[...]
The corporate media is only following cues from its owners.
"Meet the Press" is sponsored by Boeing, the same corporation that owns NSA
contractor Narus, an Israeli company that makes the rapid
interception technology used by the NSA. Boeing is also part of the corporate coalition
for "Fix the Debt," a sham organization funded by Wall
Street billionaire Pete Peterson that aims to frame government debt as a Very
Serious Problem, and Social Security and Medicare as the chief causes of that
Very Serious Problem. This likely explains why Gregory was so eager to frame Social Security and Medicare as
necessary sacrifices to deal with our debt, while completely ignoring the fact
that companies like Boeing (and many other companieswhose CEOs are in the Fix the Debt
"fiscal leadership council") pay NEGATIVE federal income tax ratesdue to a preferential tax
code that their lobbyists helped
write in the first place. But David Gregory is merely a propagandist
for the inside-the-DC-beltway elite, not the main problem.
Since the Obama administration charged Edward Snowden with espionage (at the end of
the day on a Friday, doing their best to bury the news as much as possible),
the DC beltway elite have been chomping at the bit to extradite Snowden to the
US, where he would likely be put in solitary confinement and tortured like
Bradley Manning. As much as President Obama likes giving speeches defending his
decisions on immigration and gun violence prevention, he's been silent on his
decision to label Edward Snowden's leaks as tantamount to treason. Even though
Snowden didn't work with a foreign government or sell the secrets of the PRISM
program for millions of dollars to hostile entities, he's being given the same
treatment as someone who did.
Politicians of both parties who vociferously defended the
NSA's massive secret surveillance programs that treated everyday Americans as
terror suspects are now lining up to call for Snowden's head. Senator Chuck
Schumer (D-NY) blew up at Russia for letting Snowden fly to Moscow
from Hong Kong. Representative Peter King (R-Ia.), chairman of the House
Homeland Security committee, said Snowden had "betrayed his country." House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi (D-Ca.) was booed for calling Snowden a criminal at Netroots
Nation in San Jose, an annual gathering of progressive activists who are
usually sympathetic to the Obama administration and top congressional
Democrats. Andy Borowitz rightly pointed out the irony of a government that
got caught spying on ordinary Americans prosecuting one of its citizens to the
fullest extent of the law for spying.
Greenwald is right in that the US government is waging a war
on investigative journalism. He quoted New York magazine's Jane Meyer, perhaps
best known for her exhaustive report on the billionaire Koch
Brothers' financing of Tea Party organizations, as saying investigative
journalism has been brought to a"standstill" under the Obama
administration. This can be plainly seen in the Obama Department of Justice's
seizing the phone records of AP reporters without their knowledge to try to track down one of their sources. The lack of substantive
journalism in the world of mainstream journalism can be directly attributed to
government intimidation of journalists through acts like those described above,
and to government apologists in the media like David Gregory. It shouldn't be a
surprise to anyone that the corporate-owned media is supporting a
corporate-owned government's narrative in an important story sparking
international debate.
[...]
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