Distinguishing Moral and Financial Abuse in the Media

Which narratives need control?

Aug 07, 2021

Publication date: 2021-08-07

Introduction

I wish to explore cronyism, nepotism, denying a country's publicly declared principles and atrocious moral crimes. How are these covered in the medias and what leads a whistleblower to provide public accountability?

Cronyism and nepotism are related power control mechanisms and have been at the core of the western, and perhaps particularly the USA political establishment since at least the 19th century during the age of the Industrial Barons as they carved up the core commercial enterprises of banking, energy, transportation, communications, food, construction, and armaments manufacture. Marine Major General Smedley Butler (who gets another mention!) documented some of this is his seminal work "War is a Racket". Essentially, a "power elite" cabal influences political outcomes for financial gain and increased influence. The best analogy I know of is the Mafia; a collection of competing interest groups that re-balance their efforts over time with shifting alliances to prevent one group achieving total dominance. The introduction of the "Income Tax" in the USA is an illuminating example. See Jekyll Island.

So, that's the first two "diseases". The second two, denying a culture's beliefs and egregious attacks on morality, are a different category.

It is interesting to look at how the medias treat these things. In the first category, these offenses are common, and regularly gain attention particularly in the financial press. Little "moral outrage" has been developed in recent decades and the mismanagement of national economic systems are accepted as insufficiently important. I posit that this is not an accident, but by the suppression of wages and a lack of leisure for many citizens such that they can insufficiently discuss these inequities and act upon them.

In the second category of crimes that have a more tangible moral aspect we see a different dynamic.

I have used the term "medias", by which I refer to the FCM (Fawning Corporate Media, thanks Ray McGovern) and "Independent Media". The later is neither homogeneous in outlook nor quality. But, it is a smorgasbord of options from which one chooses one's dishes. In some cases they pay far more attention to the first category of crimes; Catherine Austin-Fitz comes to mind. In other cases they pay more attention to the second class of crimes. In this area a whole slew of "independent" reporters/commentators have been screaming from the rafters about the dirty/proxy war not in but on Syria.

The question is, to what degree do the power structures care about media coverage and how can they influence it? Or to put it another way, which scandals are sufficiently important to control, and how can that be done?

Apart from the structural trading of financial interest, there seem two interesting ways in which to influence political leaders; bribery and blackmail. Bribery is in the first "insufficient outrage" category, but blackmail, especially when it involves children providing sexual "favors" is decidedly in the second and requires "special treatment".

The Cathedral stained-glassed window into the blackmailing of leading political figures provided by the "Epstein Saga" is a horrific gift of vision into the upper corridors of power. A recent interview with Nick Bryant (see Sources) provides some background, but without a doubt the most exhaustive and damning of research has been done by a solo independent journalist, Whitney Webb. What motivates a journalist to spend many, many months on digging into a story like this? I propose the obvious, it scandalously exposes the powerful and the leads just keep coming and coming; dig, dig, dig.

But what about whistleblowers? What is it that causes whistleblowers to contact journalists? And how can the establishment control this?

Let us take two "recent" cases of whistleblowing and do some "dig, dig, dig". Edward Snowden has said that his final "straw that broke the camel's back" were the lies delivered, under oath, to the Senate Intelligence Committee by then Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper (see Sources) regarding the spy-communities' (they lost the credibility for "intelligence" decades ago) surveillance of communications between USA citizens. Now we know that Danial Hale was spurred into action by then USA President Obama declaring that the drone program was only used under carefully assessed criteria when he, Hale, had been colluded into killing a girl with a drone.

What about, then Bradley now Chelsea, Manning? What motivated this individual to contact Wikileaks? I quote John Kiriakou from the recent Scott Horton Show:

Moral outrage

This is the unifying factor. Outrage: Snowden by the subversion of the constitution, Hale by being forced to kill children, and Manning by seeing the cringe worthy joy of USA combatants killing civilians. In each case, these are individuals having their ideals of the character of their nation destroyed, repeatedly, by its own actions.

Sources and Publications

To review the media choices of Snowden, Manning and Hale:

Manning was rebuffed by large USA outlets and ended up with Wikileaks
Snowden chose his journalists, principally Greenwald
Hale chose Jeremy Scahill

A very similar pattern can be seen with Drake, Kiriakou and others. The FCM will not even touch this stuff. They might lose "access"!!

From this we can see two things, the attitude of the whistleblowers in choosing publishers, and the attitude of FCM publishers to whistleblowers.

(I do not consider The Intercept a useful outlet. Omidyar has bought numerous damaging leaks and suppressed them (Snowden materials, Panama Papers etc.), and Greenwald's departure over editorial control just says it all.)

Wikileaks

Why did the USA exert so much pressure on Sweden, the UK, Australia and then Ecuador (including a 4 Billion USD loan) to "get" Assange (aka "shut down Wikileaks")? Hmmm?

My thoughts on this have matured. I rejected the "they published USA war crimes" theory, because the USA is not signatory to the International Criminal Court. "Cable-gate"? Yes, it really pissed them off. I still think that the motivation for the prosecution was Pompeo getting really, really pissed at the Vault 7 publication, which is drastically under-reported for a reason. (The Marble Framework allows the CIA to leave “evidence” after computer infiltration in key foreign languages; Russian, Chinese, Farsi, and two more of which I forget. Wider knowledge disables the effectiveness of this strategy via the media).

However, including all of the above, I think the real motivation is to stop a channel. In the USA the "internal" channels are controlled. See the evidence of Thomas Drake and William Binney for all the evidence you need. Thus, it is the "external" (read “Independent” and “Foreign”) media that needs be controlled. The FCM are by dint of action and the choices made by whistleblowers already controlled.

Thus, the Wikileaks attack.

Aligning Interests

To ensure that we do not think that this determined decade long attack on journalism is an aberration, we need look no further that the UK government's publication considering how they should amend their Official Secrets Act. The gossip seems to be that it will be called the Espionage Act to fully, in lock-step, cuddle up to the USA.

The "WTF?" moment in the paper is when it compares a spy to a journalist. A spy will deliver sensitive information to a foreign power, but a journalist will deliver it to the whole world. Thus, the journalist is more dangerous.

This argument is so disingenuous that it deserves all forms of contempt. To paraphrase Stefania Mauritzi as she has learned while working with Wikileaks (see Sources):

There are classes of secrets. Some are legitimate, involving national security information, some are grey where a mixture of "Pandora's Boxes" may be exposed, and some are just plain and simple government illegality. The journalist's job is to assess the information and choose what to publish.

The UK is saying “Nope, we dont care, no publication, fuck off, stop it, or Jack’s Boot will be downward on your neck”.

The counter-point is that existing laws are in place in the UK to prosecute irresponsible disclosure of "protected information".

I wish to advise the UK government that filling your jails with journalists is a wildly stupid idea for a whole host of obvious reasons. Your recent attempt in Scotland to redefine "journalist" in the jailing of Craig Murray will fail. People want access to informed opinion and all of your legal fiddling and proclamations will fall on eager ears.

May you live in interesting times.

Sources

Episode 123 - Meet Smedley Butler, James Corbett, CorbettReport, 2010-03-28

Interview 794 – G. Edward Griffin Unmasks the Creature from Jekyll Island, James Corbett and Edward Griffin

The Solari Report, Catherine Austin-Fitz

The Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, On Contact (Chris Hedges with Nick Bryant)