or Powell's or me• • •
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
December 09, 2009
Bad Anniversary
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Five years ago, a tragedy occurred in American journalism: Investigative reporter Gary Webb – who had been ostracized by his own colleagues for forcing a spotlight back onto an ugly government scandal they wanted to ignore – was driven to commit suicide. But the tragedy had a deeper meaning.Webb’s death on the night of Dec. 9, 2004, came as the U.S. press corps was at a nadir, having recently aided and abetted President George W. Bush in taking the country to war in Iraq under false pretenses. The press corps also had performed abysmally in Bush’s two presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2004, hesitant to take on the powerful Bush Family.
In retrospect, Webb’s suicide could be viewed as an exclamation point on that sorry era, which had begun a quarter century earlier with the rise of Ronald Reagan and the gradual retreat – under right-wing fire – of what had once been Washington’s Watergate/Pentagon Papers watchdog press corps.
Yet, five years after Webb’s death, the U.S. news media continues to scrape along the bottom, still easily intimidated by the bluster of right-wing media attack groups and fast-talking neoconservatives – and still gullible in the face of lies and myths used to justify the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Absolutely, definitely read it all.
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at December 9, 2009 03:03 PMNo matter how many times I read about this, it makes me mad.
That people think of Bob Woodward as an investigative journalist and think of Gary Webb as a crackpot--or not at all--that really sucks.
Posted by: N E at December 9, 2009 07:15 PMI wonder if he actually he killed himself. The coroner said he shot himself twice in the head, with a regular(i.e., not automatic) handgun.
Posted by: grimmy at December 9, 2009 08:25 PMMy question is, "Is there anything, CIA is NOT CAPABLE of doing ? Assassinations, Drug trafficking, Abductions, Torture.....
What kind of corrupt govt do we have? It is mind boggling......
And that the MSM ignores it or plays it down, is that patriotism of the "govt" kind?
Hi Rupa,
I'd say it's patriotism of the post-constitutional kind.
grimmy-
If the Constitution, that great slavery-loving document, is the basis, and the basis has no means to support itself, being a piece of paper, than what good is or was it?
And even taking it as something significant
: condoning extraordinary power for a tiny minority, including the right of the unitary executive to pardon anybody for anything, thus making the President explicitly above the law, cannot reasonably be held as antithetical to any government atrocities, whether or not proscribed by the sacred text.
Off topic, but not too far off, since it is about media gullibility
Posted by: Donald Johnson at December 10, 2009 11:05 AMThanks, Jonathan, for helping keep his memory and spirit alive.
Posted by: Oarwell at December 10, 2009 12:56 PMDonald, remember this. I suspect they may be related.
Posted by: Save the Oocytes at December 10, 2009 01:23 PMStO--
I think you're probably right. Others online think so too. 30 is possibly a magic bureaucratic number--as large a death toll you can claim without possibly triggering an investigation into details. Or so I'd speculate.
Posted by: Donald Johnson at December 10, 2009 02:50 PMmarcus: "If the Constitution, that great slavery-loving document, is the basis, and the basis has no means to support itself, being a piece of paper, than what good is or was it?"
I don't think it's quite correct to call the Constitution a 'slavery-loving document' -- the 3/5 clause was a compromise, I seem to recall.
But I don't get your second premise. What "basis" could "support itself"? Any system of government will be an idea implemented, whether it's on paper or in someone's head. It can only be as good as the people who implement it. And again, to reduce the Constitution to just one point, the 3/5 clause, is absurd. There is the little matter of Amendments, for one thing.
Posted by: Duncan at December 10, 2009 04:16 PMIsn't everything about media gullibility? That's their job.
Posted by: N E at December 10, 2009 06:08 PMThe 3/5 was a compromise...yes, the non-slaveowners wanted black to not count as humans at all. How noble of them, to "compromise" so that slaves were considered partial humans in assigning representatives to their owners, and not considered human at all.
Until we have total nuclear holocaust everything is a "compromise."
As has been quoted here and many other places, Madison said, while devising the Constitution, that the "purpose of government is to protect the opulent minority from the majority." I'm not reducing it to one little clause that just affected the partial humans.
"It can only be as good as the people who implement it." That means the document is worthless. So why patronize it?
Posted by: Marcus at December 11, 2009 01:22 AMBob Woodward arrived at WaPo after working for the Office of Naval Intelligence. When "Deep Throat" croaked Woodward waxed about first meeting W. Mark Felt of the FBI in the basement of the White House while he was delivering classified documents from the Pentagon. Long short, Woodward has always been a spook. He played a key role in spinning the slow-moving coup of Nixon for the American public. (His "heroic" editor Ben Bradlee had been doing similar work in post-WWII Europe in selling the execution of the Rosenbergs. Bradlee worked out of the CIA offices in Paris.)
The CIA is the Pinkertons for the Corporate State. Gary Webb was someone who got in the way.
Posted by: Bob In Pacifica at December 11, 2009 09:56 AMMarcus: "It can only be as good as the people who implement it." That means the document is worthless. So why patronize it?
It means that any basis for government will be worthless, so I guess we should just shoot ourselves and get it over with. Why delay the inevitable? Why kick against the pricks?
Posted by: Duncan at December 11, 2009 03:32 PMThere is a middle way between "kicking against the pricks" and immediate self-destruction, as advocated in this poem.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER 1340 - 1400
Ballade of Good Counsel
Flee from the crowd and dwell with truthfulness:
Suffice thee with thy goods, tho’ they be small:
To hoard brings hate, to climb brings giddiness;
The crowd has envy, and success blinds all;
Desire no more than to thy lot may fall;
Work well thyself to counsel others clear,
And truth shall make thee free, there is no fear!
Torment thee not all crooked to redress,
Nor put thy trust in fortune’s turning ball;
Great peace is found in little busy-ness;
And war but kicks against a sharpened awl;
Strive not, thou earthen pot, to break the wall;
Subdue thyself, and others thee shall hear;
And truth shall make thee free, there is no fear!
What God doth send, receive in gladsomeness;
To wrestle for this world foretells a fall.
Here is no home, here is but wilderness:
Forth, pilgrim, forth; up, beast, and leave thy stall!
Know thy country, look up, thank God for all:
Hold the high way, thy soul the pioneer,
And truth shall make thee free, there is no fear!
Therefore, poor beast, foresake thy wretchedness;
No longer let the vain world be thy stall.
His mercy seek who in his mightiness
Made thee of naught, but not to be a thrall.
Pray freely for thyself and pray for all
Who long for larger life and heavenly cheer;
And truth shall make thee free, there is no fear!
[Modern version by HENRY VAN DYKE]
Posted by: mistah charley, ph.d. at December 11, 2009 06:49 PMRupa Shah asks Is there anything CIA is NOT CAPABLE of doing? Assassinations, Drug trafficking, Abductions, Torture...What kind of corrupt govt do we have? It is mind boggling...And that the MSM ignores it or plays it down, is that patriotism of the "govt" kind?
It is a serious situation, there's no question about it. But let's put it in perspective. The spread of English-speaking civilization across the North American continent destroyed almost all of the original inhabitants. Two of the greatest men of the American Revolution, Washington and Jefferson, were slave owners. Women did not receive the right to vote until the twentieth century, and blacks within the lifetime of contemporary middle-aged adults. Even as we speak, hundreds of intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads are ready to be fired at and completely destroy some large fraction of the human race.
As far as the role of the media is concerned, perhaps it would be useful to think of them not as clear-eyed seekers of wisdom and truth, but as the mind control branch of the MICFiC - the
M ilitary
I ndustrial
C ongressional
Fi nancial
C orporate Media Complex
- a conspiracy to use, abuse, and confuse the people, to "milk, shear, and slaughter the sheeple", speaking figuratively - except the slaughter is literal.
May the Creative Forces of the Universe have mercy on our souls, if any.
Three cheers for Bob in Pacifica, who knows his hidden history. Bob, have you read or started reading The Forty Years War by Colodny and Schachtman?
The Post has always been Langley's paper. Walter Pincus will rot in a special part of hell for his treatment of Webb. Bradlee will do no better for his contribution to the lynching of Ethyl Rosenberg, not to mention that whole Kennedy business, and Woodward will especially dislike hell since nearly everyone there will have a gripe with him, especially Nixon. It's fun to think of Woodward facing that.
but they have a bowling alley and tubas in hell.
Posted by: Carl at December 11, 2009 08:56 PMTerrible. The war on drugs claims thousands of victims every year and it appears Mr. Webb was yet another.
So drugs should be legalized and decent people shouldn't pretend their partying is a victimless crime. I know, it sucks, but the blood on our hands should give us pause.
Posted by: Neil D at December 12, 2009 01:11 PMTerrible. The war on drugs claims thousands of victims every year and it appears Mr. Webb was yet another.
So drugs should be legalized and decent people shouldn't pretend their partying is a victimless crime. I know, it sucks, but the blood on our hands should give us pause.
Posted by: Neil D at December 12, 2009 01:11 PMCarl, you no good dirty rotten buzzard, there is no bowling alley in hell, and I think you damn well know it.
Posted by: N E at December 12, 2009 04:12 PM
