Posted on 05/26/2004 8:13:06 AM PDT by NutCrackerBoy
Cathy Young's opinion piece "Obscene gloating over US failures in Iraq" (May 22, 2004) explored the sickening phenomenon of journalists rooting for the enemy while their country - this country - is at war. By surveying news and features (let alone opinion pieces), it comes through that the US press has a stake in failures of the Iraq mission. For a contrast, we can as easily see that the Boston Globe has been working hard to make the judicial takeover of marriage law in Massachusetts succeed. The connection between these two is that they both reflect the great intellectual fallacy of the postmodern age - that is, that the competitive element of Western civilization is to be weakened at all costs.
The press in any age leverages its hold on the megaphone to sway the public, to try to control events. This fact of life is not at issue. Journalistic ethics are not at issue. At the Boston Globe, for example, judged on the content of pre-selected hard news pieces, the reporting meets an impeccably high standard of accuracy and objectivity. Manipulation by the press in any age is done by the selection process - what to print, especially regarding softer news and features, and what not to print.
The journalistic profession is filled with well-educated and highly intelligent individuals. It would be surprising if they had not internalized the postmodern fallacy, which we can also see played out in academic literature and the philosophy of law. The analysis of literature is today done through "critical theory" which abolishes evaluations of excellence, leaving only the exposure of craven politics, the exploitation of the underclass. Similarly, the dean of postmodern justice, John Rawls, idealizes maximization of autonomy for the weakest members of society. This quest delights in casualties of societal institutions, if they be institutions of the strong.
The press did not, as a rule, publish heart-warming features about the progress made in Iraq, or the many good works of our soldiers there. It would not have been a question of balancing the tough news. The stories would have been nourishment for our collective self-esteem. They would have served to keep up our will to do the right thing, to persist in the War on Terror. The press did not want the American people to feel strong and confident in our cause. That result would not have served the purpose of weakening the strong.
The press, as a rule, did not publish opinion pieces designed to help folks to understand the President's message on why we fight in Iraq. Following the postmodern fallacy, the press endeavored to attenuate his message by harping on the lack of a forensic connection between Saddam Hussein and the actions of the 9/11 hijackers.
Former human-rights and nuclear non-proliferation activists swell the ranks of the press. Fair enough. But it seems those were only righteous causes when they tended to bring about self-defeat. The press has pointedly avoiding conveying that our military defeat of Saddam Hussein has ended egregious rights abuses (Senator Edward Kennedy's absurd Abu Ghraib moral equivalency to the contrary notwithstanding). Despite the missing WMDs, we do know that the military force effecting regime change in Iraq was enforcement against a despot who flaunted the world's desire for proof of WMD destruction. The news media has not made the truth clear: the policy already has born fruit. Libya's fullly cooperative disarmament is a big one in the "W" column (so to speak). It would violate the postmodern fallacy to herald this non-proliferation success.
Contrasting with the national press' refusal to use its megaphone to help bring about success in Iraq, is the Boston Globe's avid use of said megaphone to further Goodridge's judicial activism on behalf of a persecuted class. Sure, the Globe reports hard news about gay marriage objectively - no problem there. But it has skillfully manipulated selection of hard news items, soft news, and feel-good feature items to create the appearance of a just cause. Again, manipulation is what newspapers do. Period. That's not the complaint.
When the fog clears, we see that the substantive legal complaints of gay couples - for example not being able to name one another as next of kin - are minor and easily solvable. There must be something else here. Gay folks do suffer from a dignity deficit in our society - the romantic/sexual unions of gays do not receive respect. Why gay marriage is the cause du jour of elites is that the postmodern sensibility cannot tolerate an institution of strength - marriage - weighing against a minority - homosexuals. Why gay marriage is wrong is exactly the same - the existing institution of marriage is such an important source of our strength.
What the Boston Globe is trying to do is to dissuade the electorate from doing the right thing - that is, urge our legislature to invoke Article 8 to return the SJC 4 to private life. The new SJC appointees, from our pool of worthy jurists, will surely reverse the faulty decision. Once the issues have properly been returned to the democratic sphere, it will be a long, hard slog to a better solution. That the Massachusetts Constitution makes Article 8 so very easy, simple majorities in the two houses, makes it all the more urgent for the Globe to "marshall" opinion against this action.
Some early "bad news" - the results of the court's undemocratic action - are starting to come out. One man shared with us that his hours-old gay marriage was an "open" one; meaning that sexual fidelity had not been pledged. A woman in a new gay marriage is already testing the waters for a lack of consortium suit connected with her partner's breast cancer.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that the Globe will use its megaphone well - it will publish those feel-good features about couples' problems solved, as a counter-weight to the inevitable bad gay marriage news. The same thing the US press has refused to do with the Iraq invasion.
Wonder why they didn't publish it?
Two suggestions if you were hoping they might print this letter.
First, stick to one subject. The Iraq war or gay marriage. I understand there is a relationship, but it complicates things and the editors probably would prefer not to relate them. Best to keep it simple and easy for readers to understand
Second, it's longer than they are likely to print from anyone who is not already well known.
Chances are they will not print a good letter from the enemy in any case; they prefer an occasional stupid letter from the enemy to pretend they are balanced while continuing to make their point. But it does happen sometimes. The NY Times once published a letter from me arguing against legalized abortion, I'm not sure why.
I sort of hoped they would contact me if they were interested, and work with me a bit on sharpening it, but I wasn't on pins and needles. They do publish long ones from time to time. I must admit the content is abstruse: I challenged myself to cover a sweeping area.
A good way to research the press bias is to do a comparison of how the media reported WW2 compared to how they are reporting on Iraq.
50 years ago media commentary would have been blasted for the way the media currently undermines our present goals and objectives. I believe many of our journalists are card carrying socialists today.
Good luck on the writing!
What do you think of Kathy Young?
I e-mailed her once about Breitweiser and she came back with a snotty response...to which I responded and she responded back.
She insisted that she was using Breitweiser as a bad example but it was hard to tell...her writing is so poor.
I haven't read anything else by her. That she wrote that piece at all was good, but I thought it degenerated into platitudes.
Definitely. I think today's press believes that there were excesses back during WW2, that the cheerleader way presents a threat to liberty; that therefore they should endeavor to strenuously avoid being cheerleaders for the government. Even if you accept that at face value, they have failed to master the nuances. There are practices that can be used to stay objective with respect to that. What they do is go way overboard - to BBC-esque institutional anti-governmentism. They yet do it, but in a muted way, when the leader is liberal like Tony Blair or Bill Clinton.
Hitler - "the task of propaganda lies not in a scientific training of the individual, but rather in directing the masses towards certain facts, events, necessities, etc., the purpose being to move their importance into the masses' field of vision."
I agree that it wouldn't be likely that this kind of writing would be published in the Boston Globe. however the two issues are very much related and in the way that you put forward.
In fact, you can see that kind of symetry across a range of issues like education/visas, abortion/illegal aliens.
Liberals will come down on the side of native american wildlife and recent immigrants. "Recent" used to mean those who came to the US from 1900 onward or the statue of liberty generation. Now "recent" means those who have come to the US after WWII.
One of the major differences between conservative christians and jews and homosexual baal/moloch one worlders is that homosexual crowd has a one world vision and they can see how by advancing their own agenda they advance the political vision. Conservatives do not have a vision of the future--on the same practical scale.
Good letter.
Just to comment on this post though. I think the large sections of the British press have been after blood when it comes to Tony Blair after the Iraq war started.
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