And of course, you know the answer to your closing question, Miriam.
Empires are intent upon building a power base. Whatever they must do
or say is directly connected to that bottom line.
These world leaders remind me of the collection of owners of steel
fabricating companies around the Pacific Northwest. My dad took me to
a high level conference, a gathering of the Construction Fields Brain
Trust. Dad was invited, albeit in the "peanut gallery", because he
was involved in a very sensitive bid, and his boss wanted his views on
anything that might enhance their chances of pulling off this
lucrative plum. I was, as a 14 year old, very impressed, and rather
smug that I was allowed to be in such an important gathering.
Following the afternoon session, we were driving home and I told my
dad how I found these men(no women were present) to be a very
friendly, congenial bunch of "regular guys". Dad explained to me that
this was all show. He said that he would need to drop me off and
attend a late meeting with the company's top executives, and report on
his impressions. "The meeting will be held for the purpose of
developing our strategy to out maneuver the competition and win this
bid." Dad went on to tell me that the back slapping and jovial
chatter was done in an effort to discover information that the others
had not intended to pass along. My dad's task was to prepare the
final bid, pieced together from the clues gathered from this meeting,
and other sources, that was low enough to beat out the competition,
but with enough fat to assure the company of a handsome profit. In
that instance, dad's bid won the day. But what went on at that
conference was far different than what was said in private. According
to Dad's Boss, all those other company bosses were cut throats, greedy
bastards, unethical sonsabitches, and never to be trusted. Dad's
theory was that his boss was looking in a mirror.
But my point is this, what I see of Donald Trump is a carbon copy of
any of these men at the conference. His tactics are the traditional
tactics used by these powerful sharks as they swim about attempting to
get the best of the rest of the sharks swimming about. My dad's boss
had only one loyalty, himself. And everything I hear Donald Trump
say, tells me that he has no loyalty to the nation's laws or its
constitution. Donald Trump is just another Corporate Shark, circling
around the pond, looking for the way to strike. If he out maneuvers
the rest of the sharks, he will have huge bragging rights. That
should pay off in Billions. If he is bested, well at least he will
still have his fortune and all his holdings. But the man is showing
his need to be worshiped by his loyal Americans. This is not a safe
person to follow. Like my dad's associates, Donald Trump will glad
hand you in public, and then knife you in the back in private, if it
suits his personal goals.
You said, "I do recognize that I'm doing precisely what Donald Trump
supporters are doing. I'm choosing the information sources that are
within my comfort zone."
At one level, maybe you are. But at another level you have examined
the positions of the Right, and found them to not hold up under your
best efforts to examine their legitimacy. I would worry about you if
you said that you kept an "Open mind", and took all information as
equal in its worth.
In my case, I may go romping down a dead end from time to time, but I
would rather have a bit of egg on my face and eat a helping of humble
pie, than to go mindlessly bumping along, following the Trump Pied
Pipers.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/17/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
People right of center, always said that the New York Times was a liberal
paper. As a partially sighted person who had to read everything with a
magnifying glass, I was unable to read newspapers when I was young. Even
with a magnifying glass, the print was too small. So everything that I
learned about the world back then, came from radio, movies, what people told
me, and folk singers. The folk singers were the equivalent of your Daily
Worker, I guess. Then there was TV and very early TV had Ed Murrow, who
really did have a informative news magazine program. Then radio news
reading services came along. I did listen to some of the New York Times but
somehow, it was read at inconvenient hours by terrible readers. They were
goodhearted volunteers with Brooklyn accents. Then there was Newsline on the
phone. Again, I didn't seem to have all that much time and I was never all
that good with playing with computer programs, not even on the phone. And
finally, the computer, and I read more of the New York Times and I did
believe that it was providing objective and complete informative news until
I began to see how slanted its coverage of Israel was, and until I realized
how misleading it had been about the Iraq war. But that was about the same
time I began becoming disenchanted with NPR.
Yes, I have, like you, chosen my sources of news and opinion, the people
whom I generally trust. I read their articles, hear them on podcasts, find
videos of them talking on the websites I frequent. However, I do recognize
that I'm doing precisely what Donald Trump supporters are doing. I'm
choosing the information sources that are within my comfort zone. And I see
that there are divergences within my little community of comfort. One
example is that Amy Goodman is not giving enough coverage, in my humble
opinion, to views regarding Russia and Syria like those of Robert Perry,
Stsephen Cohen, (yes, she has had Cohen on occasionally), Vijay Prashad, and
Seymour Hersh. She doesn't give much attention to peace activists. She had
the author of that excellent book about Afghanistan on last week who may
know a lot about Afghanistan, but whose opinion about Syria, I, and a whole
bunch of people whom I've heard on podcasts since then, thought was
abominable. And I can't imagine why she gives so much time to people who
support the so-called "rebels".
Each morning, I listen to the Pacifica Evening News from the previous night
and I hear what the mainstream media news is, modified by some good
alternative bits and pieces. And listening to that program reminds me of
where the majority of people are at and where the mass media and the
government are at, which is far away from where I am at. And everyone, all
the people on Democracy Now, all the politicians, most of the so called
Leftists, keep saying that it is so dangerous for Donald Trump to be giving
secrets to Russia who is our adversary. And I keep wondering why everyone is
in agreement that Russia is our adversary. Why is that so when equally
authoritarian governments like Egypt, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia are our
friends?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2017 10:50 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Courageous Israeli
newspaper is indicted as ‘childish’ ‘contrarian’ and ‘antagonistic’ by the
yellowbellied New York Times
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.
