Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
Happy July 4th – unless your papers aren’t order. Stop taking our jobs furreners… USA! USA! Down with socialism blah blah blah. Step on a crack, break your mother’s back… yabbo yabbo yabbo
Some how that small taste of being a Tea Bagger made me feel dirty. I need a shower.
I am not a fan of mainstream news. Not just because they can make things up but because many national reporters don’t do their jobs any more. A perfect example is the fall out of the recent resignation of Dave Weigel, a reporter for the Washington Post, after private e-mails were published on a conservative website. Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic made a comment about Weigel not being a real reporter. That released the hounds.
Goldberg really has no room to talk about who a real reporter is as Glenn Greenwald noted:
Despite all of those war-cheerleading deceits — or, again, because of them — Goldberg continues to be held out by America’s most establishment outlets as a preeminent expert in the region. As Jonathan Schwarz documents, Goldberg is indeed very well-“trained” in the sense that establishment journalists mean that term: i.e., as an obedient dog who spouts establishment-serving falsehoods. That’s why Goldberg is worth examining: he’s so representative of the American media because the more discredited his journalism becomes, the more blatant propaganda he spews, the more he thrives in our media culture. That’s why it’s not hyperbole to observe that we are plagued by a Jeffrey Goldberg Media; he’s not an aberration but one of its most typical and illustrative members.
Ian Welsh at Crooks and Liars writes:
This is exactly what is wrong with US journalism. The responsibility of reporters is not to be “impartial”, their responsibility is to tell the truth. Should reporters have been unmoved by the fact that that Bush was torturing people? Should that not bother them as people? Should they be unmoved by the fact that Obama is still torturing people? Should they be unmoved by the fact that Bush sold a war based on lies, and millions of people were displaced, killed and injured as a result?
Is that we want? Sociopaths who have no personal opinions?
The Court Eunuch Standard of Blogging Exposed by Dave Weigel’s Resignation
This was the same dust up after the Rolling Stone article brought down General McChrystal. the main discussion in the mainstream media was how the reporter “burned his bridges” by reporting how the General and his staff really felt. The story wasn’t about the reporter, the story was about McChrystal and his views and how that relates to the current war policy in Afghanistan. No one really gives a shit about how the story effected the reporter.
To paraphrase Sam Axe from the TV show “Burn Notice”: You know DC media… bunch of bitchy little girls.
The reporters and pundits trapped in the Beltway bubble of DC are too full of their self-importance and their need to protect their celebrity perks and that hurts America because they don’t do their actual jobs – reporting the truth.
It amazes me some of the crap people believe even when facts and the truth prove them wrong on a regular basis. I’m use to such “thinking” having been involved in the atheist/humanism/freethought movement for more than 15 years. I’m use to religious believers being stubborn but I have to slap my head when usually smart people believe stupid crap. Republicans seem to have a corner on that freaky behavior.
Markos at Daily Kos posts samples of the hate mail he gets being the founder of a major liberal blog. Here is a comment sent to him and his response:
“just a comment
I just recently discovered all this “interesting” information on your website and I have concluded one thing……..it is YOU and people like you that are responsible for my ripping up my DEMO-NUT card and becoming a PROUD REPUBLICAN! There is nothing more dangerous to America than a rabid left wing liberal. Well maybe a crazy jihadist with a bomb strapped to his chest; but you haven’t figured that out yet and probably you never will. Idiot.“
Dude, where have you been? A crazy jihadist might be able to kill some people, but liberals would provide (true) universal single-payer healthcare, work toward peace on earth, spread tolerance and equality of opportunity, hold greedy corporations accountable for their looting of America, work to replace fossil fuels with clean renewal energy, create a fair and sane immigration policy, and even the negotiating playing field between workers and big business.
Some Republicans get spoon fed the wacko idea that LIBERALS are destroying the country when the facts and the truth show that we would be so much better off as a nation if the liberals ran the government. Those pesky facts would also show that it was the work of the GOP in Congress and their corporate lords that brought us the 2008 economic collapse and helped make the Gulf oil spill worse that it needed to be.
Just look at the actual history of this country and you will see liberals and progressives leading the country forward and conservatives bring us down.
“I’m speaking totally for myself and I’m not speaking for the Republican Party and I’m not speaking for anybody in the House of Representatives but myself, but I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it’s a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown. In this case, a $20 billion shakedown with the Attorney General of the United States who is legitimately conducting a criminal investigation and has every right to do so to protect the interests of the American people participating in what amounts to a $20 billion slush fund that’s unprecedented in our nation’s history that’s got no legal standing and what I think sets a terrible precedent for the future,” said Barton.
“I’m only speaking for myself. I’m not speaking for anybody else, but I apologize. I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong and is subject to some sort of political pressure that is, again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize,” he said.
Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) on June 17th 2010 hearing about BP Oil spill
And it isn’t just Joe Barton saying this about the escrow fund:
The fact is BP didn’t have to set the money aside. They could’ve waited until any legal cases were resolved or any other foot dragging methods a large company employs to keep from having to pay damages.
The GOP also ignores polling showing they are on the wrong team on this issue:
68 percent of respondents want more regulation of the oil industry;
72 percent favor “Barack Obama’s proposals to develop alternative sources of energy and reduce the amount of oil and other fossil fuels that are produced and used in this country”;
69 percent believe such plans will increase jobs.
According to the poll, opposition to increased offshore drilling has grown 10 points since May and is now twice as high as it was in 2008. Fifty-eight percent of those questioned support a six-month moratorium on new drilling in the Gulf and other offshore sites; 68 percent favor increased regulation of the oil industry in this country.
“There is a gender and generation gap on offshore oil drilling – women and younger Americans are less likely to support drilling offshore and more likely to support a moratorium,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
Measures that directly target BP are also popular – 63 percent favor lifting the liability cap on BP and 53 percent would support criminal charges against some BP employees or executives.
Then we have the deficit hawks who show up around election time to whine about money being spent. It’s different this time because we are still in financial trouble and if these hawks get their way we might end up in another economic collapse. As Economist Paul Krugman wrote recently:
Many economists, myself included, regard this turn to austerity as a huge mistake. It raises memories of 1937, when F.D.R.’s premature attempt to balance the budget helped plunge a recovering economy back into severe recession.
In America, many self-described deficit hawks are hypocrites, pure and simple: They’re eager to slash benefits for those in need, but their concerns about red ink vanish when it comes to tax breaks for the wealthy. Thus, Senator Ben Nelson, who sanctimoniously declared that we can’t afford $77 billion in aid to the unemployed, was instrumental in passing the first Bush tax cut, which cost a cool $1.3 trillion.
The major drag on the economy is still health care costs since the reform that was passed was only a start and the major parts haven’t taken effect yet. Blogger digby wrote:
Any deficit scold who doesn’t put reducing health care costs at the very top of the agenda is just a demagogic crank doing the dirty work for the aristocratic overlords.
The GOP want to kiss corporate ass, cut the social safety net, and lie about it all.
I hope the bruise on my head goes away before November so I can party during another Democratic election victory.
From the recent muted response to the IDF attack on the Gaza relief ship to the OUTRAGE at some words about Jews in Israel expressed by the dean of the White House Press Corp, one thing is certain. The first rule about Israel is not to talk crap (true or not) about Israel.
The Gaza flotilla disaster couldn’t have come at a worse time for Obama’s image among Muslims and Arabs. After all, 9 Turks died, when Israel stormed a flotilla of ships carrying aid to Gaza in an attempt to break a 3-year-old Israeli blockade.
The Muslim world turned to the White House hoping for a stand that mirrors President Obama’s promises to the Muslim world.
“The White House is trying to understand the circumstances of what happened,” is what they heard.
Comparing this reaction and U.S. efforts to block a U.N. resolution against Israel and how other countries and nations around the world responded to the Israeli raid on the flotilla, many Arabs and Muslims found it easy to draw the conclusion that Obama’s Muslim love fest is over.
For Arabs wooed by Obama’s Cairo speech, flotilla response frustrating
And then last week Helen Thomas, veteran White House reporter had some strong words about the Middle East issue at a public event:
OFF-CAMERA: “Any comments on Israel?”
HELEN THOMAS: “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.
Remember, these people are occupied and it’s their land. It’s not Germany, not Poland.”OFF-CAMERA: “so where should they go?”
HELEN THOMAS: “Home. Poland. Germany. America. And everywhere else.”
On the surface it doesn’t sound that bad but the Pro-Israel lobby exploded to the point that today – June 7th – Thomas retired effective immediately.
Crooks and Liars noted the pile on:
ADL rejects her apology because it does not “go far enough”. Craig Crawford and her agent dump her. Lanny Davis, always right in front whenever possible, condemns her. Ari Fleischer cries “Off with her head! (And her job).” Rick Lazlo piles on. Joe Klein wants her sent to the back of the bus room. Sarah Palin tattoos her as racist. A local high school replaces her as their graduation speaker. Red State froths. NewsMax has a field day. Winger blogs everywhere are blessed with outrage and attendant traffic. The din is so loud everyone misses her apology. The right continues to bearhug anti-semitic Pat Buchanan, who is routinely applauded for his support of right-wing causes. He doesn’t have to apologize.
Meanwhile, Hearst has not made a decision on whether she will keep her place as part of the White House press corps.
I am not going to defend what she said. I understand that it is hurtful and offensive to many. However…
She apologized, folks. This pile-on looks to me to be opportunistic and driven by RedStaters and Freepers out there who have a long-standing hate on for Helen.
Where Helen Thomas’ 57-year career is tossed under the bus alongside her apology–UPDATED
That essay makes important point. Pat Buchanan has made far worse anti-semitic remarks – actual anti-semitic remarks – and he has never been forced to apologize or forced to quit his job.
The same goes for people on the right like Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh make nasty anti-semitic and racist remarks all the time and the media yawns.
Not only is Thomas the victim of the strong pro-Israeli lobby it is also because the right – who controls the media – don’t like liberal views and will pounce on any gaff – no matter how minimal – and throw the person under the bus.
A reader of Talking Point Memo said it better than I could:
The fact that Jews were relentlessly persecuted by European Christians for seventeen hundred years by no stretch of the imagination gave them the right to go and do exactly the same thing to another innocent people. If Americans are so passionate about such a relic of the nineteenth century as the ethno-religious state, then by all means let us give New York to the Jews; Palestine was never ours to give away.
But what has been happening for the past seventy years is the Palestinians have been paying for the antisemitism of Americans and Europeans. Eight hundred thousand people were ethnically cleansed in 1948 in order to create the right population for a “Jewish liberal democracy” in the Middle East by quite your standard grade Ameropean imperialists. And the people of that colonialist state have been psychotically trying to get rid of the rest of the Palestinians ever since, in the name of their evil deities or whatever.
The Jews getting kicked out of Iran, Iraq, etc. was all a response to that original horrific example of Ameropean hubris. So the solution is not “along the green line” as you suggest, especially since the Israelis themselves have proven over and over again that they will never settle for this. The solution needs to be paid for by us imperialists, not our victims. If you really want to do some good, let’s start talking about U.S. government programs to resettle Jews in America.
As I posted on my twitter feed after the bloody raid:
Israel is like that crazy little brother or friend who knows you will defend him, so they will pick fights for fun.
Since the White House Press Corp insist that Obama isn’t “emotional” enough about the Oil spill here is “exclusive” audio of President Obama being angry while speaking on the phone to BP CEO Tony Hayward. We only hear Obama’s side of the conversation.