Uncle Sam Has You

Glenn Greenwald continues his admirable journey into the heart of propaganda darkness that helped grease the skids of public opinion for the United States to invade Iraq and ameliorate public outrage over its detainee abuses. In addition to keeping his own spotlight fixed on what should have been one of the most explosive and covered stories in a long time, Greenwald's own example of how a real journalist might actually behave - and what stories to which he or she should actually pay attention - is throwing into stark relief the yawning chasm between the press that we have and the press that we so desperately need.

But there is another powerful lesson to be derived from this lamentable state of our national discourse. In today's column, Greenwald highlights a typical response from figures in the media to the near-total silence over the military propaganda story:

On the Los Angeles Times blog a couple of weeks ago, Scott Collins opined that the principal reason the military analyst story had "no legs" (meaning that the original NYT story received so little subsequent coverage in the establishment media) is this:

Many Americans confronted with stories of media manipulation by government officials aren't, at this point, shocked and awed. Instead they've come to expect it. Increasingly, they consider the media simply a mouthpiece for whoever has the most power. You don't have to tell John Q. Public that the fix is in; he takes it for granted. . . .

So, many Americans, confronted with evidence that TV's talking heads are taking orders not just from government officials but also military-contractor clients, can be excused for not being all that surprised.

Greenwald noted that another - and arguably far more widespread - assumption pervades the public consciousness: that the media has a decided "liberal bias."  This is a highly important counter-point.  However, regardless of how many Americans might believe there is a prevailing liberal bias in the media, versus how many assume that retired military officials appearing on TV are not the objective "military analysts" they claim to be, a brief glimpse at the resulting media coverage of such themes belies the substance of Collins' point.

Despite the presumed perception of the public that the media is liberal, examples of the establishment media showcasing examples of other outlets' supposed liberal bias abound.  One prominent example is the establishment media's near-total hostile swarming around the New York Times for its story alleging improprieties between John McCain and a female lobbyist.

One must ask, if widespread public assumption that military analysts are biased is an excuse for the media's completely ignoring a story about blatantly illegal propaganda operations, why then didn't the establishment media similarly ignore the New York Times' "smear" of John McCain, based on the excuse that the public assumes the New York Times to be liberally biased?

This glaring double standard, I believe, points to a larger point about our political and media cultures.  But first, the obvious: I think it is beyond dispute that the establishment media does not want to draw further attention to the military propaganda story because, quite simply, it makes them look weak, dishonest, and substantially responsible for the egregious "national security" abuses of the now-reviled Bush administration.  After all, they are the story, and it is not a pretty one.

More importantly, however, the gross unwillingness of the establishment media to cover this story points to a much more pernicious bedrock source: innate and rampant militarism in our political and media cultures.  Far more so than the argument that the media blackout was due to widespread public assumption of the bias of military analysts, it is clear that the media simply wanted to believe - that they were, in philosophy, already virtually indistinguishable from the Pentagon itself during the run-up to and execution of the Iraq War.  Accordingly, for the establishment media to shine a brighter light on the military's domestic propaganda operations would be to painfully confront their own implicit and deep-rooted psychology of militarism and aggressive foreign policy.

Our most powerful media outlets and luminaries were not unwilling participants in the Pentagon's domestic propaganda war, they were eager and mirthful partners.  I remember distinctly, with the rolling nausea that comes from witnessing the unreal become real, the cable news shows in 2002 and 2003 with "journalists" giddily chatting with retired generals about the latest weaponry, and how it might be used in Iraq.  "Shock and Awe" became an instant pop-cultural hit, an almost singular expression of America's infatuation with its own perceived exceptionalism, as millions tuned in each day and night to witness scenes via satellite of Baghdad exploding and burning.  I remember, on the first night of Shock and Awe, the national bloodthirst and convulsion of blind aggression rolling overpoweringly out over the American psyche like tanks rolling out onto the roads and sands of Iraq.  I even remember college kids driving throughout town, in repeated circles, blaring the Outkast song "Bombs Over Baghdad" through their open windows with the ugly, defiant glee of bullies.

Truly, this story of "military analysts" mainlining raw, unadulterated war propaganda directly into our media and national bloodstream is really just a microcosm of the story of our media's own, built-in militarism, which is itself a microcosm of a larger and more frightening tendency in this country to view war and aggression as a vicarious reaffirmance of national - perhaps even personal - greatness.  The establishment media is no more willing to acknowledge its own misbehavior and complicity in our government's worst excesses than many of our own countrymen are willing to stare into their own viciously jingoistic hearts.  Doing so threatens to bring to the surface the bile that inevitably accumulates in the surfeit bellies of a complacent establishment system.