Police state

Fellow blogger Jotman has made some sharp observations about the crackdowns...

In the early hours of Tuesday morning, New York City reporters described 1) feeling too intimidated to report what the police were doing; and 2) incidents in which police physically prevented the press from doing its job--two characteristics of a police state. A third characteristic of a police state is when news organizations conceal the fact that their reporters are not free to report stories.

Increasingly, journalism in the U.S. amounts to distributing excerpts of interviews with public officials or members of Washington's "revolving door class." Think CNN correspondent Barbara Starr telling viewers what the Pentagon and its corporate partners wants them to hear. Or a retired general tasked by CNN to explain the true meaning of a video the Pentagon has been covering-up. In important respects, U.S. media coverage of police campaigns against citizen protesters has come to resemble the media's coverage of military operations abroad. Nine times out of ten, Americans hear only their own government's perspective on a drone campaign against "terrorists." Needless to say, the militarization of domestic journalism is happening at the precise historical moment when Americans are waking up to the militarization of their local police.

Does this happen because journalists have internalized unspoken rules? Or is it the case that the rules were, on some occasion, spoken? Either way, someone in that profession ought to come forward with an expose.

I suppose one could say that Bob Parry has done just that. But I suspect that matters have become much worse. In the (very brief and not very substantive) email dialogue I had with Gary Webb before his death, he seemed to opt for the "unspoken rules" explanation.

Added note: Occupy Baltimore got Karl Rove so flustered he sputtered: "Who gave you the right to occupy America?"

I think those words reveal just how the Bushies really feel about the 99 percent.