Why am I promoting DowningStreetMemo.com?

Because the press in this country is on a very short leash, as evidenced by the Newsweek debacle; information reported numerous times over the last two years by numerous outlets, including the Washington Post, denied as causal by the Pentagon, somehow becomes a problem that draws the irrational ire of the White House only this week.

Because the truth isn't getting out through the corporate-owned, profit-driven, mainstream media.  Why wasn't the media making a bigger deal of the real root cause for the rioting in Afghanistan by doing actual research, instead of taking the easy way out and reporting about yet another media outlet's dressing down by the White House?  Has the media's ineffectiveness got anything to do with the as-yet unrationalized, unexplained, unaccounted-for $97 million dollar spent by this administration on marketing and public relations consultants?

Because "fair and balanced" are now merely Orwellian modifiers for the propaganda that passes as news.  In the mean time, the White House still hasn't explained why it can bitch about journalistic standards and Newsweek after nearly two years of wave-through access for a man-whore credentialed only by a 2-day, $50 journo certificate and a record of plagiarism.

Because I am mad as hell and I'm simply not going to take this any more.  Real people are bleeding and dying in the thousands because the press failed to do its job when it had the chance, way back in 2001, before 9/11, before the Iraq War, because they fail to do it today.

The next to last straw is the Downing Street Memo itself.  The press in this country rolled over and played dead when evidence surfaced proving there was no legal justification for the Iraq War.

There are not only a leaked memo containing meeting minutes documenting the illegal drive for war, but other supporting memos and records.  The press here in the U.S. failed to cover this at all.

There has been a request for a Special War Crimes Counsel submitted by a Congressman in the last week.  The press neglected this, too.  Would they have ignored that request if it had been about Nixon?  or Reagan?  or Clinton?

The last fucking straw: there may be grossly underreported troop casualties because of this illegal war.  The published number seems light, shy of 2,000 troops dead.  It didn't dawn on me that this figure may not include those who died in transport, died in the hospital, died after returning to the States as a result of their injuries.  That number shy of 2,000 may be KIA ONLY, might not include all WIA who ended up DOW.  Are we expecting the grieving families to audit these numbers?  Shouldn't the press be concerned?  Or doesn't this sell erectile dysfunction therapy for their advertisers?

(Kudos to the embattled CBS for having the cojones to bring up the issue of underreported casualties, as in injuries.  Go figure why they didn't ask the military about death statistics while they were at it, though...) 

There is no Deep Throat this time.  There is no Daniel Ellsberg.  This means the members of the media actually have to do their jobs this time, really dig -- and they simply aren't up to it.  Even if there was a Deep Throat or an Ellsberg, I don't know that the mainstream media in this country would recognize them if they reached out and bitch-slapped them hard alongside their press passes.

(Perhaps this explains why none of them had the cojones to point out the man-whore "top" amongst them...)

Shut off your television when the 6:00 pm and 11:00 pm national news comes on.  Block the cable news channels.  Read the paper if you must at the library.  Don't give the mainstream media one nanosecond of eyeball time for them to sell to their real customers, their advertisers.

And they wonder in their executive suites, deep in the bowels of corporate media headquarters, why it is they are losing viewers and readers.

Idiots.

6:01:44 PM    comment []