A CorpoMedia masterpiece has recently been published by Michael Barone, senior writer for U.S. News and World Report. The title: New global study points to hope. [1] The study in reference is the Pew Global Attitudes Project’s poll of 47 nations. The Pew Resource Center, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, likes to call itself a Washington Fact Tank. [2]
Could it be that Barone is satisfied with his ad-hominem attacks on Al Gore having minimized the threat of global warming, so in this article at least, Barone felt compelled to feed Americans highly-pure CorpoMedia pap? “Most striking” is how he described the fact that only 1 out of 4 Americans are positive about the direction of the nation. An ensuing flourish of CorpoMedia bait-and-switch seasoned with indirection and omission assigns blame to the low job ratings of W, and congress. Partisanship is trotted out—Democrats are spoiling the party. Then The People get spanked with: “But when one considers that America has not suffered another Sept. 11 and that is has enjoyed a surging and prosperous economy, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that citizens of this most blessed country are registering a verdict that is in tension with reality.”
“Reality”? We “citizens of this most blessed country” are in tension with reality because 75 percent of us have some idea what is actually happening—because only 25 percent of us have swallowed more mindlessly the CorpoMedia propaganda?
Reality is something our illegitimate administration has profound contempt for, (“the reality thing”) even while crowing about how great it is being the lone superpower because it affords creation of your own reality. The very term “Bush reality” is a kind of “nuculer” oxymoron.
Euphemisms are a CorpoMedia specialty. For example, after informing us that “We’ve been instructed by many sages that the rest of the world hates us and does not want to follow our example”...Barone states that “People around the world may oppose American intervention in Iraq, but they also want many of the things we do.”
A euphemism in full glory, the term “intervention” used to describe our hideous, endless war crimes against Iraqis.
Packing a quiver stuffed with lies-for-every-contingency, America has shocked and awed and murdered over 600,000 innocent people while rendering millions more refugees. America has genetically doomed Iraqis virtually forever with radioactivity from “depleted” uranium (DU) projectiles. America destroyed the country’s infrastructure. Halliburton and Bechtell leading the contractors with no-bid contracts in their Christmas stockings, poised to perversely overcharge for rebuilding Iraq as we lop off the top 75% of Iraqi oil revenues for at least 30 years—all this while turning Iraq into our colossal military base for “intervening” in other energy-rich nations to slaughter their people and sack their resources. Reality renders it metastasis, but not superpower reality.
Since CorpoMedia calls it intervention, we might hope to never find out for what CorpoMedia is saving the terms “invade”, “murder”, “pillage” and “occupy”. But with Iran in the cross hairs [3] perhaps those terms will leak out after the vaporizing with nuclear weapons of much of Iran while protecting the oil and gas fields? Or maybe not, with simple intervention sounding so benign and working just fine.
Barone’s crescendo chides Americans for believing 2 to1 that their children will be worse off than they are: “But what basis do Americans have to suppose that, for the first time in history, a younger generation will be worse off than their parents? Perhaps it’s just a feeling that things cannot possibly get any better.”
Wow.
Contrast 75% of Americans being negative about the direction of the nation—with—CorpoMedia suggesting that “things cannot possibly get any better”. Could a more profound example of the nature of CorpoMedia “journalism” be found?
For Americans still burdened with freethinking, decency and conscience, this might all seem totally bizarre because it is totally bizarre—CorpoMedia’s primary function of being cheerleader for CorpoGov. But through the bizarrity rings a truth bright and pure as the voice of a silver spoon: American elite really are plying the threshold of can’t-get-any-better, at least in terms of their definition of good.
But a dominant and growing problem: American People and the American elite are worlds apart. The Pew study involves The People; Barone’s article is for and about The People...yet reasons cited for getting “out of our national funk” are veered sharply toward the elite by reality.
Rand Clifford is a writer living in Spokane, Washington, with his wife Mary Ann, and their Chesapeake Bay retriever, Mink. His novels CASTLING, TIMING, and VOICES OF VIRES are published by StarChief Press.
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