Letters to the Editor
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The reason for this is clear. ...
"... The American media has a script to which they loyally adhere. The U.S. can make mistakes and government leaders can be criticized for incompetence, but we can never do anything that is actually destructive or evil or which justifiably provokes hatred towards us by people in other countries -- not even bombing them and occupying them for years and imprisoning tens of thousands of them with no charges and replicating the behavior of their hated dictator. Any views that suggest such a thing are simply not heard. ..." (GG)
That is spot on Glenn; a hearty Amen from this corner. Just when I think you can not beat the posts of the past --- you do. Great one today.
The central problem is no one on the right or the left want to ask if the actions of our government are moral; hell, if the actions of our government are even in the people's best interest.
Give them hell Glenn. (remember the Truman comeback)
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One minor point..
The destruction of Iraq did not begin with George Bush. It has been going on for decades, with George Bush I, Bill Clinton (remember Albright's response to .5 million dead children "the price is worth it), and continues today.
And it is not only the U.S. involved, when the U.N. endorses these things.
After the Holocaust, we said never again. But we didn't really mean it. Arabs are the new Jews.
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Bob from Carmichael, CA
First off, Peter Jennings has been dead for several years and hasn't been conducting many interviews of late. Second, his interview format was necessarily much more condensed since he only had a few minutes out of a 22 minute news show (once you remove ads), as opposed to Rose's up to 54 or so minutes. Third, Jennings was broadcasting to a much wider audience than generally watch Rose's show, being on much earlier in the day when people were having dinner, on a commercial network rather than PBS, and with a more "mainstream" presentation.
And fourth, Rose absolutely interrupts his guests, completes their thoughts and interjects his own ideas, to the great detriment of his show. Sometimes he appears to do this simply out of a vain desire to remind everyone of how smart and knowledgeable and sophisticated and in the know and clever he is (in a way that genuinely smart and knowledgeable and sophisticated and in the know and clever people find both laughable and sad). But sometimes it's because he appears to be uncomfortable with what the interviewee is saying (too off the accepted CW Village script), and wants to bring the discussion back to CW land. E.g. the pre-war WMD intel was bad and shoddy, but no one actually deliberately and knowingly LIED about it--these are his good buddies, after all, and they would NEVER do that, so why are you so mean to them!
Bob, I don't know how often you watch Rose (and given how you refer to Jennings in the present tense, it can't be often or recent), but it's not the same Rose that the rest of us do. He is a suckup to the powers that be. So long as these are on the right, he will suck up to the right. If it ever shifts to the left, he will suck up to them. At heart, Rose is neither conservative or liberal, but someone who just wants to be at the center of things, loved and respected by the people who "count" (i.e. the cocktail weenie circuit). He's about image, not reality. He just happens to operate on a more sophisticated level than Limbaugh or O'Reilly, which is why more naive viewers don't see this. But he serves the EXACT same purpose.
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Since the Vietnam War
The media has tried to force every military action we are engaged in into a narrative which conforms with the norms, and most of the techniques developed in WW2.
And then there is the general narrative of war as individual melodrama. Seems to be a great favorite of the more interventionist young folks round here.
And so we are treated to the spectacle of the American Armed Forces reduced to running a brutal purposeless occupation, almost entirely against civilians while at every level they try to transform this into "blood, sweat, and tears" and "their finest hour".
Meanwhile, nobody seems to be afraid of "fear itself" anymore, that's passe', nye kulturny, old hat, last year's kisses and yesterday's news. Nope, to be unafraid is practically treasonous. "the fear of fear itself" is the neo-cons greatest political weapon, always has been.
And nobody else heard that Chaplain on NPR's Morning Edition (3/35) commemorating the 4,000th death?
I thought it was an almost threateningly immediate display of psychopathological sanctimoniousness; it was horrifying.
As I remember, he said "We wish these deaths would stop happening but we know they cannot"!!!
That from a guy who represents the Prince of Peace?
The segment which describes the way he personally reduces each death listing from a person he might have known, into a statistic he can use is almost vampiric, or anthropophagous.
Or maybe I heard it wrong.
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My problem with Charlie...
From ahoyhoy...
"It seems as though Charlie thinks he the smartest guy in any room and anything to the contrary is smoke and mirrors. His world view is perfect and needs no review."
I agree. My problem with Charlie Rose ( and I have been watching him for years ), is that he talks when he should listen. I don't care what Charlie thinks; I want to know what his guests think.
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-- Thelma Ritter
... The subject of the film was at the screening in Portland, and afterwards he took questions from the audience (because this was Portland, they were mostly left of center types). Most people expressed horror at what they'd seen, but also distress that the pianist had no upbeat words of consolation for the audience--no place to send checks to, no sense that things would be better soon, no acknowlegement that he knew we all meant well. The guy finally said (paraphrasing), "Sorry, but you fucked up and now it's an ugly situation and lives have been lost and ruined; I can't make you feel better about yourselves."
As far as I know, the movie was never released in the US, and a few months later George Bush was re-elected.
-- Thelma Ritter
God Damn Thelma! That makes me want to beat my head against a wall. That story that you told should have been on every Sunday morning show for a month. Then we should have asked, "why do we continue to fuck up the world"?
Thanks for sharing, even though it may disrupt my sleep.