Most certainly the New York Times is not the same newspaper I used to
buy on my way to work each morning in Seattle. That was over half a
century ago. The facts are however, that nothing is the same as it
was then. That's both the good news and the bad news. But it always
startled me when I would hear the "Talking Heads" of the day telling
one another that the New York Times was too liberal. The times and
the Oregonian were held up to be the nation's most objective
newspapers. Actually, the Christian Science Monitor was by far the
more objective paper with large national circulation. While I
couldn't afford to subscribe to all of the papers I looked through for
a balance of information, I could stop by the downtown Public Library
and browse the collection of dailies. I would poke through the Wall
Street Journal, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the
New Orleans Picayune and the Oregonian. Not every day, but often
enough to have some broader overview of the nation's activities. At
the time, I believed I was getting "balance". But I've come to
realize that I was merely getting the same basic stuff in a variety of
views. Of course as long as I lived at home, I would end the day by
wandering through my dad's Daily Worker, People's World, Northern
Neighbors and other Left Wing(Commie) materials. Again, I don't want
to suggest that I spent my time covered with smudgy newsprint, but
over a month's time I had perused through enough pulp paper to look a
bit like a type setter. Between the papers and the radio and TV news,
I had a belly full of Americas best propaganda. Today I spend most of
my time looking at the likes of Chris Hedges, Richard Wolff, Naomi
Klein, Glenn Greenwald and others of similar leaning.
I deliberately shut out most of the Mass Media's propaganda because
I've been drowned in it for most of my life. It teaches me nothing
new, and in fact, tends to drag me down. I'm seeking answers. This
is not the function of the Mass Media. The American Media is in
business for only two reasons, first, it is in business to sell
product. Second, it is in business to support and further the
American Empire's Ruling Class. In neither of these functions is
there room for questioning. Maintaining control is done by spoon
feeding the public. Selling product is done by spoon feeding the
public. The only questions allowed are from the Media. "Why is
product X the best ever developed? Let us show you why!" Even the
Empire's need to sell its version of Truth takes a back seat to the
selling of product. "We'll have more of that breaking story right
after this word from our sponsor..."
We Americans are now so brain dead that we believe that this is the
only way to disseminate "news" and "entertainment". But due to the
limits of time, as controlled by the sponsors, there is only time
enough for what the news departments feel will keep the viewers
watching/listening and buying product. And the entertainment we are
subjected to is selected for the same purpose. We are no longer
Citizens. We are Consumers. And when we consumers are no longer
consuming, we are tossed out with the days garbage. Worthless, just
getting in the way of an ever increasing need to
consume...consume...consume at all costs. We, the American Consumer
not only must consume, we must pay to dispose of the used up product,
the millions of tons of waste that we are beginning to drown in. The
cost from start to finish is ours, the Consumers. The free ride
belongs to the 1%. We even are forced to buy the very devices that we
set up in our homes, cars, and tuck into our pockets in order to view
and listen to the latest sales pitch.
And we're going to worry over a slight move by the Gray Lady, the New
York Times slight move to the Right? Hell, She's been there all
along.
Carl Jarvis
Carl Jarvis
On 5/17/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Well, The New York Times also recently hired a columnist, actually mentioned
in this article in another context, who is a climate change denier. This
newspaper is not what it was 40 years ago.
Miriam
Mondoweiss
News & Opinion About Palestine, Israel & the United States
Courageous Israeli newspaper is indicted as ‘childish’ ‘contrarian’ and
‘antagonistic’ by the yellowbellied New York Times
Philip Weiss on May 16, 2017 8 Comments
Shmuel Rosner, from shmuelrosner.com
This is unbelievable. Haaretz is surely one of the greatest newspapers in
the world, because it insists on telling Israelis the truth about their
society as the country loses the good opinion of the world. A newspaper that
gets death threats for counting Palestinian journalists Israel killed in
Gaza. A paper whose columnist Gideon Levy had to travel with a bodyguard
during the last Israel war because he insisted on writing about all the
children Israel was massacring. A paper whose most enterprising reporter
Amira Hass has repeatedly broken government rules in order to document the
occupation her society wants to turn a blind eye to.
And this is the newspaper that the New York Times is smearing as childish
and contrarian?
Yep, you heard that right. Three days ago the Times ran an op-ed by the
rightwing Zionist columnist Shmuel Rosner, titled “The People versus
Haaretz,” offering a majoritarian argument against the newspaper that is
reminiscent of fascist Europe– Haaretz is threatening the national will by
hyping meaningless criticisms of Israel.
Here are some of the sniggering caricatures that the New York Times offered
of Haaretz’s work and the people who read it:
the country’s far left is evolving from a political position into a mental
state
[the] newspaper…. in recent years has come to rely on provocation….
Its provocations aim to serve its ideology…
giving voice to preposterous descriptions of what Israel is or does
(“fascism,” “apartheid”)
It is a childish game
bitter and antagonistic
a platform for juvenile contrarianism….synonymous with needless antagonism…
often pathetic, at times comical and occasionally worrying.
Needless antagonism on the part of a newspaper! Rosner cannot hide his own
ideology. He speaks for a triumphant Jewish majority. They see Israeli
society striding forward with great progress, culturally, economically and
militarily, despite the snipings of the left– and criticisms from the world
over apartheid conditions for the Palestinians who unfortunately have never
accepted Zionism. There is not a direct word in Rosner’s article about the
rightslessness of Palestinians– which one Haaretz writer has likened to
slavery.
As for those “preposterous descriptions,” apartheid and fascism, Rosner
fails to relate that they have been wielded by Israeli politicians
themselves. No, Rosner is in the Jewish bunker:
Just recently, Jewish Israelis ranked “left wingers” as one of the groups
contributing least to Israel’s success.
Success is the theme of the article. Rosner concludes:
“Israel does not listen [to Haaretz] and still succeeds.”
Can you imagine the Times running op-eds from a majoritarian viewpoint in
the U.S.: what white Christians think U.S. policy should be on police
shootings, or Confederate war statues? That’s the shocking thing here: that
America’s leading newspaper would run such a miserable attack on a valiant
newspaper that faces death threats when it should be giving its Israeli
cousin props by any means at this desperate time.
This would be very much like the Times undermining the anti-segregation
Delta Democrat Times in Mississippi during the height of Jim Crow.
But really it’s no surprise. The Times is home to a bloc of Israel
supporters. That’s why neocon Bret Stephens just came on board, joining a
bunch of other Zionist columnists. It’s why the paper has never had an
anti-Zionist columnist in the last 50 years. The New York Times understands
its importance as a bulwark of Israel support in the U.S., it will move
mountains to refresh the springs of love for the Jewish state among liberal
elites despite the growing dossier on human rights violations. You’d expect
that someone at Haaretz would be offered equal time, but it almost doesn’t
matter. Our leading paper is making itself irrelevant to the central
ideological struggle of its own readers, the Jewish escape from religious
nationalism. They will all have to read Haaretz.
Thanks to Scott Roth.
