It doesn't get much worse

Perhaps the most important headline globally today should be the revelation that recently filed court papers allege that President George W. Bush authorized Vice President Dick Cheney's former Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby to leak the name of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame's name to the press in retaliation for her husband Joseph Wilson alerting the media about the Bush Cabal's warmongering lies about Iraq attempting to purchase uranium from Niger (based on forged documents purportedly involving historic neo-con warmonger Michael Ladeen). And why should this be front page news? Because, if true, it would mean that the President is either a conspirator or accessory to violation of the Identities Protection Act of 1982, a felony.

Yet we know that this criminal coalition commits crimes on a daily basis, and this perhaps is just the latest impeachable crime and penetentiary-worthy act that this group is involved in. Yet the bigger story and the clearest reflection on how democracy has died with media complicity is the American (and global) media's not-so-stunning silence on this revelation. At the time of weazl's writing the headline story in the US edition on CNN is about a stalled immigration bill, and in the international edition, the upcoming verdict on the DaVinci Code copyright case. Surely these earth shattering stories are more important than the fact that the President of the United States has been named in court papers of assisting in the commission of a felony.

How much the media has been made a fool of can be seen in this video clip by Bob Schieffer asking the President to get to the bottom of who's been leaking within his staff. Yet when the answer is the President himself, the media ignores the issue in silent complicity. Should this come as a surprise? Unfortunately not. Corporate control and consolidation of the media as completely stifled criticism of an Administration that echoes its interests. An informative essay and chart of the corporate influence and media consolidation can be seen here. Yet if you have a couple of hours to spare during your upcoming weekend, you may enjoy the documentary Orwell Rolls in his Grave (Part II here), that expands on the issue even further.

Americans now live in a country where both the government and corporations manufacture news and pass it off to unsuspecting viewers, where the Pentagon engages in propaganda, where compliant male prostitutes pose as journalists to ask warm and fuzzy questions, where the government pays journalists under the table to promote their policies, where the Pentagon is paying up to $3oo million to the Lincoln Group and others to mold American messages as palatable throughout the world, where the US is routinely seen as targeting foreign journalists for retribution and possible assassination (a four part story), which would obviously include the discussion to bomb Al Jazeera, and the possible targeting of Italian journalist/hostage Guiliana Sgrena, the confinement of CBS cameraman Adbul Amir who despite being acquitted of being an "insurgent" was returned to prison (all Reuters stories that initially included the fact that he'd been returned to Abu Ghraib and comments by his lawyer have been edited out. Cached version can be seen here), US Pentagon plans to wage pychological warfare through the use of the net, and efforts to prosecute journalists who reveal classified information, even pertaining to crimes committed by officials. and threaten even the use of SWAT teams to accomplish this goal.

Some have raised the proper question of what can be done to address and change the course of events. The first thing is truly understanding the nature of the problem and the vast obstacles to change. The US and global media is seriously compromised, and has been delved into by such commentators as Noam Chomsky and Robert McChesney. Once should not overlook the insight of former Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black who noted:

The Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to bare the secrets of government and inform the people.

Never before has a government had so many secrets to bear. Never before has the media so failed in its responsibility to promote a functioning democracy.