Defending the empire - The Daily Texan
The following article was published in today's opinion section of The Daily Texan, the school newspaper of the University of Texas at Austin. The Texan has a daily circulation of about 30,000, is the biggest student-run newspaper in the South, and has a large online following - so it's all about getting the word out.
Defending the empire
by Calvin Sloan
"According to professor Robert Jensen of the School of Journalism, “As long as the United States is an empire, government officials will try to keep the public in the dark about the nature of the empire.”
Given the 865 military bases abroad, the euphemistic “Overseas Contingency Operations,” and the military strategy of “full-spectrum dominance” that the United States oversees, our country is without a doubt the global hegemon of the day. Given the us-versus-them framework that is propagated by our politicians and mainstream media outlets alike to simplify, or outright falsify, the nature of our imperial ambitions, the powers that be are without a doubt attempting to keep the U.S. citizenry out of the know.
The most infamous tactic that governments use to alter the public mind in their favor is propaganda. In America, where the synergy and consolidation of private interests dominate both the medium and message of information dissemination, the existence of propaganda is blatantly visible.
However, the empire has another powerful, much less discussed tool in its arsenal: censorship."
Read on at:
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/opinion/defending-the-empire-1.2146472
- carlitos
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This is a great article. He
This is a great article. He delves into the censorship of Sibel Edmonds. As a journalism professor he must have a heavy heart. Where are his students going to go to make a living? Into some corporate box with a list of approved subjects?
Let's give this cowboy a hand!
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This-ee here's one mighty brave fella AND he writ this thang in TEXAS, of all dad-gum places! Yee-HA!
No off-ense to any of you'un that hail from that thar state, but it ain't seceded from the Union yet, no how, and there's a whole barrel-full of negative talk.
Commentin' is open, no log and in required. So, I figger, why not trot over to them thar hills an ofer a helpin' hand to that poor cowpoke.
I'm turnin' my Palomino around in this here arroyo, right now, and am headin' over. Be sure you eye the trail real close, now, so's you don't trample all them armadillos, rattlesnakes, and jackalopes.