diverdog
5/13/2013, 06:09 AM
BUSINESS | 5/12/2013 @ 10:44AM |57,901 views
If You Trust The American Press, Here's A Thought Experiment
The U.S. Defense Science Board’s report High Performance Microchip Supply ranks as probably the most devastating ever account of the speed and extent of American decline. Why therefore has it been completely overlooked, or should I say suppressed, by America’s mainstream media?
As I pointed out last week, the report, issued as far back as 2005, documented the transfer abroad — mainly to East Asia – of most of the U.S. semiconductor industry’s key capabilities and technologies. The Defense Science Board, which is funded by the Pentagon, was particularly concerned about the fear, now widely prevalent in U.S. defense circles, that so-called malware could be hidden in the circuitry of foreign-sourced semiconductors only to be activated at the last minute. Among other things, this could give a hostile foreign power control of American missiles in flight – with highly alarming implications for where those missiles might land.
The board summed up its findings with this chilling comment: “The potential effects of this restructuring are so perverse and far-reaching and have such opportunities for mischief that, had the United States not significantly contributed to this migration, it would have been considered a major triumph of an adversary nation’s strategy to undermine U.S. military capabilities.”
As a thought experiment, try searching for the quote above in any of the mainstream media, and you’ll see what I mean: total radio silence. Nothing in the Washington Post or New York Times. The Wall Street Journal and Fox News, the two most influential media properties of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, seem also to have missed the story – this despite the fact that, even compared to the rest of the American press, Murdoch’s chicken hawk editors are notorious for sending American troops into harm’s way in pursuit of harebrained military objectives.
Why would a story like this be suppressed? Editors seem to think that support for free trade ideology should trump their duty to tell the truth. The ironic thing is that even the textbook version of free trade specifies an exception where a nation’s military security might be compromised.
What is undeniable is that the American press consistently avoids printing things that might focus attention on the hollowing out of America’s most advanced manufacturing industries. If you don’t believe this, try this further thought experiment: check what the media have said about the course of America’s trade deficits in recent decades. The current account deficits are up more than fourfold since 1989, a year of peak popular angst about the hollowing out of America. Hell will freeze over before the Murdoch media will publish a fact like this.
For anyone with the stamina to take a really good look at how ill-served Americans are by their media, I recommend a major article recently by Ron Unz, publisher of the American Conservative. Unz takes a while to warm up but his critique is one of the best I have ever read. It can be accessed here. (Full disclosure: Though I have never met or even corresponded with Ron Unz, I occasionally contribute to his magazine.)
If You Trust The American Press, Here's A Thought Experiment
The U.S. Defense Science Board’s report High Performance Microchip Supply ranks as probably the most devastating ever account of the speed and extent of American decline. Why therefore has it been completely overlooked, or should I say suppressed, by America’s mainstream media?
As I pointed out last week, the report, issued as far back as 2005, documented the transfer abroad — mainly to East Asia – of most of the U.S. semiconductor industry’s key capabilities and technologies. The Defense Science Board, which is funded by the Pentagon, was particularly concerned about the fear, now widely prevalent in U.S. defense circles, that so-called malware could be hidden in the circuitry of foreign-sourced semiconductors only to be activated at the last minute. Among other things, this could give a hostile foreign power control of American missiles in flight – with highly alarming implications for where those missiles might land.
The board summed up its findings with this chilling comment: “The potential effects of this restructuring are so perverse and far-reaching and have such opportunities for mischief that, had the United States not significantly contributed to this migration, it would have been considered a major triumph of an adversary nation’s strategy to undermine U.S. military capabilities.”
As a thought experiment, try searching for the quote above in any of the mainstream media, and you’ll see what I mean: total radio silence. Nothing in the Washington Post or New York Times. The Wall Street Journal and Fox News, the two most influential media properties of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, seem also to have missed the story – this despite the fact that, even compared to the rest of the American press, Murdoch’s chicken hawk editors are notorious for sending American troops into harm’s way in pursuit of harebrained military objectives.
Why would a story like this be suppressed? Editors seem to think that support for free trade ideology should trump their duty to tell the truth. The ironic thing is that even the textbook version of free trade specifies an exception where a nation’s military security might be compromised.
What is undeniable is that the American press consistently avoids printing things that might focus attention on the hollowing out of America’s most advanced manufacturing industries. If you don’t believe this, try this further thought experiment: check what the media have said about the course of America’s trade deficits in recent decades. The current account deficits are up more than fourfold since 1989, a year of peak popular angst about the hollowing out of America. Hell will freeze over before the Murdoch media will publish a fact like this.
For anyone with the stamina to take a really good look at how ill-served Americans are by their media, I recommend a major article recently by Ron Unz, publisher of the American Conservative. Unz takes a while to warm up but his critique is one of the best I have ever read. It can be accessed here. (Full disclosure: Though I have never met or even corresponded with Ron Unz, I occasionally contribute to his magazine.)