Discontent Is Becoming An Epidemic
By Tim Gatto
09 June, 2014
Countercurrents.org
During the last few months I have been totally amazed by the lies and misrepresentations I have heard. I can honestly say that I'm totally flabbergasted. The reason why I'm feeling this way has nothing to do with any surprise I feel about the government or the media lying to the American people, that has been going on for quite a long time. What has me shaking my head in disbelief is that no effort has been made to make their distortions of the truth believable.
Today was the icing on the cake, so to speak. Listening to the coverage of the D Day 70th year memorial, if one didn't know better, they would have led the people to believe that it was only the "western" powers ("the Allies") that defeated Germany. That wasn't the surprising part of the coverage however, we have always tried to portray the West as the primary reason Hitler was defeated. No, what was really surprising was the commentary on Russian involvement in the current crisis in the Ukraine.
It was truly amazing to hear Christiane Amanpour (CNN) tell the viewers that President Vladimir Putin was told by President Obama to "stop interfering in the internal matters of Ukraine". This was repeated by "journalists" on the BBC, CBS and every "news" outlet on the MSM. Pardon me for bringing this up, but wasn't it the United States that funneled over five billion dollars into the protests that erupted in western Ukraine that eventually toppled the government? Wasn't Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland the one responsible for informing the World about that?
It was quite apparent that Putin is being held up as the World's villain right now. Every good thriller must have a protagonist and an antagonist and I guess Russia's Putin fits the antagonist in today's bill. It's convenient that Putin gets the blame for the crisis in Ukraine, after all, didn't he embarrass the President by pulling the plug on US military involvement in Syria by getting Assad to surrender his chemical weapons? In fact, he was probably responsible for getting Obama to stop the cruise missile launches against Syrian military targets until most of us realized that the truth was, we really didn't know where the chemical attacks came from. After all the "hard truth" and talk about "red lines" the UN had no proof that the Syrian government was responsible for those chemical attacks.
Putin also wrote an Op-Ed in the NY Times about the United States claiming to be the "exceptional nation"? This is what he said about that:
"My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States' policy is "what makes America different. It's what makes us exceptional." It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord's blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal." (Putin)
Now that Putin is officially "the bad guy" in the western media, our illustrious President is back on the stump pitching his exceptionalism at the West Point Graduation address:
I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it is our willingness to affirm them through our actions. (Obama)
I hate to bring this up because it sounds so hackneyed but I will because it is important. Adolf Hitler also told his people that Germany was exceptional. He even called the Germanic people "The Master Race". The German people believed him then and the American people believe this nonsense now. This is a dangerous path for any nation to take. Once one nation considers itself to be above other nations, it can justify anything. We have made our share of mistakes, just as other nations have made their share.
Barak Obama has become increasingly scatter-brained along with the people in his administration. The ongoing NSA revelations by Edward Snowden show increasingly broad surveillance by our government on its own people, foreign governments and foreign commercial interests. Still, the United States consistently criticizes China and other nations for human rights violations. This is the epitome of hypocrisy. Do the people in our government actually believe that we are so ignorant we don't see what is happening here? People of all political persuasions are becoming increasingly distrustful of Washington.
I heard a commentator on CNN claim that the minimum wage is barely keeping up with inflation. What? The reality is that the minimum wage if adjusted for inflation would be $21.72 an hour according to The Center for Economic and Policy Research. This kind of careless reporting gives us the illusion that things could be worse. Still, for those that know better, it actually provides just another reason to discount what we hear on the MSM.
The mainstream media belittles the alternative media as a place where conspiracy theories and misinformation runs rampant. In reality, I believe the biggest purveyors of misinformation can be found on the networks and the newspapers. There is rarely any hard-core cross examination of anything out of a politician's mouth. Gone are the days of investigative journalism or even the hint of disbelief by any interviewer no matter how outrageous the content. Advertisers have carte-blanch to spew forth outright lies and distortions. All one has to do is witness a sixty second spot on America's Natural Gas or BP's commercial at how hard they are working to restore the Gulf to see how hard they are trying to indoctrinate us.
I frequently hear about the Chinese military build-up, yet I never hear that the US military budget of $682 billion spent by the U.S. in 2012, according to the Office of Management and Budget, was more than the combined military spending of China, Russia, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Saudi Arabia, India, Germany, Italy and Brazil -- which spent $652 billion, according to the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database (NBC News). Failure to mention these pesky facts that actually put things in perspective is almost criminal.
Congress and the Administration may well believe that the American people simply don't care about putting things in context but they would be wrong in assuming that. Every day that goes by adds to the growing skepticism the public has towards the government and the media. This skepticism is cumulative and it will eventually lead to a watershed event. The old adage "You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time" is sage advice that the MSM and the government should heed.
Why do people who should know better continue to misinform their fellow citizens? Most people understand what part the US played in the Ukrainian situation, just as most Americans understand that Libya and Iraq are infinitely worse off than they were before US intervention destroyed their infrastructure and their economies. Most Americans are quite aware that crimes were committed on Wall Street by bankers and investment firms that led to the 2008 economic crisis and the people responsible never saw the inside of a jail cell. The American people are quite aware of a great many things like huge corporations that pay no income taxes, like the fact that we jail more people than any nation on Earth, that we are one of the last industrialized nations without universal healthcare, the suicide rate among veterans is mind boggling and that the Occupy Movement was here one day and gone the next.
Still, those who control the media and the government believe they can game the system forever. It will be too late when they realize nothing lasts forever.
Tim Gatto is former Chairman of the Liberal Party of America, Tim is a retired Army Sergeant. He currently lives in South Carolina. He is the author of "Complicity to Contempt" and "Kimchee Days" available at Oliver Arts and Open Press. Tim Gatto's new book "Contempt to Outrage" will be available soon from Oliver Arts and Open
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