Under heaven all can see beauty only because there is ugliness

All can know good as good only because there is evil.

Therefore having and not having arise together.

Difficult and easy complement each other.

Long and short contrast each other;

High and low rest upon each other;

Voice and sound harmonize each other;

Front and back follow each other.

Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking.

The ten thousands things rise and fall without cease,

Creating yet not possessing,

Working, yet not taking credit.

Work is done and then forgotten.

Therefore it lasts forever.

Tao Te Ching (Ch-2)

Journalism is the one solitary respectable profession which honors theft (when committed in the pecuniary interest of a journal,) & admires the thief....However, these same journals combat despicable crimes quite valiantly--when committed in other quarters.

M. Twain- Letter to W. D. Howells, October 30, 1880

Tom Brokaw

Thomas L. Friedman

One last point:  the two Toms -- Friedman and Brokaw -- shared "get off my lawn" sentiments by lamenting the irresponsible opinions which the Internet permits.  Here's what Friedman -- who, prior to the advent of the Internet, was rarely criticized in any forum -- had to say about this serious matter:

MR. FRIEDMAN: You know, David, I just want to say one thing to pick up on Tom's point, which is the Internet is an open sewer of untreated, unfiltered information, left, right, center, up, down, and requires that kind of filtering by anyone. And I always felt, you know, when modems first came out, when that was how we got connected to the Internet, that every modem sold in America should actually come with a warning from the surgeon general that would have said, "judgment not included," OK? That you have to upload the old-fashioned way. Church, synagogue, temple, mosque, teachers, schools, you know. And too often now people say, and we've all heard it, "But I read it on the Internet," as if that solves the bar bet, you know? And I'm afraid not.

Indeed.  I even heard that, before the Iraq war, there were people on the Internet saying that Saddam Hussein had purchased aluminum tubes that were used to build nuclear weapons, and that was then repeated by other blogs without challenge.  Some reckless bloggers even dismissed European objections to the invasion as "not Serious"; demonzied war opposition as coming from " knee-jerk liberals and pacifists"; justified the war with the demented desire to make Iraqis "Suck On This"; and called for France to be removed from the U.N. Security Council.  Unfiltered Internet hacks uncritically repeated what they were told by the U.S. military to disseminate myths about Jessica Lynch's heroic firefight and Pat Tillman's tragic death at the hands of Taliban monsters.  One particularly unfiltered blog spent a week screaming to the country that government tests showed Saddam was likely responsible for the anthrax attacks.  In fairness, Friedman is right about one thing, as the Meet the Press panel demonstrates: outside of the Internet, there is an extreme amount of "filtering" that determines what one hears.  http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/07/mtp/index.html

 Greenwald (Salon) is a favorite here among my liberal friends. He has a way sometimes when he is angry of expressing a real contempt for the propaganda machine sometimes called MSM.  He can say FUCK YOU without one obscenity. I mean the two toms and such...hahaha.

I despise tom brokaw. I really do. Just a corporate shill fighting for untruth, injustice and the AMERIKAN way.  If he had taken some voice lessons earlier in his life, maybe I could understand what he was saying half the time. But after getting his cadence down I find him with nothing but four thousand dollar suits and run on sentences. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME THIS ASSHOLE PRAISED liberals for the Civil Rights Movement, Medicare and Medicaid and SCHIPS...or any program like this?  Brokaw would simply Scrub any piece of evidence that he would consider TOO CONTROVERSIAL, which means anything that would challenge the powers that be. That is why I like to refer to Brokaw as Scrubbs.

And Friedman, with that scowl that somehow is supposed to tell us that he is a SERIOUS STUDENT OF THE UNIVERSE. And to imagine he grew up in the same neighborhood as Al Franken. Our Flat Earther or as I like to refer to him: Flats.

Fuck em, I am in my PJ's and happy that I have Josh and Joan and Glenn and a myriad of good solid journalists to read every day.  That I can go to Mediamatters to get the latest quotes from fascistic liars like rush, beck, fathead dobbs and  the like. Hell, I can just scan the latest Bill Bowman blog to find out what weiner savage is doing. That I can go to sites where they call 6000 year old earthers, NUTS.

Lest us take a stroll down memory lane and see what old 'Flats' had to say beginning with Mr. Greenwald:

Tom Friedman, The Charlie Rose Show, May 30, 2003 (as part of the #1 museum video exhibit illustrating America's political class during the Bush Era):

ROSE:  Now that the war is over, and there's some difficulty with the peace, was it worth doing?

FRIEDMAN:  I think it was unquestionably worth doing, Charlie.  I think that, looking back, I now certainly feel I understand more what the war was about . . . . What we needed to do was go over to that part of the world, I'm afraid, and burst that bubble. We needed to go over there basically, and take out a very big stick, right in the heart of that world, and burst that bubble. . . .

And what they needed to see was American boys and girls going from house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, and basically saying: which part of this sentence do you understand?  You don't think we care about our open society? . . . .

Well, Suck. On. This.  That, Charlie, was what this war was about.  

We could have hit Saudi Arabia.  It was part of that bubble.  Could have hit Pakistan.  We hit Iraq because we could.  That's the real truth.    What we had to do, I believe at some point, was to go into the very heart of that world and burst that bubble. And the message was, "Ladies and gentlemen, which part of this sentence don't you understand?" . . . . And that's what I believe ultimately this war was about. And guess what? People there got the message, OK, in the neighborhood. This is a rough neighborhood, and sometimes it takes a 2-by-4 across the side of the head to get that message. But they got the message and the message was, "You will now be held accountable" http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/30/friedman/

I cannot pass up this list of gems from old FLATS by way of FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting)  May of 2006:

Such praise is not uncommon. Friedman's appeal seems to rest on his ability to discuss complex issues in the simplest possible terms. On a recent episode of MSNBC's Hardball (5/11/06), for example, Friedman boiled down the intricacies of the Iraq situation into a make-or-break deadline: "Well, I think that we're going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months--probably sooner--whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we're going to have to just let this play out."

That confident prediction would seem a lot more insightful, however, if Friedman hadn't been making essentially the same forecast almost since the beginning of the Iraq War. A review of Friedman's punditry reveals a long series of similar do-or-die dates that never seem to get any closer.

"The next six months in Iraq--which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there--are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time."
(New York Times, 11/30/03)

"What I absolutely don't understand is just at the moment when we finally have a UN-approved Iraqi-caretaker government made up of--I know a lot of these guys--reasonably decent people and more than reasonably decent people, everyone wants to declare it's over. I don't get it. It might be over in a week, it might be over in a month, it might be over in six months, but what's the rush? Can we let this play out, please?"
(NPR's Fresh Air, 6/3/04)

"What we're gonna find out, Bob, in the next six to nine months is whether we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war."
(CBS's Face the Nation, 10/3/04)

"Improv time is over. This is crunch time. Iraq will be won or lost in the next few months. But it won't be won with high rhetoric. It will be won on the ground in a war over the last mile."
(New York Times, 11/28/04)

"I think we're in the end game now.... I think we're in a six-month window here where it's going to become very clear and this is all going to pre-empt I think the next congressional election--that's my own feeling-- let alone the presidential one."
(NBC's Meet the Press, 9/25/05)

"Maybe the cynical Europeans were right. Maybe this neighborhood is just beyond transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be. If they come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and we should stay to help build it. If they won't, then we are wasting our time."
(New York Times, 9/28/05)

"We've teed up this situation for Iraqis, and I think the next six months really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse into three parts or more or whether it's going to come together."
(CBS's Face the Nation, 12/18/05)


"We're at the beginning of I think the decisive I would say six months in Iraq, OK, because I feel like this election--you know, I felt from the beginning Iraq was going to be ultimately, Charlie, what Iraqis make of it."
(PBS's Charlie Rose Show, 12/20/05)    http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2884

Another guy who is just in love with old Flats is Mike Whitney:

As Friedman sees it, the "core problem in Iraq remains Donald Rumsfeld's decision to invade Iraq on the cheap". In other words, Friedman has no moral objections to the war; he simply disparages the invasion in terms of its effectiveness in achieving the imperial objectives.

The Defense Secretary initiated what Friedman calls the "Rumsfeld Doctrine", that is, "just enough troops to lose". There's no mention of the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis who lost their lives in a needless act of aggression,...

I want to pause here a minute because I just learned from Rutabaga's blog  http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/rutabaga_ridgepole/2009/09/the-public-option-in-iraq-is-g.php?ref=fpd

One million civilians dead according her link: http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/1-over-one-million-iraqi-deaths-caused-by-us-occupation/

I have heard many numbers thrown around over the past few years.  Remember how Saddam was depicted as Hitler or Pol Pot for his extermination of 300,000 people. And I am not defending Saddam. No way. No how. But one million dead and two or three million 'displaced' (another word I love, displaced. Is that not like when Hitler displaced three million German Jews into Poland?) Iraqi's as a result of  goddamnable lies perpetrated upon the American People.

But as far as I am concerned Flat's answer to all this carnage seems to be that we must break a few eggs to make a really, really fine omelet. And Flat gives the same answer to Iraq's problems as the right does to Vietnam. We just did not send enough troops in.  Why if we had just sent an extra ten million troops into Vietnam we would have won that war. If we would have sent in a million troops into Iraq we would have won that war. Which is how Mike Whitney finished his essay in June of 2005:

So far, however, the differences between elites are mainly superficial, as they are between Rumsfeld and Friedman. Increasing troop strength is merely a change in strategy and doesn't challenge the fundamental principle of colonial rule. Despite the growing unease over the botched occupation, the support for establishing a long-term presence in the region is unwavering. The stakes will have to be raised considerably, posing a direct threat to the men at the top of the political pyramid, before we can expect to see a change in policy.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney06182005.html

Here's Greenwald again reviewing Flats' contribution to the American people at the time of the build up for the Iraq War:

Beginning in November, 2002 all the way up until and including the day of the invasion -- March 23, 2003 -- Tom Friedman essentially made every single argument about the war, including many that conflicted with one another, except for one -- we should not invade Iraq. But on the day of the invasion, he mocked the argument of "the French," whose views he said were "unserious" and should result in their removal from the U.N. Security Council ( specifically, "the French argue that only bad things will come from this war -- more terrorism, a dangerous precedent for preventive war, civilian casualties").

And despite having repeatedly said that the Bush administration's pre-war actions were disastrous, Friedman declared on March 23 that the war would produce the outcome the Bush administration argued would result and that The Dreaded Unserious French would be proven wrong:

January 26, 2003

My gut tells me we should continue the troop buildup, continue the inspections and do everything we can ...
But if war turns out to be the only option, then war it will have to be -.

January 22, 2003

What liberals fail to recognize is that regime change in Iraq is not some distraction from the war on Al Qaeda. That is a bogus argument. And simply because oil is also at stake in Iraq doesn't make it illegitimate either. Some things are right to do, even if Big Oil benefits.

February 2, 2003

So pardon me if I don't take seriously all the Euro-whining about the Bush policies toward Iraq -- for one very simple reason: It strikes me as deeply unserious.

February 9, 2003

Sometimes I wish that the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council could be chosen like the starting five for the N.B.A. All-Star team -- with a vote by the fans. If so, I would certainly vote France off the Council and replace it with India. . . . France is so caught up with its need to differentiate itself from America to feel important, it's become silly.

February 5, 2003

I am not worried about ''the Arab street.'' Anyone who has walked there lately knows Saddam Hussein has very little support, and as long as a war to oust him does little harm to Iraqi civilians, it will be publicly tolerated and privately celebrated by many Arabs. . . .

 http://utdocuments.blogspot.com/2006/12/tom-friedmans-pre-war-advocacy-for.html  12/01/2006

What is most appalling, however, is that it took McClellan's book to produce a debate about this tremendously vital subject at all. And that brings us to one of the most iconic figures of all, Tom Brokaw. And here to help us with our first look at Scrubs is our friend Greg Michell again:

Now, post-McClellan, some top media figures are, at least, self-assessing - but in most cases have concluded that they performed quite adequately in the run-up to the war. So the "coverup" continues.

Consider just a few elements. Brokaw says, "But this president was determined to go to war. It was more theology than it was anything else. It was pretty hard to deal with." So "hard" that the media didn't even try hard to "deal" with the 'theology." NBC and others chose to focus on the "evidence" of WMD rather than the evidence that the administration was simply bent on going to war, WMD or not.

Brokaw, to make light of McClellan's charges, also declares that "all wars are based on propaganda." He even mentions World War II. For Brokaw, who has embraced the notion of that being the "good war," to put the Iraq invasion in the same class is outrageous....

He also blames the Democrats for not raising more of an antiwar cry. What kind of journalist explains a failure to probe the real reasons for a war on others who may not be doing their own due diligence? And as Media Matters pointed out this week, Brokaw's NBC devoted exactly 32 words to the key antiwar political speech in September 2002 by Sen. Ted Kennedy. The other networks did much the same.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/tom-brokaw-defends-war-co_b_104636.html

Scrubs loves to give his opinion as to what is professionalism and what is not:

I think Keith has gone too far. I think Chris has gone too far," the veteran NBC newsman said at a forum sponsored by Harvard's Shorenstein press center. But Brokaw said that they are "commentators" and "not the only voices" on MSNBC and that viewers could sort it out. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/25/tom-brokaw-chris-matthews_n_121215.html

Now, everybody knows KeithO goes tooo far, WHY THE HELL DO YOU THINK I BOTHER TO WATCH HIM EVERY NIGHT. I mean like Keith was just sure that when w landed on that aircraft carrier in his jump suit choreographed like the pres in Independence Day (as if w had just gotten back from bombing Bagdad) that it was bullshit.  By the by, who went tooo far on that one, Keith or w?

But Chris? I mean Chris How To Win Friends And Influence People Matthews? He goes toooooooooo far?

I really was dumbstruck by this tete a tete between Williams and Scrubs:

Williams: Are you confident, taking the coverage in toto -- that the right questions were asked, the right tone was employed - and should it be viewed in the context to that time?

Brokaw: It needs to be viewed in the context of that time. When a president says we're going to war, that there's a danger of the mushroom crowd. We know there had been experiments with Iraqi nuclear programs in the past. Honorable people believed he had weapons of mass destruction.

But there's always a drumbeat that happens at that time. And you can raise your hand and put on people like Brent Scowcroft, which we did, a very creditable man who said this was the wrong decision.

But there are other parts of America that also have a responsibility. How many senators voted against the war? I think 23 is all.

There was this feeling, that this was a bad man, he had weapons of mass destruction, we couldn't make the connection that he was sponsoring terrorists or harboring them, we raised that question day after day.

But this president was determined to go to war. It was more theology than it was anything else. That's pretty hard to deal with.

Look, I think all of us would like to go back and ask questions with the benefit of hindsight, but a lot of what was going on then was unknowable. The CIA insisted that he had weapons of mass destruction.

Now, when Scott says we were complicit enablers, two pages later he then says that in retrospect we went to military confrontation on weapons of mass destruction because we couldn't sell the real reason for it, which was an idealistic, democratic Iraq in the post-9/11 world.

So there is a fog of war, Brian, and also the fog in covering war.

Williams: Part of his allegation is that it was a war based on propaganda.

Brokaw: All wars are based on propaganda. John Kennedy launched the beginning of our war in Vietnam by talking about the domino theory and embracing the Green Berets. Lyndon Johnson kept it up and so did Richard Nixon. World War II--a lot of that was driven by propaganda, and suppressing things that people should have known at the time. So people should not be surprised by that.

In this business we often bump up against what I call the opaque world. The White House has an unbelievable ability to control the flow of information at any time but especially at a time when they are planning to go to war.  ( Greg Mitchell)

And I am supposed to have respect, extra respect for Flats and Scrubs because they are REAL JOURNALISTS. The people I read everyday, well they are just 'bloggers'. What a bunch of crap.

I guess I can close with this three paragraph summary from Dahr Jamail  March 23,2007:

Today in the United States, our media is more homogenized than ever. Only six corporations control the major U.S. media: Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, General Electric, Time Warner, Disney, Viacom, and Bertelsmann. These corporations also happen to be heavy financial supporters of the elite political groups (Republicans and Democrats alike) that control this country. They put politics ahead of responsible journalism.

"As news outlets fall into the hands of large conglomerates with holdings in many industries, conflicts of interest inevitably interfere with news gathering," according to FAIR. "Independent media are essential to a democratic society, and...aggressive antitrust action must be taken to break up monopolistic media conglomerates."

Until that happens in the United States, media coverage of Iraq is likely to worsen. As for Iraqi journalists, promises of free speech and freedom of the press-just like the earlier promises of liberation, economic opportunity, and freedom for the Iraqi people-will not materialize before the end of the U.S. occupation of the country.  http://dahrjamailiraq.com/another-casualty-coverage-of-the-iraq-war