Earlier today I asked for help to find a dismaying reference to Gaza on NPR yesterday morning. Susie Kneedler responded. She confirmed the quote I thought I'd heard, and had this to say:
I found the Renee Montagne clip and, with it, the barbarous heartlessness of both her false "summary" and Don Gonyea's ridiculous "story" that missed everything that mattered. Montagne:
"In the last days before Pres. Obama took office, Israel's military was striking targets in Gaza. The shooting stopped just in time for the inauguration, but nobody expected the challenge of Middle East peace to go away. The issue returned to the headlines this week. The new American President met Israel's new Prime Minister, and it was a moment for Pres. Obama to downplay his differences with Binyamin Netanyahu."
Montagne portrays all as a matter of destiny, fated to happen, and neglects any mention of Palestinian people, their torment by Israeli goverment policy, or their heroism under it. No mention about how Israel and Netan. won't permit rebuilding in Gaza, or even Obama's line about the dearth of clean water.
Among many other sickening moments in the Gonyea "mis-report" is this curiously amorphous ending:
"Next week, Obama will meet with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak at the White House. Days later, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will be in Washington."
Why doesn't he say that he's meeting with Pres. Obama?
"Striking targets" it is. I hate listening to NPR for just that reason.
Israel is still "striking targets" in Gaza after the January 18 ceasefire and also claiming another rocket attack. The title of the Reuters article is "Israel Bombs Hamas Target, Gaza Tunnels." Personally, I prefer to call it brutal military subjugation in connection with an illegal occupation. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090519/wl_nm/us_pale...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor... It is right at the start. Striking targets is fairly standard Zio-speak for killing people. I had no problem in playing the story.
National Pentagon Radio cannot confirm any civilians were harmed.
Okay, this is great! NPR is too right for the readership here. Wow, might I suggest al-Manar. At any rate, I do believe that "striking targets" is the correct military term, and no Phil, it was not an exercise or target practice. However, Phil, I do believe that your inability to play back the NPR broadcast was part of an NPR-Zionist conspiracy, enabled by Internet routers using Intel chips designed in Israel, to keep you from using your singularly accute analytical skills to unravel this story. All the best Phil and don't forget to check under your bed tonight before you join your shiksa wife.
Stay classy JES49! :)
Sure dear host, it starts: "In the last days before president Obama took office, Israel's military was striking targets in Gaza. The shooting stopped just in time for the inauguration".
Phil, did you catch Mearsheimer on NPR on Monday? Op Ed: Defining Anti-Semitism http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor...
You guys really make this up as you go along, don't you? In 1984 I read a lot of daily military reports on a project to automate logistic planning and analysis. I looked at battlefield reports. I may misremember, butI think the preferred battlefield term was "objective," but there are probably readers, who are more fluent in milspeak than I and who might comment. "Target" strikes me as something I might have read in a report from a sniper or a bombing mission.
RE: "Help me mount my high horse" MY COMMENT: No offense, but I think I'll pass on that! REFERENCE – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equus_(play)
RE: Renee Montagne, introduced the piece by speaking of recent events, including Israel's "striking targets" MY COMMENT: This reminds of the way that "Pricky Dick" Cheney says: "When we launched in Iraq…." (as opposed to 'invaded')
NPR and PBS have become increasingly milquetoast over time, esp since Ronnie Raygun. They have deteriorated over years of Republican rule. Now the Newhour is sponsored by Archer Daniels Midland and Walmart. Come to think of it, I haven't heard much about the farce of ethanol or corn syrup lately. have you? The same thing has happened to presidential debates that were once moderated by the League of Women Voters.
I wouldn't necessarily classify NPR as "too right". I think I would classify it as "profoundly compromised by vested interests, and not in any way a neutral chronicler of events". However, I suppose those who think "striking targets" is a good term to use, because it's a proper military term, would have no objection to referring to Hamas rocket attacks as "striking targets" as well.
NPR is really disgusting. Why can't all of us who are aware of Israeli apartheid do the same that the pro-Israeli crowd does with NPR and have organized letter writing campaigns to pressure these gross reports from NPR? I would think it's possible. All we'd have to do is join one of the Israeli groups and interchange the words Israeli for Palestinian. After all, it is the Israeli's who do all the lying, so truth would be on our side. THeir two main excuses of human shields and rockets have proven to be totally bunk. It is the Israeli's who regularly use Palestinian children as human shields. There is dozens of videos that prove this. And the firing of rockets? There has only been one death from those bottle rockets.
C'mon people, don't be too hard on old NPR. They have set a very high goal for themselves, and it won't be easy to reach. NPR intends to find out if you can run a "public" radio network if you make efforts, years of efforts, to alienate every one who might be a donor. If you can alienate a whole generation of opotential NPR contributers, why, so much the better. They'll show us. They'll never abandon their mission; to replace independent NPR reporting with corporate zio-news.
If you don't like NPR, you can watch me Sunday on Iranian PressTV. Anglican Bishop Riah Abu el-Assal of Nazareth and I will discuss Obama's forthcoming visit to Egypt.
NPR has been reporting about the Israeli Palestinian conflict as long as there has been an NPR. FAIR has done a few studies but it is oh so obvious to so many http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2471 There was a study done many years ago having to do with what former employees of NPR called "pervasive cronyism" at NPR. That report has never been released. I recently heard Daniel Schorr call the 9 time delayed U.S. Vs Rosen investigation and trial just a bunch of "brouhaha" I have heard Scott Simon repeat unsubstantiated claims about Iran numerous times. Think there is an agenda at NPR…no doubt about it. More subtle than at other news outlets but it is clearly there
And you are making an excessively big deal out of words. Your language is similiarly confusing.
Keep your feet on the ground. You say things that you later regret from your "high horse".
I always refer to it as NJR while ducking shoes thrown at me. When I lived in Washington DC, I lived next door to one of the NPR announcers. I remember driving across the state of Iowa, listening to my next-door neighbor give a report on NPR. Nice Jewish guy.
I'm learning from you Colin!
Oh, you mean like the way that Hamas refers to itself as "the Resistance" and terrorists are referred to as "fighters" or "militants" (shades of maquis)? I don't mind using neutral terms, as long as they're used by both sides. So, tell me Sarah who would you see as a "neutral chronicler of events"? Phil Weiss?
My apologies for bringing your wife into this. I was irritated. All the rest stands.
Witty, you have no right to call anyone's language confusing. You should speak out loud the words that you write on here and you will know what I mean.
I think I would flip that around and say that the resistance fighters in Hamas are being called "terrorists" by hypocrites who support terrorism when it is practiced by their own side. I don't think Phil is a neutral chronicler of events, nor do I think he would characterize himself in that way. I think he's a passionate advocate for a lot of things. But he doesn't really present himself as a neutral chronicler of events. NPR does. But they are as much a passionate advocate for certain causes as Phil, even though they would never own up to what they are really all about. The reason I don't like NPR is because I don't support the causes for which they are passionate advocates. I do support the causes for which Phil Weiss is a passionate advocate.
Well Sarah, then don't listen to NPR and don't donate (even if you miss out on that fashionable NPR tote bag). In the meantime, where do you get your news? Did it ever occur to you that, just maybe, you support causes precisely because you limit yourself to those sources who fancy themselves as passionate advocates of those causes?
I don't exigesis on the press' nuance. Phil hears a change in tone, and shoots first. When Phil changes his tone from inquiry to propaganda, from inquiry to anger, he considers it "journalism".
Sorry, I don't really know what Phil "thinks". I only know his actions, his headlining, his editorial choice of articles, his presentation of those.
I get information that really matters (on this particular subject) from source documents (such as declassified Israeli government documents and historical documents) whenever possible. These have shaped my views more than anything else. I guess I would flip this one around also and say that perhaps it is you limiting yourself to getting your information from news outlets that accounts for your support for the things I do not support.