{"id":270945,"date":"2023-07-11T07:30:59","date_gmt":"2023-07-11T07:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=270945"},"modified":"2023-07-12T07:57:25","modified_gmt":"2023-07-12T07:57:25","slug":"nytimes-farhad-manjoo-recounts-his-moment-in-the-mud-with-kennedy-but-only-ends-up-spattering-himself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=270945","title":{"rendered":"NYTimes’ Farhad Manjoo recounts his moment “in the mud” with Kennedy\u2014but only ends up spattering himself"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Crispin-Miller \u2013 News From the Underground July 9, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Recently the New York Times <\/em>enhanced its daily dump on RFK, Jr. with a new hit-piece by Times <\/em>columnist Farhad Manjoo: \u201cIt\u2019s Not Possible to \u2018Win\u2019 an Argument With Kennedy.\u201d That title is, of course, no compliment. It means that no one can best Kennedy in a debate\u2014not <\/em>because the latter knows his stuff, has all the pertinent data at his fingertips, and argues with extraordinary clarity (and civility): on the contrary. According to Manjoo, Bobby does not <\/em>win debates for real, through such forensic skill and intellectual ability, but only seems <\/em>to win them (or, as the headline puts it, \u201cwin\u201d them) by fogging everybody\u2019s minds with sophistry, intermingled craftily with bits of truth. This is good enough for him, because he doesn\u2019t really care about the issues, claims Manjoo: \u201cConspiracy theorists don\u2019t care about facts, just attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

That crack about the \u201cfacts\u201d is pure projection\u2014as I\u2019ll show here, by telling the whole<\/em> story of Manjoo\u2019s attacks on Bobby in the summer of 2006; but let\u2019s begin with Manjoo\u2019s version of that story. Here I\u2019m going to paraphrase, and gloss, his version in detail, both because (unlike Manjoo) I want to get it absolutely right, and\u2014what matters more\u2014because it perfectly exemplifies the propaganda that\u2019s been used to smear the candidate since he declared his run, and that\u2019s been <\/em>used against him (and others) for many years. In other words, this op ed perfectly exemplifies the gaslighting technique that\u2019s been deployed relentlessly\u2014and catastrophically\u2014by the \u201cfree press\u201d throughout the West since 1967, when the CIA first weaponized the phrase \u201cconspiracy theory\u201d (and coined the phrase \u201cconspiracy theorist\u201d), urging journalists to use that mocking language to discredit critics of the Warren Report.<\/p>\n

Since then, that dismissive tactic has been used to maintain one Official Story after another, from the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy in 1968 (both, like JFK, killed by \u201clone gunmen\u201d), to Ronald Reagan\u2019s landslide victory in 1980 (not <\/em>enabled by a secret deal with Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards, to keep the hostages locked up through the election), to Iran\/contra (not <\/em>overseen by George H.W. Bush), to the Oklahoma City bombing (carried out by two angry amateurs, using a truckload of fertilizer), to the 2000 election (not <\/em>stolen), to 9\/11 (the staggeringly lucky work of nineteen Saudi jihadists), to the 2004 election (not <\/em>stolen), to Ukraine\u2019s \u201cMaidan Revolution\u201d in 2014 (not <\/em>another coup run by the CIA), to Bashar Assad\u2019s two \u201c<\/em>gas attacks on his own people\u201d in 2017 and 2018 (the first not <\/em>perpetrated by the \u201crebels,\u201d the second not <\/em>accidentally caused by the explosion of a rebel arsenal); and so on\u2014a history far richer even than this paragraph suggests, since comprehensive treatment would take much more space than I have here.<\/p>\n

Throughout those years, the tactic largely worked, as dissident analyses were kept out on the margins, so that most people couldn\u2019t know them in detail, and\/or figured that such counter-narratives were just as loony as \u201cour free press\u201d always claimed; but now the tactic doesn\u2019t work so well\u2014the COVID crisis having variously broken it (though millions are still <\/em>falling for it, and all too many always will). \u201cOur free press\u201d has called too many truths <\/em>\u201cconspiracy theory,\u201d and too many have been proven <\/em>true, for the tactic to keep working as it did before \u201cthe virus\u201d started stressing it. Thus (certain) millions have been disenchanted at long last\u2014 an awakening that\u2019s made this<\/em> Kennedy campaign a bid far likelier to go the distance\u2014and even, possibly, to win\u2014than they\u2019re all bellowing throughout the media, while also struggling otherwise to make the rest of us not<\/em> hear, or not <\/em>believe, what Bobby Kennedy is saying.<\/p>\n

Here, then, is how Fahrad Manjoo\u2014the New York Times <\/em>behind him (and, no doubt, the usual players behind them both)\u2014attempts (again) to tell us not <\/em>to listen to this Kennedy, or (by implication) anyone except himself, and all the other \u201cjournalists\u201d:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unanimously screaming that debate is DANGEROUS, and using lies and smears to put that point across, “our free press” is now one big, loud conspiracy against American democracy (or what’s left of it)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"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":[61,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270945","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=270945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270947,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270945\/revisions\/270947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=270945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=270945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=270945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}