Fox News on PBS

[Comadreja]

I thought maybe Tucker Carlson had an epiphany or something to start a 1/2 hour commentary on PBS, but I was soon disabused of that hope. He and his two "experts" were pontificating on Iraq, and they closed with the observation that voters will be glad that "we" closed down a "hotbed of terrorist training!" This is US corporate media misinformation at its worst.

A letter to the editor that I sent was rejected because it said I had no basis to claim that the political talkies such as "Meet the Press" seldom if ever interview actual Iraqis who are opposed to the Occupation. In fact, it is rare that they interview even Americans or anyone else who questions the whole Neocon rationale for being in Iraq. Has anyone else seen any mainstream media debate or roundtable discussion including Arabs or anti-war spokespersons that asked the question "Is it really about oil and power?" Usually it is a panel of American or Israeli experts asking "Iraq, where to from here?" The same has become true of the Palestinian occupation. I can remember when a very articulate, reasonable and persuasive Palestinian woman was given some air time. She gradually appeared less and less, going to a phone interview occasionally. Now I cannot even remember her name, it has been so long. Perhaps she was taken out by a Hellfire missile.

"The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent. "Of course, it is possible for any citizen with time to spare, and a canny eye, to work out what is actually going on, but for the many there is not time, and the network news is the only news even though it may not be news at all but only a series of flashing fictions..." : Gore Vidal

[alittlelark]

1. Why would they???

In any round-table discussion they would be annihilated. Why would they do that? WHY???!!!???

[Comadreja]

3. Who do you mean?

The media whores or the Arabs?

"Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." : Mark Twain. The Mysterious Stranger 1916.

[alittlelark]

4. The Israelis are playiing games for which rules

have been neither concieved of or written.

[jeff30997]

2. LOL ! I love the cartoon.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

5. ...............

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

6. Sad that Sports Illustrated, of all places, is one of the only places

I've seen where Iraqis fiercely against the war have been interviewed...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/olympics/2004/writers/08/19/iraq/index.html

But they also find it offensive that Bush is using Iraq for his own gain when they do not support his administration's actions. "My problems are not with the American people," says Iraqi soccer coach Adnan Hamad. "They are with what America has done in Iraq: destroy everything. The American army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom when I go to the stadium and there are shootings on the road?"


snip

Sadir, Wednesday's goal-scorer, used to be the star player for the professional soccer team in Najaf. In the city in which 20,000 fans used to fill the stadium and chant Sadir's name, U.S. and Iraqi forces have battled loyalists to rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr for the past two weeks. Najaf lies in ruins.

"I want the violence and the war to go away from the city," says Sadir, 21. "We don't wish for the presence of Americans in our country. We want them to go away."

Manajid, 22, who nearly scored his own goal with a driven header on Wednesday, hails from the city of Fallujah. He says coalition forces killed Manajid's cousin, Omar Jabbar al-Aziz, who was fighting as an insurgent, and several of his friends. In fact, Manajid says, if he were not playing soccer he would "for sure" be fighting as part of the resistance.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

7. .......