Their journalistic aggression upon you allows the their cronies in government to rob you for the enrichment of foreign states; who then put your stolen tax money to the most unethical uses imaginable.
Ron Paul puts the concept of foreign aid through the wringer as only he can:
While free trade should be embraced, foreign aid should be rejected. Constitutional, moral, and practical arguments compel such a view. Constitutional authorization for such programs is at best dubious. Morally, I cannot justify the violent seizure of property from Americans in order to redistribute that property to a foreign government—and usually one that is responsible for the appalling material condition of its people. Surely we can agree that Americans ought not to be doing forced labor on behalf of other regimes, and that is exactly what foreign aid is. [The Revolution: A Manifesto, p.99]
A commenter in the last post made light of this as it pertains to the “special relationship” enjoyed by Israel.
Though Israel is the richest of all nations receiving U.S. aid, it is the largest recipient, and the deal it receives is exceptional among all other state recipients. But thanks to the way corporate news media cover this subject (on the rare occasion they do — usually, to justify insane militarism), Israel is made to look like a worthy, needy partner earning the loot. Reading The Associated Press you’d think Israel couldn’t exist without it — a ridiculous inversion of clear-headed logic.
All the while, Israel continues its decades-long policies of ethnic cleansing and perpetual, racist colonial expansion on the backs of not only the indigenous Palestinians they brutally occupy, but also the American people subsidizing it. Israel’s economy is thriving; ours is diminishing; the Palestinians are being crushed; and the American people are being evermore radicalized by the lying mainstream media who take us for suckers. What could be more un-American, backward, and evil than that?
The fact of the matter is that Israel is a huge cash cow for the MIC.
The profiteering tyrants wouldn’t get away with it all without the front-to-back “coverage” of their Propaganda Ministry. Corporate news media must be exposed and held to account; this would go a long way toward restoring ethical government, prosperity, and the good name the USA had before the Wilson’s, FDR’s, Bush’s, and their corporate cronies began raping us and the people of the world for their own enrichment.
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No correction or retraction so far from AP…
…on the falsehood-heavy ‘Iran nukes’ report by Steven Gutkin.
At least, as far as I can tell. But in the meantime, to shed a little light on the kind of folks we’re dealing with here…
I first spoke to the international desk over the phone early yesterday morning. The lady on the other end tried to tell me the report only claimed that Israel was worried that Iran would be able to get “the bomb”; so I pointed out, one by one, each sentence, including the headline, where Gutkin falsely stated as fact that Iran has nuclear weapons, or is building them.
Unable to make me act the sucker, she gave me another, more pertinent phone number of an AP desk in NYC: 1-212-621-6060. Well, as it turned out, that number connected to a recorded RSVP service for a local ASCAP convention at the Ritz Carlton Hotel — Miami Beach, Florida. The convention was held on May 16.
This, folks, is the world’s “largest and most trusted source of independent news and information.”
Anyhow, when I called again a few hours later, I apoke to a different rep, this time a man. When asked about the bad phone number, he said he had no idea why she gave me that number. When asked about the “Iran nukes” issue, he said that they were “getting a good number of calls” and emails on it, and that “they” (Gutkin et al., I assumed) are ”looking at it.”
Which, of course, is complete bullshit. It’s a simple question of whether you lie to your readers or you don’t. And once you know you have been busted, what do you do.
Well, so far I know what AP has done. No email reply. No correction. No retraction. No big surpise:
We traveled to AP’s control bureau in Israel. With our own video camera out and running, we asked bureau chief Steve Gutkin about this incident. Was the information we had been told correct, or did he have a different version? Did the bureau have the video, or had they indeed erased it. If so, why?
Gutkin, repeatedly looking at the camera and visibly flustered, told us that AP did not allow its journalists to give interviews. He told us that all questions must go to Corporate Communications, located in New York. He explained that they were on deadline and couldn’t talk. I said I understood deadline pressure, and sat down to wait until they were done. When he called Israeli police to arrest us, we left. [Alison Weir, "AP Erases Video of Israeli Soldier Shooting Palestinian Boy," CounterPunch, March 2006]
Thanks to AntiWar.com, CASMI.org, and others for helping to spread the word on this episode of criminally-yellow journalism. I’m sure your hopes weren’t too high either. After all, the AP report has been issued, re-issued over and over, and circulated to tens of thousands of news outlets of all media types, and consumed by the billions. It’s that popular ”damage done” technique, par excellance. But how much humility and integrity does it take for a major news service to publicly correct and retract such huge and dangerous errors? Then again, this is AP we’re talking about.
Source: http://detainthis.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/no-correction-or-retraction-so-far-from-ap/--MORE--"
