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  • David Barsamian: Young People Don't Pay Attention to the US Corporat

    David Barsamian: Young People Don't Pay Attention to the US Corporate Media

    Tue Dec 30, 2014 9:41
    http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13931001000063

    TEHRAN (FNA)- David Barsamian, a leading Armenian-American radio
    journalist, believes that as a result of the good performance of
    alternative press, the young Americans don't pay attention to the
    propaganda of the corporate, mainstream media anymore.

    David Barsamian, who is the founder and director of Alternative Radio
    broadcast from Boulder, Colorado, tells Fars News Agency that the
    journalists in the United States don't need to be censored or
    monitored by the government, because they are accustomed to a
    full-fledged self-censorship.

    Mr. Barsamian says that the US government orchestrated a large project
    of media propaganda against its own people to rationalize and justify
    its illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq: "[o]f course the case of Iraq is
    very instructive because it's almost like a textbook example of the
    uses of propaganda."

    "The population here in the United States was subjected to months and
    months of propaganda and the great danger that it posed to the United
    States; that Saddam Hussein was somehow connected to events of
    September 11, and that he was somehow connected to the Al-Qaeda; all
    of these things were completely ludicrous and anyone that knew
    anything about West Asia and the history of Iraq and Saddam regime
    would have laughed at these assertions," he noted.

    David Barsamian is a radio broadcaster, writer and journalist who has
    conducted series of extensive, in-depth interviews with prominent
    progressive intellectuals and thinkers such as Noam Chomsky, Edward
    Said, Howard Zinn, Eqbal Ahmad and Arundhati Roy. His radio program is
    broadcast on more than 150 radio stations across the United States and
    in other countries. The Institute for Alternative Journalism named Mr.
    Barsamian one of its "Top Ten Media Heroes."

    To discuss the workings of the mainstream, corporate media in the
    United States, the relationship between the White House and the mass
    media and the growing influence of the alternative media, FNA spoke to
    David Barsamian on the phone. The interview was conducted long before
    the US declared removal of the sanctions and normalization of ties
    with Cuba and, interestingly, Barsamian has a note to make in this
    regard. The following is the full transcript of the interview.

    Q: My first question is on the growth of progressive media in the
    United States. Why do you think the corporate media that are owned by
    multinational companies are pushing for an aggressive US foreign
    policy, advocating for new wars, military expeditions and trying to
    entangle the US government into new military adventures? How is it
    possible to counter such an approach taken by these corporate,
    mainstream media?

    A: Well, I wouldn't agree with your premise that it's the media
    corporations that are the catalysts for the US imperialist foreign
    policy. It's the other military corporations that have a much more
    major influence. The media play two roles in the United States. We
    have two types of media here. One is a Weapon of Mass Destruction to
    keep people's attention focused on the latest divorce in Hollywood,
    the marriage or the adoption of a Malawi baby and things like that.
    Then we have an elite media, which is the New York Times, National
    Public Radio, PBS, the Washington Post and other journals like that in
    general which support US interventions based on the feeling that the
    United States has a unique role to play in the world that no other
    nation can substitute for what the United States can do
    internationally. So the military corporations such as Lockheed Martin,
    Northrop Grumman, Boeing, United Technologies, Raytheon and all the
    others benefit greatly from the US militarism, conflict and war. The
    Middle East, your part of the world and West Asia are flooded with US
    arms. Hardly a month doesn't go by when there is some new arms deal
    negotiated between these military corporations and United Arab
    Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the other feudal Persian Gulf
    monarchies.

    Q: You know that the majority of mainstream and elite media, as you
    put it, claim to be independent of the government and maintain that
    their editorial policies are not influenced by the authorities and
    those in power. Is it really the case that PBS, CNN, New York Times,
    Washington Post and NPR are free and independent outlets that
    contribute to the free flow of information regardless of what is
    dictated to them?

    A: Well, the rhetoric of course is that the corporate media are
    adversarial, confrontational, and even hostile to state power. But the
    evidence doesn't support that. They have embedded an internalized
    basic assumption such as the belief that the capitalist economic
    system is the only way you can organize an economy. They accept the
    role that the US has a right to intervene everywhere in the world, to
    have military bases anywhere in the world, to declare its interest
    anywhere in the world. They accept all of these things. They have
    internalized these embedded assumptions. And now the only disagreement
    they have is over tactics. I give you one example. The United States
    has imposed a unilateral embargo on the island nation of Cuba in the
    Caribbean for well over 50 years. It's routinely condemned in the
    United Nations by votes of 191-2, the two beings the United States and
    Israel. No other country supports this. Now, the New York Times, which
    is our best newspaper, had an editorial just a few days back,
    criticizing the Cuban embargo as now largely ineffective; that it is
    just window-dressing and that it is time for the embargo to end. New
    York Times supported the embargo for many many years and now that it
    sees it as ineffective, it's recommending that the Obama
    administration end the embargo. So that's the kind of a discussion
    that exists between the corporate and state. They criticize the
    tactics but not the strategy. So embargos are fine, unilateral actions
    by the United States are fine; but then occasionally, they are
    criticized as not being effective or being too extreme, for example.
    There are so many instances of this that I can talk about for the next
    three days. There's an enormous amount of hypocrisy between what the
    media claim to be doing and what they are actually doing. They are
    pro-imperialist, they are pro-capitalist, they are pro-US hegemony,
    and none of this has changed since the United States has become the
    global superpower.

    Q: How does the US government respond to the unpopular stories run by
    newspapers and magazines, including the intelligence and security
    revelations or articles and commentaries that are critical of the
    White House and Pentagon? What about the alternative media's coverage
    of the daily events and their reaction to the government's handling of
    the current affairs? We haven't seen cases of American newspapers
    being closed down or banned because of publishing what the White House
    people dislike, but they certainly have their own instruments of
    controlling the mass media and punishing the "wrongdoers." Am I right?

    A: Well; the answer to the first part of your question is that, state
    largely ignores the alternative media; it doesn't pay attention to it,
    but occasionally, it has to, as in the case with Julian Assange and
    Wikileaks; as in the case with Edward Snowden and the vast amount of
    information that he has made available to the people of the world in a
    very courageous act of independence and media freedom. So in those
    instances, in fact, the government tried to control the flow of
    information, claiming that national security was at stake and the
    media corporations should cooperate. Occasionally, the government has
    imposed censorship on different media during the release of the
    Pentagon papers, for example, when the Nixon administration tried to
    block the New York Times and the Washington Post from publishing, but
    the Supreme Court ruled that the public had a right to know, and that
    this was an interference with the freedom of the press and so the
    Pentagon papers were in fact released.

    In other instances, I know of one in Guatemala when the US was
    preparing to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Jacobo
    Arbenz, the New York Times cooperated in not publishing the
    information it had that the US was going to stage a coup in Guatemala.
    There are other examples of this, but basically they don't have to
    impose rigid restrictions on journalists and editors, because the
    journalists and editors censor themselves. They are part of the power
    elite and part of the problem, and so they know the boundaries; they
    know the redlines; they know what can be reported on, and what can't
    be reported on. So, to give you an example of the catastrophic war in
    Iraq, I just heard yesterday on Democracy Now, which is an alternative
    news program here in the United States, that is based in New York,
    Phil Donahue was on - he is considered a liberal TV and radio talk
    show host - he said the Iraq War was a blunder. This is the limit of
    liberal criticism; it can be called a mistake, a tragedy, a blunder.

    Just today, George W. Bush was interviewed on National Public Radio,
    and there was no question asking him if he should be indicted for war
    crimes and brought before the International Criminal Court for
    violating Iraq's sovereignty on multiple occasions. Well, according to
    liberals like Phil Donahue, this was a blunder. But I have to
    disagree. This wasn't a blunder. It was a war crime and the people
    responsible should be held accountable. We should have universal norms
    of justice. You cannot accuse one state of violating the sovereignty
    of another state; for example, the United States has taken a very
    virtuous position on Russian intervention in Ukraine and the
    annexation of Crimea, which was part of the Soviet Union until 1954
    when the then Ukrainian Prime Minister gave Crimea to Ukraine. So,
    that kind of intervention is considered illegal, criminal and has to
    be condemned, but when Israel invades or bombs other countries like
    Tunisia, Libya, Iraq, Lebanon and continues to occupy the West Bank
    and carry out major human rights violations and war crimes, that's not
    considered worthy of attention by whoever is in the White House and
    none of the corporate media here report on these vast contradictions
    and hypocrisies. We don't need censors in this country. We censor
    ourselves.

    Q: So, do you think that these mainstream, corporate media are playing
    a role in paving the way for the US military adventures?

    A: They legitimize US intervention. They legitimize the capitalist
    economic system. They legitimize US hegemony and the fact that the
    United States has 735 military bases around the world. Many of them
    are in your part of the world, i.e. West Asia. That is the societal
    function of the media to provide the state with legitimacy and
    propagandistic base so that the citizenry and the American people will
    go along with the policies.

    Q: What's your viewpoint about the role the media in the United States
    played in explicating the tragedy that played out on September 11,
    2001 to the American people and giving rise to the Global War on
    Terror? There were massive demonstrations across the United States in
    the run-up to the occupation of Iraq and after that. There were also
    protests against the invasion of Afghanistan, but the Bush
    administration didn't pay attention to them and went ahead with its
    plans for invading Afghanistan and Iraq. Do you think that the media
    in the United States could play a role in preventing the two wars from
    happening?

    A: Of course the case of Iraq is very instructive because it's almost
    like a textbook example of the uses of propaganda. The population here
    in the United States was subjected to months and months of propaganda
    and the great danger that it posed to the United States; that Saddam
    Hussein was somehow connected to events of September 11, and that he
    was somehow connected to the Al-Qaeda; all of these things were
    completely ludicrous and anyone that knew anything about West Asia and
    the history of Iraq and Saddam regime would have laughed at these
    assertions. But they have a huge effect on the population and even
    though there were demonstrations against the launching of the war on
    February 15, 2003 - there were demonstrations all over the world,
    including in the United States, but Tony Blair - let's not forget him,
    he is a major war criminal - he, along with Aznar of Spain and Bush in
    Washington led the charge against Iraq and the consequences of that
    criminal action are being borne today by the Iraqi, Iranian and Syrian
    people and the people of the Persian Gulf. It was not a mistake or
    blunder, but a war crime, and the people responsible for it should be
    held accountable.

    Let's talk about Iran, about your country. The United States media has
    been for many years conducting a virulent and incessant campaign of
    the demonization of Iran largely goaded by Israeli interests who see
    Iran as some kind of existential threat to Israel. So there has been
    lots of negative reporting on Iran in the corporate media here, and
    whenever Iran is discussed, it's always in negative terms: Iran
    refuses; Iran denies; Iran is not forthcoming; Iran is not living up
    to the IAEA treaty stipulation. One should say the United States is
    not living up to the IAEA stipulations. One of those stipulations is
    that it should be actively reducing its nuclear weapons stockpile. Our
    great President Barack Obama recently announced a $1 trillion, 30-year
    plan to modernize US nuclear weapons. It's in direct violation of the
    NPT. We know that Israel has nuclear weapons. We know that India has
    nuclear weapons. We know that Pakistan has nuclear weapons. They are
    not signatories to the NPT and are not being held accountable, but
    Iran which is a signatory and which has been engaging in negotiation
    is being held out for special criticism. Again, the hypocrisy here is
    absolutely mind-boggling.

    Q: I was about to touch upon Iran before you talked about it. The
    portrayal of Iran in the Western mainstream media is really lopsided
    and biased. Whenever there's talk of Iran in an American TV station,
    they show footages of a vast desert with camels running in them. They
    simply equate Iran with the Arab nations of the region and never
    screen anything about Iran's glorious past, its ancient culture and
    the contribution of the great Iranian poets, scientists and scholars
    to the global civilization. Why is it so?

    A: Well, people who are exposed to alternative media, like my program,
    and others such as Z Magazine, The Progressive and The Nation, have a
    different view of Iran from that which is laid out in the corporate
    media. This view, as you say, largely rests upon clichés and
    stereotypes about Iran and all the orientalist types of thinking which
    Edward Said brilliantly deconstructed in his classic work Orientalism,
    as well as in his Culture and Imperialism. So, the little information
    the general public gets about Iran is all negative, but there are a
    lot of other people who are tuned to the alternative media and
    understand that Iran is in fact a very old, ancient and rich
    civilization; you mentioned the great poetry. For example, Ahmad
    Shamlu, when he died a couple of years ago, thousands of people
    marched in his honor in Tehran. I visited his grave in Karaj. There
    were people honoring him, leaving flowers at his grave. The Iranian
    cinema is one of the world's best, and many Europeans, American,
    Canadian and Latin American people enjoy the great movies produced by
    the Iranian filmmakers.

    Q: How do you think it is possible to counter the hegemony of the
    corporate media in the United States and elsewhere? How is it possible
    to forge new channels for getting people exposed to the realities that
    are withheld and concealed from them?

    A: Well, that's happening right now. The growth of the internet and
    social media and all the new websites - Glenn Greenwald has a great
    website called The Intercept, that was actually funded by an
    Iranian-American Pierre Omidyar, the founder of the eBay, and very
    good journalists such as Jeremy Scahill are writing excellent articles
    there about the different aspects of the economic situation of the
    world, the environmental crisis, the US foreign policy and military
    interventions. Al-Jazeera has made an impact here in the United States
    with its reporting. Al-Monitor is very good. There are all kinds of
    good websites, radio programs and TV programs that are countering of
    the hegemony of the dominant, corporate media. The good news is that
    more and more young people are not paying attention to the corporate
    media here in the United States. They understand that it's garbage and
    propaganda and there's nothing of value there. So they are looking for
    their independent sources.

    Interview by Kourosh Ziabari




    From: A. Papazian
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