While al- Jazeera and left-wing European newspapers regularly provide anti-American and Bush-bashing propaganda, Raleigh's News & Observer, a McClatchy Co. paper, has for years offered readers only the Bush-bashing kind. But today, Jan. 16, it ran a story containing both anti-American and Bush-bashing propaganda.
The story's front page and headlined: "Fiery Belafonte focuses on injustice." Written by reporter Michael Beisecker, it begins:
Entertainer and human-rights activist Harry Belafonte said Sunday that there is moral equivalence between the actions of the Sept. 11 hijackers and the American-launched war in Iraq.The rest of the story is in a similar vein.
"Killing is our easiest tool," Belafonte said, addressing about 1,800 people packed in the cavernous gothic chapel at Duke University for a commemoration honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "When you have a president that has led us into a dishonorable war, who has killed tens of thousands, many of them our own sons and daughters, what is the difference between those who would fly airplanes into buildings, killing 3,000 innocent Americans? ... What is the difference between that terror and other terrors?" (Ellipse in N&O story)
...
Belafonte's appearance at Duke, a private university that once closed its doors to blacks, came little more than a week after comments he made on a trip to Venezuela grabbed national headlines. Standing next to Hugo Chavez, that country's socialist leader, Belafonte called Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world."
...
"When Katrina happened, this great tragedy, and our people called out in misery and fear, our government didn't respond," Belafonte said. He then recounted how the Venezuelan president offered to send doctors and low-cost heating oil to help America's poor -- an offer, Belafonte said, that was "arrogantly dismissed" by President Bush.
Like any propaganda story, The N&O's "works" because relevant facts and context are unreported while falsehoods are presented as if true.
For example, The N&O doesn't mention Belafonte's enthusiastic support of brutal leftist dictators. In the 1980's Belafonte praised the Soviet and East German regimes. He's a friend of Castro. The N&O's "socialist leader" Chavez is only the latest leftist thug Belafonte's embraced.
The N&O knows if it mantions any of that, most readers wouldn't be fooled into thinking Belafonte is a "human-right activist." Its story would start falling apart.
The N&O knows Belafonte has made racist remarks. About then Secretary of State Colin Powell, Belafonte said, “When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture.”
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Belafonte has said, is “like a Jew . . . doing things that were anti-Semitic and against the best interests of her people.”
Most newspaper reporters and editors would find it very relevant, and certainly ironic, that the principal speaker at an event honoring Dr. King's life made racist remarks about two great Americans. They'd make sure their readers knew about it.
But propagandists pitching a "Fiery Belafonte focuses on injustice" story would do just the opposite. They'd make sure the story said nothing about racist remarks. That's what The N&O did.
The N&O's story doesn't contain a single word indicating tens of millions of Americans find Belafonte's remarks about President Bush wrong, inflamatory, and possibly a threat to his safety.
The N&O never mentions that Belafonte's equating the terrorists acts of 9/11 with American policies has been challenged and refuted. Instead, The N&O reports Belafonte's "moral equivelence" charge the same way al-Jazeera reports it when others who hate America make it.
The N&O is silent about the enormous Katrina rescue and relief activities of our government and individual Americans. It’s silent about false MSM reports claiming minorities were discriminated against during and after Katrina.
The N&O’s silence on those matters enables it to "report" Belafonte's falsehood - "When Katrina happened, this great tragedy, and our people called out in misery and fear, our government didn't respond." - as if it were true.
And that's exactly how all anti-American propagandists "report" Katrina: Nothing about rescue and aid that we now know was nondiscriminatory. Just say there was a huge storm; poor black people cried out; and Bush and rich, white America ignored them.
___________________________________________________________________
Dear Readers,
I’ve tried hard to find a good ending for this post, but I’m stumped.
Over the years I’ve seen some pretty bad stuff in The N&O, but today’s story is among the worst.
It reads like a press release from the “Bush = Hitler” and “America deserved it” people.
I don’t know why The McClatchy Co. seems determined to drive The N&O further left.
I’d love to hear what you think.
I’ll be back tomorrow. We’re not giving up.
John
5 comments:
I'm further disappointed in my alma mater for hosting this nutjob in Duke Chapel no less. He was partially sponsored by the alumni association. Guess who's going to get turned down cold when they ask for my money?
Stay on their case.
I didn't even read past the headline.
You're a braver man than I am!
-AC
Locomotive breath, Anon, and Fish,
Thanks to all three of you for your comments.
I plan to send Duke President Richard Brodhead an email this evening.
I'll post it.
Any thoughts?
John
I think it is about the "split". It isn't any more complicated than that.
Belafonte, N&O, liberals, in general, do not care about the country, their countrymen, Hell, most of them don't even care about their children. This is not a debate between men of good will with opposing views. It is not about a faction of society that doesn't understand. They know they are wrong. They don't care. They only care about being in charge and being lauded as superior.
If a better idea or model is presented and working, they must derail it, else they have no way to gain the power they so desperately crave. The harm they are doing to the nation is not accidental, though to them, it is incidental. It is not their purpose. Their purpose is to gain power and no sacrifice,by them of others is too great.
If Belafonte thinks he got a raw deal here, wonder what he could have made of his life singing "The Banana Boat" song in Liberia or Nigeria. Oh boo hoo, we robbed him of his rightful destiny.
I thought of sending Brodhead a letter but decided it would be a waste. They're probably proud of what they've done and my letter would only serve as validation that they've p.o.'ed me as intended.
After all this is the same school that hosted the Palestine Solidarity Conference in October 2004. You'd get the same old pablum about how all viewpoints should be respected, blah, blah, blah.
I was on the nine year plan. (I had to graduate three times before I got it right.) Based on the time I was there, I take solace in the fact that the vast majority of students are laughing at them for hosting stuff like this.
This semester Duke is hosting a whole series of four talks on the topic "What do they think of us?" with a speaker addresing Canada, France and two others I don't remember at the moment. Full-time America bashing I'm sure.
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