Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
A VETERAN national security journalist with NBC News and MSNBC reveals the obvious.
Comments
TeeVee News corporate empires and their millionaire broadcast celebrities have been "captured" by war profiteering since Dubya ginned up his awesome Iraqi adventure. This guy just realized it?
FWIW for the reason stated above, I stopped watching any TV news in March, 2003.
BTW, your link didn't post.
by NCD on Thu, 01/03/2019 - 3:03pm
There has long been a debate within the democratic party about the use of force in foreign policy. It's nonsense to now attribute that debate to opposition to Trump or corporate media. The 2008 democratic primary was dominated by a debate over Hillary's vote for the Iraq resolution and it came down to a dead heat with Obama barely winning. Hillary easily won the primary in 2016 despite her clearly more hawkish foreign policy views. Some want to claim the anti-war mantle for the liberals but there is debate even among the left of the democratic party. Even here you and I have been arguing about it for years and I consider myself to be to the far left of the democratic party. Both sides of that debate are given air time on the so called "liberal" network.
by ocean-kat on Thu, 01/03/2019 - 3:42pm
Arkin & Greenwald can't find an unkind word on Russia, except to sweepingly blame any negatives on the victim for the "brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation". And would not a Russian-controlled President who's so vulnerable to manipulation cause us to resist quick impulses to follow that President's security brainfarts that seem as unhinged and counter to our security interests the same as his trade wars and rewriting NAFTA and energy policy are counter to our economic interests? Apple lost $55 billion in valuation thanks to Trump's Putin-pleasing trade war (while we sit out the benefits of TPP) - and that's our "business leader" president at work. What's the equivalent of $55 billion in a massive military fuckup? arguably much larger, such as when Ukraine lost Crimea to Putin's devious "little green men" and sent troops to Donbas while saying he didn't.
Does Arkin ever fucking once consider Option C, leaving a few troops in Syria/Iraq for a few more years until the Traitor-In-Chief can be impeached, removed from jail and thrown in jail, or does our "respect for civilian government" as he calls it include following the most lawless politician we've ever had deep down into the shitter of our once-somewhat-compassionate-and-respectable democracy? This is the same President who had ICE rip babies from immigrant parents and then *LOSE THEM*, latest having a few kids simply die while he blames the parents. This motherfucker is callous as shit - refused to help out Puerto Rico seriously after a hurricane so that 4000 died avoidably, and millions went without electricity for at least a half a year. But Arkin here's Donald speak and says, "yup, that's a good idea George, must take our leader at face value, sounds like it makes sense..." This is the guy who cares so much about the Mideast that he helped defend the government that bone sawed up a US-based journalist. But no, Arkin's mad at NBC for being captive to the daily grind. At least they're not captive to the use of chemical weapons on civilians and beating/disappearing protesters, and the other awful stuff that Arkin doesn't seem to notice while he's trying to pontificate over his war cred. So why did Arkin show moral scruples by being skeptical about US involvement in the Mideast, while maintaining same moral scruples in cheering and supporting Russian involvement in the Mideast? Has he done any body counts lately? taken into account Erdogan's imprisonment and removal of 100,000 critics, all the other nasty shit going on? No, he cherry picks 1 incident, separates it from any context except his Iraq position 16 years ago, and then resigns with a huff. Ironic as well that Greenwald would compare NBC to "state TV" when he has no such criticisms for Russia's state RT (Russia Today) and Sputnik, involved in echoing propaganda tied to Russian hacking & other intrigue.
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 01/03/2019 - 3:42pm
Arkin & Greenwald can't find an unkind word on Russia, ... ...
But the article isn't about Russia, is it? It also isn't about Nazi Germany so no unkind word for Hitler either. It is about and insiders claim that MSNBC is a captive to the National Security State and is reflexively Pro-War.
I would like to see a link that supports that statement just to see for myself how he defends Saudi Arabia and from what charge.
by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 01/03/2019 - 5:26pm
If Russia has troops & advisors in Syria and Greenwald/Arkin are cheering leaving Syria to Russia, yes, it's about Russia (at least partly) isn't it? sure, we could just pull our troops from Korea as Trump suggest, but as long as North Korea has *its* troops on the DMZ & playing with nukes, isn't that a bit dangerous?
And the guy who defended Saudi Arabia is Trump - it was in all the papers & Twitter feeds. Sorry if you missed it.
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 01/03/2019 - 5:59pm
It's just giving a large segment of the American audience what it wants. Those that whine about this need to realize we live in a democracy where the majority are not peaceniks and deal with that. Even a Rachel Maddow type liberal is sympathetic to a lot of military ethos. Others, like say, Michelle and Barack Obama too. Many attempts at peacenik media have been notable fails, it appeals to a small minority of the population. The more expensive arm of "the media" needs to make money to pay for the fancy production and all those salaries and per diems. Small audiences of like peaceniks, far left, just have to make do with nonprofits like CommonDreams.org or TomsDispatch.com. Comes to mind that it's Congress that gets the historically low approval ratings, not the military, so it's amazing that MSM covers Congress as much as they do.The cohort disliking what the cable news covers is a minority. These people know how far they can push "eat your spinach" coverage before people change the channel, or they go out of existence. It is what it is. Where Fareed Zakharia is considered small specialized erudite market and therefore offered as a public service prestige item, but still pushed to Sunday afternoon scheduling.
by artappraiser on Thu, 01/03/2019 - 4:14pm
and before others scream "BUT POPULISM!", that the people must be forced to eat their spinach, read this:
by artappraiser on Thu, 01/03/2019 - 4:26pm
Robert Fisk of the Independent comments on William Arkin as a military analyst.
by A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 01/14/2019 - 10:46am