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Sunday, February 19, 2006 |
MSM: Fear vs Freedom of Speech Not sure why most of us are surprised that the majority of our media outlets have NOT published the cartoons that have driven Islamic fanatics on orchestrated killing sprees across Europe and Africa.
The reason is fear of retaliation. Freedom of speech obviously doesn't apply when you are afraid. Except for bloggers, only a handful of newspapers in Europe (13?)and the US (3?) have demonstrated the conviction to publish them -- to show the world how totally irrelevant (and un-irreverent) the cartoons are to either the Islamic prophet or to fundamental Islam.
Funny that fanatic clerics who have declared that using nukes against non-believers is OK, have been so upset about a cartoon figure wearing a bomb in his turban.
Two US writers address the irony of it all.
 Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | February 19, 2006
THE PHOENIX is Boston's leading ''alternative" newspaper, the kind of brash, pull-no-punches weekly that might have been expected to print without hesitation the Mohammed cartoons that Islamists have been using to incite rage and riots across the Muslim world. Its willingness to push the envelope was memorably demonstrated in 2002, when it broke with most media to publish a grisly photograph of Daniel Pearl's severed head, and supplied a link on its website to the sickening video of the Wall Street Journal reporter's beheading.
But the Phoenix isn't publishing the Mohammed drawings, and in a brutally candid editorial it explained why.
''Our primary reason," the editors confessed, is ''fear of retaliation from . . . bloodthirsty Islamists who seek to impose their will on those who do not believe as they do . . . Simply stated, we are being terrorized, and . . . could not in good conscience place the men and women who work at the Phoenix and its related companies in physical jeopardy. As we feel forced, literally, to bend to maniacal pressure, this may be the darkest moment in our 40-year-publishing history."
The vast majority of US media outlets have shied away from reproducing the drawings, but to my knowledge only the Phoenix has been honest enough to admit that it is capitulating to fear. Many of the others have published high-minded editorials and columns about the importance of ''restraint" and ''sensitivity" and not giving ''offense" to Muslims. Several have claimed they wouldn't print the Danish cartoons for the same reason they wouldn't print overtly racist or anti-Semitic material. The managing editor for news of The Oregonian, for example, told her paper's ombudsman that not running the images is like avoiding the N-word -- readers don't need to see a racial slur spelled out to understand its impact. Yet a Nexis search turns up at least 14 occasions since 1999 when The Oregonian has published the N-word unfiltered. So there are times when it is appropriate to run material that some may find offensive.
Rationalizations notwithstanding, the refusal of the US media to show the images at the heart of one of the most urgent stories of the day is not about restraint and good taste. It's about fear. Editors and publishers are afraid the thugs will target them as they targeted Danny Pearl and Theo van Gogh; afraid the mob will firebomb their newsrooms as it has firebombed Danish embassies. ''We will not accept less than severing the heads of those responsible," an imam in Gaza preaches. ''Whoever insults a prophet, kill him," reads the sign carried by a demonstrator in London. Those are not figures of speech but deadly threats, and American newspapers and networks are intimidated.
Not everyone has succumbed. The Weekly Standard reproduced the 12 cartoons, and some have appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the New York Sun, and even Spare Change News, a Boston biweekly sold by homeless people. But there has been nothing like the defiance shown in Europe, where some two dozen publications in 13 countries have run the cartoons, insisting that they will not allow thugs to decide what a free press can publish.
Journalists can be incredibly brave, but when it comes to covering the Arab and Muslim world, too many news organizations have knuckled under to threats. Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, a veteran foreign correspondent, admitted long ago that ''physical intimidation" by the PLO led reporters to skew their coverage of important stories or to ignore them ''out of fear." Similarly, CNN's former news executive, Jordan Eason, acknowledged after the fall of Saddam Hussein that his network had long sanitized its news from Iraq, since reporting the unvarnished truth ''would have jeopardized the lives of . . . our Baghdad staff."
Like the Nazis in the 1930s and the Soviet communists in the Cold War, the Islamofascists are emboldened by appeasement and submissiveness. Give the rampagers and book-burners a veto over artistic and editorial decisions, and you end up not with heightened sensitivity and cultural respect, but with more rampages and more books burned. You betray ideals that generations of Americans have died to defend.
And worse than that: You betray as well the dissidents and reformers within the Islamic world, the Muslim Sakharovs and Sharanskys and Havels who yearn for the free, tolerant, and democratic culture that we in the West take for granted. What they want to see from America is not appeasement and apologies and a dread of giving offense. They want to see us face down the fanatics, be unintimidated by bullies. They want to know that in the global struggle against Islamist extremism, we won't let them down.
Standing Up To Terror
By William Tucker
Boy, those TV people are nervy, aren’t they? I mean, this year’s Super Bowl featured a man and woman simulating sexual intercourse on an airplane, and a 12-year-old girl discussed married sex with her mother. Takes guts, doesn’t it?
And the newspapers—they’re just incredible, huh? The New York Times has risked its neck by revealing that the Bush Administration has been monitoring overseas phone calls. Stogy old Commentary is comparing this to the isolationist Herald Tribune printing a story in 1942 telling the Japanese we had broken their code. Those neoconservative loonies think the Times ought to be prosecuted for divulging secrets in wartime! Well, it’s a different world, brother! Our press today will go to jail en masse rather than give up freedom of speech!
And Hollywood, aren’t they the same? Every Academy Award nomination for best picture tackles some red-hot controversy—homosexuality, racism, the Israeli response to terror, McCarthyism. Why, that must be the fourth movie on McCarthyism in the last decade! As one letter to The Daily News commented, “If King Kong had been gay, he would have been nominated, too.”
Yes, there’s nothing our good old courageous media won’t tackle, is there?
Well, yes there is. It turns out not a single TVnetwork and only two newspapers—the New York Sun and the Philadelphia Inquirer—have dared publish the dozen Danish cartoons that have set off riots around the world. Even the New York Press, which once ran a whole column in which a writer described removing a boil from his scrotum, has chickened out. Four staff members quit in protest last week after the top brass backed down.
Whence this newfound humility? Well, everybody’s mumbling something about “respect for religion” and “not wanting to offend anybody,” but the real reason is transparent. They’re scared to death. Publishing portraits of rock stars posing as Jesus or putting naked movie stars on the cover of Vanity Fair—that’s all in a day's work. Only a bunch of hillbillies down in Arkansas will be offended. But publishing a cartoon of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban—now that’s serious. Somebody might start throwing rocks or set off a bomb in the office. Best to duck our heads on this one. Trading brickbats with government officials is one thing; doing something risky is quite another.
My question is, what’s the difference? Nothing we say or do will make Muslims like us any better. Islam has been beating down the door of Western Civilization since the time of Charlemagne. They conquered Spain, took Constantinople in 1453, besieged Vienna in 1529 and again in 1683. The Turks blew up the Parthenon in 1687 and fighting between Greeks and Turks continued into this century. The Balkans became the “powder keg of Europe” once the Turks invaded.
And it isn’t just us. Islam is at war with every civilization on its borders. They’re fighting with India, with China, with African tribes in Sudan. Nor do Muslims ever stop fighting among themselves. The whole history of Islam is a story of a group of dissidents going out into the desert, deciding the religion practiced by the elites was not the “true Islam,” and crashing back upon the cities to seize power. The word “assassins” comes from a Persian cult whose members drugged themselves with hashish before carrying out suicide attacks. The Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda are just the latest of a long, long line.
Islam is a culture that has never learned to curb male violence. All it can do is export it.
So what can we poor Americans to do except hold another “Multicultural Appreciation Day?” Here’s what I would suggest.
In order to put some backbone in the press for the trials ahead, let’s pick a day—I nominate February 28th, two weeks from today—in which every newspaper in America and every TV news station in America will display the offending cartoons. For the faint-hearted there’ll be safety in numbers. It will inform the public and restore our self-respect. It certainly won’t ingratiate us with world of Islam, but what’s the difference? At least they’ll know they’re facing a united front.
When the Germans overran Denmark during World War II, they immediately announced that all Jews must wear the yellow star. Instead of cowering in their homes, every man, woman and child in the country donned a yellow star, including the King of Denmark. It seems only fitting that we return the favor.
And if you’re planning to bomb The American Enterprise offices in retaliation for this column, please don’t bother. I hardly ever set foot in the place. I live at 430 4th Street in Brooklyn, right around the corner from the ice cream storeowner who was just sentenced to 18 years for smuggling $11 million to terrorists in the Middle East and two doors up from a fireman who was killed on September 11th. I’m home every day.
Posted at 09:23 pm by Rhet
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Jihad & Shehaba from the Religion of Peace
As fanatic cartoon reactionaries expand their hate-filled global jihad against Judeo-Christian establishments and political symbols (i.e., embassies, small shop owners, children, the elderly, innocents) LGF disses Hamas' request that the US remove them (in case you forgot: "a genocidal, fanatically Islamist terrorist organization openly dedicated to finishing the job the Nazis started, by any means possible" -- including but not limited to eradicating the Jewish people from Israel) from the terrorist list -- while concurrently stepping up their recruitment of shehadas (young suicide bombers for Allah, for whom surviving families will be supported by the Palestinian state).
And on a third front, radical Islamic clerics have conveniently interpreted the Koran to indicate that if nukes are available, they may also be used in destroying non-believers.
Is it me, or is there a disconcerting connection between these three fronts? Hopefully, both moderate Islamic groups and targeted nations will exercise cooperative efforts, good judgement and resolve in dealing with these loonies.
The request, made by A senior Hamas official, called on the United States Thursday to remove the militant Islamic group from Washington's list of terrorist organizations and to open a dialogue without preconditions.
Moussa Abu Marzook, deputy head of Hamas' political bureau, told The Associated Press the U.S. should deal with Hamas 'as it is, and later there could be a dialogue...but there should be no preconditions."
Furthermore, Abu Marzouk described as "absolutely unacceptable" Israel's call for Hamas to start an unconditional dialogue with the Jewish state, saying "Hamas...was chosen by the Palestinian people...this is democracy."
Meanwhile, on the western front, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is embarking Monday on a five-day Middle East visit aimed at ensuring that Arab countries do not provide financial aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority and to strengthen the international front against the Hamas and terrorism.
Will it work? Likely not. Turkey, Russia and other Arab states have already invited Hamas to participate in diplomatic talks.
I've waited since late January for insight from any source on resolving this explosive dilemma. The US has asked that Gaza funds be returned from the Palestinian Authority. 50 million dollars are forthcoming, according to the PA. Uh huh. And if it is returned, we'll probably repackage it and return it.
If so, I hope it's in humanitarian supplies --- not funds. I'd much rather have a bag of rice thown at me.
--Rhet
Posted at 05:04 pm by Rhet
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Wednesday, February 15, 2006 |
 With the exception of the White House Press Corps, major MSM bush-bashers and lefties of all persuasions, the majority of Americans don't feel VP Chaney's accidental shooting of a friend worthy of the media frenzy being made over it.
Cheney will address the situation on Fox News tonight at 6 pm ET. I'm sure members of the Press Corps will be green with envy that they do not have the opportunity to second-guess the Vice President in person.
Did the VP intentionally thumb his nose at the press? I don't feel that he did. With a friend lying on the ground with unknown injuries -- and subsequently wanting to inform Mr. Whittington's family about the incident before notifying any of the media -- the White House Press Corps was hardly near the top of anyone's call-list.
David Gregory et al need to get over it.
Meanwhile, on with the important news of the day ..... uhhhh -- press corps? Hello? Anyone there?
They've gone where?????
Somebody alert the Texas Wildlife Commission to check their licenses -- please!
Posted at 03:25 pm by Rhet
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Monday, February 13, 2006 |
You know the rest of the line.
I really don't care that Ann Coulter raised a few high eyebrows at the CPAC gathering. You think she was contracted to address the declining price of eggs in China? (Not that she probably couldn't, mind you.) She's a bright, articulate, entertaining political satirist hired because she IS politically incorrect. Her problem? She's a woman who also speaks from the right. And those one-liners she slings across political bows ricochet right into her bank account. Good for you, gal.
I also don't care that lefties and late nite comics will make Dick Chaney the butt of jokes for months to come. Let those who ridicule Chaney declare their preference, however. Would they rather go hunting with the VP or take a late night ride with Teddy Kennedy?
I don't care if Mayor Nagin is asking foreign investors for financial backing to "save" New Orleans. It's about time some of the monies we've sent abroad came home.
I don't care if Hillary has a behind-the-scenes deep-pocket PAC/advisory group holed up in a DC house called "whitehaven" that's been working on her presidential aspirations for years. She'll still lose. I'm not confident she'll even win her party's nomination.
I don't care that Billy-Bob Clinton's disbarment has ended. I would like to see the list of international clients who retain him as legal counsel.
I don't care that Europe, et al, are tolerating the rath-for-pay (coersion?) by fanantic Muslim reactionaries over a few cartoons assumed to be renderings of their leader. You folks have enjoyed cartoons of our leaders (political and religious) for decades. Of course, if you don't know how to stop or control the rioting -- or fear the confrontation -- you can always blame Bush.
Posted at 05:25 am by Rhet
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Saturday, February 04, 2006 |
 It can be hard to git movin' on dreary Saturday's ......
I'm not even excited about the Super Bowl. Enthusiasm aside, however, I'll probably order pizza and cheese bread for the same reasons I buy eggnog at Christmas and eat pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving.
On mornings like this I sometimes think about why (for example), lethal injections are "cruel and unusual" for murdering psychopaths who bury victims alive or chop them into little pieces.
Or (another example) how stupidity is often rewarded (pan to Casey Sheehan's mom).
Or how Indian-owned casinos give bunches of money to politicians to promote their causes -- which politicians deny receiving or doing -- when casinos could have hired folks like me to send letters, carry placards, lick stamps, make phone calls or sit on a bar stool in front of a slot machine all day!
Or how the loudest outcrys about lack of progress in rebuilding New Orleans are made by politicians (who squandered zillions of previous tax dollars on briefcases and travel while levys leaked and the poor became poorer), a do-nothing mayor who moved his family out of state post-Katrina, and restaurant owners who want a parade. A parade? May they mardi their gras in the sludge. A PARADE? The city should mobilize that flooded bus fleet and let Nagin lead a yellow-bus caravan through the streets. Oh yeah -- the parade should also traverse steets around the hospitals (where my friends drowned), the Superdome, the Convention Center and bog down somewhere in the 9th Ward.
Or (my final example for this day) how some of the most absurd, discrepant, illogical, inappropriate, incompatible, inconsistent, inharmonious, ironic, ironical, out of keeping, unfitting, unlogical, unreasonable -- i.e., incongruous folks imaginable are actually there --
in Congress!
 Sometimes i just slay me.
Posted at 09:50 am by Rhet
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Posted at 08:39 am by Rhet
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Most Democrats see every event through the filter of their hatred for President Bush. No matter what happens, anywhere in the world, their spin on events is that they discredit the President. Democrats and their media allies are like an armada of Ahabs, cruising the seas in their obsessive pursuit of the white whale who defeats them time after time, never giving up the chase. -- PowerLineBlog
Posted at 12:50 am by Rhet
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*Moonery: (a goatard from Gabby at The Goat Gazette) is defined as conduct indicative of barking (or yodeling, whining, yapping, etc.) moonbats.
PowerlineBlog points out the bias and flagrant misrepresentation in the ABC and New York Times' editorial portrayal of Justice Scalia's absence from Chief Justice Roberts' confirmation on September 29.
No, Scalia was neither vacationing nor on a "junket" in Colorado.
He was there lecturing approximately 10 hours a day at a conference, scheduled in October 2004. In preparation for the conference he had compiled a 400-plus page study guide.
And it's not that these MSM sources were not provided a full accounting of Scalia's schedule. Both were given complete details of conference planning and schedule.
It simply suited the MSM "story lines" to represent that Scalia had intentionally skipped Roberts' confirmation.
As Powerline concludes, the public should not have to wonder why MSM chose to reference Justice Scalia's lecture as a "junket" while not mentioning similar "junkets" by two more liberally-leaning members of the Court.
Moonery. Moonery pure and simple.
Posted at 11:58 pm by Rhet
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Why must blogging survive? The answer is below.
Thanks, RedState Blog.
Writing in USA Today, Richard Benedetto and David Jackson refused comment on allegations that Gannett's flagship newspaper runs "memes" instead of news stories, and that the two reporters were engaged in an effort to "shape public opinion" by mislabeling "news" stories that minimize facts while concentrating on speculation.
Bendetto and Jackson were caught fashioning a meme insertion device intended to create fabricated "links" between President Bush and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The device was activated Thursday by editors at USA Today.
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After covering a White House news conference that lasted nearly an hour and covered a wide range of subjects, Benedetto and Jackson gave the most prominence to something they called "White House links" to Abramoff. They were not able to produce any White House links to Abramoff, but apparently still felt that the most important event at the news conference was that President Bush "fended off questions" about them. Neither commented on whether this amounted to covering the behavior of other reporters at the conference, rather than the conference itself.
Critics have charged that Benedetto and Jackson devoted fully one-half of their report on the news conference to chimerical "links to Abramoff," even going so far as to include what Senate Democrats were "calling for" and including a quotation from Democratic Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado, even though Salazar was not present at the news conference and the President of the United States — who was — was trying to answer questions about the NSA surveillance program, the 2006 elections, the crisis in Iran, and other issues.
Neither Benedetto nor Jackson explained why they spent more column-inches on the Senate Democrats and Salazar's allegations than they did on the President's response to a question about Iran.
Now ask why so many of us continue to blog. If you have any doubt, that is. While we may never eliminate the slant and bias in MSM, we will reveal it.
Posted at 10:42 pm by Rhet
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Gull picked up on a previous post from here which included a comment by Thespis:
I think that there will be a strong blogger influence for at least the next ten years or more. The authors and contributors might change, but it is an excellent outlet for those of us without others to listen to our constant rants on various topics.
I have only been blogging since September. Doing a good job requires more time than I can give since I work for a living. I am sure that others feel the same.
Hang in there! I have appreciated all of the support and encouragement from those at your wonderful site.
I read and write as much as possible. Let's all vow to do the same.
I need a blogging partner or two in order to keep everything fresh, timely, and new. There are too many days when I can not get to it at all, yet I constantly think of stories.
I hope that Blogging does not go the way of "mood rings" and "pet rocks" from the 1970's.
Not if Gull has her way, Thespis! Both she and I have our priorities (as do you) and we never expected to blog more than for the entertainment (enlightenment?) of our cohorts over at Pogo.com!
Her post sorta speaks for all of us. (It's expanded from comments to her previous post -- a followup from this blog -- reposted here with permission!)
I really don't think the level or content/context of personal blogging will change too much overall in the near future.
No matter what folks say, however -- readership is always a motivating factor in and to the life of a blog.
With few exceptions (two being the bloggers who responded to part 1!!!), most of the blogs I read are political in nature.
As with most of us -- I enjoy reading blogs that write about what I'm interested in! My family is grown and out on their own. (They would croak if I blogged about them -- and we talk/email every single day! They'd know who told!!!!) I work full-time and am pretty self-centered when it comes to creature comforts and/or who gets new shoes this month, who controls the remote or when to do the dishes or take out the trash. I no longer attend PTO meetings or drive kids to soccer practice or softball games. I've replaced bridge club with online poker because I don't have to bring a covered dish. I'm interested in personal health issues because I have a few; I'm over-60, opinionated AND sensitive to the LACK of blogging (and community-building) for my generation. And I happen to enjoy raising hell about/dissing the hypocrits who pretend to care about my welfare and well-being under the guise of policies that follow party lines. Plus, I enjoy blogging AND I'm sufficiently foolish enough to believe that I have something important to say. Most of the time, anyway.
But I digress.
I anticipate a movement to impose a code of standards to political blogs in the near future. (Not sure it will work, though. MSM seems to adjust their "standards" whenever it's politically expedient -- so why should bloggers be held to "assigned" standards? And if Congress gets involved -- you can bet your sweet bippy it will be a political move to curtail the impact of political blogging!)
Many MSM outlets that use blogs (or allow comments by email, for example) don't normally allow comments (or prescreen them) -- for obvious reasons. There is little control over the content of comments and they don't want their institutional authority challenged .... (You might also note that some "popular" political blogs encourage flaming and vile comments. Without substance, it's one way to attract readers. Direct from the Say-It-Ain't-So Department.)
IMO, bloggers have become guardians (the Fifth Estate) of the guardians (if journalists are the Fourth Estate) of democracy (first, second and third being the judicial, legislative and executive Estates). Media institutions don't like having their slants, perspectives and opinions challenged. Soooo -- in this respect, BLOGGING (i.e., factual corrections, debate, counter-points, other perspectives, etc.) is being down-played by the very institutions bloggers are challenging!
A blog by any other name will be the same? I agree. I remember spending $20 for "snapshot" software in the mid-90's for my Vietnam photos (with comments) and how "proud" I was to be on the cutting edge (complete with scanner attachment to transfer old slides to digital files).
What's the future of blogging? As Movin' suggests -- some types/formats of blogs may become less plentiful, but their role and function will expand as technology expands.
There are now regular college lectures available on iPod .... many blogs offer optional iPod broadcasts .... and the indispensible wireless phone system allows emailing, texting and imaging to and from anywhere.
(If you aren't following references in this thread and haven't read Movin's post at http://journals.aol.com/movinon203/MovinOn/entries/1683 -- do so.)
I actually envision more political bloggers to begin offering "optional venues" for readers not confined to landlines, laptops or PC's!
And my bet is on bloggers winning the media war with MSM!
Comments/reactions are always welcome, by the way. (I've only deleted one comment ever -- and it was to keep my young niece from reading a few words I'm sure she'd probably seen on a bathroom wall. But not on MY bathroom wall.)
Bold type above for my emphasis.
We've referenced the Fifth Estate before. To ensure that MSM is kept "honest," independent bloggers have to survive -- especially the "part-time" grassroots bloggers who aren't dependent on advertising, think-tank endorsements, talking heads circuits or college speaking fees. If links, "co-ops," teams or rings are necessary -- let's have them!
Posted at 04:32 pm by Rhet
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