“Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”—Mark Twain
Listening to NPR news Monday, I was reminded how thoroughly this once independent voice has sold out.
I was also reminded of the Mark Twain quote above. NPR reported that Syrians were lined up in Turkey waiting on passage on inflatable rafts to Greece. According to the NPR report, there are 2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey and 250,000 Syrians have been killed. NPR said nothing about the cause of this murder and displacement of vast numbers of people. It was if the plight of these people materialized out of thin air. The fact that Washington sicced ISIS, al Qaeda, Turkey, the US and NATO Air Forces, and Washington’s Middle Eastern vassals on Syria was not mentioned. The view on NPR is the same as Washington’s—that if only Assad would resign and hand Syria over to Washington, everything would be fine.
Americans don’t go to bed every night unable to sleep from shame from the atrocities that the US government has inflicted on Syria. And on Iraq. And Libya. And Afghanistan. And Pakistan. And Yemen. And Somalia. And Ukraine. And Serbia. According to the prostitute media, all of these human catastrophes are the work of dark forces that America must combat. It is all a clever orchestration of public emotion in favor of the military/security complex’s bank balance.
The corruption of public discourse in America, indeed throughout the West, is total. There are no reliable reports, not from public or private institutions. The economic reports are propaganda to keep alive the image of a successful America. The reports about Russia, Ukraine, and Muslims are propaganda designed to inculcate fear in the gullible, fear that ensures more power and profit for Washington and the military/security complex.
Americans have proven themselves to be the easiest sheep ever to be shorn.
The gullibility of Americans threatens the world with Armageddon.
Copyright © 2015 Paul Craig Roberts
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.
Yep. Agreed to all.
As for NPR, it’s simultaneously hilarious and pathetic that so many supposedly educated people think NPR is a bastion of “unbiased” reporting. Even more, that they think it’s liberal. NPR hasn’t been liberal for 35 years. Which is fine — I’m not asking it to be. I’m also not asking it to be pro-corporate, which it decidedly is.
But then I have an axe to grind, right? After all, this repository of objectivity and liberalism blacklisted me in 2011 for my involvement in the Occupy movement, even though I wasn’t an NPR employee at the time and it was none of their business what I was doing in my life. This blacklisting has made it hard for me to get work ever since.
Meanwhile, NPR’s golden boys and girls, such as Scott Simon, Mara Liasson, Cokie Roberts, and Adam Davidson, shill publicly for war and money, and hey, no problem. NPR supports and even brags about them. Ah, well. As Orwell taught us, all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.