General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Glenn Greenwald MUST be stopped. [View all]joshcryer
(62,269 posts)Because of how the data was presented, on a single source, with a post every week or two, with each new revelation being hyped but turning out to not be a big deal, with everything surrounding personas, personalities, as opposed to issues. Russia's hypocritical involvement, Pierre Omidyar's billionare rain of cash, the fallout with Wikileaks, making book deals, making movie deals.
It's become a specticle, and as Chomsky notes, in Manufacturing Consent, the mass media "carry out a system-supportive propaganda function by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion."
Self-censorship? That's what Greenwald did when he refused to release that Afghanistan was being mass monitored by the NSA. Every phone call recorded. All assumptions about the NSA become internalized because we don't know about what data Snowden actually collected. And it's all done without anyone realizing it because Greenwald is making bank by collectively managing the data.
If the masses weren't placated by this media paradigm, they would be protesting every day out in front of the White House. There would be a Million Man March every damn month. Occupy was a start, but it would be a lot bigger if the mass media didn't propagandize the masses as it so easily does. Instead no one cares. Because they ought not to, because it's not an issue that has been clearly defined and clearly accepted as something people care about.
It's checkbook journalism.