"Spoiler" Green Party candidate Cornel West was invited onto CNN so that Anderson Cooper could shame him into dropping out so as not to be forever smeared as responsible for Trump's re-election, as Sister Jill Stein is to this day.

Along the way, the issue of endless war came up.  West denounced endless war based on lies, invoking the Iraq War disaster that morphed magically overnight from an enforcement operation into a years-long nation-building one, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in the process, and ultimately replaced a dictator with a maniacal religious fundamentalist caliphate that throws gays off public buildings in public spectacles. 

Cooper called the objection "inappropriate" and went on to recite 2003-era "Saddam bad" talking points of the war profiteers.

The corporate state media are often accused of being "progressive" or "far-left" by political opponents, although it is nothing of the sort.

One could be forgiven for believing that the corporate state media embodies some kind of Maoist revolutionary spirit to undermine and subvert traditional American culture and replace it with something altogether new and un-American — because that's exactly what it's doing.

But it's not left ideologically.  It is there to promote the interests of the ruling elite, whatever those happen to be at any given time.  We call this political orientation "establishment."  The corporate state media, as an institution made of up people (loosely defined), does not have an ideological commitment.  The entire machine is a rhetorical tool designed to disseminate elite narratives.

When those elite interests intertwine with Social Justice™ aims, such as promulgating and mainstreaming transgenderism, they will promote those.  When they do not jibe with Social Justice™ dogma, such as endless war, they will promote those just as aggressively.  Also, over time, they will attempt to reimagine endless war as an actual social justice virtue, which is where the "defending democracy" mantra comes into play.

This is why actual social-justice ideologue Cornel West has no place at CNN when he challenges Daddy Warbucks.  You can be sure, if Cooper didn't reflexively attack West on the war issue, as he did as a veteran propagandist, then a producer in his ear would have sicced him on West anyway.

The military-industrial complex reigns supreme, despite the otherwise liberal rhetoric of the corporate state media, which goes on as it does about sacred Democracy™ and Progress™ whatever else.

Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

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Image: Gage Skidmore.