Rabbit hole 2

Into the rabbit hole we went yesterday – it can absorb our energies for months.

Perceptions are part of the the problem. Ours are limited. Another part is the quality of evidence, and yet another the source of evidence, and our abilities to interpret it correctly.

A friend once remarked to me that our view of reality is like that of a ditch digger: we look over the edge and see very little. Yet what we see from this ditch is the whole of our reality, so has to do. A wise person accepts that we don’t see or know much.

Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), spent his career analyzing our interactions with media. Each affects us differently. Some are “hot,” supplying high definition and requiring little viewer participation. Movies, with high quality images, put everything in front of us so that we can sit back and relax and enjoy the show.

Cartoons, on the other hand, are but crude outlines of reality. We have to supply almost everything so that characters come to life. What are Eric Cartman and Kenny, after all, but crude little animated circles?

McLuhan’s definition of a “cool” medium – low definition, high participation – applied to cartoons, telephones, speeches, and television.

Family-watching-Black-and-White-TVTelevision requires that we look into the screen, but it is a flat presentation. In order to use it, we have to supply dimensions, depth and context. We don’t just watch our TV’s. We enter them. Thus does it have such power over us, becomes our reality. If it is on TV, it is real.

This was true Tuesday morning, 9/11/2001 – we did not observe the events of that day. We participated. They are etched in our consciousness. People get angry when skeptics say that the images were fake. Skeptics are saying that reality is fake.

9/11/2001 was a “psyop,” a psychological operation with images well-crafted in advance. Our news media actively engaged in fakery and deceit. But networks were nothing but the willing vessel. Behind those vapid faces and coiffured hairpieces are corporations that are wired to the military-industrial complex and who own and manage our reality.

What do we know for sure? The Twin Towers went away. The Pentagon had a hole. That is all we can say with certainty from the TV images. Since we’ve all talked now to witnesses, we know that World Trade Center complex was destroyed. That was real.

One image given to us, of an aircraft sliding through a building as a knife through butter, is something that cannot happen in real life. (By the way, notice how the building moves in relation to the plane in this GIF image!) There were no eyewitness accounts of that, but it was on TV. Since TV is reality, we have adjusted our reality to fit the images. Newton’s Third Law was suspended that day.

The television networks lied to us. This is proven (a word I seldom use) since the planes hitting the buildings could only go through them by mans of “CGI,” or “computer-generated imagery.” Physical reality does not allow that.

Atta niceBadattaThe television networks owned our minds that day, and served as the conduit by which other lies were fed to us in our traumatized state. We were fed a farcical tale of hijackers, a demonic image of a man in a cave, and “photos” of 19 “hijackers.” One of them, Mohammed Atta, was an obvious “Photoshop” creation, a Freddy Kruger-like image made to enter our nightmares.

Once we know that the television images were contrived for effect, our job is to get out of our ditch and find more and better evidence. But we cannot go places and see things, we cannot know the minds of those who contrived that event. That means that we must decide who we can trust, and who not.

Thus does the rabbit hole provide many turns and tunnels.

Into the rabbit hole

The events of 9/11/01 appear to have been intricately planned on a vast scale. There is  evidence of outside energy directed at the seven buildings of the World Trade Center, and no others.

But only a small portion of the evidence was directed at the American public via their TV sets: buildings emitting smoke and fire and then collapsing. The accompanying narrative was that jet aircraft had hit the buildings.

This imagery targeted at us via our TV sets was accompanied by a story of an evildoer in a cave and nineteen suicidal cohorts.The crime was solved before the day was over.

A third building “collapsed” before our eyes later that day, Building Seven. It did not have the “hijacked aircraft” cover story,  and so its demise was harder to explain. Consequently, to this day, most Americans don’t know about it, much less of the destruction of four other buildings bearing the prefix “WTC.”

The success of the caveman-Arab hijackers cover story, a conspiracy theory, can be attributed to the near religious faith that Americans have in their news media, and also to  a blackout of evidence showing of a much larger and more sophisticated event.  The success of the cover story in the years later is due to the continuing blackout of evidence in our news, education and entertainment systems. Events like the “killing” of Osama bin Laden in 2011 have the effect of giving the official story a booster shot.

To find blacked-out evidence,  people have to take their own initiative and seek out other sources, such as books, lectures, YouTube videos and podcast. Most don’t do that. In fact we are warned away from doing so by the “conspiracy theory” meme, a thought control device.

Here are some of the phenomena of that day that I will cover in subsequent posts, as best as I am able. Some time back I offered some crude mathematics regarding coincidence – that related events can be paired to test the likelihood of their simultaneous occurrence, the “CO” in coincidence. Keep this in mind as we review the following – that is, it can all be explained, but why did it all happen at once?

  • A hurricane, Erin, that originated in the South Atlantic and traversed in a nearly straight line towards New York City, stopping and remaining stationary on the morning of 9/11, and then turning abruptly northeast.

    Hurricane Erin at midday, 9/11/2001
    Hurricane Erin at midday, 9/11/2001
  • The straight line on which the hurricane approached New York City in the immediate days before 9/11 was -15 degrees, or magnetic north. path of erin
  • The hurricane was barely mentioned on local news coverage even as we know that American television news reporters go gaga over hurricanes.
  • At the same time, a massive cold front approached New York City from the east.
  • Consequently, during the events of that day, the World Trade Center complex was between an extreme high pressure system (cold front), and an extreme low pressure system (Erin).
  • During this time, stations that measure fluctuation in the earth’s magnetic fields showed disturbances at precisely the times of the “events” in the complex: The North and South Towers being “hit by aircraft,” the two towers “collapsing,” and finally, around five P.M. Building Seven “collapsing” on its own without benefit of an “aircraft.”
  • After the Building Seven event, the magnetic lines returned to a more normal (though still disturbed) state.
  • During the whole of the day after the buildings experience the supposed aircraft hits,  Building Seven was seen giving off fumes from its west side. The fumes defied wind patterns, and we’re headed upward at forty-five degrees and downward at the same angle, with a division line apparent at two darkened floors around the thirtieth. Seven
  • At the time Building Seven “collapsed” at 5 P.M., it did so silently, registering no significant seismic signal – that is, it had been gutted of its mass.

Do you understand these events? Neither do I. Here are the problems: By not having the raw evidence of that day at our disposal, we don’t know even to wonder about what really happened. But even so, now having the evidence, we lack expertise in science and so are not skilled at interpretation.

So we have to look to ‘experts” to interpret data for us, and just as when the TV that day was spinning lurid lies about hijacked aircraft hitting buildings, we are at their mercy.

Good stopping point.

Ask the question (slightly revised)

[This is a rework of yesterday’s post with revisions to aid in clarity of thought, which ain’t always working for me.]

Often in discussing matters like 9/11 or other false flag events, those of us who don’t buy the official story are challenged to present a plausible alternative. For a true skeptic it is enough to know what cannot be true. As to what really happened, it’s a long and frustrating journey. Keep in mind:

  • Those who did these events are not talking.
  • Even if there are unwitting participants, they fear for their lives, and so are also not talking.
  • Public mythology is part of human history since the beginning of time, a well-understood management tool. Those who manage these events are far ahead of us in planning – i.e. – it is almost an act of e.s.p. to understand the “why” of events such as 9/11 or Boston.
  • Even though skeptical we usually don’t have the expertise needed to fully understand the means by which an event is staged.
  • As the event is “reported” to us we don’t know who we can trust and so are on our own to weather a storm of official “news” media and “scientific” experts.

The people who did these events were smart enough to anticipate that there would be skeptics, and so provided us with bullshit stories when the first bullshit story collapses. Ergo, we are faced with the multi-layered cover-up, the rabbit hole.

Here’s Ron Suskind, a man who passes as a “journalist” in this bullshit land of fables. He interviewed either Karl Rove or Dick Cheney (he’s not allowed to say, part of pthe code of honor of the journalist):

The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I pnodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

So we are left to study the evidence left in the wake of the false flag events secure in the knowledge that the majority of the population is continually fooled and will stay fooled. Even as we do, other events come along to take their place. Those of us who are not convinced are consigned to the margins and subject to ridicule. It is brilliant.

But the official cover stories for these events are ridiculous.  It is only blind faith in authority figures that keeps them alive. Given that they are made up fantasies, there is always some aspect that is so ridiculous as to blow the entire thing out of the water – a lynchpin for skeptics. A few examples:

  • JFK: Commission Exhibit 399.
  • RFK: The official autopsy which says that the bullet that killed him was fired from behind and two inches from his head.
  • MLK: A jury trial finding that the Memphis Police and Fire Departments, the FBI and U.S. military conspired to murder him.
  • 9/11: That jet aircraft flying through concrete and steel as a knife through butter.
  • Boston Bombing: A man in a wheel chair who has lost both lower limbs and who, rather than being dead, is merely grimacing.

That’s enough for the true skeptic to look elsewhere for answers. Given that, the people who plan these events also supply other bullshit cover stories when the original ones fail. People like Richard Gage, Alex Jones, Steven E. Jones, John Lear and Jim Fetzer, to name a few, are  the”second level” of the cover-up. They provide blind alleys. Thus given the absurdity of the cover stories, we are led to other absurdities such as LBJ, the mob, Mossad, controlled demolition, drone aircraft, Mossad, mini-nukes, nano-thermites, stage management by Steven Spielberg and even space aliens dropping by.

It’s hard to watch the original cover stories succeed, but even harder as skeptical people get caught up in the second level. But who are we to challenge the vast American news media or Popular Mechanics or NIST or some other appointed body of appointed experts … it takes some internal fortitude. Even if the bulk of the public is skeptical about the Osama bin Laden caveman story, for instance, they are either afraid to talk to anyone about it for fear of ridicule, or caught up in the second layer.

So it goes. It is a highly sophisticated and effective thought control regime. I’ve been through it, I understand. It’s difficult. Though poll results are kept private on such delicate matters, I assume that even if the bulk of the public is skeptical … they are tuned out. It’s too difficult to imagine such a large conspiracy. The second level of the cover-up also includes a wide array of “debunking” sites to steer people away from real evidence. It is pre-tainted.

In the coming days I am going to offer up some evidence that I have come to believe is reliable enough to derail the official story of some of the major false flag events of our times. It will not be the usual fare already widely circulating, but rather stuff I’ve gathered from tireless and unpaid private researchers who have endured the ridicule and earned my respect. I am not the final judge of character, and can be fooled. But I trust certain people as being men and women of honor. I will relay their findings.

I hope to make it interesting. I don’t have any definitive answers. For me it is enough to know what cannot be true. For the reader, I hope only to assist in that critical first step on the path of learning: Ask the question.

Again with the Lee Enterprises State Bureau! Enough already!

Again with the state bureau … said the nagging spouse.  This time it is the Missoula Independent, Out with the news: Lee’s loss of veteran reporters will lead to greater demise, by Dan Brooks.

There’s a certain amount of delusion and illusion in any country, but in one like ours, where just within the last fourteen years we’ve been sold and told lies on four major wars causing millions of deaths and refugees, and where are own crimes against ourselves and others go uninvestigated … we get words like these:

You can run a newspaper without professional reporters in much the same way you can run a democracy without newspapers: badly.

Perhaps there is truth in those words if Brooks understands that we have “newspapers” in this country in the same sense that Soviet Russia had them: as a façade. Perhaps he is publicly acknowledging that this is not a democracy. But I don’t pick up on any real insight in the piece.

Religious authority figures preen about in phallic headgear, all the while failing to tell us that the Jesus story is really myth. In the political economy, the story of Jesus is replaced by the story of great country with functioning institutions. Police and courts enforce laws, and powerful people have to care about the law. Journalists relay the words of politicians, and the mere act of relaying those words helps us to understand politics. Journalists, acting as both stenographers and megaphones, after years of service, are de facto very good at that job.

In reality, the good ones are squeezed out early on. But as long as we’re pretending, let’s also assert that votes matter and are really counted, and behind those votes exist informed citizens. Even as every politician knows that inside the voting booths are clueless people performing ritual without substance, we have to pretend it matters.

That is the democracy story. Like the Jesus myth, the whole thing was made up by power to serve power.

The people need their myths. So Says Father Foster in the video above. Without it, they are forced to make their own sense of the world, and often come up with explanations that do not please the overlords. (Who, in their right mind, without any outside influence, would come up with the Jesus story?)

And without phony “journalists” who give us our “news” we are given a complicated world that does not lend itself to simple causes and effects. We have to think for ourselves. People don’t know how to do that, and power likes it that way.

Enter the journalist.

…the good people of Montana can produce their own opinions without people like me, but without people like Johnson and Dennison, they cannot produce their own facts.

The good people of Montana could stand with a little less patronizing. That aside, the news media in this utterly corrupt country exists to reinforce offical lies, and facts are an important part of the art of a well-told lie.

I come from a religious family, with a priest brother and sixty years of Catholic education spread among four boys. This is the lesson I got out of all of that: The further up the ladder of power one goes, the less belief there is, the more cynicism. Priests often believe, and just as often know better. Bishops (like editors) rarely believe the myths.

The journalism profession serves as a bought priesthood, to use a term from the earlier labor press we once had. Up the ladder go those most intuitively aware of where power lies and how to live with it. Out the door go those who want to know what is really going on.

Here’s an allegory from my youth. I went to see a movie, Journey to the Center of the Earth, starring Pat Boone and based on a Jules Verne novel I’ve never read. I was a kid and really liked it. At a certain point the cast was lost in the bowels of the planet and their lanterns went out. They thought they would perish in darkness. Then a remarkable thing happened: Absent lantern light, phosphorous in the walls provided all the illumination they needed.

We do not have a burrowing press, we do not have serious journalists, we do not have a functioning democracy. We’re on our own, kids. Time to grow up.

So there is no more Lee Enterprises Montana State Bureau. Stop whining! Stop trusting journalists. Citizen, make sense of it on your own – you are easily as capable as any journalist.

How do they do what they do?

Thierry Meyssan in this article, Jihadists in the service of imperialism, deals with a confusing aspect of U.S. foreign policy: How does CIA get so many Muslims to do its bidding?

CIA used Al Qaida as ground troops to overthrow the Libyan regime in 2011, hence the nickname for the group “Al CIAda.” And I’ve long understood that CIA was behind the training and arming of the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan in the 1980’s, the forerunners of Al Qaida. It is also easy to understand that CIA has long groomed and fashioned leaders of opposition groups, from Daniel Ellsberg to bin Laden himself along with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein – disposing of them when convenient.

Controlling the opposition by leading the opposition is nothing new. The latest phenomenon, ISIS, armed with American weaponry and seemingly unending money supply, is easily seen to be a western front. Just ask two questions: Why the timidity of the US military in attacking them, and why has ISIS no interest in Israel? That should tell you everything you need to know.

But if we can see that from here, why cannot the Muslim participants see it as well?

The answer, that CIA is expert at manipulation of existing hostilities, dividing enemies to force them to fight among themselves … that Muslims are as credulous and easily manipulated as Americans … is just an admission that CIA is that good at this business.

That is discouraging.

The Devil Speaks

“INCORPORATION, n. The act of uniting several persons into one fiction called a corporation, in order that they may be no longer responsible for their actions. A, B and C are a corporation. A robs, B steals and C (it is necessary that there be one gentleman in the concern) cheats. It is a plundering, thieving, swindling corporation. But A, B and C, who have jointly determined and severally executed every crime of the corporation, are blameless. It is wrong to mention them by name when censuring their acts as a corporation, but right when praising. Incorporation is somewhat like the ring of Gyges: it bestows the blessing of invisibility–comfortable to knaves. The scoundrel who invented incorporation is dead–he has disincorporated.”

Ambrose Bierce, The Devils Dictionary

Thanks guys for the heads up

Before I move on, I wanted to offer a quick apology of sorts – I am very hard on American journalists. I can forgive ignorance, as we are all ignorant about most things. Then there is dullness – frankly, most people in most professions are not that bright, journalism no exception, that is, the average IQ is 100.

It is their hubris that fires my rockets. But that could be mere defensive posturing on their part, as they are often roundly criticized.

I have been reminded or I have read someone write that inside the profession there are many very bright people. But they cannot speak up for fear of losing their jobs, or worse yet meeting Michael Hastings’ fate. If true, they are living their lives with their little lights under a bushel basket, which would explain the need for hubris to contain their angst.

But I do believe that under such pressure and tension, people either leave and do something more psychically satisfying, or break in spirit and get their minds right. Whichever it is, dullness, light under the bushel, or broken spirit, from the outside looking in, the result is identical: Very bad journalism.

Here, just for fun, again, is a satellite photo of the area directly west of Manhattan and Long Island on the morning of 9/11/2001. No American journalist knows about that hurricane, named Erin, which was virtually ignored in New York City news coverage in the days before as it made its way up the east coast. Thanks guys for the heads up.

image

Qualification for journalism: Absense of inquisitive nature

Editor emeritus?
Editor emeritus?

Speaking of left gatekeepers, here is a surly quote from another, dead-on in my view:

Journalists should pride themselves for their lowly status, only a yard or two ahead of the gendarmes and with prison stocks our likely fate if we do our jobs properly. Now the idea is to have the moral standing of bishops. What rubbish! What pretension!
(Alexander Cockburn)

It is that “moral standing of bishops” that drives me bonkers. I imagine that in private gatherings they wear those big penis-shaped hats that Catholic bishops do. Merely attaining the status of “editor,” that is, knowing where power lies being submissive to it, is in their line of work an honorary accolade.

One ex-editor of the Billings Gazette conferred the title of “editor emeritus” to his resumé. The word “emeritus” is used to designate a retired bishop, pope, president, prime minister …honestly, this is how they view themselves. It is a far cry from being one step ahead of the gendarmes.

The next time you are watching a debate among candidates hosted by journalists, such as Gwen Ifill, Candy Crowley or Bob Schieffer, picture the moderator in the phallic hat worn by Bishop Sheen above. It adds humor to the affair. Understand that the position of debate moderator is only granted to those known to pose no threat to power.

The defining characteristic of an American journalist is absence of an inquisitive nature. They praise each other for it.

The pathway to truth’

The Wayfarer
by Stephen Crane

The wayfarer,
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
“Ha,” he said,
“I see that no one has passed here
In a long time.”
Later he saw that each weed was a singular knife.
“Well,” he mumbled at last,
“Doubtless there are other roads.”

I was reading a piece by Barrie Zwicker called “The Shame of Noam Chomsky and the Gatekeepers of the Left.” Zwicker undresses the old fart.

There is undeniable quality in Chomsky’s writings. It is hard to back away from his impressive body of work on American foreign policy and propaganda.  But what if he is himself a propagandist? Zwicker gives us a list of techniques beginning with absurdities and ending with “word inflation,*” and uses them on Noam.

Here’s Chomsky on JFK from a now-dead link at his old haunt, Z magazine:

It’s true that I know very little about the assassination. The only thing I’ve written about is that the claim that it was a high-level conspiracy with policy significance is implausible to a quite extraordinary degree. History isn’t physics and even in physics nothing is really “proven” but evidence against this claim is overwhelming from every testable point of view, remarkably so for a historical event. Given that conclusion, which I think is well founded, that I have written about, a lot, I have no further interest in the assassination and while I’ve read a few books out of curiosity I haven’t given the matter any attention and have no opinion about how or why JFK was killed.

Here’s the undressing:

It’s true that I know very little about the assassination [ignorance flaunted]. The only thing I’ve written about is that the claim that it was a high-level conspiracy with policy significance is implausible [internal contradiction: he admits to knowing “very little” so on what basis does he find any claim “implausible?”] to a quite extraordinary degree [adding to the internal contradiction, word inflation, failure to provide minimal evidence]. History isn’t physics [obfuscation] and even in physics nothing is really “proven” [misdirection, vis a vis the laws of physics] but evidence against this claim is overwhelming [internal contradiction, word inflation, bald assertion, failure to provide minimal evidence] from every testable point of view [sweeping generalization, bald assertion], remarkably so for a historical event [word inflation, failure to provide minimal evidence]. Given that conclusion, which I think is well founded [bandwagon psychology, failure to provide minimal evidence], that I have written about, a lot,[internal contradiction: earlier he said the only thing he’s written about it is to claim implausibility, etc.] I have no further interest in the assassination [dismissiveness, evasion, minimizing importance of the important] and while I’ve read a few books [internal contradiction: he said he knows “very little:” reading “some books” surely qualifies as more than “very little”,] out of curiosity [dismissiveness, suggesting close-mindedness, not even fake open-mindedness] I haven’t given the matter any attention [internal contradiction: for someone who “hasn’t given the matter any attention” he has arrived at extremely strong and controversial opinions] and have no opinion about how or why JFK was killed [internal contradiction: he has an opinion, which he has just energetically expressed, that the way JFK was killed was not by state conspiracy].

Chomsky is in contortions in his statement, albeit a mere chat room post. He’s clearly uncomfortable with the subject, and aggressive in distancing himself from it. He’s urging his followers, who number in the millions, to avoid the subject as well. This is the work of a gatekeeper:

“This far, no further.”

Crediting Chomsky with essential honesty in his work, which I have read extensively, I am left in a quandary. He is not convincing. The assassination, if a state conspiracy (as evidence strongly suggests), was coup d’état, and so is of critical importance. It is true that JFK was but a flawed man, an actor strutting and fretting on a stage. Set him aside. Look at the event.

Elsewhere Zwicker references E. Martin Schotz and his book History Will Not Absolve Us. According to Schotz, an early JFK researcher, Ray Marcus, met with Chomsky in 1969 and a one-hour affair turned out to be four. His secretary canceled all appointments for the rest of the day. He agreed to a follow-up session. Then the line went dead.

Chomsky knows more than he lets on. Marcus later met with a Chomsky colleague at MIT, Selwyn Bromberger, who said

“If they are strong enough to kill the president, and strong enough to cover it up, then they are too strong to confront directly … if they feel sufficiently threatened, they may move to open totalitarian rule.”

Chomsky often refers to people in institutional settings who have to meld their minds with the power around them. We cannot live long with internal contradictions, he says. So, crediting him with integrity, I suggest that this is the avenue he has chosen deliberately – that to directly confront power would cost him his job, perhaps his life. Setting the matter aside as he does allows him a forum for all other matters.

Nonetheless, he performs the role of gatekeeper. Further, by warning his legions of followers away from curiosity about the event, he undermines his credibility. If he is so disingenuous in one area, what degree of confidence can we bestow on everything else?
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Continue reading “The pathway to truth’” →

Absent a Lee Newspapers state bureau, nothing has changed

People who know David Crisp know him to be a nice man of both letters and integrity. That makes it hard to be critical of him. But I will. Someone has to.

From his article “From the Outpost: Papers go dark when news is about them,” I capture some telling sentences below.

The article is about how Lee Newspapers shut down its Helena Bureau and gave two journalists a hard choice – pay cut or the door.

Here are some excerpts from Mr. Crisp’s article about Charles Johnson and Mike Dennison:

As of this writing, late Tuesday, I have been unable to find a reference to the story in any Lee newspaper—not the Billings Gazette, the Helena Independent Record, the Missoulian, the Montana Standard or the Ravalli Republic, or any of the Lee’s numerous satellite publications in Montana. …

…Blogs and news sites such as Last Best News picked it up almost immediately and drew dozens of comments from readers.

This is a bugaboo in journalism, that their job is simply to write stuff that will be written anyway somewhere. Why should I care if a Ravalli paper or the I Like Boobs blog carries an easily accessible story like this? There is no great accomplishment in printing it on Tuesday instead of Monday, or on a blog instead of in a newspaper. The knowledge has little impact on us (it is a very big deal to journalists, I realize), and the timing and means of receipt of the information are of no consequence.

Chuck Johnson has covered the state capital since the Constitutional Convention of 1972. I have gotten to know him a little, and I have read his work for many years. If he has any political biases, I have been unable to detect them. …

…Mike Dennison has been in recent years, if anything, the more aggressive of the two reporters. He covered healthcare better than any Montana reporter I know about. His stories were detailed, precise and fair, and his occasional columns were must reads. …

…the web has nothing yet to match the expertise and deep knowledge that Johnson and Dennison brought to statewide coverage of Montana.

There’s a theme there, and it is a little difficult to detect, but I’ll try: Johnson and Dennison write stuff. They don’t allow their personal opinions to interfere with what they write. That’s why they are really good at what they do, no matter that the stuff they write is easily accessible and will be widely known whether they write it or someone else does. Everything that is acted out on the public stage, even in wee hours of the morning, gets written somewhere. So what?

In the mind of the journalist, the highest accolade is fairness and objectivity. Screw that. I want to know what is going on behind the scenes, off stage – money changing hands, deals cut, political cover and inside baseball. Fairness and objectivity are nice, but not useful. Power gets to do what power does behind the scenes even as reporters are fair and balanced.

Professional journalists are trained to avoid losing objectivity, of becoming involved in the story, even if in so doing they tell us something that we might otherwise not have known.

Here’s an example: In late 2002 and early 2003, the government lied to the public about Iraq, claiming by means both open and psychologically suggestive that Iraq (“Saddam Hussein”) was involved in 9/11, had nuclear and chemical weaponry, and was going it attack us. American journalists did their job, as they see it, reporting the lies in a fair and objective manner.

The result: hundreds of thousands of dead, a massive refugee crisis, and a crime of significant historic proportions, surely the greatest slaughter of the new century.

We had no one running interference for us, burrowing and getting down to the underlying truth. Our reporters were busy being professionals, reporting on what he and she said. The New York Times even allowed lies to go front page through Judith Miller, as if they could not control or discipline her.

That’s American journalism. I’m sorry, Mr. Crisp, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Dennison, to be the one with a scoop here, but writing down what public officials say and do in public, even if you do it on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, and in the New York Times instead of  the Ravalli Republic, is not an important job. Anyone can do that, even me.

We need people of steely resolve who are fearless of making enemies and who attempt to find out what powerful people are really doing. The ‘finding out’ part is very difficult. The ‘reporting back’ to us not so much. Somewhere along the line American journalists forgot about the ‘finding out’ part.

High praise given journalists by public officials is a sign they are not doing their job. Otherwise, powerful people would not like them so much.

Real journalism, finding out what powerful people are doing and reporting it to us, has value. Informed public opinion, even if enraged or indignant, and even in our fake democracy, matters.

We don’t have journalism. Shutting down a state bureau is not significant. We’ve got bigger problems than that. I feel the pain of dispatched reporters. But the world moves forward without a wobble, having lost nothing of value.
____________________
PS: Mr. Crisp has little regard for bloggers, in fact, even a haughty disdain. It is true, we do not do what he does, and I too have haughty disdain as a result. He quotes another blog, apparently a self-loathing one:

The 4&20 Blackbirds blog may have put the issue most concisely: “So what fills the vacuum? If the answer is bloggers, we’re screwed.”

Of course, blogs are not the answer, but let’s be clear: What we had before the Internet and blogs … that was not the answer either.

We need … reporting.