Another sign of the burgeoning discourse: 'Wired' has a piece up about Flame, the "state-run" malware that is infecting computers in Iran and across the Middle East. The piece fingers Israel as a likely source of the software, but only mentions Israel twice. Not so the commenters. There are about 300 comments on the post, and judging from the first 100, almost every one is about Israel, with most of the commenters pretty angry about Israel's conduct. Their attitudes reflect the new Israeli brand, rogue state. Some excerpts:
So talking about a state's external politics makes one an anti-Semite these days? Just.... WOW!
Ah, yes, the old 'anti--Semite' card. How much longer you reckon that'll keep working for you?
"born" is hardly the word I'd use to describe how Israel was created. Here is a hint look up the King David hotel and you'll read about how Israel was "born" by the use of terror.
Now as for Israel being rational I suppose you call using Tanks, Gunships and basically military might to hold a people in camps. On top of which there are the settlements which is all about Land grab and hardly points to any other strategy than assimilation which must then include a plan for the Arabs to leave for elsewhere.Self defense????????? you call Killing Millions of children and women and
Peaceful people a self defense?? what are the numbers of the arabic people die because of Israel ?And [Israel] is unfortunately descending into religious fundamentalist madness the scourge of reason and liberty wherever it raises its ugly head.
Hang on, Eduardo, what's your home address? i'll come forcefully kick your door down, take over your house, if you try and kick me out, i'll seriously physically harm you, because as you pointed out, right to self defence!!
Wired is caught in the trap of wanting to be with it while having owners/managers who feel compelled to keep their silence (consent) on occupation and ethnic cleansing as does the rest our media.
The interesting thing about this — as well as similar examples all over the internet — is that it conclusively demonstrates the disconnection between the US media and the opinions of real people. Clearly, the establishment media is in the bag for the zionists, and people are increasingly just not buying it. I would imagine that would make for a real intersting story that will never be written given the reality of the US media.
It is great to see ordinary people demolishing the hasbara. Israel doesn’t have a leg to stand on, really.
I came across this today and it’s interesting in terms of how the P/I
conflict is framed in the media
link to blogs.warwick.ac.uk
“My concern is over the discourse that you occasionally use – ‘legitimised a peaceful protest,’ ‘there appears to me to be a solid argument for the value of debate,’ ‘I’m an advocate of free speech and peaceful protest’ – which is the language of various news outlets that we can all think of; and it’s a discourse which has a very clear ideological function, which is (paradoxically) to stop debate in its tracks. The student protests, the Occupy movement… so often, when these things are reported on TV, the presenter reports (some of) the basic facts then moves quickly to say something like ‘This all raises the question of free speech,’ and then about five people discuss this ‘question’ for ten minutes, before the next news item comes. And this is done so that the actual issues don’t have to be engaged: one can report on, say, Occupy, without actually mentioning it; one just debates abstractly about whether or not protest is a good idea, whether or not people have a ‘right’ to do it. And this is deliberate… it’s a way of avoiding serious issues; a potential political debate is diffused, and a simulacrum takes its place.
So I think that we should be incredibly careful when we start talking like this, because the danger is that we will just neutralize the arguments, and move into abstract territory (though of course this territory is already heavily politicized, which can be seen in the fact, for example, that ‘peaceful protest’ is extolled, but violent protest isn’t; why?).”
really interesting seafoid. as it turns out this reviewer was a member of the audience (Teaching Associate in Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at the University of Nottingham and a reviewer of Shakespearean theatre for several academic journals).not a protestor for either side, nor a supporter of the boycott, a witness:
Seafoid, I share your perspective, but MSM news programs are not ‘debate’s in any sense of the term. Talking heads or media darlings on these infotainment channels may speak or participate in brief panel discussions void of content, lacking depth and scope, but such are scripted and censored affairs.
What is important is that I/P issues are at least being addressed, however minimally and cautiously, when previously they were never mentioned or aired on the MSM. On alternative media the story is different. Zionists have lost their immunity in that fora and in time will suffer the same fate across the spectrum of media.
If the USA’s MSM is so (deliberately) out-of-touch with the “American street”, then democracy is shown to be dead or dying. Why should the oligarchy or any of its minions, fellow-travelers, slaves, etc., pay any attention to what Americans think, want, need, blah-blah?
PABELMONT- “If the USA’s MSM is so (deliberately) out-of-touch with the “American street”….”
The main stream media function as instruments of propaganda and social control. Those which don’t, go out of business. Big media inevitably reflects the distribution of power in the political economy. This is why I feel that expending a lot of effort towards “media reform” is a waste of time. Until there is a more balanced distribution of power, alternative means of communication are essential.
Keith
What do you think of Robert McChesney ?
Yes, the US media elite has figured out the many ways to burn the books where we never hear, see, or smell the constant burnings. That’s why Phil started this blog in the first place. He was personally burned. This has been going on in the literary world for a very long time, and now the mass consumption media world has caught up–even the world of the nerds.
I’m sorry Pabelmont, the US has never been a democracy and the media here and everywhere else is about entertainment, not news. Quite frankly, the US media are very much in touch with the “American Street.” I dislike that fact as much as you.
“In the Truth there is no news, and in the News there is no truth”
Democracies are not republics like the US or parliamentarian societies like Britain. Such a government does not have legislatures, executives or most especially judges local or supreme. There is only the ‘people in assembly’ in various venues that are sovereign, who rule directly and not by delegates or surrogates.
So called democracies are governing systems based exclusively on ‘consent’ by the governed, ruled or “slaves.” This is accomplished by voting (which a democracy does not make) by peoples nearly everywhere by electing masters, lords or gods to governmental positions of power, who decide the fate of the governed or ruled for 2, 4, or 6 years, or in perpetua and removed by other means.
“That’s why Phil started this blog in the first place. He was personally burned.”
Well, at any rate, that’s what the Zionist trolls keep telling us, that this is no more than a way for Phil to settle personal scores or psychological issues. Thanks for adding your voice to the chorus.
Quit projecting your own bile onto me, Mooser. Phil wrote of his being told to write different stuff less critical of Israel or get another job. In short, he was personally burned in the most practical manner, for writing stuff critical of Israel, and this prompted him to start his own blog–so he had an avenue to keep up his critical eye and spread awareness. This is exactly what he has achieved. This has nothing to do with settling old scores or psychological issues. It has everything to do with Phil deciding not to be a hasbara propagandist, and instead, be a conduit for free discussion of controversial issues very important to the future of the US, Israel, and the World.
“The interesting thing about this — as well as similar examples all over the internet — is that it conclusively demonstrates the disconnection between the US media and the opinions of real people. “…Woody
Yea it does…and it really broke out after Gaza and even more so the last 2 years as people started seeing info on Israel cost to the US taxpayers. And it really spiked lately because of all the Israel loyalty pledges by US candidates in this campaign season.
I pay particular attention to comment boards in msm online articles and the commenters are negative, negative, negative on Israel and the US-Israel relationship in particular.
And they just don’t have enough people to keep a lid on dissent. The Jewish lobby can never be anything other than a wedge . They don’t have the numbers to make a bloc.
There was a similar disconnect between what German media had to say about Günter Grass’s poem and what ordinary Germans said in comments.
When you don’t allow people to say what they think, an explosion is likely to result at some point.
I don’t know. I vaguely remember reading surveys showing most people don’t care about the issue, but that of the minority that do, somewhat more takes a position supporting the Isr. government. The surveys could be wrong, but it seems to me likely. One website might have alot of comments one way and another have alot of comments another way.
Granted, Finkelstein and Blankfort might cite that to show it is now possible to discuss the issue and find a bigger range of opinions among people. I mention Blankfort because he had said there was silence about the issue from the Left when people were disagreeing with S.Africa’s policies.
W. Jones,
I think you could say the majority of Americans have no interest in Israel, pay it no attention on a day to day basis. If it’s mentioned most think of the holocaust Hollywood version of Jews and Israel….”until’ they hear different and then they become curious.
Having said that though..in the 10 years I have watched this issue the number of Americans becoming more educated about Israel has mushroomed. 10 years ago you could say something about Israel about US aid or whatever and the reaction would be….” what?..I never knew that.” I can’t pin point exactly when the change to a negative view of Israel started because it evolved over a long period and then sort burst open. But it grew almost entirely thru the net jungle grapevine.
I have been watching the Israel conversation in the general public so long I feel like I’ve watched a child grow from a new born baby to a rampaging teenager.
What I have seen is when people find out what’s going on between us and Israel they are pissed, very pissed…especially about all the money that goes to Israel if nothing else, even if they could care less about Palestine.
I think the most accurate poll ever done was the World Public Opinion Poll and the most interesting thing about the American opinion is 70% of Americans expressed no preference for Israel over Palestine….the question asked in this was should the US ”be evenhanded” in it’s treatment of Israel and Palestine…..70% of Americans answered ‘Yes it should.’
That is reflective of most people’s idea of ‘fair”, American or not, the regard for fairness is pretty universal.
“If Americans knew’, as they say, the real extent of Israeli inroads into America and our government and pockets as well as the raw truth about I/P then that 70% of Americans would be the real existential threat to Israel.
American, my perception is the same as yours, with the caveat that Christian fundies, whether they think of themselves as Zionists or not, or even ever read a single word about the historic Zionist movement (not), have a knee jerk reaction that goes something like this: “God says the Jews are chosen; we must defend Israel at all costs (enter bible passage), Muslims want Sharia Law here, sure there’s some bad Jews, but there’s a few bad apples in every bunch, God’s will will be done; praise Jesus, for he is the way. I hope you find The Truth (as I have done)–I will pray for you.”
The ones I know are generally upright, good-hearted, intelligent, wary of government, and cynical about it, about politics, except that cynicism does not extend to anything concerning Israel.
Thanks Phil.
And our MSM is consumed with what they are calling “massacres” in Syria. Every news outlet…images of those killed, repeating the number killed, repeat over and over again that it is a “massacre” Yet these same outlets seldom if ever aired images of dead in Iraq, dead in the Gaza and certainly do not mention numbers of children dead, injured etc. Amazing to watch how quickly those gruesome images come out of Syria and make it onto Rachel Maddows, etc. Direct link. The whole world is witness to these huge contradictions. Guessing the U.S. and Israel do not want to competetion the “massacre” arena.
This morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe they were repeating their Syria “massacre” rant… Dan Senor, David Ignatius, Carl Bernstein were going on and on about what the U.S. should do in regard to the “massacre” in Syria. As if they think anyone believes they are all of a sudden these humanitarian individuals concerned about human rights. Hear any squeaks out of this crew when it came to deaths in Iraq, in the Gaza? Such pathetic hypocrites. Dr. Brzezinski ripped up the idea of military action in Syria, the idea that the U.S. has to make Russia behave in regard to Syria(Bernstein was really pushing this). Dr. B wiped up the floor with their inflammatory rhetoric. Amazing to watch and listen to the immoral (U.S. and talking heads) demanding that the immoral (Assad)be moral. That really flies out there on the world stage. Someone called Carl Bernstein a “neocon”…
Syria, Iran……all so familiar. Particulary this…..”Britain finds itself with no way to stage the coup it desires, so it approaches the American intelligence community for help. Their first approach results in abject failure when Harry Truman throws the British representatives out of his office, stating that “We don’t overthrow governments; the United States has never done this before, and we’re not going to start now.” After Eisenhower is elected in November 1952, the British have a much more receptive audience, and plans for overthrowing Mosaddeq are produced. The British intelligence operative who presents the idea to the Eisenhower administration later will write in his memoirs, “If I ask the Americans to overthrow Mosaddeq in order to rescue a British oil company, they are not going to respond. This is not an argument that’s going to cut much mustard in Washington. I’ve got to have a different argument.…I’m going to tell the Americans that Mosaddeq is leading Iran towards Communism.” This argument wins over the Eisenhower administration, who promptly decides to organize a coup in Iran .”
Before it was communism that made US leaders jump on their desk and squeal like girls over a mouse….now it’s ‘terrorism” and nukes that makes them grab their hoes and go out to kill bunny rabbits in the garden.
August 19, 1953: Iranian Government Overthrown by Rebels and CIA
CIA coup planner Kermit Roosevelt. [Source: Find a Grave (,com)]The government of Iran is overthrown by Iranian rebels and the CIA in a coup codenamed Operation Ajax. The coup was planned by CIA operative Kermit Roosevelt after receiving the blessings of the US and British governments. Muhammad Mosaddeq is deposed and the CIA promptly reinstates Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on the throne. The Shah’s secret police, SAVAK, trained by the CIA and Israel’s Mossad, are widely perceived as being as brutal and terrifying as the Nazi Gestapo in World War II. British oil interests in Iran, partially nationalized under previous governments, are returned to British control. American oil interests are retained by 8 private oil companies, who are awarded 40% of the Iranian oil industry. US General Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr. (father of the general with the same name in the 1991 Gulf War) helps the Shah develop the fearsome SAVAK secret police. [ZNet, 12/12/2001; Global Policy Forum, 2/28/2002] Author Stephen Kinzer will say in 2003, “The result of that coup was that the Shah was placed back on his throne. He ruled for 25 years in an increasingly brutal and repressive fashion. His tyranny resulted in an explosion of revolution in 1979 the event that we call the Islamic revolution. That brought to power a group of fanatically anti-Western clerics who turned Iran into a center for anti-Americanism and, in particular, anti-American terrorism. The Islamic regime in Iran also inspired religious fanatics in many other countries, including those who went on to form the Taliban in Afghanistan and give refuge to terrorists who went on to attack the United States. The anger against the United States that flooded out of Iran following the 1979 revolution has its roots in the American role in crushing Iranian democracy in 1953. Therefore, I think it’s not an exaggeration to say that you can draw a line from the American sponsorship of the 1953 coup in Iran, through the Shah’s repressive regime, to the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the spread of militant religious fundamentalism that produced waves of anti-Western terrorism.” [Stephen Kinzer, 7/29/2003]
Entity Tags: Organization for Intelligence and National Security (Iran), Norman Schwarzkopf Sr., Central Intelligence Agency, Kermit Roosevelt, Muhammad Mosaddeq, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Stephen Kinzer
Timeline Tags: US confrontation with Iran, US-Iran (1952-1953)
April 28, 1951: Mosaddeq Elected Prime Minister of Iran
Dr. Muhammed Mosaddeq, or Mossadegh, is democratically elected by the Iranian Parliament. Mosaddeq, who is not a Communist but receives the support of Iran’s Communist Party, intends to nationalize Iran’s oil industry. Opposition from US and Britain is immediate, with the CIA moving to destabilize the Mosaddeq regime and the British imposing an economic embargo on Iran. [Iran Chamber Society, 1/1/2007] (See 1952 and Summer 2004.)
Entity Tags: Muhammad Mosaddeq
Timeline Tags: US confrontation with Iran
1918: British Secretary of War Writes That Control over Oil in Iraq and Iran Is ‘a First Class British War Aim’
In a letter to British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, Sir Maurice Hankey, Britain’s First Secretary of the War Cabinet, writes, “Oil in the next war will occupy the place of coal in the present war, or at least a parallel place to coal. The only big potential supply that we can get under British control is the Persian [now Iran] and Mesopotamian [now Iraq] supply… Control over these oil supplies becomes a first class British war aim.” [Yergin, 1993; Muttitt, 2005]
Entity Tags: Maurice Hankey, Arthur Balfour
Timeline Tags: US confrontation with Iran,
1952: Mosaddeq Nationalization of Iran’s Oil Industry Leads to Coup
Time Magazine’s Man of the Year cover for 1951. [Source: Wikipedia]Iranian President Mohammad Mosaddeq moves to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in order to ensure that more oil profits remain in Iran. His efforts to democratize Iran had already earned him being named Time Magazine’s Man of the Year for 1951. After he nationalizes it, Mosaddeq realizes that Britain may want to overthrow his government, so he closes the British Embassy and sends all British civilians, including its intelligence operatives, out of the country. Britain finds itself with no way to stage the coup it desires, so it approaches the American intelligence community for help. Their first approach results in abject failure when Harry Truman throws the British representatives out of his office, stating that “We don’t overthrow governments; the United States has never done this before, and we’re not going to start now.” After Eisenhower is elected in November 1952, the British have a much more receptive audience, and plans for overthrowing Mosaddeq are produced. The British intelligence operative who presents the idea to the Eisenhower administration later will write in his memoirs, “If I ask the Americans to overthrow Mosaddeq in order to rescue a British oil company, they are not going to respond. This is not an argument that’s going to cut much mustard in Washington. I’ve got to have a different argument.…I’m going to tell the Americans that Mosaddeq is leading Iran towards Communism.” This argument wins over the Eisenhower administration, who promptly decides to organize a coup in Iran (see August 19, 1953). [Stephen Kinzer, 7/29/2003]
Entity Tags: Dwight Eisenhower, Harry S. Truman, Muhammad Mosaddeq
Timeline Tags: US confrontation with Iran,
American, its no revelation that the US of A has staged coups and meddled in the affairs of other nations, especially to visitors to this site. And if Truman actually said: “We don’t overthrow governments; the United States has never done this before, and we’re not going to start now.” He lied. Brazenly.
I was thinking the same Kathleen . Maybe Syria would have gotten away with it if the dead were Palestinian and Assad was Jewish.
I don’t recall France expelling the Israeli ambassador post Cast Lead.
If you ask them if we should also do military intervention in Bahrain, for example, they just ignore you. Do they even know there’s a rebellion going on there?
From Wiki on media coverage of Bahrain uprising:
Western governments and organisations have generally expressed more magnanimity toward the Bahraini government, seen as a key ally of the European Union and the United States and a bulwark against nearby Iran, than they have toward other governments accused of violating the human rights of protesters during the Arab Spring.[240][241][242] The United States and the United Kingdom have condemned the use of violence by Bahraini authorities. They did not call for regime change or threaten sanctions.[243][244]
Hey everyone- Shopafada is here
Buy Ahava and support YESHA
link to judaicawebstore.com
I think the Yair Emanuel stuff is nice though. He’s probably going to be a casualty of YESHA eventually.
Phil and Mondoweiss folks there has been a huge discussion, debate argument going on over at Chris Hayes Up program about Chris’s focus on the use of the word “hero” in relationship to our Vets. It was a great Sunday program. I thought Chris and Liliana (from the Nation) were spot on. You should watch the whole hour on the topic. But clearly Chris has received some static. I did think the timing was rather shaky. Day before Memorial day. But important conversation/argument going on
link to upwithchrishayes.msnbc.msn.com
Justin Raimando on the “hero” debate
link to original.antiwar.com
Over at Huff Po too. 13,ooo comments. Chris Hayes has opened up the silent Iraq debate. link to huffingtonpost.com
Some comments are intense. Lots of our way or the highway comments at Chris Hayes site.
Hayes and his panel discussion regarding ‘memorial day’ and ‘hero’s’ is quite interesting. Undeniably he and his guests had breached some non-permissible limits, which he was forced to apologize for. But the media event should be viewed as a troubling exercise by the uninitiated within the greater, national community, trying to grasp what to them is the unimaginable.
Combat veterans do not have the same perceptions as the other 99%, whether such are draftees, enlistees or gung-ho, 1049′n crazies who have yet to sober up. In their own conversations its embarrassing for them to describe themselves as hero’s, regardless of the decorations earned.
There is far more significance for a troop to be called a “soldier” by another soldier, a rare distinction that merits and means more than the highest decoration or rating among all the ranks. This is unfathomable to the 99% who know not what it means to being the ‘spear point’ of a nations armed forces.
Raimondo has useful things to say, but on this issue he is as dead wrong as he can ever be.
If anyone noticed the recent inflamatory article by Reuters about Iran having enought LEU to make 5 bombs would have noticed that 99% of the comments were riduculing the story and pointing out ISrael’s hypocrisy.
Brand Israrl has well and truly tanked.
Hi,
I think it’s analogous to the environment movement pre-2008, where the campaign, partly aided by actions such as Al Gore’s documentary, was coming from the bottom-up and forcing politicians, giving them courage/political cover, including getting companies to tell the politicians to take action, and they wouldn’t all mind.
This, of course, was when there was a belligerent short-termist capitalist-first politician in charge of America; In Europe, it had more traction until it got partially hijacked by the right-wing hiding behind recessionary fears.
Since a year after his election, how many times has Obama actively campaigned for real environmental transition and control/regulation for the sake of weather and planet, rather than mere xenophobia.
The israeli issue is slowly coming through, where everyone but the mainstream media is talking about it, but that silence becomes irrelevant when most people consume at least some news online – all it takes is one comment to be read by a receptive mind for curiosity to break the manufactured narrative of the status quo.
Then it becomes a hollow edifice only supported by the old dogmatic oligarchs, and then they have to deal with their own cognitive dissonance; and naturally expire! When even the younger israeli’s have stopped believing the mythology, zionism is an inevitable lost course.
In Time!
Yours kindly,
MN
considering the disconnect between msm and the public on bankster control of the world and the i/p conflict, arguably the two most paramount issues of our time, and given that time’s running out on account of perpetual war + global warming = doomsday, where’s the occupy america movement when a mass uprising is so desperately needed? occupying this election, for example, with the type of creative actions that only a year ago put the leaderless yet everyone’s a leader occupy movement onto the stage of history.