TRUTH-TELLERS

"Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct.
Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time.
If you're right and you know it, speak your mind.
Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth."

Mahatma Gandhi

TRUTH-TELLERS 24

INDEPENDENT VOICES COMMITTED TO THE TRUTH

Glenn Greenwald / Roger Waters

"Today Americans are ruled by propaganda. Americans have little regard for truth, little access to it, and little ability to recognize it.
Truth is an unwelcome entity. It is disturbing. It is off limits. Those who speak it run the risk of being branded "anti-American," "anti-semite" or "conspiracy theorist."
Truth is an inconvenience for government and for the interest groups whose campaign contributions control government.
Truth is an inconvenience for prosecutors who want convictions, not the discovery of innocence or guilt.
Truth is inconvenient for ideologues."

Paul Craig Roberts, 2010

Eric Foner / Edward Curtin / Jonathan Cook / Annie Machon

"The national broadcast media have become a propaganda arm of the Pentagon."

John Stauber, 2009

Kim Peterson / Reece Erlich / Dave Lindorff

"One of the functions of modern media is the creation of consent for the actions of the state. While it is true that there is space for independent critical voices in the west, journalists share an unspoken consensus on the limits of discourse."

Ziyaad Lunat, 2009

Jefferson Morley / Kathy Kelly / Eric Sommer / Tim Ferner

"Journalists and editors are not immune to the influence of owners and managers. Reporters want to see their stories approved for print or broadcast, and editors come to know the limits of their freedom to diverge from the "common sense" worldview of owners and managers. The self-discipline that this structure induces in journalists and editors comes to seem only "common sense" to them as well. Self-discipline becomes self-censorship-independence is restricted, the filtering process hidden, denied, or rationalized away."

Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff, 2009

Daniel Kovalik / Paul Haeder / Kevin Gosztola

"Essentially Walter Chronkite was a shill for the government. It didn't matter whether it was Democratic or Republican. He was for the status quo."

Lewis Lapham, 2009

Jim Miles / Eric Schlosser / Michael Sheuer

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations."

George Orwell

"Rather than encouraging as free and open debate as possible, the Washington Post sees its role as herding the American people to certain preordained conclusions - and casting out from acceptable society anyone who dares threaten the Washington consensus."

Robert Parry, 2009

"By definition, establishments believe in propping up the existing order. Members of the ruling class have a vested interest in keeping things pretty much the way they are."

Evan Thomas, 2009

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