Glenn Greenwald:
Either @SecBlinken is one of the most self-deluded government officials on the planet, or he is off-the-charts when it comes to willingness to spout brazen propaganda, or both. Whatever it is, nobody outside of the US/UK media falls for this blatant deceit.
I double checked Greenwald's claim and it is stunning true. You won't find a single word about Lia Thomas by the NYT, NPR or WP. That's today's favored way to win an policy argument: Make sure that opposing/inconvient facts don't show up. I think of this as the Tonya Harding strategy for winning an argument and it is disgraceful that major media outlets proudly practice it.
Truly, one of the best ways to lie is to tell only selective truths suppressing other highly relevant information. This method works well in a world where many people are afraid to stray from their long-trusted "confirmatory" news sources. Intercept reporter Ryan Grimm reported on a brand new extensive survey showing that people consider facts like these to be highly relevant to how they feel about this issue of transgender athletes. According to the survey, respondents are overwhelmingly opposed to people with male bodies smashing female athletic records. NYT, NPR and WP are working overtime to suppress this particular story because it runs counter-narrative.
Sorry, New Yorker. I'm not buying that Iran is a threat to the U.S. This article has the fingerprints of the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex all over it. The U.S. is always lost and adrift unless it concocts existential-threat enemies.
I remember well. Before 9/11, we were pounding rhetoric about the "military threat" of China. Then we made a 180 degree turn and galloped off to a 20-year blank-check country-wide adventure in Afghanistan even though the 9/11 mayhem appears to have been financed by Saudi Arabia. Then it was time to shed blood in Iraq based on lies. Then it was urgent that we attend to other "domestic threats" in the Middle East, including Libya (based on lies) and missile strikes on Syria (based on lies).
Now, just in time to distract ourselves from our massive domestic dysfunction (and Biden's cratering poll numbers), it's time to remind Americans that Iran poses an imminent threat. It's amazing how this crap so often comes from left-leaning media (remember NYT's Judith Miller and Thomas Friedman re Iraq?). It's time for all of us to say FU to the military and slash it's budget by half, but that won't happen. The Dems just approved a 5% increase of the military budget. When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
This endless charade would almost be humorous if it weren't killing and maiming so many people, including U.S. soldiers who are being used like pawns by US politicians who are trying to look "strong."
I agree with every bit of Krystal Ball's wrap-up of the major Lies of 2021. She begins her take-down at the 50 minute mark of this video. She and Saagar Enjeti do their homework, week after week, and that is why I financially support them.
The Profitable Siloed-Audience Business Model of Modern "News." Matt Taibbi explains how we got to this point, based on his book, Hate, Inc.
They want to make sure that they can wind you up as much as they can—not just every day, but in the internet era, there's a commercial imperative now to do this every hour, every minute, really every second. It's a moment-to-moment competition and the only way to really compete is to keep riling people up as much as much as you can. They use that CRossfire formula of constant combat to attract audiences and to keep them and addict them to this experience and this can be very damaging to people's mental health, to say nothing of what it does to society.
As a parting thought, I want to leave you all with this idea to recognize that when you watch the news, most people think of this as a public service and in some cases it is. But you really have to understand that it's also a consumer product very much in the same way that blue jeans or cigarettes or twinkies are news products and there are properties that we use to sell our product in the same way that those other kinds of consumer businesses use to sell theirs and what we've learned is that division is the thing that sells most in this current era and you have to understand that just as cigarettes or twinkies can be bad for you the news can also be bad for you. It can be bad for your mental health. It can be addicting in the same way that those products are. So please understand that from our point of view, we've gone from being something that was a business more in the direction of being just about delivering information to being very consumer-oriented, in the current incarnation, and much more about audience and demographic targeting.