This week, Iraqi journalists in Falluja protested the government (central-government out of Baghdad), ethnic-religious minorities were targeted repeatedly (most infamously with a church being bombed), a police chief of a province was kicked out of office and supposed to be prosecuted (the new police chief has already said he won't be prosecuted), and so much more that we really didn't go into because there was too much else to cover. We had to cover the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Robert S. Beecroft, the efforts to save US war resister Kim Rivera from deportation, Talabani's return and how those who stood by him in April made sure not to visit him this week, and much more.
Silly us. We should have made like the American press which has indulged in useless crap all week. Apparently, journalism isn't wasted enough with Gail Collins twice-weekly columns (or useless book), and Collin-ism needs to infect the bulk of the American press corps.
Useless garbage is passed off as news and entire days are wasted.
If you're not getting how hollow the promise the American news industry made on September 12, 2001 was, you're not paying attention. Last week, September 11, 2011, another terrorist attack took place -- on the US consulate in Libya. The White House even finally admitted that Thursday. Where is the media?
As Ruth pointed out, PBS' The NewsHour didn't even note the White House stated it was a terrorist attack. They reduced all the events to a few lines in their daily news summary script. And they didn't pick it up on Friday.
There's no reality or maturity coming out of the American press corps. Instead, they waste everyone's time with garbage. They seem to be working to paint Mitt Romney as a rich person . . . and forgetting that Barack Obama bought a million dollar house beofre he was in the US Senate. Kind of hard to play Barry as the 99% if you include facts, isn't it?
Kind of hard to explain how Barack's wealth has only noticeably increased while he's been in the White House -- again, the same can't be said for the 99%. While Barack's been in the White House, the poverty level has increased and most Americans are economically worse off than they were four years before.
But by all means, let's run with Harry Reid's insane rants about Mitt Romney's taxes. Because that really matters, right?
How much Mitt Romney paid really, really matters because . . . suddenly we're a nation of CPAs? We're all hoping to find a tax error in his returns that we can tip off the IRS to for a little reward money?
There are real stories and real issues effecting America. Mitt Romney's taxes and his off-hand remarks aren't among them.
During the Bush years, the left practiced a press critique. When Barack came along, this near-perfected press critique was abandoned by most to instead lie and whore for Barack -- which included organized attacks on the press like when FAIR and the Journolist worked together to savage ABC for asking basic questions of Barack in a debate.
Do you remember FAIR and the Journolisters insisting that the questions being asked of St. Barack weren't high minded and that they were issue-oriented and blah, blah, blah.
They meant none of it, they were just trying to clobber the press into submission for Barry.
A functioning left would have long ago said, "F**k Barack Obama, this is about principal." They would have left Barack to defend himself and focused on creating a fair press that covered real issues.
They didn't.
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
-- "The Circle Game," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her Ladies of the Canyon
And I hope it was worth it to them, all the whoring for Barack.
I hope that they have enough keepsakes and mementos to clutch to their chests. We don't have a working press.
And we don't have one because this happens over and over.
We could have a working press but . . we really need to elect Jimmy Carter . . . we really need to protect Jimmy Carter . . . we really need to elect Bill Clinton . . . . we really need to protect Bill Clinton . . . . we really need to elect Barack Obama . . . we really need to protect Barack Obama.
I'm so sick of every four years another American auditioning to be the left's Poster Child Victim that we all to rally around. They act big and tough and certainly strut around like they own the place but damed if every single one of them -- while doing nothing for the poor -- wants the entire left behind them, taking on the press for them, fighting their battles for them.
If we'd stop getting on this bandwagon, we'd accomplish so much more. (And maybe even teach the cry babies to stand up for themselves.)
We could have had a much better press than we do now. We had 9-11 which shamed and humiliated the American press because while they'd been playing useless with tabloid stories passed off as news, plots against American citizens had taken place -- apparently rather in the open -- and the press was caught completely by surprise.
We could have used that and built on it. But we were more concerned with worshipping and protecting Barack. I kind of thought the Secret Service was paid a huge amount of money each year to protect whomever was president -- didn't realize the White House also needed to go around deputizing.
What's really sad is some point to MSNBC -- with its anaemic ratings -- as proof of something accomplished.
No.
Not only does it suffer poor ratings but it exists to be high profile, to be a display of the excess of partisanship and how it corrupts news.
That happened to a smaller degree in the early seventies as well and went a long way towards explaining the press veering to the right in the 80s.
MSNBC is Exhibit One when the press decides they've swung to far to the left. (When they never swung left at all, they just embraced a Democratic president -- that's not the same as swinging left.) So I hope all those bad hours of ranting and screaming about non-facts and twisted logic is worth it to you a few years from now when the media's swung back to the right again.
We could have had a media critique. We didn't get one. The left was building one (some still are, we still do it here) and it was something to behold. Truly, a spark in 2003 and 2004 really ignited and some of the finest media critiques in the last 100 years were made.
If that had continued, the press would be in a better place today.
But all they had to do was change the topic of their purple prose from Bush-loving to Barack-loving and the press critique (largely) disappeared on the left. The same people who were outraged that a press would fawn over the occupant of the Oval Office, would refuse to ask the needed and difficult questions, those same people were suddenly thrilled when the press acted the exact same way but the person now benefiting from their incompetence and malpractice was a Democrat.
It's bad enough that this b.s. destroys our country -- and it does. If you doubt it, look at our bridges across the nation. If you doubt it, look at the reality of life for the American poor (you'll have to find it by going through the country because Gail Collins and her posse don't give a damn about the poor). But this b.s. destroys the world. We've got people imprisoned for life -- yes, at Guantanamo but I was referring to the secret sights around the world. We've got drone wars and secret wars. And all of this happens because the occupant of the Oval Office (Bully Boy Bush or, now, President Barack Obama) is protected by the press, because the press swoons and sighs instead of doing their damn job.
And this was perfectly captured on the left when Bush occupied the White House. I remember a great commentary by FAIR's CounterSpin right after the 2005 inauguration. But come January 2009, FAIR had no objection to the same excesses by the press (if not more) as they rushed to glorify President Barack.
By the left (as a whole) refusing to maintain the standards they supposedly wanted, it allows the right to write them off as hypocrites (as we on the left did with most of the right during the Bush Occupation). If by contrast, we had maintained our critique, we would have people on the right more than prepared to listen to us instead of seeing us as hypocrites.
Do you realize that if Mitt Romney wins the 2012 election (which could happen) and he continues the Drone War, The Nation's got no standing to criticize him on it. Not after all their silence on Barack,. They have ensured that the country will remain split. (Maybe that's their purpose.)
I'm sorry to be the one to point this out to the Cult of St. Barack but the child in Pakistan killed with Barack's Drone instead of Bush's Drone? That child's skin didn't burn any softer just because it was Barack giving the order to kill him. At some point, there will be a Republican president and when that happens far too many people who could have been trusted voices will instead be written off because of their hypocrisy throughout Barack Obama's presidency. You will reach no one, you will change nothing, the press will continue to be a disaster -- just look at it right now -- but, hey, you made life easier for Barack. He didn't do the same for the 99%. But loyal subjects never question their king, they just work for their king, turn over all they've managed to earn to their king and expect nothing in return because nothing is ever given and these subjects never learned how to demand.
It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)
The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4488.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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