From here. A follow up comment:
One of my clients claimed that Russia was financing and providing arms to ISIS.....The host of "Here and Now" is Robin Young, who brags of "25 years of broadcasting experience." Translation: When a neocon says "Blow me," she drops down so fast that her knees punch two evenly-spaced holes in the concrete. (I'll apologize for that last remark when Young apologizes for that insane statement about Putin and Assad.) For more about NPR, go here.
UPDATE: A reader informs me that the inane comment was probably made by substitute host Indira Lakshmanan, not Robin Young. So apologies to Young; please apply insult to Lakshmanan. I'm not feeling too apologetic because, at this moment, I'm just too damned pissed off at our whole warmongering media infrastructure. It's 2003 all over again.
9 comments:
My comment from a very recent article of yours...."Allegedly when a moment of silence was announced at a public sports event in Turkey, the fans BOOED. Turkey seems to get very little scrutiny. May I assume they own an atom bomb or two? So Turkish forces would be used in Syria?" end quote.
I hope the US did not put Turkey up to shooting down the Russian Plane, and I also hope that the US sides with Russia instead of Turkey.
Seriously, neocons? You wanna f**k with THIS guy?
And from the Wall Street Journal: Turkey's Warning Shot:
"More recently, the Turks summoned Russia’s ambassador to Ankara after an attack on ethnic Turkmen in Syria. 'It was stressed that the Russian side’s actions were not a fight against terror, but they bombed civilian Turkmen villages and this could lead to serious consequences,' according to Turkey’s foreign ministry. This fits the Russian pattern of bombing enemies of the Assad regime except Islamic State — a useful reminder that Mr. Putin is not a fit partner in the coalition to fight ISIS." (emphasis added)
No shit!
Has anyone got a reasonable explanation here other than that the US government wants war with Russia?
I started listening to NPR in the early 1980s when I lived in a cabin in the woods with no TV. What I most appreciated about it was that it was one of very few American media that considered reporting of foreign events worthwhile. I always considered it rather subversive (one of my friends called it "The Commie News")and I was always afraid to give them any money because I feared that doing so might get me on some kind of government list.
When I saw "Fahrenheit 9/11" I was stunned. I asked myself "Why didn't I hear about any of this stuff on NPR?" And then after the discrepancies between the 2004 vote counts recorded electronically and the exit polls I was stunned to hear a program host (Schieffer? Simon?) sneer at exit polls.
Then we have these breathless young women holding forth on military strategy as if they knew anything about it, and weren't simply repeating what some handsome PR flack in cammos was telling them.
And then there were these constant reports of "sectarian violence" every time a car bomb blew up in a market square in Iraq--as if they had gone out to the site, interviewed the witnesses, as if the perps had been identified, and as if they knew who had done it. And when any reasonable person has to suspect that Blackwater had done it to make themselves indispensible in the chaos, they violated journalistic ethics by reporting as facts what were only speculations on their part.
Joseph, when I started following you around 2005 or so you impressed me with your understanding of journalistic ethics--an understanding that greatly exceeds that of these NPR folks. Brad Friedman was another one who demonstrated such understanding. We need you guys to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted and try to keep our country honest. Thank you for your service to our country.
In the context of Ukraine and Syria, NPR stands for NATO Propaganda Regurgitation.
PhilK
I strongly second Anonymous @7:33's sentiments.
Joseph, you most definitely owe Robin Young an apology, since she is on vacation this week. The reporter was a substitute, Indira Lakshmanan. Let me add that I have been one of Robin Young's fans for years. She has always struck me as one of the most human and decent people I hear on the radio. She never forgets that she's talking about human beings, which is something I'd expect you to appreciate.
You might even have heard of her in the aftermath of the Marathon bombing. She knew Dzokhar Tsarnaev because he was good friends with her nephew and had been one of the guests at the graduation party she hosted for her nephew. She never joined the stampede of demonization, nor did she make excuses. Instead, she focused on what she knew (and also got her nephew interviews on other shows besides her own) and tried to keep reporting on the bombing factual.
I did not hear the show live, but I just listened to the segment online (http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2015/11/23/brussels-lockdown-raids) and suggest that you do the same. I think the context of the question is relevant. Additionally, the guest, a security analyst from MIT, is clearly not a neocon and spends most of the interview debunking neocon fearmongering. This is one time you should have done your homework.
Also, a bit of trivia from the Small World Department. Robin Young lives on the same one-block-long street near Harvard Square as Priscilla McMillan.
I also started listening to NPR in the 80's. They were independent and very critical of the Reagan (read Bush 1) administration's CIA war in Nicaragua and somewhat anti-corporate.
Not any more. Reagan threatened to defund them and All-Things-Independent became All-Things-Lapdog.
That was a great link to the expose' on NPR, thanks.
PS.. Remember when a friend of Victor Marchetti's son (Marchetti wrote The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence) shot up CIA headquarters during the morning commute to HQ?
I may have to review and do a piece on that.
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