Begin with Sunday, April 15th, 2018.

“Mission Accomplished! But What is the Mission in Syria?” asks Peter Baker at the New York Times.

Read Mr. Baker’s “News Analysis” feature story closely, as it is a powerful illustration of how the “Propaganda Model of News” works in the Digital Age.

Baker’s article quickly works to “frame” an “official narrative” – the “surgical strike” against “chemical facilities in Syria” was “executed perfectly” (channeling Trump’s own words without question), then moving on to Mr. Trump’s alleged stated foreign policy goal: “defeat the Islamic State and then get out.”

Baker then compares Mr. Trump’s actions to the Obama administration’s Syrian policy (“no easier answers”), flagging the POTUS’s “competing impulses when it comes to Syria” – being “the toughest one on the international block” versus “his [DJT’s] deep conviction that American involvement in the Middle East since the attacks of September 11, 2001, has been a waste of blood and treasure.”

We could go on, but this “news analysis” gives us enough to work with.

Mr. Baker’s unspoken assumptions re: said “mission”:

1. Mr. Trump is in charge of US foreign policy (like he is in charge of his @realDonaldTrump Twitter?)
2. The chemical gas attacks were both real, and committed by the Assad government.
3. The US government’s chief goal is to defeat ISIS, hold “animal” Assad to account, and stop the bloodshed being committed by the Syrian government against its own people.

All of these assumptions ought to be contested.

To whit, what Mr. Baker does NOT say on the front page of the New York Times is equally revealing:

1. For two decades, the Pentagon and the US military have embraced and promoted a policy of “full spectrum dominance” of Planet Earth (and outer space), as well as publicly targeting specific Middle Eastern states and governments for destruction. Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Iran are on that list.
2. Previous “chemical gas attacks” in Syria blamed on the Assad government have turned out to be either “false flags” (attacks perpetrated by non-Assad actors and blamed on Assad) or to be completely lacking in evidence, as Defense Secretary James Mattis stated in early February 2018.
3. The global sequential struggle for energy reserves – access to 2/3 of the world’s recoverable oil in the Great Middle East, as well as control over terrain needed to build and maintain oil pipelines, is a central US policy objective, and yet goes completely unreported here.
4. Finally, the military-industrial complex and the so-called “Deep State” (unelected federal agencies like the CIA and their Wall Street allies) love a good bombing – war is always good for those who make and sell the guns.

Surely, Baker must be aware of all of these realities?

Meanwhile, on Tee Vee? Howard Dean, Bernie Sanders, Tucker Carlson – oh my!

Just, wow. The Jimmy Dore Show breaks it down here on Dean and Carlson.

And here is JD on MSNBC’s Chris Hayes.

And another NEWS FLASH – POTUS DJT does NOT always run his own TWITTER account.

Our new VCMLEP Propaganda Model Of News 2.0 – learn, live, love it.

Finally, here’s The Truth Factory showing us how independent critical media literacy education is done.

Free media, free Vermont!