Sunday night on All Things Considered, NPR hosted an ESPN reporter who made the case for Penn State, how much the football program does for the community. He offered a lot of pro-football propaganda, and nothing about the tremendous cost of Penn State’s chauvinism. My wife heard it and was enraged. They ought to shut that program down, she said. The last time they shut a program down was for paying athletes. Isn’t raping children worse?
Thankfully, yesterday on Brian Lehrer’s WNYC program, Dave Zirin of the Nation echoed my wife’s view. He said that the whole NCAA should be shut down for its corporate corrupt culture. That’s called a moral voice. Buzz Bissinger has provided a similar moral perspective, to NPR listeners.
Later yesterday, Lehrer hosted another moral voice in Carolyn McCarthy, the NY congresswoman who lost her husband to a gun massacre. McCarthy said, I am going to take a moral stand to save lives, and then blew away the gun lobby’s propaganda on Colorado. Lehrer played a clip of a Texas congressman saying that others should have been packing guns in the theater; McCarthy said, that would have just killed more people, in the panic and confusion. He played a clip of the Colorado governor saying that the Aurora killer was so “diabolical” he would have been successful even with strict gun laws. McCarthy said Gov. Hickenlooper’s not thinking clearly; we make it easy for anyone to buy semi-automatic weapons.
In both these cases, the liberal media is performing its job, bringing a moral leftleaning perspective to a national issue. You didn’t hear Lehrer bust Zirin for being pie-in-the-sky; he honors his moralist view. He didn’t call McCarthy unrealistic or absolutist.
We don’t get this free flow of ideas in connection with the Israel/Palestine issue. Both Penn State and Aurora are reminiscent of the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara. In May 2010, nine people on a humanitarian mission to Gaza were killed by Israeli commandoes on the high seas. One of the victims was an American citizen. Later the same day Emily Henochowitz, a student at Cooper Union, was blinded in one eye by an Israeli teargas canister fired at her during a peaceful demonstration against the Israeli raid at Qalandiya.
I’ve never heard Henochowitz on public radio. I’ve never heard Max Blumenthal– who so distinguished himself in his reporting on the Mavi Marmara raid and who was himself transformed by that experience– invited on to public radio to talk about his own moral stance in order to save lives. I’ve never heard Dave Zirin, a leftwinger on Israel/Palestine, express his Middle East views on public radio.
Going further, I’ve rarely seen an anti-Zionist granted a platform in the media to hold forth on the human rights issues at the heart of the conflict. I’ve never heard an anti-Zionist express my view — that Zionism and the special relationship have hurt Americans, and played a role in the deaths of Bobby Kennedy and Rachel Corrie and the terror victims of 9/11. I’ve never heard an anti-Zionist say, If it’s a choice between a Jewish state and more conflict, why not choose democratic regime change?
Our media are in the tank. They give a rightwing prime minister a platform on television to push for war. They regard Israel as a heroic and embattled democracy. They print pieces sympathetic to the Israeli army. On this subject, they cannot tolerate a wide range of opinion.
So I know that Comcast is a huge conglomerate, and thus David Cohen, as VP, exerts a great deal of editorial control over Comcast channels. But are there others whom you know of? Who are the Zionist lynchpins in American media?
I think its crucial for us to find out exactly who these people are. It would make our case so much stronger if we could move out of the theoretical and begin naming names, and showing how Zionist manipulation of the media works.
“It would make our case so much stronger if we could move out of the theoretical and begin naming names”
Okay, I’m a little confused, (when I’m not eating myself up with envy over that leonine mane of yours) Matthew. I’ve been reading Mondoweiss for well over- well, let’s just say for too long a time, and I’ve never noticed any hesitation in naming names, when a clear example exists. Where is this reluctance to name names you are talking about? Or should Mondoweiss just publish lists of media executives with Zionist-sounding names?
You’re right, Mondoweiss has done a spectacular job of naming names when there is a clear example of somebody manipulating the media. But I don’t think we, as a public, actually know who exerts great control over American media. Has the research been done? Is there a way to infiltrate media establishments and find out who sets the guidelines for reporting?
Why is it that the NYT so often parrots the US government? Who is it there that decides, ultimately, what in the Middle East gets coverage, and what does not? And at NPR? Is it the over-arching ‘Jewish community’ that exerts influence on American media (as is often suggested by Mondoweiss articles), or are there execs within American media that have set bylaws and agendas which their news outlets must abide by?
Seems to me, Matthew, that all of that is covered pretty well (unlike my head) here. Aren’t you asking Mondoweiss to indulge in speculation? And, as seems to be the point of a lot of articles in Mondoweiss (and other places as well) a lot of that is implicit in the process, not explicit in a set of rules.
But jeez, Matthew, if you have the info to write on this subject, write it up and send it in, and I’m sure Mondoweiss would consider it.
great big wet smooch to Myron Kaplan (hope he doesn’t smoke cigars) at CAMERA: he provides names and emails of people to contact to protest C Span’ biased programming.
I just checked, and they will consider it, but only if you pay for the legal work to ensure none of the accusations are actionable. Maybe you could sell your hair, that kind of stuff is expensive.
I like this idea. To see the giant pyramid scheme of media networks and how they tend to buttress each other would be ideal to understand how the public is misinformed. Creating a sort of a massive model of real and assumed connections as a real time model would be interesting, in that it could see, or perhaps predict, how a senator may be manipulated to vote on Israel based on the corporate contributions from their main contributor. A giant predictability model, similar to the weather.
The model could be illustrated as information silos (or pyramids). One silo could show the house of reps, the senate, the media, the banking cartel, etc.
how about all of us that care…write NPR or even C-Span and ask that they let Phil come on their media and share his point of view…ont the I/P nightmare
I’ll send them emails…
jimmy
ask that they let Phil come on their media and share his point of view…ont the I/P nightmare
That would be a great idea, if the preliminary work was done. First the media would have to have some humanist view that it’s wrong to kill or steal from people, and they would need to establish that it is equally wrong to kill or steal from people with any color skin or religion. If that is not established, all Phil has is a competeing point-of-view or narrative.
And I forgot, they would also have to establish that war or violence is not the best answer to any problem.
Unless those, or something like them is the basis for their view of the world, all Phil can do is make a fool of himself. As eloquent, as informed, as persuasive as he is, he might as well be talking to lizards.
“In both these cases, the liberal media is performing its job, bringing a moral leftleaning perspective to a national issue.”
Why is giving the government all the weapons a left leaning position? Didn’t the founders say that an armed population was necessary to protect democracy from tyranny?
Maybe if a few civilians in Norway had been armed things would have been different. And why would the person in Colorado alert the authorities to the danger in his apartment after taking so long to set it up. It’s strange.
Jones, you have a lot of experience with gun-play, gun battles on the run, or in crowded rooms? Are you an expert on when (in a public space) you have the right to shoot at someone and suffer no possible legal consequences? Cause hesitation could be deadly, W Jones! Oh, and how’s your eyesight? Good enough, say in a darkened theater full of tear gas, or in a crowd to pick out the right person to shoot at, without fail? And naturally, there’s nothing you’d like better than to walk around with a loaded, cocked firearm in your pocket (or are you just happy to see me?) Another words W.Jones isn’t about time you found out some of the facts about firearms in the US, instead of depending on TV and movies for your information and contexts? Oh, sorry, I forgot, you’re the one who wants to play exegesis with Marc Ellis every time he writes an article telling you how useless it is. So I guess your religious knowledge and knowledge of guns is on about the same level.
I know, W. Jones, the media is hiding all those stories of people who have saved their own lives, their family’s lives and defeated government tyranny by using guns. They’re hiding that from us, right W. Jones? And inventing all those stories of suicides, accidents, crime, and senseless gun massacres. Well, it stands to reason, since they won’t acknowledge that an angel (Moroni, I believe) brought Joseph Smith the Book of Mormon on Golden Plates.
Anyway, I thought you were a monotheist, but you seem to have two Gods, one of which has a firing-pin. Please, bring us any evidence that the good things you claim for guns exist Yes, I know, you’ve seen them in a thousand TV shows and movies, so they must be real.
And of course, as a religious man, you understand the need for people to kill instantly, once they’ve made a judgement somebody is a “bad guy” It’s just what Jesus would have done, if he had a Glock.
“Didn’t the founders say that an armed population was necessary to protect democracy from tyranny?”
No, the “founders” said that nobody would be excluded from the Army (militia) on a confessional , ethnic or class basis. They saw what this had done to Europe, as the balance shifted between Protestants and Catholics, and were anxious to avoid it here. The 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with private weapons ownership.
Whoopee! Jesus and Guns!
“The 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with private weapons ownership.”
I’m disappointed in you Mooser. I think you actually mean that.
My attitude is that it is quite clear what the Second Amendment says. I happen to like it. I can certainly grant that others might not like it — but I get impatient when they start trying to rationalize interpretations of it that deny it says what it says.
“Maybe if a few civilians in Norway had been armed things would have been different.”
I can imagine being this stupid, but frankly, I can’t imagine myself publicly declaring it. So you figure the counslers should have had loaded weapons, or the campers? I thought Ziocaine was powerful, but salt-petre seems to have a powerful effect, too.
Oh I dunno. If you took one hundred Montanans camping, there’s a pretty good chance at least one would have brought his gun.
Equally to the point, there’s the deterrent factor. Ol’ Brievik might have been less enamored of his plan if there had been the distinct chance that someone might shoot back at him. I wouldn’t storm a group camp of Montanans on the optimistic theory that not one of them is going to be armed. Hell, one probably will be — and he’ll be overjoyed at the chance to finally use his Glock .40 S&W with the laser sight and the fifteen round clip and the…he’s likely to blow me to pieces. No thanks.
It’s worth pointing out that Socialists in Germany were a big part of the country before WWII, and as part of their doctrine- as well as the beliefs of the American founders of the US, the people were supposed to rise up if there was going to be a fascist dictatorship imposed on them. Instead, the Nazi government took the step of disarming the population, and consequently it was very difficult if not impossible to run guerrilla warfare against it to restore democracy.
“And why would the person in Colorado alert the authorities to the danger in his apartment after taking so long to set it up. It’s strange.”
Especially when you figure that all his other actions were so darn rational! And him a hero trying to save us from tyranny and all.
Amazing, this worship of the gun. They worship guns , so therefore anything done in the name of the gun must be good. Guns, they feel, should have more rights than people, and those privileges should transfer to any man willing to pick up a gun. Their TV and movies tell them guns do good things (save lives, stop crime, battle tyranny) and push melodrama along, so who needs any facts about what guns really do? They frickin worship guns! And of course, the man with faulty eyesight, or who can’t run faster than a bullet (can you W.Jones?) deserve to die.
Isn’t that in the “Sermon on the Scope-Mounting”
or something. Amazing! Or maybe it’s just a way for re-paying the gun for all the yoeman work he’s done pushing the plot along in movies and TV. Oh, you thought those were all real situations which show us how guns figure in our society? Gosh, and I thought it was all scripted melodrama and special effects, how could I be so stupid.
Another victory for gun rights, another life saved, another tyranny defeated!
And the gun saves more lives, protects womens and childrens, and defeats tyranny!
And just for grins, here’s James Taranto’s reaction to the Colorado shooting
Actually I don’t own a firearm, and generally my position for a long time was more anti-gun. However, having found out more about the disparities in the country and the way things work, I changed my mind. Society works to a big extent by social forces and where power lies. In light of this, if you take away all the weapons from the people and give it to a government controlled by monopolies that have used the government for its brutal ends in the past, this can be a dangerous mistake.
It’s true I think that mass gun ownership adds to violence. But far more important factors are poverty, wealth distribution, education.
“Didn’t the founders say that an armed population was necessary to protect democracy from tyranny?”
Maybe they were stupid. Maybe they were wrong. Maybe they were living in a eighteenth-century rural backwater of the world and didn’t know better. Maybe they mistook their situation for a general principle. Maybe they stated something that was true then but is not true now.
Why do people always quote “the founders” as if this particular bunch of folks had some special insight into the human condition??
Now there. This argument I can respect. At least Woody’s not trying to fantasize the Second Amendment says something other than what it says.
You don’t like the Second Amendment, get it revoked. There’s a legal mechanism. I’ll oppose you, but I’ll abide by the result. I don’t care that much.
Well, I would also point out that the 2nd Amendment is the worst written part of the Const. I think there is validity to both views (personal and collective right). But I disagree that you need to get rid of it. you can, through regulation and taxation, accomplish the same thing. ($10,000 per round tax, and a requirement that you get permission in writing from the ATF anytime you take your gun out of the regulatorily-mandated gun safe – with willful violations carrying penalties starting at 20 years in prison for first-time offenders – would probably convince a lot of people to give up their guns.)
The ATF and DEA are comprised of employees who couldn’t cut it in the FBI, CIA or Secret Service. Both should be disbanded; the DEA because the drug war is counter productive and the ATF because of Waco and Fast and Furious. Trusting your security to either agency is foolishness, especially when you don’t turst your neighbor with a gun. Turn off the tv and talk to your neighbor, maybe then you won;t be controled by the latest atrocity. Bradbury was right: people will give up their rights and freedom voluntarily. Know any good books we can burn, after all ideas can be dangerous?
“Didn’t the founders say that an armed population was necessary to protect democracy from tyranny?”
Oh yes, that must be what they meant. I mean, isn’t the first act of every government making sure that the people have the means of overthrowing that government violently?
Gee, gotta wonder if W Jones’ thoughts on guns are as deep as his thoughts on Biblical exegesis. And as humanity-centered.
“I mean, isn’t the first act of every government making sure that the people have the means of overthrowing that government violently?”
In our case, yeah, more or less. We were, indeed, that crazy.
Freedom, Mooser. Let me explain the concept to you…
“Going further, I’ve rarely seen an anti-Zionist granted a platform in the media to hold forth on the human rights issues at the heart of the conflict. ”
Chris Hayes attempts to push the envelope on discussing Israel. I’ve seen his Saturday morning show. But the looming powers at the networks watch him and look for a weakness they can exploit (like many in the House of Reps).
NBC and their cohorts threw Hayes under the bus recently. Star Jones, Donny Deutsch and others are the hired henchmen seen in this video.
link to newsbusters.org
with respect to Ms. Weiss, whose feathers I would not want to ruffle even a little bit, there’s a whiff of (ahem) tribalism swirling around the Penn State debacle.
Joe Paterno’s grave has been (figuratively) desecrated — his entire career and all the good he did at Penn State have been marked forever by NCAA decrees.
But Graham Spanier, former Penn State president at whose desk the buck should have stopped, was allowed to resign relatively quietly, and quickly landed a job with the Federal govt in the security arena.
Read the comments to the linked article.
Penn State students & alum are not pleased. Nor are they politically unaware.
“But Graham Spanier, former Penn State president at whose desk the buck should have stopped, was allowed to resign relatively quietly, and quickly landed a job with the Federal govt in the security arena.”
Count on the Federal Government to throw a Spanier in the works!
Something interesting in the Spanier bio on this…there was another guy at Penn state that had also previously been charged with sexual abuse and was ignored by Spanier also….the fact that this went on for a decade and other complaints were also ignored makes me think of a regular pedophile ring :
“”A Phoenix private investigator named Paul McLaughlin came forward in the wake of the Sandusky revelations. He charged in the early 2000s Spanier and others at Penn State rebuffed his efforts to report his own sexual abuse. McLaughlin charged he was sexually abused as an 11-year-old in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He named, among others, PSU education professor John T. Neisworth.
McLaughlin secretly taped a telephone conversation with Neisworth which contains a purported confession. He said Spanier responded “Don’t bother” when McLaughlin offered to send him the tape. McLaughlin states his conversation with Spanier occurred in March, 2002 days before the alleged Sandusky rape. “Neisworth retired in 2002, though he continued teaching a distance-education course for a few more years,” was reported in the New York Times.”"
“Something interesting in the Spanier bio on this…there was another guy at Penn state that had also previously been charged with sexual abuse and was ignored by Spanier also….the fact that this went on for a decade and other complaints were also ignored makes me think of a regular pedophile ring ”
That’s what I am saying over on link to mondoweiss.net
There are two different sources, including a victim of a Phil.abuser claiming 1st hand knowledge suggesting this.
Penn State lobby… gun lobby… Israel lobby
I just read that in 2008 11 people were killed with guns in Japan, and 12000 in USA.
link to nrk.no
Japan must have a better anti-gun lobby than USA…
Japan has a much lower overall crime rate than the U.S., except they lead us in software piracy.
In Federalist Paper no. 46, Madison writes that a federal tyranny is impossible because of two unique characteristics of the new country: 1. The people would not continue to reelect representatives that worked against their best interests. He didn’t think the people were that stupid. (This has been proven wrong.) 2. An armed citzenry organized from the ground up into State militias would always be greater in size than a standing army and would be able the defeat any force the federal government could muster to enforce oppresive laws.
The 2nd amendment starts “A well regulated Militia,being necessary to the security of a free State…” does not mean the security of the U.S. government but of each individual State. There was some debate during the Constitutional convention whether every man between the ages of 18 and 55 should by law have to join a militia and own a gun, and if that would apply to Quakers. The Constitution gives Congress the power to fund the militia and call it up when needed but leaves its organization up to the States. Americans had great faith in the ability of an armed citizenry formed into local militias to protect themselves and feared a standing army as a necessary prelude to tyranny. But times do change: we have a standing army larger than any other the world has seen, a populace too dumb to vote for their own interests and too many too primitive to handle weapons.
link to nationmaster.com
“too many too primitive to handle weapons.”
Yes, I’ve noticed the number of people who, when they have a gun, and someone they want to shoot, are incapable of finding the trigger or pointing the gun in the right direction.
But you have a point: a college education makes one incapable of murder or making a wrong decision.
Just amazing, in homage to the gun, we start pretending that people don’t have problems. We’ll do anything to make life easier for the gun.
“Japan must have a better anti-gun lobby than USA…”
Or maybe, just maybe, gosh, I feel so stupid suggesting it, Japan doesn’t have America’s pro-gun lobby?
The gun/antigun controversy is partly a rural/urban split:
People in rural areas think of guns as a natural part of life.
People in big cities don’t need a weapon for hunting pigeons in the public park or shooting frogs at the local dump.
If I were running the country, I would seriously consider legislation that allows gun ownership in rural areas but restricts it in urban areas.
The politics of the issue is that the pro-gun lobby (NRA) has a lot of people for whom this is a bottom-line issue: they’re willing to vote on this issue and only on this issue. Naturally the politicians are scared, and they understand that if they don’t touch this issue, they won’t have the NRA aiming their crosshairs at them.
In contrast, the pro-gun-control voters are soft support: they are willing to support a representative who is against gun control.
There is an analogy to another issue that is dear to the hearts of MW readers: the Israeli issue. The Israel Lobby has supporters for whom support for Israel is a bottom-line issue. They will vote on this issue and only this issue. Supporters of the Palestinians (opponents of Israeli policy) have some support, but fewer bottom-line voters.
Beside the two lobbies that I’ve mentioned, the NRA and the Israel Lobby, there is a third lobby, the anti-abortion lobby, which also has a group of bottom-line voters. Each lobby can mobilize a block of voters: say 5% or so.
Practical politicians don’t want to antagonize these lobbies: if they vote against all three, they get 3 x 5% = 15% of the voters against them. That can spell defeat.
I said primitive, not uneducated. Dick Cheney and the neocons are motivated by the most primitive part of the brain–what some call the lizard brain. They are ruled by fear and use fear to control us.
they are ruled by a drive for power, money and domination. Dylan Ratigan would always refer to the “lizard brain” Cheney and the other Iraq war pushers belong in prison. Hope and pray their is a hell because if there is the devil is building a new wing for that group of socio/psychopaths. War criminals
“I’ve never heard Henochowitz on public radio. I’ve never heard Max Blumenthal– who so distinguished himself in his reporting on the Mavi Marmara raid and who was himself transformed by that experience– invited on to public radio to talk about his own moral stance in order to save lives. I’ve never heard Dave Zirin, a leftwinger on Israel/Palestine, express his Middle East views on public radio.
Going further, I’ve rarely seen an anti-Zionist granted a platform in the media to hold forth on the human rights issues at the heart of the conflict. I’ve never heard an anti-Zionist express my view — that Zionism and the special relationship have hurt Americans, and played a role in the deaths of Bobby Kennedy and Rachel Corrie and the terror victims of 9/11. I’ve never heard an anti-Zionist say, If it’s a choice between a Jewish state and more conflict, why not choose democratic regime change?”
Never heard Max or Henochowitz or the Corries on any MSM outlet. But have heard Glenn and Dylan Ratigan focus on these critical issues. And once a MSM host had Ambassador Peck (Flotilla member)
link to firedoglake.com
Glenn and Dylan take down
link to salon.com