"But in their devotion to the State, yes, sadly many amongst the “Fourth Estate” really are just another part of the Regime."

The New York Times, CBS and Fox, et al - They're ALL Part of the Regime

By Scott Lazarowitz

Recently the Ludwig von Mises Institute received a visit from a New York Times reporter. Lew Rockwell politely asked him to leave, referring to the reporter as “part of the regime.”

The New York Times‘ subsequent article was mainly intended to be about Sen. Rand Paul, but really it was a hit piece on the Mises Institute and libertarianism in general.

I think that Lew Rockwell was right to correctly identify a scribbler for a long-time distributor of State press releases.

And given the Times‘ past efforts at pro-Democrat Party influence, one can suggest that this hit piece, with assertions made without facts to back them up, may have been intended with the 2016 Presidential race in mind.

But the New York Times is not only a propaganda sheet for the Democrat Party, but for the State, as we saw many years ago with the NYT‘s cover-up of Soviet genocide in the Ukraine. More recently have been theTimes‘ aiding and abetting the war on Iraq, its push for medical fascism, a.k.a. ObamaCare, and other campaigns for State expansion.

In fact, the NYT has been a “propaganda megaphone” for war. There have also been the NYT‘s collusion with the CIA and Obama Administration on the handling of Hollywood’s use of Zero Dark Thirty to promote Obama’s reelection bid, the NYT’s conspiring with Obama flunkies to justify the murder of alleged terrorist supporter Anwar al-Awlaki (after the fact), the NYT‘s unjustifiably withholding information on behalf of Bush officials and withholding stories to cover up for CIA misdeeds (yet reveals military secrets on its front page on behalf of regime parasites), and the NYT‘s propaganda for war on Iran.

Could there be any more rhetorical question than asking whether the New York Times is “part of the regime”?

But it isn’t just the New York Times. We can compare CBS’s harsh interrogation of regime critic Ron Paul to CBS’s love-fest with then-Defense Sec. Leon Panetta.

We can also look at the news media‘s criticism of Julian Assange and Wikileaks. And the media’s pro-military criticism of an actual investigative journalist as well, the late Michael Hastings, regarding his Rolling Stone article on the military’s use of psy-ops on U.S. senators and, in some cases reporters acting as Pentagon spokespeople in criticizing Hastings in his article on retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

But back to the New York Times, the paper of State worship and Regime deference. One of its authoritarian statist columnists, David Brooks, seems to think that Americans aren’t deferential enough to authority.

In Brooks’s differentiation between just and unjust authority he refers to Presidents Lincoln and FDR as apparently just authority.

And Brooks refers to the “Question Authority” crowd as seeing public servants as being “in it for themselves” (which they are, most of them), and that we are arrogant to question the legitimacy of the central planners of the ruling elites. Perhaps Brooks might try reading Ludwig von Mises’s Socialism and Planned Chaos, for a bit of de-programming.

And contrary to the Mises Institute’s promotion of Austrian economics, the Times‘ alleged economist, Paul Krugman promotes the Keynesian way of life that has caused America’s decline over the past century. Krugman lives by Keynesianism, which consists of policies of selfishness, irresponsibility and immediate gratification, yet he calls those who are against central planning and who believe in sound money to be of the “extreme fringe.” Go figure.

I think that Brooks and Krugman adequately reflect the statist authoritarian mindset of the Times‘ editors in general. But such promotion of statism and militarism seems to have found its way into the slanted news coverage as well.

So with the Times, and most of the other mainstream media outlets, the State and its central planners are good and decent, but those who love liberty, not so much.

One problem with many amongst the news media and the Left is a short-sightedness which really characterizes the American population in general. This is part of the society’s decline since the turn of the 20th Century and FDR’s New Deal especially, and is part of an emotionalistic idolizing of the State (and its central planning bureaucrats) as society’s replacement parents. An example of the short-sightedness is theTimes editorial board’s response to Barack Obama’s recent State of the Union address.

But this Regime-supporting authoritarianism isn’t just on the part of those on the Left. The conservatives love the State as well, hence the shallow, unthinking support for the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, which was wrong and based on lies, and for war on Iraq, also based on lies. For some reason, statists on both sides seem to see patriotism as supporting your government even when the government’s actions are wrong. In my view, they need to grow up and try to think for themselves.

So when the State’s critics make their criticisms known, for many people it is as though someone has criticized their mom or dad, it’s deeply personal and not only do the State’s defenders run to the State’s defense but they also tend to childishly run to slander the State’s critics.

But how do the news media such as the New York Times continue to enjoy such good standing in the eyes of so many people? Why do so many of them act is sycophants for the State? As Hans-Hermann Hoppe observed,

As an anti-intellectual intellectual, one can expect bribes to be offered — and it is amazing how easily some people can be corrupted: a few hundred dollars, a nice trip, a photo-op with the mighty and powerful are all too often sufficient to make people sell out.

But as far as why mainstream media outlets continue to lie and distort information, propagandize on behalf of corrupt politicians, banksters and military leaders, many such “journalists” probably do have a gullible and naive blind faith in their leaders despite the destruction such leaders have caused.

Or perhaps the scribblers and babblers really are fearful that what happened to James Risen, James Rosen, Audrey Hudson, and Michael Hastings, among others, may also happen to them. Who knows?

But in their devotion to the State, yes, sadly many amongst the “Fourth Estate” really are just another part of the Regime.

So Lew Rockwell was right to cordially request the New York Times reporter to vamoose, to leave the premises of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, an institution obviously not friendly to the statist paradigm of the New York Times‘ beloved central planning regime.

Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/01/scott-lazarowitz/the-ny-times-cbs-fox-et-al/