Posts Tagged ‘CENSORSHIP’
9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, ASSOCIATED PRESS, BARACK OBAMA, BIRTHERS, CBS NEWS, CENSORSHIP, CNN, CREDIBILITY GAP, DAVID BROOKS, DAVID HALBERSTAM, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FRANK STANTON, FULL METAL JACKET, GEORGE MCGOVERN, HILLARY CLINTON, JOHN F. KENNEDY, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MARK SHIELDS, MORLEY SAFER, NAVY SEALS, NBC NEWS, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PBS NEWSHOUR, PETER ARNETT, RICHARD NIXON, RONALD ZIEGLER, STANLEY KUBRICK, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, VIETNAM WAR, WATERGATE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 30, 2016 at 1:31 am
For five years, Donald Trump, more than anyone else, popularized the slander that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya–and was therefore not an American citizen.
In April, 2011, Obama released the long-form version of his Hawaiian birth certificate. Still, Trump questioned its–and Obama’s–legitimacy.
For more than a year during his 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump continued doing so.
Meanwhile, Trump’s popularity steadily fell among blacks. In June, 2016, a Quinnipiac poll revealed that Trump had 1% of support from black voters–while 91% of black voters backed Hillary Clinton.
Even the managers of Trump’s campaign urged him to put the “birther” issue behind him.
And so, on September 16, 2016–10 days before his scheduled first debate with Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton–Trump made his version of a reversal.
Donald Trump: “President Barack Obama was born in the United States.”
He did so in about seven seconds and 40 words–after spending a half hour paying tribute to the military and promoting his new upscale hotel in Washington, D.C.:
“Now, not to mention her in the same breath, but Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy.
“I finished it. I finished it. You know what I mean.
“President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period. Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again.”
His tone made it clear that he felt uneasy making that statement–and wanted to get it over with as fast as possible.
He refused to take questions from reporters covering the event. Nor did he apologize for his five-year campaign of slander.
On the evening of September 16, Hillary Clinton strongly responded to Trump’s comments:
“For five years, he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president. His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie. There is no erasing it in history.”
And First Lady Michelle Obama slammed Trump for his “birther” claims:
“Then, of course, there were those who questioned, and who continue to question for the past eight years, and up to this very day, whether my husband was even born in this country.
“Well, during his time in office, I think Barack has answered those questions with the examples he set, by going high when they go low. And he’s answered these questions with the progress we’ve achieved together.”
Michelle Obama
But perhaps the best perspective on this event was provided by syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks. Each Friday they appear on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
David Brooks and Mark Shields
On September 16, Shields (a liberal) and Brooks (a conservative) addressed Trump’s about-face on birtherism.
MARK SHIELDS: “I think it’s important to establish right at the outset that [Trump] wasn’t only the loudest and the highest-profile and the most persistent and the most well-publicized birther, he, Donald Trump. He lied. He lied consistently and persistently.
“And, today, without explanation or excuse, he just changed his position and tried to absolutely falsely shift the blame onto Hillary Clinton.
“And this was an appeal to–he debased democracy. He debased the national debate. He appealed to that which is most ignoble or least noble in all of us.”
DAVID BROOKS: “Usually, there’s some tangential relationship to the truth, but a corroding relationship to the truth, frankly, as politics has gone on over the years.
“But now we’re in a reverse, Orwellian inversion of the truth with this. And so we have a team of staffers and then the candidate himself who have taken the normal spin and smashed all the rules.
“And so we are really in Orwell land. We are in 1984. And it’s interesting that an authoritarian personality type comes in at the same time with a complete disrespect for even tangential relationship to the truth that words are unmoored.
“And so I do think this statement sort of shocked me with the purification of a lot of terrible trends that have been happening. And so what’s white is black, and what is up is down, what is down is up. And that really is something new in politics.
“And the fact that there is no penalty for it, apparently–he’s doing fantastic in the last two weeks in the polls–is just somehow where we have gotten.”
* * * * *
Americans were slow to recognize the dangers of their government’s committing armed forces to South Vietnam. But when the record of government lies reached critical mass, Americans demanded an end to the war.
Similarly, Americans were reluctant to brand Richard Nixon, their newly-re-elected President, a criminal worthy of impeachment. But when the evidence of his criminality steadily mounted, they demanded his ouster.
Today, Americans are flooded with overwhelming evidence of Donald Trump’s unfitness to become President. His narcissism, vindictiveness, ignorance and hair-trigger temper have been on public display for more than a year.
Yet millions of ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans plan to catapult this man–who “debased democracy, debased the national debate, appealed to that which is most ignoble or least noble in all of us”–to the Presidency.
If that happens, future historians–if there are any–may similarly condemn those Americans who stood by like “good Germans” and allowed their country to fall into the hands of a ruthless tyrant.
9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, ASSOCIATED PRESS, BARACK OBAMA, BIRTHERS, CBS NEWS, CENSORSHIP, CNN, CREDIBILITY GAP, DAVID BROOKS, DAVID HALBERSTAM, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FRANK STANTON, FULL METAL JACKET, GEORGE MCGOVERN, HILLARY CLINTON, JOHN F. KENNEDY, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MARK SHIELDS, MORLEY SAFER, NAVY SEALS, NBC NEWS, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PBS NEWSHOUR, PETER ARNETT, RICHARD NIXON, RONALD ZIEGLER, STANLEY KUBRICK, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, VIETNAM WAR, WATERGATE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 29, 2016 at 12:01 am
In 2011, Donald Trump, host of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” was thinking of running for President against Barack Obama.
Seeking to gain popularity among America’s Right-wing, Trump almost singlehandedly created the popular fiction that the President was born in Kenya–and was not an American citizen.
His motive: To convince Americans that Obama was an illegitimate President.
Donald Trump
Among the statements Trump made:
February 10, 2011: “Our current president came out of nowhere. Came out of nowhere. In fact, I’ll go a step further: The people that went to school with him, they never saw him, they don’t know who he is. It’s crazy.”
March 23, 2011: “I want him to show his birth certificate. I want him to show his birth certificate. … There’s something on that birth certificate that he doesn’t like.”
March 28, 2011: “I am really concerned” [that Obama wasn’t born in the United States]. He said that the birth announcement for Obama in a Hawaii newspaper could have been planted “for whatever reason.”
March 30, 2011: “If you are going to be president of the United States you have to be born in this country. And there is a doubt as to whether or not he was. … He doesn’t have a birth certificate. He may have one, but there’s something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim. I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want that. Or he may not have one. But I will tell you this. If he wasn’t born in this country, it’s one of the great scams of all time.”
April 7, 2011: “I have people that have been studying it, and they cannot believe what they’re finding. You are not allowed to be a president if you’re not born in this country. Right now I have real doubts.”
April 25, 2011: “I’ve been told very recently…that the birth certificate is missing. I’ve been told that it’s not there or it doesn’t exist. And if that’s the case, it’s a big problem.”
On April 27, President Obama released his original, long-form Hawiian birth certificate.
The long-form version of President Obama’s birth certificate
“We do not have time for this kind of silliness,” said Obama at a press conference, speaking as a father might to a roomful of spiteful children. “We have better stuff to do. I have got better stuff to do. We have got big problems to solve.
“We are not going to be able to do it if we are distracted, we are not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other…if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts, we are not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by side shows and carnival barkers.”
And on May 1, he announced the solving of one of those “big problems”: Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, had been tracked down and shot dead by elite U.S. Navy SEALS in Pakistan.
SEALS attacking bin Laden’s compound in the 2012 movie, “Zero Dark Thirty”
And how did Trump respond? With the following series of Tweets on Twitter:
May 18, 2012: “Let’s take a closer look at that birth certificate.@BarackObama was described in 2003 as being “born in Kenya.” http://bit.ly/Klc9Uu
August 6, 2012: “An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama‘s birth certificate is a fraud.”
August 27, 2012: “Why do the Republicans keep apologizing on the so called “birther” issue? No more apologies–take the offensive!”
September 13, 2012: “Wake Up America! See article: “Israeli Science: Obama Birth Certificate is a Fake”
June 30, 2013: “@davidrhythmguit: @realDonaldTrump @Chuffman48 Mark Cuban accepts the fact that the President of the United States was born here. Doubt it”
August 22, 2013: “Why are people upset w/ me over Pres Obama’s birth certificate? I got him to release it, or whatever it was, when nobody else could!”
December 12, 2013: “How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s “birth certificate” died in plane crash today. All others lived”
November 23, 2014: “@futureicon: @pinksugar61 Obama also fabricated his own birth certificate after being pressured to produce one by @realDonaldTrump“
Even after declaring his candidacy for President on June 16, 2015, Trump continued to insist that Barack Obama was an illegitimate President.
Meanwhile, Trump’s popularity among blacks had steadily fallen. In June, 2016, a Quinnipiac poll revealed that Trump had 1% of support from black voters. By comparison, 91% of black voters backed Hillary Clinton.
Among the reasons for this:
- His enthusiastic support by racist white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party.
- His “birther” attacks on President Obama as a non-citizen from Kenya–and thus ineligible to hold the Presidency.
- His attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement and calling on his supporters at rallies to rough up minority protesters.
Even the managers of Trump’s campaign urged him to put the “birther” issue behind him.
And so, on September 16–10 days before his scheduled first debate with Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton–Trump made his version of a reversal.
9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, ASSOCIATED PRESS, BARACK OBAMA, BIRTHERS, CBS NEWS, CENSORSHIP, CNN, CREDIBILITY GAP, DAVID BROOKS, DAVID HALBERSTAM, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FRANK STANTON, FULL METAL JACKET, GEORGE MCGOVERN, HILLARY CLINTON, JOHN F. KENNEDY, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MARK SHIELDS, MORLEY SAFER, NAVY SEALS, NBC NEWS, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PBS NEWSHOUR, PETER ARNETT, RICHARD NIXON, RONALD ZIEGLER, STANLEY KUBRICK, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, VIETNAM WAR, WATERGATE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 28, 2016 at 12:09 am
“Credibility gap” is a term that came into use during the mid-1960s to describe public and journalistic distrust of President Lyndon B. Johnson. In particular, the term was applied to his administration’s conduct of the Vietnam war.
It was, in short, a euphemism for accusing government officials of outright lying.
An example of the credibility gap in full swing appeared in Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1987 Vietnam war movie, Full Metal Jacket.
Vietnam was a war where military and political officials spewed a gung-ho version of constant American progress against a tough enemy.
And where civilian reporters like David Halberstam and Walter Cronkite saw–and labeled–the war as a brutal, wasteful and ultimately doomed effort.
Midway through the film, there’s an editorial meeting of The Sea Tiger, the official Marine newspaper.
Lieutenant Lockhart is presiding–and he is determined to give his superiors an endless stream of “all-systems-go” propaganda reports. He reads a series of stories that have been published:
Story #1: DIPLOMATS IN DUNGAREES–MARINE ENGINEERS LEND A HELPING HAND REBUILDING DONG PHUC VILLAGES.
LOCKHART: “Chili, “if we move Vietnamese, they are evacuees. If they come to us to be evacuated, they are refugees.”
Story #2: N.V.A. SOLDIER DESERTS AFTER READING PAMPHLETS.
LOCKHART: “A young North Vietnamese Army regular, who realized his side could not win the war, deserted from his unit after reading Open Arms program pamphlets.”
Story #3: NOT WHILE WE’RE EATING: N.V.A. LEARN MARINES ON A SEARCH AND DESTROY MISSION DON’T LIKE TO BE INTERRUPTED WHILE EATING CHOW.
LOCKHART: “‘Search and destroy.’ Uh, we have a new directive on this. In the future, in place of ‘search and destroy,’ substitute the phrase ‘sweep and clear.’ Got it?”
Lt. Lockhart, editor of The Sea Tiger
LOCKHART: “And, Joker–where’s the weenie?”
JOKER: “Sir?”
LOCKHART “The Kill, Joker. I mean, all that fire, the grunts must’ve hit something.”
JOKER: “Didn’t see ’em.”
LOCKHART: “Joker, I’ve told you, we run two basic stories here: Grunts who give half their pay to buy gooks toothbrushes and deodorants–winning of hearts and Minds–okay? And combat action that results in a kill–Winning the War. Now you must have seen blood trails … drag marks?”
JOKER: “It was raining, sir.”
LOCKHART: “Well, that’s why God passed the law of probability. Now rewrite it and give it a happy ending–say, uh, one kill. Make it a sapper or an officer. Grunts like reading about dead officers.”
JOKER: “Okay, an officer. How about a general?”
LOCKHART: “Joker, maybe you’d like our guys to read the paper and feel bad. I mean, in case you didn’t know it, this is not a particularly popular war. Now, it is our job to report the news that these why-are-we-here civilian newsmen ignore.”
So great became the divide between truth and lies during military “press briefings” that reporters started calling them “The Five O’clock Follies.” And even some soldiers took to wearing buttons that said: “Ambushed at Credibility Gap.”
Reporters who dared to write truthfully about the military’s crimes and failures–like David Halberstam of the New York Times and Peter Arnett of the Associated Press–were regarded as traitors by military and political officials.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy became enraged by Halberstam’s reporting on the corruption of the South Vietnamese government. He pressured New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger to transfer Halberstam to another locale. Sulzberger politely refused–and then extended Halberstam’s stay in Vietnam another six months.
David Halberstam
In 1965, when CBS Correspondent Morley Safer filmed Marines setting fire to the village of Cam Ne with Zippo lighters, President Lyndon B. Johnson was similarly outraged.
He placed an early-morning call to CBS News President Frank Stanton and shouted: “Your boys shat on the American flag!”
The trail of deceit and attempted censorship continued right up to the end of the war–in April, 1975. That was when North Vietnamese forces invaded the South and quickly overwhelmed the incompetent defenses arrayed against them.
And while America was still bogged down in Vietnam, the Watergate scandal erupted on June 17, 1972.
Watergate Hotel
Members of the Nixon administration’s secret “Plumbers Unit” burglarized the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel.
Obsessed with re-electing Richard Nixon, they sought incriminating information to discredit U.S. Senator George McGovern, the Democrats’ nominee for President.
When the burglars were caught, President Richard M. Nixon and his topmost officials lied and stonewalled both reporters and investigators seeking the truth.
Nixon’s press secretary, Ronald Ziegler, repeatedly slandered the integrity of The Washington Post for its coverage of the mushrooming Watergate scandal. He called the Watergate break-in “a third-rate burglary” and attacked the Post for “shabby journalism.”
Finally, on April 17, 1973, Ziegler, announced at a press conference: “This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative.”
In short: We’ve been lying to you for the last 10 months. But now we’re telling the truth.
Like Vietnam, the Watergate scandal destroyed the reputations of many of its chief architects. Forty government officials were indicted or jailed.
Vietnam and Watergate were seminal events for Americans coming of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They taught an entire generation: Don’t trust the government. Its officials routinely lie, and their lies can be deadly.
9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, ASSOCIATED PRESS, BARACK OBAMA, BIRTHERS, CBS NEWS, CENSORSHIP, CNN, CREDIBILITY GAP, DAVID BROOKS, DAVID HALBERSTAM, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FRANK STANTON, FULL METAL JACKET, GEORGE MCGOVERN, HILLARY CLINTON, JOHN F. KENNEDY, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MARK SHIELDS, MORLEY SAFER, NAVY SEALS, NBC NEWS, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PBS NEWSHOUR, PETER ARNETT, RICHARD NIXON, RONALD ZIEGLER, STANLEY KUBRICK, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, VIETNAM WAR, WATERGATE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 26, 2016 at 3:03 pm
For five years, Donald Trump, more than anyone else, popularized the slander that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya–and was therefore not an American citizen.
In April, 2011, Obama released the long-form version of his Hawaiian birth certificate. Still, Trump questioned its–and Obama’s–legitimacy.
For more than a year during his 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump continued doing so.
Meanwhile, Trump’s popularity steadily fell among blacks. In June, 2016, a Quinnipiac poll revealed that Trump had 1% of support from black voters–while 91% of black voters backed Hillary Clinton.
Even the managers of Trump’s campaign urged him to put the “birther” issue behind him.
And so, on September 16, 2016–10 days before his scheduled first debate with Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton–Trump made his version of a reversal.
Donald Trump: “President Barack Obama was born in the United States.”
He did so in about seven seconds and 40 words–after spending a half hour paying tribute to the military and promoting his new upscale hotel in Washington, D.C.:
“Now, not to mention her in the same breath, but Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy.
“I finished it. I finished it. You know what I mean.
“President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period. Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again.”
His tone made it clear that he felt uneasy making that statement–and wanted to get it over with as fast as possible.
He refused to take questions from reporters covering the event. Nor did he apologize for his five-year campaign of slander.
On the evening of September 16, Hillary Clinton strongly responded to Trump’s comments:
“For five years, he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president. His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie. There is no erasing it in history.”
And First Lady Michelle Obama slammed Trump for his “birther” claims:
“Then, of course, there were those who questioned, and who continue to question for the past eight years, and up to this very day, whether my husband was even born in this country.
“Well, during his time in office, I think Barack has answered those questions with the examples he set, by going high when they go low. And he’s answered these questions with the progress we’ve achieved together.”
Michelle Obama
But perhaps the best perspective on this event was provided by syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks. Each Friday they appear on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
David Brooks and Mark Shields
On September 16, Shields (a liberal) and Brooks (a conservative) addressed Trump’s about-face on birtherism.
MARK SHIELDS: “I think it’s important to establish right at the outset that [Trump] wasn’t only the loudest and the highest-profile and the most persistent and the most well-publicized birther, he, Donald Trump. He lied. He lied consistently and persistently.
“And, today, without explanation or excuse, he just changed his position and tried to absolutely falsely shift the blame onto Hillary Clinton.
“And this was an appeal to–he debased democracy. He debased the national debate. He appealed to that which is most ignoble or least noble in all of us.”
DAVID BROOKS: “Usually, there’s some tangential relationship to the truth, but a corroding relationship to the truth, frankly, as politics has gone on over the years.
“But now we’re in a reverse, Orwellian inversion of the truth with this. And so we have a team of staffers and then the candidate himself who have taken the normal spin and smashed all the rules.
“And so we are really in Orwell land. We are in 1984. And it’s interesting that an authoritarian personality type comes in at the same time with a complete disrespect for even tangential relationship to the truth that words are unmoored.
“And so I do think this statement sort of shocked me with the purification of a lot of terrible trends that have been happening. And so what’s white is black, and what is up is down, what is down is up. And that really is something new in politics.
“And the fact that there is no penalty for it, apparently–he’s doing fantastic in the last two weeks in the polls–is just somehow where we have gotten.”
* * * * *
Americans were slow to recognize the dangers of their government’s committing armed forces to South Vietnam. But when the record of government lies reached critical mass, Americans demanded an end to the war.
Similarly, Americans were reluctant to brand Richard Nixon, their newly-re-elected President, a criminal worthy of impeachment. But when the evidence of his criminality steadily mounted, they demanded his ouster.
Today, Americans are flooded with overwhelming evidence of Donald Trump’s unfitness to become President. His narcissism, vindictiveness, ignorance and hair-trigger temper have been on public display for more than a year.
Yet millions of ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans plan to catapult this man–who “debased democracy, debased the national debate, appealed to that which is most ignoble or least noble in all of us”–to the Presidency.
If that happens, future historians–if there are any–may similarly condemn those Americans who stood by like “good Germans” and allowed their country to fall into the hands of a ruthless tyrant.
9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AFGHANISTAN, AL QAEDA, ARTHUR M. CUMMINGS, BARACK OBAMA, BOKO HARAM, BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING, CANADA, CBS NEWS, CENSORSHIP, CNN, DAVID CAMERON, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FBI, GEORGE W. BUSH, HATE CRIMES, IRAQ, ISLAM, ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND SYRIA, ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND SYRIA (ISIS), ISLAMIC TERRORISM, LORETTA LYNCH, MOHAMMED, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, OMAR MATEEN, ORLANDO SHOOTINGS, PAUL RYAN, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, PULSE, RELIGION, REPUBLICAN PARTY, RONALD KESSLER, SAMUEL HUNTINGTON, STEVEN EMERSON, SYRIA, TALIBAN, TERRORISM, THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS, THE INVESTIGATIVE PROJECT ON TERRORISM, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE SECRETS OF THE FBI, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, WORLD TRADE CENTER, WORLD WAR ii
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 29, 2016 at 12:01 am
Even at the height of World War II, citizens of the United States could take comfort in the following:
- Nazi Germany had a capitol–Berlin–and a single, all-powerful leader–Adolf Hitler. Once Berlin was occupied and Hitler dead or captured, the war would be over.
- And, for all their ferocity, German soldiers were easy to recognize: They wore gray uniforms, spoke German and waved flags emblazoned with swastikas or imperial eagles.
Wehrmacht soldiers marching through conquered France
Today, Western nations under attack by Islamic “holy warriors” face none of those advantages. Islam has no single capitol city–or leader.
Nor do Islam’s jihadist legions wear uniforms. Many of them don’t speak Arabic or wear clothing associated with Arabs, such as flowing robes and headdresses.
More ominously, millions of Islam’s potential “warriors” live within the very Western nations they despise. They can get all the instruction and inspiration they need to wreck havoc simply by going to the Internet.
Or, if they have the money, by traveling overseas to such terrorist-recruiting centers as Syria or Afghanistan.
And yet, faced with an unprecedented threat to their security, many Western leaders refuse to publicly acknowledge this fundamental truth:
Even if the West isn’t at war with Islam, Islam is at war with the West.
Leaders like President Barack Obama, who insisted, at a White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism in February, 2015: “We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.”
David Cameron
And leaders like British Prime Minister David Cameron, who said on August 29, 2014: “Islam is a religion observed peacefully by over a billion people. Islamist extremism is a poisonous ideology observed by a minority.”
On June 20, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a censored version of gunman Omar Mateen’s call to a 9-1-1 operator. While taking a break from slaughtering 49 defenseless men and women and wounding another 53, Mateen pledged his loyalty to ISIS.
Fortunately for the United States, the Bureau hasn’t always been so craven.
Ronald Kessler, author of the 2011 book, The Secrets of the FBI, quotes Arthur M. Cummings, the Bureau’s then-executive assistant director for national security:
“I had this discussion with the director of a very prominent Muslim organization here in [Washington] D.C. And he said, ‘Why are you guys always looking at the Muslim community?’”
“I can name the homegrown cells, all of whom are Muslim, all of whom were seeking to kill Americans,” replied Cummings. “It’s not the Irish, it’s not the French, it’s not the Catholics, it’s not the Protestants. It’s the Muslims.”
Occasionally, Muslims will condemn Al Qaeda. But “rarely do we have them coming to us and saying, ‘There are three guys in the community that we’re very concerned about,’” said Cummings.
“They don’t want anyone to know they have extremists in their community. Well, beautiful. Except do you read the newspapers? Everybody already knows it. The horse has left the barn.”
Cummings has no use for such Politically Correct terms as “man-caused disasters” to refer to terrorism. Nor does he shy away from terms such as “jihadists” or “Islamists.”
“Of course Islamists dominate the terrorism of today,” he says bluntly.
In May, 2014, Steven Emerson, a nationally recognized expert on terrorism, posted an ad in The New York Times, warning about the dangers of PC-imposed censorship. And he posed the question: “How can we win the war against radical Islam if we can’t even name the enemy?”
He has a point–and a highly legitimate one.
Imagine the United States fighting World War II–and President Franklin Roosevelt banning the use of “fascist” in referring to Nazi Germany or “imperialist” in describing Imperial Japan.
Imagine CNN-like coverage of the Nazi extermination camps, with their piles of rotting corpses and smoking gas ovens, while a commentator reminds us that “Nazism is an ideology of peace.”
Then consider these Islamic terrorist outrages of our own time:
- The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., which snuffed out the lives of 3,000 Americans.
- The 2004 bombing of Madrid’s commuter train system.
- The attack on the London subway in 2005.
- The killing of 13 U.S. Army personnel at Fort Hood, Texas, by a Muslim army major in 2009.
- The bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013.
- The kidnapping of 300 Nigerian schoolgirls by Boko Haram in 2014.
- The slaughter of 12 people at a Paris satirical magazine that had published cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed in 2015.
- The murders of more than 100 people in ISIS attacks across Paris in 2015.
- A series of deadly terrorist attacks in Brussels, killing 31 and injuring 270 in 2016.
In every one of these attacks, the perpetrators openly announced that their actions had been motivated by their Islamic beliefs.
In his groundbreaking book, The Clash of Civilizations (1996) Samuel Huntington, the noted political scientist at Harvard University, noted:
“The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”
The West may not be at war with Islam–as countless Western politicians repeatedly assert. But Islamics have no qualms about declaring that they are at war with the West.
9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AFGHANISTAN, AL QAEDA, ARTHUR M. CUMMINGS, BARACK OBAMA, BOKO HARAM, BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING, CANADA, CBS NEWS, CENSORSHIP, CNN, DAVID CAMERON, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FBI, GEORGE W. BUSH, HATE CRIMES, IRAQ, ISLAM, ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND SYRIA, ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND SYRIA (ISIS), ISLAMIC TERRORISM, LORETTA LYNCH, MOHAMMED, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, OMAR MATEEN, ORLANDO SHOOTINGS, PAUL RYAN, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, PULSE, RELIGION, REPUBLICAN PARTY, RONALD KESSLER, SAMUEL HUNTINGTON, STEVEN EMERSON, SYRIA, TALIBAN, TERRORISM, THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS, THE INVESTIGATIVE PROJECT ON TERRORISM, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE SECRETS OF THE FBI, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, WORLD TRADE CENTER, WORLD WAR ii
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 28, 2016 at 12:06 am
On June 12, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old former security guard, slaughtered 49 men and women and injured 53 more inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
Mateen was then shot to death by Orlando police after a three-hour standoff.
Omar Mateen
It was the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in American history–and the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States since the Al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001.
The massacre was widely decried as an act of Islamic terrorism. But many others insisted it was simply a hate crime.
Among those opting for the latter: Officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
This despite the fact that:
- Mateen, born in New York in 1986 to Afghan parents, praised the highjackers who carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks that slaughtered 3,000 Americans. At the time, he was attending an alternative high school for problem students.
- He also said that Osama bin Laden was his uncle who had taught him how to shoot an AK-47–this while it was not known that bin Laden had masterminded the attacks.
- During the night of the Orlando massacre, Mateen stopped killing long enough to call 9-1-1, take responsibility for the attack and pledge his allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
In releasing a transcript of the 9-1-1 call, the Justice Department claimed that it would withhold some details to avoid putting the victims through any more pain–and to not further the propaganda efforts of ISIS.
The Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice
“What we’re not going to do is further proclaim this man’s pledges of allegiance to terrorist groups and further his propaganda,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch told moderator Chuck Todd on the June 19 edition of Meet the Press.
“We will hear him talk about some of these things, but we are not going to hear him make his assertions of allegiance.”
On the morning of June 20, the FBI released the following edited version of the transcript:
MATEEN: Praise be to God, and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of God [in Arabic]. I let you know, I’m in Orlando and I did the shootings.
OPERATOR: What’s your name?
MATEEN: My name is I pledge of allegiance to [omitted].
OPERATOR: OK, what’s your name?
MATEEN: I pledge allegiance to [omitted] may God protect him [in Arabic], on behalf of [omitted].
A firestorm of protest erupted from Republican Congressional leaders, most notably Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Since Mateen’s pledge to ISIS had become widely known, they demanded, what was the point of censoring it in the transcript of his phone call?
“We know the shooter was a radical Islamist extremist inspired by ISIS,” Ryan said in a statement. “We also know he intentionally targeted the LGBT community. The administration should release the full, unredacted transcript so the public is clear-eyed about who did this, and why.”
An additional reason for the fury aimed at the Justice Department: On June 12, ISIS had claimed responsibility for the massacre:
“The armed attack that targeted a gay night club in the city of Orlando in the American state of Florida which left over 100 people dead or injured was carried out by an Islamic State fighter.”
Flag of ISIS
Finally, buckling to pressure, on the afternoon of June 20, the FBI released the full, uncensored transcript of Mateen’s call to 9-1-1:
OPERATOR: Emergency 911, this is being recorded.
MATEEN: In the name of God the Merciful, the beneficent [Arabic]
OPERATOR: What?
MATEEN: Praise be to God, and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of God [Arabic]. I wanna let you know, I’m in Orlando and I did the shootings.
OPERATOR: What’s your name?
MATEEN: My name is I pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State.
OPERATOR: OK, what’s your name?
MATEEN: I pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may God protect him [Arabic], on behalf of the Islamic State.
OPERATOR: Alright, where are you at?
MATEEN: In Orlando.
OPERATOR: Where in Orlando?
[End of call]
J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building
Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department apologized for having censored the transcript.
“Unfortunately, the unreleased portions of the transcript that named the terrorist organizations and leaders have caused an unnecessary distraction from the hard work that the FBI and our law enforcement partners have been doing to investigate this heinous crime,” both the DOJ and FBI said in a statement.
Since September 11, 2001, Americans have been actively at war with Islamic nations such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
Yet high-ranking officials in the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have repeatedly and loudly denied that America is at war with Islam.
Even if this is true, a large portion of the Islamic world is at war with the United States.
Only Donald Trump–alone of the 2016 Presidential candidates–has dared to say what the vast majority of Americans know: America is at war with Islamics who openly proclaim that their actions are motivated by their Islamic religious beliefs.
And it’s a major reason why Trump is about to receive the Republican nomination for President.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, BARACK OBAMA, BILL OF RIGHTS, CBS NEWS, CENSORSHIP, CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, CIVIL WAR, CNN, DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, EMPLOYEES' RIGHTS, FACEBOOK, FIRST AMENDMENT, FRYEBURG ACADEMY, GEORGE ORWELL, ISLAM, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, LACROSSE, MALCOM X, MARTIN LUTHER KING, MUSLIMS, NATION OF ISLAM, NBC NEWS, PILGRIMS, SHARIA LAW, SLAVERY, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, WOMEN'S RIGHTS
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on April 29, 2016 at 12:08 am
WARNING: Believing that the First Amendment gives you the legal right to express your opinion may be hazardous to your career.
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The First Amendment
Of course, that refers only to Congress.
It says nothing about employers–and and especially those self-appointed pseudo-gods who set themselves up as judges of virtue and infallibility.
If you doubt it, just ask Scott Lees, who until March had worked for four years as boys head lacrosse coach at Fryeburg Academy.
Scott Lees
His crime? Posting to his personal Facebook page an open letter to President Barack Obama that one of his friends had emailed him.
Lees posted the letter on March 17. Two days later, he was ordered to resign from his four-year position as the academy’s lacrosse coach.
The letter had been written in response to a speech Obama gave in Cairo in 2009. In this, Obama said, “I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America’s history.”
Among the issues the letter raised:
“Were those Muslims that were in America when the Pilgrims first landed? Funny, I thought they were Native American Indians.”
“Were those Muslims that celebrated the first Thanksgiving day? Sorry again, those were Pilgrims and Native American Indians.
“Can you show me one Muslim signature on the United States Constitution? Declaration of Independence? Bill of Rights? Didn’t think so.
“Did Muslims fight for this country’s freedom from England? No. Did Muslims fight during the Civil War to free the slaves of America. No, they did not, in fact, Muslims to this day are still the largest traffickers in human slavery.
“Your own half-brother, a devout Muslim, still advocates slavery himself, even though Muslims of Arabic descent refer to black Muslims as ‘pug nosed slaves.’ Says a lot of what the Muslim world really thinks of your family’s “rich Islamic heritage,” doesn’t it Mr. Obama?
“Where were Muslims during the Civil Rights era of this country? No present. There are no pictures or media accounts of Muslims walking side by side with Martin Luther King, Jr., or helping to advance the cause of Civil Rights.”
(The most prominent Muslim group in America at the time of the civil rights movement was the Nation of Islam. Its onetime spokesman, Malcom X, preached a gospel of separation of the races–and condemned whites as “blue-eyed devils.”)
“Where were Muslims during this country’s Woman’s Suffrage era? Again, not present. In fact, devout Muslims demand that women are subservient to men in the Islamic culture.
“So much so, that often they are beaten for not wearing the ‘hajib’ or for talking to a man who is not a direct family member or their husband. Yep, the Muslims are all for women’s rights, aren’t they?
Click here: Women’s Rights Under Sharia
“Where were Muslims during World War II? They were aligned with Adolf Hitler. The Muslim grand mufti himself met with Adolf Hitler, reviewed the troops and accepted support from the Nazis in killing Jews.”
Click here: Amazon.com: Icon of Evil: Hitler’s Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam (9781400066537): David G. Dalin, John F. Ro
“Finally, Mr. Obama, where were Muslims on Sept. 11th, 2001? If they weren’t flying planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or a field in Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people on our own soil, they were rejoicing in the Middle East….
“And THAT, Mr. Obama, is the ‘rich heritage’ Muslims have here in America….”
Interviewed by Top Right News, Lees, 48, said he had never before been fired and had been coaching since 1992.
Fryeburg Academy is a private school in Fryeburg, Maine.
Fryeburg Academy
Lees said that he was supposed to meet with Head of Schools Erin Mayo and Dean Charlie Tryder on March 19. But Athletic Director Sue Thurston told him a decision to fire him had already been made.
Mayo told Top Right News that “Scott Lees did post a message on Facebook regarding Muslim people last week that was negative and, of course, public in nature.”
Mayo was right on two counts about the Facebook post: It was negative and public.
What she didn’t say was: It was also entirely historically accurate. It did not urge its readers to violate the law. It did not defame anyone (unless telling the truth about a group’s documented activities counts as defamation).
This is similar to the policies–and atmosphere–of the Joseph McCarthy “smear and fear” era of the 1950s. You didn’t have to actually be proven an actual Communist, or even a Communist sympathizer.
All that was needed to condemn you to permanent unemployment was to become “controversial.” That way, the employer didn’t have to actually prove the employee’s unfitness.
An employee’s right to out-of-work speech should be fully protected unless it crosses the legal line–such as committing libel or urging others to violate the law.
And employers who fire him for embracing his First Amendment right should be criminally prosecuted.
Until this happens, the workplace will continue to resemble George Orwell’s vision of 1984–a world where anyone can become a “non-person” for the most trivial of reasons.
ABC NEWS, CBS NEWS, CENSORSHIP, CLIMATE CHANGE, CNN, FACEBOOK, FLOODING, FLORIDA, FLORIDA CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, GLOBAL WARMING, LYING, MIGRATIONS, NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION, NBC NEWS, REPUBLICANS, RICK SCOTT, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on March 16, 2016 at 2:53 am
Politicians can lie to voters. And voters can lie to themselves. But Nature can never be fooled.
By 2100, more than 13 million Americans living along the coast could be displaced by rising sea levels. And these, in turn, are the result of melting polar ice caps–courtesy of a Republican-denied event called climate change.
At Ground Zero of this oncoming catastrophe lies Florida, Its densely populated coastal locales could see up to 6.06 million residents displaced if sea levels rise six feet.
“As the sea level rises, coastal parts of Florida will be inundated,” warns University of Georgia geography professor Deepak Mishra. “Sea level rise is the phenomenon that makes climate change a reality for millions of people worldwide. The sheer volume of people at risk of displacement and becoming climate refugees is the main threat.”
Mishra was one of several researchers for the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who assessed sea level change scenarios by 2100 for coastal states along with population growth trends and projections in high-risk areas.
The number of people who could be displaced might be three times larger than previous estimates.
“These results suggest that the absence of protective measures could lead to U.S. population movements of a magnitude similar to the 20th century Great Migration of southern African-Americans,” the researchers wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change.
This referred to the exodus of more than six million blacks from the rural South to cities of the North, Midwest and West from 1910 until 1970.
More than a quarter of residents of major urban centers such as Miami and New Orleans could face coastal flooding. Three counties could see the displacement of 80 percent of their population:
- Florida’s Monroe County, site of the Florida Keys;
- Hyde County, North Carolina; and
- Tyrrell County, North Carolina.
In Florida, climate change reality is about to slam into Right-wing denial and censorship.
Rick Scott, its Republican Governor, doesn’t believe in “climate change’ or “global warming.” Asked by a reporter for his views on the subject, he fobbed off the question with, “Well, I’m not a scientist.”
Smiling at the coming apocalypse: Rick Scott
Accordingly, he has ordered members of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to stop using those terms “global warming” and “climate change” in official correspondence.
DEP has a $1.4 billion budget and 3,200 employees, but is forbidden to speak openly about perhaps the foremost danger now facing Floridians.
According to the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting (FCIR) the policy is “unwritten” and was “distributed verbally statewide.”
Just as the Nazis passed down many of their orders verbally, to ensure deniability, so has Scott.
Accordingly, John Tupps, Scott’s spokesman, told The Washington Post: “There is no policy in existence. … Allegations and claims made in the [Florida investigative article] are not true. This policy, it doesn’t exist.”
But FCIR has no reservations about exposing the issue that threatens the very existence of the state.
“The irony is clearly apparent,” said Tristam Korten, one of FCIR’s writers. “Florida is a peninsula with 1,200 miles of coastline, and when it comes to climate change, we’re the canary in the coalmine. And we’re relying on the state government to protect us and to plan for these changes.”
Rising sea levels threaten Miami–and the rest of Florida
Further proof of the governor’s censorship decree comes from statements of former DEP employees. One of these, Kristina Trotta, was told during a 2014 meeting that she couldn’t employ terms such as “climate change” and “global warming.”
“We were told that we were not allowed to discuss anything that was not a true fact. The regional administrator told us that we are the governor’s agency; this is the message from the governor’s office. And that is the message we will portray.”
Many Americans believe climate change-denying politicians are simply ignorant of the truth: “If they knew, surely they would do something.”
While some politicians may genuinely believe that climate change is a hoax, others have self-interested reasons for denying its reality.
Among these is Rick Scott, whose 2014 financial disclosure records revealed that he was heavily invested in more than two dozen oil and gas ventures.
One was Spectra Energy, now working with Florida Power & Light to build the $3 billion Sabal Trail pipeline in North Florida.
Scott and his appointees at the Public Service Commission backed construction of Sabal Trail despite state ethics laws that generally forbid public officials from owning stock in businesses subject to their regulation.
Another entity in which Scott shares an interest is Regency Energy Partners, LP. In 2014, the governor valued his Regency units at $194,000. He also reported a $206,600 state in PRV Partners LP, which was acquired by Regency.
Scott’s oil and gas assets include 18 publicly traded master limited partnerships, some with significant ties to GE Energy Financial Services.
So while Scott and many other Right-wing politicians expect to handsomely profit from the coming onslaught of Nature, those at its epicenter will be its foremost victims.
Ironically, their victimization will result from their unswerving support for greed-addicted, Right-wing politicians, whose denial of climate change makes such catastrophes inevitable.
9/11, A FEW GOOD MEN, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AP, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CENSORSHIP, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, EARL BUTZ, FACEBOOK, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, JACK NICHOLSON, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PAT BOONE, PLUTARCH, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROLLING STONE, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SEX, SLATE, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TOM CRUISE, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UP, UPI, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on February 18, 2016 at 12:15 am
In the 1992 courtroom drama, “A Few God Men,” Jack Nicholson, as Marine Colonel Nathan Jessup, utters a line that has since become famous.
When his prosecutor, Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) demands the truth about the murder of a fellow Marine, Jessup shouts: “You can’t handle the truth!”
Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men”
Apparently, many of those who work in the television news business feel the same way about their audience.
[WARNING: This column contains some words that some readers may find offensive. Read on at your own risk.]
On February 9, businessman Donald Trump scored a new blow at his Rafael “Ted” Cruz, his closest rival for the Republican Presidential nomination.
Speaking at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, Trump attacked Cruz, the United States Senator from Texas, for being unwilling to support the widespread use of torture against America’s Islamic enemies.
“He’s a pussy!” yelled a woman in the crowd.
Apparently a certain portion of the attendees didn’t hear–or misheard–the insult. So Trump–pretending to be shocked–repeated it for them:
“She said–I never expect to hear that from you again! She said: ‘He’s a pussy.’ That’s terrible.”
“What kind of people do I have here?” joked Trump, clearly playing to the boisterous crowd.
Donald Trump
The incident went viral on social media. But all the major TV news outlets–for ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC–bleeped the word and/or coyly referred to it as “the P-word.”
It was as if they assumed their viewers would of course know what had been said despite the networks’ censorship of it. And if viewers didn’t already know what the woman–and Trump–had said, the networks weren’t going to enlighten them.
Of course, “the P-word” could just as easily have been “prick” or “pervert.” So it’s understandable that many viewers might have thought a very different word had been used.
No doubt the networks hoped to avoid offending large numbers of viewers.
But when the use of certain words becomes central to a news story, editors and reporters should have the courage to reveal just what was said. It should then be up to the audience to decide if the language was offensive–and, if so, if its user deserves condemnation.
The evening news is–supposedly–aimed at voting-age adults. And adults need–and deserve–the hard truth about the world they live in. Only then do they have a chance to reform it–if, in fact, they decide it needs reforming.
Those who wanted to learn–rather than guess–what Trump had repeated had to turn to the Internet or to a handful of news source such as Vox: Policy and Politics.
In their defense, the networks could argue that the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates radio and television, does not usually permit the word “pussy” to be aired between 6 am and 10 pm.
On the other hand, immediately after the 9/11 terror attacks, all the major TV networks endlessly replayed the destruction of the World Trade Center, with the resulting deaths of hundreds of men and women.
Censorship, then, tends to center on two types of subject material:
- Sex, or “obscenity,” which is sex-related; and
- Race, meaning racial slurs that would offend some minority group.
An example of race-related censorship occurred during the short-lived administration of President Gerald R. Ford.
During a lull in the 1976 Republican convention, entertainer Pat Boone asked Earl Butz, then Secretary of Agriculture: Why was the party of Lincoln having so much trouble winning black votes for its candidates?
“I’ll tell you what the coloreds want,” said Butz. “It’s three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit.”
Earl Butz
Unknown to Butz, a Rolling Stone reporter was standing nearby. When his comments became public, Butz was quickly forced to resign.
Meanwhile, most TV and print media struggled to protect their audiences from the truth of Butz’ racism. Many newspapers simply reported that Butz had said something too obscene to print. Some invited their readers to contact the editors if they wanted more information.
TV newsmen generally described Butz’ firing as stemming from “a racially-offensive remark,” which they refused to explain.
In short: A high-ranking government official had been fired, but audiences were not allowed to judge whether his language justified that termination.
Forty years later, TV news viewers were again prevented from reaching their own conclusions about Trump’s repetition of the slur aimed at his rival.
Nor is there any guarantee that such censorship will not occur again.
Censoring the truth has always been a hallmark of dictatorships. It has no place in a democracy–despite the motives of those doing the censoring.
The ancient historian, Plutarch, sounded a warning that remains timely:
“And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men; sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever.”
In a democracy, citizens must be alert for those tell-tale expressions or jests. And this demands that the media, in turn, have the courage to bring those truths to their attention.
ABC, ABC NEWS, ASHTON KUTCHER, BONDAGE, CBS, CBS NEWS, CENSORSHIP, CNN, DEMI MOORE, FACEBOOK, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, LESBIANISM, LYNDA CARTER, NBC NEWS, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, STEVEN SPIELBERG, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, TWO AND A HALF MEN, USA TODAY, WONDER WOMAN, WORLD WAR ii
In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on September 24, 2015 at 12:04 am
On November 7, 2013, American television culture took yet another step deeper into Toiletville.
It was the Two and Half Men episode, “Justice in Star-Spangled Hot Pants.” And it starred Lynda Carter as the target of a crush that was both infantile and obscene.
Carter, of course, is the singer/actress best-known for her role as Wonder Woman (1975-1979).
And watching this episode of Men, it was hard to tell where the real-life Carter left off and the fictional character she was playing took over.
Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman
Here, in brief, was the plotline:
Alan Harper (Jon Cryer) learns that his roommate, Walden Schmidt (Ashton Kutcher) knows Lynda Carter.
Having an enormous crush on Carter from his years of watching her as Wonder Woman, Alan asks Walden to set him up on a date with her.
Against his better judgment, Walden agrees to invite her to the house for dinner.
Now, if Carter had been playing a fictional character, there wouldn’t have been anything wrong with this premise. Nobody, after all, would have mistaken Laurence Olivier for Richard III.
But she wasn’t. She was playing herself.
And, in her real-life self, she was then 62. An admittedly good-looking 62, but, even so, a woman about 40 years older than the character (Alan) who wants to meet her.
And not simply meet her. Bone her.
Bone her? Yes–that’s exactly what he says when Walden initially turns down his request to introduce him to her: “Now I’ll never get to bone Lynda Carter.”
And since Carter was playing herself, it’s useful to recall that she is, in real-life, a married woman (since 1984 to attorney Robert Altman).
And the show achieved an even lower level of crassness when Walden says Alan is so desperate to meet Carter that he’d skulk around in the bushes in front of her house.
“Wow, Lynda Carter’s bush,” says Alan, practically salivating over the contemplation of a 62-year-old woman’s vagina.
But males weren’t the only gender who got to descend to new depths of bad taste in this episode. There was the character of Jenny (Amber Tamblyn), the lesbian sister of the departed character Charlie (Charlie Sheen).
Again, the show’s writers simply couldn’t resist the temptation to mix real-life with fantasy.
Jenny is, at first, not even aware who Lynda Carter is until Alan, shocked, clues her in on the juvenile series she’s best-known for.
And, after meeting Carter, Jenny remains unimpressed. There’s an edginess in her voice as she comes face-to-face with the actress who’s well-known for supporting gay and lesbian rights.
“I understand you’re into cuffs,” she tells Carter–a reference to the “magic bracelets” worn by her character, Wonder Woman.
But it’s also a double entendre, conjuring up the image of Carter (perhaps in her Wonder Woman outfit) staked out on a bed in a bondage fantasy.
For all of Alan’s over-the-top infatuation with Carter, it’s not him that she’s interested in. It’s his buddy, Walden (Ashton Kutcher).
Lynda Carter and Ashton Kutcher
And to prove it, she gives him a real smackeroo of a kiss.
Which may well have conjured up, for him, real-life memories of his May-December marriage to the actress Demi Moore.
Kutcher was 27 when he tied the knot with Moore in 2005. Moore, by contrast, was 42.
The marriage ended in 2013, amid tabloid reports that Kutcher had cheated on her with Sara Leal, a 22-year-old San Diego-based administrative assistant. Moore by then was 51.
Kutcher, born in 1978, was still rolling around in his cradle while Carter–born in 1951–was wrapping up her third and final season as Wonder Woman.
So, for Kutcher, maybe it was a case of deja vu all over again.
So much for network TV censors’ attitude toward sleaze. Now for their attitude toward patriotism.
On Veterans Day from 2001 to 2004, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) aired the 1998 Steven Spielberg World War II classic, Saving Private Ryan, uncut and with limited commercial interruptions.
Both the grity, realistic battle scenes and profanity were left intact.
Storming the beach at Normandy in Saving Private Ryan
But in 2004, its airing was marked by pre-emptions by 65 ABC affiliates.
The reason: The backlash over Super Bowl XXXVIII’s halftime show controversy (starring the infamous bared breast of Janet Jackson).
The affiliates—28% of the network—did not clear the available timeslot for the film.
And this was even after the Walt Disney Company–which owns ABC–offered to pay all fines for language to the FCC.
No complaints, however, were lodged with the FCC.
It speaks volumes to the priorities–and values–of American television when a film honoring the wartime sacrifices of American soldiers is banned from network TV.
And it speaks volumes as well to the priorities–and values–of American television when a casually juvenile and crudity-laced series like Two and a Half Men becomes CBS’ biggest cash cow.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, ASSOCIATED PRESS, BARACK OBAMA, BIRTHERS, CBS NEWS, CENSORSHIP, CNN, CREDIBILITY GAP, DAVID BROOKS, DAVID HALBERSTAM, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FRANK STANTON, FULL METAL JACKET, GEORGE MCGOVERN, HILLARY CLINTON, JOHN F. KENNEDY, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MARK SHIELDS, MORLEY SAFER, NAVY SEALS, NBC NEWS, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PBS NEWSHOUR, PETER ARNETT, RICHARD NIXON, RONALD ZIEGLER, STANLEY KUBRICK, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, VIETNAM WAR, WATERGATE
FROM “CREDIBILITY GAP” TO “ORWELL LAND”: PART THREE (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 30, 2016 at 1:31 amFor five years, Donald Trump, more than anyone else, popularized the slander that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya–and was therefore not an American citizen.
In April, 2011, Obama released the long-form version of his Hawaiian birth certificate. Still, Trump questioned its–and Obama’s–legitimacy.
For more than a year during his 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump continued doing so.
Meanwhile, Trump’s popularity steadily fell among blacks. In June, 2016, a Quinnipiac poll revealed that Trump had 1% of support from black voters–while 91% of black voters backed Hillary Clinton.
Even the managers of Trump’s campaign urged him to put the “birther” issue behind him.
And so, on September 16, 2016–10 days before his scheduled first debate with Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton–Trump made his version of a reversal.
Donald Trump: “President Barack Obama was born in the United States.”
He did so in about seven seconds and 40 words–after spending a half hour paying tribute to the military and promoting his new upscale hotel in Washington, D.C.:
“Now, not to mention her in the same breath, but Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy.
“I finished it. I finished it. You know what I mean.
“President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period. Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again.”
His tone made it clear that he felt uneasy making that statement–and wanted to get it over with as fast as possible.
He refused to take questions from reporters covering the event. Nor did he apologize for his five-year campaign of slander.
On the evening of September 16, Hillary Clinton strongly responded to Trump’s comments:
“For five years, he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president. His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie. There is no erasing it in history.”
And First Lady Michelle Obama slammed Trump for his “birther” claims:
“Then, of course, there were those who questioned, and who continue to question for the past eight years, and up to this very day, whether my husband was even born in this country.
“Well, during his time in office, I think Barack has answered those questions with the examples he set, by going high when they go low. And he’s answered these questions with the progress we’ve achieved together.”
Michelle Obama
But perhaps the best perspective on this event was provided by syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks. Each Friday they appear on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
David Brooks and Mark Shields
On September 16, Shields (a liberal) and Brooks (a conservative) addressed Trump’s about-face on birtherism.
MARK SHIELDS: “I think it’s important to establish right at the outset that [Trump] wasn’t only the loudest and the highest-profile and the most persistent and the most well-publicized birther, he, Donald Trump. He lied. He lied consistently and persistently.
“And, today, without explanation or excuse, he just changed his position and tried to absolutely falsely shift the blame onto Hillary Clinton.
“And this was an appeal to–he debased democracy. He debased the national debate. He appealed to that which is most ignoble or least noble in all of us.”
DAVID BROOKS: “Usually, there’s some tangential relationship to the truth, but a corroding relationship to the truth, frankly, as politics has gone on over the years.
“But now we’re in a reverse, Orwellian inversion of the truth with this. And so we have a team of staffers and then the candidate himself who have taken the normal spin and smashed all the rules.
“And so we are really in Orwell land. We are in 1984. And it’s interesting that an authoritarian personality type comes in at the same time with a complete disrespect for even tangential relationship to the truth that words are unmoored.
“And so I do think this statement sort of shocked me with the purification of a lot of terrible trends that have been happening. And so what’s white is black, and what is up is down, what is down is up. And that really is something new in politics.
“And the fact that there is no penalty for it, apparently–he’s doing fantastic in the last two weeks in the polls–is just somehow where we have gotten.”
* * * * *
Americans were slow to recognize the dangers of their government’s committing armed forces to South Vietnam. But when the record of government lies reached critical mass, Americans demanded an end to the war.
Similarly, Americans were reluctant to brand Richard Nixon, their newly-re-elected President, a criminal worthy of impeachment. But when the evidence of his criminality steadily mounted, they demanded his ouster.
Today, Americans are flooded with overwhelming evidence of Donald Trump’s unfitness to become President. His narcissism, vindictiveness, ignorance and hair-trigger temper have been on public display for more than a year.
Yet millions of ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans plan to catapult this man–who “debased democracy, debased the national debate, appealed to that which is most ignoble or least noble in all of us”–to the Presidency.
If that happens, future historians–if there are any–may similarly condemn those Americans who stood by like “good Germans” and allowed their country to fall into the hands of a ruthless tyrant.
Share this: