case ended last year in a misdemeanor plea deal. Now the former top spokesman for the Justice Department, Matthew Miller, seems to be reversing his stance on the prosecution of Drake, saying the case may have been an "ill-considered choice for prosecution."
All of this comes amidst the Obama administration’s unprecedented attack on whisteblowers. "It’s a way to create terrible precedent to go after journalists and a backdoor way to create an Official Secrets Act, which we have managed to live without in this country for more than 200 years. And I think it’s being done on the backs of whistleblowers," says Drake’s attorney, Jesselyn Radack, a former ethics adviser to the Justice Department.
Drake's accusations are extraordinary:
THOMAS DRAKE: The critical thing that I discovered was not just the massive fraud, waste and abuse, but also the fact that NSA had chosen to ignore a 23-year legal regime . . . It was the prime directive of NSA. It was the—the—First Amendment at NSA, which is, you do not spy on Americans—
AMY GOODMAN: And what did you find?
THOMAS DRAKE: —without a warrant. I found, much to my horror, that they had tossed out that legal regime, that it was the excuse of 9/11, which I was told was: exigent conditions now prevailed, we essentially can do anything. We opened up Pandora’s box. We’re going to turn the United States of America into the equivalent of a foreign nation for the purpose of a—of dragnet, blanket electronic surveillance.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, in other words, now warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens by the NSA and other intelligence agencies is legal?
THOMAS DRAKE: . . . [Y]es, during that whole period, we’re talking a very, very super secret program, which is actually referenced—that program is referenced in James Bamford’s blockbuster article in—is the lead article in Wired Magazine for the month of April. That particular program was—in fact violated, on a vast scale, the Fourth Amendment rights of U.S. citizens . . . It didn’t matter. It was just used as an excuse, that the fair game that NSA had, the legitimate ability of NSA to collect foreign intelligence from overseas, well, now that capability is being used to collect against U.S. citizens and everybody else in the United States of America.
Drake's attorney, JESSELYN RADACK, commented on the Obama war on whistle-blowers:
The significance is that he was the fourth person in U.S. history to be charged under the Espionage Act. The first, tellingly, was Daniel Ellsberg. And now there are six people. The most recent to be charged is John Kiriakou. And all of these people are not spies. They’re whistleblowers. And they are being—they’re the people who revealed torture and warrantless wiretapping, some of the biggest scandals that occurred in my generation. . . Really, I think it’s a way to create terrible precedent to go after journalists and a backdoor way to create an Official Secrets Act, which we have managed to live without in this country for more than 200 years. And I think it’s being done on the backs of whistleblowers. And it’s also meant to send a very chilling message to government employees not to speak out about fraud, waste, abuse and patent illegality.
I beamed with nationalistic pride when I learned of our country’s impressive evolution: our nation’s government is so practiced in “apologizing for carnage” that it’s becoming a perfected art. This pride become particularly bountiful when I heard NPR’s Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep yesterday talk to The Washington Post‘s Rajiv Chandrasekaran about the same topic and I learned how much worse the Afghans are by comparison (h/t dubo6254). First, Chandrasekaran observed that the level of anger in Afghanistan over their dead civilians isn’t nearly as intense and widespread as it is among Americans.
You'll rarely see Greenwald sounding more infuriated with American complacency:
Unlike in Afghanistan, where they really don’t seem to mind, almost every American city was engulfed this week by turmoil and disruption as infuriated Americans took to the streets to rail against the ongoing slaughter by their government of civilians in Afghanistan. Indeed, “people’s sense of revulsion at this act” in civilized, life-cherishing America is “far greater” than in Afghanistan: Americans are just up in arms about it, besides themselves with rage, just like they always are when their government yet again extinguishes the lives of innocent civilians. The unrest sweeping America this week over this incident is probably the most tumultuous since that dark week of frightening protests back in December, 2009, when violent anti-war marches broke out in American cities over Obama’s cluster bomb and Tomahawk missile attack in Yemen that killed dozens of women and children. Kevin Drum this week accurately recalled the levels of American rage over the ending of that innocent human life.
Based on conversations I've been hearing on the street, I sense that Americans care 100 times more about the NCAA basketball tournament than they do about the fact that, for the past 10 years, the U.S. has been slaughtering civilians in Afghanistan and blithely writing it up as collateral damage. Listen to what people are talking about in your own life and let me know if there is any way to conclude differently.
Based on the shocking lack of engagement by the American media and the American public, I've created a new category at DI: Complacency. I'm afraid that I'm going to need to use it often.
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