Shoddy Alt-News ‘Journalism’ Boosts Mainstream ‘Journalism’ (Propaganda)
ERIC ZUESSE, Contributing Writer
This is the first part of a two-part article originally published at Strategic Culture Foundation
INTRODUCTION
Whereas mainstream ‘journalism’ about international affairs is thoroughly controlled by (and usually owned by) the aristocracy that control the government, and therefore such ‘journalism’ boosts the government regardless of which of the government’s parties is in power (since they both are controlled by the aristocracy, instead of by the public such as they claim), a few of the alternative news sites make serious attempts to present truthful news, and those few sites are more trustworthy than are any of the mainstream sites — or than are any of the sloppy ‘alt-news’ ones.
Most ‘alt-news’ sites are so sloppy that they end up just like the mainstream sites, confusing or even deceiving their followers, and thus they do an important part of the job that the aristocracy everywhere wants done: to deceive and/or outright confuse the public in order to control (manipulate) them to accept things as they are, regarding the nation’s relationships with foreign countries, including even which ones are to be labelled as “allies” (such as Saudi Arabia) and which ones will be labelled “enemies” (such as Syria). This societal control-function, and source for invasions (and also for many domestic problems as well, such as for the public’s acceptance of enormous wealth-inequality) is the reality about the press. The press is a crucial lever to control the public’s view of national, and especially of international, affairs. It thus serves the aristocracy as a crucial tool to determine if, when, and whom, the nation’s government will invade, as well as to determine the government’s domestic policies.
However, standard myths about ‘our free press’ are, of course, to the exact contrary of this reality (and are thus promoted by the press as part of their service to the aristocracy) — namely, that the press are independent of the nation’s aristocracy (instead of owned and controlled by it), and that the press care about finding and communicating to the public the truth, instead of about communicating whatever happens to be the most advantageous to convey to the public in order to get the public willingly to pay taxes and otherwise to support (and maybe directly to participate in) the nation’s military to invade other countries so as to overthrow the leaders that the nation’s aristocracy want to overthrow — such as (for America’s aristocracy): Saddam Hussein in 2003, Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and Bashar al-Assad in 2011(-and-still-trying). The bloodshed and national expense drained by these invasions are catastrophic — and are far worse for the victim-countries, even than they are for the invading one — but the press are essential in making the public support and accept it.
Whereas all of the right-wing ‘alt news’ press is conservative, and therefore ultimately supports the mainstream press’s view (the view that we live in a democracy, not in a dictatorship, and that ‘our’ military fights for ‘the right side’ — even though it creates mayhem around the world (such as those recent examples, in the propagandistic name of national ‘defense’ and supporting ‘freedom and democracy’), some of the left-wing ‘alt-news’ press actually do likewise, by their own form of sloppy thinking. The focus here will be on the left-wing type of sloppy-thinking ‘alt news’ media, because all of the right-wing type is basically conservative and therefore is ultimately supportive of the aristocracy — like the mainstream press are (even if in different ways).
A good example of the latter type of ‘alt-news’ — the left-wing sloppy sort — is “The Corbett Report” and its 15-year-anniversary (2016) report about the origin of the 9/11 attacks. This example will be explored here in depth because their ‘news’ report on that subject entrenches more deeply an old anti-Semitic lie, which many in the aristocracy promote so as to hide the actual (non-Jewish, purely aristocratic) source of the funding and organization (the actual elite people) behind the 9/11 attacks — in this particular case, the lie conveyed is that “the Jews did it” (as anti-Semites say), or that “Israel did it” (as both anti-Zionists and anti-Semites say) (but it’s false and hides the real perpetrators, in either case — as will here be shown):
Corbett’s video about the source of the 9/11 attacks, which was issued on 11 September 2016 to commemorate 9/11, headlined “9/11 Suspects: Dancing Israelis” (pictured below), and it’s shown here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XHm56O2NTI
It is full of unsupported assumptions and allegations, key ones of which are false. For examples: Corbett (5:40) “They [the ‘dancing Israelis’] had been sent there to document the event [the 9/11 attacks on the 
WTC].” He repeats that (as will be proven here) false assumption at 9:10-. Then, he alleges (13:40-) “The FBI were convinced that these spies knew about 9/11 in advance,” but presents no evidence to back up this (as will be proven here to be false) allegation. Israel is an apartheid state, and so should be abandoned by all nations (like South Africa was when it was apartheid) regardless, but prejudiced persons’ falsehoods are falsehoods, not facts — and these falsehoods hide the real source of the 9/11 attacks — and so protect the actual guilty parties.
That video is presented to its viewers as if Corbett himself had come up with this (as will be proven here to be false) storyline about the source of the 9/11 attacks; and, therefore, the video’s viewer-comments heap him with praises such as (this one that has 204 net up-votes) “You’re a madman, Corbett. People can’t handle all this truth, day after day. How do you expect them to cope with so much reality?” Or, (in response to the transcript-version) “Amazing work this week James….as always!” However, as will be shown below, Corbett is just rehashing here old similar videos, embellishing some of their false assumptions as if they are his originally created views – his ‘discovery’ – while not even crediting his actual sources, which he himself didn’t even care enough about to check and verify prior to citing them (to the extent he even does cite his sources). He virtually invites deception of his audience. And they believe him, and even pay him — he’s preaching to the choir, just exploiting his co-believers — and this is supposed to be ‘journalism’ instead of propaganda. But it’s red meat to his co-believers, who apparently, generally, don’t even know that he’s merely rehashing old distortions. Although his propaganda is different from that of, say, the New York Times, the business model is basically the same; only the deceptions are not.
Much of this the-Jews-did-it talk comes from speculative videos like that, which fail to ask the intelligent questions, but instead are loaded with mere assumptions, some of which are false.
One example of an older video that might have been actually a source for Corbett’s is dated 20 October 2010, “The Five Dancing Israelis – 9/11/2001 – Our Purpose Was To Document The Event”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStJ5BgadPs
which presents someone saying that Israelis who were involved in this alleged “dance” were “later revealed as Mossad assets” (no evidence given as to whom or how — or by whom — ‘revealed’) and then it shows Brit Hume of Fox News asking a reporter (5:20-) about “this question of advance knowledge of what was going to happen on 9/11. How clear are investigators that some Israeli agents might have known something?” The reporter replies: “Well it’s very explosive information, obviously” but he has no information about that ‘information’, and then quickly says “A bigger question is how could they NOT have known?” (Oh, really? Reporting that false allegation is ‘news’?) Then, one of those “dancing Israelis” — by now back inside Israel — is shown on Israeli TV saying “Our purpose was to document the event.” (We’ll get later to what that statement from him actually meant.)
Another of these speculative videos, dated 6 March 2012, “Dancing Israelis Our purpose was to document the event”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIeP84WEZLU
focuses especially on this “dancing Israeli” saying “Our purpose was to document the event,” and then it goes on to show a Jew alleging that Judaism (presumably meaning belief in the Pentateuch as being history instead of myth) is not only true but “breaking down all false gods” (implicitly attacking there perhaps both Christianity and Islam but certainly non-Abrahamic religions) and then showing other things that bait anti-Semites, and that make no appeal whatsoever to rational people. Individuals who have prejudices don’t need more than such rank trashy speculation in order to think that their prejudices are true. Perhaps most people are like this — which would make the aristocracy’s job much easier. <
Regarding this “dancing Israelis” matter, just stop and think about it. What did that statement “Our purpose was to document the event” actually mean? Did it mean that this person had been filming the 9/11 attack before the event even started (such as all of these anti-Semites and anti-Zionists are assuming — and duping their viewers to believe)? The FBI found that the “dancing Israelis” had actually started to film it after the first jet hit the WTC. That’s a major reason why the FBI closed the case. The fact that those “dancing Israelis” were delighted that the attack had occurred doesn’t prove that they had had anything whatsoever to do with causing the attack. Similarly, Benjamin Netanyahu, on 16 April 2008, said: “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the twin towers and pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq.” But this, too, doesn’t prove that he was at all involved in the 9/11 attacks.
The FBI, after an exhaustive three-year investigation, found that the “dancing Israelis” did not know about it in advance. See the “Full text of ‘Dancing Israelis Police and FBI Reports 9/11/01’”. For example, it says in their report there, dated “July 10, 2003” (and I boldface the timeline-sensitive words): “Newark investigation found no factual or substantive circumstantial information to corroborate eyewitness accounts the five (5) Israeli Nationals ‘videotaped’ the attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Investigation did find that still photographs were taken of the attack by these individuals with a 35 mm camera found in their possession.” And: “Newark investigation found no factual or substantive circumstantial information to indicate the five (5) Israeli Nationals were on top of a parking garage ‘videotaping’ prior to first hijacked aircraft striking tower #2 of the World Trade Center. Numerous circumstantial facts strongly support the five (5) individual’s statements they traveled to the roof of the parking garage after learning of the attacks from radio broadcasts and Internet news sites. None of the pictures developed from the film found inside the 35 mm camera depicted the twin towers prior to the attack.” Then, it said, “On 07/10/2003”, that “Newark investigation was completed and closed.” Then, on “Date: 04/14/2004”, the “Evidence Control Center” reported:
“Details: The evidence related to the above-listed investigation was determined to be of no value to the PENTTBOMB investigation [i.e., to the FBI’s investigation into who had planned and financed the 9/11 attacks], but [and here the machine-read text is garbled, but approximately this] was found to be worthy of a Cl investigation. Newark’s inquiry TWIN TOWERS was closed in July of 03, however FBI HQ [garbled] is still pending. Newark is awaiting a summary of ___ to assist us in determining the final disposition of the evidence retained by Newark.” Then, on “Date: 02/18/2005”, from the Newark FBI office, was reconfirmed: “(Closed)”. So, apparently, “FBI HQ” (the J.Edgar Hoover Building in DC) had needed this confirmation from the Newark Field Office, in order to close completely the FBI’s “Dancing Israelis” part of the PENTTBOMB investigation. Ever since that time, anyone who was still alleging that the “Dancing Israelis” had possessed any advance-knowledge that the 9/11 attacks would occur as they did and when and where they did was saying something that the FBI had already conclusively determined to be false.
———————
And also in the ‘news’ during 9/11 (and subsequently to become mixed into the myth about the “dancing Israelis”) had been this “911 Explosive laden van 2-3 arrests” video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CHq6JocvDM
Dan Rather alleged there, on 9/11 (0:30-), that “Two suspects are in FBI custody after a truckload of explosives was discovered around the George Washington Bridge … enough explosives in the truck to do great damage to the George Washington Bridge.”
Rather had picked that allegation up from NYC’s local CBS affiliate station’s reporter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VeJuiJv6Rs
She said that two men had just then been (0:26-0:29) “arrested at the George Washington Bridge with an entire truckload of explosives.”>
But, actually, the next day,
“officials denied any explosives were found in the van.”
However, that finding was ignored by the national ‘news’ media. There was no further news-coverage about the matter. When the ‘bomb-van’ threat was found to have been non-existent, the ‘news’ media simply ignored the report that it was, and left the previous ‘news’ reports — the fake ones, which had misled people — standing, as if they had been true.
Also on 9/11, a different news-report said that a van that was near “the Hackensack River Bridge” and carrying five possible “Israeli tourists” had been inspected by police for explosives, but a report the next day also indicated that no explosives had been in that van:
http://web.archive.org/web/20011108025936/http://www.bergen.com/news/2bombvan200109125.htm
Subsequently, both of those two separate ‘bomb-van’ incidents became merged and mixed together, into what emerged to become an enduring myth, that “the dancing Israelis” had not only been part of the 9/11 plot, but were subsequently aiming to blow up the George Washington Bridge.
This is what happens when ‘news’ media report not actual news but mere arrests — which shouldn’t ever even be reported to the public unless and until charges are filed about the given matter. If a person is arrested but not charged, and the person isn’t a government-official, there should be no public report, because no public issue is involved in that event. Both people’s privacy, and defendants’ ability to be judged by an impartial jury if a court case does result from an investigation, get thrown to the dogs by such premature ‘news’ reports, which feed propaganda because ‘news’ media care so little about accuracy, but care lots about being the first to report ‘news’ — which neither of those cases actually was since no charges were ever filed.
More details about the truckload-of-explosives-in-a-van myth can be found here:
http://www.911myths.com/index.php?title=A_truckload_of_explosives
—————
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
Original article published through Strategic Culture Foundation
