Month: February 2012

Stellar Propaganda on Syria by BBC and US MSM

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Today I heard a BBC report from “inside Homs” and the violent barrage of rockets fired by the Syrian tanks and the Air Force. This chap was really putting it on thick and the description of atrocities went far beyond believe. He described how a small medical facility was targeted killing all doctors and medical staff. This caused numerous patients to die in cruciating pain from minor injuries like a bullet wound in the hand or leg … I already knew most reporting was pure western propaganda coming from the White House and Downing Street 10 in London. Here is a report by Sibel Edmonds on this very topic!

Hall of Fame & Hall of Shame on Syria Reporting
By Sibel Edmonds

(Boiling Frogs) – Have you noticed how it’s been all quiet on the Western MSM War Propaganda front? As more and more alternative news outlets are increasing their reporting on the real situation in Syria, as even the puppet Arab League is issuing observations contradicting previously reported `un-sourced and undocumented’ atrocities and a made-up huge death-toll caused by Assad’s regime, the mainstream media and corporate-funded NGO news fronts have been decreasing their Syria coverage. It is almost as if they’ve gotten `a black-eye’ and gone in hiding. Rest assured, there won’t be any retraction on previously publicized, that is, intensely, un-sourced, un-confirmed, un-documented, fictional death toll numbers and imaginary scenarios.

Let’s take a look at a few recent reports starting with an excellent piece at Asia Times …

    A Mistaken Case for Syrian Regime Change

    What we are seeing in Syria is a deliberate and calculated campaign to bring down the Assad government so as to replace it with a regime “more compatible” with US interests in the region. The blueprint for this project is essentially a report produced by the neo-conservative Brookings Institute for regime change in Iran in 2009. The report – “Which Path to Persia?” [3] – continues to be the generic strategic approach for US-led regime change in the region.

    A rereading of it, together with the more recent “Towards a Post-Assad Syria” [4] (which adopts the same language and perspective, but focuses on Syria, and was recently produced by two US neo-conservative think-tanks) illustrates how developments in Syria have been shaped according to the step-by-step approach detailed in the “Paths to Persia” report with the same key objective: regime change.

    Arguably, the most important component in this struggle for the “strategic prize” has been the deliberate construction of a largely false narrative that pits unarmed democracy demonstrators being killed in their hundreds and thousands as they protest peacefully against an oppressive, violent regime, a “killing machine” led by the “monster” Assad.

Continued …

Then, the article sets about analyzing and exposing dubious MSM and Western-Funded dirty NGOs
(You may want to see my previous report on how for months `AntiWar.Com,’ despite all appeals, disseminated and marketed the misinformation and propaganda by these exact same dirty sources here):

    Claims of “massacres”, “campaigns of rape targeting women and girls in predominantly Sunni towns”  “torture” and even “child-rape” are reported by the international press based largely on two sources – the British-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights and the Local Co-ordination Committees (LCCs – with minimal additional checking or verification.[Spokesperson Catherine al-Tali is an US informer according to wikileaks doc – Oui]

    Hiding behind the rubric – “we are not able to verify these statistics” – the lack of integrity in reporting by the Western mainstream media has been starkly apparent since the onset of events in Syria. A decade after the Iraq war, it would seem that no lessons from 2003 – from the demonization of Saddam Hussein and his purported weapons of mass destruction – have been learnt.

    Of the three main sources for all data on numbers of protesters killed and numbers of people attending demonstrations – the pillars of the narrative – all are part of the “regime change” alliance. The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, in particular, is reportedly funded through a Dubai-based fund with pooled (and therefore deniable) Western-Gulf money (Saudi Arabia alone has, according to Elliot Abrams allocated US$130 billion to “palliate the masses” of the Arab Spring).

    …

Now, there are way too many solid and reliable real alternative news outlets to credit with excellent and critical reporting. I won’t be able to list them all, and I am sure many of you already know who they are. So I am going to list less than a handful and congratulate them on their relentless and vigilant reporting and editorials:

Asia Times – “The NATOGGC War” (Especially Pepe Escobar)
Center for Research on Globalization
Tony Cartalucci’s Land Destroyer

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

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Super Bowl Champions

I thought that was one of the best Super Bowls ever. Even the halftime show was pretty spectacular. I couldn’t be happier. The biggest mistake the Patriots made was letting the Giants have the ball to start the game. They hardly had the ball in the first quarter and they were down 9-0 before they caught their breath. They came back, but they used all their energy to do it. Overall, though, both teams played extremely well. Tom Brady is now the mirror image of John Elway. Elway lost three Super Bowls before he won two. Brady won three before he lost two. Eli now has more Super Bowl rings than his big brother Peyton.

Strange Fruit

(Version by Nina Simone)

Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the popular trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop
Here is a strange and bitter cry

Strange Fruit was written by Bronx school teacher Abel Meeropol (under pseudonym Lewis Allan) in 1936. He and his wife later adopted Robert and Michael, sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg after their execution. The song was first popularised by Billie Holiday who sang it as the closing song of her set:

Strange Fruit – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When she was ready to begin it, waiters stopped serving, the lights in the club were turned off, and a single pin spotlight illuminated Holiday on stage. During the musical introduction, Holiday would stand with her eyes closed, as if she were evoking a prayer.

Zero Uplift Man

Until last night, I hadn’t seen one of Mitt Romney’s election-night speeches at full length. What struck me about it — and I gather it’s just his standard speech — is that it’s completely devoid of uplift. The anger at Obama seems sincere, possibly because Obama genuinely annoys him, possibly because annoyance is Romney’s natural mode. Then, at the very end, the effort at an extended bit of patriotic inspiration comes off as too short and utterly pro forma. Overall, the speech is pure sourness, which isn’t going to work in a country that always wants its presidents, not just the current one, to offer hope.

One reason for Romney’s approach, of course, is that he’s playing to crowds that don’t particularly love America (it’s too full of people who dare to disagree with them). Liberals are much more likely to dream of an idealized America than modern right-wingers; instead, right-wingers dream almost exclusively of vengeance against their enemies. So, midway through the speech, when Romney tries to slip an uplift line into a series of Obama attacks — “We want to restore America to the founding principles that made this country great” — he says it as if he means to add at the end, and we want to do that just to piss Barack Obama off! Watch it, starting at about 4:59:

I’m sure the plan is to switch Romney’s tone around convention time, with a soft-focus thousand-points-of-light speech a la Poppy Bush in ’88. But there was a part of Poppy Bush’s soul that genuinely did have a sentimental love for America, and I think that’s true of every post-Nixon president we’ve elected. I’m not sure it’s true of Romney. He can recite the lyrics to “America the Beautiful” all he wants, but I’m not sure he can find any sincere cornball feelings about America in his end-of-the-nation-state financier soul.

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On a somewhat related note, Frank Bruni writes today that Romney should embrace his Mormonism on the campaign trail, because that would humanize him. Bruni cites a recent biography of Romney:

To read “The Real Romney” … is to realize the utter centrality of religion in his life. One of the book’s most arresting passages describes a moment when Ann, his wife-to-be and then a Protestant, asks him what Mormons believe. His detailed explanation moves her to tears, perhaps because it’s so heartfelt, perhaps also because he’s so nervous about her reaction….

“His church experience is, I think, one of the great humanizing influences in Mitt Romney’s life,” said Patrick Mason, a professor of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University. Mason noted that if Romney would embrace that side of himself, he could beat the rap that he’s never been exposed to hardship by recounting his missionary experience. “That’s usually a very spartan lifestyle, and by definition most of the people you’re talking to are going to be poor.”

Romney’s even longer period as a Mormon lay leader in Boston involved counseling and consoling people dealing with marriage problems, addiction, unemployment: some of life’s messiest, scariest stuff. He must have gained a fluency in human frailty. But when The Times’s Sheryl Gay Stolberg was researching an article about that time, Romney predictably declined her interview request.

But I’m not sure he wants to humanize himself. Obviously, he’d be less cautious about discussing this kind of thing if he’d grown up as an evangelical Protestant — but I think in that case he’d use his religion as a stick to beat us secular humanists with, the way most modern Republicans do. I don’t think any modern Republican wants to seem vulnerable. The point isn’t to show empathy, or a sense of unity with all of one’s fellow Americans — it’s to show tribal solidarity and disgust for the “others.” It’s to define and blame the enemy.

I don’t think this is going to work for him in the fall. To win, he’s going to have to change his tone — he’s going have to emphasize hope and uplift, and seem at least semi-sincere doing it. I’m not sure he’s capable of doing that. And given the party he operates in, I’m not sure he’ll ever realize he should try.

(X-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog)

Ron Paul Is No Jesse Jackson – Nevada Edition

One question going into the Republican presidential nominating contests was:  how high is Ron Paul’s ceiling?  Paul had run before; he had a nationwide base of dedicated supporters and a solid fundraising organization.  He almost certainly wouldn’t win the nomination (there aren’t that many libertarians in the Republican party), but would he be able to demonstrate enough support, and win enough delegates to play a major role at the party’s convention—perhaps winning changes in the platform, or in the party’s rules for future nominations?

With most of the Nevada caucuses reporting, the answer is: not very high.  When all the votes are counted and delegates allotted, Paul looks to be somewhere under 20%—just a marginal improvement on the 14% he won in 2008.

In 1988 Rev. Jesse Jackson, running his second campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, won about 30% of the votes cast, and of the delegates to the Democrats’ national convention.  That gave him enough power to wrestle a primetime speech from the Dukakis campaign and, more importantly, changes in the party’s rules and platform (changes that Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign took advantage of to win the nomination).

But yesterday’s results in Nevada show that Ron Paul is no Jesse Jackson.  He’s not going to get anywhere near 1/3 of the Republican votes and—given the winner-take-all rules that apply to virtually all contests after April 1—he’s not going to get anywhere near Jackson’s delegate count.

Paul and his supporters may complain—as some already have—that he’s not being treated fairly by the “mainstream media” or by the “party establishment”.  Well, of course he’s not.  First of all, fair treatment in politics isn’t given.  It’s taken.  It’s earned, by demonstrating one’s power.  Paul hasn’t done that yet; and if he can’t do it in a western caucus state like Nevada, then it’s hard to see where and when he will do it.

Second, if the Paulites (Paulians? Paulitarians? Paulistas?) think they’re being treated badly, they should take a look back at what was being written and said about Jesse Jackson in 1988.  By comparison, they’ve got no complaints.

Crossposted at:  http://masscommons.wordpress.com/

Holy Giants Day

The New York Football Giants are in the Super Bowl. In other words, nothing else exists in my universe today. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t entertain you. For example, do you remember Beetlejuice? Of course you do.

I would be excited if the Giants were playing the Buffalo Bills or the Cincinnati Bengals or the Jacksonville Jaguars today. But they’re not. They’re playing the best franchise in the game and probably the best coach and quarterback of all time. I’ll be disappointed if the Giants lose, but I won’t be mad. All I expect of the Giants is that they make the playoffs every year. I just want at least one playoff game to watch. They’ve already exceeded my expectations. But if they beat Brady and the Patriots a second time, I’ll be in a good mood for weeks.