The Axis of Indifference In The Media World
The following is an excerpt from my new book Blogothon. It was originally given as a speech to a media conference and has been updated slightly.
Foreign correspondents have always been revered within journalism. That’s why covering Iraq or other wars are assignments so many reporters cultivate. Many see them as a ticket up the media pecking order.
Being “under fire” promise excitement, danger and—let’s face it, on TV —precious “face time.” Going overseas is often a route to more visibility and better jobs at home on the strength of your “bravery.” War reporting can be the macho oxygen of ambition.
Just as covering a turbulent world is attractive in the ranks, up in the suites of media power “foreign news” is, according to Michael Wolff, a “nostalgist’s beat” said to turn off American audiences and tune them out. That’s why decision-makers shutter bureaus and redefine news of the world as news of American power…
Mitt Romney’s Homosexual Panic
John Eskow writes on Counterpunch:
First things first: you don’t have to be a shrink to know that no-one bullies homosexuals unless they’re tormented by their own homosexuality, active or suppressed. Any physical attack on a “gay” man is de facto rape. All that’s required to understand that basic fact is four years of high school or two years in the military. Mitt Romney’s serial “pranks,” like the gang-bang attack he led on a gay student while in prep-school at Cranston—Cranston! how the name itself reeks of fey weakness and upper-class entitlement!—speak loudly to his own deep sexual confusion. Who the hell seeks the help of a “champion wrestler”—gay-bells ringin’, are you listenin’—to pin the gay student to the ground while “viciously” hacking away at the helpless boy’s long blonde hair with a pair of scissors? Who DOES such a thing?
Well, a guy like Mitt Romney, about whom a certain rapper—who…
The Problem With Moderates
In a world of ever-widening extremes – from weather patterns to wealth disparities to polarized politics – what does it mean to be a moderate? More specifically, how does this term apply to religion?
Viewed in the context of most everyday activities and situations and in line with Aristotle’s idea of the “Golden Mean” (which states that virtue lies at the midpoint between two vices; i.e. courage lies between cowardice and recklessness, etc.), it could be said that a moderate stance is generally better than an extremist one. For example, being a moderate drinker seems to strike a pretty good balance between being healthy and having fun, as opposed to the opposite extremes of being an ascetic teetotaler or a raging alcoholic. Likewise, being politically moderate, if nothing else, tends to generate far less strife during dinner conversations amid mixed company or at large family gatherings.
Then again, for some activities moderate is…
The Web of NATO, Austerity, Capitalism, Economic Hegemony and Occupy
Natalie Solidarity writes at Diatribe Media:
In perusing the online papers, the concern about the NATO summit in Chicago on May 20–21 is palpable in every word. It sticks to the sweaty skin like newspaper ink. The anxiety and fear is obvious across all strata of society.
Chicago police are already threatening violence against Occupy protesters, as documented in this audio footage of a traffic stop. Anti-protester fear mongering rhetoric abounds in the media. A Crain’s Chicago Business article reported that downtown workers have been recommended to doff their suits and ties in order to avoid becoming targets of protester violence.
The same article reported that several downtown banks will shut down leading up to and during the NATO summit. ABC reports that downtown windows are being covered with shatterproof film, high-rise balconies will be closed, entrances locked, and tenants warned to utilize constant vigilance when living their lives during May 20–21. And…
CIA Allowed to Sustain Cover-Up of the Full ‘Bay of Pigs’ History
Via the National Security Archive at George Washington University:
More than year after the National Security Archive sued the CIA to declassify the full “Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation,” a U.S. District Court judge today sided with the Agency’s efforts to keep the last volume of the report secret in perpetuity. In her ruling, Judge Gladys Kessler accepted the CIA’s legal arguments that, because Volume V was a “draft” and never officially approved for inclusion in the Agency’s official history, it was exempt from declassification under the “deliberative process privilege” despite having been written over 30 years ago.
The National Security Archive called the decision “a regrettable blow to the right-to-know” and vowed to press the Obama administration to force the CIA to adhere to the President’s Executive Order 13526 that “no information shall remain classified indefinitely.”
The volume, titled “CIA’s Internal Investigations of the Bay of Pigs Operations,” was…
The Myth About Marriage
Very interesting perspective from Garry Wills in the New York Review of Books given the current media circus regarding President Obama’s personal support of same-sex marriage:
Why do some people who would recognize gay civil unions oppose gay marriage? Certain religious groups want to deny gays the sacredeness of what they take to be a sacrament. But marriage is no sacrament.
Some of my fellow Catholics even think that “true marriage” was instituted by Christ. It wasn’t. Marriage is prescribed in Eden by YHWH (Yahweh) at Genesis 2.24: man and wife shall “become one flesh.” When Jesus is asked about marriage, he simply quotes that passage from Genesis (Mark 10.8). He nowhere claims to be laying a new foundation for a “Christian marriage” to replace the Yahwist institution.
Some try to make the wedding at Cana (John 1.1–11) somehow sacramental because Jesus worked his first miracle there. But that was clearly a Jewish wedding,…
41 Percent of UK Don’t Think God Made the Universe (Highest Ever)
Caspar Melville writes at New Humanist:
A press release reaches us from Premier Christian Radio with the headline “UK’s belief that God created the Universe at an all-time low”. It reports the findings of a study conducted by ComRes for PCR (2054 were polled online across the UK in April), ahead of the conference, called “Unbelievable 2012″, PCR are holding in London on May 26 at which “academics and scientists” from the US and UK will be arguing that contemporary cosmology indicates that God created the world.
The headline findings of the survey are that only 26% believe that God created the world, 41% said they didn’t believe this and 23% didn’t know or didn’t want to say. In what the press release describes as a “strange twist” fully 25% of those who identified as “Christian” did not believe that God was the cause of the Universe.
So, why would a Christian outfit be trumpeting numbers which show that the idea of a God-created universe is is decline, even amongst their own gang? It’s a canny ploy actually,…
Occupy Protesters Envision The Leaderless Movement’s Next Phase
Leanne Maxwell writes at SFist:
Last week’s climactic worldwide May Day events, in which police and protesters clashed and black bloc protesters caused thousands of dollars worth of property damage, revived the nation’s waning interest in the Occupy movement long enough for everyone to ask, “What next?”
As can be expected, the cause has hit somewhat of a plateau, and the sentiment amongst the public seems to be that the Occupy groups should separate themselves from the violent factions of the movement and expand their community-minded support into the neighborhoods.
SFist took it upon ourselves to ask members of Occupy in various cities to suspend disbelief for a moment and pretend they were each the leader of the movement. What would be some tangible next steps for Occupy? Naturally, only two of the participants ventured to imagine if Occupy did have a leader, but we like the variety of answers we received…
Today’s the Worst Day for Mitt Romney’s High School Bullying Story to Come Out
Is this why Obama chose yesterday to publicly support gay marriage? Elspeth Reeve writes at the Atlantic Wire:
What would be the worst possible news for Mitt Romney to have to deal with the day after President Obama announced he supports gay marriage? Romney’s already had a gay staffer resign because social conservatives were outraged he’d hire an openly gay person. And having a hypothetical family member come out as gay would probably help him seem more compassionate.
But one thing that might project an image Romney really wants to avoid — heartless outmoded anti-gay conservative — would be a long profile in The Washington Post about how he bullied a gay kid in high school. At the exact moment Romney doesn’t want to talk about gay stuff, the Post’s Jason Horowitz reports Romney led a gang of boys who singled out a gay kid, held him down while he cried, and cut off the…
Prison Inmate Wins More Than 40% of Democratic Vote Against President Obama in West Virginia Primary
Not big fans of Mr. Obama in the state of West Virginia. Reports ABC News:
President Obama has never been particularly popular in West Virginia, and even though he’s an incumbent president running essentially unopposed, Tuesday’s Democratic primary in the Appalachian state didn’t change that dynamic.
More than 40 percent of Democrats voting chose to cast their ballot for Keith Russell Judd, an inmate at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Beaumont, Texas, where he’s doing time for extortion and threats made at the University of New Mexico in 1999.
Judd scored 42.28 percent of the vote — or 49,490 votes — compared with President Obama with 57.72 percent, or 67,562, according to unofficial state results.
Neither Mr. Obama nor Mr. Judd – who is in prison – physically campaigned in the state.
Iceberg Ahead: The Big Money That is Sinking Democracy
I keep thinking of that clear April night 100 years ago when the unsinkable RMS Titanic steamed towards New York. It was actually on its way to dock just a few blocks from where I live at what are now the Chelsea Piers. There was a sense of optimism abroad as a new record for a speedy transatlantic passage was about to be set.
There was music, dancing and fine wine. That is, until they saw that iceberg high in the water. The captain and his mates were aware that 80 percent of it was underwater and out of sight. They didn’t react in time.
Everyone knows the story—most recently recreated in 3D—but the lesson is really not just about that great ship that went down, or even the company that bypassed safety regulations, or even the hubris of the owners whose greed sent so many passengers to that legendary “watery grave.”
It…
Not What the Doctor Ordered: 20 Million Could Lose Employer Coverage
In all the hand-wringing over the last two months for Obamacare by “liberal” apologists, little has actually been said about the actual effects of the law. True, whether or not Obamacare is beneficial has little if anything to do with its constitutionality. (And the actual Constitutional issues involved, however valid, have little to do with the cynical politics behind the Supreme Court’s right-wing block in the case.) But you’d think if someone was gonna go to bat for a law, they’d at least acknowledge the law’s merits.
Hence one story that caught my eye in March: “20 million could lose employer coverage under Obama health care overhaul.” The source, the World Socialist Web Site, may not be acceptable to the media establishment, but the primary source for the WSWS certainly is: the Congressional Budget Office. Here’s what the CBO concludes:
As many as 20 million Americans could lose their employer-sponsored coverage in 2019…
President Obama Says Same-Sex Marriage Should Be Legal
Photo: David Shankbone (CC)
Half of Americans support same-sex marriage according to a recent poll. Reports Jackie Calmes and Peter Baker in the New York Times:
President Obama on Wednesday ended nearly two years of “evolving” on the issue of same-sex marriage by publicly endorsing it in a television interview, taking a definitive stand on one of the most contentious and politically charged social issues of the day.
“At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” Mr. Obama told ABC News in an interview that came after the president faced mounting pressure to clarify his position.
In an election that is all but certain to turn on the slowly recovering economy and its persistently high jobless rate, Mr. Obama’s stand nonetheless injects a volatile social issue into the campaign debate and…
UN Investigator Says U.S. Should Return Stolen Land To Indian Tribes
"The Treaty of Penn with the Indians" by Benjamin West (1771)
Says a new UN report on the conditions of Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Chris McGreal writes in the Guardian:
A United Nations investigator probing discrimination against Native Americans has called on the US government to return some of the land stolen from Indian tribes as a step toward combatting continuing and systemic racial discrimination.
James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, said no member of the US Congress would meet him as he investigated the part played by the government in the considerable difficulties faced by Indian tribes.
Anaya said that in nearly two weeks of visiting Indian reservations, indigenous communities in Alaska and Hawaii, and Native Americans now living in cities, he encountered people who suffered a history of dispossession of their lands and resources, the breakdown of their societies and “numerous instances of outright brutality,…
The Dictator Punks Washington
Why are comedians the only people brave (or stupid?) enough to stick it to the politicos in Washington, D.C.? Sacha Baron-Cohen’s latest stunt is reported by Al Kamen in the Washington Post:
Invitations have been arriving in mailboxes around Washington for an event that might raise eyebrows even in this invite-overloaded town.
Below an image of the flag of Zimbabwe, the script on the thick-stock paper reads: “President Robert Mugabe and the Ministry of Education, Sport, Art, and Culture invite you to the Premiere of The Dictator.”
That’s the new Sacha Baron Cohen movie in which the funnyman portrays a despot who rules over the fictional African nation of Wadiya. The name alone probably raised a red flag for savvy recipients, who recalled Cohen’s previous antics: He attempted to seduce Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) in the movie “Bruno,” and fed cheese to former Rep. Bob Barr — and later informed the Georgia Republican it was made from breast milk — in “Borat”…
Mitt Romney Speaks French Very Well (Video)
What do all the “Freedom Fries” Republicans think about this?
Pope or Hitler: Who Said This?
Thanks to jasonpaulhayes for the comment. As Pope or Hitler explains:
This is a response to the Pope’s claim that the Nazi movement was atheist. When it was nothing of the sort.
Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. I also recall the regime’s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a “reductive vision of the person and his…
How Germany’s Pirate Party is Hacking Politics (With Liquid Feedback)
Would be great if this caught on in the United States. As David Meyer writes on GigaOM:
In the furores over SOPA, CISPA and similar bills, many have suggested that politicians just don’t get technology. That’s not an accusation that can be leveled at the Pirate movement, which is gaining traction in Europe at impressive speed.
The Pirates saw their first major electoral success in the European elections of 2009, when voters in the movement’s birthplace of Sweden returned a Pirate to the European Parliament. The Swedes didn’t vote the Pirates into their own legislature, mind you, but now big wins are coming in Germany, the continent’s largest economy and the ideological home of the hacker movement.
Why Germany? Because that’s what the Pirates are trying to do: hack politics, in the sense of making-and-tweaking-stuff sense, rather than destroying it. The movement may have begun with a narrow focus on intellectual property, but it has developed into an attempt to make the political process transparent — and of course better suited to the digital age.
Heartland Institute Compares Belief in Global Warming to Mass Murder
Leo Hickman reports in the Guardian:
It really is hard to know where to begin with this one. But let’s start with: “What on earth were they thinking?”
The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based rightwing thinktank notorious for promoting climate scepticism, has launched quite possibly one of the most ill-judged poster campaigns in the history of ill-judged poster campaigns.
I’ll let its own press release for its upcoming conference explain, as there’s simply no need to finesse it further:
Billboards in Chicago paid for by The Heartland Institute point out that some of the world’s most notorious criminals say they “still believe in global warming” – and ask viewers if they do, too…The billboard series features Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber; Charles Manson, a mass murderer; and Fidel Castro, a tyrant. Other global warming alarmists who may appear on future billboards include Osama bin Laden and James J. Lee (who took hostages inside the headquarters of…
