Blue Collar Politics

[BREAK] For many people, being a "witness to history" is a goal. Being present when important events go down, events that shape the future and will be recorded in our texts/videos, is an exciting thing. Well citizens of River City, I'm here to tell you that, as the Chinese say, you live in interesting times. You are "witnesses to history . . . being revised." The Disney/ABC 9/11 movie is just one of many recent attempts to rewrite our past in order to shape thought in the future. (And Disney claims it avoids partisan outlooks???) As FAIR points out, it ain't just a slowly dying broadcast TV Network that is putting it's integrity in jeopardy in order to shape a national debate. The once prestigious NY Times recently gave us a half-hearted apology for allowing Mata Hari Miller (Judy) to manipulate their readers into supporting a push to war. But, as luck would have it, most readers of the Times are also familiar with other sources of news, and had realized that, based on the length the lie kept running, the front page placement of many chapters of the lie AND the financial costs and human anguish caused by the lie, the Times/Judy needed to give a much more sincere, open and moving apology. As luck would have it, once again,the NY Times saw that we are in an astrological period wherein the planet Reality is being rocked by the exaggerated "spinning" of its moon, Corporatocracy. In Astrology, they refer to the phenomenon as "The Spin." In this scenario, Corporatocracy will allow "The Spin" to take reality wherever Corporatocracy wishes. Hence, while the paper must apologize if it led folks to believe Saddam HAD WMD, it doesn't need to give any "Sorry's" to the unwashed masses if the people can be made to believe we only said:

"The possibility that Saddam Hussein might develop "weapons of mass destruction" and pass them to terrorists was the prime reason Mr. Bush gave in 2003 for ordering the invasion of Iraq."

You see, when referring to the reasons we attacked, invaded and occupied Iraq, putting in cavernous wide caveats like "possibility" and that Saddam might "develop" WMD's and might "pass them to terrorists" can make folk forget Judy's "THEY HAVE NUKES, BUBONIC PLAGUE and KLINGON LIGHT SABERS THAT BEHEAD ANY CHRISTIANS (INCLUDING CUTE WHITE CHRISTIAN BABIES) WITHOUT ANYBODY HOLDING THEM!" (A bit of poetic license, that. But, with the fear running around the town square back then, [and continuing through today]it could be said to be an accurate representation of Judy's stories effect.) So, the Times need not apologize IF the reasons Bush gave for an illegal war were factual. And, if we get to rewrite the reasons 3 years later, why wouldn't they now be reasons we could defend? And, with Bush well into "attack Iran" mode, we just have to grant him some credibility in his last push to war, even if that leaves poor reality-based History raped, bleeding and gasping with last breath in the alley of fraud. So, now we can wait for the anniversary of that September day in 2001 that Hitler attacked America, Liberals lined the streets cheering the terrorists in the planes and watching entranced as their fellow Americans jumped from the upper floors of the Twin Towers. The same times that GW Bush saved the US Constitution by protecting it with the Patriot Act and TIA program, and finally gave the tools (cattle prods, iron ladies, water-boarding kits, etc.) to our Justice system that it had long needed, and that we found, in recently discovered diaries, our founding fathers had originally written into the Constitution . . . but was deleted by a nefarious and (you guessed it) stinkin' LIBERAL printer! What's that? Oh, I see. Sorry 'bout that, Chief. My mistake!
That movie doesn't come out until September 2007! [/BREAK]

[BREAK] Once again, the NY Times proves that its new motto should be "All the news that's fit to print, unless it reflects poorly on an administration run by war criminals seeking to render the Constitution, and America's soul, into crap they can wipe from their boots!" A failed land deal, in which a powerful local politician lost money (Whitewater)? The Times' will run it to death, while peppering the front page with baseless allegations and unconfirmed rumor. A politician (Gore) has a meet and greet in a Buddhist temple . . . the Times will turn it into the story of the year. Don't even get me started on a stained blue dress from the Gap. The Times, and the Republican Congress, could not have given more prominence to an asteroid on a collision course with the Earth. But when it becomes clear that America is using torture, even to the death of captives, the Times figures that anyone searching for a small bra ad from Macy's on page 14 is worthy of hearing that tale. There is much going on in today's Amerika that I wouldn't have fathomed just 6 short years ago. But one thing I find the most telling of our current situation. If you're in NYC and you're looking for unbiased coverage of the Washington political scene, I'd recommend you bring your laptop, as the newspapers aren't what they once were so you'll want to visit news on the Internet. But should you be stuck without a vehicle to drive onto the info superhighway, I'd recommend the NY Post over the NY Times. For whatever reason, the NY Post has been covering the real stories of our ride down the moral roller-coaster on the journey to the section of Hell for citizens that allowed their country to go bad, while the Times has been spraying hot grease on the rails! ===== [/BREAK]

Columbia Journalism Review: Failures of Imagination (9–10/06) by Eric Umansky Media Views New York Times Afghanistan reporter Carlotta Gall overcame her initial reaction to learning the 2002 death of a Bagram Air Base prisoner named Dilawar was a homicide and not simply due to heart attack, as originally claimed by the U.S. military—"I remember gasping and saying, ‘Oh, my God, they killed him.' I hadn’t really been thinking that before.” But Howell Raines and other Times editors found the idea "just hard to get their mind around," despite then-Times foreign editor Roger Cohen having "pitched it, I don’t know, four times at page-one meetings, with increasing urgency and frustration.... My single greatest frustration as foreign editor was my inability to get that story on page one.” More Here

[BREAK] Some members of a "daily news" mailing list I run have mentioned that I seem to have little love for America's paper of record. And, I'll admit that there are times that I question my own antagonism to the more recent incarnation of the NY Times. Not often, but there are times. (And it is not just a reaction to a publisher who decides that those who can't afford subscriptions to "Times Select" should not benefit from the edification provided by some great minds.) Then, something like this Lieberman story comes along (kudos to Atrios), and I realize that far from beating a dead horse named Judy Miller, my internal blood-boil at the gray lady is really justifiable anger. Through the years, the Times was really NOT a Liberal paper in its news content, but mainly in its editorials and commentary. As with it's Conservative sister, the Wall Street Journal, you could usually count on the news stories in both papers to be factual and unbiased. (While the editors at both papers might differ on which stories they found worthwhile to publish, with each choosing stories more reflective of their editorial outlook, the stories rarely strayed from the factual path.) But over the past decade, the NY Times has not only left a grand tradition of factual journalism behind, it has gone on to where facts are cut from stories, leaving the exact opposite meaning in a story than the facts truly portray. In the Jennifer Medina story in the Times, the headline reads "Lieberman Points Out a Turnabout by Lamont", yet, when one actually reads the full Lamont letter, one can't help but realize that the letter chastised, and did not just praise, Lieberman. Here's the verbatim first paragraph of Lamont's letter:

Dear Joe, I reluctantly supported the moral outrage you expressed on September 3. I was reluctant because I thought it might make matters worse; I was reluctant because nobody expressed moral outrage over how Reagan treated his kids or Gingrich lied about supporting term limits (in other words, it was reluctant outrage); I was reluctant because the Starr inquisition is much more threatening to our civil liberties and national interest than Clinton's misbehavior.

As with many of us, Lamont lamented Clinton's idiotic tryst in the White House. And, like most Americans, including this Liberal, Lamont was probably angry at Clinton for his televised lie to the nation. But, as with those of us who loved our country too much to allow it to be used as a venue for internecine blood sport, he found much more offence in the manner the Repugnants in Congress and their henchman, Ken Starr, dragged our country down to where America looked like a rejected episode of the Jerry Springer TV show. After the jump to "Continued Reading", below, I'll place the story, followed by the actual letter Lamont sent to Lieberman.

You be the judge!

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[BREAK] If the parents did this to their daughter (and it sure looks as though they did - or they were mentally residing on another planet), I wouldn't wince if they were flogged and hung in Foley Square - and I'm against the Death Penalty. However, I don't believe I've ever read such a biased, singularly one-sided piece of journalism in my life. I realize America is in a state of transition. I can smell the brimstone and I see the torture and explosive death we're now so proud of dealing. And I sure know the Times is not above using its pages to help foster the new agenda. (Say "Judy Miller!") But come on! I doubt that, even just a few short years ago you could have gotten the prosecutor in a case like this to write such a blistering attack on the defense attorneys. In most cases, if the defense gets unusual delays granted, you'll find some prosecutorial flaws helped sway the judge. Here, you'd think the Sainted prosecutors were sent directly from heaven to garner justice in the case, and were still losing to Satan's third team legal group. This reporter must have been blushing when writing "Outside the courtroom, neither prosecutors nor defense lawyers would openly discuss their strategies." Because, I wouldn't be surprised if the prosecution team was having pizza at the reporter's place while this piece was put together. It's part of our decline, I guess. Now we find comfort in not only denying innocent detainees in secret foreign prisons any human rights; we now deride our court system for abiding those silly dictates of that oh-so-old and irrelevant Constitution. But for the wealthy - take Ken Lay for instance - we're satisfied to let him steal thousands of people's retirements while raping the tax payers and rate payers for California electricity, and spend years living in his castle until he dies a free man. But when we find poor felons, EVEN THOSE RESIDING IN PRISON, getting trial delays, it is "Off With Their Heads" we scream in the streets. Let's face it folks. If you've kept aware of this case, you know that damn near everyone failed this little girl. Including many people who belong to the same bureaucracy as the prosecutors here. So, by throwing such an emotion stirring barrage of words against the defense, a lot of city workers can gain coverage from a storm they helped bring about. Luckily for them, our citizens are so caught up in the debate about whether water boarding should replace time outs in our schools and homes, granting fair trials is an anathema to our Zeitgeist. "Amerika, Amerika, God shields his gaze from thee!" ===== [/BREAK]

As Time Stands Still in Court, Justice for a Broken Girl Waits - New York Times By MICHAEL BRICK Published: September 23, 2006 The friendless death of Nixzmary Brown in Brooklyn last January demanded a reckoning. She was broken and starved, 7 years old, left in a den her brothers and sisters called “the dirty room.” Child welfare workers, teachers, the police and the parents all came under scrutiny. In some quarters, consequences were swift. A week after Nixzmary was found, the child welfare agency suspended or reassigned six city workers. Soon hundreds of children were placed in foster care, the police commissioner was summoned before the City Council, and the mayor created and filled a new position for the protection of children. - - - SNIP At a hearing on Feb. 1, Ms. Santiago was ordered held without bail, but after that her case slowed considerably. Ever since, she has been joined in court by Robert W. Abrams, leader of an expanding, contracting, secretive and highly combative defense team. His rhetorical specialty is the considered restatement. “I’ve tried to get her to change her mind by writing her and saying, ‘Please change your mind,’ ” Mr. Abrams said of one potential witness. “Well, I didn’t say, ‘Please change your mind,’ but I asked her to reconsider.” Mr. Abrams wears a floppy fedora and, over his right eye, a black patch under his glasses. He enlivens legal memorandums with sarcastic quotation marks. - - - End of SNIPPET

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