Chris Hedges Takes On The 'Borg' Who Hired Obama...and IMO wins.....

[David Guyatt]

CHRIS HEDGES: Well, we used to have a mechanism. It was called the press. And we used to be able to tell our sources that they would be protected and that they would not be investigated for providing information that exposed the inner workings of power. Unfortunately, the press, like most institutions in this country, and I would add the legal profession, has largely collapsed under this corporate coup d'état that's taken place and is no longer functioning. And I want to get back, that what this is fundamentally a debate about is whether we are going to have, through the press, an independent institution within this country that can examine the inner workings of power or not. And it is nowI mean, many of us had suspected this widespread surveillance, but now that it's confirmed, we're seeingyou know, why did Snowden come out publicly? Well, because I think he knew that they would find out anyway, because they have all of Glenn Greenwald's email, phone records and everything else, and they can very quickly find out who he was speaking to and whether Snowden had contact with him. And thatyou know, I speak as reporteris terrifying, because it essentially shuts down any ability to counter the official propaganda and the official narrative and expose the crimes. And we have seen in the last few years tremendous crimes being committed by those in power. We have no ability now to investigate them.

The implication of this is that technology is now to be thoroughly distrusted.

Honest journalists are going to have to go back to hand-written notes, whispers in corridors and meetings in car parks late at night. Any electronic aids - laptops, iPads, mobile/cell phones etc., are to be avoided henceforward when engaged on a sensitive and revelatory story.

Dave, you may be correct, but that is a huge step backwards toward the 'stone age' in the midst of the digital world.....in essence they have made investigative reporting criminal and those who engage in it enemies of the 'state' apparatus. Tyranny! Total Control! Totalitarianism! Propaganda only - no Truth allowed! Hedges nailed it on the head. The other person he was debating [dead from the neck up] just doesn't get it...as most Liberals do not and most Americans and World Citizens are too afraid to contemplate as true [those who are not co-conspirators in the mechanisms of control].

Let them have their toys Pete. It's going to be tougher, but man has the ingenuity, tenacity and courage to find a way to endure.

I think we both well remember the old days in the Soviet Union, when people so distrusted the media that they wrote the news themselves and pinned it on walls for others to read - or roneo'd copies of same and distributed to a small select group.

We're now heading to that arrangement it seems to me...