Robert Parry: Unmasking October Surprise ‘Debunker’

from Consortium News:



Unmasking October Surprise ‘Debunker’
October 30, 2011

Special Report: The fake “debunking” of the 1980 October Surprise case in the early 1990s was driven by a few “journalists,” including Steven Emerson, who has been identified in a recent report as a “misinformation expert” spreading anti-Muslim propaganda, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry


In another blow to the crumbling cover-up surrounding Ronald Reagan’s secret dealings with Iran during the 1980 presidential campaign, a key “journalist” who “debunked” the October Surprise allegations in the early 1990s has now been identified by a recent study as a member of a right-wing “misinformation” network.

Entitled “Fear, Inc.,”the 129-page report by the Center for American Progress lists Steven Emerson as one of five “scholars” who act as “misinformation experts” to “generate the false facts and materials” that are then exploited by politicians and pundits to frighten Americans about the supposed threat posed by Muslims.

The report offers a rare glimpse into the right-wing propaganda network that has exploited America’s post-9/11 hysteria and transformed those fears into a powerful political movement to get millions of Christians and Jews to support legislation and policies that target Muslims and their communities.

But the historical significance of noting Emerson’s role in this “Islamophobia network” is that he is revealed to be a propagandist willing to distort information for ideological ends, not the serious journalist that he successfully posed as during the 1980s and 1990s. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2011/10/30/unmasking-an-october-surprise-debunker/

The propagandists will always have their useful idiots. Today they are called teabaggers; 160 years ago, they were called Know-Nothings, and they spread ridiculous anti-Catholic propaganda the way Pam Geller spreads the kind of ridiculous anti-Muslim propaganda that Mr. Parry accuses Mr. Emerson of producing. Of course, Know-Nothing would the perfect epithet for almost any teabagger.

But the truth is always there and thrives in sunlight.

:kick: