The following is WhoWhatWhy Founder and Editor-in-Chief Russ Baker’s interview with Joan Brunwasser, first published on OpEd News.
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My guest today is Russ Baker, forensic journalist, author and founder of WhoWhatWhy. Welcome back to OpEdNews, Russ! Last week you wrote a piece called The “Double Government” Secret Gets Out. What can you tell any readers who might have missed it? And why is this such an important story?
RB: Well, no reason to “miss it.” Please click the link and then I’ll just assume anyone here has read it and I’ll proceed to expand upon it.
JB: Thanks for that![amazon asin=1608190064&template=*lrc ad (right)]
RB: I think it is an important story because for very, very long, the media in the U.S. has by and large denied the reality of the degraded state of democracy and freedom. Its nature is to be simplistic and incremental. At WhoWhatWhy, we’ve felt a bit like outcasts trying to get people to see what is happening to our country. Now, we’re pleased to see some elements of the “establishment” beginning to move, ever so slothfully, to acknowledge the crisis.
JB: Why has the Boston Globe finally, suddenly decided to jump into the fray? They’ve been pretty quiet on this issue up to now, correct?
RB: They have not actually been quiet on the issue—they’ve been on the wrong side. Their coverage of the “9/11 of Boston”—the Marathon bombing—has been little short of disgraceful. They quickly accepted whatever law enforcement told them, even when there were signs everywhere that a cover-up of some kind was afoot. (Be sure and see our ongoing series on the Marathon bombing, for example http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/10/02/boston-update-fbi-war-on-marathon-bombing-witnesses-continues/ )
JB: I stand corrected. In that case, though, isn’t it even more surprising that the Globe is suddenly open to reason? How do you account for the shift, Russ?
RB: Well, I don’t know if we can claim total credit, but WhoWhatWhy has, as of my most recent count, published 18 articles questioning the conventional narrative on that incident. And a poll from a few months ago showed 40 percent of Bostonians skeptical. That’s a fair amount of pressure, even for a big dominant local player like the Globe.
JB: So, did they do some long-overdue serious investigative journalism? And what is this secret “double government” exactly? Whatever it is, it doesn’t sound good, that’s for sure.
RB: Naw, but they did run a couple of pieces about a book by a “respectable” person starting to edge into the territory we’ve been blazing for several years—the idea that while we put all our attention on what the president and Congress do and don’t do there’s a whole other apparatus calling the shots. It’s that old combo Ike warned about—the one percent and their allies in the permanent part of government—intel agencies, Pentagon, bureaucracy throughout.
JB: Tell us a bit more about the “respectable” book and author that launched the Globe’s about-face. We need something to sink our teeth into, beyond generalizations about the evils of the 1%.
RB: A Tufts professor wrote a book on the “Double Government.” I haven’t read it yet, but his thrust is that a president’s will can easily be thwarted by the non-elected part of Washington. The point for me is that the mainstream media is willing to embrace critiques that get beyond the fantasy of a viable democracy where we choose our leaders and they do our bidding. What’s generally missing, even probably from his book, is the notion that it is not really the “double government” that drives things, but private capital. And then we begin to come to terms with why we never seem to get what we want—or what we are promised by the pols.
JB: Is there a tie-in between this reputed “Double Government” and the Bushes, the subject of your 2010 book, Family of Secrets? If so, what is it?
RB: Well, I haven’t read the professor’s book yet, but I highly doubt he mentions the Bushes in any detail. Academia generally shies away from anything too controversial. But I’d say the Bushes themselves embody the notion that elected officials are only successful to the extent they have deep links into the Double Government—and funding and support from…ahem…the Triple Government. My research for Family of Secrets really underlined the extent to which secret events and alliances shape our country’s course constantly.
