I just finished watching Frontline’s documentary about the current state of the global climate crises, Heat°. As always, Frontline is able to frame the problems we are facing in a very stark and dramatic fashion.
This movie really highlights some of the structural road blocks to making meaningful change in the United States of America and the world. Entrenched interests are so deep and have so much money and influence that they are able to thwart any efforts to head the USA in the right direction. I’m specifically referring to Detroit automakers who are recalcitrant about fuel economy, corn growers who demand ethanol subsidies, coal states like West Virginia and Wyoming, and most importantly, oil companies like Exxon, Chevron, BP & Shell who steadfastly refuse to invest in alternative energy.
If we can’t shift the current paradigm where the economic interests of the few greatly outweigh the environmental needs of many, we’re in a lot of trouble. Sadly, It’s going to take a disaster of a massive scale to release politicians from the perceived obligations and allow them to opportunity to make the right decisions. That’s the regressive, backwards history of this country. Whether they allow themselves to make the right decisions is still up for open debate.
If you don’t have access to PBS, you can watch the movie online.
Crooks & Liars has a great video retrospective on one of the seemlier and still unexplained Bush Administration scandals, the Jeff Gannon/Jeff Guckert gay prostitute somehow being granted a White House press pass and using it to lob softballs questions at the president and Scott McClellan. It’s disgusting. So the obvious questions: What the fuck was this guy doing there in the White House room? Who did he know in the White House? How did he use a fake name and still earn a press pass despite the Secret Service screening that all journalists who cover the White House must undergo? What damage has this done to reputation and efficacy of the national press which, I believe, the White House is doing everything in its power to undermine?
You have to read this Rolling Stone article about John Renden, America’s Propogandist Laureate. If half of what it reports is true, it’s the scariest fucking thing I’ve read in a long, long time.
Never before in history had such an extensive secret network been established to shape the entire world’s perception of a war. “It was not just bad intelligence — it was an orchestrated effort,” says Sam Gardner, a retired Air Force colonel who has taught strategy and military operations at the National War College. “It began before the war, was a major effort during the war and continues as post-conflict distortions.”
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As the war in Iraq has spiraled out of control, the Bush administration’s covert propaganda campaign has intensified. According to a secret Pentagon report personally approved by Rumsfeld in October 2003 and obtained by Rolling Stone, the Strategic Command is authorized to engage in “military deception” — defined as “presenting false information, images or statements.” The seventy-four-page document, titled “Information Operations Roadmap,” also calls for psychological operations to be launched over radio, television, cell phones and “emerging technologies” such as the Internet. In addition to being classified secret, the road map is also stamped noforn, meaning it cannot be shared even with our allies.
As the acknowledged general of such propaganda warfare, Rendon insists that the work he does is for the good of all Americans. “For us, it’s a question of patriotism,” he says. “It’s not a question of politics, and that’s an important distinction. I feel very strongly about that personally. If brave men and women are going to be put in harm’s way, they deserve support.” But in Iraq, American troops and Iraqi civilians were put in harm’s way, in large part, by the false information spread by Rendon and the men he trained in information warfare. And given the rapid growth of what is known as the “security-intelligence complex” in Washington, covert perception managers are likely to play an increasingly influential role in the wars of the future.
Indeed, Rendon is already thinking ahead. Last year, he attended a conference on information operations in London, where he offered an assessment on the Pentagon’s efforts to manipulate the media. According to those present, Rendon applauded the practice of embedding journalists with American forces. “He said the embedded idea was great,” says an Air Force colonel who attended the talk. “It worked as they had found in the test. It was the war version of reality television, and for the most part they did not lose control of the story.” But Rendon also cautioned that individual news organizations were often able to “take control of the story,” shaping the news before the Pentagon asserted its spin on the day’s events.
“We lost control of the context,” Rendon warned. “That has to be fixed for the next war.”