The Mass Media Are Evil But They're Also Really Dumb, And Other Notes
The New York Times has printed an article with the headline “A North American Treaty Organization Without America?”, apparently having spent the entire Ukraine war completely unaware that NATO stands for North ATLANTIC Treaty Organization.
At the same time, CNN ran a segment on an American bomber whose plane was shot down over Iran in which analyst Amy McGrath suggested that the Iranians might help the pilot because they’re “happy” he’s bombing their country, saying the pilot would be worried because they don’t know “if you’re gonna be picked by somebody who is going to turn you over to the Iranian forces that are gonna use you and capture you, or is the population happy that you’re there?”
Really illustrates how fucked western journalism is, doesn’t it?
I mean, this is some serious baby-brained thinking on display here. That New York Times headline made it through multiple checkpoints before publication without it ever even occurring to anyone to at least do a quick Google search to find out if the A in NATO really does stand for “American”, and, if so, why are there so many European countries in it? That CNN analyst really does have such an infantile, children’s cartoon worldview on American wars that she thinks the people being bombed by American pilots will want to hug them and kiss them and give them presents when they emergency eject into enemy territory. It’s kind of amazing that any of the people involved in either of these incidents are working in news media at all.
If you’ve ever wondered why so many Americans are so ignorant about what’s going on in their world, it’s because for generations these have been the kinds of people informing them about world events. These are the news outlets who’ve been responsible for creating an informed populace. And their reporting is shared with the entire western world.
I constantly criticize the western press for its role in propagandizing the public to manufacture consent for evil wars and normalize an abusive political status quo. You cannot despise these manipulators enough for their role in the world’s dysfunction today. But these two incidents highlight the fact that the people running the western press aren’t just evil — they’re also really, really stupid.
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The New York Times is also running narrative cover for Israel’s ethnic cleansing operation in Lebanon, running a story on the ethnically motivated mass expulsion with the obscene headline “Israel’s Message to Southern Lebanon: Shiites Must Go”.
The Times then goes on to make it clear that what they’re softly framing as “Israel’s message” is in fact a brazen ethnic cleansing operation, saying Israel’s evacuation orders in Lebanon apply exclusively to Shiite Muslims, while Christians and Druse may be permitted to remain as long as they don’t shelter any Shiites among them:
“As fighting reignited, Israel issued blanket evacuation guidance for a vast stretch of southern Lebanon — extending 25 miles from the Israeli border — publicly urging all civilians to flee to the north.
“But behind-the-scenes, Israeli officials have conveyed a more targeted message.
“In private calls to local leaders across southern Lebanon, Israeli military officials have assured several Christian and Druse communities that they could remain in the evacuation zone. They have pressed them, however, to force out any Lebanese from neighboring Shiite Muslim communities who have sought refuge among them as Israeli bombardment flatten Shiite towns, according to local Christian, Druse and Shiite leaders who spoke to The New York Times. The Shiites make up the majority of southern Lebanon.”
The fact that Israel is explicitly warning people of one ethnicity not to hide members of another ethnicity from the invading force which wants to eliminate them should be drawing Holocaust comparisons around the world. Instead it’s going completely ignored while the west pretends Jews are the ones in imminent danger.
In their melodramatic victim-LARPing after October 7, western Zionist Jews like Gad Saad and Daniella Greenbaum Davis promoted a social media campaign asking non-Jews “Would You Hide Me?” — as in would you hide me if there’s another Holocaust. Billionaire Sheryl Sandberg appeared in a propaganda film titled “October 8 — The Fight for the Soul of America” in which she described asking her friend “will you hide me?” after the 2023 Hamas attack, as though the western billionaire class isn’t the most coddled and least persecuted group on the entire planet.
Those same people don’t care about Lebanese Muslims hiding from Israeli Nazis.
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Whenever someone talks about antisemitism these days you need to ask them to clarify what kind of antisemitism they mean: the “I hate Jews” kind or the “I don’t want my son to die invading some place called Kharg Island” kind.
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Israel apologists are shrieking their lungs out about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying she’ll vote against US funding for Israel’s Iron Dome. The premise of these arguments is that Israel is an innocent little flower who’s just sitting there minding its own business while evil savages fire rockets, missiles and drones at it for no reason, so it requires a “defensive” weapons system to shoot down those projectiles. It is taken as a given that Americans need to pay for that system for some strange reason.
This is of course a lie. Israel is not sitting there passively receiving these attacks, it is abusing Palestinians and starting wars throughout the middle east under the assumption that it is relatively safe from return fire. The Iron Dome exists to protect Israel from the deterrence capabilities of the populations it attacks, and from the domestic political consequences of military aggression becoming unpopular among an electorate who must suffer its effects.
Calling the Iron Dome “defensive” is like looking at the armor and shield of a medieval knight and saying he must have carried those items around all the time in case someone tried to stab him while he was sitting at home playing with his children. No, those were weapons of war designed to keep the knight alive so he could kill as many enemy soldiers as possible on the battlefield without being stopped.
If you were a psychopath and suddenly discovered you had super powers which make your flesh as hard as steel, you’d probably go around beating people up, because you’d be immune from the retaliations of those you attacked. Without those powers you’d have to be a lot more diplomatic in your interactions with people, because you’d want to keep your teeth in your head. Israel is like a psychopath who’s been given powers which protect it from retaliatory strikes.
This is an entirely moderate position from AOC and should have been her stance the entire time. Those criticizing her statements are acting like it’s a second Holocaust because they want Israel to be allowed to butcher people throughout west Asia without any fear of consequences.
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"US Troops Are REFUSING to Fight in Iran War"
Iraq War veteran Mike Prysner, who works for Center on Conscience & War, explains the unprecedented number of conscientious objector (CO) applications the organization has received in the first 24 days of the illegal and immoral war against Iran, and the general sentiment among applicants. He also notes that:
"Most people in the military don't know about our organization. ... Most people in the military don't even understand CO and that CO is an actual option that they have. It's DoD policy. It's military regulation. If you have a firm belief that those beliefs are violated by you participating in war, then you're entitled to an honorable discharge after a process that the military is obligated to follow and respect your beliefs throughout that process. So, it's a powerful tool that's available to service members, but most don't even know what it is and that it's an option that exists. They think it has to be religious or pacifist or things like that. Those things are not true. And so the number of people that have called us and wanted to start applications represents a very small sample size. And for every one of those people that has called us, I always ask them, are there other people in your unit that agree with you? They always say yes. They say that there's other people who want to file a CO but are too scared and intimidated. And there's even more people than that who agree that the war is wrong, wish they didn't have to take part in it, but don't see any other option and feel like they just have to go along with it."
"And again, all this surge came even before we were talking about a ground war and invading. The people that are calling us and saying that they don't want to take part in this, they're not people that think they are going to die. They're not people who are thinking I got to get out of this because I'm not willing to die in this war I don't agree with. These are people who do not want to hurt people in Iran for a war they do not agree with."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GckKhP6bmA
Being continually hit upside the head with a checkbook does tend to distract the mind.