The Real Story in Yova's World

The recent flap over the New York Times coverage of Bush’s “War on Terror” isn’t really about leaking secrets and all that goes with it i.e. where those leaks originated, for what purpose they were they leaked (if any), and the real or imagined consequences of those leaks on our safety.

The “real story “is that The New York Times wasn’t the first to “tip off terrorists” to our ability to track their financial activities. Everybody knows that, or do they? Everybody knows and some of us remember enough to remind those who forgot and inform those who never did know that among others:

Less than two weeks after 9/11 George Bush announced to the press and revealed in a letter to Congress the establishment of a “foreign terrorist asset tracking center to identity and investigate the financial infrastructure of international terrorist networks”. Two days later he said we were fighting terrorists on the financial front and choking off their money, seizing their property (drug war tactics applied in Iraq except this time the drug is an idea of “terrorism” that permits a state of perpetual war, perpetual profiteering, and perpetual suffering – but I digress) and “we would be relentless as we pursue their sources of financing”.

The “real story” is that nearly five full years later George Bush now accuses The New York Times of “tipping off America’s enemies and jeopardizing national security”. Dick Cheney says such a disclosure will now “make it more difficult to prevent attacks in the future”. And George also said “if you want to figure out what the terrorists are doing, you try to follow their money. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. And the fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror”.

Where’s the outrage from any corner of this country, or the professional paid politicians from either party or from any group with its own agenda? In the government controlled press the spin was that the New York Times was “reckless”, “giving too much information to the other side” “undermining” and “damaged our national security”. The name of the source isn’t important. All that matters is that it is packaged as “fair and balanced”.

In America today there are a growing number of people being manipulated to accept a comfortable lie and denounce the comfortable truth as treasonous. That is the “real story” for if indeed that piece in the Times is worthy of such venomous and caustic descriptions then why haven’t the sources been held accountable starting with George Bush?

And the “real story” is that members of the press shamelessly condemn other members of the press for exercising their “freedom of the press” to inform the public what the government is doing in their name. Isn’t that what a “free press” is all about? And when members of the press produce and process the government spin on “the truth of what it is doing in our name” they abuse that “freedom” when they become an appendage of any government.

Indeed the very existence of a propaganda machine for one specific political ideology used to manufacture the consent of the governed to perpetuate any dogma is anti-democratic and a betrayal of our revolution against tyranny.

The “real story” is that in response to the Times article Tony Snow recently said that in the future the press “ought to think long and hard about whether a public’s right to know in some cases might override somebody’s right to live”. Didn’t Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, et al warn us shortly after 9/11 to be careful of what we said.

For special affect the government informs the press about two recent terrorist attempts that were foiled in the interests of “our national security”. I personally prefer the term “safety of the people” to “national security” because the people’s safety is in the Declaration of our Independence from tyranny and “national security” can become the tool of tyranny in the hands of evil men who seek to dominate through divide and conquer.

I’m quite sure there are thousands of unstable individuals making a thousand violent threats against our public safety but at present the best our government permits the press to print is that of 7 wanna be Black Panthers in Miami and 6 people found out in chat rooms outside the United States. The two recent disclosures isn’t the real story, the “real story” is the message of Snow’s remarks and the message is that if the press doesn’t curb its already limited appetite for the truth worse things can happen and if terror ever visits our shores again, this time it can be blamed on the press for the seed to blame the messenger has already been planted.

The “real story” is an Administration blatantly using the press to define “truth” or “reality” in their terms and not as it is e.g. when is the last you time you saw a flag draped coffin? The “real story” is filled with a guy like Jeff Gannon. For those who don’t remember he was the Republican political operative given credentials to be a member of the White House press corps and was regularly called on to ask questions which would produce the desired propaganda and in addition be accorded legitimacy as a member of “the press” . He was paid to push the party line. His resume reflected the exact job experience necessary – he ran a prostitution site on the Internet.

And the “real story” is when Bob Novak outed the CIA operative, Valerie Plame where was all the talk of treason from these false patriots? Certainly not from this White House which was too preoccupied with retaliating against one of their own who chose to speak truth to power. Indeed Mr. Wilson was a Bush supporter at one time and he is now experiencing the consequences of his vote.

And isn’t the “real story” when this White House was pitching “curve ball” to Judy Miller to make a case for war based on deceit and deception were they not committing the very treason of which they now accuse the New York Times for printing a story that is “old news”? Judy Miller was doing what Jeff Gannon was doing except she was writing for the same New York Times that this Administration now claims recently “tipped off the terrorists”. The irony is that “the terrorists” tipped themselves off in that tragic month of September in 01.

The story is framed in the rhetoric of giving priority to “national security” over the right of the individual to know what his/her government is doing in his/her name. This “national security” vs. “individuals right to know” debate is but another expression of this government, of our government’s need to create another duality, another instance of creating division among the people to distract their focus from “the real story” and “the real story” is that “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act”. (George Orwell). When “truth” is condemned as “treason” that is what we are thinking long and hard about in Yova's world.