Anonymous Sources have become principal sources for some MSM outlets like the New York Times. The problem with unnamed sources is that no one can ever question them, test them, or counter-punch accurately, because they are just shadows. Much like using the town gossip for information, unnamed sources are unreliable sources. There is never any telling if one has been fed the truth or just a load of good’ol Alberta night soil from the corral.
In the War on Us, some are asking if the NYT isn’t becoming the enemy. Malkin has some fun with the traitorous New York Times and its self-appointed role as guardian of “public interest”. CLICK
Cross-posted @ Cjunk
Loose lips sink ships. Loud mouth Liberals who cause Allied deaths by their loud mouths should be held accountable meaning, SHOT.
Perhaps then it will sink in that we are at WAR.
That is the problem. People don’t know we are at war. Although Bush was clear after 9/11 that we are at war with an ideology that espouses terror these people, read Liberals, don’t get it. The Liberal bulb doesn’t get bright enough to realize that unless the enemy has a Nazi symbol or a rising sun that someone else could be an enemy. I say that Liberalism, actually not even Liberalism because the enemy has hijacked Liberalism, is the real enemy.
If revealing National Security matters to the enemy causes death to our troops then whomsoever the treasonous are should be put to death. Especially if it’s the MSM!
I dont particularly support the presence of allied forces in iraq. wmds or democracy or oil or ME stability or any other rationale.
nevertheless there are 100s of 1000s of mil. personnel so the NYT needs to SHUT THE %@$%##$@ UP with regards to tipping off the opposition.
and in pursuit of that objective, if we are indeed ‘at war’ with terrorists, ummm, isnt there a clause or subsection somewhere to MAKE them shut the %#$@^#% up?
the fatality count from the occupation is nearing the body count from 9/11. does anyone else see the irony? we dont need THIS kind of thing speeding up the date the counts match.
I do agree with RobertJ. Regardless of whether or not you agree with the war, it is still being fought. If the Libs claim they oppose the war but support the troops, then they should protect the lives of the troops and shut the hell up. Simple really. But I am afraid that C-Junk’s thread about the Libs needing America to lose in Iraq is all too true.
Every time I read about another NYT ‘anonymous’ source story, I am reminded of that Kubrick classic Dr. Strangelove (punch up the “memorable quotes” if you’re so inclined).
In short…
[after learning of the Doomsday Machine]
President Merkin Muffley: But this is absolute madness, Ambassador! Why should you *build* such a thing?
Ambassador de Sadesky: There were those of us who fought against it, but in the end we could not keep up with the expense involved in the arms race, the space race, and the peace race. At the same time our people grumbled for more nylons and washing machines. Our doomsday scheme cost us just a small fraction of what we had been spending on defense in a single year. The deciding factor was when we learned that your country was working along similar lines, and we were afraid of a doomsday gap.
President Merkin Muffley: This is preposterous. I’ve never approved of anything like that.
Ambassador de Sadesky: Our source was the New York Times.
…and the inevitable “Doomsday Gap” reference follows.
I listened to a Vancouver radio talk show host interview Cindy Sheehan today.
He made a comment I thought was interested.
He said to Sheehan(paraphrased)”Do you think the media is steeping up the heat now because they feel that they didn’t do enough questioning of the
government when they were planning to invade Iraq.
So who the f**K made the media the official spokeman for the public? Oh yea, I forgot, there liberals, aren’t they.
Horny Toad
What does everyone here think about the outing of Valerie Palme by anonymous sources within the Administration?
Nothing implied, just genuinely curious. I hate all this anonymous sourcing bullshit.
Regards,
Right. When London is again bombed for 300 consecutive nights then I’ll believe we’re in a war that we might conceivably lose. What sickens me about you right wingers is your distrust when it comes to paying taxes for schools and roads and single mothers in your own country and your utter imbecilic devotion to killing the poor in Iraq or whatever “rogue state threatening global security” for the most obvious and vulgur Western economic benefit. So much for your much heralded patriotism. Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press only matter to you when your own views are espoused. When you don’t agree, the NYT is betraying the STATE and its reporters should be SHOT. That most of the MSM is owned by corporations that have a vested interest in success in Iraq seems irrelevant to you. That people on the right have the gall to compare this campaign to WW2 is an insult to all of the heroes who died in Europe and the Pacific in the fight against fascism. Brave work in Iraq and elsewhere it may be, but World War it ain’t. Sorry to pop your nationalistic bubble. Killing poverty stricken extremists befuddled by rich religious overlords doesn’t seem very heroic to me. You should be ashamed of yourselves. If “freedom” as its defined by the right wing was really important our brave troops would have been in Darfur and a multitude of other global hotspots eons ago. That there is frequent and continued reference to killing “lefties” on this site is disturbing to me. I suppose these comments may be construed as those of a “troll”, but given the level of discourse on this site, I couldn’t care less. Goodnight.
Right. When London is again bombed for 300 consecutive nights then I’ll believe we’re in a war that we might conceivably lose. What sickens me about you right wingers is your distrust when it comes to paying taxes for schools and roads and single mothers in your own country and your utter imbecilic devotion to killing the poor in Iraq or whatever “rogue state threatening global security” for the most obvious and vulgur Western economic benefit. So much for your much heralded patriotism. Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press only matter to you when your own views are espoused. When you don’t agree, the NYT is betraying the STATE and its reporters should be SHOT. That most of the MSM is owned by corporations that have a vested interest in success in Iraq seems irrelevant to you. That people on the right have the gall to compare this campaign to WW2 is an insult to all of the heroes who died in Europe and the Pacific in the fight against fascism. Brave work in Iraq and elsewhere it may be, but World War it ain’t. Sorry to pop your nationalistic bubble. Killing poverty stricken extremists befuddled by rich religious overlords doesn’t seem very heroic to me. You should be ashamed of yourselves. If “freedom” as its defined by the right wing was really important our brave troops would have been in Darfur and a multitude of other global hotspots eons ago. That there is frequent and continued reference to killing “lefties” on this site is disturbing to me. I suppose these comments may be construed as those of a “troll”, but given the level of discourse on this site, I couldn’t care less. Goodnight.
craig?
Snore…
Hey craig,
You cared enough to puke all over your’ keyboard.
Howzabout some solutions, eh?
Steve
Thats the job of the media in an open and free society.
Otherwise the government will do harm to its people.
That same stuff at the site can be seen at the cspan site.
Stir the pot a bit then people will give up their right to know.
everyone scared yet?
The government runs the state for the people. Sometimes those in government abuse the trust that is put in them. That is where the MSM is supposed to step in for the people and call them on it.
In a democracy it is imperative that poeple are well informed as to what their government is doing in their name. The people trust that the governments they elect will work in their best interests. This trust that people put in government is rarely returned by government.
As governments get increasingly sophisicated in their ability to snoop into the privacy of everyones most intimate affairs they become increasingly secretive and distrustful of the people they serve.
The war on terror has given government an excuse or reason to pull out all the stops, checks, balances and counterbalances(like media) are left out of the picture. No one is informed, or asked if its good, proper, legal, moral or even wanted by the people. These things are just done because they can be and something may be discovered.
The recent disclosure that the government is looking at financial records by the thousands were shocking to some. We were assured that only suspicious records are looked at. When the undersecretary of the treasury was asked what percentage actually lead to anything at all in terms of followup he said it was less than 10%.
So over 90% the people who had their financial privacy violated by government will never receive an apology or be informed at all that they don’t have financial privacy. This is all done without oversight. No warrants, no judges, just bureaucrats in sealed rooms combing through documents at will.
Forty years ago a scenario like this would have had people shaking their heads and saying, “Yeah, those communist states have mastered the big brother techniques so well no one has privacy. They even have neighbours spying on one another. The government encourages it!”
In this new world old communist techniques are new American practices, using highly modern upgrades of course. Now those that most feared those communists and their 1984 ways are defending them. Because this is different.
Yes, it is different. We have lose groupings of ill-equiped, ill-informed, ill-trained, terrorists who are looking for ways to make a grand statement. Scary enough.
Is this more dangerous than the threat of thermo-nuclear war that we faced for forty years? That threat was backed up with highly trained agents, diplomats, and governments that spent a lot of time, effort and money focusing on ways to defeat the west. Did we have our rights taken away all those years? No.
It is one thing to have rights suspended for a few years in a crisis like WW2. It is quite another to have them suspended indefinitely, maybe forever. Just pray that all future governments are filled with good, just, moral people. Our freedom may depend on it.
Polemical vacuous tendancies aside, secret warrants, suspended liberties, righteous anti-war zealots and hawkish war mongerers are hardly something new to our age. If government is for the people, by the people, to quote a very un-popular Republican war President, then the press might need to be accountable to someone, don’t you think? If Trudeau can suspend 800 years of common law [habeus corpus etc.] and declare martial law and “let the bleeding hearts bleeds,” and still get re-elected, then perhaps the press ought to be circumspect during perilous times. FDR would have jailed newspaper owners if they hadn’t followed his dictates, and if you read your history stevied, you’d know that FDR made Machiavelli look like a grade-schooler.
Journalism requires ethics. Publishing classified material is not ethical. Period.
craig – the war against islamic fascism is not being fought between two military forces; the terrorists don’t have planes, don’t wear uniforms. The war is a terrorist war. So, your requirement for 300 nights of bombing by the Other Military Force is inadequate as the ‘only definition of war’.
Kindly provide proof of the ‘right’ rejection of taxes for roads, schools and single mothers. (?).
What economic and vulgar benefit is the West obtaining from the war against Islamic fascism? Do you think that the WTC bombing provides an economic benefit?
Yes, the Islamic fascists are killing Muslims, both poor and not-poor, in Iraq and elsewhere. What’s your point?
We all have, or ought to have, a ‘vested interest in success in Iraq’. Democracy in the ME is the basic key to the end of Islamic fascism.
What is comparable about this war and WWII, is that the ‘other side’s’ agenda is, like that of WWII, fascist and expansionist.
No, Islamic fascists are not ‘poverty-stricken extremists. They may be extremist but the ‘root cause’ of this fascism is an agenda of tribal power over people. If there’s any poverty, it is due strictly to these tribal overlords who refuse to empower their people within an industrial economy.
Remember, Darfur is also about the Islamic power agenda; in this case, it’s added ethnicity, where arab Muslims are killing black Muslims. In Iraq, it was one Muslim (Hussein) tribe killing other Muslim tribes. The war in the ME is the more important, for it affects the whole ME.
Why don’t you write to the UN to go into Darfur? Don’t you believe in the UN, or should the US and Americans be the only ones responsible for the entire world?
craig, whoever you are: The War in Iraq reduced to: “Killing poverty stricken extremists befuddled by rich religious overlords doesn’t seem very heroic to me”. This piffle doesn’t seem very convincing to me. (I refer you to the fine postings of ET on this subject so you may educate yourself.)
You also state, “That there is frequent and continued reference to killing ‘lefties’ on this site is disturbing to me”. Perhaps you could reference that. I read a lot of posts here. I’d agree that the general level of fondness for the Left is pretty low. But “killing” them? It’s libel to make statements like yours which are untrue. PROVE your point, please.
BTW, if you were referring to Rick’s post at the top of this thread, he didn’t even suggest “killing ‘lefties'”. He’s talking TREASON, craig–do you know what that is?–and what should happen to traitors. (It happens that in this war the traitors do tend to be lefties. However, contrary to your myopic viewpoint, Rick doesn’t suggest harm to any old lefty, just the traitors. There’s a big difference here, craig. I hope you get it.)
steved – we need, not just ‘good just moral people’ but, those ‘good just moral’ conclusions have to be based on empirical reality and reasoned analysis of that empirical reality.
That is what is missing in your outline – empirical reality and reasoned analysis.
You inform us that gov’t operates as an individual with psychological intent to harm The People. You provide no proof of this and no analysis, other than your conclusion that it happens as technology becomes sophisticated. Proof?
You ignore the electronic network that is our modern day reality. Privacy, or the absolute control of the data of our identity doesn’t exist anymore. Our lives and thus our identities operate on two levels. There is the normal material reality of our spatial and temporal boundaries. We are, more or less, in control of this reality. And there is the electronic data reality which has no spatial and no temporal boundaries. Because this electronic data is aspatial and atemporal, we can’t control it. It’s accessible to anyone who connects to the network. This includes hackers, criminals, and the gov’t. I think you’ll have to adjust to the fact that there is no longer ONE of you, but TWO. And you have no control over that ‘second self’.
You can’t compare forty years ago to now. The Internet has only been in existence for about 10 years. The change in the mode of expressing information, from the written text to the electronic, and the incredible change in the mechanics of this electronic communication, means that we are in a different operational world.
ET!
Is there any chance you have your own blog or cyber venue? if it were up to me, I’d like you to run something important, like Ontario! Or maybe, the Health Care system. I hate to sound like a school kid but “I am not worthy” of your posts. But please, please continue this excellence.
In an earlier thread, I asked “Are there any laws which deal with treason as propogated by the media?” I said that there should be. Does anyone know, at this point, if there are such laws on the books and if so, why they’re not being used?
It also seems to me that the Left operates very much out of the infantile position of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” ‘Nevermind that “my friend” is a terrorist threat to every democratic freedom we in the West have laboured long and hard to nurture and protect.
Like children who take most of their comforts for granted, Lefties seems to think that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are simply a given, to be had without a fight, never mind that our democratic status quo is under heavy shelling at the moment by a ruthless enemy who, if they win, will have us all in servitude.
I notice that craig was offering his unsubstantiated tirade against the Right in the wee small hours of the morning, which has me wondering if he was in some drink- or drug-induced stupor. No excuse, in any case.
Like lookout and ET, I’d like some proof of your accusations against those of us who support this war on terrorism. Give facts to back up your claims that we endorse “killing Lefties” or have an “utter imbecilic devotion to killing the poor in Iraq” just for starters.
Take a look, craig, at why so many people in the ME are poor. Don’t you think that the Sheiks and tribal leaders, with all of their money and resources, could ensure the education, productivity, and adequate standard of living for their own people?
Take the blinkers from your own eyes before you start accusing others of mythical, factless, wrongdoing.
I have to agree with JRB, ET’s posts are fantastic and I have learned so much from reading them! I hope ET also blogs on the Liberal and “Progressive” blogs so that they might understand a little of what is actually going on in the M.E.. The problem, of course, is that ET would probably end up with much venom and hatred spewed at him/her so I don’t blame ET if he/she doesn’t want to post on those blogs (I have already seen some of Robert McLelland’s “responses” to ET’s posts – horrendous!! If they can’t reasonably debate a point they revert to personal attacks, typical!!)
jrb- many thanks. No, I don’t have a blog; the mere thought of the time, work, and technical expertise involved, has me running. Far away.
I do operate an electronic journal, but its themes of information generation and transformation within the biological and social realms can be pretty abstract. And, as I’m retired and getting lazier, there are fewer issues per year even for that journal.
This, about dhimmitude, from David Warren today: craig, when you wake up, you might wish to educate yourself:
“Britain’s Daily & Sunday Telegraphs have been doing some good reporting on
the persecution of Christians in Islamdom, recently, in which I’ve noticed
they’ve been using Catholic sources & contacts (which Western media seldom
do). The piece I have patched below, on Pakistan, touches more points than
I’ve seen in any MSM piece lately.
“Another piece that appeared in this morning’s paper, on the persisting use
of such terms as “apes” & “swine” to describe Christians & Jews in Saudi
textbooks — both at home & in Saudi-financed schools around the world —
may be found at this link:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/25/wsaudi25.xml
&sSheet=/news/2006/06/25/ixnews.html
“But returning to Pakistan: my acquaintance with the persecution of
Christians in Lahore goes back to our cook, Bill, & the other Christian
servants my family sometimes employed when I was a child, & to my attendance
at St Anthony’s [Catlick] School, & Mrs Abbadi’s [Christian] Kindergarten
before it. There was far less persecution then, but it was taken for granted
that Pakistani Christians kept their heads down, & made constant gestures of
self-humiliation towards the Muslim people around them. And while the
Pakistani politicians had not yet written blasphemy against Islam into their
British-inherited law codes, Christians could be killed at any moment as the
result of an informal charge of blasphemy by any Muslim with whom they had
the misfortune to do business. Then as now, the threat of such a charge was
used to support extortion & blackmail; & as throughout Islamic history, the
Christian “dhimmis” were looked upon as a source of easy money; & of women
that young Muslim men could feel free to abuse. Even at the age of eight &
nine I was aware, further, that you did not talk about such things, for
talking attracted trouble & made everything worse.
“Bill, the cook, would tell you things that had happened to members of his
family in the most straightforward way. When his son, for instance, was made
to walk through hot coals by some Muslim boys, he treated it as if it were
some kind of playground accident that only required medical attention. It
wouldn’t occur to him to have charges laid against his son’s persecutors,
since doing so would obviously lead to the extinction of his whole family.
(Luckily for Bill, he had my father to pay his son’s costs at the Christian
hospital. Now, almost all the hospitals were Christian, founded by
missionaries like pretty much all the decent schools.)
“Things get mildly better or worse, from decade to decade, for dhimmis in
Islamic societies, but essentially, plus ça change, plus c’est la meme
chose.
“Indeed, Pakistan has not changed, structurally, since British times, & I was
amused the other day to learn that the British have been helping the
Pakistani Army deal with the usual problems in the North-West Frontier, by
getting their officers to read old military manuals, such as Report on
Waziristan & its Tribes, published 1901. For everything in them remains
relevant today, & the tactics the British developed to control the tribes &
their mad mullahs remain, though brutal, the only effective ones. (The more
sentimental approach the Americans have been trying have not worked nearly
as well. Yes, these Pushtoons are wonderful people — all primitive peoples
are — but they are violent savages & you do not go to them without a big
stick.)”
craig and the rest of you on that side: Reality’s not very pretty. You may wear rose colured glasses if you wish, but this brings neither honour to you nor–as NKOTB points out–will it protect our hard won freedoms in the West. (It’s a good thing our fathers and grandfathers were made of much sterner stuff than you guys or we’d all be Nazi dhimmis.)
ET,
Well, thank you again. It is my pleasure and I’ll admit to creating a compliation of your posts from a few weeks back on Tribalism in the ME. And, it seems to me, I have shared with colleagues those remarks with many as I have been inundated with questions about why terrorists exist in cells in Canada. I reside in Iowa and the natives great affection for my homeland was disturbed by the arrest of alleged terrorism there. Thanks to your illuminated views, I was able to disabuse them of the notion that Canada is exempt from a attck for holding values antiethical to the islamists.
Thats the job of the media in an open and free society.
How about an open media in a free society. It’s cheap and easy for the NYT’s to abuse, as it repeatedly does, anonymous sources. If a source can’t be verified and examined for accuracy, then what’s the point? Are we to take the Times word on it? The lesson learned from Dan “fake, but accurate” Rather, a big fish at a big network at the time, remember, was that the MSM is capable of all manner of irresponsibility especially when they are invested in advancing an agenda.
Let’s put this hypothetically on a personal level. You’re accused in front of the congregation by the minister of cheating on your wife. He was told by an anonymous source, but won’t reveal it. Unfair, irresponsible, you say, but is it not what the NYT’s is doing?
As to the source, why, if they are so factually correct and principled, don’t they come forward? Most likely in this case they are one of the politicized anti-Bush holdovers in the CIA. See:
townhall.com/opinion/columns/lindachavez/2006/04/26/195105.html
Congressman: charge newspapers over reports on terrorist-tracing program
WASHINGTON (AP) – The chairman of the House homeland security committee urged the Bush administration on Sunday to seek criminal charges against newspapers that reported on a secret financial-monitoring program used to trace suspected terrorists …-
google news
I find it interesting that whenever the media or liberals mention how awful domestic spying is, they never mention the fact that the ECHELON program has been around since the 60’s, and that the Clinton administration was already using ECHELON to monitor communications within the US long before the Bush administration started doing it. In fact, Canada is a member of the ECHELON program, and has been for a long time. Yes, it’s all just an American, right wing conspiracy.
I’m afraid I haven’t the time, energy or inclination to address the numerous tepid stock responses to my previous comment.
However, I will say that the notion of killing members of the press because they print information hurtful to the State’s agenda sounds just as oppresive as Communist Russia under Stalin. That such a comment meets with approval here truly boggles my mind. I thought you tough, rugged individualist right-wingers were against government control, not devoted to it.
The poor in a place like Saudi Arabia and other ME nations are indeed dominated by brutally undemocratic regimes. Why haven’t we brought our brand of “freedom” there, if we’re really so concerned with liberty and democracy in the ME. Oh yeah, I forgot, the KING who’s been ruling Saudi Arabia is willing to play ball economically, so the people there don’t need the kind of “freedom” the lucky ones in Iraq are getting right now.
No, craig, the reason you won’t reply is because you don’t have the answers to our comments, questions and critique of your ‘tepid stock commentary’. No answers at all.
Who, seriously, craig, is advocating killing members of the press? Try another red herring. Or, answer our questions.
ALL the ME countries are tribal. The way to deal with it is to introduce democracy in the peripheral, less military controlled areas, such as Iraq, and allow that process to disseminate and filter through the whole area. That’s called strategic thinking. It’s operative everywhere in the natural world. And in chess.
I’m glad you are pleased with the way things are going in Iraq. I agree; they are indeed ‘lucky’ to have that freedom, enabled by the US and coalition, such as the UK, Australia, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, Italy and etc. And, they are fighting for that freedom. The old tribal warlords want their power; they don’t want democracy. And the neighbouring nations don’t want democracy either – hence the imported insurgents into Iraq. But, it’s there, it’s taking root, and democracy will spread.
It’s not easy, to change a social infrastructure that has been only tribal, and then, a tribal military dictatorship, to a democracy. The infrastructure of a civic society, such as a constitution, a parliament, the notion of representation by contract rather than by kinship, a set of laws and so on, aren’t there. But there is no choice. Tribalism is disastrous for a population in the multi-millions. And industrialism can’t function within tribalism.
And, to change a centralized state-run system, which was not only corrupt but had over the past decade, crumbled the local economies to nothing, to a market economy – is an equally daunting task. You aren’t building up from something; you are building from nothing.
So, it will take time. Was there an alternative? Could one sit back and let ‘time do the work’? That was the presumption in 1991. It didn’t work. Tribalism led to fascism and this fascism, rather than imploding within and remaining internal, moved outside the tribal state and into the West. The West had no choice; it had to destroy the tribal infrastructure, to disable the fascism.
New York Times: Yesterday, Today, Forever: A bloated pig, flatulence incarnate, swill-pushers; Exhibit: accepting copy, in June 1931, from Duranty, a pervert, a lackey of Stalin.
Note the Times’s b***s**t: “Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES”(sic); complete with Capitalization. IMPRESSIVE. not…-
Walter Duranty – Red Russia of Today – New York Times – June 1931
By WALTER DURANTY. Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES. PARIS, June 13.—Russia today cannot be judged by Western standards or Interpreted in Western terms. …
http://www.colley.co.uk/garethjones/soviet_articles/duranty_1931_1.htm – 31k
Simple solution, boycott advertisers in the NYT and send them an e-mail to that effect. Don’t buy the paper or visit their website. Innundate the reporters with e-mails protesting their ethics. Already several hundred NYT employees have been let go, due to falling circulation. Wasn’t there something a few months ago re their falsifing circulation numbers.
craig: “I’m afraid I haven’t the time, energy or inclination to address the numerous tepid stock responses to my previous comment.”
What a toddler! craig, if you’re not willing to play with the grownups, go back to bed.
I hope you read, mark, and inwardly digest ET’s fine post above. If you do that, you might have something worthwhile to say.
craig wrote: “I’m afraid I haven’t the time, energy or inclination to address the numerous tepid stock responses to my previous comment.”
Well, b***s**t, craig. If you haven’t the time, energy, or inclination to defend ridiculous allegations, then don’t make them–at least don’t make them HERE.
As for “However, I will say that the notion of killing members of the press because they print information hurtful to the State’s agenda” yada, yada, yada: WHO said that? No one, that’s who, craig.
You’re a troll, and not even an intelligent one.
Be prepared to take the time and energy and to acquire the inclination to answer well-thought- out and articulate answers to your arguments or don’t bother checking in here.
Sadly, you’re typical of all-too-many libs, who either don’t have any counter-arguments or who think so highly of themselves that they don’t have to engage in legitimate debate: ‘just sling the mud and run.
Walter Duranty, “a lackey for Stalin”, as maz2 points out, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for the vile lies he wrote about the “wonders” of the Communist system. (He covered the USSR for the NYT from 1922-1941.)
For decades, his perfidy has been amply proven. E.g., Duranty whitewashed from his reporting the Stalin-engineered famine which killed from 7 to 11 million in the Ukraine.
Ukrainians in the US have recently lobbied the Pulitzer folks to have the travesty of Duranty’s Pulitzer revoked. They’ve also asked the New York Times to disown the prize.
The result? Who’d be surprised: Being your garden variety–meaning smug, intolerant, entitled, and impervious to facts–leftists they are, both the Pulitzer committee and the NYT have so far refused.
ET: “Strategic thinking”? If the mess that is Iraq is your idea of strategy in “stabilizing” the ME, I thank heavens you’re only an anonymous blog commenter and not someone in a position to make real decisions (I hope). And how is strategic thinking operative in the “natural world”? What does this statement even mean?
The first comment left on this thread recomended killing members of the press. Or am I misreading “put to death”?
And New Kid, (nice handle, dude), I am certainly not a liberal or NDPer or any other of those neat and tidy little categories for people you may have.
craig – so what if the first comment said ‘shot’. Does that mean that all, other than this single individual, support that notion?
As for strategic thinking in the natural world, yes, it exists. The biological realm is highly interactive with environmental stimuli. For example, as the weather gets warmer, a plant might develop a thicker ‘skin’ to prevent water evaporation. A stimuli from a leaf-eating insect will activate a plant to release a chemical that will ‘call’ a bird to eat the insect. Researchers are finding more and more of these communicative processes taking place between species.
This anticipatory infrastructure is strategic in process, in that it has, not an accidental, but a constructive agenda; and most certainly, can be called ‘thought’. I don’t confine thought to our species.
I’m glad you’re back, craig. Like ET points out, though, just because “Rick” says that treasonous members of the MSM should “be put to death” is no indication that the rest of us posting here agree. As far as I’m concerned, there should be some limitations put on the MSM, if they are endangering the U.S.A.’s or Canada’s security, but putting members of the MSM in question to death is not as far as I would be willing to go.
I don’t have “neat and tidy little categories for people” as you suggest. But from what people say in their posts, it’s often not that difficult to figure out from what side of the political spectrum they hail. Given that you referred to the rest of the posters here as “you right wingers” I can only assume that you are not a right winger yourself?
re: shooting the blabbermouth press.
you dont get it mr craig, I have opposed death penalty for some 40 years now, but I would be delighted if the blabbermouth fifth columnist double agent types at NYT were ‘lined up and shot’
its a metaphor sirrah, an expression of the contempt for what they do.
regarding duranty, I saw a documentary on just that thing somewhat recently. the abysmal failings of collectivisation under stalin= millions starving, and still the hand puppet duranty keeps the pulitzer.
its one thing when the state uses the press to plant clever misinformation as the brits did during the blitz ‘hundreds of bombs fall short of city’ (they didnt, but soon after they were overshooting London) or the buildup to D-day.
its another thing entirely when reporters jeopardize lives of OUR service personnel in order to get the scoop. would they still do it if one of THEIR loved ones was over there in uniform? I didnt think so.
It’s very interesting to note that the same people who are so very vocal in their defence of the MSM are the ones who hold the same views on Iraq, the Bush administration as a whole and Canada’s relationship with the U.S. These views are the same views as those held by the Liberals and NDP. So craig’s denial of being a Liberal doesn’t really ring true.
I’d also like to point out that since it’s always Liberal/NDP types that defend the MSM is a very good indication of just *how* Liberally biased the MSM is.
The MSM have grown in power and influence with every passing year. With this growth their arrogance and elitism has also grown. Unfortunately for them this is the “tipping point”. People now have the internet and their frustration with an arrogant, eltist, press has an outlet.
If the MSM and their Liberal defenders don’t like the backlash — TOUGH. There’s nothing they can do about it.
Ah yes, good ol’ binary oppositions, the touchstone of the right wing. If you’re not with us you’re against us, if you’re not a right winger you MUST be a Liberal, blah blah blah.
So now the journalists are double agents? And their being “put to death” is a metaphor eh? Usually when people disagree on this blog, they have no problem jumping all over each other. But in the case of Rick, no one said a word about it until I brought it up. And only one person has said they disagree with him while the rest of you have defended those comments.
Meanwhile, my question about Saudi Arabia has remained untouched. Maybe it’s because everyone knows that the only freedom the West is interested in really exporting are free markets.
Craig,
So you’re against free markets? You must work for the government. The standard of living of people who are lucky enough to enjoy free markets are higher than any other type of economic system in any period of history. If you have a problem with free markets you are as economically illiterate as you are politically and historically illiterate.
As for your Saudi Arabia argument, it’s illogical. Your argument is “you didn’t free people in every country so you shouldn’t free people in any country.” This is equivalent to saying that since not all murderers are caught, we shouldn’t try and catch any murderers. It’s sophistry. It’s the argument of a half-witted child. Not doing something somewhere is no barrier or reason against doing good someone. Ditto with fighting enemies. Your foolish argument also doesn’t take cost/benefit into consideration. A country doesn’t go out to do more harm than good.
I’m presuming no one else addressed your “point” as it was unworthy of reply. I wouldn’t have bothered except you were so insistent.
As far as your hissy fit over the first comment, prior to the boomer’s coming along people knew the meaning of the word treason. The traditional punishment for treason in history has been execution. This is because treason is treated as the worst crime in a society, even more severe than murder. When you kill a person, you kill one person. When you commit treason, you could potentially endanger the entire country. At the very least you are harming the country. Military personnel are put to death by firing squad and non-military personnel are hanged. Thus, the “shoot him” argument is invalid as the traitors at the NYT would not be eligible for the firing squad – they would be hung.
Treason is a crime in every society, in every form of government on earth. It’s not “Stalinist” to take treason seriously.
Only the truly stupid and other lefties think the state doesn’t have as its first and most important duty the defence of the nation and its people. Every other duty a government has is secondary.
What the NYT and other liberal media are doing is deliberately undermining the government in its attempt at protecting the nation. There can be no easier definition of treason than this. As the media even admit, these programs are legal, necessary, effective and come with safeguards. There are no compelling reason that they need to harm their country’s interest. There are no “higher” reasons to betray your fellow countrymen. So, even though the commenter should have said that these reporters should be hung, not shot, the commenter was dead to rights.
Is that clear enough?
I don’t think anyone defends the half-ass reporting of MSM.
Seems everything some story comes out about that might make the government look complisent in wastfull spending they cry foul.
Endangering the troops.
How about the FBI buy boots and renting cars and buying disposible camaras so said terrorist can take pictures for them. LOL
Too much
But they let the Cuban-American Foundation. Live freely. Plus it depends on who they’re gonna commit terrorist acts against. Rememebr that the CIA has been training people in this art for years. They don’t like the information to get out while something can be do. Like the bombing of the cuban airline, like air Idea it was ok’d by someone in the government. But unlike the Air Idea bombing they still have the papers they released them 21 years later.
“the FBI’s attache in Caracas had multiple contacts with one of the Venezuelans who placed the bomb on the plane, and provided him with a visa to the U.S. five days before the bombing, despite suspicions that he was engaged in terrorist activities at the direction of Luis Posada Carriles.” The documents knew they were planning to blow up the Airline and let it happen.
FBI, October 9, 1976, “Unknown Subjects; Suspected Bombing of Cubana Airlines DC-8 Near Barbados, West Indies, October 6, 1976” We know now that this statement was a LIE.
Guess which Team the Terrorists joinned? CANF has since drifted a considerable amount from its traditional alliance with the Republican Party.
During the Presidential campaign last year Bush stated that “I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world.” Although Posada has reportedly been in the Miami area for more than six weeks, the FBI has indicated it is not actively searching for him.
Still living in Miami.
And thus, the insults come out.
No, Warwick, you’re wrong. As I said, the reason we haven’t gone into SA is because they play economic ball with us. The reason we don’t bring “freedom” to the North Koreans is because, presumably, they can fight back.
But thanks for your reply. You’ve proven yourself to be the reactionary Statists I thought you were weeks ago, when a friend linked to this blog as a good example of the frightening ignorance right here in Canada. Thanks.
And for the record, I’m an anarchist. Good luck to you all.
Anarchists are immature children who aren’t smart enough to figure out how the world works.
As for Saudi Arabia/North Korea drivel, I clearly added the “cost/benefit” analysis point but for Saudi Arabia you could also add massive corruption as well. The majority of diplomats and foggy bottom hacks posted to the ME work for the Saudis after they retire so they don’t want to piss off their potential employers while there. No one on this site would defend that.
You can go back to your rioting at anti-globalization “protests” now…
Iowahawk Locates Keller First Draft
Iowahawk’s team of dumpster-diving cybernetic Saint Bernards has been busy in the alley behind 43rd Street, and they’ve unearthed the first draft of New York Times editor Bill Keller’s patient explanation for the Times’ repeated exposure of secret security programs: The Banking Report: Let Me Make It Simple For You Morons.
With my hectic schedule of Pulitzer committees and Columbia Journalism School symposia, I don’t always have time to answer my mail as fully as etiquette demands. Lord knows I’ll be in the Audi headed to a Friday night ACLU cocktail benefit in the Hamptons when my Blackberry starts beeping and I have to pull over on the Long Island Expressway, and it turns out to be a text message from some idiot in Wistucky bitching about the last Krugman column. But our story about the government’s surveillance of international banking records has generated a few questions and concerns that I take very seriously. As the editor responsible for the difficult decision to publish that story, I’d like to offer a personal response. I’ll type v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y so you morons with questions and concerns finally understand.
Some of the incoming mail quotes the spittle-flecked words of conservative bloggers and TV or radio pundits who say that drawing attention to the government’s anti-terror measures is unpatriotic and dangerous. (I could ask, how does somebody that retarded get my email? Cripes, I’m going to have a long chat with Network Services this week.) Some comes from not-quite-as-stupid readers who have considered the story in question and still wonder whether publishing such material is wise. Hey, go figure. Thankfully some comes from a better class of readers who are grateful for the information, and attach e-Vites to fabulous midweek gallery openings on the Upper West Side.
It’s an unusual and powerful thing, this freedom that our founders gave to the press. Who are the editors of The New York Times (or the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Jihadi Accountant and other publications that also ran the banking story) to disregard the wishes of the President and his appointees? I’ll tell you who we are, pal. We are journalists – the people whom the inventors of this country specifically appointed to be the protectors of this little experiment we call the “human race” against the privations of out-of-control Texas Oil Nazis. And if you check your Constitution, I don’t think you’ll see anything in there about the right to clog up the press’s inbox with your stupid Rush Limbaugh talking points. …- LGF
The antidote to the swill-poison from the NYT was provided by Gareth Jones, a contemporay of Duranty and Muggeridge.
http://colley.co.uk/garethjones/index.htm
Gareth Jones’ Published Articles
As a prolific writer, Gareth left a legacy of articles published in many British newspapers including The Western Mail, The Times and the Manchester Guardian, in Germany in the Berliner Tageblatt and in American newspapers through the International News Service. These articles are a graphic and historic portrayal of the critical events of the early thirties and are worthy of an in-depth study in themselves
Below is a ‘Published Articles’ hyperlink, from where more information on Gareth’s historically noteworthy articles can be discovered, covering:
1. Gareth’s exposé of 1933 Soviet Ukrainian starvation.
2.The Rise of Hitler’s Germany.
3.His Impressions & Interviews in the Far East in 1935.
4.America, War Reparations & Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’.
5The Enigma of Ireland, 1933. …-
Find a reference to the flight into Nazi Germany, which brings Gareth Jones’s integrity up-to-date and alive. Who accompanied Jones on the flight? Why mention this? (Clue: John Kerry and Mrs. Kerry a la Heinz).
craig: “And for the record, I’m an anarchist. Good luck to you all.”
I hope that means you’re bidding us all a fond farewell, craig.
‘Bye!
NKOTB, my sentiments exactly, re craig, who proves himself to be both an intellectual and moral pygmy at every post.
Toddlers and “immature children” (Warwick), don’t have much choice in the matter and no one holds their immediate behaviour to either intellectual or moral standards. But I hold craig to such standards. (Silly me.)
craig, I’m sorry to say, your toddler behaviour is not appropriate here. Neither is it appreciated.
You’ve studiously avoided being straight up re my challenges to your knowledge and understanding of treason and dhimmitude. Merrily you roll along, altogether refusing to engage in a discussion you initiated. Unlike a toddler, who can’t help it, your behaviour is rude.
My advice stands: Smarten up. (Or try growing up: the two tend to go together.)
Hey, lookout: how about you get on one side of craig and I’ll get on the other, and we’ll just give him the old heave-ho?
‘How about it, craig? We might even be able to arrange for a soft landing…
These are the real consequences to the disclosing done by the NYT.
The total of what he had to say is important to read, and it can be found from this link…
www powerlineblog.com/archives/014515.php
“June 26, 2006
A word from Lt. Cotton
Lt. Tom Cotton writes this morning from Baghdad with a word for the New York Times:
…..Congratulations on disclosing our government’s highly classified anti-terrorist-financing program (June 23)…
Unfortunately, as I supervised my soldiers late one night, I heard a booming explosion several miles away. I learned a few hours later that a powerful roadside bomb killed one soldier and severely injured another from my 130-man company. I deeply hope that we can find and kill or capture the terrorists responsible for that bomb…..
….they require financing to obtain mortars and artillery shells, priming explosives, wiring and circuitry, not to mention for training and payments to locals willing to emplace bombs in exchange for a few months’ salary. As your story states, the program was legal, briefed to Congress, supported in the government and financial industry, and very successful.
Not anymore. You may think you have done a public service, but you have gravely endangered the lives of my soldiers and all other soldiers and innocent Iraqis here. …..
And, by the way, having graduated from Harvard Law and practiced with a federal appellate judge and two Washington law firms before becoming an infantry officer, I am well-versed in the espionage laws relevant to this story and others — laws you have plainly violated. I hope that my colleagues at the Department of Justice match the courage of my soldiers here and prosecute you and your newspaper to the fullest extent of the law. By the time we return home, maybe you will be in your rightful place: not at the Pulitzer announcements, but behind bars.
Very truly yours,
Tom Cotton
Baghdad, Iraq”
The Incredible, Bloviating, Dementia of the NYT.
The publishers/owners of the NYT: The Sulzberger family controls the company. …-
That was then
Reader Douglas Rose has drawn our attention to this September 24, 2001 New York Times editorial (“Finances of Terror”) (access limited to TimesSelect):
Organizing the hijacking of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon took significant sums of money. The cost of these plots suggests that putting Osama bin Laden and other international terrorists out of business will require more than diplomatic coalitions and military action. Washington and its allies must also disable the financial networks used by terrorists.
The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track terrorists through their money-laundering activity and is readying an executive order freezing the assets of known terrorists. Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the recruitment of specialized investigators and greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities. There must also must be closer coordination among America’s law enforcement, national security and financial regulatory agencies.
Osama bin Laden originally rose to prominence because his inherited fortune allowed him to bankroll Arab volunteers fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Since then, he has acquired funds from a panoply of Islamic charities and illegal and legal businesses, including export-import and commodity trading firms, and is estimated to have as much as $300 million at his disposal. …- powerline blog