kevyn | Entries tagged with media

I am getting so sick of this Iraq/Iran confusion. It really burns me up how many Americans are idiots on this issue. Especially Americans who SHOULD know better. Did everyone in this country flunk grade 4 geography?

For example, take all this Bullshit "John McCain is best qualified to lead us in foreign affairs" rhetoric.

No, he's NOT, and just being shot down and interned in a Vietnamese prison camp for years DOES NOT qualify you to be President of the United States... And it certainly doesn't make you qualified to handle International Diplomacy!

McCain's latest demonstration that he has no concept of Middle Eastern geography and politics came this morning on ABC, when he stated that the Iraq-Pakistan border is a very dangerous place:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/21/foreign-policy-expert-mccain-iraq-pakistan-border-extremely-dangerous/

Problem is, Iraq and Pakistan don't share a border!

I know, I know, he "misspoke." Problem is, SENILE OLD McCain does this all the time. Like when his AIPAC handler, Joe Lieberman, had to publicly correct him on his statement that Iran was training Al Qaida. ARRRRGH! The man has NO CLUE! NONE!

And lest I be accused of being partisan here, I'm really NOT impressed with Green Party Vice-Presidential candidate Rosa Clemente for exactly the same reason. On an interview on Democracy Now this morning, she said:

"And, of course, an immediate withdrawal from Iran. And we must not be duped that a troop withdrawal in Iran could also mean a troop transfer in Afghanistan and more young people, particularly white working-class youth, being used as cannon fodder."

( http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/21/first_all_women_of_color_presidential )

AAAAAAAAAAAGH!

This is my first exposure to Ms. Clemente. I have been seriously considering voting Green Party this year (voting against BOTH right-wing conservatives Barack Obama and John McCain), just as I have done in every Presidential election since 1996. But if this is the quality of candidate the Greens are running, not even the fact that they are the first party to run TWO women of color on their presidential ticket might be enough to get me to vote for her. I'll give her a pass for this first flub, but she is not inspiring me with confidence.

Sheesh, get me out of this country full of STUPID PEOPLE!

Current Mood: angry

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I'm really starting to get nervous about this drumbeat for war with Iran. The Iraq debacle has shown that Americans are easily manipulated by propaganda and lies into going to war, much to the delight of the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex and the Bush-Cheney war profit machine.

Now there's evidence that the biggest reason given that Iran should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons, Iranian President Ahmadinejad's much-repeated quote that he wished to see Israel "wiped off the map" may actually be a mistranslation. According to UK Guardian Columnist Jonathan Steele, the phrase may actually be closer to "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."

Kind of puts a different spin on the quote, doesn't it? While the first translation is abhorrent to me, I kind of agree with that second translation.

Now, I don't pretend to speak Farsi. I don't pretend to know if Jonathan Steele or his sources are reliable. But what I do know is that the Bush Administration cannot be trusted, and that the mainstream U.S. media, which is clearly in the pocket of the Israeli lobby, definitely cannot be trusted to tell a balanced truth about Middle Eastern affairs.

I don't know what the right answer is. But I do know that going to war with Iran over its nuclear programme may very possibly trigger World War III, with the U.S. and Israel on one side, and the Islamic world, Russia, and possibly China on the other side. Because of this danger, we must proceed very, very carefully.

Is it worth going to war over a mistranslation? With the stakes so high, isn't it worth stepping back from the rhetoric and propaganda, taking a deep breath, and studying the issue logically and dispassionately?

Let's not get goaded into an unjust war again. Given our history as a country, we need to let cooler, reasoned heads prevail. Please, please, please, I beg you, question EVERYTHING that the mainstream media and the Bush administration is telling you.

Our lives depend on it.

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Every so often, one reads something that puts words to an ill-defined feeling one has had for some time. An epiphanous moment like this happened to me this morning, when my friend Teri sent me an article by Jesse Kornbluth, which was published in MediaBistro.com last week:

"Or maybe it's something else: American culture has stalled. "They" make movies we don't want to see, publish books we don't care to read, release music we can't bear to hear. The answer to every American cultural question is "nothing applies," because there is a schism between the government and the people. The government is crazy and -- belatedly -- most adult Americans seem to know it; the people have no power and the government knows it. Somewhere ahead we sense there's a reckoning, which makes us uneasy if not outright terrified. "
-- From "Innocent Abroad" by Jessee Kornbluth, http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a4739.asp, 6-JUL-2005

Reading this was an "A-ha" moment. American Culture has stalled. The Empire is now in decline. It's like the rocket has reached it's zenith, the engine has quit, and now we're in free-fall, plunging back to Earth-- and while some of us can sense the danger, many of us can't.

Me, I've always been in the former camp. When Mr. Kornbluth writes, "Somewhere ahead we sense there's a reckoning, which makes us uneasy if not outright terrified," I see myself since the 2000 election. I see my paranoia at 9/11, not that I might be attacked by Terrorists, but that I might be attacked by Americans. I see the pattern of my life being a long run for the Canadian border, because I don't want to be here when that rocket reaches the ground.

I've mistrusted the U.S. media for a long time. Ever since I realized what was going on back in '96, during the sordid Richard Jewell affair, when I was interning for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and I began to realize I could never be a journalist. That was when I realized that the American media wasn't interested in the truth, it was interested in sensationalism, and I experienced "herd mentality" from the inside. (I'll tell you that story some other time).

Thanks for sending this to me, Teri. It reminds me of why it is so important to spend time outside the toxicity of American culture.

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Hagrid is in the House!

What kind of an idiot doesn't know the difference between Iraq and Iran?

Do we REALLY want to attack Iran... over a mistranslation?

American culture has stalled

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