PROPAGANDA TERRORISTS

Why so Synchronous?

by Clyde Lewis - Ground Zero

Last Monday August 3^rd 2009 the Ground Zero Lounge presented a program entitled "The Dark Side of Conspiracy theory". The show, performed in front of a live audience at Dante's Lounge was supposed to air live on ZeroPointRadio. But due to technical difficulties on location, it was delayed by one day and aired as planned Tuesday night. The show was developed by myself and Janine Duffy to address issues of responsibility and objectivity surrounding the mainstream media and the independent media online. The show was in response to several controversial topics that were brewing in both the mainstream framed narrative and the alleged "outside the box" unbridled views that are expressed online. 

The media both Independent and controlled are finding themselves in a constant state of clash and the underpinnings of "control" have been expressed by many people including Dan Rather, formerly of CBS.

Rather told an audience in Aspen Colorado that journalism has declined to such a point that it is time for the government to intervene. Rather said "traditional journalism is under siege" and called for media reform to become an "immediate national priority".  

I had expressed my concerns with the Ground Zero Lounge audience about how the Mainstream media has forfeited the public trust by reporting half truths and have taken things out of context to promote a partisan and or bias lower level of reporting.

I also expressed that I was beginning to feel technically the same way about Independent media online. I had said that while I feel that the internet gives us misinformation at times, the government  should not intervene, but that the netizens should use discretion with the information they receive. Those who present information should also see it as a responsibility and not some inalienable right.

When I started in radio journalism I was always told that licenses that were given to stations and Networks and also permits that were issued to operators by the FCC were done so with the agreement that those with these permits would act in the public interest as a public trustee. That if they ever violated that trust, they would suffer the consequences of losing their privilege of being in a position that is meant to serve the public.

The public now feel that their interests are not being met with the mainstream media and so they look for information elsewhere.

There are many people who are looking for answers to questions about the distribution of power and wealth in the world. They need answers about crime, political corruption, and the cover ups of uncomfortable information. Many of them look to mainstream media outlets for this information and find themselves coming up empty. Now with the internet it is possible for individuals to find new outlets that reinforce their opinion of the world, reinforce their own perspectives and unfortunately their own prejudices.

As I opened the Ground Zero Lounge I commented on a number of trends that were beginning to disturb me. One of them was concerning the meme of the "trickster" or Joker. This theme has been the subject of Ground Zero shows for a long time and with the advent of the movie "The Dark Knight" I had expressed that this meme would always show up in the oddest of places. Just before my presentation I was made aware of a series of posters making the rounds that showed Barack Obama as the Joker saying "Why so Socialist". I had commented the week before about the socialism creep that seemed to be heading our way and weeks before that I had talked about the trickster and the clown prince with the death of Michael Jackson.

As the show carried on I touched on what I thought was an irresponsible illustration that I caught on the  Jeff Rense site that insinuated that Hitler had been framed for the deaths of 6 Million Jews. I was concerned because Chris Matthews of MCNBC had told his audience that Conspiracy theorists were "Moon People" and that If you believe that 911 is an inside job, Barack Obama is not a naturalized citizen and The Bilderberg group or the CFR runs the entire world you are psychologically insane. Many other commentators have also put these "Conspiracy Thinker" people in the same category as white supremacists and Holocaust deniers.

The Mainstream were completely distorting the truth and Rense, I felt was fueling this misconception. I couldn't  believe this was happening and realized that there needed to be a discussion about the Dark side of Conspiracy theory and the distortion of truth by both sides.

With my concerns I turned  to two respected colleagues to accompany me on my show. I asked Michael Goodspeed who was the co-host of Ground Zero for some time and a contributor to the Jeff Rense Website to appear alongside founder and host of Media Monarchy, James Evan Pilato.

Michael had expressed to me that he had felt uneasy coming on the show because he was worried that it would be a bashing of Jeff Rense. I had expressed to him that the intent of the show was to demonstrate that both the media and the independent online media can get things completely wrong and distort information in order to fit an agenda.

Somewhere, buried in the fueled debate of Zionism versus Israel, money, and the worries of character assassination was the point that in my opinion, racial and partisan propaganda masked as "Conspiracy Theory" or a "Framed Narrative" in the mainstream is poor quality-level reporting and lacks objectivity. Singling out some group as evil online and on independent websites ,and then attempting to prove it with distorted and unfounded information is no different than the mainstream taking stories out of context and then using the half truths or falsehoods as a way to gain trust.  

Well as synchronicity always seems to happen to the Ground Zero Shows my guest Michael Goodspeed became a victim of a CNN reporter who chose to single out Michael over his You Tube Videos depicting him as "The Joker". As we reported at the beginning on The Monday August 3^rd show, there were posters depicting Obama as the joker being placed all over Los Angeles, Georgia, and New York. This of course was all in synch with a number of topics that I had covered from HEX DEATH and the Meme of the "Joker" death clown, to SOCIAL SCHISM talking about the lure of Socialism in this country. Michael also had picked upon the meme of the death clown and performed as the Joker in several You Tube Videos, one in particular was called "Joker says- Thanks for taking the Blue Pill". The video refers to a statement made by the president regarding health care where he stated "There's going to be some disagreement, but if there's broad agreement that, in this situation the blue pill works better than the red pill, and it turns out the blue pills are half as expensive as the red pill, then we want to make sure that doctors and patients have that information available to them".

The statement pretty much sums up the attitude of the "OBOT" cult or the followers of Obama. The Blue Pill in the Movie the Matrix signified living in the myth. Staying asleep and not waking up to reality. Of course it is cheaper to take the blue pill because the blue pill does nothing to enhance your knowledge. It keeps you in a state of chemical induced servitude, something that I had covered in the Ground Zero Lounge show SOCIAL SCHISM.

CNN had taken Michael's videos out of context to demonstrate that people all over the internet are comparing Obama to the Dark Knight's psychotic nemesis. Exactly the thing that I spoke up about one day earlier!

Fueled by the unfiltered website culture, entertainment and half truth has become more important than journalistic truth. There is a war for the mind and your attention. The task of sparking controversy or creating a reaction  is valued more than presenting reliable information. This is happening in both arenas of media. It is a psychological war of information and disinformation and it seems to be far more hideous than it was in the times of George W. Bush.

Keep in mind that the media in both arenas will always fall into the trap of reporting whatever comes there way when huge checks are cashed to push an agenda.

Most media today has fallen into the trap of siding  with the powerful and neglects their responsibility to the powerless. This creates a huge schism. Because the powerless lose their trust of the media and find relationships with other media that attempts to answer their questions even if it means lying to the powerless in order to engender loyalty. There are many independent media sites that feel they have a responsibility to the people to get the word out about media and government corruption. Many do so efficiently, while there are other websites that appear to be honest yet allow themselves to push their skewed ideas and thrust them on to the lost and the disillusioned.

Much of what is written and produced on blogs has been demonized by the mainstream media as collective rumor or Conspiracy theory. Even in the face of certain extinction the mainstream media networks and Newspapers fight to the death in order to keep its mental grip on the people and demonize the internet and those who report stories outside of the framed narrative. 

New technology allows people to record or write their own versions of events. Those versions wind up on the Internet. The internet has become the people?s press and people have the right to disseminate their own views through websites and blogs.

Now we have micro blogging with Twitter where data about you travels through the net at a rapid pace. The net is actually creating a new consciousness amongst the populace. It is a tool for "group think" and if given the wrong information groups can continue a vicious cycle of disinformation that eliminates diversity of thought.

As Michael Goodspeed can attest, he appeared on The Ground Zero show nervous about pointing out the flaws of our existence as both mainstream and independent journalists. He has always heard from me about policies of News organizations but never really experienced the illusion of "news" until he became the victim of a distorted report that put him in the category of  a propaganda terrorist. 

Sometimes in this "brave new world" you are damned because you are found guilty by association.