Sy Hersh, Defender of Innocent Little Torturers

I had to stop listening to Seymour Hersh on Democracy Now! today (a radio show hosted by Amy Goodman and carried by Pacifica radio network and others) on the topic of the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal, after he started doing that SHIT of calling ADULT WAR CRIMINALS "kids." "These kids" he said twice (before I turned it off) referring to Army Reserve MPs. These are ADULTS, fully responsible for their actions. As reservists, they are AT LEAST in their twenties, and have already done full tours of military duty prior to joining the reserves. And saying that MPs are only trained to be traffic cops is bullshit. MPs receive full law enforcement training. Anyway, who has to be "trained" to know torture, abuse, rape, and murder are wrong? Didn't they have parents? Didn't they go to church? Aren't they humans with an innate sense of morality, of compassion and empathy for others?
Hersh has a bad habit of defending the torturers by portraying them as hapless, innocent children, calling them "kids." He's been doing it since the scandal became news over a year ago. They are adults. I actually saw him on TV once arguing that the torturers shouldn't be prosecuted for violating the Uniform Military Code of Justice. An officer actually had to take the position that they shouldn't be exempt or immune!
It's not as if you ever hear Hersh calling for prosecutions of Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and their Nazi-type generals. And insisting it's unfair to hold lower ranks accountable because they were just following orders is the essence of the Nazi defense. I wonder if Hersh were German if he'd be calling concentration camp guards "innocent kids."

The Porn Trap For U.S. Troops

A Lt. Col. William H. Steele was arrested by the U.S. military and charged with crimes including one that carries a potential death sentence. The New York Times reported the charges as follows:

"BAGHDAD, April 26 — The American military has charged a top commander at its main detention center here with nine violations of military law, including “aiding the enemy,” a rare and serious accusation that could carry a death sentence.

"According to a military statement released Thursday, the officer, Lt. Col. William H. Steele, provided aid to the enemy between Oct. 1, 2005, and Oct. 31, 2006, “by providing an unmonitored cellular phone to detainees” at Camp Cropper, an expansive prison near Baghdad International Airport that held Saddam Hussein before he was hanged.

"Colonel Steele, who oversaw one of several compounds at Camp Cropper as commander of the 451st Military Police Detachment, was also charged with several counts of illegally storing and marking classified information; failure to obey an order; possession of pornographic videos; dereliction of duty regarding government funds; and conduct unbecoming of an officer — for fraternizing with the daughter of a detainee since 2005, and for maintaining “an inappropriate relationship” with an interpreter in 2005 and 2006. There were no further details given to explain the circumstances of the accusations."

One thing that is somewhat amusing is the" possession of pornography" charge. Virtually ALL U.S. male military personnel possess "pornography" (or some sexual material that could be so labeled). It provides a convenient catchall for dropping the hammer on any soldier for any reason,
 a built in "Gotcha!" It's like the famous scene in "Casablanca" where the French Vichy Officer closes
Humphrey Bogart's club on orders from the Nazi officer, using the excuse that gambling is going on, at the same moment his underling gives him his "winnings" (bribe) from said gambling. The porn excuse was also used against the Muslim interpretor at Guantanamo Bay (among other charges) whom the military falsely and paranoiacally 
suspected of treachery.

Three Card Monte Media Distracts the Public

The media has spent the past six days blaring about the Virginia Tech massacre. Apparently 32 dead Americans is a Major Event. 200 or so murdered Iraqis every day is just routine, like snow in Siberia.
Here's a couple of important stories the U.S. media shoved into a corner to make room for the really important story (which should have been major for one day, no more):
The Supreme Court took an axe to women's right to not be forced to be breeding animals against their will, legalizing the ban on intact dilation and extraction, even saying it was ok that some women's health would be endangered.
Alberto Gonzales told some more lies to the Senate Judiciary Committee, about the purge of U.S. Attorneys. Several right-wing GOP Senators called for his resignation to his face in the hearing!
Not stuff the reactionary U.S. corporate propaganda system wants people to notice anyway.

Giuliani's Bathetic Blather about Virginia Tech Massacre

Rudolph Giuliani beat his chest about the Virginia Tech massacre yesterday. The upshot was he wanted the dead killer to know that when he attacks people, he attacks "all of us." Apparently that punishes the dead killer, and deters others.
Except that it was precisely the intent of Cho (and other such sociopaths) to attack "all of us." If anything, such pointless bluster provokes and reinforces the anti-social impulses of such killers. They want to feel they are striking a blow against everybody else.
But apparently Giuliani is so confident in the power of his personal moral revulsion that his attitude alone can defeat evildoers, a la some adolescent comic book superhero.
As far as offering any actual possible solution or action to do something about the problem, Giuliani offered nothing. The Old Giuliani would have offered gun control. The New Giuliani, running for the reactionary vote outside NYC, is silent.
Not that I'm a knee-jerk gun banner. It's true that when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. Esp. in a country with over 100 million guns already. Perhaps having more people armed is the answer. Instead of hundreds of people being like helpless sleep being slaughtered by one asshole, people could fight back. The downside would be more suicides, more murders, more road rage assholes shooting people. Whether the trade off would be worth it would be a worthy topic of intelligent debate. But there is no intelligent debate presented to the public at large in America.
By the way, I'm not buddies with Giuliani, so unlike the U.S. corporate media, which always promotes right-wing pols, I don't call him "Rudy." He's not a "regular guy." Of course, "Rudolph" is a weird name in a U.S. context. What are the associations? Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer; Rudolph Hess, the Nazi. (Although Giuliani personally is not like Hess, he's like Mussolini.)
I leave it to his "buddies" in the press to call him "Rudy."

Media Causes Copycat Killing

A mere five days after the Virginia Tech massacre of 32 people by a viciously anti-social misanthrope named Cho, a long time (12 years) worker at NASA in Houston murdered a co-worker yesterday, terrorized another one whom he duct-taped up, and killed himself. High probability that he was inspired (or instigated, I hate to use the word "inspired" in this case) by the saturation media "coverage" of Cho's crimes.
In their sick obsession with ratings and profit, they lavished attention on the murderous Cho, even airing his deranged media kit which he sent to NBC in the middle of his murders! Making him the center of attention is a sick thing to do. There is no news value in "shocking" us with photos and videos of him threatening the camera. This can ONLY encourage copycats who similarly seek negative glory.
Tellingly, Cho himself was inspired by the creepy teenage murderers of Columbine HS in Colorado, paying homage to them as "martyrs." (The irony that those racists hated Asians like Cho was obviously lost on the imbecile. They styled themselves as Nazis.)
So the media guarantees repetitions of these psychotic, self-aggrandizing crimes by haters of humanity by providing them the template for guaranteed attention. The mentally ill Cho was completely realistic in his anticipation that the media would lavish attention on his "message." People seeking sick attention through murder have every encouragement from the U.S. media to perpetuate these crimes.

WFAN (CBS-Owned) Still Running Ads for Imus Show

As of Saturday morning, April 14, WFAN (NYC am station owned by CBS which originates the Don Imus show) is still running ads for Imus' show. I heard it with my own ears. Allegedly CBS cancelled the show two days ago.An error? Staff subversion? Or what?

Capitalist Values May Do In Don Imus, Ironically

MSNBC waited for the Imus controversy to blow over- until major advertisers started bailing out of sponsoring Imus' show. AFTER that, MSNBC decided to cancel his show from cable tv.

As reactionary as they are, the corporatchiks who run U.S. tv are capitalists first and foremost. Advertisers cancelling is the kiss of death even for an Imus.

Imus and his "talk radio" ilk are useful to the oligarchs for promulgating reactionary attitudes. Having these louts broadcasting to the entire country is like having a Brownshirt orator on a soapbox on every street corner.

Now we are waiting to see if Leslie Moonves, the oily head of CBS (whose ultimate master is Sumner Redstone) will resist the pressure of Al Sharpton et al to fire Imus or try to tough it out with a 2-week suspension yet to start. No doubt advertisers will determine Imus' fate.

Of course, sometimes there are more important things than money to capitalists. Phil Donahue had the top-rated show on MSNBC. Yet the bosses there cancelled his show 3 weeks prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, entirely for political reasons. There are other examples of ideology trumping strictly business considerations in the U.S. media.

The loathsome Ann Coulter (9/11 widows are "harpies" who "are glad their husbands died" and other outrages) and the ranting rabid dog Michael Savage (a pseudonym- Savage is Jewish, which is shameful, because no Jew should be a fascist after the Third Reich) among other sociopaths still are pampered with major media soapboxes in America. Unlike any leftist, progressive, or critic of the U.S.- including world-famous dissidents such as Noam Chomsky.

THIS EVENING CBS ANNOUNCED THE CANCELLATION OF IMUS' SHOW, REPORTS THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Don Imus "shocker;" a thought experiment

[This is on the occasion of Imus and sidekick making mocking racist banter about the Rutgers University women's basketball team. WikiPedia has extensive info on this. Here is a summary from there- footnotes are in that article: On April 4, 2007, during a discussion about the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship, Imus characterized the Rutgers University women's basketball team players as "rough girls" commenting on their tattoos. His executive producer Bernard McGuirk responded by referring to them as "hardcore hos". The discussion continued with Imus describing the girls as "nappy-headed hos"^[13][14] and McGuirk remarking that the two teams looked like the "jigaboos versus the wannabes" mentioned in Spike Lee's film, School Daze; apparently referring to the two teams' differing appearances.^[15][16] At 6:00 p.m. that evening, Media Matters for America released recorded transcripts to the news media highlighting the brief exchange:]WikiPedia article on Don Imus

The major media has finally noticed that Don Imus is given to spewing racist invective. Various websites have documented this phenomenon for years now. Even now however, they won't call it "racist." Various circumlocutions are used. The closest they usually come to using the right term is calling it "racial."

There is no question that Don Imus spews racist abuse and has done so for years. Directing it at young women who are particularly likely to be wounded by this nationally broadcast abuse is particularly vile. His easy "apology" is of course insincere and meaningless.

Some have even defended him. We are to believe it was joking. Yes, it was joking- the joking of white racists.

We're also told that he's just a misanthrope who makes fun of everyone. Not quite. He mocks and ridicules everyone but straight white males. In short, he promotes an attitude of white male superiority to all other people by demeaning and degrading other people.

Here's the thought experiment. What is Don Imus has said something anti-Semitic, or used an epithet like "Kike," or "money-grubbing Jew"? Would there be a "controversy"? Don Imus would instantly be history.

This is not because CBS, his boss, is owned by a Jew, Sumner Redstone. Or that MSNBC, which broadcasts him, is part of NBC News which is part of NBC Universal which is headed by Jeff Zucker, a Jew. It's because Jews in general are disproportionally powerful in the media and in American society. (And no one should fault them for their success. If as a group they are clever and smart enough to achieve status, wealth and power, that is a compliment to their abilities.) Blacks, who outnumber Jews in America 5 to 1, on the other hand are one of the very weakest groups in America, contrary to reactionary propaganda about the reign of "political correctness" (code for basic decency and respect for other people).

That in America we have to fight battles over whether blacks, and even more, gays, should be subject to public calumny (which incites violence against them by the louts in the target audience of bigots and haters) shows how primitive, backward, and uncivilized U.S. society is.

Kagans Kagans Kagans

b. lehrer show 1.11.07

Kagans Kagans Kagans

Morning after Bush' tv speech announcing his latest “plan” for victory in Iraq. (Escalation, as expected, euphemistically called a “surge.”)

One of Brian Lehrer’s guests today on his show today on public radio station WNYC was the imperialist “military historian” Frederick Kagan, late of West Point, training ground for future army officers, now ensconced in a right-wing propaganda mill, the so-called American Enterprise Institute (“conservative think-tank” in the respectful locution used by Lehrer).

Kagan absurdly maintained that OF COURSE Bush wasn’t going to invade Iran or Syria. How does he know? Because Bush just threatened those nations on tv last night, and you don’t threaten before you invade! Why, then it’s not a surprise if you subsequently invade. Guess this clown wasn’t alive during 2002-2003, which the U.S. spent threatening Iraq with invasion PRIOR TO INVADING! Guess Lehrer wasn’t alive then either, since he didn’t mention it. And how good a “military historian” could Kagan be if he is unaware of the numerous examples of nations threatening other nations before their aggression? Like, say, Nazi Germany.

The point of public threats is to psych up your army and populace for war. That’s why threats precede aggression. Also there’s the need to create justifications and pretexts for war.
Then of course there are the inconvenient (and thus ignored by Lehrer and Co.) facts that the U.S. has conducted raids into Syria already, and recon forays into Iran to target that country's nuclear facilities. We don't yet know if the Special Force have also been committing sabotage and assassinations in Iran.

Lehrer is in love with imperialists. Two days ago he had on Kagan's more egregiously warmongering brother Robert. He had three on today, and one anti-war critic, Congressman Jose Serrano of the Bronx. Lehrer also had on what's more typically palmed off on the public as a “war critic,” someone who objects to the execution of the war, not to U.S. aggression. Today’s “war critic”of that ilk was a retired Colonel and National War College instructor, Sam Gardner.

The point is to try and brainwash the liberal WNYC audience. Seems like one or the other Kagan is on Lehrer’s show every couple of weeks lately for this purpose. Many of Lehrer's shows follow the pattern of trying to pull leftist-leaners in the audience to the right.
Of course, WNYC sees its mission as an anti-WBAI. It even runs ALL its fundraisers at exactly the same time WBAI runs its.

Ironically, this evening's PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer (presumably no relation to Brian) on tv had a much more realistic and honest discussion, with Zbigniew Brzezinski and Walter Russell Mead. Brzezinski has become an amazingly candid and realistic (for an imperialist) commentator on the Iraq war and the follyo f Bush's foreign policy. This was a guy who connived with China to invade Vietnam, who was part of the effort to keep the Shah of Iran in power, and then to rescue him and try to subvert the Iranian revolution.

Brzezinski said such things as “neocons are raring to go” into Iran. (Why can't Kagan and Lehrer see that obvious fact?) He described them as having “a kind of fanatical commitment which I think is detached from reality.” He also got the last word, which was to describe the war as a “colonial war” in a “post-colonial era. It cannot be won because it's out of sync with the times.” Amazing words coming from a member of the U.S. Establishment! It's a wonder he can still get on tv.

It seems that he and his erstwhile boss Jimmy Carter (B. was Carter's “National Security” Advisor) are the most (relatively) honest members of the Establishment today. Carter is currently being reviled by the Jewish mafia and its accomplices as practically an anti-Semite for writing a book that dared to criticize Israeli oppression of the Palestinians as well as criticizing the Palestinians. What a nerve the man has! Criticize Israel? The man must hate Jews! (The Jewish executive director of his organization and 14 board members subsequently resigned to protest Carter’s committing the unconscionable outrage of criticizing Israel.)

On the other hand, Walter Mead was a mealy-mouthed company man on the PBS show. He obediently adopted the Bush nomenclature of “surge” instead of escalation. While speaking of how the U.S. is “tightening the noose,” he claims not to know if Bush's threats against Iran and Syria in his speech are intended to coerce. “You're asking me to read minds there and I'm not good at reading minds” he told Jim Lehrer. What an ass. Apparently he's also no good at reading papers and websites or listening to broadcasts. Because it was already reported early that morning, before the PBS evening show or Brian Lehrer's show, that the U.S. Attacked the Iranian consulate in Erbil, in the Kurdish region of Iraq, kidnapping the diplomatic personnel there and stealing the property, documents, computers, etc., and ripping the Iranian flag off the flagpole for good measure. Legally that's an invasion of Iranian territory, and thus an act of war. Of course, it's also a violation of international law, but the U.S. violates international law daily. NPR (the network of which WNYC is an affiliate and which broadcasts its news) helpfully pointed out that Erbil is far, far away from the insurgencies that Bush accused Iran of supporting, supplying, and stoking.

If Brian Lehrer had bothered to listen to that morning's NPR feed, he could have asked Frederick Kagan about his ridiculous assertion that it's nonsense to think Bush would start a war with Iran. Of course, Lehrer was probably well aware of it. He seems quite well-informed generally. Guess it just wasn't that important. What's another war, more or less? Or another deception, or another arrogantly dishonest “expert” (Kagan) waging his little propaganda war against the public? Aided and abetted by “liberal” Brian Lehrer.

The Hypocrisy of the Social "Realists"

Straight jackasses like to attack hippies and other nonconformists by sneering contemptuously at them to "get in touch with reality." ("Get with the program" is a contemporary variant of this "realist" demand.)
And Establishment media hacks liked to ridicule the ever-so-slightly unconventional Jerry Brown as "Governor Moonbeam." One editorial cartoon portrayed him out in space, standing on a small moon, with his thumb out hitchhiking. He held a sign with his destination, reading "Reality." The hack pack routinely mocks and ridicules the handful of semi-progressive politicians, such as Dennis Kucinich, as wackos out of touch with "reality." (Even non-liberals like John Kerry are portrayed as flaky quasi-extremists.)
Yet these self-styled hard-headed realists who sneer at others for being out of touch with reality invariably believe in a pack of ridiculous fairy tales, in at least one mythological being, and in spirits. That is, they pledge fealty to the "Bible," believe in "God," and think that people have immortal "souls" that never die and exist forever in imaginary places called "Heaven" and "Hell." (There used to be another imaginary place in Catholic theology, "Purgatory," but they abolished that one. Just goes to show how arbitrary and invented it all is.)
"You don't know God doesn't exist!"
Yes I do.
"How do you know!"
The same way I know Santa Claus doesn't exist. People made it up.
In fact, people have invented no fewer than 5,000 "gods." Of course, the Christians would say that all the other 4,999 Gods are make-believe. They're all fake, except for theirs. (Likewise, adherents of other religions are likewise totally self-assured in believing in the reality of their own god or gods and dismissing other gods as fantasies, figments of the imagination.)
So Zeus is fake, Osiris is fake, Vishnu is fake- only your "God" is real. What are the chances of that? Where did your God come from, anyway? It evolved out of the invention of the earlier gods.
Interestingly, Christians must also deny the existence of Yahweh and Allah. Yet the Christian God is a later model of Yahweh, since Christianity is descended from Judaism. And since Islam came out of the Judeo-Christianity (Islam recognizes Jesus as a prophet, in fact), Allah in fact is an updated version of the Christian god, "God." (Allah simply means "god," after the Christian fashion of naming their god "God." Like naming your dog, "Dog," or your child, "Child." Like it's the one-and-only, I suppose.)
Since "God" is a knockoff of Yahweh, how can Christians claim their make-believe diety actually exists, but the one it was copied from doesn't?
All this illustrates how as soon as your starting talking factually about religion, its absurdity (indeed preposterousness) becomes obvious.
So then the religionoids respond with anger and rage- since they're clearly wrong, they have no other weapon but violence, verbal, intellectual, and physical, to "win" the argument. They've been doing that for thousands of years. The most horrendous tortures and mutilations have been committed by them to enforce their demented fairytale beliefs.
Among the people who swear fealty to primitive, ancient fairytales and who worship imaginary beings are the very same hard-headed "realists" who tell you to "face facts" and "get in touch with reality", who enjoy sneering "welcome to reality" at you when they try to smash you into conformity with their repressive, man-made system, their social mores, their cultural attitudes, their emotional biases, and most of all, their exploitative economic system. They dishonestly pretend that the mechanisms of repression they impose are not man-made but immutable facts of nature, just "the way the world is."
No, it's the way people with an agenda MAKE the world. It's completely political, not natural as they would have it. It's about controlling everyone.
So these big "realists" believe in archaic fairytales and magical supermen in the sky who save them from death. But here's another contradiction. These oppressive control freak turds are constantly babbling about "freedom" as they're trying to control and exploit everybody. To hear them tell it, they just LOVE "freedom," their oppressive system of control is totally free, the freest system on earth, the apex of freedom, and they go around the planet spreading freedom like a bunch of Johnny Appleseeds of Liberation, spreading the blessings of freedom and democracy far and wide. This from a gang that exported the Nazi invention of fascist death squads to scores of nations.
Could anything be a bigger crock? Not even the sham "socialism" of totalitarian tyrants like Stalin and Mao is any phonier.

Beware Air America Radio!

During their 2pm EST newscast on Dec. 12th, 2006, Air America Radio's newsreader claimed that Salvador Allende "committed suicide" during the 1973 coup. This is not a fact, but propaganda that the fascist junta put out. In fact, Allende was murdered in Moneda Palace resisting the coup. We know this because 1) his character and personality, 2) the claim of suicide with a submachine gun is ludicrous, 3) it was obvious that the junta wanted to discredit Allende and prevent his memory from being a rallying point for opponents of the fascists, and 4) even the FBI, friends of the fascists, concluded that the suicide story was false. They came to this conclusion during their reluctant investigation of the terrorist bombing murders of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt in Washington, D.C. in 1976.

Alleged progressives shouldn't repeat fascist propaganda as "news." And anyone broadcasting purported news to the public should get their facts straight. (Of course the U.S. media in general is just propaganda.)

The fundamental problem with AAR is that it's just a thinly disguised propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. The worst reactionaries in that Party are fawned over on air as honored guests.

The Truth-In-Advertising Pledge

I Pledge Allegiance
to the Rag
of the United States of America
and to the Republic
for which it stands
all humbug
and so's "God"
with liberty and justice
a mirage.

Michael J. Fox faking his Parkinson's Disease, Rush Limbaugh says

Rush Limbaugh has determined that Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's tremors are "an act." This is his response to ads by Fox against candidates who oppose fetal stem-cell research. (Actually blastocyst stem-cell research.) This type of intellectual thuggery is in lieu of actual political debate. We are supposed to pretend it represents an actual "clash of ideas." But Limbaugh's various lies and preposterous assertions (such as insisting that CFCs don't deplete upper atmosphere ozone, about which there is no scientific dispute) are no more "ideas" than any other demagogue's ranting. Apparently there are a lot of nasty people in America who vicariously enjoy the sick invective and bullying of Limbaugh and the numerous imitators foisted on the public by those who control the media.

Oh those wacky Republicans!

Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida (Palm Beach) had to resign after being exposed sexually prowling underage male Congressional pages. At first his office reacted with indignation to his exposure, until more explicit emails came to light.

Ironically, or hypocritically, or absurdly, Foley was chairman of the so-called Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus. He sponsored legislation to protect children from people who- well, people like him.

This brings to mind those closeted fascist homosexuals who are public homophobes. What perfect camouflage!

Richard Wollfe, White House shill for Bush

Brian Lehrer, had on his show (July 7, 2006) on WNYC (NYC) a fool named Richard Wollfe, senior White House correspondent for Newsweek, to discuss President Bush's live Q & A . For some reason Newsweek wants a White House shill to cover the WH for them. This limey insisted that job grow has been “very strong” for the past 12 months! The exact opposite of the truth. It's been anemic. Even establishment economists have called it a “jobless recovery,” with a scratch of the head. (It defies their dogma.) Wolffe calls 200,000 new jobs a month ”strong.” No, that's WEAK. Just to keep up with U.S. population growth requires 300,000 new jobs a month. He also sneered at the characterization of the latest number (only 100,000) as “tepid.”
Lehrer did not contradict any of this propaganda. Perhaps Lehrer is just ignorant. It only takes an occasional glance at the business press to pick up these facts. (That's how I know them.)*
Wollfe was given a more important platform by mega corporation GE on their $ propaganda channel MSNBC, on “Countdown with Keith Olberman, where Wollfe once again “analyzed” Bush’s latest public performance. (Bush vs. the media about War in Iraq - Countdown with Keith ...
MSNBC'S Keith Olbermann takes a look at the recent statements by the president, and talks with Richard Wollfe from Newsweek magazine.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11976184/ -)

Another segment of the Lehrer show dealt with that awful reactionary Joe Lieberman and his attempts to beat back his challenger in the Democratic primary in Conn. Lieberman of course was a rightist from day one- which is why the fascist National Review and Buckley endorsed him when he first ran for the Senate. Lehrer couldn't get anyone to call in to defend the bastard, so he instructed his assistants to reserve a line for Lieberman supporters.
That didn't work. A caller snuck on that line to describe how Lieberman hobnobs with the racist dog Bob Grant. Lieberman even sucked up to Grant by saying how much his (sainted) mother loves him! If it's true, she's a racist cur, and if it's not, Lieberman libels his own mom for perceived political advantage.
The fact is, Grant's racism is extreme and overt, and no respectable politician should be ABLE to be on his show. The fact that Grant is considered legitimate is a sign of the moral decadence of U.S. society.
And media people who treat Grant as a legitimate member of their “journalistic” fraternity guilty of promoting racism.
Some fool reporter on the show rebuked the caller's characterization of Lieberman as a racist (after the caller safely hung up) by saying that Lieberman went to the South to register black voters. Let's see, that would be about 45 years ago. That proves exactly nothing. What he does TODAY matters a lot more than what he did over 40 years ago! People change. (Besides, who knows what Lieberman's motives were back then?)
Lehrer made sure to paint the caller as an unethical sneak. So what? He broke through the blackout.

*Here’s examples of how Wollfe and Lehrer were at odds with the business press.
The business section of The New York Times (July 8th) headlined the news as “Jobs Data Indicates Economy Is Slowing.” The article started: “Employers added only 121,000 jobs in June,…” Note, “only.”
Ah, you say, the Times is just anti-Bush. (At least that’s what you’d say if you’re a stubborn right-wing zealot.) Ok, how about Investor’s Business Daily? It’s a rabidly reactionary extremist rag, as evidenced daily by its editorial section. The July 10th edition headlined the news on page one thusly: “June’s 121,000 Jobs Far Below Targets, But Pay Gains Jump.” (The Times article also noted the “strong” wage gains.) The IBD article noted that there were only 92,000 jobs created in May, revised by the Labor Department, and that “signs of weakness sent the dollar to a one-month low vs. the euro.” But hey, what do markets know? Propagandists know better. (Here’s one example of how right-wing this particular rag is- their July 11th edition blames Clinton and- get this- Carter for high gasoline prices, under the heading “America Undermined- Carter, Clinton and Congress: Why gasoline costs so much.” Inflation-adjusted, and compared to Europe and Japan, it’s not “so much,” but that’s the least of the logical problems with the demented screed.)
Then there’s Barron’s. Barron’s is an elite financial weekly put out by Dow Jones, the publishers of The Wall Street Journal. Here’s what their senior columnist, Alan Abelson, had to say in the front of the paper: quoting his “favorite parsers of the monthly employment reports,” who said, “’This was a weak report, with few signs of strength under the surface.’” Abelson notes that “ the average monthly gain in the second quarter” was “a meager 108,000, sharply below the first quarter’s 176,000 and even more sharply below the long-term average of 236,000.” As for the wage gain, “real wages- that is, adjusted for inflation- aren’t growing at all.”
Then on page M-1, they refer to the “lame job count.” 121,000 new jobs vs. 175,000 forecast by the economic soothsayers. On page M-12 their regular columnist Randall Forsyth writes; “the third straight lame monthly increase in nonfarm payrolls,” and “June’s punk payrolls gain was the third in a row, adding to the accumulating evidence of a slowing economy.” But not to Bush regime shills in the media like Newsweek’s Richard Wollfe, and their enablers like “public” radio’s Brian Lehrer.

JFK Assassination and the Real Wackos

The Establishment likes to discredit anyone who won't toe the official line on the JFK hit by ridiculing them as nuts. "Conspiracy theorist" has been turned into a synonym for "crackpot" by the establishment media (propaganda system). But to believe that "Lee Harvey Oswald, (a Cuban agent, if you accept that CIA part of the lie, which was designed to provoke an invasion of Cuba in retaliation for the killing of JFK putatively by Castro), acting alone, assassinated Kennedy," you have to ignore volumes of facts that disprove that. But even more, you have to ignore the basic laws of physics, namely the one that says when an object is moving through space with momentum and strikes another object, the struck object has force applied in the direction the object hitting it was moving. In other words, when a cue ball strikes another poolball, for example, the struck ball doesn't go BACKWARDS in the direction the cue ball CAME FROM. This is a basic fact of the universe that all people learn as infants, and of which we are reminded every day.

The Zapruder film showed Kennedy's head being violently snapped BACKWARDS, (and his brains and pieces of skull splattered on the trunk of the limosine in which he was riding with his wife and Texas Governor John Connolly) from a shot fired from the grassy knoll by CIA assassin Frank Sturgis (nee Fiorini- he took the same Sturgis from a trashy spy novel written by his fellow CIA assassin E. Howard Hunt, who was with him on the grassy knoll that day).

"Oswald" (in fact a double, and if you've seen the photos it's amazing how like Oswald he looks, nearly identical) was said to have fired from above and behind from the Texas School Book Depository- so a shot from there could not have caused the head to snap violent BACK and the contents of the skull to explode to the REAR. Not in this universe anyway.

The elites have also made "grassy knoll" a term of ridicule and contempt. This is how they debate. They have to ignore the facts. They can hardly admit to the facts about the JFK hit, as it reveals the undemocratic nature of their system and the ruthlessness and murderousness that lies at its heard.