Major Media vs THE INTERNET

From: Ian Goddard (igoddard@erols.com)
Date: Tue Mar 11 1997 - 11:07:58 MST


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                    THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL MEDIA

                         VERSUS THE INTERNET

                 60 Minutes Anti-conspiracy Slop Job

      by Ian Williams Goddard

      The major media have launched a disinformation war designed
      to smear the Internet. The Internet represents a heretofore
      unparalleled level of informational competition for the major
      media. A primary pretext for these Internet attacks focuses
      on the "conspiracy theories," or alternative news and views,
      that the Net allows the public to freely access and express.

      Most recently the CBS program 60 Minutes (02/1/97), using
      false and misleading claims, attacked conspiracy theories
      and alternative information on the Internet such as my work.

      60 Minutes anchor Lesley Stahl, while arguing for the removal
      of undesirable information such as mine from the Internet,
      promoted the hysteria-inducing fear that freedom of access
      to conspiracy theory is a threat to the minds of the children.

      After showing my TWA 800 web page with my name prominently
      displayed, Lesley Stahl pointed a finger at the lead graphic
      I created (http://www.erols.com/igoddard/twa-fact.htm) saying:

                STAHL: Shouldn't this be expunged ?

                GUEST: On what grounds?

                STAHL: That it's wrong, that it's
                inaccurate, it's irresponsible, that
                it is spreading fear and suspicion
                of the government; 10,000 reasons.

                GUEST: Ooh, sedition I see. So it's
                anti-government, so it spreads fear.
                But who should regulate it? ...

                STAHL: So you think it's better
                to leave all this junk out there?

      Now let's see how accurate the claims of 60 Minutes are.
      My graphic, or "junk," which 60 Minutes calls "wrong" and
      "inaccurate," contains one sentence making three claims:

                (1) The "streak of light"
                    reported to "hit the plane"

                (2) "followed the course like
                    the outline of a parabola"

                (3) not unlike a guided missile.

      (1) The New York Times (07/19/96) said that eyewitnesses
      reported a "'streak of light' hitting the plane just before
      it blew up." An eyewitness I've interviewed, Roland Penney,
      told Newsday (09/01/96) that "the thin white line" that raced
      upwards toward TWA 800 "hit that plane." This is just a small
      sample (more here: http://www.erols.com/igoddard/twa-fact.htm)
      of the massive body of available missile-witness accounts that
      60 Minutes wants you to believe are "wrong" and "irresponsible."

      (2) As quoted on my web page, The New York Times (07/19/96),
      citing the evidence that "the airplane was hit by a missile
      fired from a boat," reported the following:

              Paul Angelides, who lives in West Hampton
              Beach... saw what he described as a "red
              meteor with a smoke tail" that followed
              the course like the outline of "a parabola."

      (3) A streak of light that shoots across the sky leaving the
      smoky and curving trail cited in claim 2, is by definition
      "not unlike a guided missile." The two primary possibilities
      are that this streak is (a) a meteorite or (b) a missile.
      The radical degree of curvature sighted in my graphic, which
      is consistent with most accounts, eliminates (a) leaving (b);
      and therefore it is indeed most like a guided missile.

      That's the kind of logical analysis CBS wants to have
      "expunged" from the human record because it spreads fear
      about the government, and specifically about the U.S. Navy,
      which the owner of CBS, Westinghouse, works for [1].

      So, each and every claim I make that 60 Minutes would like
      you to believe is "wrong," "inaccurate," and "irresponsible,"
      is IN FACT logical, true, and accurate according to over 150
      eyewitness accounts cited in major media sources. Therefore,
      the claims of 60 Minutes are, to the contrary, the only
      claims proven to be false and inaccurate.

      WHAT 60 MINUTES IS NOT TELLING YOU

      While Lesley Stahl may have laughed at web pages claiming
      that the major media are not telling all about TWA 800, the
      fact is that the major media routinely suppress verifiable
      information that should spread fear of the government.

      For example, CBS has the Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR)
      video from Waco, TX (4/19/93) that shows the FBI shooting
      machine-guns into Mount Carmel, the Branch Davidian's home,
      most heavily as the fire started and people tried to escape.

      Not only has a top FLIR expert evaluated the video [2],
      concluding that it shows gunshots toward the building,
      but according to Gordon Novel (head of investigation in
      the Ramsey Clark Waco lawsuit, who acquired the FLIR video
      from the quickly dead former head of CIA, Bill Colby) CBS
      even had the video examined by the independent laboratory
      Infraspection Institute of Berlington, VT, which also
      concluded that the video shows machine-gun fire toward
      the building. 60 Minutes did its homework and was ready
      to run the FLIR video with the findings.

      However, Novel reports [3] that all it took was an angry
      call from the Justice Department for CBS and 60 Minutes to
      cave-in and opt instead to suppress the truth by not runn-
      ing the FLIR program. Because it seems CBS does not want
      to spread any fear or suspicions about the government, CBS
      viewers can be sure never to see the shocking FLIR video.

      Contrary to Ms. Stahl's laughter at the claim, the major
      media, even her own program, are willfully suppressing
      powerful evidence against the US government and in so do-
      ing are willing to sacrifice the interests of the American
      people for the security of those in power with the blood
      of men, women, and children all over their hands. Then,
      after covering up mass murder in Waco, 60 Minutes moves
      on to smear and suppresses evidence suggesting that the
      US government killed all 230 people aboard TWA 800. The
      pattern is clear: serve the State, screw the people.

      MAJOR MEDIA vs THE INTERNET

      While the major media work to smear the Internet as an
      unreliable source of lies and rumor, the facts are that
      the Internet has proven to be more reliable in terms of
      getting the truth out more quickly than the major media.

      A case in point is the recent coverage the ABC program
      20/20 (01/17/97) gave to the compelling evidence of fore-
      knowledge by the federal government of the Oklahoma City
      bombing [4]. While 20/20 called this report "an exclusive
      investigation," the fact is that every detail they "scooped"
      could have been found on the Internet a year beforehand.
      Indeed, ABC took the credit for the leg-work of many grass-
      roots investigators, whom the major media had been smearing
      previously as the "paranoid nuts" that lurk about in the
      dark and fearful world of the Internet.

      The chaotic dynamics of Internet-information processing
      is light-years ahead of the major media, which can only
      hope to keep pace with the rapidly evolving information
      structures that form the electronic world of cyberspace.

      DYNAMICS OF INFORMATIONAL FREEDOM

      As on-line researcher Thomas Shoemaker [5] observes [6],
      the process-focused nature of the Internet's informational
      structure renders the Net too dynamic and fast-paced for
      the outdated product-oriented media behemoths, which the
      Internet threatens to cut down to size:

              The media of which Lesley Stahl belongs
              to is failing. They achieved dominance
              years ago, when there was less competition
              from other information systems: their main
              worry was about what other members of their
              monopoly were doing. Now they are in decline
              and denial. They have and continue to view
              the "news" as a "product" which is massaged,
              molded, dressed up, packaged, promoted, and
              then delivered to the consumer as a finished
              commodity.

              The internet is perceived as a threat by
              Lesley, her co-workers and their bosses,
              because it is not product-focused, but
              process-focused. They cannot successfully
              cope with the creative, turbulent decentral-
              ization of the internet...it is just too
              free for them. Their idea of news is an
              address to the peasants (us) from the
              royal family (the media, of course).

      The process nature of Internet informational-structure allows
      a story to unfold spontaneously in such a way that the whole
      decentralized society is free to become active participants
      in a public investigation and analysis of available facts,
      free to make the input that Lesley Stahl wants "expunged"
      from the human record.

      But even as their Internet smear campaign, frequently focusing
      on TWA 800, may signal a fear in CBS of the chaotic and spon-
      taneous nature of informational freedom, CBS may smear those
      proposing that TWA 800 was hit with a U.S. Navy missile simply
      because CBS is owned by the large military-industrial-complex
      contractor, Westinghouse, which works for the U.S. Navy [1].

      ON THE INTERNET, GOOD INFORMATION DRIVES OUT BAD

      The fear that bad information threatens the good on the
      Internet fails to observe that over time and with the input
      of thousands of minds, we have a greater ability than ever
      to see all sides of the story. The instant input of so many
      people who know parts or all of a give topic allows the
      Internet as a whole to more quickly drive out bad informa-
      tion than the major media where few are permitted input.

      When I write an essay and post it to the Internet, instantly
      people with other ideas or expertise in an area I cover can
      critique it for all to evaluate. While many replies offer
      only empty insults expressing rage rather than constructive
      analysis, on the whole, this system of automatic feedback
      and input accelerates the process of "social learning."

      The major media of all varieties make their case in forums
      that are insulated from the instantaneous and equally visible
      input and critique of others. It's exactly as Tom Shoemaker
      observed previously, that the major media wants to address
      the public like the royal family addresses its sea of
      peasants, where rebuttal is discouraged and denied.

      To a larger degree than at any time in human history, the
      Internet puts us all on the same level; the Internet is a
      great equalizer. Let us honor this gift to humanity, not
      disparage it as those who still live in the old ways seek
      to disparage the new and empowering media that is the Internet.

***********************************************************************
 IAN GODDARD (igoddard@erols.com) Q U E S T I O N A U T H O R I T Y
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 VISIT Ian Goddard's Universe -----> http://www.erols.com/igoddard
_______________________________________________________________________

(c) 1997 Ian Williams Goddard (*) free to copy nonprofit w/ attribute.

  TWA 800: THE FACTS --> http://www.erols.com/igoddard/twa-fact.htm

    WACO - WTC - OKC ---> http://www.erols.com/igoddard/facts.htm

_____________________________________________________________________
[1] CBS/Navy link: http://www.westinghouse.com/indst/h_gesc.htm
Found on cited CBS webpage (03/09/97): "Westinghouse Government
 Operations manages several sites owned by the federal government.
 US Navy sites managed by Westinghouse Government Operations:
 (1) Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
 (2) Plant Apparatus Division near Pittsburgh,
 (3) Machinery Apparatus Operation in Schenectady, New York."

[2] FLIR analysis and testimony of Dr. Edward Allard as filled in court:
http://home.dc.lsoft.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind9702&L=flight-800&O=A&P=8949

[3] AMERICAN FREEDOM: 1(8) p 11. http://www.amerifree.com

[4] Review of 20/20 report: http://www.jbs.org/vo13no04.htm#okc

[5] Thomas Shoemaker's TWA 800 research page:
http://www.webexpert.net/rosedale/twacasefile/default.htm

[6] Thomas Shoemaker comments on the Internet to Flight 800 list:
http://home.dc.lsoft.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind9703&L=flight-800&P=1786

[7] More examples major media attacks on Internet-conspiracy theory:
http://home.dc.lsoft.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind9611&L=flight-800&O=A&P=14831
http://www.erols.com/igoddard/decree.htm



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