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Balanced BullshitThe wall of the urinal was decorated with well-known bad guys: Hitler, Stalin, Hussein, bin Laden, and others. Go ahead! Pee on the villain of your choice."There's no one for me to pee on," I announced jokingly to CJ, an acquaintance. "What do you mean?" he asked. "There's no Bush" CJ looked as though I had peed on him. "How can you compare Bush with these guys?" he asked angrily pointing at Hitler. "Can you really compare Bush to him? The liquids we had been drinking were apparently combustible. "Yeh!" "Bush was elected democratically," he exclaimed to my blasphemy. "We have to have a serious talk." He imagined himself to be an inquisitor faced with a heretic in need of political education. We returned to our tables and our liquids. I doubt that I'll run into CJ again and no "serious" talk will take place if we do. His media-managed mind forms a fortress of conventional wisdom. I have neither the time or inclination to lay siege to it. The next day CV (another acquaintance) replied to my mail about an article he had sent me from the New York Times. "I wish you wouldn't rubbish the NYT. Do you know anywhere else you read better, more balanced ideas?" he wrote. The NYT is as balanced as the one side in divorce proceedings, but CV lives in the same fairy tale as CJ. (More about the NYT shortly.) CJ, a Swedish salesman, and CV, an American psychologist, float in the same information-managed bubble. WE, the West, the democracies, the wonderful and advanced civilizations, represent the good guys. Whatever WE do is basically right, honorable and noble. Even if WE start a war it must be for a good cause. Had these gentlemen had a decent education, they would know that starting a war is the ultimate crime. Nothing can be more evil, deadly and destructive. The people responsible for starting a war rank at the very top of the worst of the worst list. Had CJ and CV had a decent education, instead of being schooled in the values of the prevailing order, they could easily have seen through the vulgar lies and lame excuses leading to war. Had they been able to hear, they would have heard UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and others say that the war was illegal. But they weren't listening except for hearing what was being told to them by the megaphones of the invading forces. Statements of Kofi and others got silenced into a media black hole. (And Kofi was forced to resign.) Had CJ and CV had a decent education they would know that history holds not a single example of a war of invasion started by good guys. Not one. Ever! Invaders start a war as an enterprise of conquest. Always! Had these citizens had a decent education instead of being schooled to trust the powers that govern them, they wouldn't be floating in a bubble of bullshit in a fairy tale. Even if we accept all the deaths attributed to bin Laden, the total doesn't come up to half of 1% of the people killed due to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. But while it's legitimate to pee on bin Laden's pebble, the killing fields of Bush are off limits. A good deal of this perversion can be attributed to the "balanced" information of the NYT and its sister newspapers throughout the North Atlantic Empire. It takes a well-schooled and poorly-educated individual to claim that the New York Times is a well-balanced source of information. My email correspondence with psychologist CV dealt with an article praising Israel for its strong economy in a time when other countries were experiencing economic crisis. The article forgot to mention the $3 billion Israel receives in direct and indirect aid from the USA every year. What little country wouldn't have a strong economy with a pipeline pouring in $3 billion/year? The "balanced" NYT has never questioned why little (economically strong) Israel receives nearly half of the entire USA foreign aid budget. Nor has the NYT ever questioned the legitimacy of USA's occupation of Iraq. In the "balanced" NYT Israeli and pro-Israel voices are amplified in multiple columns while Palestinian perspectives are allowed to whisper a line or two - exceptionally. The NYT has promoted a vision of the Palestine-Israel conflict as one between two relatively equal antagonists and regularly echoes Israel's ridiculous claim that it has a right to defend itself. It's as if the school bully, a 100 kg mountain of muscles, equipped with a knife and brass knuckles, cried about a need to defend himself against a 68 kg nerd on the chess team. Israel has the fifth largest military in the world; uranium tipped missiles, white phosphorous munitions, ships, tanks, gunship helicopters, attack jet fighters, body armor, nuclear weapons, you-name-it. This is "balanced" by handheld weapons. Which side in this conflict builds walls, establishes check-points, tears down homes, tears up fields and orchards, occupies the other's territory, dictates all the conditions and continually extends its settlements? It's the balance between a tiger and bunny. AND which side is attempting a holocaust against the other side. Yes, a holocaust; or genocide, ethnic cleansing or whatever you would like to call the planned elimination of the Palestinian people from turf desired by Israel. Let's look at a NYT equivalent in Sweden. _____ ISRAEL APPROVES BARRIER Israel's government has given the green light to build a barrier along the border of Egypt. A cabinet committee approved the construction yesterday of a barrier ... equipped with surveillance equipment, to obstruct people from illegally entering Israel along the 250 km border. _____ From SvD 2010.01.16 Just as the NYT fails to mention a 3 billion dollar chunk of meat when describing Israel's economic stew, SvD serves another Israeli dish and neglects to mention the main ingredient, Gaza. The massive concrete slabs of the barrier will start along the border between Gaza and Egypt. SvD's balanced reporting doesn't allow it to question Israel's right to erect a concrete wall DEEP INTO THE EARTH between these two countries. The mention of the surveillance equipment is a diversion. The Gaza border is already tightly sealed above ground. The purpose of the new barrier is to block the underground tunnels, one of the few remaining avenues of supplies to the imprisoned people of Gaza. Even the word imprisoned distorts the reality of Gaza, which, for all practical purposes, should be called a concentration camp, if not a death camp. When the American based organization Middle East Children's Alliance asked children in Gaza what they wanted most of all, the children said, "A glass of water in the morning," or, "A drink of water at school." (Israel knocked out 30% of the water lines during the Christmas bombings.) Israel doesn't permit even the most basic necessities such as medical supplies, cooking oil or any number of everyday items to enter Gaza. Chocking off the means of existence is nothing other than a vicious policy of slow genocide. You don't need an advanced education to figure out the equation: (lack of clean water) x (lack of cooking oil) x (lack of medicine) = ? Transporting the people off to isolated death camps is logistically expensive and politically dangerous. Death by deprivation of essentials is slow, but cheap, and there's a good chance that the balanced media can fit the entire episode into a black hole. What the war criminals and their slimy servants forget is that when the bubbles of bullshit burst (and they always burst), a lot of people in high places will find themselves in deep shit. © Joel Miller/BenTarZ ⇐ Back - 06 Patriotism Next - 08 Cotes & Rotes ⇒ |