Jeremy Scahill on 9/11

[Jan Klimkowski]

Jan I assume you are aware of the History of Encounter Magazine, the CIA funded left gatekeeping magazine. How do you propose that we USE this particular history? Do you deny the possibility that similar operations are going on right now? Go ahead and disagree, that's great. But just how do you propose we get the word out about left-gatekeeping. IMO it is strategy #1 in preventing potential majorities from recognizing their own strength. Knowledge of the historical fact of Encounter is sorely lacking in the wide CIA enclave known as the United States.

Nate - I'm very well aware of the history of Encounter thank you very much. Encounter had a CIA agent on its editorial board in neocon godfather Irving Kristol, and - to my knowledge - published hardly any investigative exposes of deep black operations.

Whereas the list of left gatekeepers, drawn up by those who like to sling such mud - often purely because they interpret a particular event in a fundamentally different fashion - includes many who have produced outstanding investigative journalism.

Hmmmm... Who's playing whom here?

For instance, it was Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair who wrote: "Whiteout, Drugs and the Press", describing in part how the press refused to support or publish Gary Webb's outstanding investigative journalism. The journalism which led to Webb being "suicided", managing the spectacular feat of shooting himself twice in the head.

Yet Counterpunch and the Cockburn tribe are routinely described as "left gatekeepers" by those who throw such labels about.

I find the use of such a label to describe the work of Counterpunch and those who write for it to be destructive and entirely counter-productive.

Nate - let me ask you a question. I believe you regularly post on Democracy Now. Some, including Paul Rigby, describe Amy Goodman as a left gatekeeper.

Do you agree with that label? And, if so, how does it affect your behaviour?