{"id":249463,"date":"2022-02-12T07:38:50","date_gmt":"2022-02-12T07:38:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=249463"},"modified":"2022-02-13T08:39:42","modified_gmt":"2022-02-13T08:39:42","slug":"is-the-american-legacy-media-a-weapon-of-mass-destruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=249463","title":{"rendered":"Is the American Legacy Media a \u2018Weapon of Mass Destruction\u2019?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Robert Bridge \u2013 Strategic Culture Feb 9, 2022<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p><em><strong>Not since the Vietnam War \u2013 when liberals behaved like peaceniks and not the Neocon country cousins they\u2019ve become \u2013 has the media seriously scrutinized the US government\u2019s arguments for military exploits abroad.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>From the oilfields of Iraq, to the mountains of Afghanistan, to Trump\u2019s classic head fake in Syria when a few missiles demolished a deserted airfield, triggering NBC host Brian Williams to get all choked up over \u201cthe beauty of our weapons,\u201d the MSM has dutifully played water boy to Uncle Sam\u2019s overseas misadventures. Somewhere, somehow along the way Americans inherited a Fourth Estate that actively promotes military aggression abroad.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, however, it looked as though the White House press corps experienced an awakening of sorts as the risk of Russia and NATO stumbling headlong into Armageddon looked razor close. That epic moment in US media history happened when State Department spokesman Ned Price, fleshing out an earlier report from the Washington Post, claimed that the Kremlin was producing a video of a mass casualty event in Ukraine to be used as a pretext for a Russian invasion.<\/p>\n<p>According to Price, the video is \u201cfabricated by Russian intelligence using crisis actors\u201d and is \u201cone of a number of options the Russian government is developing as a fake pretext to initiate and potentially justify military aggression against Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Reporter: \u201cIt\u2019s an action that you say they have taken, but you have shown no evidence to confirm that. [&#8230;] This is like &#8211; crisis actors? Really? This is like Alex Jones territory you\u2019re getting into now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Must-watch exchange between <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/APDiploWriter?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@APDiploWriter<\/a> Matt Lee and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/StateDeptSpox?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@StateDeptSpox<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/RPIPb2zwf5\">pic.twitter.com\/RPIPb2zwf5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; The Hill (@thehill) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/thehill\/status\/1489336004637044746?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 3, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In the past, these zero-calorie morsels of intel from the State Department would have been gobbled up by the press and regurgitated across every front page the very next morning. But just as Price was about to move on to more pressing matters, like maybe what flavor ice cream the Commander-in-Chief prefers this week, something weird happened.<\/p>\n<p>Matt Lee, a veteran writer with the Associated Press, unexpectedly pounced on Price, demanding to know how he can \u201csupport the idea that there is some propaganda film in the making?\u201d At one point Lee even suggested \u201cthis is Alex Jones territory\u201d with regards to the idea of crisis actors being employed.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, Lee wanted something that the White House hasn\u2019t been forced to produce since Monica Lewinsky\u2019s stained blue dress surfaced at Bill Clinton\u2019s 1998 impeachment trial \u2013 gold ol\u2019 fashioned, hardcore evidence. Price, visibly stunned, apparently couldn\u2019t believe that the term \u201cintelligence\u201d no longer worked to mollify a roomful of reporters as it once did.<\/p>\n<p>What is so laughable about the Price-Lee standoff is how a US reporter simply doing his job \u2013 pressing the State Department for evidence regarding an unclassified intelligence report \u2013 has actually turned into a major news story. And as the Price-Lee saga went viral, the main question \u2013 the veracity of the \u2018Russian video\u2019 claim \u2013 went conveniently missing in action. This shows how far the paying audience has allowed the establishment to travel from that safe space known as reality.<\/p>\n<p>At a time when so many media stories are generously peppered with anonymous citations from various \u2018former senior intelligence officials\u2019 and \u2018high-ranking diplomats,\u2019 it\u2019s no wonder that government officials feel they too are at liberty to spew \u2018intelligence\u2019 without the need to demonstrate its authenticity. Why should Lee have expected anything more than a verbal assurance when the majority of news channels and publications are themselves guilty of such shoddy standards (even the highly respected journalist Seymour Hersh was called out for the excessive use of anonymous attribution, as he did in his windy 10,128-word essay detailing the US military\u2019s 2011 raid on Osama Bin Laden\u2019s compound in Pakistan)?<\/p>\n<p>While it is necessary for the media and government to \u2018protect national security secrets,\u2019 this excuse has been tossed around so many times in the past that the majority of news stories \u201cmight have been written by Lewis Carroll,\u201d to borrow a line from Hersh\u2019s abovementioned fantasy piece. It\u2019s no wonder that fake news of the Russiagate variety, alongside military disasters based on \u2018intelligence errors\u2019 like Iraq, flourish like the Tom Clancy shelf at the local bookstore.<\/p>\n<p>Following this unseemly showdown at the State Department, Rice and Lee reportedly made amends in a phone call and everything was hunky dory. So hunky dory, in fact, that the media practically carried out a false flag itself, possibly as an act of penance for Lee wandering so far off the reservation.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The renowned <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/APDiploWriter?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@APDiploWriter<\/a> and I have had our fair share of sparring sessions, and I have the scars to prove it. Clearly, he\u2019s no one\u2019s dupe, and I\u2019d never want to suggest otherwise. Nothing but respect for him, which I underscored in a call to him after the briefing.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Ned Price (@StateDeptSpox) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/StateDeptSpox\/status\/1489379839404650497?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 3, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, Bloomberg News agency, instead of maybe doing a deep dive on the wild Russian video claim, \u2018accidentally\u2019 hit \u2018publish\u2019 on a headline that read, \u2018Live: Russia invades Ukraine\u2019. It just so happened that the editors at the news agency, so the story goes, had that apocalyptic headline all type-set and ready to go, you know, just in case. Incredibly, this latest media glitch just happened to target the all-time favorite bogeyman (aside from Donald Trump) of the Democratic Party and just hours after the White House was forced to walk back its \u2018Russian false flag\u2019 conspiracy theory.<\/p>\n<p>It was not the Russians who staged a false flag attack, but rather a major US news agency \u2013 and on a Saturday night, of all nights, when cognitive thinking abilities are most likely to be severely impaired. The question now is: how much lower can the mainstream media go? Currently, 57% of Democrats say they trust the media and only 18% of Republicans, according to Edelman\u2019s annual trust barometer as reported by Axios. At the same time, 58% think that \u201cmost news organizations are more concerned with supporting an ideology or political position than with informing the public.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">So Bloomberg has the headline &quot;Russia Invades Ukraine&quot; ready, just in case. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/h3zPNhhLwp\">pic.twitter.com\/h3zPNhhLwp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nntaleb\/status\/1489757554326523907?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 5, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>With the prospect of a possible war-by-proxy or worse erupting between Russia and NATO over highly volatile Ukraine, which Zbigniew Brzezinski listed as one of the \u201ccritically important geopolitical pivots\u201d on the grand chessboard, the importance of a viable and trustworthy media to hold government officials to task has rarely been greater. Yet here we have a media industrial complex that, in the best case, acts as a \u2018weapon of mass distraction,\u2019 and, in the worst case, one of potential mass destruction. Americans must expect better from its floundering media; there is simply too much at stake.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.strategic-culture.org\/news\/2022\/02\/09\/is-american-legacy-media-weapon-of-mass-destruction\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The way it implied the Osama bin Laden was hiding in Afghanistan after 9\/11 or its endless speculation about Saddam\u2019s WMD, the mainstream media is now an indispensable asset for Western military planners. An essential tool used to justify and mentally prepare the Western public for conflict   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":249465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Commentary","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=249463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249464,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249463\/revisions\/249464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/249465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=249463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=249463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=249463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}