Posted on 06/29/2004 6:20:01 PM PDT by wagglebee
Mark Twain said a lot of things wittier and funnier. But he never said anything more valuable than this: A man who can read - but does not, has no advantage over a man who cannot read.
He'd probably also agree that a nation free to tell itself the truth -but does not, has no advantage over a dictatorship. Media coverage of Iraq these days makes me fear we have become that nation. Some comparisons, please.
As North Korean troops and tanks plunged headlong into South Korea in June, 1950 the world communist press from East Berlin to Pyongyang reported that South Korean puppets of the warmongering American imperialists had invaded the peace-loving Peoples Republic of North Korea. And how did they explain how those peace-loving victims of unprovoked capitalist aggression managed to take the South Korean capital of Seoul a few hours later? Communist propaganda had no problem with that. The rest of the statement told us, "Shortly after the South Korean invasion of North Korea the scene of action was soon transferred southward"! (Exclamation point mine!)
In my 1956 visit to the Soviet Union I learned that the communist-ruled masses of the world sort of caught on over time that North Korea had actually started the war; but that was never clarified by the communist media. Being a dictatorship means you never have to say, Whoops; sorry, folks. It was actually North Korea that started the war. Slave media never have to say anything like, "Whoops; sorry. We meant to say world-wide terrorist activity has NOT decreased." It has SOARED!
An American held prisoner by the Germans after D-Day told of a daily newsletter the Germans handed out to American and British prisoners. It was in English with up-to-date news of the war. Every day the Germans told their prisoners news of ever greater German victories day by day. What the prisoners found so funny was that each German victory always occurred EAST of the previous victory; a little closer to Berlin!
If you're a Nazi propagandist you never have to apologize on the op-ed page for discrepancies committed on page 1.
We'll skip the hilarity of Bagdad Bob and conclude this riff with Hitler's coverage of the Joe Louis/Max Schmeling heavyweight fight of early 1939 - just before war broke out. Hitler urged the entire German nation to stay up until three o clock in the morning to hear the annihilation of the untermentsch black boxer Joe Louis by the invincible Aryan Max Schmeling on live radio.
Louis, who had lost to Schmeling in the mid-1930s, knocked Schmeling out in round one. Pity the poor German ringside announcer. The roar of the American crowd in Yankee Stadium from the get-go almost made any commentary in any language unnecessary. It was as one-sided as the Nazi invasion of Denmark, but it still took almost a whole round and the German announcer had to say SOMETHING. What he said as Louis was annihilating Schmeling was something like, Our Nordic champion Max Schmeling has not yet unleashed the full fury of his attack against his American opponent.
And then there was a POW and a KERPLUNK clearly audible from the Schwartzwald to Polish border. Schmeling was down and out. And what did the German population who'd stayed awake until three a. m. hear? (I've verified with three people who were in Nazi Germany and listening.) The audio from New York was abruptly cut. You then heard ill-defined confusion; people barking at others indistinctly. Next came Nazi patriotic march music, followed by a Strauss waltz. Until regime change in 1945 the German people were never told the result of the fight.
The foregoing were all instances of societies that could NOT tell the truth. We take you now to America, a society that CAN tell the truth, but perversely chooses not to!
The rise of conservative voices from Sean Hannity to Fox News to NewsMax to the Washington Times and all the welcome etceteras has done much to increase the alternative viewpoint's reach across America. No champagne yet, please! That voice is still seriously outgunned by the three major networks and CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Time, Newsweek - there are more but why make this screed unnecessarily long?
The American media, for example, is free to differentiate between the torture of Abu Ghraib Prison and the beheading of innocent hostages. The fact that they shamelessly tilt their coverage toward the horrors of Abu Ghraib while underplaying the beheadings, accompanied by internet gloating, sends a message something akin to: Well, if you're going to force an Islamic prisoner to put women's panties on his head you may as well go ahead and cut it off. It really amounts to just about the same thing!
The same media that can shrink beheadings so they can get hidden underneath prison mistreatment can adroitly, when it suits its agenda, likewise turn a thunderclap into a butterfly's belch. Are you aware Russian President Vladimir Putin announced he had repeatedly warned President Bush that Russian intelligence had uncovered Saddam Hussein's plans to commit acts of terror inside the United States? If not, you're excused. That story, possibly tremendously helpful to President Bush, was consigned to page 35 underneath the shipping notices. They also changed the wording to read that those intended acts of terrorism were NOT inside America but rather against American interests.
Inside America suggests buildings tumbling and shopping malls blowing up. Against American interests suggests an attack on an American tanker in Oman.
That's not the worst. On Thursday, June 24, the Iraqi insurgents scored over a hundred innocent Iraqis killed in five locations across the Sunni Triangle. The dominant media could scarcely conceal their jubilation as they compared that day's terrorism to the Tet Offensive of the Viet Cong in 1968. The Tet Offensive, a catastrophic military defeat for the communists but a communist propaganda victory in the American media, turned America against further attempts to save South Vietnam from communist aggression.
But hold on! The next day, Friday, June 25, 2004, brought a mercifully lower casualty rate across Iraq. Unlike the Tet Offensive, it did not escalate. It diminished. Saturday brought another diminution. By Sunday we were back to single-digit casualties.
Does anybody remember the phrase, "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy"?
Well, this was no Tet Offensive.
But, did any administration-opposing media come out in ink or air and say anything like, "Apparently the much-feared all-out onslaught against Iraqi civilians and members of the take-over government has lost, rather than gained, steam over the past few days"?
Let Tony Soprano answer. Forgeddaboutit!
Monday, June 28, dawned in American media with a quick-opening play handing sovereignty over to the Iraqis two full days earlier than planned. This was the period when the Michael Moore wing of American journalism had been warning of all-out mayhem by an expanded insurgency that had somehow managed to develop sophisticated and effective command and control. I channel-surfed for four hours and failed to hear a single report of car-bombings, suicide attacks, or anything else untoward happening inside Iraq.
Was there violence the media overlooked? That's media malpractice - ignoring a big story. Was there no significant violence at all to report? Then they'd be ignoring an even BIGGER story.
Have you heard anything like the following lately? "Despite awful setbacks for Bush in April, May, and June, Kerry fails to take the lead in the polls." True, but taboo!
A dermatologist could still see the pinkness on my thigh resulting from slapping said thigh while howling rather raucously watching a half-hour panel show on the Bush-Kerry race. For exactly 29 and a half minutes they wrapped cold wet blankets, as many as time allowed, around President Bush and his administration. The panel of handsome, articulate media men and women emphasized that the American casualties escalating in Iraq were hurting Bush, the escalating Iraqi casualties were hurting Bush, the Richard Clark book was hurting Bush, the 9/11 Commission's report was hurting Bush, and all the perfumes of Araby would not wash the Abu Ghraib prison scandal off of President Bush.
John Kerry, meanwhile, was raising money like mad, racking up labor solidly behind him, even getting auto genius Lee Iacocca behind him, even though that automobile wizard had campaigned for George Bush in 2000.
And at the tail end of the show the moderator asked, And what does the lastest poll show?
The latest poll showed President George Bush ahead!
And that reincarnates the tired old joke about the wizened old man, truly ancient-looking, emerging from the clubhouse to approach the first tee. As he was limping along a throng of media folk converged around him and cornered him before he could tee off.
"Excuse me, sir," asked one newsman. "Could you please tell us your secret?"
"Well," the wizened old-looking man began, "I never drink less than four bottles of liquor a day, usually quarts, of scotch, bourbon, or rye. I never smoke less than a carton and a half of cigarettes a day. I won't tell you where my cigars come from but I enjoy at least a dozen a day. My favorite foods are butter, pie with ice cream, and hot fudge sundaes. As for women, I didn t come here to brag, but two or three sexual encounters each day are kind of routine for me.
As the press folks were dutifully taking their notes, one of them cried out, "Excuse me, sir. And how old did you say you were?"
"Twenty-six," said he!
I've sold all my media stocks, and I don't patronize liberal media.
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