Those familiar with my views would know that I long ago determined that the U.S. corporate media conglomerate is the most powerful, mind-numbing propaganda machine the world has ever known--by far. By and large, it has worked hand-in-hand with the plutocratic moneyed elite who set out to capture our government institutions. A process that has taken decades.
While the rich busied themselves devising ways of bribing the corrupt politicians, the corporate media was tasked with lying, with spreading false narratives and propaganda, much of it designed to keep people from figuring out they were being robbed blind by the culture of bribery that sprung from the Powell Memo (in the 1970's).
Because of the depravity of the ruling elite, and the thus-far inability of el pueblo to fully comprehend the extent to which they would go to satisfy their unquenchable greed, we have now turned into an honest-to-goodness Banana Republic, as a recent AlterNet article reported: Look at the Stats -- America Resembles a Broken Banana Republic
America has become a RINO: rich in name only. By every measure, we look like a broken banana republic. Not a single U.S. city is included in the world’s top 10 most livable cities. Only one U.S. airport makes the list of the top 100 in the world. Our roads, schools and bridges are falling apart, and our trains—none of them high-speed—are running off their tracks. Our high school students are rated 30th in math, and some 30 countries have longer life expectancy and lower rates of infant mortality. The only things America is number one in these days are the number of incarcerated citizens per capita and adult onset diabetes.
Three decades of trickledown economics; the monopolization, privatization and deregulation of industry; and the destruction of labor protection has resulted in 50 million Americans living in abject poverty, while 400 individuals own more than one-half of the nation’s wealth. As the four Walmart heirs enjoy a higher net worth than the bottom 40 percent, our nation’s sense of food insecurity is more on par with developing countries like Indonesia and Tanzania than with OECD nations like Australia and Canada. In fact, the percentage of Americans who say they could not afford the food needed to feed their families at some point in the last year is three times that of Germany, more than twice than Italy and Canada. [The emphasis is mine]
So anyways, tonight, after a very, very long time of not having subjected my senses to the pablum being peddled by
60 Minutes, I was forced to watch the segment about the NSA--I blame
qphilo (just kidding) for having written the diary, "
60 Minutes gives a sloppy wet kiss to the NSA; now I will need days to detox from that mental trash... But nevertheless, it was worth it in that I was able to get caught up on how far we've fallen when it comes to the deterioration of the U.S. media. And to think that years ago I used to watch the program every Sunday! But that was another era.
Literally, I could not believe what I was watching. They don't even try to do their propaganda with pride any more.
Why does the NSA needs to collect all that phone calls meta-data? Why, of course, 9/11... Why would you ask that question?
After the absurdly transparent leading question by John Miller, "Before 9/11, did we have this capability?", here's what Gen. Keith Alexander (the head of the NSA) had to say about it:
Gen. Keith Alexander: We did not.
John Miller: Is it a factor? Was it a factor?
Gen. Keith Alexander: I believe it was.
What Gen. Alexander is talking about is that two of the 9/11 hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi were in touch with an al Qaeda safe house in Yemen. The NSA did not know their calls were coming from California, as they would today.
Gen. Keith Alexander: I think this was the factor that allowed Mihdhar to safely conduct his plot from California. We have all the other indicators but no way of understanding that he was in California while others were in Florida and other places. [The emphasis is mine]
If there was one truly nauseating example of sycophancy by John Miller, I'll vote for this statement:
The meeting is called the stand-up because no one sits down, which is almost a metaphor for the pace of daily life in the NSA operations center. Howie Larrabee is the center’s director.
Are you kidding me? Really?
And if I were to vote for one of the most outrageous analogies I've ever seen any government official (who have been caught lying multiple times to Congress) put forward, with a straight face, it would have to be this one, when asked about whether he thought it would make sense to make some sort of deal with Snowden:
Gen. Keith Alexander: This is analogous to a hostage taker taking 50 people hostage, shooting 10 and then say, "If you give me full amnesty I'll let the other 40 go." What do you do?
The rest of this third world-level government propaganda piece is spent propping up the agency's image with stories about how it allows high school students to tackle difficult code-breaking cases, and about how smart the young people it hires are.
How smart? About being able to solve a Rubik’s cube in 35 seconds?
When you walk around the NSA research building, where the codebreakers work, you see some very young people. And very smart people.
John Miller: How long would it take you to do this [Rubik’s cube]?
Joe: About a minute.
John Miller: Are you serious?
Joe: Yeah
John Miller: Go.
Many of the cryptologists skipped grades in school, earned masters degrees and PhDs and look more like they belong on a college campus than at the NSA.
Actually, the Rubik’s cube took him one minute and 35 seconds.
John Miller: You know, I didn't like you before.
[The emphasis is mine]
Indeed! John Miller,
are you serious?
Well, the stats do show we have become a Banana Republic, and now we have the third-world level crass propaganda pieces to prove it.
I hope I'm not forced to watch 60 Minutes Again!
BTW, about we call it the #60MinutesRubiksCubeGate, or something like that?
And speaking of propaganda, check out my latest diary about it: Persona Management, Misinformation Artists, And Propaganda in 2013.
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