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Deafening Silence from Corporate Media (on Silent IDF Dinner Protest)
The moving, silent protest March 9 outside the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan as Lt. General Gabi Ashkenazi gave the keynote speech at the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces gala was powerful and inspiring.
I asked Dorothy Zellner, a founding member of Jews Say No!, whether the hundreds of people who showed up to march and the two dozen or so organizations who co-sponsored the action was indicative of a larger shift in public opinion regarding Israel.
"Something about Gaza, so horrible, so horrific, has pushed a lot of people who were sitting on the fence over," the long-time civil rights activist replied. But, she said, "Last year, even though it was after Gaza, it hadn't penetrated. And mostly it hadn't penetrated because Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, those weren't in the news. But the Goldstone report," changed things.
But Americans who solely read and watch corporate, mainstream media don't know-about Goldstone, about the crimes of Israel, about why it is that there is a fundraiser on behalf of a foreign army in New York City, or that hundreds of people, including many Jews, were outraged enough to demonstrate against it. We have here-exemplified in last night's demonstration-the makings of a global, diverse, and loud movement against Israeli apartheid and the occupation, and of a growing rift between Jews and the mainstream Jewish establishment on the question of Israel. Yet, there's not a peep from the mainstream media.
The local papers in New York didn't touch it. The Daily News, which is owned by ultra Zionist Mort Zuckerman, or the Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch, didn't feel the need to send a reporter to the Waldorf. The New York Times didn't either. Nor did any other corporate publication, or MSNBC's Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann. The list goes on and on. Instead, we're stuck with Chris Matthews smiling with Joe Biden and Ethan Bronner in Israel, engaging in vapid conversation about a dead-end "peace process."
Many outlets in Israel covered it, for god's sake, another indication (as many others have said) of how constrained the American mainstream media conversation about Israel is.
It's what I expect. Corporate media's profit-model has no interest in social justice, nor do the advertisers behind their profit, nor do powerful media moguls who cozy up to those in power and who share their interests. And, particularly on this issue, we have the Israel lobby, and big journalists who march in lockstep with Israel.
Thankfully, we also have the Internet, where progressive, independent voices are being heard. Democracy Now!, Grit TV, and Mondoweiss covered the protest in-depth, as did the Indypendent. Through the web, the Palestine solidarity movement, and the independent media who cover it, are circumventing mainstream media.
This article originally appeared in Mondoweiss.
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Show All"Corporate media's profit-model has no interest in social justice, nor do the advertisers behind their profit, nor do powerful media moguls who cozy up to those in power and who share their interests."
Carve this statement into thousands of stones and put one in front of every school and college and church in the US.
Good article.
q
"Yet, there's not a peep from the mainstream media."
That's because there is nothing mainstream about the media. It is a euphemism for a monopoly on our marketplace of ideas, one that promotes its own agenda at our expense. And if you mention the most obvious, although not the only, item on its agenda, you are an anti-semite and your career is over. People like Admiral Mullen risk everything to even put up a protest. Welcome to those who recognize that their interests have been backwatered.
Face it folks, it isn't a "constrained main stream media", it's blatant censorship of anything critical of Israel. The best example was that if you want to know what's going on, read Haaretz or the Jerusalum Post. Two articles on the same day in June of 2009 in Haaretz should have been on the front pages of US papers: "Mossad: Iran Will Have Nuclear Bomb by 2014" and "Israel Can't Make up it's Mind About Iran Nuclear Timetable". The first article was only published in a US Army publication for officers, but nowhere else in the US or Europe. The hilarious part of the story is that the articles were easily available on the Internet. I'm certain that the Israelis are trying to figure out how to censor all those nasty stories about them off the Internet.
There are 5 million Jews in the US - less than 2% of the total population. Yet somehow they are able to unduly influence the gov't and the MSM - how is this accomplished?
I'll be waiting for the first "Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion" criticism.
chet 380; what do you say to the families of the 41 sailors who were slain by israeli air pirates on the eighth of june, 1967, when they were sailing on the u.s.s. liberty. a beautiful and sunny day, the american flag was unmistakable on that ship, yet the israelis repeatedly bombed and strafed it. some ally, huh? and chet380, have you read the letters between kennedy and israel, written in 1963 and now on the internet, in which kennedy warns israel not to build atomic bombs, and the israeli leaders assure him that they are not? they lied to j.f.k. then, and they lie to us now about their ethnic targeting of gazans and west bankers, against whom they use white phosphorous and uranium shells for the express purpose of creating birth defects among palestinian kids? golda meir said it best, when she said the thought of palestians procreating made her sick. each israeli leader has made his own racist remarks about palestinians since 1947. each of them is a george allen or a george wallace. but, in israel, that kind of racism makes you a national hero, a real stand-up character. chet 380, i ask you to recant your favorable allusions to israel, read the goldstone report, call the swedish enmbassy about the legend of count folk bernadotte, and then issue a magnanimous apology to all the common dream readers. i hope you have sent a financial contribution to common dreams. your name appears quite often here.
chet 380; what is your defense of the murder of count folk bernadotte by israeli agents? why did israel fail to prosecute his killers? why are streets today in tel aviv named after his murderers? how can israel link its national existence to the holocaust when they murdered the count, who saved tens of thousands of jews from nazi extermination? will you admit that israel is nothing but a land grab by european jews who finally found someone weaker than they and that they preyed upon european and american guilt to help them ethnically cleanse the part of the middle east that we now call israel?
chet 380; very easily, my friend. those who buck the system are singled out. massive campaign contributions begin to flow into opponents' war chests, not just from a.i.p.a.c. and its ilk, but from their allies on the christian right, who see israel as part and parcel of mankind's doomsday at armageddon. the israelis exist to fulfill that biblical prophecy, and the mightier they are, the sooner and more devastating the eschatological mayhem. all the christian broadcasting stations urge christians to contribute toward settling eastern european and russian jews into israel. with 9/11 hardly ancient history, the fear of arabs makes it easy for the average and uninformed american to gravitate toward our non-arab client, the state of israel. we are told over the media constantly that they are the only democracy in the middle east. propogandizing for israel, barbara walters has repeatedly questioned whether israel has even one nuclear weapon. universities fail to give tenure to scholars like norman finklestein, who question israel's right to run roughshod over its neighbors, or question the holocaust industry. love of all things israeli has permeated the american political dialogue of all classes, so that, mr. chet 380 is how israelis unduly influence the decisions of the u.s. government. how few americans know who noam chomsky is? how few americans know about the u.s.s. liberty? about count folk bernadotte, who was murdered by israelis after saving jews in europe? it's time for everyone to treat israel just like they would treat any other country. hey, we're the ones with manifest destiny, right? i thought that doctrine implied we here in the good ol' u.s.a. were the chosen ones, or, at least, that god was on the american side of the atlantic ocean.
This is the first Jewish revolt in ages... this time it is against the policies and crimes of Israel.
I knew this was gonna happen and it is growing.
Persistence is the ultimate power of the people.
Shalom
Actually, I think the first revolt was against the crimes of Israel too... All the King's men were stooges for the old Empire...
Now we have the runaway global War economy... the new and also falling Empire of War.
We are still very fortunate to have Free Speech TV, GritTV, Democracy Now, and numerous independent and global news websites.
Sadly we will loose the PBS programs Bill Moyers Journal and NOW, which will be replaced by Newsweek editor Jon Meacham's show called Need to Know.
I'm adding PBS along with Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN to my "No Watch List".
What is Fascism, Really?
http://steveosborn.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-is-fascism-really.html
If that looks pretty familiar, then you know you're looking at it.
I no longer say or write "media" or "mainstream media." I always say, "The Plutocrats' Propaganda Machine AKA the mainstream media."
I encourage us all to do this.
The possibility of things ending pleasantly in Israel seems rather far-fetched. The only question appears to be, how large a percentage of the human race will be drawn into the final catastrophe, whatever it's form? We've already paid a very dear price, including those of us who would prefer not to but who apparently have no choice in the matter. The cancer doctors have discovered the wisdom of cutting off the blood supply to some tumors to shrink and hopefully eliminate them. We need a tournequet for Israel. they are getting and spilling altogether too much of other people's blood.
GOOD Jews do not say Israel right or wrong.
Zionists will rule Palestine only so long as they rule America. It's that simple, and that difficult.
Keep up the good work Alex Kane!
You describe it well. Plus the advances in containment or penning up protesters so that they are less visible and less likely to interact with the public. Of course the solution is numbers.
Joe
Shame on Maddow and Olberman--Matthews was always a nut--for not pursuing human rights abuses in Israel. Just shows what phoney "progressives" they are.
and guess what? bill maher will take on every christian and try to make him or her an idiot, but never has bill maher said a negative word about israel or a positive statement about the arabs fighting for justice against that u.s. armed superpower in the middle east. he avoids the topic, for he fears for his career. his stray remark after 9/11 cost him his job at a.b.c. and he doesn't want to have to retrace his steps over the career path he had to rebuild after that debacle. but israel, the killers of count folk bernadotte, reign supreme in the media and in the hearts and minds of the average american, who believes in the virgin birth and miracles, but denies evolution and global warming. and americans believe, for the most part, that the current israelis are actually god's chosen people.