Senator Dick Durbin said he had information that could have maybe stopped a war. Senator Ron Wyden said he knew the NSA was collecting data on millions of Americans. However, both said they couldn't tell us. They took an oath not to reveal the state's secrets.
As I argue over at Al Jazeera, they could have told us, but that would have required courage. And we don't put courageous people in the Senate.
It's too bad that Al Jazeera discredited itself so spectacularly warmongering for the destruction of Libya. Many excellent journalists such as Allison Weir had just been taken on by the rising "news" outlet and had to do an about face and quit.
ReplyDeleteAl Jazeera = Guardian UK = New York Times = NPR = PBS = Green Party
ReplyDeleteLimousine leftists who haven't ever endured personal suffering of a monetary or materialistic sort, and who are more than eager to lecture you on how superior they are, politically speaking, to everyone who doesn't agree with them entirely.
Chuckie's keen on affiliating himself with people who like to conduct murder, oppression, displacement, torture, etc., of others as long as those acts are done with a Leftist Cover. Like Medea and Jodie arguing for invading Afghanistan to "protect women." Har har har. Chuckie the limousine leftist, sporting a kaffiyeh and jet-setting to Palestine to hang out with Israeli dissident metrosexuals. So chic, so hip, so leftist.
@Mean Mike McGuire
ReplyDeleteAll mainstream platforms (including Al Jazeera and the Guardian) shill for war at least some of the time. They also print and give serious weight to government claims an awful lot. Shocking I know. I'm sure you're poised to link us to less compromised but more obscure news sources that we already know about and read.
While you do that, try and grapple with the following idea :
"Maybe leftists shouldn't have to desert large platforms and forfeit the communications war against the right just to manage my sheltered sensitive nature."
What's there to "grapple with" in that bizarre conclusory statement?
DeleteWho's the "sheltered sensitive" person in your holographic projection?
Why would "the right" need a "communications war" waged against it?
Looks to me like Math Mus Musculus is trying to figure out who moved his cheese, and blaming it on me.
nice article! if NSA hypocrisy interests you, my latest article highlights John Boehner's hilarious Wednesday vote, in light of a statement of his from 2009 (as if we should expect consistency from him anyway, but still, it's funny, trust me)
ReplyDeleteMean Mike McGuire is mean! And completely ignorant of the world outside his own cranium, but mostly just mean.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, I rode in a limo once. Once.
And you would know what I'm "ignorant of" ...how, exactly?
DeleteAnd you would know what's in my cranium ...how, exactly?
Oh that's right. It's easier to project and conclude! That way, you don't ever have to consider that you don't have the slightest clue what someone else knows!
Hurry and rush back to monitoring Greenwald's tweets, so that you may gain more Internet Cred with vicarious mechanisms other than misdirected projections, wrongheaded conclusions, and failed wit.
The simple fact is that Al-Jazeera, almost single handed, steered the course toward war in Libya. It provided the propaganda cover that the Western MSM was too discredited to succeed at after the massive lies about Iraq.
ReplyDeleteBy producing "left" or other types of analysis and commentary that fall beyond the establishment discourse for Al-Jazeera one produces the bait that draws in the skeptical or thoughtful audience. The switch is often hard to spot, such as when corrupted pilots fly to Malta and falsely claim that they were ordered to bomb demonstrators. Outlets like Democracy Now can then cite Al-Jazeera's pro-war lies as representing the opposite side of the spectrum from FOX etc...
Propagandizing the potential dissidents is far more important for the warmongers than preaching to the choir.
Better to boycott. If people wish to find an alternative view they need to go to sources that are not controlled by Emirs who rule at the pleasure of imperial military power.
I realize that this puts a burden on the talented writer who simply wants a gig with an audience. Engineers have to grapple with the same issue when sacrificing a career at Raytheon.
I agree that boycotts work, on the condition that they stem from a visible campaign, otherwise they are isomorphic with mere consumer choice.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand media isn't a commodity. It's the very air we breath in modern life, it's the background noise to everyone's political assumptions. No amount of purist moralism by dissidents, no amount of political catastrophes made a dent in the neoliberal bubble. It's time for the left to review its Machiavel and understand that this is a fight, not a pageant.
Media is different from economic boycott. It may be more comparable to academic or sports boycott. In any event, Charles could lead his readers to RT, Press TV or other, less predatory, outlets.
DeleteI don't see why we should allow Al-Jazeera to play the all important role of determining what constitutes news and analysis. If nothing else, we must create our own media organizations. Granted, economics is a weak point for us.
And yet only through already-existing media does academic and sports boycotts become known and thus work as elements of a campaign. And only through mainstream media does the general public ever hear about them.
DeleteThe left already has its own media, just like every other group does. The left should work to infiltrate and bend mainstream platforms, just like everyone else does.
tl;dr Any organized mainstream media boycott will need to be an highly organized and visible affair, not Charles Davis bowing to a few readers.
I only hear about sports and academic boycotts from street demos (regarding the Springboks) or more recently at online blogs or from email. I spent many years avidly consuming MSM and never once heard of a boycott there.
DeleteHow, exactly, would a boycott work?
DeleteLet's say I'm Chuckles Davidian the keenly coiffed metrosexual keybanger. I want to propose that there's a tiny smidgen of the Israeli govt that puts my teeth on edge and makes my dick go soft. So I propose an Israeli goods boycott. I call it, The NAMBLAcott.
Soon all my metrosexual and homosexual readership are tweeting about the utmost urgency of NAMBLAcotting Israeli goods. I even point to an iPhone app that lets me read barcodes to identify something as Made in Israel.
Unfortunately, Israel's biggest problems stem from its military, technology and espionage sectors of its national economy. And a consumer goods boycott can't affect those sectors one whit.
So how's your NAMBLAcott doing, Arf EEEE oh?
I hope you're 13, Mike. Because there's no other charitable way to explain your posts on this thread.
Delete