Systematic News Suppression in Today’s U.S.
by Eric Zuesse
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern
Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, and in the 1980s chaired the National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President’s Daily Brief. But now retired, he’s a critic of the very same government he had spent his career representing, and especially of its virtually fully controlled press, which he claims misrepresents systematically, as if it were owned outright by the controlling owners of the very same mega-corporations that manufacture and sell weapons to the Pentagon and to its allied militaries in Europe and the Middle East. Basically as a “military-industrial complex” scam upon the public, but really as a military-industrial-media complex, which is even more powerful than the more limited type that Eisenhower had warned against.
Here, then, is from an interview that Ray McGovern did on Talk Nation Radio, on April 24th:
Two days later, four senior senators, okay, three Democrats — let’s see if I can remember them — Feinstein, Wyden [it was actually not Wyden but the other Senator from Oregon, Jeff Merkley], the fellow up there in Massachusetts [Ed Markey], and [in addition to those three, the independent Senator] Bernie Sanders — they issue a call, a letter to then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Look, this is really getting out of hand. We don’t like the fact that Putin is brandishing these weapons that we really haven’t ever heard of before, but he’s calling for arms control talks, so let’s talk. Let’s talk. Guess what? That appeal appeared on all those four senators’ websites but was totally — totally — ignored by what passes for the mainstream media. So one suspects that this is an unwelcome subject, and there is proof positive.
The last thing I’ll mention, we were talking about four senior senators [Merkley is actually Oregon’s junior Senator] appealing for arms control talks on their websites but it never getting past their websites, no publicity for it. I’m thinking that Chuck Schumer [a reliable agent of the “military-industrial complex”] said, No, no. Arms control, no, no. We’re making the devil incarnate Vladimir Putin. Don’t mention arms control talks.
So that’s the reality in the mainstream media. When Trump had the audacity to say, You know, Putin won the election, he’s going to be around for six more years. Probably I’ll send him a congratulatory telegram [5:51 inaudible]. His staff says, No, no, no, don’t congratulate him. No, no, no, don’t congratulate him. Well, he not only congratulates him but he says, You know, the situation is such that we ought to get together sooner rather than later, and we ought to talk about arms control.
For those of your audience who listen to The New York Times website or read what’s in The New York Times, they are totally oblivious to that, because the Times cut out — they did a lede, a title or a headline, saying “Trump calls for arms control talks.” Now, that lasted 2 hours. What I’m trying to say here is that the only conclusion here is the old, hackneyed military-industrial-Congressional-intelligence-media complex. You ran a conference on the fiftieth anniversary of Eisenhower’s speech on the military-industrial complex. Well, it’s gotten worse, astronomically worse. And the people who make the arms, the people who sell arms, the people that Pope Francis, to his credit, before Congress two and a half years ago called “the blood-drenched arms traders,” those are the people that are running the show. And Putin and his folks are sitting back in Moscow and they’re saying, Whoa, we thought the military-industrial complex had a hold on Obama, and we were right. Now it looks even worse.
This is America’s ‘democracy’ today. How can it be a democracy if the public get deceived so systematically — both Parties, just the same? The public are deceived in order to pump up the stock-values of the privately owned (which is crucial here; and, by contrast, Russia’s weapons-firms remain state-controlled, so as not similarly to become tails that wag the Government) corporations, such as Lockheed Martin; or, for another example of this, Amazon, whose only profitable division is the one selling to the federal Government — to the CIA, NSA, and Pentagon — cloud computing services, which Amazon division is so profitable that it turns the entire Amazon corporation’s red ink, from Amazon’s consumer divisions, into black ink overall, which profitability keeps owner Jeff Bezos’s net worth rising to what it now is — and he also just happens to own the Russia-hating Washington Post. Is that anti-Russia stance a mere coincidence? Bezos’s purchase of the WP wasn’t a business decision to increase his net worth? Really? What a lucky fellow he must be!
Here is that letter, from Feinstein, Merkley, Markey, and Sanders, which was ignored by the press.
The letter that McGovern referred to, opens:
We write to urge the State Department to convene the next U.S.-Russia Strategic Dialogue as soon as possible.
A U.S.-Russia Strategic Dialogue is more urgent following President Putin’s public address on March 1st when he referred to several new nuclear weapons Russia is reportedly developing.
It then states:
Senior officials from the United States and Russia have said that the INF Treaty plays an “important role in the existing system of international security.” As such, we urge the State Department to resolve Russia’s violation through existing INF Treaty provisions or new mutually acceptable means.
Second, we urge the United States to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). The Trump administration’s own 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) references Russia’s robust nuclear modernization program as a main justification behind the U.S. need to recapitalize its three legs of the nuclear triad. An extension of New START would verifiably lock-in the Treaty’s Central Limits – and with it – the reductions in strategic forces Russia has made…
Lastly, as the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review notes, Russia maintains a numerical advantage to the United States in the number of non-strategic nuclear weapons. The Senate, in its Resolution of Ratification on New START in 2010, took stock of this imbalance and called upon the United States to commence negotiations that would “secure and reduce tactical nuclear weapons in a verifiable manner.” Attempts by the Obama administration to negotiate an agreement on this class of weapons met resistance from Russia. However, even absent the political space for a formal agreement or binding treaty with Russia, we urge the State Department to discuss ways to enhance transparency on non-strategic nuclear weapons.
Extending New START, resolving Russia’s INF violation, and enhancing transparency measures relating to non-strategic nuclear weapons will also help quiet growing calls from many countries that the United States is not upholding its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations.
A Google-search of the concluding key phrase — the one which is essential to any news-report about this letter, the phrase beginning “Extending New START, resolving Russia’s INF violation, and enhancing transparency measures relating to non-strategic nuclear weapons will also help quiet growing calls from many countries that the United States is not” — produces no major media at all, and few even of alleged ‘alternative’ media. That is breathtaking, and Ray McGovern pointed it out. Thank you, Ray McGovern! Was this letter, from four U.S. Senators, not “News That’s Fit to Print”? Not in any of those ‘news’ media? Really?
The present news report is being submitted for publication, without fee, to all U.S. newsmedia, many small media, and also to many major media in America’s allied countries.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
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Holy moly, Holy cow, Black Cat , White Cat (film classic) , the holy grail >> this looks really interesting and right up my street. I’ll probably have to spend the whole day conTEMPLATE-ing and endeavouring to construct something coherent on these matters : coz’ this is not just about news “suppression” in reality, it is about the “REGULATION, Orchestration & Engineering of the News”, with Rhythms of Change & Cycles, in order to get the desired societal reactions, in order to Herd & Swarm the >> ” ** Barbarous Multitudes ** ” and their easily fed/primed primal instincts .. (as Shylock would have said .. when discussing his self declared intention) “I shall not jump with common spirit or mingle with the ..** ” Because, if you knew why you were really being sent off to fight a war, or battle for control, the vast majority would wander into… Read more »
Feinstein, Merkley, Markey, and Sanders themselves are not opponents of the American Empire nor are they advocates of peace.
They represent a certain view within the American Empire that seeks “arms control” agreements because they fear America is behind Russia in the development of certain weapons systems, and they hope to limit this gap and allow the USA to catch up.
In other words, even when America purports to offer arms control negotiations, it is not done out of any desire for peace, but rather is a Machiavellian tactic to advance America’s ultimate, indeed its one true goal: American world dominance.
‘Full Spectrum Dominance’, USAma-nothing less will do for God’s current favourite ‘Chosen People’.
“They represent a certain view within the American Empire that seeks “arms control” agreements because they fear America is behind Russia in the development of certain weapons systems, and they hope to limit this gap and allow the USA to catch up.”
LOL the US behind Russia in terms of military tech is so far from the truth its absurd.
Russia buys all their drones from Israel because they performed that badly in the Georgian conflict.
Drones are the future of military conflict and the US is far ahead of Russia there.
I don’t think in the country Britain anyone has ever known a free and uncontrolled media, total-control was exercised before and during the 1st world war over print media, though it might arguably have relaxed slightly during the twenties, probably only to disseminate the prejudices of their proprietors. No sooner than had wireless reached an audience outside of enthusiasts for the technical aspects poking at hit-and-miss crystal-set point contact rectifiers (which were only ever viable for those living in very near range of transmitters) then it too came under government control, with Reith as head of the then newly formed British Broadcasting Company, later Corporation, very probably blackmailed over homosexual relationships quite at odds with his upright and religious public persona, submitting to becoming a government mouthpiece around the time of the miners and then General Strike (1926), when the government itself was driven to produce a propaganda newsheet which… Read more »
I don’t think it is the media that has changed as such. It is more the sheer volume and amount of that propaganda. Also it is the general public and their media habits. It has become a constant companion for a lot of people now. I remember when I was a child my gran used to tell me about a friend she had. Who having just got a radio for the first time said.. My radio ses tes gonna rain today. What en your,n say. I think it was such a small part of the peoples over all narrative in years past. Unlike today where its a constant presence and a relentless bombardment all around people. I also think that people in general had a more sensible and rounded approach to it. They were not so sucked in. Television has been a great tool for the state. People are far… Read more »
The biggest problem is that controlled opposition and “alternative media” on the internet is so prevalent now that the advantages of the internet that once existed are actually becoming disadvantages in bringing about resistance.
See the “alternative” media in almost agreement on how great and altruistic Putin’s government is. Which is a load of obviously disproven nonsense,
Always good to read the views of a real Yankee Doodle patriot.
I’m British actually.
Just think it’s important to get the facts straight on Putin. There are no political saviours, no easy “good” or “bad” choice and Putin is clearly looking out for himself to a large extent.
It appears to me that Mr. Putin is looking out for his country.
This is true. Far too many people who ought to know better are effectively taking the opposite of the MSM narrative and making this their world view. So if the media says “Putin is an avaricious thug”, for example, they say “Nonsense! Putin is an altruistic saint!”
Binary thinking and hero worshipping certain heads of state…along with attributing geopolitical events and scenarios to the actions of supernaturally powerful and diabolically inclined individuals who control the world via their will alone is, sadly, what passes for informed and critical thought for much of the internet-era left.
Bit patronising, no? “Why can’t other people be clever and nuanced like me?”
My personal opinion on Putin, and a lot of other things is – what does the evidence tell me. Shall we agree the evidence for Putin being a thug is currently minimal to none, and the evidence for him being a guy who got into office determined to improve his nation’s standing and the lives of his countrymen is quite considerable?
Is that binary thinking or simple observation?
“.. total-control was exercised before and during the 1st world war over print media,…”
This is not true. Before the First World War there was little, if any, censorship of print media. In fact there was a lively radical and Socialist Press.
I concede you may have a point, but not a strong one. I’ll grant too that your comments are often well-founded and rivetting informative reads, so I’m not spoiling for an argument. I recognise too that this is taking this thread of the discussion further from the more important and immediate concerns of our present day predicament and don’t want to get too far down this cul-de-sac. I really meant beginning with the build-up to that war, there must have been some preconditioning of the masses, when before general conscription, so many went off like lemmings, expecting to be ‘home again by christmas’. There is evidence that the British deep-state well before the outbreak of war, possibly as far back 1908, decided upon a confected Belgian pretext as the public justification for their entering the looming conflict for which all but Germany and Austria were spoiling, quite outside of the… Read more »
@Tony M. I agree with your view that control of the British press goes back to the beginning of the 20th century, and have posted once or twice on the similarity of our present situation and that described by Hilaire Belloc in, The Free Press. In WW1 many major writers were working for a govt office as propaganda hacks, sincere in their belief that Germans were “milatiristic”. The famous writers of 1890-1920 — Buchan, Kipling, Chesterton, Shaw — were the literature boyhood, and their Germans (like my Germans in the Hitler years) were regimented warriors. So it was quite a surprise to go back earlier in the 19th century and find an English Literature inhabited by Germans of a genial, bucolic, even philosophical nature. Of course the Court itself was still quite German — at least up till the death of Victoria, and this must have been a factor in… Read more »
Thanks for this. I hadn’t even considered the field of actual fiction writing – though the daily news is very much a form of fiction too – powerfully targetting a receptive and gullible audience, the impact of which must have been considerable and the timescale over which it operated far longer in advance than the chip-wrapper daily press. Buchan was most certainly on the government payroll propaganda arm by 1914 when The 39 Steps was written, being first serialised in and giving a boost to the by then flagging Edinburgh-published Blackwood’s Magazine.
Moustache twirling villains in spiked helmets were by then probably common-fare.
Belloc, discussing Britain in The Free Press, publishing in 1917 suggests a free press had not existed for some 20 years, hence 1897.
“Is not everything which the regime desires to be suppressed, suppressed? Is not everything which it desires suggested, suggested? And is there any public question which would weaken the regime, and the discussion of which is ever allowed to appear in the great Capitalist journals?
There has not been such a case for at least twenty years.”
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18018/
I think the first world war situation, the with respect to the propaganda and the origins of that war, which Britain inarguably schemed and planned for years to get going, is far far worse than anyone could ever imagine. This site and the now two meticulous books on the subject, look like essential reading for students, the curious and serious historians, which expertly take everything you thought you knew and stand the whole thing on its head. There will be tears, confusion, anger and much more reading even a part of this. The sheer audacity and mendacity of the deceits perpetrated to get the thing going, and keep it going, the wilful deliberate cold calculated slaughter of many millions of the finest and bravest of all nations are truly shocking and the cover-ups continue to this day. The Secret Origins of the First World War by Gerry Docherty and Jim… Read more »
Sorry for the messy multiple links, the best start point infact would be:
https://firstworldwarhiddenhistory.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/lies-damned-lies-and-commemorations-2/
and use the Next button to take you to subsequent installments, if you dare …
I’m glad McGovern expanded the far more cliched ‘military-industrial complex’ to ‘military-industrial-Congressional-intelligence-media’, drafts of Eisenhower’s speech did include Congress too but it was edited down to the more catchy MIC. Media is less of an addition but a multiplier. It’s the missile-gap, or the Brown-Windsor Soup gap all over again. But do these Senators (was it? I’m a bit of a naif on American politics) really want to bring about de-escalation or to ramp up Amercian spending and weapons stockpiles to match possibly incorrect guesstimates of Russian capabilities? I certainly don’t want to see more, and more deadly toys in the hands of these loons. The horrifying spectre of a unipolar world seems to be receding, but Putin won’t be around for ever, sadly (and I mean that most sincerely, folks) though I no more want a bi-polar (lol) world than a multi-polar world, but a non-polar world. A nuclear-weapons… Read more »
In the hopes to get newer pictures on the lava eruption in my neighborhood of Leilani Estates on the Big Island of Hawai’i, I had tuned into ‘NTV’, the German dependent of the Western media Krake. The quality of this propaganda outlet is sub par to even the ‘Bild’ printed rag, but I would endure great mediocrity to get more info on the rapidly spreading lava eruption now 500 yards from what I consider my home. Then I had to turn this liquid manure spreader like outlet off when, instead of informing people about important developments in the world, a report was shown about the putting into operations of the new presidential limousine. Under the title: “Zar Putin’s new limousine.” Like all the other main feces media outlets – …owned outright by the controlling owners of the very same mega-corporations that manufacture and sell weapons to the Pentagon and to… Read more »
As I have said before here, in Roman times there was “Panes et Circenses” (Bread & Circuses) but now we have to pay for both. But the gladiators under Spartacus were much smarter than we are, though it didn’t end well for them…
@notheonly1: “Sorry, got to go, there is a football/soccer/tennis/polo/rugby/game on, a boxing/golf/running/swimming/surfing championship, a nascar/formula 1/motorcycle race”.
Gosh, for a moment I thought I was viewing my family Whatsup. Tried to introduce there a few topics like the ones here on OffG — streng verboten.
Am I getting old, or is there really a more conformist attitude these days? Or am I the one who is crassly destroying the delicate bloom on the flower of everyday conversation by trying to introduce a “controversial topic”?
It is very painful. Just to imagine to what extend evolution progressed regarding Homo Sapiens to arrive where? The issue is even more encompassing when applied to ‘controversial topics/views’ – as if there is no more area in the constantly busy brain of ‘Homo Millenniens’ vacant, to view such alternative point-of-views, or to elaborate on differing insights. The traditional practice of debating seems to be all but lost, if it ever existed in Western societies to the extend it is part of Eastern philosophy. To have a view differing from the ‘main stream’ mindset is becoming outright dangerous. On a side note and regarding the offerings on German TV I had this realization today: “Show me the Television programming of a Nation and I can tell you who the people of that Nation are.” Question number one in any meaningful conversation should still be “What do you think life is… Read more »
Reblogged this on circusbuoy.
Meanwhile back at the M,S,M. Kim Kardashian wore a dress, Megan and Harry are getting married, Some random cleb took some cloths off. Well we cant have hoi polloi thinking or gaining knowledge can we. It is so blatant and so obvious. The tendrils of the deep state have enveloped and permeated all media. Every thing has become an exercise in manipulation and mind control. It is rolled out in mantra over and over. On all sides, on all channels and in all the papers and magazines. We will tell you what to think. We will tell you who to trust, War is peace because. We are waging it. We are the good and the good are the bad. This all enhanced by the stream of brain numbing, soul corrupting vacuous tittle tattle. It is like the snake that consumed the world. The control of the narrative is obviously now… Read more »
On the matter of the congratulation of Vladimir Putin: Jeremy Corbyn’s exact words (from Hansard): It was surprising that any democratic leader saw fit to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his election. I hope the Prime Minister will show the same consistency this week by refusing to congratulate President Sisi of Egypt on his sham re-election to office. President Putin’s re-election has been preceded in the past year not just by the abuses that we have already discussed, and that the Russian state has committed or abetted overseas, but by blatant abuses at home as well. Full quote: https://off-guardian.org/2018/04/22/alexander-shulgin-to-the-opcw/#comments Full Speech: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-03-26/debates/B5EF4CEE-D0E9-4613-81C4-DDD9F03015EE/NationalSecurityAndRussia He will be our prime representative and chief negotiator (along with Emily “we need a to re-arm” Thornberry) if there is a Labour government. Just in case anyone thinks the present Russophobia will be diffused: especially when they put a Magnitsky sanctions law into force …for Bill Browder: on… Read more »
Corbyn said in that HoC debate on 26th March 18… “Based on the analysis conducted by Government scientists, there can be little doubt that the nerve agent used in this attack was military-grade Novichok of a type manufactured by Russia”. and “That suggests that just over a decade ago Russia invested in the use of nerve agents and developed new stockpiles of Novichok to that end. There is clear evidence that the Russian state has a case to answer, and it has failed to do so. We can therefore draw no other conclusion than that Russia has a direct or indirect responsibility for this”. Craig Murray refuted that analysis in his blog on 22nd March 18 “Boris Johnson a categorical liar” This sworn Court evidence direct from Porton Down is utterly incompatible with what Boris Johnson has been saying. The truth is that Porton Down have not even positively identified… Read more »
Have any of the Porton Down scientists ‘committed suicide’ yet?
I believe the correct usages is ‘..have been suicided…
Some committed professional suicide by refusing to say Russia made the Novichoks ‘used’ in Salisbury…..
The Guardian today has a LUDICROUS story concerning the outrage being expressed because the Murdochite controlled but, putatively, Government owned ABC, had a Russian journalist as a guest, who dared to defend Putin, and-God help us all-mention the inconvenient truth that the Ukrainian regime had been installed in a fascist putsch!!! So, in the glorious ‘Free World’ it is fine to have literally scores of commenters who compete to be the most abusive, hypocritical and frankly mendacious in abusing Russia as the seat of Evil in the world, and Putin as some sort of ‘New Hitler’, but one speaker appears who contradicts that universal Groupthink, and the Imperial fascists go ape-shit and commence chewing the carpet, furniture and other fittings. Can they conceivably grow any more foul?
@BigB. So, even if a Corbyn govt manages to introduce some socialist policies it will be like the Attlee govt: anti-Russian and pro-Nuclear? Domestic sanity but raving Lunacy outside the house.
Good proof if there ever was that the news media in the US – and by extension in other English-speaking countries – now simply functions as the self-censoring, self-filtering public relations arm of an almighty octopoid-like monster that has grown within the shell and structures of governments and their bureaucracies, but whose brain is directed by corporations (with their fingers in several pies including the arms industry and finance), think tanks and their lobbyists.
Whatever doesn’t register in the mainstream media of the Police States of America also won’t register in the Australian MSM.
That is a very good summary, I think.
Blissfully walking into nuclear Armageddon is the best way to describe it .Get me another beer hon , will you ….