April 22, 2013
“For the most part we do not first see, and then define,” Walter Lippmann observed in 1921, “we define first and then see. In the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture.”[1]
A founding member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Lippmann looked with suspicion to the potential dangers the hopelessly uninformed public posed in the unfolding “Great Society.” Along these lines, a veteran mind control expert interviewed in 2001 by investigative journalist Jon Rappoport observes,The media gives you the illusion that you are seeing something. That’s the billion‐dollar key to mind control … 90% of all the mind control in the world is done by the media, and it is all based on the viewer or the reader never seeing anything really beyond the surface of what is presented.”[2]
What exactly took place on April 15 at the Boston Marathon is unclear, yet what is now evident is a stark divergence between the narrative description of excessive carnage meted out as a result of the explosive devices and at least a portion of the video and photographic documentation of the bombing itself.
The corporate media proceeded in lockstep with dutifully propagating the authorized narrative of a combat-like environment at the marathon finish line. “Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said Monday night that the death toll had risen to three,” CNN told its viewers.
Scores were injured at the scene. One of the dead was an 8-year-old boy, according to a state law enforcement source. Hospitals reported at least 144 people are being treated, with at least 17 of them in critical condition and 25 in serious condition. At least eight of the patients are children. At least 10 people injured had limbs amputated, according to a terrorism expert briefed on the investigation. Several of the patients treated at Massachusetts General Hospital suffered injuries to lower limbs that will require “serial operations” in the coming days, trauma surgeon Peter Fagenholz said Monday night. Some injuries were so severe amputations were necessary, Fagenholz added.[3]
Much like the 24-hour cable news coverage, more prestigious venues such as the New York Times provided a graphic account alongside disturbing images of the aftermath, under the April 16 headline, “BLASTS AT BOSTON MARATHON KILL 3 AND INJURE 100.”
“These runners just finished and they don’t have legs now,” said Roupen Bastajian, 35, a Rhode Island state trooper and former Marine. “So many of them. there are so many people without legs. It’s all blood. There’s blood everywhere. You got bones, fragments. It’s disgusting … We put tournquets on,” Mr. Bastajian said. “I tied at least five, six legs with tourniquets.”[4]
Testimony in the newspaper of record from another eyewitness relates similarly gory details.
Deidre Hatfield, 27, was steps away from the finish line when she heard a blast. She saw bodies flying out into the street. She saw a couple of children who appeared lifeless. She saw people without legs. “When the bodies landed around me I thought: Am I burning? Maybe I’m burning and I don’t feel it,” Ms. Hatfield said … She looked inside a Starbucks to her left, where she thought a blast might have occurred. “What was so eerie, you looked in you knew there had to be 100 people in there, but there was no sign of movement.”[5]
The country’s commander-in-chief then publicly confirmed how the federal government would avenge the violence and bloodshed.
President Obama, speaking at the White House, vowed to bring those responsible for the blast to justice. “We will get to the bottom of this,” the president said. “We will find who did this, and we will find out why they did this. Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups will feel the full weight of justice.”[6]
Does a compelling description of a terrorist attack replete with “eyewitness accounts” of the terrifying scene and official pronouncements constitute an actual event? The available video evidence reveals an explosion occurring at 2:50PM across Boylston Street from the finish line bleachers, the exact point where the national media’s camera lenses were transfixed. The abundant media presence alongside personal cellphone cameras have provided abundant footage of the event and its immediate aftermath.
Despite the seemingly formidable explosions very few bodies and no severed limbs are observable on the ground, even though there are numerous people exhibiting bewilderment and apparent injuries. In short, the event closely resembles a mass-casualty drill, many of which are for training purposes designed to be as lifelike as possible. Since it is mediated, however, and primarily experienced from afar through the careful assemblage of words, images, and the official pronouncements and commentary of celebrity journalists, it has the semblance of being for all practical purposes “real.”
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