The U.S. Department of Media

By David Swanson

Last Friday one of two things indisputably happened. Either a dozen senior Congress members and several well-known expert witnesses went certifiably and collectively insane, or charges of the most extreme executive abuses of power ever heard in the history of this nation were backed up by overwhelming evidence during a six-hour hearing of the House Judiciary Committee focused on the possible need to impeach the President and the Vice President. Either way, a nation with a public communications system worthy of a democracy would have learned the news.

What we actually have in this country is a news media conglomerate that functions as a part of the executive branch of the federal government. Call it the United States Department of Media. But "branch" is not the right word, since the executive branch is all that remains of our government (aside from whatever Dick Cheney is). The legislative and judicial branches have been eliminated. Or, rather, they are constantly and effectively being shut out of the government, in no small part by the Media Department. But "department," too, is not the right word if one imagines any degree of independent decision making. None of the so-called departments and agencies in the executive government are any longer empowered to make significant decisions independent of the president (and whatever Dick Cheney is). And the Media Department is no exception.

One project of the U.S. Department of Media is the Cover Nothing Network (CNN) on which associate deputy undersecretaries of Media Campbell Brown and Erica Hill reported on Friday that there is not enough time for impeachment and that if the Democrats led the way to impeachment voters would punish them, and that therefore the hearing was a waste of money that could have been better spent publicizing the president kissing babies. I'm not making any of this up. Here's video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bzx6ttmbTbs

http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/35089