I guess when the government is a parody of itself, it should make sense that satirists make the best reporters?

Twenty years after Tiannamen and China never suffered in its standing in the world. We continue to make nice to them and have never called them to account.

As for Obama, Mr. Greenwald, has he made ANY improvements in your mind compared to Bush? The consistent theme of your posts seems to be that nothing has changed. He's stopped torture and has taken steps toward closing Gitmo. I wish you would at least try to get the White House's side to the story.

Try looking for the sensible, righteous views put forth by Mr. Greenwald anywhere else in the public sphere. Or anywhere at all on TV.

The show of democracy presented to the lumpen by the controlled media is just that. Go there for your pablum.

Eek! Glenn slipped this new post in just as I published a response to sysprog on this development on the previous post.

Since it very much belongs on this thread, here's most of it:

[...] Meanwhile, sysprog, the appalling and outrageous hypocrisy expressed by Madam Secretary nicely bookends with a parallel comment I made here recently-- it's short enough to be reproduced in full*.

I'm not a psychologist, but I seriously think that the capability of making staggeringly hypocritical statements like this is a strong indication of pathological alienation-- perhaps what's been called "occupational psychosis".

It beggars the imagination-- and vocabulary!

For these accomplished corporate lawyers to saddle up their high horses and make such pompous and sententious pronouncements without any apparent self-awareness or sense of irony proves that they are either clinically delusional, or so programmed and determined to perform their roles according to script that they are simply indifferent to any "perception" of hypocrisy attributed to them.

There's simply no way to justify this preposterously phony preaching.

____________________________________

* O/T: Let the Objurgator Without Sin Cast the First Stone!

Obama calls on Myanmar to free Aung San Suu Kyi

____________________________________

"Aung San Suu Kyi's continued detention, isolation, and show trial based on spurious charges cast serious doubt on the Burmese regime's willingness to be a responsible member of the international community," Obama said. "This is an important opportunity for the government in Burma to demonstrate that it respects its own laws and its own people..."

____________________________________

Does he kiss his Supreme Court nominee with that forked tongue?

HRC will have to try harder. I believe critiquing the Russkies about wiretapping outstrips HRC chastising the Chinese. So Obama has yet to embrace/surpass Bush policy in one area (self-parody) anyway.

linky @ sig

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/6/5/hashmi

“Guantanamo at Home”: Muslim American Syed Fahad Hashmi Held in 23-Hour Solitary Pretrial Confinement for Over Two Years in Case Resting on Plea-Bargaining Government Informant

One day after President Obama trumpeted the achievements and freedoms of Muslim Americans in his celebrated Cairo speech, we look at the case of Syed Fahad Hashmi, a

US citizen who has been held in pretrial twenty-three-hour solitary confinement in a Manhattan federal prison for over two years. Hashmi is charged with providing material support to al-Qaeda in a case that rests on the testimony of Junaid Babar, an old acquaintance of Hashmi’s who turned government informant after his own arrest on terror charges. Hashmi is being prosecuted for a two-week period when Babar stayed at his home carrying rain gear that was allegedly later delivered to al-Qaeda members in Pakistan.

In his first major address to Muslims around the world, President Obama emphasized the importance of Islam in America, while speaking from Cairo on Thursday. He also highlighted the numerous achievements of American Muslims and the multiple freedoms they enjoy and are constitutionally guaranteed in this country.

That was the vote count on the recent "Tiananmen Resolution". The one congressman voting "nay"? Rep. Ron Paul (R). Why would he vote against this sancrosanct censure against the Chinese regime? He says we need to "tend to our own house" instead passing empty symbolic resolutions. What a loon!

Read his full comments delivered on the house floor at signature. Go on, I dare you.

You really see no irony, nor hypocrisy, nor disconnect between:

...should examine openly the darker events of its past and provide a public accounting of those killed, detained or missing, both to learn and to heal.
- HRC [Which Glenn put in bold]

And,

Dick Cheney's displeasure and Nancy Pelosi's discomfiture may have revived the idea of setting up a "truth commission" to look into the Bush-era counterterrorism policies, but President Barack Obama still wants no part of it. According to David Axelrod, the President's senior adviser, Obama remains convinced that looking forward rather than back "is best for the country."
- Bobby Ghosh and Michael Scherer [emphasis mine]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1900035,00.html

And, if you honestly can't see the problem, would you please share the formula for your antidote to cognitive dissonance.

On The Today Show this morning, Obama was interviewed by Tom Brokaw about his visit to Buchenwald. Obama's comments were, regarding Holocost deniers, that no one should ever forget what happened there, that it happened is beyond dispute, and that to try to forget it (or put it behind us) would be to ensure that it happened again. This sounded a bit counter to his stance regarding the illegal "interrogations" practiced by the previous administration in THIS country.

I apologize, HOLOCAUST.

So much the better, requesting that China "investigate its past".

Investigating, oh, let's say, the Clinton US administration's past (or any other US administration for that matter) would surely be awfully sticky business.

You go, girl!

A fascinating detailed look at how a leading newspaper becomes part of the establishment of tyranny has come out of a unique project in Chile. "Augustin's Newspaper" represents a project in which young reporters were gathered together to study the complex process of how an independent newspaper became folded into the process of tyranny as U.S.-backed military dictator Augusto Pinochet overthrew the elected Chilean government in 1973.

Specifically, they aimed to focus on how El Mercurio dealt with reporting on human rights as the tyranny began assassinating, jailing, slaughtering, and torturing those it saw as opponents of the state.

Via IPS News:

Study Shows How Leading Paper Colluded with Dictatorship

By Daniela Estrada | IPS News

SANTIAGO, May 26 (IPS) - The coverage of human rights violations cases by the powerful conservative Chilean newspaper El Mercurio during the country’s 17-year dictatorship was the focus of a meticulous study by five young reporters.

The book presented on May 18 "provides numerous concrete examples of the collusion between El Mercurio and the dictatorship, information that is a disgrace to the journalistic profession," Juan Pablo Cárdenas, winner of the 2005 national journalism prize and founder of the now defunct magazine Revista Análisis, told IPS.

Cárdenas was among those interviewed for the book "Agustín’s Newspaper; Five Case Studies on El Mercurio and Human Rights (1973-1990)", published by the University of Chile Institute of Communication and Image (ICEI) and the LOM publishing house.

In 2006 and early 2007, six ICEI journalism graduates were called together by filmmaker Ignacio Agüero, producer and journalist Fernando Villagrán and the heads of the ICEI to carry out a study on a specific issue: how El Mercurio reported on the human rights violations committed by the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

The research process was filmed by Agüero and Villagrán and turned into an 80-minute award-winning documentary, "Agustín’s Newspaper", which until recently was showing in movie theatres in Chile, and was also received well in Buenos Aires, where it premiered in October.

The second part of the project was the publication of the 378-page book of the same name, whose seven chapters analyse cases like the torture and assassination of Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria; "Operation Colombo", a disinformation ploy mounted by the regime’s secret police to cover up the forced disappearance and murder of 119 leftists; and the differences in El Mercurio’s coverage in the 1970s and the 1980s...

..."We saw that the underlying situation was much more complex than what you would expect; there are so many nuances," said Dougnac. "On one hand there was the self-censorship of the newspaper and on the other, the self-censorship of the journalists. And on top of that, the censorship by the government."...

...Due to its broad social influence, the paper plays the role of a political party, says the book.

It is the paper read by the country’s better-off classes, and as such, draws the largest proportion of advertising, as well as a large share of government advertising...

[It was an accident -- covering up the assassination of a Spanish diplomat]

...The 1976 assassination of Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria by agents of the dictatorship was reported by El Mercurio as an accident. A bottle of pisco – a local grape brandy – and a letter found in his car, which was dragged out of a canal into which it supposedly fell, pointed - according to the newspaper’s reports - to a man who had got drunk over his wife’s supposed unfaithfulness and crashed.

"In the case of Carmelo Soria, one of the military regime’s favourite strategies was put into effect: the portrayal of human rights violations as accidents or common crimes," says the author of that chapter, María José Vilches...

...Besides "documenting and disseminating some truths, which to some extent had become common sense in journalistic circles," the book "legitimately asks the question about what is journalism, based on specific cases from a given moment in the history of Chile," editor Claudia Lagos told IPS.

This leads to critical thinking about journalism in Chile today, "when many reporters make an effort to do their work well, although it is also true that every day we feel indignant over small errors or major disasters in terms of coverage and the treatment of the poor, Mapuche Indians, women, sexual minorities and a long list of others," she said...

..."For journalists to investigate the country’s leading media outlet is very encouraging; this just does not happen in other countries," he said. "This is an exemplary study because it contributes to generating a sense of responsible citizenship in a freer, more informed society," he said.

Despite the accusations and evidence, El Mercurio has never issued a "mea culpa" for its actions during the Allende administration and the 17 years of military dictatorship, as other media outlets have attempted to do.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46982

This appears to be a really creative project, and I can't wait to see if I can get a hold of the documentary.

You know darn well I think the lessons would apply just as well here.