Monday, August 4, 2008

The Media's Memory Hole

In George Orwell's 1984, the Memory Hole was the tube into which workers placed documents to be sucked and destroyed. This way, if no documents of an event existed, the event never occurred.

The Corporate Media commit the lies of omission instead of the lies of commission. In a lie of omission, the liar withholds certain pieces of information in order to mislead the audience, instead of saying an outright lie (which is the lie of commission).

Some of the media's lies of omission are outright censorship.

Here are a few examples.

In the Boston Globe online, the original story about a man who was arrested for placing a sticker in an airplane lavatory that said "9/11 was an Inside Job - prisonplanet.com", included a mention of Alex Jones and his website, www.prisonplanet.com, and a link to it. A few days later, the prisonplanet.com phrase in the sticker's quote was removed, and the link and mention of Alex Jones were deleted.
http://www.infowars.com/?p=3704

Recently Obama delivered a speech in Berlin, where he said that the U.S. needs a "civilian national security force" that would be "as powerful, strong and well-funded as the military". (Taken alone and out of context, this line sounds decidedly like he was wanted a Gestapo - the meaning in the speech is a bit different, but still it is very strange to be using a line like this). In the online transcripts such as on the Wall Street Journal and the Denver post, the line is missing:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=69784
You can watch the speech here. The line was at the 16 minute mark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df2p6867_pw

Several months ago, in a presidential debate, Ron Paul was given a bullshit question meant to embarrass him. He answered it extremely well, and in the subsequent Fox replays of the debate, the question and his answer were edited out.

Very recently, the media has reported that Russia invaded Georgia without provocation. In reality, the Georgian president, emboldened by thinking he had NATO and U.S. support, had invaded South Ossetia and attacked Russian peacekeepers. Russia launched a massive counterattack. In declaring that it was all Russia's fault, the Mainstream Media dropped the Ossetians into the Memory Hole.

Here is a video of Fox News abruptly cutting off a 12 year old girl from California when she started thanking Russian troops for saving her. She was visiting relatives in Ossetia when the Georgian army attacked:
http://www.youtube.com/v/ySWm76IZ0No


One of the biggest events of the 20th century in the Memory Hole, was the attempted military coup against the civilian government of the USA, in the 1930's, when FDR was president. I'll bet most of you haven't heard of it. If such a military coup attempt happened, surely it would be big in the history books!

Smedley Butler was the most decorated Marine Major General at the time. A group of people in government and big business plotted an overthrow of the civilian government. He was recruited to lead the military, chosen because of his popularity among his men. He played along until the last minute, then exposed the plot.
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=883
What followed was a whitewash. The media ignored it, and the one person who could corroborate his story died mysteriously.

Smedley Butler was a true patriot. Today, few people have even heard of him. Why are he and the "Business Plot" not well known?

From Wikipedia:
These reasons were proposed to explain why the Business Plot did not become a cause célèbre:

The story embarrassed politically influential business people, who felt it best to deflect attention from themselves.

In 1934, newspapers were controlled by an élite — according to then-Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes, 82 per cent of daily newspapers monopolized their communities; the media down-played Gen. Butler's testimony to protect the interests of advertisers and their owners.

Some of President Roosevelt's advisers were plotters, and downplayed the matter, avoiding exposure.

If in 1934, newspapers were controlled by the elite, what more today that they've had more time to consolidate their power? Today, 5 Corporations own the mass media.

There is one more reason I believe that Smedley Butler is ignored in mainstream history. It's because he wrote the book War is a Racket. In this book, he said that the U.S. Military is the attack dog of Wall St.
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
Today, the US Military is still the attack dog of Wall Street. In addition, funding the military with taxpayer money means immense profits for the military suppliers. Never-ending wars such as the Vietnam war, and the Iraq War, are not meant to be won, but to be waged...

On the subject of the Iraq War, when the WMD weren't found, the media had simply forgotten that that was the supposed reason for going into the war in the first place.

When Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats were campaigning to be elected into Congress, they vowed to end the Iraq War. That was 2 years ago...


We must not allow the media make us forget just because they don't remind us.

2 comments:

Diana Young, RD, LD, CDE said...

You have a great blog here, Keep up the good work. I have linked to one of your OBAMA posts:
http://www.iowaavenue.com/forum/topic/show?id=774881%3ATopic%3A33145&page=3&commentId=774881%3AComment%3A45996&x=1#774881Comment45996

Maile said...

So as I was researching Obama and the Trilateral Commission, your blog came up. Thanks for the info, and I wish you were still blogging. But you are right, researching this stuff takes forever, and then everyone thinks you are a conspiracy nut when you try to tell them anyways.

Still, you have to try.