Puppet Masters

NBC's Brian Williams admits 'Our job is to scare people to death over North Korea'

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Wed, 09 Aug 2017 11:46 UTC

On Tuesday night MSNBC's Brian Williams bluntly told his panel on the channel's flagship prime time program, The 11th Hour, that "our job tonight actually is scare people to death" over North Korea. The remarks came in the midst of a vigorous discussion which included Andrea Mitchell giving a detailed description of what the potential death toll on the Korean peninsula might be should a ballistic missile exchange occur. The panel also included MSNBC contributor Malcolm Nance, to which Williams' remarks were specifically directed.

Williams begins his revealing comment at the 2:00 mark.

In response to Williams' unexpected and very revealing comment, Mitchell appeared to shake her head, though it's unclear if she was approving or disapproving of what he actually said - there was no push back by the panelists or attempt to seek clarification on Williams' words.

Though the world is currently witnessing a dangerous and escalating war of words between President Trump and the so-called hermit kingdom, mainstream media reporting has long been driven by simplistic fear mongering concerning the geopolitical dynamics driving tensions in the region. The American public is generally woefully uneducated regarding to history of US-North Korean tensions and war.

According to the 20th century theologian and political commentator Reinhold Niebuhr, fear is a prime means which leading public institutions and elites utilize to keep the masses loyal. Fear and sensationalized coverage is also good for ratings and advertising revenue. Niebuhr says society's "myth-makers" - an apt description of today's major corporate media - constantly give us mere illusions divorced from truth:

Rationality belongs to the cool observer, but because of the stupidity of the average man, he follows not reason, but faith, and the naive faith requires necessary illusion and emotionally potent oversimplifications which are provided by the myth-maker to keep the ordinary person on course.

While the media's job ought to be the at all costs investigative uncovering of truth and accurate analysis in its role as the Fourth Estate, Brian Williams apparently thinks it's his and NBC's job to induce constant fear in the public. He openly stated just that.

Last April, Williams was widely mocked on social media for his comments in response to Trump's bombing Syria. Responding to a Pentagon video which showed US cruise missiles being launched on an airfield in Syria, he said live on MSNBC that he found himself "tempted to quote the great Leonard Cohen: 'I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons."

Comment: Who benefits by a populace that is driven by fear? Who benefits from a society that is purposefully destabilized in order to willingly compromise its freedom and principles to equalize a perceived threat? The bigger the 'show', the deeper we have to look.

Reader Comments

Haddy Nuff · 2017-08-13T20:30:52Z

Appears that Brian Williams is in the market for a career change. Or his comments were scripted on purpose exactly for increasing ratings and advertising revenue.

Sad to think some people truly enjoy watching fake TV news which constantly promotes their impressions of selected coverage.

binra · 2017-08-13T21:00:56Z

The cynical are gullible and both are set in refusal to open their mind to anything they do not already assert or align in conformity to. Sceptics are by definition open to consider the evidence and change if the evidence reveals the old presumptions and assertions do not hold true.

Although scare 'sells' papers or baits clickfeed for advertisers - I see a 'harvest' at the end of a cycle' and fear is coming out from the 'Deep' so as to be revealed as more and more obviously insane or indeed meaningless as a basis from which to identify, think or live from. However within the fearful sense of 'maintaining control' - fear is the driving force AGAINST which is gotten a sense of self that identifies exclusively in mask or persona and operates as a sense of survival as the denial of that which it fears will deny itself.

This is not N Korea - but a consciousness built upon denial of wholeness in defence of self-specialness. The device by which to NOT know what you in fact know - is conflict and reaction or 'divide and rule out' while each polarised point of conflict seeming to be the will to rule over - or defend against and oppose. There is no consciousness of 'unipolar reality' - it is an oxymoron or self-contradiction. But such is the basis of an attempt to eradicate or neutralise the world of checks and balances of relational consciousness.

The mental dissociation that imagines getting rid of something or someone as if to make the world conform to fantasy association and gratification may be writ large in some of the cast of personae - but is pervasive and systemic to our 'private' mind of fantasy mitigations for the actual but masked off pain of a sense of abandonment, rejection, shame, fear, powerlessness, rage and heartbreak - in various constellation. The deeper the denial, the less conscious access to one's predicates of self definition - and the more focus on the projection of such guilt and fear into OTHER. Without the 'enemy' or scapegoat - the inner conflicts that are suppressed by fear generated from false-flagged threat will rise as dissonance and disorder - relative to the old mind of power OVER consciousness - rather than awakening in consciousness OF power to question and be curious about tyrannous thinking - so as to release our allegiance and participation in a false sense of self masking as a protector to its own hidden fear-propagation.

Of course if you are identified in role of such power and protective oversight - you may be the last to own that it disempowers and blinds those who you at some level have been trusted to serve.

Faith can be accorded a false rationale, associated with symbols of Life or as power to protect against symbols of anti-life or evil. And perhaps more likely with NOT breaking cover to attract the revisiting of 'separation trauma' that can be pointed to under the sense of being visited by terror.

There is a deeper archetype of 'personality defences' that operates regardless the cultural expressions of the era. These are within us - and yet within dissociation, they seem to be 'outside and apart' - and independently powerful. The shadow of denied self is kept in denial by diversionary tactic - and releasing this pattern is an inside job.

Emotional honesty is within what is truly present. Imaginary inflation of self allows dreams and nightmares to capture attention in narrative 'continuity' that makes time seem to going somewhere or getting away from somewhere in an deeply compelling substitute for a truly present appreciation. Until withdrawing support for the wish of dissociative reaction. For in simple truth we do no know who we are or what anything is for - but acceptance in desire to know is free to learn anew - in place of seeking to cover over 'not-knowing' with a presentation of knowledge, power or deflection and invalidation of the movement of the desire to know (in self or others).

Good Optics · 2017-08-13T21:46:55Z

Well, after Jenn Warnes and Stevie Ray jumped the gun on Cohen and 'Taken Manhattan' [Link] & [Link] he then looked 'The Future' [Link] in the eye and observed that, "Love's the only engine of survival."

I'm thinkin' it's useful to figure exactly WTF that means . . .

Herbsman · 2017-08-13T21:58:33Z

Mainstream media = Propaganda Machine for the World's Economic, Corporate and Political Elite.

If you don't take anything they say with a pinch of salt and research any piece they publish with critical thought, then you have your head in the sand.

I had thought the more appropriate reaction for Iran would be to pick an Israeli Embassy in a nice city - say, Paris - and ... But that would have...

boli

Jon Rappoport brings up a number of good points here Was the Iran attack orchestrated by amateurs? [Link] Sounds like an agreed upon Clown Show!

Kimster

33 in a news story again.

boli

Sun Tsu approves this message.

boli

'' We have it all messed up in our heads.'' Robert Fico seems to have his head working correctly.

Demore

Puppet Masters

NBC's Brian Williams admits 'Our job is to scare people to death over North Korea'

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