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Apr 25, 2023
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TeeJae's avatar

Was it a specific event around that time (like 9/11) that made you start questioning news coverage? For me it was around the 2008 financial crisis, when I also stumbled upon an awesome media watchdog called FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting). That really opened my eyes to the fact that we must question ALL mainstream media.

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Bill Owen's avatar

For me it was an article in RAMPARTS called The Myth of the Hué Massacre by Gareth Porter in 1975. "Wait! That's not what my teevee says. . . That's not what TIME magazine is telling me!"

Many decades later Porter and I became mutuals on Twitter where he is still truth telling.

https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/Vietnam/huemyth/mythofhuemassacre.pdf

The precursor to that though, was what I was taught about cannabis in junior high. Then I tried some. It was all lies.

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TeeJae's avatar

Ah yes, Gareth Porter. Big fan.

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DaveL's avatar

“One puff, and you’re hooked.”

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Bill Owen's avatar

I think it was in grade 8 when they took us all into the gym and showed us this really weird b/w film, it was not reefer madness. I remember a guy smoking a 'muggle' who then turned into a gorilla. Later he shrank down and went for a swim in a vase of flowers. I remember thinking, "Wow, that looks like fun!" I was of course disappointed when actually did try it a year or so later. "That's it?"

Acid of course, far surpassed vase swimming...

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand. And a Heaven in a Wild Flower. Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand. And Eternity in an hour." - William Blake

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Apr 25, 2023
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Bill Owen's avatar

For sure! Hedges is good too, I love Scott Horton, Greenwald, Galloway, Maté,

Alex Christoforou, Blumenthal, Hersh . . . and some others.

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Apr 25, 2023
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Bill Owen's avatar

Scott is the head of the Libertarian Institute and he runs Antiwar.com. He has also done almost 6000 interviews most on US foreign policy. Scott and I have been exchanging the odd email for years now. He's a good guy.

Max Blumenthal joined Scott on Antiwar Radio this week to talk about Matt Taibbi’s interview on MSNBC and what’s going on in Israel. They start with Matt Taibbi, who has been the subject of some serious heat from the establishment after his reporting brought attention to the scale of government censorship happening on social media. They talk about Medhi Hasan’s failed attempt to discredit Taibbi’s revelations in an incredibly hostile TV interview. Next they move to Israel. Scott has done some interviews recently about the disturbing developments in Israeli politics, but things have recently turned violent. Blumenthal explains what’s happening and helps us understand what it all means.

https://youtu.be/A1Vs-r6hugg

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Apr 25, 2023
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Bill Owen's avatar

Hersh was in Nam.

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Bill Owen's avatar

I was very happy the day Gareth followed me on Twitter, it really felt like I had come full circle. He rt'd me a few times, we talked some. Those days are over now, as I have been unpersoned.

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devoalan's avatar

I gotta go back to nam, unfortunately. And from what I've learned from others that served in Korea, it was the same fucking thing. Russia got nothing onus when it comes to a lying press.

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michael888's avatar

The US has no memory of history. When we slaughter, maim and displace peoples, we quickly move on. Other nations don't. And our State Media is a major part of that. Joseph Goebbels would be proud.

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Bill Owen's avatar

One of the questions asked in that study was, How many Vietnamese casualties would you estimate that there were during the Vietnam war? The average response on the part of Americans today is about 100,000. The official figure is about two million. The actual figure is probably three to four million. The people who conducted the study raised an appropriate question: What would we think about German political culture if, when you asked people today how many Jews died in the Holocaust, they estimated about 300,000? What would that tell us about German political culture?

Noam Chomsky

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michael888's avatar

And if you ask how many 100s of thousands of Laotians and Cambodians died during the Vietnam War, people look at you blankly. Most don't know why we have Hmong communities in Minnesota and Vietnamese communities in Louisiana; everything is independent, disconnected from our actions in the collective American mind. Most don't know about the "domino almost falling" in Indonesia, and our support (typical) for dictator Suharto and his genocides, notably East Timor. As Yemen shows it never ends.

When I point out that Afghanistan was a secular Muslim country when JFK visited, on the cusp of the Soviet bloc, but with women holding decent jobs, going to University, and even wearing Western (Soviet) dress, people act as if the Taliban and terrorism has always been a part of the country. Osama bin Laden was Our Hero when he was brought in to fight the Russians on behalf of his CIA handlers, with Saudi money and Pakistani support. It is comical/ tragic when our politicians claim they were in Afghanistan to help women/ girls; we destroyed those women's lives and society INTENTIONALLY and put them under a rigid, ultraconservative theocracy.

Wonder what we will do to Ukraine? And Taiwan?

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Debra's avatar

We must question all media not just all main stream media. What good is it to question MSM only to become completely, uncritically accepting of an alternate source.

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TeeJae's avatar

Absolutely. I consider there to be 3 main categories of media: mainstream (aka legacy, corporate-owned), alternative (mainly funded by think tanks, foundations, NGOs), and independent (funded solely by individual members/subscribers). So, the first 2 are obviously funded by institutions with a goal of shaping/manufacturing a specific narrative that benefits them, rather than the public. By contrast, I have found truly independent journalists/outlets (i.e. not beholden to any special interests, funders, powers) to be the most trustworthy, as their main mission is to tell not only the rest/other side of the story the mainstream intentionally omits, but also the contradictory (i.e. correct/actual) version of events. One need only witness the way they're attacked, dismissed and censored by the Establishment to know they're reporting the truth.

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Debra's avatar

I still think you need to consult all three types of sources. Consult, not necessarily accept. If you know the corporation or NGO behind the source you can judge accordingly. But I don’t think using only independent sources is the way to go. Just on substack there are people with opinions all over the spectrum. A person can go with Matt Taibbi or Michael Moore or Dan Pfeiffer. There is a real danger that people will pick their independent media source based on what they want to hear. How does that lead to learning the truth?

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David S's avatar

Agreed. But FAIR has been co-opted by Blue Anon. They were and still are on board with the Covid scam.

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TeeJae's avatar

Yes, that and their coverage on the transgender and other woke issues has been extremely disappointing, so I don't follow their coverage of those topics (which appear to be from newer writers). But I do still think they're on the "right side of history" wrt foreign policy, on which their veteran writers still report.

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Apr 25, 2023Edited
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Bill Owen's avatar

Cool story! I protested against the war outside the US Embassy here in Ottawa. There were marine snipers on the roof. We had about 2000 people, not enough. Power wants most to agree with their lies, and their wars, but if they don't? They don't care.

The Embassy here is a literal fortress, I watched them build it. We wanted them to build it on the outskirts in case of a truck bomb or whatever, but they simply refused and built it very close to Parliament. Hard to do tempest attacks if you are too far away.

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Apr 25, 2023
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Bill Owen's avatar

There was nothing here about Syria or Libya, both of whom we helped bomb. RCAF F-18s killed 27 civilians in Syria. That was not even reported in Canada, I got that from the Pentagon ffs.

Canadians are like little children for the most part.

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TeeJae's avatar

Thanks for the detailed response. Glad to know another FAIR supporter!

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Apr 26, 2023
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TeeJae's avatar

That's awesome it started so early for you. I also read 1984 in high school (junior year, 1986), and while I found it very interesting, I was still too young to fully appreciate its cautionary message. I doubt many of today's high schools are churning out critical thinkers with a healthy dose of skepticism wrt media and government propaganda, sadly.

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Debra's avatar

They have to spend too much time preparing the kids for standardized tests

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