Riverbend Rocks!
A combination of physiology and Real Life have taken over Helena's brain and ability to blog today. I was going to post an open thread so y'all could post comments about Iraq (like Yankeedoodle used to before he brought in Matt and friendly Fire as his excellent 'guest writers'.)
But then I moseyed (?sp) over to Riverbend's blog and just loved this post on Iraqis' new exposure to US Big Media:
- The first time I saw 60 Minutes on MBC 4, it didn’t occur to me that something was wrong. I can’t remember what the discussion was, but I remember being vaguely interested and somewhat mystified at why we were getting 60 Minutes. I soon found out that it wasn’t just 60 Minutes at night: It was Good Morning, America in the morning, 20/20 in the evening, 60 Minutes, 48-Hours, Inside Edition, The Early Show… it was a constant barrage of American media. The chipper voice in Arabic tells us, “So you can watch what *they* watch!” *They* apparently being millions of Americans.
The schedule on MBC’s Channel 4 goes something like this:
9 am – CBS Evening News
9:30 am – CBS The Early Show
10:45 am – The Days of Our Lives
11:20 am – Wheel of Fortune
11:45 am – Jeopardy
12:05 pm – A re-run of whatever was on the night before – 20/20, Inside Edition, etc.
And the programming continues…
I’ve been enchanted with the shows these last few weeks. The thing that strikes me most is the fact that the news is so… clean. It’s like hospital food. It’s all organized and disinfected. Everything is partitioned and you can feel how it has been doled out carefully with extreme attention to the portions- 2 minutes on women’s rights in Afghanistan, 1 minute on training troops in Iraq and 20 minutes on Terri Schiavo! All the reportages are upbeat and somewhat cheerful, and the anchor person manages to look properly concerned and completely uncaring all at once...
I’ve always sensed from the various websites that American mainstream news is far-removed from reality- I just didn’t know how far. Everything is so tame and simplified. Everyone is so sincere.
Furthermore, I don’t understand the worlds fascination with reality shows. Survivor, The Bachelor, Murder in Small Town X, Faking It, The Contender… it’s endless. Is life so boring that people need to watch the conjured up lives of others?
I have a suggestion of my own for a reality show. Take 15 Bush supporters and throw them in a house in the suburbs of, say, Falloojeh for at least 14 days. We could watch them cope with the water problems, the lack of electricity, the check points, the raids, the Iraqi National Guard, the bombings, and- oh yeah- the ‘insurgents’. We could watch their house bombed to the ground and their few belongings crushed under the weight of cement and brick or simply burned or riddled with bullets. We could see them try to rebuild their life with their bare hands (and the equivalent of $150)…
I’d not only watch *that* reality show, I’d tape every episode.
But still, that "chipper voice" saying "So you can watch what *they* watch" strikes me as the most insidious, scary part of the whole venture.
Instead of regular Bush supporters, I would like to see Blizer, O'Reilly, Jennings, Brokaw, Rather, Brown, Judith Miller, and a few other big-name media types who were all pro-war and failed to uncover the real story *before* *during* and *after* the war........ and that continues to this day.
I would pay money to see that one!
oh, and Thomas Friedman, and all those other "humanitarian" hawks out there!
Let them live in a "humanitarian" war zone!
Aaron Brown once said to me (via email) that all I see is black and white, while he sees shades of gray. But he never could define those "shades of gray" around 9/11. (of course, the skyline does look better, but what a price!!!!) He also said (after I forwarded something by riverbend to him)that maybe she will be able to make "lemonade out of the lemons" that events served up.
I never understood how you can make lemonade out of bombs and bullets, but then I don't understand how you can deliver democracy by bombs or bullets either, unless you are talking about the democracy of death.
I'd like to see them all.
I'd even turn on the tv for it.
anona - us of a
Indeed. The US media is so sanitized and disinfected that the public doesn't see who the enemy is, what they say, what their religious leaders preach, and the common thread of what they do. I wish every American watched Al-Jazeera instead.
A similar disconnect exists at the two big religions, one is occupied by irrelevant one-off cases of pedophilia, euthanasia, and the ceremonial minutia of Pope replacement, while the other is actively involved in political evangelism and the mass production of suicide bombers.
E. Bilpe
Bilpe, this time you really have outdone yourself, with your blasé public articulation of a piece of grossly stereotyping, Islamophobic hate-speech.
All of Islam, you aver, is "actively involved in ... the mass production of suicide bombers"?
I'll give you few hours to find a way to retract/rephrase your comment and apologise to the community of JWN readers.
(Your comment was also extremely dismissive of the grievous harms suffered by many thousands of people, primarily Catholics in the US and eslewhere, as a result of pedophilic behavior by ordained priests and ministers; and of the broader wounds this whole issue has caused within many, many church communities. "One-off" and "irrelevant" by no means aptly describe the state of this issue in the churches.)
"I wish every American watched Al-Jazeera instead."
Do YOU watch Al Jazeera, Bilpe?
I second Shirin's question. When do you last watch Al Jazeera, Bilpe?
The last time I saw you, Bilpe, you were interrupting a conversation to insist that we all drop what we were doing to join you in a discussion of how the murder of a Coptic immigrant family in New Jersey proved just how irredeemable Islam really is. It has since turned out that that murder had nothing to do with Muslims. You don't seem to learn from experience.
Friends, don't wait around for Bilpe to respond. Yesterday he finally forfeited his right of access to my bandwidth.
Note to the reader - running statistic - in my 11 posts here, twice my IP address has been blacklisted without due explanation, 7 posts have been censored because Helena disagreed with the contents, and 4 posts have been allowed. This post is a repeat of deleted material.
Tony - This has got to be the funniest, most eager nonsense I've read since Juan Cole's famous "transcendent nationalism" in reference to Muqtada's ill-fated and ill-conceived campaign back in 2003 (see his remarkably silly Le Monde Diplomatique piece at the time). You've just repeated that laughable line. Please get over yourself and your ideological premises (and all the [arab] nationalist mixed with Third Worldist undertones). It's quite the silly spectacle.
Beautifully said Tony.
The problem that the nihilists and leftist-fascists have in their analysis of Iraq is that they deny that Iraqis (and by extension human beings) have aspirations besides power grabbing, ideological and opportunistic ruling on others, and cheap false nationalism (nationalism is better described as social egotism).
For Helena, Iraqis or the socially conscious layers of their society have no desire to bring about civil society and inter-sectarian justice. History is simplisticially reduced down to grab for oil, cheap nationalism, anti-Americanism, and 3rd worldism.
The progress the Iraqis are making in bringing about civil society must be condemened by the Cole-Cobban axis, as it eats away right at their ideological upbringing and biases, and also livelihoods and Entitle VIs. If there are no blood conflicts in Iraq, then who needs these "scholars"?
For them, a thug carrying an AK-47 is a far more romantic and vivid expression of social justice, than all the liberties, elections, parliaments, constitutions, laws and institutions that an Iraqi civil society may ever achieve or require.
Unlike what the piece implies, inter-sectarian political rivalries, in a civil setting, is the only way for Iraqis to reckon with their identity. This sad piece reflects - as us middle easterners like to say - "the camel who dreams of cotton seeds". A lot of wishful thinking about religious, fascist, and opportunistic thugs to come together and rule over the civil and conscious segments of Iraqi society.
Iraqis have made a conscious choice through their participation in the election that they prefer construction of a civil society over cheap cries of "gut independence".
Posted by Razavipour3 at 10. apríl 2005 0:03
Helena: Tony, could you please keep your frat-boy sexual references off my site. We may disagree but please express your thoughts in a courteous fashion. The best way people learn is through the friendly exchange of views and ideas, you know... Please check the commenters' guidelines before you post here again.
Helena, I challange you to specify what was "discourteous" about Tony's post. Your guidelines has no such definition either. What is this rule of "courtesy" that you wield like a blunt instrument in such eliminative and intolerant manner, and seemingly only at those who challenge your views?
Show me where in civil discourse there has been a rule of dogmatic and politically correct "courtesy" of this sort that you push.
I think it would be best for your readers for you to relax a bit and allow people to post their comments without being bullied every time they have something interesting to say. Saddam and Xomeini were the masters of bullying in the same part of the world that you cover.
So what was censorable in Tony's post, dear Helena?
Posted by Razavipour3 at 10. apríl 2005 0:20
Helena: "... the beating up on the picnic in Basra apparently was the Sadrists. It was a vile thing to do and let's hope it's not repeated.
How disingenious. The Sadrist lumpen have steadfastedly said they want religious government a la Iran. This has been widely reported by NYT and others.
And you still think this is an isolated incidence that will not be repeated? That religious self-righteous believers and opportunists will now turn tolerant and enlightened human beings, respecting freedom of thought and assembly? Well in Iran, such brutality has been going on for 27 years and counting.
How about the murder, kidnapping, and torture of dozens of professors and students at the University of Baghdad and Mosul, and other universities? This is a copy of what happened in Iran 1980-1981 before they shut down society for the benefit of the Islamists.
Islamophobia - you bet. I have lived it. Helena - you have no idea how communal Islam and Islamism destroys lives like I have seen. Only a fascist will deny atrocities committed in the name of Islam.
Posted by Razavipour3 at 10. apríl 2005 2:57
I have been blacklisted and silenced by Helena as well. My posting did not insult my interlocutors, it was censorship based on my views, plain and simple. The excuse that Helena can censor because she pays for bandwidth is analogous to the private media bias that she and her minions on his list constantly denounce.
Ebilpe2
Posted by Ebilpe2 at 10. apríl 2005 3:07
Ebilpe2 - I sympathize with you. I never voiced any opinion of women, even though I am a champion of absolute women's rights and equality in Islam, and Helena accuses me of ad feminam, without saying how and why.
The bandwidth excuse is the most ridiculous. 1 GB of storage costs $ 0.30. 1 GB of bandwidth costs $1.00, which is what I am paying. A 300 word post viewed 100 times, costs exactly $ 0.000212. All the comments posted by ALL readers in one year on Helena's list (10 a day) costs exactly 77 cents. Either she needs to find a proper job, or she can put up a "PayPal Donate" button and I will contribute my one dollar for all readers to post for 1 year, as I have a real and productive job.
If she would only answer to the criticism of her heavy handed actions. But no, its not necessary. The "silence" command is only one keystroke away. I guess for somebody who empathizes with the gun toting thugs of the Wahhabis, Sadrists and Islamists, they would naturally take their cues from Saddam and Xomeini, who never had to answer anything to anybody. Eliminative politics is the simplest - and you can see it in action on Helena's "Just World" blog. (I would really like to know Helena's theory of Justice.)
BTW - Helena has limited the comment page display on her 'haloscan' blog commentary, presumably to make it more difficult to post comments. (I expect any day now she will go the route of Juan Cole, and completely disable all commentary by readers). If the display bothers you, hit F11, and then hit the "resize" button on top right, and then you will get a normal haloscan display.
BTW, the only reason she cannot ban me completelty, and has to sometimes tolerate me, is because through geurilla peer-to-peer technology, I can post without telling her what my IP address is. If anybody wants to find out how this is done, let me know. Power to the people and down with the tyrants. LOL
Warren - these self-labelled bleeding-heart "pacifists" who prefer to see a Saddam or Xomeini like bloody regime instead of a constitutional democracy in Iraq, have a couple of problems. They are anti-enlightenment and anti-positivism in identity - meaning that they do not subscribe to the historic progress of civilization and do not agree that human beings can consciously improve their own lot. They never have solutions because their intellect doesn't extend that far into the future - only cheap dime a dozen destructive criticisms loaded with "memory".
In politics they are fascistic and romanticize a bygone era replete with authority, misogyny, and communalism, which has been idealized and sanitized through the decrepit post-modern lens. These people are the inheritors of Mussolini and Stalin. In economics they are generally pro capitalism, especially state-capitalism, anti-market, and detest scientific socialism.
Finally, their livelihood depends on such "scholarship". They have never had a job in the private sector and since unable to hold a real and productive job, they depend on entitlements.
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A fellow by the handle tom.t posted some hate speech two days ago on the Syria kiss and make up thread. I complained yesterday and Helena deleted my complaint. Shame. Lady censor displaying her scissors and her bias.
Other
Posted by Other at 10. apríl 2005 15:32
Other - I sympathize with you.
Lady censor just deleted my "repeat" post.
What a sorry individual who cannot stand a shred of criticism. Thank you for fighting back "Other" and Ebilpe2.