So now there is a "special counsel" to investigate, God knows what. No one is
saying that he's going to investigate Trump's ties and his son-in-law's
family's ties, to the horrifying business tycoons, some of which have been
described in that Dutch film investigative report that I listened to. They're
talking about ties to the Russian government and now the Turkish government. No
one is talking about the Israeli guy with the blood diamonds and the slave
labor. And everyone thinks that Robert Muller is the right person for the job
except the FBI whistle blower who was targeted for her whistle blowing and whom
I heard on Flashpoints, reminding us of Robert Muller's coverup of torture and
rendition, along with Comey's sins which several people have described. He's
the guy who set up all those poor, uneducated, mentally ill black people so
that he could claim that he stopped domestic terrorist plots. It's all giving
me a headache!
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2017 10:36 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy] Courageous Israeli newspaper is indicted as ‘childish’
‘contrarian’ and ‘antagonistic’ by the yellowbellied New York Times
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.
