FEAR - a powerful motivator
“Why won’t the press do its job of holding George W. Bush accountable for misleading the country to war in Iraq? How could the intelligence on Iraq have been so wrong? Why do America’s most powerful institutions sit back while huge trade and budget deficits sap away the nation’s future?”
damn good questions all, and deserving of some extended, rational dialogue... robert parry, author of Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq", has some thoughts and history worth considering...i've taken a few excerpts that grab the essence but it's also worth reading in its entirety... mr. parry, you have the floor...
I would say that the most precise answer can be summed up in one word: fear.
(more)
It’s not fear of physical harm. That's not how it works in Washington. For the professionals in journalism and in intelligence, it’s a smaller, more corrosive fear – of lost status, of ridicule, of betrayal, of unemployment. It is the fear of getting blackballed from a community of colleagues or a profession that has given your life much of its meaning and its financial sustenance.
[...]
[B]y popularizing accusations of “liberal media,” the conservatives both justified the existence of their own ideological news outlets and put mainstream news organizations in the constant position of trying to prove they weren’t liberal. To protect their careers, journalists made a point of writing stories that would please the Reagan-Bush White House.
[...]
The consequences of these changes in journalism and intelligence analysis became apparent when the neocons – the likes of Paul Wolfowitz and Elliott Abrams – returned to power under George W. Bush in 2001 and especially after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
[...]
[I]n the mainstream media, news executives and journalists were petrified of accusations that they were “blaming America first” or didn’t sufficiently “support the troops.” Mainstream news outlets competed with conservative Fox News to wrap themselves in red, white and blue. News executives transformed their networks and newspapers into little more than conveyor belts for the Bush administration’s propaganda.
[...]
What is perhaps even more troubling is that this fear is spreading to other institutions. Academia is now feeling the heat from conservatives who want to eliminate it as the last bastion of liberal thought.
[...]
If individuals are expected to be courageous, there must be courageous institutions to surround and protect them. That’s why the creation of a counter-infrastructure – one that will take on both the powerful conservative infrastructure and the cowardly mainstream media – is so vital.
Examples of how this counter-dynamic could work can be found in the take-no-prisoners ethos of the anti-Bush Internet sites, or in the irreverent comedy of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” or in the unabashed liberalism of the fledgling progressive talk radio.
All have shown toughness in refusing to genuflect before Bush and his enormous political power.
Just as cowardice can come in small pieces, none seeming to be that important alone but which added together can destroy a worthy cause, so courage can build one piece on top of another until a solid foundation is established from which a mighty edifice can rise. Submit To Propeller
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damn good questions all, and deserving of some extended, rational dialogue... robert parry, author of Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq", has some thoughts and history worth considering...i've taken a few excerpts that grab the essence but it's also worth reading in its entirety... mr. parry, you have the floor...
I would say that the most precise answer can be summed up in one word: fear.
(more)
It’s not fear of physical harm. That's not how it works in Washington. For the professionals in journalism and in intelligence, it’s a smaller, more corrosive fear – of lost status, of ridicule, of betrayal, of unemployment. It is the fear of getting blackballed from a community of colleagues or a profession that has given your life much of its meaning and its financial sustenance.
[...]
[B]y popularizing accusations of “liberal media,” the conservatives both justified the existence of their own ideological news outlets and put mainstream news organizations in the constant position of trying to prove they weren’t liberal. To protect their careers, journalists made a point of writing stories that would please the Reagan-Bush White House.
[...]
The consequences of these changes in journalism and intelligence analysis became apparent when the neocons – the likes of Paul Wolfowitz and Elliott Abrams – returned to power under George W. Bush in 2001 and especially after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
[...]
[I]n the mainstream media, news executives and journalists were petrified of accusations that they were “blaming America first” or didn’t sufficiently “support the troops.” Mainstream news outlets competed with conservative Fox News to wrap themselves in red, white and blue. News executives transformed their networks and newspapers into little more than conveyor belts for the Bush administration’s propaganda.
[...]
What is perhaps even more troubling is that this fear is spreading to other institutions. Academia is now feeling the heat from conservatives who want to eliminate it as the last bastion of liberal thought.
[...]
If individuals are expected to be courageous, there must be courageous institutions to surround and protect them. That’s why the creation of a counter-infrastructure – one that will take on both the powerful conservative infrastructure and the cowardly mainstream media – is so vital.
Examples of how this counter-dynamic could work can be found in the take-no-prisoners ethos of the anti-Bush Internet sites, or in the irreverent comedy of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” or in the unabashed liberalism of the fledgling progressive talk radio.
All have shown toughness in refusing to genuflect before Bush and his enormous political power.
Just as cowardice can come in small pieces, none seeming to be that important alone but which added together can destroy a worthy cause, so courage can build one piece on top of another until a solid foundation is established from which a mighty edifice can rise. Submit To Propeller
Tweet
posted by profmarcus at
5/27/2005
