NPR, your tax dollars at war.

NPR,which is Fox News for the cool people had a show on Sunday March 14th about Syria.  The Antiwar.com blog discussed it here.  In reading John Walsh’s account, one is easily reminded of a Monty Python sketch.  John Cleese introduced three prominent dead people to debate life after death.  One is a churchman, another an atheist and I forget the third.  They were all propped in chairs.  Cleese finishes by saying words to the effect, there you are, three dead people offering no opininon, there is no life after death.

The three NPR panelists may not have been dead, or even brain dead, but they were not too lively.  There was no divergence from the party line that Syria is the biggest meany since......  Take your pick, we have had a lot of bogeymen in the last several years.

The panelists were longtime government functionaries so it would be a surprise if they said something that was not the position of one of the two parties.  There was no surprise.

The panel was hosted by NPR sinecurista, Melissa Block,  Walsh called the first guest, “the aptly named Anne-Marie Slaughter, former “director of planning” at the State Department.”  Her take,  she is for intervention the right way.  No kill zones, defensive arms.  all terms that will be meaningless once intervention actually starts.  Melissa would have at least shown herself to be something more than just a shill, if she could have mouthed the words any sane person knows are true, “Anne-Marie, you’re full of it.”  That, of course, was not on.

Next up was one of the architects of the failed Iraq policy and a failed World Bank honcho, Paul I always fail upward Wolfowitz.  He had some words, and Mr. Walsh duly noted their import, but who cares.  The management of NPR and its audience have to be vapid to give that man a listen.  Rumor has it, he hope to ascend to the chair of Saint Peter at the next Papal Conclave.

Third guy was an antiwar voice of dissent.  Nah.  Daniel Serwer is a former U.S. “special envoy” and “coordinator” for the Bosnian Federation.  He feels we should go in big time but can’t because no political will exists.  No kidding.

So no real opposition to war from the three, but the last guy having some slight connection to reality.  

One gets the feeling the difference between Fox and NPR is that Fox is fight them so they behave and NPR is fight them so they behave well.  Neither works and it is a distinction without a difference.


Update: Russian troops are reported in Syria. It will be fun to watch the commenters start saying no fair!

David Corn and a Good War

On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming of guns -- after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces -- at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally.

There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that Eastasia and not Eurasia was the enemy. Winston was taking part in a demonstration in one of the central London squares at the moment when it happened. It was night, and the white faces and the scarlet banners were luridly floodlit. The square was packed with several thousand people, including a block of about a thousand schoolchildren in the uniform of the Spies. On a scarlet-draped platform an orator of the Inner Party, a small lean man with disproportionately long arms and a large bald skull over which a few lank locks straggled, was haranguing the crowd. A little Rumpelstiltskin figure, contorted with hatred, he gripped the neck of the microphone with one hand while the other, enormous at the end of a bony arm, clawed the air menacingly above his head. His voice, made metallic by the amplifiers, boomed forth an endless catalogue of atrocities, massacres, deportations, lootings, rapings, torture of prisoners, bombing of civilians, lying propaganda, unjust aggressions, broken treaties. It was almost impossible to listen to him without being first convinced and then maddened. At every few moments the fury of the crowd boiled over and the voice of the speaker was drowned by a wild beast-like roaring that rose uncontrollably from thousands of throats. The most savage yells of all came from the schoolchildren. The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker's hand. He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremendous commotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The agents of Goldstein had been at work! There was a riotous interlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled underfoot. The Spies performed prodigies of activity in clambering over the rooftops and cutting the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys. But within two or three minutes it was all over. The orator, still gripping the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed.


From 1984 by George Orwell, Part 2 Chapter 9.

The analogy is not perfect, but it is close enough. David Corn tried to make the case that the Obama war is holy and Bush interventions, not so much. There is no real qualitative difference in the policy of the incumbent and his predecessor. Was Mr. Corn ever in show biz. He is quite a song and dance man.

Welcome year 11 of the Bush Obama administration.

The Assange assassination continues on the Emily Rooney Show

They can't outright shoot Julian Assange. It's a little too late for that. He is too well known now. That does not mean they won't try to make him a pariah. Last Friday, October 29th, they had a go at it on a Boston radio show.

Emily Rooney, daughter of Andy has a show on WGBH, a public radio outlet in the Boston area. On her Friday show, she had four men, most of whom were reporters, discussing the news. I only get to listen when I am in the car and going east toward Boston. I do that as little as possible. Anyway, NPR seems to be on the war team and Emily, trying to appear ever fair, had at Julian. The boys, however did not get the memo. I urge you to listen to the audio here,starting at 40:45. I have transcribed La Emily as best I could below.

Emily: it is disturbing to me how this got out in the first place cause it could have been a whole lot more damaging to all of us I mean in terms of national security. As it turns out it was just plain riveting I mean to know really that we're involved in I guess it's not a total surprise but the kind of situations torture, you know, killing people by mistake all kind of things that that those documents show

Others opined that they wished we had wikileaks in previous conflicts.

Other panelists:Also, it make those people in government who think they can do things behind closed doors much more cautious and would hold them accountale.

Then she went into her thumbs up thumbs down thing.

Emily: Alright, this is more nuanced thumbs up or thumbs down. Julian Assange himself now he's the founder of wikileaks I mean, he's an ideologue he's a polemic he's doing this for political reasons that was the journalist side of it. what's your take on it.

Someone said something about the attempt to pin the rape charge on assange and Emily let out a guffaw.

Emily: And the New York Times had a very critical piece of him, John burns did, suggesting he isn't stable and then that backfired on the Times as well

The others agreed that getting the info out trumped everything.

Emily: I'm troubled by him I'm going to give him a thumbs down.

Someone asked why and she said "He's totally biased."

Then one of the boys said "He's a horse's ass" and herself shouted, "He is, there you go. I liken him to that heavens gate guy Applewhite, he looks like him the guy you know the comet chaser."

Then one of the heavy hitter journalists said, "A lot of these bloggers are whacks too but if they get the information right, I think the public good is served." Thanks, guy. I am glad there are no whack jobs in serious journalism. Heck, the way the biz is going, you might be blogging soon, but I digress.

So the ever so fair Emily on rational public radio (as opposed to crazy right wing talk) unloads one big ad hominem against Assange. Now whatever you want to say about the man, his actions bespeak a bravery beyond what I, or maybe Emily, would attempt. Her act was disgraceful. Of course, ladies and gentlemen, it is on your dime, at least in part, thanks to the largesse of our government. Say what you want about the ravings of Rush and Glenn, at least you aren't charged.

Oh, and let me be ever so gentle here, Em (may I call you Em?) A person is a polemicist,. His speeches or writings may be polemics. Unless you were implying that his total being is one big polemic, which truly highlights you viciousness. Ironic that you would accuse him of being biased at the ideology free zone that is WGBH (not).

As to your statement, it could have been a whole lot more damaging to all of us I mean in terms of national security., Em, there is an ever so slight possibility that some random terrorist will burst into GBH's studios and shoot you. Still, don't worry your head over it. You have a better chance of dying from an infected paper cut.