US President Barack Obama (R) meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, 20 May 2011. (Photo: AFP – Jim Watson)
Yesterday I spotted Sullivan’s piece about Newt’s Sugar Daddy, Sheldon Adelson, who
… just happens to be Netanyahu’s chief propagandist in Israel. Sheldon Adelson is a Greater Israel fanatic, whose newspaper in Israel has featured full-on attacks on president Obama, featuring … Newt Gingrich. It’s important to understand that the Israeli prime minister is engaged in a full-on political campaign – against the re-election of the president of the US.
The link in Sullivan’s piece leads to the Lebanese website Al Akhbar English. I started reading “The Bibi Connection” and a little ways into it I’m like, ‘Holy Shit, awesome article. Now, if only we could get this article in the mainstream press here.’
While I was ranting on ‘they get better news about our presidential election in friggin Lebanon for Christ’s sake,’ it didn’t even occur to me to check out the author of that awesome article. It wasn’t til this morning Phil informed me, it’s Max Blumenthal.
Max Blumenthal
You know, sometimes it makes me want to pull my hair out why the best of the best of our young American reporters have their stories buried by the US msm just because they are not Zionists. And that’s what’s happening. It’s takes Sullivan linking to a Lebanese site for me to notice this great article while fear mongering war pushers get their hyperventilating memes republished in Bloomberg and SFgate . Why aren’t these publications republishing the best reporting surrounding the candidates and our election? A big shout out to Al Akhbar for bringing us the news. And now for our reading pleasure, Max Blumenthal on the shadow campaign:
The US presidential election campaign that kicked off January 3 with the Iowa caucuses was the subject of a curious article attacking President Barack Obama in the mass circulation Israeli daily newspaper, Israel Hayom.
“US President Barack Obama is ‘naïve’ and needs to face up to the threat presented by the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood across the Middle East, Israel’s National Security Council concluded during a strategic discussion several days ago,” Israel Hayom reported.
The Israeli National Security Council consists of Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s closest advisers. And Israel Hayom is not just another right-leaning Israeli tabloid. Referred to by Israelis as the “Bibiton,” or Bibi’s mouthpiece, the paper is an instrument that gives him extraordinary political leverage. The obviously planted article in Israel Hayom rang like a bell sounding the start of Netanyahu’s own campaign in helping the Republican Party oust Obama from the White House.
Israel Hayom’s genesis demonstrates the depth of Netanyahu’s connections in Republican circles. It was created by one of Netanyahu’s top financial supporters, a Las Vegas-based casino tycoon named Sheldon Adelson, who is also a major donor to the conservative wing of the Republican Party. Adelson’s closest relationship is with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, a longtime ally of Netanyahu who has been running a rancorous campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
Netanyahu’s less than subtle intervention has become an open issue in Israeli politics. Opposition leader Tzipi Livni of the Kadima Party has criticized Netanyahu for damaging the US-Israeli relationship. “Netanyahu spoke about consensus,” Livni said in May, “and if there is a consensus in Israel, it’s that the relationship with the US is essential to Israel, and a prime minister that harms the relationship with the US over something unsubstantial is harming Israel’s security and deterrence.”
But Livni’s warning has been ignored. Rather than hesitating, the prime minister and his inner circle are moving full steam ahead in their political shadow campaign whose ultimate goal is to remove Obama. Bibi’s war against Obama is unprecedented. While Israeli prime ministers have tried to help incumbent presidents, none have ever waged a full-scale campaign to overthrow them.
Netanyahu has engaged enthusiastic allies in the Republican Congress, led by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and within the right-wing media. His neoconservative allies in Washington are launching a “Super PAC” to generate emotional attack ads against Obama and any candidate that might be an obstacle to his policies. And his campaign has even broadened into an attempt to discredit the New York Times, whose editorial page and foreign policy columnists, Thomas Friedman and Roger Cohen, have been critical of him.
Netanyahu’s shadow campaign is intended to be a factor in defeating Obama and electing a Republican in his place. He opposed Obama’s early demand to freeze settlements on the West Bank as a precondition for reviving the peace process, a process since the Oslo Accord that Netanyahu has attempted to stall or sabotage, despite his signing of the Wye Agreement under pressure from President Clinton. Since his adamant stand against the settlement freeze, Netanyahu has undermined every effort to engage the peace process. He appears dead set on consolidating Greater Israel, or what many Israelis call “Judea and Samaria,” and has signaled a strong desire to attack Iran.
Max is just warming up. Read the rest of The Bibi connection at Al Akhbar.
Why aren’t the best and brightest in our media?
First guess would be they aren’t willing to give up their intergity or betray the country for a big paycheck.
But moot question really, the media wouldn’t hire the best and brightest anyway.
My main man Noam has an idea about this:
“If you quietly accept and go along no matter what your feelings are, ultimately you internalize what you’re saying, because it’s too hard to believe one thing and say another. I can see it very strikingly in my own background. Go to any elite university and you are usually speaking to very disciplined people, people who have been selected for obedience. And that makes sense. If you’ve resisted the temptation to tell the teacher, “You’re an asshole,” which maybe he or she is, and if you don’t say, “That’s idiotic,” when you get a stupid assignment, you will gradually pass through the required filters. You will end up at a good college and eventually with a good job.”
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19920528.htm
The mainstream media have deliberately overloaded their organizations with pro-Israel activists and militants — and these people tend to be the worst and least bright people in America — the very antithesis of people with independent, inquisitive and truth-seeking minds.
One could argue that the Israel lobby has played the lead role in ruining once great journalistic institutions like the New York Times (which helped herd Americans into the disastrous Iraq War) and the Washington Post (which is now mostly a debased propaganda outlet for Israel’s Likud and its neoconservative operatives in American politics).
With the fervent hope for Pres. Obama’s re-election and the absence of the necessity of pandering to AIPAC, he MUST make the a**hole Netanyahoo pay big-time – no more “carrots”, but the “stick” repeatedly and harshly dispensed.
MSM became one of the most effective propaganda machines on Earth in steering people’s minds, hearts and souls in a direction set by its bosses/owners.
It is also great money making machine. He who owns the media, owns part od the world. Very important part; spiritual, intellectual, emotional.
Those who own the MSmedia know exactly how powerful they are ,and they began using it AGAINST people.
Many people started realise how manipulative, deceiving, brainwashing MSM has become. Many people suspect it, but still don’t do anything about it, they gladly chew on their daily portions of poisonous medial junk.
Many people don’t even bother to question it , and they pay their continuing homage to the medial “god ” placed carefully on a living room’s altar:
“Om…almighty TV ,om…I spent only half of the saturday with you ,om.. and most the sunday..om…. and 4/5 hours daily om….. and I’ve been doing it for many years om…..om………”
MSM don’t need/want the best and the brightest. They need/desire the most loyal individuals, obedient, servile, willing to do whatever is required from them, agressive , insolent, cheeky , disrespectful when needed.
Om.