During an interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski (1/25/12), NBC‘s Today host Ann Curry said this:
Well, one of the key topics that we have been hearing a lot about is all of this concern about Iran. You know what’s been happening, the concerns, the tensions in the Straits of Hormuz, the concerns about Iran’s rise in its efforts, everybody believes, in creating nuclear power–not only nuclear power, but nuclear weapons. Are we headed, in your view, based on all you know, for war with Iran?
Of course “everyone” doesn’t believe that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. More to the point, no one has been able to show that they are. It’s important to ask questions about whether we’re headed towards war with Iran. But journalism that treats allegations about Iran as facts doesn’t do anyone any good.
The graphic in that screen grab caught my eye.
Aside from the question of what is “great” about America – as well as what is the definition of “America” – the phrasing tells you a great deal about the state of objectivity in the world of the corpress, doesn’t it?
Good catch Doug!! It was subliminal to me and probably thousands of others. Yeah, it is amazing how the MSM spew propaganda, and profess to be experts. That’s why I watch RT, or research the net. Be watching for a false flag event on the USS Enterprise to get Americans to tolerate or demand an attack Iran. America, don’t be fooled!!!!
Doug and Mike have it right. Mainstream media are so biased that they overlook that Secretary Panetta has said that Iran has no nuclear weapons program.
“Everyone” doesn’t include such lightweights as Mossad, the CIA, or the Department of Defense. Other than those three, “everyone” (meaning MItt Romney) knows Iran is building nukes.
I believe McLuhan had it right with his statement about the media being the message. It’s especially true among a population of dimwitted, willfully ignorant people, like we have here in the U.S.
If you have questions that need to be answered right away, or want to write to NBC News personnel, our address and phone number are:
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(212) 664-4602
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/3079108/ns/today/t/about-today/#.TypT7tWK-Ag
another number:
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tell the receptionist you’d like to leave a message for the Today Show anchor and you’ll be transferred to the voice mail.
In the message I also referenced these articles by Ray McGovern at Consortiumnews:
http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/01/divining-the-truth-about-iran/
http://consortiumnews.com/2012/01/24/usisrael-iran-not-building-nukes/
NO Pearl Hormuz, TOJObama and Bibihito!
Ann dear, try to stick with the facts. No one, including you knows for sure if Iran is developing nuclear weapons and therefore it is inappropriate to suggest otherwise !
Dear media owners:
So many talking heads on television seem to be saying the same thing, which is very strange, because what they are saying does not match actual stated facts from many in government: Iran has no nuclear bomb and isn’t making one.
Do the talking heads actually really research anything? If not, why do you have them? Wouldn’t it just be easier to not have any regular talking heads? Just hire the lobbyists to write the news and have them deliver it too. I bet you wouldn’t have to even pay them, or have you already considered this?
I don’t have a TV. The real information ( researched and discussed) is on the internet. Why don’t you get this? Pretty much “Everyone” knows this.
She just does what “sells” and laughs all the way to the bank.
Ann Curry is merely proving she can read the teleprompter which is spoon fed by her boss, GE-the largest defense contractor on the planet!
You would think that after the Iraq debacle, people would be wise to government propaganda that seeks to foment war in the Mideast with lies again–to the country right next to the last nation America invaded on false pretenses, no less. President Obama has learned all the wrong lessons from the Bush administration, and there are far too many Democratic voters that don’t see Obama for who he is.
The U.S. has even gone back to running dirty wars in Central and South America again. What a country.
A British historian, A.J.P. Taylor, once said: “Though the object of being a Great Power is to be able to fight a Great War, the only way of remaining a Great Power is not to fight one.”
If you recall, America was able to stay out of the world wars longer than other major powers and suffered fewer losses. Other major powers had already sunk considerable blood and treasure in great wars before we entered them.
During the Cold War, Russia had thousands of nuclear missiles pointed at us and nobody went to war. After the Cold War, however, the U.S. engaged in one military incursion after another, even when America’s interests were not at stake. It’s almost as though we comb the planet looking for another fight.
GE/NBC has Corporate Fascist Capitalism down to a science. (As do their peers)
Sell a war.
Sell weapons to escalate and implement a war.
Sell medical devices to patch the wounded in a war.
It’s full circle profiteering. Yay! USA USA USA!
…I’m not sold.
Today it was reported through gov channels that IRAN is moving to develop a rocket that can deliver a pay role on the continental US.Lions and tigers and bears oh my.Elaine is slipping her line in the sand.It sounds as if she is saying “even if they get one so what”. No we will not allow that slide into the abyssWeI will stick to a different road………Iran has sworn on a stack of Korans that they have no intentions what so ever- of developing or obtaining nuclear weapons or delivery system.WE now take them, and hold them to their word.If they are lying……….I say again LYING- then they have proven beyond any shadow of doubt to be the evil danger to our national security many now frame them to be.No Elaine they can not have it both ways.There will be no slippery slope here.It is one way or another.Peace or confrontation.It is totally their choice.If they are lying about this……….their word is worthless.Then our line in the sand must turn into a wall of steel.As I said before they should be proud we take them at their words.We believe and accept their threats.When those threats are said without nuclear weapons we may decide to watch and wait.If Iran arms without rescinding these threats……………Can you see a way short of appeasement of a deadly threat, in the hands of madmen ,that could forestall confrontation?
And before I get a million admonitions against launching a war against Iran-that is not what i am saying.During the cold war with Russia much time passed.Little of it was good for either of our two peoples.It was fraught with danger,and peril for all the people of the world.This will be no different.Iran armed and threatening the coming of the Imam is not a cosy fireside story for the kids.NOTHING good can come of this.Even if you look at it from Irans national security perspective it is insanity.UNLESS….unless you actually listen to the threats they make.
I don’t think there is a conspiracy here or if even much of this is willful. It does however reflect the fact that the MSM folks talk mostly to one another and their government sources. They are for the most part not well read and lack any expertise on the topics they cover. At the same time they are not anxious to create any kind of controversy that would annoy their sponsors. Public Media is not much better. National Pusillanimous Radio used to be better but they too have fallen into the trap of objectivity trying to give both sides of an issue even if one is patently based on misinformation. They are also concerned about maintaining the good will of their funding sources. For these reasons I do not give them any money.
Is there any other country I (and others) should be afraid of so that we can get everything over with at once and realize our vision of ending tyranny on earth and getting rid of all crazies? Any other monsters we should go in search of? Any other country we can badger until we have righted everything? Any other government we can topple in our perpetual war for Pax Americana? It’s a big world. There’s lots of other countries with which we can collide.
Though I believe that many of the contributors above are excellent, let me run something by you that no one seems to have noticed. My thesis is that the only way out of all this parnoia is to allow anyone to have nuclear weapons. Consider the following sequence.
In 1962 there was the Cuban missle crisis. I was in college then and wondered if I would ever get to see my parents again. In the end, the Soviet Union got the U.S. to agree not to attack Cuba if they withdrew the missles. Accidentally, the paradigm for peace was created, a small and isolated nation can only survive if it has nuclear weapons and can deliver them.
Next came North Korea, who developed their own nuclear weapons and delivery system, which allowed fortheir survival but keeps them poor.
Next came Libya, which, had it actually developed nuclear weapons, would never have been invaded. Libya has such a small population that it could never succeed in this attempt.
Now it is the isolated nation of Iran. The constant threats against the regime by the US and Israel is the real reason why they would want to develop nuclear weapons, but they say thier religion forbids such things.
Ergo, it would be a benefit for all mankind if they got the weapons, though I think they are not pursuing their development. If they did have the bomb, maybe that would cure the rampant warmongering and warmaking by Israel, who has killed perhaps a qurter of a million in its paranoid rampages through the decades.
Lawrence: Iran feels threatened and why not, given the constant threats from the U.S. & Israel. They look at regime change in neighboring countries and think, “We’re next.” One of the primary reasons for draconion economic sactions is to try to destabilize the country with the hopes of regime change.
Iran is told that if it continues to try to build or ever acquire a nuclear weapon, the U.S. will take its endless threats seriously. These are unwarranted assumptions. Could someone please justify them, in the light of Panetta’s statement?
Does the U.S. want to sink its own economy in pursuit of endless war? And, of course, we insist that future wars be modeled after our smashing successes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What we are seeing is the similar build up to attack as what happened twice with Iraq. Lying an spreading it like saying that Iran is very close to have not only an H-bomb but a missile to launch it—–at the USA! Such garbage. But the only reason Iran would spend so much capital an pool their biggest brains to it is that it could keep Nuclear Israel at bay. (Probably the one behind the killing of those Iranian nuclear scientists.) N. Korea is the model. Even the USA backed off threatening them all because of the nukes.
@michael e: I question the credibility– and, to be honest, the actual existence– of these “gov channels” and other sources you often refer to with regard to Iran.
And what the hell is a pay role? Like a paying role in a movie or something?
Now who would be that government official (reporting through government channels) that said Iran is developing a missile that could reach the U.S.?
That would be a senior Israeli official and the U.S., upon hearing this, said that such a statement was “at best premature” and, at worst, “badly exaggerated.”
@ elaine: ‘Does the U.S. want to sink its own economy in pursuit of endless war? ‘
The global corporations & banks do not care about American citizens. They pay our “politicians” to carry out their for-profit agenda, and when this country is totally bankrupt, they’ll move on. We are mere replaceable parts in a machine built for total global dominance. They, on the other hand, continue to amass more and more of the world’s wealth.
I always wonder whether some in those industries will look back in horror and regret at what they caused.
Sirk: I agree with you. Global corporations and banks exist to make money and they don’t care how. However, the war in Iraq has cost us…what?….about a trillion dollars? Then factor in the cost of caring for soldiers who could require a lifetime of medical care due to the nature of their injuries and that trillion could balloon to two trillion. Think of what we could have done here with two trillion dollars, just rebuilding our infrastructure and creating jobs. We’re still in Afghanistan. A third war is unthinkable. It’s easy to get in a war and quite another matter to get out and to deal with unintended consequences.
In fact, two unpaid for wars, put on credit cards, is one of the reasons we have the big debt problem we have. Who will pay for more wars? The Chinese? Do we take it out of a constantly weakened social safety net? This is what I meant when I said that endless war will sink our economy.
As for corporations/banks, the U.S. needs to get tough. For starters, end tax breaks for companies that outsource jobs. Bring back Glass-Steagall. Why do we still have NAFTA? A new trade pact with Asian countries is in the works, with a big push, from corporate interests, to eliminate “Buy American.” Why should this be allowed? In short, there may be things we can do but enough politicians are in cahoots with corporations to not allow it.
Sirk: More info from “Public Citizen Global Trade Watch.” The U.S. is negotiating a new trade deal called the Trans-Pacific FTA trade deal. U.S. trade negotiators are negotiating a deal that will “ban Buy America and establish new investor rights, incentives, and protections for U.S. manufacturers to move production offshore to low wage venues.” It advises us to call Joe Biden who is a strong supporter of American manufacturing.
However, it drives home the point that here is something we can control but with both hands we undermine our own manufacturing base.
Elaine: The Iraq war has cost US TAXPAYERS a lot, in terms of money and lives. (Sadly, it has cost the Iraqi people more.) But where did the money go? It didn’t spontaneously combust into dust particles; it was transferred to the coffers of corporate defense industries and the banks who bankroll them. (This is a fairly simplistic explanation of global finance.) Have you ever read Gen. Smedley Butler’s treatise, “War is a Racket”? It is available on the internet. Back in the 1920’s, Gen Butler wrote:
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.
How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?
Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few — the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.
And what is this bill?
This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations…
I couldn’t have said it any better. War is hell for everyone in it, except those few who make fortunes from everybody’s misery and death.
Humans don’t always act in a rational way, especially under stress. So many nuclear bombs, so many countries, so many chances for reptilian REactions as opposed to humanist REflections. A world wide nuclear winter.
I think everyone should read “Darkness,” a poem by George Gordon- Lord Byron.
Sorry John I meant pay load.
I wonder if we can’t all agree to a simple thing.Iran says they have no plans to ever develop the bomb.Lets agree it would be better if they did not.A very wise move.A move toward stabilizing their place among the world body.Of course there are those who feel they need it to avoid imminent invasion by the US.Yeah thats gonna happen.If they have been lying we must accept that and prepare for more lies.It is their choice
I’m guessing that fascist, warmongering, geo-strategist prick, Brzezinski said, “Yes, we need to go to war with Iran. They are a grave and gathering threat”. After all, going to war with Iran has been the holy grail for all the fascist hawks in Washington for several decades now.
That’s right, Jack: The new war (same as the old war, the one in Iraq) is being ginned up with, in most cases, the exact same lies. Our troll, as usual, is utterly incoherent–the evil Obama is only right when threatening (or actually engaging in) idiotic, insane wars and general violence. Thanks to Sirk and Elaine for the thoughtful posts.
Tim Obama is not threatening war.Israel is not threatening war.And Iran has sworn on a stack of Koran’s that they have no designs on a bomb.And as long as we can believe in Irans word….there is no chance of escalation.Maybe it is all so much talk.Maybe not.I do believe Obama every day and twice on Sunday over Iran’s looneys.If BAM says they are not building a bomb I will tend to believe him.If he says the are,same thing.I believe nothing Iran’s leadership says.But who knows,maybe there are no “GAYS” in Iran :)I will say it again Looney!!