The Washington Post has enjoyed giving up their op-ed pages to terrorists and terror sympathisers for some time now; today they allow Joanne Levine to shill for bin Ladin propoganda outfit al-Jazeera with the offensive headline Al-Jazeera, as American as Apple Pie.
Sure, Joanne knows that al-Jazeera shows terrorist videotapes of American being beheaded, exploits anti-American imagery to distort Arab perceptions, acts as a bullhorn for the messages of mass murderer Osama bin Ladin, and turns up the heat constantly on the Arab-Israeli conflict, but she thoughtfully reminds us that her problems getting interviews is due strictly to the prejudice and hatred of the American people:
...the truth is that al-Jazeera is a pioneer of news independence that the U.S. government once lauded for bringing freedom of the press to the Middle East. Now it's planning to broadcast worldwide, including in the United States. But as its Arab owners work to make that a reality, the prejudice here persists, and those of us who work for the network find ourselves running, at every turn, into resistance, rejection and racism.
Is it "racism" to spurn the leading media outlet for the forces whom want to see the United States destroyed? Is it "rejectionism" to turn our back on an enemy news network whose reporters have been embedded with Iraqi insurgents in order to film attacks upon American soldiers? Is it "resistance" to refuse to speak with a representative of a media outlets whose personnel have been found to be actively working with terrorists and for insurgents? Actually, I think "resistance" is a good word here - resisting the media notion that we are guilty of racism if we choose to defend our own lives against those whom wish to exterminate us.
Hey Joanne - want to know why some folk are wary of al-Jazeera? Author Michale Wolf makes these comments:
"It's pretty hard to adequately describe the level of bloodiness during an average Al Jazeera newcast," wrote Wolff. "It's mesmerizing bloodiness. It's not just red but gooey. There's no cutaway. They hold the shot for the full viscous effect. It's vastly grislier than anything that's ever been shown on television before. It's snuff-film caliber. . . .
"The better Al Jazeera does, the angrier the Arabs become," wrote Wolff. "The more anti-U.S. and anti-Israel, the higher ratings it gets."
The CNN of the Arab world" is how some describe Al Jazeera, but others call it "Jihad TV," a megaphone that amplifies and glorifies Islamist terrorists, anti-Semites and other fanatical foes of Israel and the United States.
Al Jazeera broadcast the blood libel that Jews had been warned by Israel's Mossad in advance about the 9-11 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and thus had stayed home that day. Al Jazeera interviewed, as one of its "experts" making this claim, the American former Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party leader David Duke, without clearly explaining to its Arab audience who and what Duke is.
Al Jazeera routinely has described Islamist suicide-homocide bombers in Israel as "martyrs," and Palestinians as Israel's victims. Its newscasts and on-air discussions are staged to show its 50 million mostly-Muslim viewers a relentlessly visceral, emotion-charged drama in which Jews, Israel and Americans are almost always cast as villains, infidels and evil-doers.
But wait! Joanne reminds us that she is the real victim here:
...most significant, scores of people refuse to be interviewed by our reporters. On numerous stories, I have approached people who know me from my past jobs. They will talk to me on the phone, but they refuse to appear on camera, saying they can't be seen on al-Jazeera. I have heard this too often -- from officials in government and Congress as well as from other people in the media.
My department, for instance, tried to do a story about Civil War reenactors. The journalists were denied access to a reenactment because the organizers were expecting "many patriotic people" who they thought would be upset by al-Jazeera's presence. [jeez, Joanne,why not invite them to shul on Yom Kipper? - ed.]
At the recent Take Back America conference here in Washington, author Kevin Phillips would not accept a business card from our investigative reporter.
[that happened to me at a business meeting last week - should I call the Department of Human Rights? -ed.]
And finally, Joanne's warning to us all:
Each incident shrouded in bigotry has served to convince me ever more that the United States needs an outlet like al-Jazeera International, offering a wider panorama of views. These are dangerous times. And they will just get more dangerous if each side continues to retreat.
Joanne, I destest you for working for an enemy news outlet - but that does not make me a bigot, just someone who values their life and their culture.
So put the liberal PC curse-book away, it has lost all of its power against me and a growing number of Americans. And allow me to answer your self-absorbed essay with some simple down-home wisdom; you can pick either one and apply freely:
-You are who your friends are;
-When you lie down with dogs, don't be surprised to rise up with fleas.
1 comment:
It's always interesting to read these right-wing blogs. Gets me inside the mindset of people whose thinking I just can't imagine on my own. Because I've spent a lot of time working as a psychiatric nurse, I have a predilection for investigating twisted, irrational ideation, though.
You're filled with hate and fear, aren't you? You just DETEST all these enemies of the United States. You feel threatened. Big powerful America might be taken down by all these sniveling enemies from other cultures, eh?
Well, you're right. But the root of the threat is not from al-Jazeera. It's from your own government. You had the world on your side after 9/11. (BTW, "11/9" is the way Nov. 11 is referenced here and in the rest of the world. Everywhere else on the planet puts day first, then month, another way the USA is out of step with the bulk of humanity.) But now the U.S. is feared and despised across the globe because of your government's rash actions. Even here in Australia, a country that used to idolise the U.S. for its assistance in WW II and because of its vibrant culture, you're seen as a hypocritical, dangerous monster. It's like a formerly favourite uncle who turned out to be a kiddy fiddler. The U.S. is the new USSR, an imperialist empire that espouses a supposedly noble ideology but is mainly on about expanding its power by kiling anyone who stands in its way.
You shouldn't fear al-Jazeera, mate. How many Americans has the telly channel killed? And how many al-Jazeera workers have been killed by U.S. forces when they bombed their offices in Kabul and Baghdad. and shot their camera crews in the streets? AJ is biased, of course, but so is American media. We get your McNeil News Hour on our SBS channel, and the programme seems like so much government propaganda, with your Republicans rabbiting rationalisations of the reprehensible. And rarely does an American speak more than two sentences on the screen without a "God Bless," "we're praying for that" or some other religious reference. You people are not that different to the Muslims, with your reflexive hyper-religiosity.
I know this won't temper your scorn for al-Jazeera, or your terror of the rest of the world. Hazve you ever been off the North American continent, mate? Do you have any idea of what life is like in the rest of the world? Or are you stuck in your own chauvanistic bubble of ignorance? America was once a nice place (I've been there) but you've gone off the rails. You have a lot to fear-a, but it's not from al-Jazeera. America is heading for a smash, but it will be one of your own making.
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