Policing ‘Truth’ to Restore ‘Trust’

Exclusive: The U.S. mainstream media insists it just wants “truth” algorithms to purge “fake news” from the Internet, but the real goal seems to be restoring public “trust” by limiting what the people get to see, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

There’s been a lot of self-righteous talk about “truth” recently, especially from the people at The New York Times, The Washington Post and the rest of the mainstream news media. They understandably criticize President Trump for his casual relationship with reality and happily dream about how nice it would be if they could develop algorithms to purge the Internet of what they call “fake news.”

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman.

But these “truth-loving” pundits, the likes of star Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, never seem to reflect on their own responsibility for disseminating devastating “fake news,” such as the falsehoods about Iraq’s WMD, lies that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of American soldiers and spread horrific chaos across the Mideast and into Europe.

Nor does that Iraq experience ever cause Friedman and his fellow pundits to question other Official Narratives, including those relating to the proxy war in Syria or the civil war in Ukraine or the New Cold War with Russia. Meanwhile those of us who ask for substantiating facts or observe that some official claims don’t make sense are subjected to insults as fill-in-the-blank “apologists” or “stooges.”

It seems that any deviation from Officialdom’s pronouncements makes you an enemy of “truth” because “truth” is what the Establishment says is “truth.” And, if you don’t believe me, I refer you to Friedman’s Wednesday’s column.

Friedman leads off the article by quoting himself telling a questioner at a Montreal conference: “I fear we’re seeing the end of ‘truth’.”

But Friedman doesn’t take himself to task by noting how he helped disseminate the Iraq WMD lies and how he flacked for that illegal and disastrous war for years.

If he had ‘fessed up, maybe Friedman could then have explained why he didn’t resign in disgrace and engage in some lifelong penance, preferably including a vow of silence, rather than continuing to spout lots of other nonsense while also continuing to collect a handsome salary and to rack up lucrative speaking fees.

Instead, after wringing his hands over why Americans no longer trust their leaders, Friedman cites another voice of authority, a friend and mentor, Dov Seidman, who complains that “What we’re experiencing is an assault on the very foundations of our society and democracy – the twin pillars of truth and trust. …

“What makes us Americans is that we signed up to have a relationship with ideals that are greater than us and with truths that we agreed were so self-evident they would be the foundation of our shared journey toward a more perfect union – and of respectful disagreement along the way. We also agreed that the source of legitimate authority to govern would come from ‘We the people’.”

Friedman then goes on to share Seidman’s lament that when “we” no longer share basic truths “then there is no legitimate authority and no unifying basis for our continued association.”

The Villains

Friedman identifies the villains in this scenario as “social networks and cyberhacking,” which help “extremists to spread vitriol and fake news at a speed and breadth we have never seen before.” So, it seems those “truth” algorithms can’t arrive soon enough.

New York Times building in New York City. (Photo from Wikipedia)

However, if you keep reading Friedman’s column, you learn that the real problem is not that “cyberhacking” is generating “fake news,” but rather that it has let Americans see too many ugly truths about their leadership, as happened when WikiLeaks published emails showing how the Democratic National Committee unethically tilted the playing field against Sen. Bernie Sanders; how Hillary Clinton pandered to Goldman Sachs in return for lucrative speaking fees; and how the Clinton Foundation engaged in pay-to-play with rich foreigners.

Friedman’s column acknowledges as much, again citing Seidman: “Social networks and hacking also ‘have enabled us to see, in full color, into the innermost workings of every institution and into the attitudes of those who run them,’ noted Seidman, ‘and that has eroded trust in virtually every institution, and the authority of many leaders, because people don’t like what they see’.”

In other words, the answer to restoring “trust” and to respecting “truth” is to hide ugly realities from the unwashed public. If the people are shielded from the facts, the Establishment will regain its control over “truth” and thus win back the people’s “trust.”

If all this seems upside-down to you – if you think that the real answer is for America’s leaders to behave more responsibly, to let the public in on the real “truth,” and thus to make the people’s “trust” mean something – you must be a “Kremlin stooge.” After all, the current groupthink is that the diabolical Russians slipped WikiLeaks those Democratic emails in a nefarious plot to undermine Americans’ faith in their democracy.

However, if you’re still having trouble with Friedman’s logic, you also must not understand how America’s new media paradigm works. The job of the media is not to provide as much meaningful information as possible to the people so they can exercise their free judgment; it is to package certain information in a way to guide the people to a preferred conclusion.

Pleasant Myths

You see the last thing that Friedman really wants is for the American people to understand their own reality – the good, the bad and the ugly. Instead, we are to have our pretty little heads filled with pleasant myths that make us feel special as we are herded either to the shearing shed or to the slaughterhouse.

An artist’s rendering of the Constitutional Convention in 1787

For instance, reflect on the history that we hear from Friedman’s friend Seidman about how we “signed up” for those high-minded proclamations in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. The truth is that most of us didn’t “sign up” for anything; we were just born here; and – by the way – the Founders were hypocrites who said and wrote things that they didn’t believe at all.

When slaveholding Thomas Jefferson wrote “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” he didn’t believe a word of it. He considered his black slaves inferior beings and thought they deserved none of those “unalienable rights.” He devoted much of his adult life to defending and expanding the institution of slavery, which – by increasing demand for his human chattel – also increased his personal wealth.

When Gouverneur Morris penned the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, citing “We the People” as the nation’s true sovereigns, he really meant white men of money and means, not poorer white men, nor women, and surely not slaves. His reference to “the People” was another propagandistic affectation.

There may be some irony in the fact that history imparts genuine value to the words of Jefferson and Morris even if they were simply empty propaganda when written. Jefferson’s assertion that “all men are created equal” possessing “unalienable rights” has inspired people around the world – and a literal interpretation of Morris’s florid rhetoric did, in a way, make “We the People” the technical sovereigns of America, as much as today’s ruling elites don’t really believe that either.

Much of what we see from the likes of Friedman is designed to reassert elite control by putting us back in an information-starved dependent state, reliant on the Establishment to parcel out a few morsels of information as it sees fit, the “truth” that the powers-that-be deign to give us. All the better for us to “trust” them.

But the messy behind-the-scenes reality that WikiLeaks and other publishers of “cyberhacked” and leaked material have made available to us – as well as the hypocritical and ambiguous history of the United States – is part of America’s “truth” and thus a reality that should belong to all the people.

Instead, Friedman and other Important People prefer a future in which unpleasant and unpopular truths can be marginalized or erased, all the better to guarantee our “trust” in our leaders.

The Times and the Post, in particular, have consistently conflated any deviation from their preferred groupthinks with “fake news” and “propaganda.” That is why it is particularly troubling when they and other self-proclaimed arbiters of truth, including the pro-NATO propaganda site Bellingcat, sit on Google’s First Draft Coalition and salivate over the prospects of unleashing high-tech algorithms to hunt down and eliminate information that runs counter to what they call the “truth.”

The real truth about truth is that it is almost always complex and often hidden by powerful interests. It requires skepticism, hard work and even courage to reveal it.

Sure, there are occasions when creeps and crazy people purposely make up stuff or ignore reality in pursuit of some nutty conspiracy theory – and that deserves hearty condemnation – but there are many other times when the conventional wisdom is wrong and the people demanding inconvenient facts and asking probing questions turn out to be right.

So, if Friedman and his friends really want to restore trust and truth, they might begin by acknowledging their own flaws and by admitting the times when their groupthinks turned out to be wrong. They also might start respecting the value that dissent has in the difficult pursuit of truth.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

96 comments for “Policing ‘Truth’ to Restore ‘Trust’

  1. Em Sos
    June 29, 2017 at 18:46

    Your article, once again, in no uncertain terms unmasks Thomas Friedman. He is of an unbroken line of a con artists who serve only their own egotistical interests. They are ‘educated’ hucksters out to defraud. They serve their masters and they, one and all, are sociopaths. He is no different from a whole line of historical frauds, as your piece so incisively points out; going way back to the very framing of the hypocritical American ‘Con’stitution itself.
    The real question; on this approaching 4 of July celebration is: What are we, the commons, so blindly celebrating? How is it that the populace has been, and still are, so gullible, after almost 230 years of the reenactment of ‘democracy’?
    Who was it that once said: doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result, is insanity.
    What does that say of the low we have now sunk to? Somewhere or other ‘cognitive dissonance’ is involved here, where truth is experienced as lie, without a critical thought! “The real truth about truth is that it is almost always complex and often hidden by powerful interests. It requires skepticism, hard work and even courage to reveal it.” Imagine that!

  2. Brad Benson
    June 29, 2017 at 10:58

    Friedman is an Israel First, Fifth Columnist. He should be hanged as a WAR CRIMINAL for his role in propagandizing and selling all of our wars.

  3. June 26, 2017 at 23:39

    While I agree completely, Parry has a blind spot. The strategy of tension, the deliberate aiding and abetting of terrorists is a KEY factor to maintaining this system.

    See:

    Why Americans Don’t Understand Terrorism, At All
    https://politicalfilm.wordpress.com/2017/06/08/why-americans-dont-understand-terrorism-at-all/?wref=pil

  4. Derryl Hermanutz
    June 26, 2017 at 18:24

    Re: Friedman’s appeal to the re-establishment of “shared truths:
    In his 1921 book, Public Opinion, Walter Lippmann makes the case that in order to be governable, mass society needs mass mind.
    In his 1923 book, Crystallizing Public Opinion, Edward Bernays offered his “public relations” services. Bernays would construct public opinion on contract to any plutocrat, corporation of government who could afford to pay for his services.
    In his 1928 book, Propaganda, Bernays advertised his successes to expand his market.
    Madison Avenue — and all the CIA/MSM/academia “fake news” — is the child of this early 20th century recognition that the masses will not submit to the self-serving predations of plutocratic, corporate and oligarchic “government” unless they can be lulled into believing their rulers are ruling in the interest of the masses.

  5. Michael Morrissey
    June 26, 2017 at 13:27

    I used to think Time magazine and Newsweek were the CIA’s flagship propaganda organs, but if the Trump era has made anything clear it is that the NYT, WaPo (et al.) are all part of the fleet.

    Seems to me it used to be considered worthwhile to keep tabs on them, just to know what Big Bro wants us to believe and try to correct the record at least on some things. Hence Noam Chomsky et al. at the now defunct Lies Of Our Times and the more recent OffGuardian (still extant) trying to serve as watchdogs against the NYT and The Guardian, resp. I tried it myself a few times (cf. a couple of chapters in Looking for the Enemy), but the only thing of value I took away from these efforts was the realization of how difficult, and how futile, they were. It takes much more effort to deconstruct propaganda than to create it, since creating means just passing on “received ideas” (or “fake news” in today’s parlance), and of course for every one of you there are hundreds if not thousands of them, and they get paid!

    Robert Parry, bless his soul, is still trying. He still takes his former colleagues seriously enough to challenge them, which is something many of the rest of us, including much if not most of what is called the “alternative media,” have just given up on. We just turn off the drivel and do our own thing.

    Until we have to face our friends and relatives, and in fact still the great majority of the population, who are so far behind us in their awareness of reality that they still see what the CIA, NYT, WaPo etc. say as “news.” Then we need somebody like Robert Parry to painstakingly point out the fallacies, the false assumptions, the semantic tricks, the wrong and baseless conclusions, the errors in fact, the lack of thought, the paucity of research, etc. that underlie virtually everything the public has shoved in their faces.

    But then we have to beg them, “Please read Robert Parry! Please read Ray McGovern! We print it out for them, give them the links. And maybe they will read something. Once. But that’s it. Then it’s back to the tube and the CIA/MSM smorgasbord. (“That other stuff is so hard to digest!”)

    It’s a long hard road.

  6. bozhidar balkas
    June 26, 2017 at 10:34

    US most likely will not declare war against Russia. But i have been thinking for at least four years that US doesn’t like coming up empty in Syria.
    But it has to, if Russia is as determined as Assad is, to restore Syria to its legal borders. That means that Russo-syro-iranian bloc will also try its best to drive out by warfare any occupier.

    If US increases its troops to fight to stay in Syria, US still cannot attack Russia nor its troops in Syria or anywhere else; on the account that it would lead to a nuclear war.
    And if Hezbullah and Iranians are put under a nuclear umbrella by Russia or China, US, Nato, Israel, Gulf States, Jordan would be too frightened to nuke or fight Iran and Hezbullah.

    So, Trump will be able to win his first war ONLY if he’d successfully destroy Russia and China by a surprise nuclear war.
    And if he fears God –and only the American–he’d fear waging the first nuclear strike; on account that that war may kill all of us; so, when Jesus returns, he finds nobody here to save and send to heaven.

  7. Gregory Kruse
    June 25, 2017 at 22:30

    The only reason they don’t “get it” is that they can’t afford to.

  8. Krzysztof Ho?ubicki
    June 25, 2017 at 19:28

    Hey you and the others!
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    HELP OUT TO UNRIG POLITICAL SYSTEM IN USA !!!
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  9. Alan Atkins
    June 25, 2017 at 15:58

    True so very true mr. Perry. thank you for another great article.

  10. delia ruhe
    June 25, 2017 at 14:51

    With or without new fake-busting algorithms, the MSM will continue its tradition of ignoring lots of truths and giving government access to a steno pool.

  11. Larry Galearis
    June 25, 2017 at 11:15

    Every American should read “The Fort”, by Bernard Cornwell about the Penobscot Expedition of 1779 – and the greatest naval defeat in American History. Even the real Paul Revere was involved in this disgrace and not to his credit whatsoever. The historical discussion at the end of the story seems to focus on the flaws that are typically American, an America that obscures truth and substitutes mythology and censors realities for the American (great unwashed) citizen. This is a cultural phenomenon and one that will always get in the way of “greatness” by substituting comic book realities for the truth.
    FWIW,
    G.

  12. ThereisaGod
    June 25, 2017 at 10:44

    Hee hee. The people who destroyed (and continue to destroy) trust think they will be the people to restore it.

    Absolutely fucking hilarious from deluded Zionist globalist wankers.

  13. Herman
    June 25, 2017 at 08:56

    I made my first comment without reading the article, which is bad manners. But when I did I was struck by Mr. Parry’s following remark.

    “Sure, there are occasions when creeps and crazy people purposely make up stuff or ignore reality in pursuit of some nutty conspiracy theory – and that deserves hearty condemnation – but there are many other times when the conventional wisdom is wrong and the people demanding inconvenient facts and asking probing questions turn out to be right.”

    The comment is on the mark but what struck me is whether creeps and crazy people make any nuttier claims than our MSM folks. about Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Israel and on and on. Suffer the crazies to keep information flowing.

    I simply am adding to Mr. Parrys point. Crazies are a small price to pay.

  14. Herman
    June 25, 2017 at 08:38

    Your teaser at the beginning says it all. It is what you are allowed to see and what you do not see that shapes the readers perceptions of what is happening. I think that explains the hostility to “fake news” which really are views of what is happening that is kept from readers and listeners to MSM. There are other factors of course, the main ones being that the biases of the major media and the impact of controlled release of information from the government. It is easy to see regarding the print media is that the Washington Post and the New York Times are special conduits for propaganda/news. Judy Millers are common and willing recipients of scoops. It’s the way it is and short of a breakup of the large media corporations and elected officials who care about democracy little is likely to change. The Fulbright’s and Morse’s are long gone. The way Fulbright left the stage is a reminder that his likes are not likely to be seen any time soon.

  15. R Davis
    June 25, 2017 at 08:32

    I don’t know what to say .. Robert, Robert, Robert, brilliance suits you so well.

  16. June 25, 2017 at 08:24

    Everywhere the real people are losing patience. In Greece reported today, hundreds marched with banners in English and Greek, “NATO Killers Go Home”. Not sure what “home” is to NATO, but they surely are killers. Doubling down on lying is the MO of these predators to try to keep the sheeple in the pen.

  17. F. G. Sanford
    June 25, 2017 at 07:07

    “Propaganda education” – an interesting concept. I remember the day my kid came home and began discussing with some exuberance the “facts” he had learned in history class. At the time, I had in my possession four or five of the most widely respected, carefully researched and thoroughly documented volumes on the subject, and I had read them carefully. I also happened to have seen the popular Hollywood movie from which my kid’s teacher had gotten his “facts”. That’s right, my son was being taught Hollywood mythology by a certified teacher in a United States public school. The “facts” were completely false. So…what to do? Tell the kid his teacher is an illiterate moron?

    Many of the “conspiracy theories” in popular circulation derive from what appears to be a repetitive pattern. The initial reports involve spontaneous comments and observations which are accompanied by video and photographic records. In the ensuing days, an “official narrative” develops, and much of the initial reporting becomes selectively edited, emphasized, de-emphasized or discounted entirely. As the official story “evolves”, obvious discrepancies may be arbitrarily removed from media attention…but the initial reports preserved in video, print and photographic media do not go away. It generally remains accessible to the public. While many of the “theories” may be far-fetched – for example, so-called “directed energy weapons” responsible for collapsing buildings – the notion that something is amiss with the “official story” is often difficult to deny. The so-called “Mandela effect” may operate in either direction. It may confirm a false bias or refute one purported to be “true”. The initial press conference held by emergency room physicians at Parkland Hospital demonstrate the point. The doctor described the entrance wound by pointing to his right temporal bone at the hairline with an index finger. He then made a fist and placed it behind his head to indicate a massive exit wound through the occipital bone. These videos are still available. Forensics experts have almost unanimously corroborated this version for more than fifty years, but the “Oswald did it” myth still persists.

    Finally, I would like to comment about Bernie “The Bomber” Sanders. That’s what his constituents in Vermont called him. An alternative assessment of his track record is provided by Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report in an article entitled, “Why Bernie Sanders is an Imperialist Pig”. If you wish to disagree with his interpretation, that’s your prerogative. But Ford is a legitimate journalist, and the facts upon which he bases his argument are documentably true.

    • Gregory Kruse
      June 25, 2017 at 22:33

      I agree.

    • charlie
      June 26, 2017 at 15:47

      Bernie was also called a sheepdog at Black Agenda Report.

  18. Long Gone John
    June 25, 2017 at 06:18

    Lately it seems Mr. Parry is losing his patience. Great article.

    • mike k
      June 25, 2017 at 08:01

      Yes. Trying to be reasonable with madmen only goes so far. Enough with the soft pedaling. Let’s be sharp and clear with our complaints, and not water things down with excessive politeness. Sweet and reasonable talk has it’s limits when dealing with the criminally insane – our leaders, that is. A revolution in thought and behavior requires passion and energy!

  19. backwardsevolution
    June 25, 2017 at 05:36

    Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg said in February, 2017:

    “I read the Washington Post and the New York Times every day, and I think that the reporters are trying to tell the public the way things are,” she said.

    “Think of what the press has done in the United States,” she added, citing the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

    “That story might never have come out if we didn’t have the free press that we do,” she told the BBC.”

    Wow, this is who sits on the Supreme Court!

    • Bruce
      June 25, 2017 at 06:20

      Those views are, of course, why she is sitting on the supreme court.

      • backwardsevolution
        June 25, 2017 at 11:46

        Bruce – true, exactly why she would have been chosen. Good point, Bruce.

  20. Bruce
    June 25, 2017 at 02:35

    Pretty harsh commentary on the founding fathers in my opinion. I would imagine 1780s america to be overwhelmingly white (except for the slaves of course), with women excluded from voting and owning property across all nations. A bit much to judge them based on today’s standards. The founding fathers greatest accomplishment was to recognise the predatory power of private banks. The revolutionary war was primarily fought to free the colonies from the British financial system. Most of the problems facing the world today stem from this system, which has spread across the globe. Perhaps do a story on this instead of bashing Jefferson for owning a slave.

    • Kalen
      June 25, 2017 at 04:47

      Who told them to say and write such obvious lies?

      They knew, by reading Aristotle from 2000 years ago what true democracy really was [they were against it], and how inhumane was to hold slaves [they were for it]. The phony argument that they considered discrimination and slavery as “normal” accepted everywhere is a lie especially that they all were supposedly children of European enlightenment.

      It is was economic necessity for certain agricultural production [scarcity or “free” workers, who would have to be paid a lot as was a reason to impose maximum wage laws in Europe] used to maximize profits.

      They knew that there was no “godly” or natural reason for slavery as Aristotle and other Greeks and Romans knew as well as some even raised abhorrent and immoral nature of slavery during writing of the Constitution.

      The slavery was abolished only since it was rendered inefficient way of producing profit during industrial revolution [mechanization of agriculture as well] as it was abolished in Europe in 1848 for the same reason.

      US “founding” fathers were abhorrent bunch as abhorrent as European aristocratic elites, not iota better even worse since they lied about it as inborn hypocrites to cover up they own lust for power and theft what they got from English king.

      Most of the US founding fathers had hundreds of children conceived from rape and incest with slave labor, a phenomenon quite common in the XVIII society at large, even among non-slaves against racist church teachings about white morality.

      This also reveals that institutional slavery was not exclusively a racist enterprise but economic one since there were thousands of white slaves (slave rape children) they did not have a problem with.

    • Herman
      June 25, 2017 at 09:37

      Bruce, far too harsh and did catch my eye. Whatever their faults, our founders designed a pretty good system of governance including allowing for changes in the design. The people who put together our Constitution were pretty amazing folks, so bashing them for their faults, judging them by today’s standards not a good way to win friends and allies.

  21. backwardsevolution
    June 24, 2017 at 22:03

    “The job of the media is not to provide as much meaningful information as possible to the people so they can exercise their free judgment; it is to package certain information in a way to guide the people to a preferred conclusion.”

    Engineer your mind, engineer the chessboard, engineer the economy.

    Robert Parry – excellent article. Thank you very much.

  22. liam
    June 24, 2017 at 21:58

    Another brilliant article…. Mr. Parry nails it as usual. I found the mention’s of the truth about the “Founding Father’s” particularly refreshing to read. A little known fact about George Washington also, as early as 1763 he was interested in attaining land west of the Appalachian mountains in order to increase his wealth, however King George’s Proclamation of 1763 with the Cherokee Indian’s stated firmly that settlement further west was completely forbidden. George Washington wouldn’t have that and worked towards opening that Pandora’s box. Thus, it was Washington who was actually most responsible for the eradication of Native American tribes as he was the one that initially opened that door. A fact that is covered up in history classes. Instead, children are taught specifically the cherry tree story, the crossing of the Delaware and that Washington led the American Revolution and became the first US president. The plight of the natives due to his actions is completely ignored, except for the story of the trail of tears which is blamed on future US presidents.

    Regarding current media manipulation……..

    The following Newsweek article is a good example of how the truth is being manipulated by the corrupt MSM. This is in regards to a White Helmets member in Syria who was recently filmed being involved in the beheading’s of Syrian soldiers and dumping their headless corpses. The WordPress source that follows the deceptive Newsweek article shows the real story.

    http://www.newsweek.com/oscar-win-white-helmets-syria-volunteer-dump-bodies-rebels-628407

    https://clarityofsignal.com/2017/06/21/highly-graphic-videos-white-helmets-film-themselves-participating-in-beheadings-of-syrian-soldiers/

  23. exiled off mainstreet
    June 24, 2017 at 21:17

    This is an excellent exposition of the lies of the “truth” advocates propagating the deep state regime’s faith-based falsity. Goebbels would be proud of Friedman, et al who follow a narrow propaganda script yto the exclusion of inconvenient reality. Unfortunately, if they win the day, it may be the ultimate final nihilist victory.

  24. Frank Gleeson
    June 24, 2017 at 20:37

    Excellent article! Thanks!

  25. mike k
    June 24, 2017 at 20:27

    We will know when our attempts to get the truth out on this and other sites are becoming effective, because the PTB will move to shut us down. There are stirrings already…..

  26. June 24, 2017 at 17:49

    We don’t have a democracy, we have a republic. And we are even losing that, as our representatives now serve an oligarchy.

  27. mike k
    June 24, 2017 at 16:27

    We are the authorities. Just trust us.

  28. Jay
    June 24, 2017 at 15:54

    It remains a mystery why the NY Times didn’t fire Friedman after the “suck on this Charlie Rose appearance”.

    That’s basically a form of extremist hate speech. It’s also delusional and speaks to a sexual inadequacy Friedman feels.

  29. June 24, 2017 at 15:20

    Brilliant !!!

  30. Cal
    June 24, 2017 at 14:50

    LAIRS LIARS LIARS…..!!!!!!

    And Freidman is one of the biggest frigging LIARS and PROPAGANDIST in the press— Let me give you an example.

    He wrote a column in 2004 I happen to read ‘celebrating’ a new Egypt-Israel economic ‘cooperation’ in Egypt’s cotton industry–he went on to describe how Egyptians were celebrating this new venture because they thought it would be ‘good for their jobs’.

    This didn’t jive with the trade deals I had been following in the ME. So I did some looking up on this in the European and ME papers –all of which described the ‘riots’ in Egypt by workers in the cotton industry because they were going to lose jobs due to the fact that Israel was now going to supply 10-15% of the accessories , buttons, zippers etc used in the making of Egyptian cotton goods. for export.

    So here’s the REAL story—–in US international trade the US allows and sets up ‘qualified free trade zones”—-zones where goods made can be exported to the US under ‘free trade’. Egypt has one of these zones but these zones have to be ‘renewed’ periodically. When Egypt’s renewal came up the US refused to renew it UNLESS Egypt let Israel have a part of their cotton industry. IOW let the Isr parasites ‘dip their beaks’ ,as the Mafia says, and have a piece of someone else’s business.,

    Just another example of the US interferring and STRONG ARMING other countries—not for US benefit but for Israel’s benefit. I dont have time to look up the QIZ document but dont take my word for anything….see what they say themselves:

    http://www.timesofisrael.com/tensions-aside-israel-and-egypt-do-booming-business/
    ”…..trade between Israel and the rest of the world continues apace – sometimes in the most surprising of places, according to Ohad Cohen, who heads the Foreign Trade Administration in the Israeli Economy Ministry.
    For example, there’s Israel’s annual $100 million trade with Egypt, the result of an economic deal worked out in 2004 between Israel, Egypt, and the US.
    “Our QIZ agreement with Egypt keeps getting stronger,” said Cohen, referring to the Qualifying Industrial Zone.”

    100 million gift from the Great Satan to the Baby Satan ..at the expense of poor Egyptian workers.

  31. June 24, 2017 at 14:04

    Excellent article by Mr. Parry.
    ————————————————–
    I believe the corporate “mainstream media” are a sick joke. See article at link below: “The Propaganda Peddlers, the War Criminals and Their 21st Century War Crimes”
    http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2016/12/the-propaganda-peddlers-war-criminals.html

  32. June 24, 2017 at 13:32

    Friedman is a good media focus because he has been around for years, has written influential books and gets considerable attention for interviews. To Sam, I always find your comments excellent and thoughtful, but on your Founders focus I have to disagree, looking at the treatment received by their subject citizens, the slaves and the Native Americans, all the while their documents were being conceived and written. I don’t disagree with pointing out their tunnel vision and hypocrisy.

    I am now 74 years old, and I can tell you that my middle school education, in the Midwest, included civics and study of how propaganda works. We actually had lessons on propaganda and exam questions. Do kids get such education nowadays?

    • jo6pac
      June 24, 2017 at 15:18

      We had that in Calli also but very much doubt it’s covered today

    • Sam F
      June 24, 2017 at 18:53

      I’m glad that people disagree. I understand the feeling that there is complete continuity of oligarchy, and that the founders were hypocritical. At some level of abstraction both statements are true. But my readings suggest that they were more in the tunnel vision mode, doing what they could to throw off tyranny where it affected them, feeling forced to tyrannize others and trying not to see that, genuinely believing that they were doing the best they could, squeezed between practical necessities. So my statements reflect only caution in judging individuals facing problems less evident today.

      After all, we all buy sweatshop products in happy looking stores, and it would do no one any good to refuse them as individuals; we might support import laws to require fair living standards, but we know that won’t happen under the oligarchy. We oppose the oligarchy but we don’t know what to do about it. Many people in early federal times were in similar situations. Even slaveowners could not unilaterally pay wage labor, because their cotton price would not be competitive. They needed a government solution, which was very possible, but was never even debated in Congress, because it was a battleground of thoughtless regional demagogues.

      It would certainly be interesting to hear the more sincere founders debate today the necessity of their treatment of Native Americans (they deplored what the Spanish had done in S America), the slaves (they deplored the prior plight of slaves in Africa), the Mexicans (they deplored the lack of democracy to the South, and considered it unlikely due to religion). No one can excuse the wrongs done by this society all along, but we have eliminated many of them, while our oligarchy has found ever more victims overseas.

      But at least we can now see the problem and exactly what would stop the oligarchy controlling government. We have come a long way, and they are facing fewer places to hide, and much more vocal opposition.

      • Joe Tedesky
        June 25, 2017 at 10:50

        The U.S. Constitution is used where it’s convenient. Over the 241 year old history of the U.S. the observance of the Constitution has been interesting to watch in how it gets applied. Many times over the history of this nation the Constitution has been suspended during times of conflict. To many these moments of suspension seem reasonable, but then how does this bedrock of law lay claim to superiority over all other law? It doesn’t because it only holds up when it is convenient, like in times of peace. I think about the Constitution every time I go through a TSA line. Maybe we should ask all those sitting in our American prisons who copped a plea deal, how their trust is in the Constitution. Funny how such a high valued piece of paper gets ignored by the very people who hold it over our heads to what a great republic we have, and yet these are the very same critters who subvert the Constitution every chance they get, when it is convient and it serves their purpose. The Constitution is only as good as who is in office to enforce it.

        • Sam F
          June 25, 2017 at 19:26

          Exactly my sentiments. Apparently 97% of convicts are sentenced based upon plea deals after threats of extreme sentences based on little evidence. Sloppy justice or no justice there. And in the civil law system, the judiciary are our most devout opponents of constitutional rights.

  33. Chloe
    June 24, 2017 at 13:25

    As someone who frequently combs through Google News looking for positive, useful articles about Bernie Sanders to post on Reddit, I am very alarmed by their algorithms. They bounce all of the negative propaganda about Bernie to the top. Every week or so there’s a different angle of attack. One week, they’re promoting the lie that Bernie is a hypocritical one percenter who made a million dollars last year yet he hates rich people; another week they’re promoting the trumped up investigation into Jane Sanders’s allegedly nefarious dealings with Burlington College; another week they’re pushing the “Bernie is anti-Christian and has a religious litmus test”; they say he’s a “self-hating Jew who is anti-Israel.” And on it goes. They hit him from the far-right and liberal MSM. They are terrified of what Bernie represents, because he is a truth-teller, a man of integrity who cares about human suffering more than he cares about anything else, and he expresses it in ways that are easy to convey to us the People.

    Also of alarming note, the so-called “PropOrNot” sites rarely, if ever, show up on Google News searches. Sites including Consortium, Counterpunch, BlackAgendaReport, NakedCapitalism, and many others, rarely if ever pop-up, and if they do, they disappear quickly. It’s downright creepy that our access to information is so controlled. Of course, the sites that bounce to the very top of Google News are the purveyors of government and corporatist propaganda: WaPo and NYT for the most part. Obviously Jeff Bezos of the WaPo/CIA, and the corporate board of the NYT have cushy financial relationships with Google in order to maintain their positions at the top, so that they can continue to publish their self-serving lies to the masses. I live in a very liberal area, and 90% of my friends and family, who consider themselves to be well educated and well informed, have been brainwashed by these sites, and spout the propaganda that is reported by WaPO, NYT, and by NPR and MSNBC.

    We must all fight back, because this is wrong, it is anti-freedom of speech and downright thought control.

    • Virginia
      June 24, 2017 at 15:08

      Thank God, I’m not the only one who notices what Google does. I try my best to outfox it. Assange wrote a book about Google, which I haven’t read but believe I recall that he shows how Google is linked to or was hired by the CIA, and how its plan is to take over the world. Sounds like an exaggeration, doesn’t it, but is it?

      • jo6pac
        June 24, 2017 at 15:16

        Here and amazing I was able to google this to find the story. google and cia are one of the same as is faceborg and many others.

        https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e

        Thanks RP it’s sad state out in the so-called free press world.

      • Chloe
        June 24, 2017 at 18:35

        I believe it. There are such nefarious behind the scenes dealings, because the stakes are so high. Just imagine what an informed populace might do if they come to realize that the entire Russiagate conspiracy was cooked up by the Dems in an effort to cover-up their own corruption and to taint Trump at the very least, impeach him at best. It has been an abject failure, which will come back to haunt them. Russiagate is Obama’s revenge for the birther nonsense (which was cooked up by Trump) but which is entirely beneath the dignity of a former president, and a colossal waste of taxpayer time and resources. It’s Hillary’s way of denying culpability for her spectacular loss and corruption. We the People need to be angry about it. We need to be angry that they colluded to rip the Dem nomination out from under Bernie Sanders and his millions of supporters. The elites are terrified that we now understand how the current vast levels of wealth and income inequality have widened to a chasm because of their own greed and corruption. They have a lot to be afraid of, and their way of retaining power is by controlling the flow of information. It’s going to work for a while, but not for much longer. Just look at Jeremy Corbyn as the most recent example of humanity breaking through elite control.

        • exiled off mainstreet
          June 24, 2017 at 21:22

          Hillary was the first to bring up “birtherism”. Trump only followed on later. Supposedly the issue was raised as a result of Obama’s claim in an early book publication of having been born in Kenya. Since Obama’s mother was indisputably a citizen, it was probably a false issue even if true, as may be more likely than received wisdom indicates. Actually, Ted Cruz is more vulnerable to the charge.

        • Skip Scott
          June 25, 2017 at 07:07

          While I think what you say is basically true Chloe, the public’s wish and hope for change is constantly subverted. Corbyn is saying a lot of good things, but the proof in the pudding will be if he has any success in making real changes. We haven’t had a President capable of making real change since the assassination of JFK, and controlling the flow of information is just one piece of the puzzle that keeps the oligarchy in control.

    • Sam F
      June 24, 2017 at 18:25

      Yes, I have noticed that. We shall have to learn to use other search sites, because these have become a principal means of propaganda. Amazon does the same thing to book searches, since they cannot just suppress all mention of dissent as do the mass media. Sometimes I use DuckDuckGo dot com.

      • Chloe
        June 24, 2017 at 19:44

        Not much better…DDG also pushes the propagandists to the top of their news…

  34. hillary
    June 24, 2017 at 13:23

    What can we expect from Mr. Friedman as he is a staunch Zionist & as such thinks more about what is beneficial to Israel rather than the rest of the world ?

    An “interesting” result was that a small country representing 0.2% of the world’s population , threatened to use its nuclear arsenal in 1973..
    Israeli historian Van Creveld was quoted in David Hirst’s The Gun and the Olive Branch (2003) as saying: “We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force.”
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option

  35. Sam F
    June 24, 2017 at 12:14

    I suggest that dissidents have more credibility when they do not denounce the founders and the Constitution. The founders were certainly a mixture of idealism and self interest, as are people in every age, but they took very real steps toward liberty. The defects of the Constitution are rooted in human nature and historical wrongs, and they have grown to be major defects for lack of reform due to oligarchy. But it is a starting point for reform, and a rallying point for the majority, which we should not ignore.

    Very few Americans can be said to be vile,
    There are many good atoms in a sewage pile,
    Yet every day a citizen thinks,
    The organization of this place stinks.

    Our leaders are ignorant and even vicious,
    Both hypocritical and malicious,
    Each government branch is corrupt to perfection,
    For money controls every single election.

    We find all the best ways, to kill and to spy,
    Our banks and our businesses steal, cheat, and lie,
    Our debt may soar, and our products decline,
    But we murder, and bully small countries just fine.

    Why should we restore democracy,
    With equal rights for you and for me,
    When one day we might win the state lottery,
    And climb the great dungheap and feel almost free?

    Some say that great dungheaps can fertilize flowers,
    A tree of democracy still could be ours,
    If the people form parties, recover command,
    We can spread health and happiness throughout the land.

    • June 24, 2017 at 13:24

      Sam F., dissidents have LESS credibility when they do not denounce the Founders and the Constitution. The question comes down to who, exactly, do you want to judge
      your CREDIBILIY, the citizens, or the ESTABLISHMENT?!?
      If you want the Establishment to judge your credibility, by all means ignore the
      facts and the Truth. But if you want to lift the veil from the masks of the OWNERS
      OF OUR SO-CALLED “DEMOCRACY”, so that the citizenry can see the TRUE FACE
      OF SUBJUGATION AND INJUSTICE, then you are A TRUE DISSIDENT !

      • Sam F
        June 24, 2017 at 17:17

        There are many types of citizens whose credibility may be sought. If you use all-caps and denounce the nation’s entire history, without even a plan for improvement, you will not have credibility with enough people to effect any change; you will scare people away. But if you point out specific problems and seek specific solutions, you will have common ground for discussion. They can understand the problems and solutions, and not fear a complete unknown.

        • Skip Scott
          June 25, 2017 at 06:53

          Sam F-

          I actually think the Constitution is a pretty good document. And they left us the ability to amend it. The problem now is that corruption is so rampant that the rule of law is dead. The great George W said the constitution is “just a piece of paper”, and he wasn’t thrown out of office. One can surmise how much sincerity he had when he vowed to protect and defend it. His AG Alberto called the Geneva Conventions “quaint”, and he was chief law enforcement officer!

          I would say that we need a few amendments to improve the campaign and election process, to add health care as a basic human right, to eliminate or gain control over the Intelligence Agencies, and to tie our trade policy to bilateral agreements with countries that share our values.

          I’m sure the thoughtful folks here could come up with a few others.

          • expat
            June 26, 2017 at 08:29

            To make the changes you mention, you need law makers who work for their citizens and not for their oligarchs. To get that requires a fundamental change in our election process. 1) Total reset of congressional districts. Here is a suggestion: All districts cover a population of between 700,000 to 1,200,000 citizens, and can have only four sides. The angles between the sides must be 90 degrees. 2) Only public funding of elections allowed. 3) All TV licenses require a certain amount of public service broadcasting during elections, whether state of federal. All political parties running candidates get a specified amount of air time and are to be included in public debates on TV.

            I’m sure others have some valid ideas. The bottom line, until congressional districts represent a mix of populations, and until private money is illegal in election campaigns, nothing can change.

      • Brad Owen
        June 25, 2017 at 09:30

        The ideas expressed in the Preamble, for instance, are good and decent and stand on their own merit, DESPITE the liar who wrote them. Even the devil quotes biblical passages accurately. Perhaps that is his ploy to get you to turn away from biblical.passages, having heard them being quoted by the very devil himself, and therefore a lie from the Father of lies. There is also such a thing as “the Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” translated into Morris-speak: “I can talk it, but my flawed character just won’t let me walk it.” Perfection of character to walk the talk lays with future generations, hence the allowance for further amendment.

    • mike k
      June 24, 2017 at 14:13

      Sam, I like your poem, but the problem with resuscitating our democracy is that it never was good enough to deliver the things it’s idealism promised, or we wouldn’t be where we are today. We need a new system based on deeper understandings. Our chance of getting such a system may be very small, but trying to breathe life into the corpse of American democracy won’t work, and wouldn’t help. It is a waste of precious time that reminds me of recycling cans that should not have been made in the first place, so that we can have even more cans in the future.

      Another problem is the inversion of values that sound good, but are tyrannical in reality, that Sheldon Wolin speaks of. These old ideas have been corrupted for so long that the very language they are embodied in has no become deluding and toxic. To start people down that failed path once more, with new promises is not really going anywhere….

      • mike k
        June 24, 2017 at 14:15

        Damn. Should read has NOW become deluding…. Typos

      • Cal
        June 24, 2017 at 15:05

        ”but the problem with resuscitating our democracy is that it never was good enough to deliver the things it’s idealism promised, or we wouldn’t be where we are today. We need a new system based on deeper understandings.”

        And what system do you have in mind to replace democracy ?
        And what are the deeper understandings we need?

        BE SPECIFIC. …or you’re useless.

      • Sam F
        June 24, 2017 at 18:13

        That is a complex issue, whether or not our former democracy can be repaired. If it were an appliance or a vehicle, I would look at the amount of repair needed, and scrap it with no misgivings. But in government, without any reliable process of replacement, and with much instability in the process of repair, I would seek incremental improvements. Our government is like an antique car with no parts or manuals or alternatives available, but we are free to make what we will of it.

        There are two questions, whether the existing institutions are susceptible to changes that would make them work, and whether that can really be done. I think that the changes I have advocated would make the system work very well, with a few near-term adjustments to correct errors. But the corruption processes of oligarchy are ever present, requiring ongoing changes to defeat them. So the problem is how to effect such changes, still a lesser problem than complete replacement.

        Yes, the “old ideas have been corrupted for so long that the very language they are embodied in has now become deluding and toxic.” I sometimes feel that despair, at the devotion of some to existing mechanisms despite their repeated failure. I would not propose to start down a failed path with new promises, but instead to have a clear goal, and find practical paths.

        I cannot claim to have found that path, and I come here to hear divergent views and think about that. The major question is whether peaceful reform or revolution lies ahead, and I suspect that it is the latter. But if so, it is likely 40-60 years ahead, so that our efforts of education, debate, and organization will have had their chance first. I would like to hear of new ways and means.

        • Orise
          June 26, 2017 at 09:07

          When the Fox controls all the levers of power and has corrupted the institutions as well, then the chickens are as good as dinner no matter what happens. I don’t see how, with the extreme divisions we are experiencing and even have encouraged through those institutions and those who control them that now, today, in our society there is any chance change will come peacefully.

          AND

          As long as we continue to allow our legal fictions to have the status of citizens when it comes to rights, freedoms, use of resources and both direct and indirect involvement in our governmental systems then I doubt we will ever succeed in the actual people, rather than their possessions (money and property converted to political power), being the driving force in our society; whether it be run as a Democracy or a Republic or any other form of centrally controlled society.

          • Skip Scott
            June 27, 2017 at 07:58

            I saw a T shirt that said “if you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re probably on the menu”. The accompanying photo is a bunch of suits at a board meeting. I think it may have been Elizabeth Warren who said it.

      • Curious
        June 25, 2017 at 00:31

        Mike, I know you have many comments on this Robert Parry site, and so I don’t want to pick out one of many. But I have to ask myself when I read your last comment how askew the entire thread regarding democracy has become in the US. We are a republic, with an aspect of representation. Enough representation that people actually think their vote counts, and we pretend to have a representative democracy. We don’t.
        We have a republic born out of rich white slave owners, as Mr Parry just pointed out, who never in their wildest dreams wanted the people to vote for their President, or many of their leaders without a control network in place. Hence we have the electoral college since it was determined the people weren’t wise enough, nor educated enough to vote in a knowledgable way. The blacks being partial humans, despite the lofty language was not a mistake. The heathens, the indigenous Indians, were sub human without any rights whatsoever. The Dems have Super Delegates who can over rule any vote count from their own party. How Democratic is that? Add in the Chinese labor force building the railroads…..the list goes on.

        I won’t belabor this any longer, but we need to firm up our definitions, or people will constantly be misled by those with money and power, and the control of the media. You make a lot of comments on this site as I have said, so let’s put our heads together and inform the people, or anyone who reads the definition of “democracy” that the US of A is far from this definition. Perhaps if we struggled to get closer to the true definition of democracy, people may begin to feel somewhat empowered. This is just a wild dream do course, but maybe, just maybe….
        Why is the word ‘democracy’ even used today? A government for the people, by the people? Right.

        • backwardsevolution
          June 25, 2017 at 17:25

          Curious – you’ve got to be careful about direct democracy, though. That’s why it’s not a democracy, but a republic. I think a republic is fine, except you’ve got to get the money out of it (campaign donations, bribes, future employment for politicians). Elections paid for by the people, and no lobbying by former politicians for at least five years. Then split up the media, banks and insurance companies using existing laws already on the books. This puts the power back in the hands of the people.

          “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”

          This is interesting too:

          The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

          From bondage to spiritual faith;
          From spiritual faith to great courage;
          From courage to liberty;
          From liberty to abundance;
          From abundance to complacency;
          From complacency to apathy;
          From apathy to dependence;
          From dependence back into bondage.

          • Sam F
            June 25, 2017 at 19:17

            Interesting cycle. Empires not driven by their people progress to greater imperialism, enemy vassal states on their periphery, internal decay of imperialist desire, and at last conquest by their external victims.

            Your cycle in the present times suggests some new driver of courage other than spiritual faith, a new kind of spirit leading to courage.

            One would want to look at the ways in which federations change that definition of civilization; whether we must have the courage to transition from nation to broader union to regain liberty.

            I’m not worried about direct representative democracy within the framework of Aristotle’s constitutional republic, so long as the people have the sense to let specialists create policy within institutions not susceptible to tyranny.

    • Gregory Herr
      June 24, 2017 at 21:04

      I think the Constitution as a basis for law and political structure IS a good starting point (for reform). The free expression of thought, speech, and the press are essential. There’s a lot to like about the Constitution.
      A sensible system of defining crime and justice is also important and especially must include the assumption of innocence and the need to fairly and decisively prove guilt.
      But isn’t a precondition of ralllying around the Constitution for the purpose of human betterment a recognition that the Constitution has flaws? Fair criticism isn’t necessarily denunciation, and that applies to the Founders as well.
      Any “dissenting” views of dissidents aren’t discredited if what is criticized is criticized fairly.

      • Sam F
        June 25, 2017 at 09:00

        Yes, all criticism of the founders and Constitution is very constructive, and they certainly had major flaws. Even unfair criticism is useful in posing serious questions, as a group explores the facts and decides what is fair. And the cautious final judgment of the founders and Constitution is less important than the process of understanding the flaws and what can be done.

        My concern here is the preservation of the valid concepts and preceptors, as a language to bring the people to an understanding and acceptance of the need for reforms. All languages are partly myth in their origin or etymology, and those who discard the language of the people seldom achieve their goals.

    • Typingperson
      June 24, 2017 at 23:53

      I found Mr. Parry’s denunciation of the Founders and the Declaration of Independence quite refreshing and salubrious. (He didn’t mention the Constitution, btw.)

      The US colonists revolted because they didn’t want to pay higher taxes. Britain had spent a fortune on the French and Indian wars, for the benefit of US colonists. They raised tariffs on colonists, including tea, to pay for the wars. Colonists weren’t having it.

      The USA revolt vs. British was over paying taxes.

      So-called Declaration of Independence was about not paying taxes.

      And, as Mr. Parry pointed out, it was about white male property owners setting up a government to suit themselves.

      Women didn’t get the vote til 140 years later.

      • Bruce
        June 25, 2017 at 02:48

        The american revolution was primarily fought to free the colonies from the British financial system, which was charging the colonies interest on their entire money supply (every £ in existence in america).

        This financial system is now in place in nearly every country around the world, and charges citizens a large portion of their taxes for having a currency, which goes straight to private banks. The real reason for the revolutionary war has been airbrushed from history, for obvious reasons.

        • Brad Owen
          June 25, 2017 at 11:40

          Well said Bruce. The meaning behind what you said, is that if an oligarchy of rentiers can fasten a monetary system upon a labor force as you suggest, then they have succeeded in finding a workhorse to which they hitch their plow, so they don’t have to work themselves, and indeed get wealthy from the “captured” labor of others. This is slavery, howsoever disguised. Alexander Hamilton, having witnessed the horrors of the British Empire in Jamaica, thus eager to keep,it off American shores, created the solution to this monetarist trap…a credit system and the American System of Political Economy (think Bank of North Dakota and what Ellen Brown, Stephan Zarlenga and Dennis Kuchinich talk about). He was killed for his trouble, under cover of dueling. He wrote about it. I found out about it on Executive Intelligence Review. In a very real sense, ALL of the wars in the World fought since Hamilton’s creation (the REAL creator of the U.S. Republic endorsed by Washington) have been about which economic system will prevail: the monetarist system championed by the oligarchs of Empire (the combined Anglo-Dutch East India Companies and affiliated Crown-Chartered Trading Companies) or Hamilton’s credit system and its dirigist system of political,economy, suitable to a Federal Republic not in need of oligarchic overlords.

    • TeeJay
      June 25, 2017 at 07:13

      The truth hurts.
      It disgusts and leaves you appalled.
      If it doesn’t make you sick, you’re not getting it..
      I want it and I want to be sick of the truth..
      Then maybe I’ll do what I can about it..
      What else?
      Mr Parry makes me sick because there’s truth to be told and he does it great!
      When Mr Parry starts writing about a tiddlywinks match, then I’ll know the truth is no more….honesty prevails!
      But that’s a utopian view.
      Until then…I got Mr Parry to make me sick and disgusted and nobody does it better!

      • mike k
        June 25, 2017 at 07:41

        I like this TJ. True things are not always nice, and nice things are not always true. Some of the most effective medicine really tastes like crap!

        • mike k
          June 25, 2017 at 07:48

          It sucks to always come across as the bad news guy. It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. If I rhapsodize over love and spiritual values which are my true love, then I will get the same critical feedback in different flavors! But actually I love this discussion, because it shows we can question each other’s ideas without getting too angry or snotty about it. This is great – Socrates would love it.

  36. Erik G
    June 24, 2017 at 12:07

    Well and moderately written. Friedman & co of the mass media certainly “spread vitriol and fake news” but not “at a speed and breadth we have never seen before” as this is their primary business.

    Those who would like to petition the NYT to make Robert Parry their senior editor may do so here:
    https://www.change.org/p/new-york-times-bring-a-new-editor-to-the-new-york-times?recruiter=72650402&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink
    While Mr. Parry may prefer independence, and we all know the NYT ownership makes it unlikely, and the NYT may try to ignore it, it is instructive to them that intelligent readers know better journalism when they see it. A petition demonstrates the concerns of a far larger number of potential or lost subscribers.

    • Skip Scott
      June 25, 2017 at 06:37

      Eric G-

      I see you’re making progress with your petition. 427 at last count. God would I love to see it go viral.

  37. cmack
    June 24, 2017 at 12:02

    this article is pretty much on target. historical insights aside….

    why focus on friedman though? i guess you have to start somewhere….i might have gone with judith miller if i was speaking of the times….but hey that’s just me.

    if i bothered to mention thomas jefferson i would have used the quote attributed to him….””The man who never looks into a newspaper
    is better informed than he who reads them;
    inasmuch as he who knows nothing is
    nearer to the truth than he whose mind
    is filled with falsehoods and errors.”

    and with that i would like to share with you my idea for fixing much that is wrong with our modern society. i call it “propaganducation”.
    if all educators started to teach children, at an early age, the art with which we are all targeted by. modern propaganda. being able to tell when advertisers are using their trade to manipulate us, when politicians manipulate us and especially that the media does this and how they do it. and the fact that virtually all media is owned by people or organization with agendas.

    • Skip Scott
      June 24, 2017 at 13:43

      Yes, I agree completely that we need to educate our children about propaganda. One of my favorite old hippy slogans was “Question Authority”. I mentioned in an earlier comment stream that we also need to have a course in logic required in all our public schools. A nation of critical thinkers would never fall for the BS we get saturated with daily from the MSM. BS spouters like Friedman and Maddow would be laughed at by the general population, instead of just the few of us who see them for the liars they are.

    • MA
      June 24, 2017 at 14:48

      Unfortunately, for majority – those who are in position to do something about it – life is about going to job, earn money, pay mortgage, go on a holiday, come back and start the cycle again. No one has time to even read the news beyond headlines let alone dissecting and analysinging them. Only those living retired lives with plenty of spare time seem bothered. But unfortunately they are fewer in number, and they have passed the times when they were in position to practically change things around them. That’s perhaps the reason things are not changing for the better.

      • Dave P.
        June 24, 2017 at 21:31

        MA: What you said is very true.

    • Homer Jay
      June 24, 2017 at 15:05

      That’s funny you mention this as I heard recently on kpfa (forget which broadcast) where a guest from Europe was talking about media literacy being a basic part of the curriculum in many European countries where students are taught to read and view mass media critically. I did a quick search and found a link that described this in more detail (although dated from 1988): “…. in Finland, primary and secondary school curricula have been developed to train students in the examination and interpretation of messages from the mass media, to encourage critical analysis of such messages, and to teach students how to develop their own independent opinions about messages transmitted in mass media” Here is the link: http://medialit.net/reading-room/what-are-other-countries-doing-media-education.

      Sad to think how this will not happen hear anytime in the near future, as we move more and more to privatized education while defunding public schools. You can imagine that any “media literacy” course in the US would teach the students to read the times as gospel and not be seduced by the “alarming fake news” found on sites like consortium news.

    • Bruce
      June 25, 2017 at 03:20

      Great comment

  38. mike k
    June 24, 2017 at 11:39

    Very well said Mr. Parry. It’s really a pity that these truths need to be said again and again. In a more evolved human world these patently obvious things would not need to be reiterated. But in the devolving environment we now inhabit, they cannot be spoken too often.

    The truth is the thing the liars and deceivers most fear. So it is natural that they will do anything to silence it, distort it, claim exclusive possession of it, and try to drown it out with an unending avalanche of lies. Friedman is no different than the Gestapo liars who came before him. To hold these Mafia mouthpieces less culpable than their evil employers would be a mistake. These lying voices are an essential part of the evil operations that are destroying whatever is true and beautiful and loving in our world. Friedman gets paid plenty to put out his lies. He is part of huge criminal enterprise that is sadly ruling over our world today.

    • June 24, 2017 at 14:26

      New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman is a paradigm of propagandist. Friedman is an eager opportunist in all aspects of his life. And surely, he is “part of huge criminal enterprise.”

      • Virginia
        June 24, 2017 at 14:59

        And unfortunately I know people who would discount everything said here at CN or RT or any where that breathed one word of the truth about Tom Friedman, as Parry’s article so clearly and factually does. The lesson? — that people are not only blinded terribly by hate but also by misplaced respect and admiration.

        Thank you, Mr. Parry. We’ll keep plugging away at it along with you –with lots of prayer and hope. Never give in; never give up.

        • Joe Tedesky
          June 24, 2017 at 15:52

          Virginia what you point out here is a direct result of the MSM big lie to claim that they and only they are to be trusted to tell the truth. The after effect of this narrative is that now suddenly all news is fake. If you thought that before all of this that it was a real task to debate another person with the facts as you knew them was hard, well now all debate is shutdown by claiming that your opponent is spreading fake news, but never to worry because your opponent can accuse you with the same charge. Everyone loses.

          The difficult part, is that name recognition for many will overrule a lesser known entity. Like for example comparing an article from the New York Times to an article from Consortiumnews for some the news reporting from the ‘name brand’ will be trusted over the ‘alternative brand’. This is a shame since you and I know that the trusting of the name brand is where the bulk of our problem lies. What I like to do is sometimes go back into a news agency’s archive, and then see how well their reporting held up. Never does the name brand win out, their propaganda just doesn’t hold up over time. Although go visit Consortiumnews archive, and then you tell me.

          Nice comment Virgina Joe

          • Gregory Herr
            June 24, 2017 at 19:31

            I like this Joe. Just look at the record and see how it holds up. Friedman’s sis-boom-bah for the invasion of Iraq certainly doesn’t hold water.

    • Typingperson
      June 24, 2017 at 22:01

      Interesting. In terms of the thought-policing, Friedman is little different than the Gestapo.

      • Gregory Herr
        June 24, 2017 at 22:18

        The people of Iraq probably don’t look at it that way. I mean, they got a Gestapo-like occupation and bombs. Throw in some depleted uranium and white phosphorus and you have a real mix. I’d say Friedman has culpability, and now he suggests that we should give ISIS some breathing room because he sees the removal of Assad as some sort of objective. Some people either don’t see the consequential sufferings of their actions (mothers losing children for example) or they don’t care. I don’t know how Friedman twists things up in his mind, but I know I don’t like it.

        • Skip Scott
          June 25, 2017 at 06:33

          It is the same for latte sippers like Bill Maher, and so many others. Because they have never experienced the horror of war, it is an abstraction for them. And of course there is never any serious questioning of who wears the White hat. Friedman is a pompous arm chair warrior. I wish we could send him to the front lines.

          • Joe Tedesky
            June 25, 2017 at 10:28

            Skip since you mentioned Maher, the other night Bill brought up how Chechnya abuses it’s gay population, and how he loves Oliver Stone but not so much Stone’s Putin interview. I have been watching him of late not because I agree with him, but because I’m curious to see what rubbish Maher is bestowing upon his limousine liberal audience. It’s sickening to hear Hillary’s sore loser excuses get amplified by the likes of Bill Maher, and the other personalities who carry Hillary’s water. Just like this article describing Friedman, Maher and other talk show celebrities push a H2Per agenda, and influence left leaning people to believe what they are selling. I seriously think this late night talk show propaganda effects more people than does the New York Times. Maybe I’m wrong about the power of talk show tv over the print media, but these talk show comic endorsements doesn’t help get the truth out, that’s for sure.

          • Skip Scott
            June 25, 2017 at 10:41

            Hate to admit my ignorance Joe, but what’s an H2Per?

          • Joe Tedesky
            June 25, 2017 at 12:19

            I probably got it wrong it’s what Samantha Powers is a humanitarian who loves war.

          • Skip Scott
            June 25, 2017 at 16:04

            Yeah Joe, That’s R2p’er, Stands for “Right to Protect”, which is Hillarybot’s excuse for behaving like neocons. Different rationale, same end product.

          • Joe Tedesky
            June 25, 2017 at 22:33

            Thanks for the correction Skip. I get these acronyms all mixed up at times. I couldn’t remember for the life of me R2p. It’s good to have people such as yourself for people such as myself. Thanks again Joe

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