Image by Toban Black via Flickr
with Chris Hedges
PeaceActionMaine on Jun 19, 2014
Portland, Maine on June 16, 2014
see
Chris Hedges Asks Noam Chomsky: What’s The New Paradigm For Resistance? + Transcript
Chris Hedges, Cornel West, Richard D. Wolff: The Anatomy of Revolution: Thomas Paine
Cornel West: We are Calling for Fundamental Transformation of U.S. Capitalist Society (Must-see)
We Are a Movement of Movements by Rivera Sun
The Man From the North: What Are We Waiting For? by Rivera Sun
Dandelion Salad 
I sit corrected, Frank, the media DOESN’T have a truth consensus, it has an untruth consensus. The talking points appear to come from a central unacknowledged source in the American power system, possibly the CIA.
Reporters for the NY Times told me years ago that if a Times piece countered the US policy, they would get a call from the White House.
Yes indeed, folktruther. Ah, that cherished New York Times…there’s been so many scandals and cover-ups by the White House during the Bush Crime Family Regime and now we are in our 6th year of the Obama Crime Family Regime, it’s hard to keep count, I can’t remember offhand, which lie or caper was discovered, but the Cheney/Bush White House asked the NYT to withhold that story for a year until after the 2004 election, which the Times did.
It was on the NSA spying report.
See: https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/propagandists-first-journalists-second-how-the-nyt-won-2004-for-bush/
How could I forget? Thanks dandelion!
Yeah, Frank, but how many casualties in Yugoslavia relative to the humdreds of thousands in Iraq, or the millions in Korea and Vietnam. Consider the White casualties in Ukraine, currently in the hundreds, with a brutal and homicidal Nazi contingent orchestrated by the US.
Terror, yes, but not on the non-White scale.
One murder is one too many, whatever the skin color, but American policy has been based historically primarily on the slaughter of non-White people. And on the untruth and ideology that covers it up. Have you ever seen a simple concise statement of this historical truth in the mainstream truth consensus, or even in a countertruth piece?
folktruther, I agree with you on the slaughter of non-whites. And yes, one murder is one too many!
The mainstream media doesn’t have a “truth consenus,” as we both know, which is why more people are getting a better grasp on the truth in alternative media and on the internet.
The American Imperial Empire will go down in due time as did other ruthless empires before us. What goes around…….
The historical problem is not intellectual ignorance, not knowing, but emotional denial, not wanting to know. The American truth institutions have sanitized out of the American truth consensus the historical tendency of homicidal racist imperialism, the killing of non-White people to subjugate them in order to steal their collective and personal property and power.
Since world war 2, the USA power system has killed literally MILLIONS of non-White people in the Korean, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghan wars, and in the wars and massacres of its client-despots concealed from the American people. It’s Un-American to tell and accept the simple historical truth, violating the Patriotic power delusions of Freedom&Democracy. It will take decades to get Americans to accept emotionally the simple historical truth.
You left one out. The bombing of Yugoslavia by the Clinton/Blair cabal and the NATO goon squad. It was the first time since WW2 that we attacked a “white nation” in order to advance the Project For A New American Century’s agenda for world domination.
Still, intellectual ignorance is pandemic in the United States, regarding history, politics, and unfortunately, current events. The emotional denial, in my opinion, is the rationalization and excuse-making of so-called liberals & progressives who see the Democratic Party as knights in shining armor who are some kind of liberators from those nasty Republicans.
They keep the Republican/Democratic duopoly in power which is basically one party with two branches to give the illusion that there is a choice for Joe & Mary average American to vote for.
How many times has Chris Hedges shamed people for not voting for Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader in 2008? For starters.
David and Lo:
Astute observations, for sure. Upon reading David’s first comment, I wanted to jump in, but dandelionsalad responded with a similar answer, and you gents have described the American public and corporate media quite accurately.
There is an abundance of information out there, but only a small minority of people have inquiring minds to want to know the truths of the matter which directly and indirectly affect their lives.
There is no excuse for ignorance of the issues on what Hedges and others have been beating the drum for for X amount of years in trying to alert our fellow citizens in contemporary society.
Sports and entertainment (of all sorts) preoccupy the American people, which speeds the tyrannical agenda of the pro-fascist/imperialist super-rich control freaks who want everything for themselves. Woe are we!
With commentaries of this calibre/er, we have no excuses. There is no longer any possible argument to be fabricated from a pathetic plea of ignorance ~ we are the best informed populace of all time.
We have no choice but to hold the ostensibly legitimate “representatives” of political morality accountable. Power resides in virtue, not possession.
If Francis can “excommunicate” the Calabrian mob, then we the sovereign citizenry have every right to adjudicate the conduct of our Calvinist corporate elites.
Thanks, David. I’m not so sure that “we are the most informed populace of all time.” I would ask, informed about what? Certainly not about world affairs. Perhaps more informed about cute cat videos but not what’s really going on in our governments. The corporate press/media still lies by omission. The US government is less transparent. Today’s journalism consists of re-writing AP stories and not investigative reporting.
Hi Lo. Well I can’t disagree with that, but what I really mean is that if we are conscientious and make the effort (….in the UK, & parts of Europe at any rate, and I’m sure it is true in the US because dandelionsalad and other critically analytic sites are strong evidence of it…) then we can educate ourselves, or rather disabuse ourselves of the corporate propaganda agenda.
It just takes work, but also affirming the will to seek and know the truth. That may not be everyone’s heart’s desire, but at least “here” we have access to the means, and to the tools.
Of course you are right, journalism itself is mostly about stroking the establishment cat the right way, and there is always the tendency of the public to want to have their comfort cake and eat it; but I think we should be more forthright and challenging to people who have the opportunity but forego it because they simply prefer to massage their illusions..
I agree with you, too, David. The information is available but one must go on the Web and look for it. Of course, more and more people are turning to the Web for their news which is a good thing.
On a slightly different note, I’ve added the RSS feeds to 3 websites to the right-hand side of the blog. The Greanville Post has offered to publish some of the writers who I published on Dandelion Salad. Hope you’ll check those websites out during my hiatus.
Thanks, great..