thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-08-06--Walter Cronkite and the US news media (Revisited)

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THIS IS A REPOST .
FIRST PUBLISHED ON 20 JULY 2009 .
Walter Cronkite , a fixture in a great many American homes as host of the CBS evening news from 1962 to 1981 , died in New York City July 17 at the age of 92 .
Inevitably , a good deal of what is being said about Cronkite in the American media is self-congratulatory and self-serving .
In part , the various @ @ @ @ @ @ @ painting him as the soul of objectivity and insight , in hopes that a little of the television networks ’ former “ glory , ” by extension , will render the present deplorable and discredited state of broadcast journalism more attractive .
There is also no doubt a nostalgic longing within elements of the media , without the intelligence or moral capacities that would be needed to make it something more than a vague wish , for a return to a time when television reporters were looked upon , with a certain amount @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The decline in the quality and seriousness of the television news programs over the past several decades has been accompanied by an astonishing drop in viewership .
In 1980 , the year before Cronkite gave up his evening news slot at CBS , total viewership of the evening news programs on CBS , NBC and ABC was 52.1 million , and 42.3 percent of US households tuned in to the programs .
Over the past quarter-century the number of viewers for the networks ’ evening news has fallen approximately one million per @ @ @ @ @ @ @ million viewers watched the programs , a decline of 53 percent since 1980 .
Only 15.6 percent of American households tuned in to the programs , down 61 percent in the same period .
Moreover , the median age of nightly news viewers was 61.3 years for all three network newscasts in 2008 .
A Gallup poll at the end of December 2008 found that for 31 percent of Americans , the Internet is now a daily news source , a 50 percent increase since 2006 .
The network news programs , concoctions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ half-truths and outright pro-government and pro-military propaganda , fully deserve their ratings crisis .
The cable channels , which have gathered their own following , are no alternative , having concentrated their recruiting efforts , it would seem , on well-coiffed , but otherwise unprepared men and women quite at a loss when anything interrupts their carefully rehearsed presentations .
Analyzing the extent to which Cronkite represented something different , and better , involves considering how the US political and media establishment as a whole has shifted in the past several decades , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ capitalism in global economic terms .
Different historical periods produce different public personalities .
The repudiation of New Deal or even Kennedy-like liberalism and the relentless war on the remnants of the welfare state , as well as the spelling out of—and acting upon—the doctrine of the unlimited right of American imperialism to use force wherever and whenever it likes ( the so-called Bush Doctrine , pursued as well in all its important aspects by the Barack Obama administration ) , calls “ from the vasty deep ” a different sort of human @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Today ’ s anchor people , paid vast sums of money , without important knowledge or scruples , conduits for the “ official story ” in virtually every case , are a sorry lot .
Cronkite emerged as a reporter under different historical conditions .
The son of a dentist , born in St. Joseph , Missouri on the eve of US entry into World War I , Cronkite initially pursued journalism in the middle of the Depression in Houston , Texas .
After a brief stint in radio back in Missouri , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( UP ) , the news service , becoming a World War II correspondent .
Cronkite covered a number of critical battles , including the invasion of Normandy in June 1944 and the Battle of the Bulge .
After the war , significantly , he was the chief UP correspondent at the Nuremberg war crimes trials of Nazi leaders ; Cronkite also served a stint as the wire service ’ s Moscow bureau chief .
Cronkite ’ s career in television , where he was truly to make his name , began in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ join CBS News by Edward R. Murrow .
Prior to and during the war , Murrow gathered around him at CBS a number of talented journalists , including William L. Shirer ( future author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich ) ; Eric Sevareid , who had had contact with the left in Minneapolis as a student ; Charles Collingwood , who would be an outspoken critic of McCarthyism ; Howard K. Smith , a fixture at CBS and later ABC until the late 1970s ; Richard Hottelet , another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ News for 41 years ; Larry LeSueur , who wrote a book about his experiences on the Russian front , “ Twelve Months That Changed the World , ” and others .
On top of the desperation and upheaval of the Depression , and the New Deal , a number of these reporters experienced fascism in Europe in a personal and intimate fashion .
In 1940 Smith interviewed Hitler at his retreat in Berchtesgaden , along with Himmler and Goebbels .
When he refused to include Nazi propaganda in his reports , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out of the country .
Hottelet was arrested by the Nazis as a suspected spy at the outset of World War II , and imprisoned for four months .
Shirer was present in Vienna for the German annexation of Austria in 1938 .
Based in Berlin during the pre-war period , he attended Hitler ’ s major meetings , including several of the Nuremberg rallies .
These individuals went through and were marked by genuine and significant experiences .
Cronkite too came of age intellectually at that time .
Having reported on great @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a certain conception of being a newsman—as an exposer of truths and big injustices—and even a capacity for moral outrage .
The narrow postwar political framework , however , within which these individuals would subsequently be obliged to operate was established early on .
In 1947 , Shirer , perhaps the most talented of the crowd , was forced out at CBS , without Murrow ’ s coming to his assistance , for criticizing the Truman Doctrine ( that the US , as leader of the “ free world , ” must lead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the network ’ s kowtowing to corporate sponsors .
Shirer was named in Red Channels , the anti-communist tract published in 1950 , and blacklisted for all intents and purposes .
Cronkite was not of that stature .
He apparently found no great difficulty in accepting the limits set by the American establishment during the Cold War .
He was known to be critical , as was Murrow , of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the anti-communist witch-hunting , but he made a career for himself nonetheless .
He began doing the news for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and by 1953 he was appearing on nationally aired public affairs programs .
Cronkite narrated the first episode in the semi-documentary series You Are There in February of that year .
The program , which made use of a number of blacklisted actors and writers ( including Walter Bernstein and Arnold Manoff in the latter category ) , as well as several future feature film directors ( Sidney Lumet , John Frankenheimer and Bernard Girard ) , recreated famous historical events , with CBS News reporters , in modern dress , interviewing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end with Cronkite intoning , “ What sort of day was it ?
A day like all days , filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times ... and you were there.
” As pompous as this may sound , the program had an undeniable gravitas .
It may be that Cronkite eventually became the anchor on the CBS evening news program precisely because he was something of a lowest common denominator .
In late 1961 competition for the job emerged between Collingwood , Sevareid and “ the outsider , Walter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in his The Powers That Be ( 2000 ) .
Halberstam argues that Cronkite ’ s “ style was now more compatible with what the show needed .
His roots were in the wire service , he was the embodiment of the wire-service man sprung to life , speed , simplicity , scoop , a ten-minute beat ...
He came through to his friends and to his listeners alike as straight , clear , and simple , more interested in hard news than analysis .
...
He looked like Middle America , there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he was the son of a dentist in St. Joe , Missouri , and his accent was midwestern ) .
He was from the heartland , and people from the Midwest are considered trustworthy , they are of the soil rather than of the sidewalks , and in American mythology the soil teaches real values and the sidewalks teach shortcuts.
” Cronkite retained the anchor job at CBS for nearly twenty years , famously announcing the death of John F. Kennedy in November 1963 , along with other traumatic events of those explosive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the wake of the Tet Offensive , in which Vietnamese nationalist forces stunned the US military , Cronkite toured the southeast Asian country and on his return reported his “ personal ” conclusions to his viewers : “ For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate .
This summer 's almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation ; and for every means we have to escalate , the enemy can match us , and that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the use of nuclear weapons , or the mere commitment of one hundred , or two hundred , or three hundred thousand more American troops to the battle .
And with each escalation , the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster .
... “ [ I ] t is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate , not as victors , but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy , ( sic ) and did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Johnson is alleged to have watched the program and commented , more or less , “ If I 've lost Cronkite , I 've lost the country.
” In the midst of growing anti-war sentiment and turmoil , Johnson announced his decision not to run for another term as president on March 31 .
Later , in 1968 , Cronkite grew visibly angry over the brutal treatment of anti-war protesters outside the Democratic national convention in Chicago at the hands of city police and referred to the latter as “ thugs.
” Around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the most trusted man ” in America .
The technological transformation of the evening news during Cronkite ’ s tenure ( at the time he became anchorman , the CBS evening news was a 15-minute broadcast produced in primitive conditions ) and its sociological transformation into a critical instrument for shaping and manipulating public opinion on a daily basis , are subjects for a separate discussion .
Inevitably , no one in his position escapes becoming an institution , and there is no need to portray Cronkite in unduly glowing colors .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ figure of the liberal establishment .
His oft-noted enthusiasm for the US space program ( he also reported on the landing of the first man on the moon 40 years ago ) , while no doubt genuine , seemed motivated as well by the desire to see Americans unified around something “ uplifting ” in a period of discontent and strife .
Still , one can also see in his excitement over space exploration a genuine belief and confidence in science and progress .
Cronkite lived through or witnessed significant and world-changing events @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the war , the McCarthyite purges , as well as the civil rights movement and the upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s .
He clearly maintained , and this is now almost entirely lost in the American media , a democratic sensibility and a feeling for ordinary people .
In Reporting America at War ( Michelle Ferrari and James Tobin , 2003 ) , for example , Cronkite is quoted in the following manner : “ I think it ’ s one of the reasons why news people , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more liberal than others .
They live with the common people .
I ’ m talking about the beat reporters .
This isn ’ t true of anchor people today or of editors sitting back in the home office .
But those who are out there with the people understand a great deal more about what the average man and woman have to live through .
“ I think that , in some ways , the high pay of editors and anchor people today is unfortunate , because it has removed them from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in America .
In my early days as a reporter , our salaries were equivalent to a fireman ’ s , a policeman ’ s , a stock clerk ’ s and those were the people we drank with in the evening .
Those were the people whose budget problems we understood.
” In the comments he also criticized the increasing determination of the US military to suppress the truth about its interventions .
He noted that “ any war situation ... is the most intimate commitment that the American government can make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to know every detail about how they [ US troops ] are performing in our name , both when they perform well and when they perform badly .
It ’ s most important when they perform badly , as a matter of fact .
So war should be covered intimately.
” He went on : “ Today we have no independent film of the [ 1991 ] Persian Gulf War—none—because our correspondents , our film crews , were not permitted to go out on the front with the troops .
They should have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been sent back to censorship .
If it couldn ’ t be released immediately , at least it would be held for eventual release and for history .
We don ’ t have that history now .
That history is lost to us .
It ’ s a crime against the democracy.
” The processes Cronkite refers to have qualitatively deepened and worsened .
There is no news coverage worth speaking about of the neo-colonial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , and the US media has become little more than an arm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Exit NBC anchor Tom Brokaw : a nonentity in the service of wealth and power

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By David Walsh • wsws.org
20 July 2009
Preface: The global crisis entrapping humanity in a trifecta of political and economic evils, ecocidal policies, and bizarre health threats is accentuating day after day the role played by the capitalist media in facilitating and aggravating this infernal situation. This article highlights the degeneration of the corporate media, a useful account even if its moral and functional disintegration dates back at least 50 years before Walter Cronkite came on the scene, only to become a brand, "CBS anchor for The CBS Evening News, "the most trusted man in America", yada yada yada. Fact is, Cronkite or no Cronkite, the US media—posing as journalistic resources—never served the people. But what in the age of Cronkite was simply mediocre, thinly-veiled complicit journalism by the mainstream media has now become a broad daylight scandal, a whorehouse of collaboration with imperialist power. David Walsh, a distinguished Marxist geopolitical and cultural analyst, is able in this dispatch to diagnose in a comprehensive manner the sociopolitical undercurrents that explain this malignant evolution. —PG
THIS IS A REPOST. FIRST PUBLISHED ON 20 JULY 2009.
Walter Cronkite, a fixture in a great many American homes as host of the CBS evening news from 1962 to 1981, died in New York City July 17 at the age of 92.
Inevitably, a good deal of what is being said about Cronkite in the American media is self-congratulatory and self-serving. In part, the various commentators overpraise the former CBS newsman, painting him as the soul of objectivity and insight, in hopes that a little of the television networks’ former “glory,” by extension, will render the present deplorable and discredited state of broadcast journalism more attractive.
There is also no doubt a nostalgic longing within elements of the media, without the intelligence or moral capacities that would be needed to make it something more than a vague wish, for a return to a time when television reporters were looked upon, with a certain amount of justice, as individuals of substance.
The decline in the quality and seriousness of the television news programs over the past several decades has been accompanied by an astonishing drop in viewership. In 1980, the year before Cronkite gave up his evening news slot at CBS, total viewership of the evening news programs on CBS, NBC and ABC was 52.1 million, and 42.3 percent of US households tuned in to the programs.
Over the past quarter-century the number of viewers for the networks’ evening news has fallen approximately one million per year. In 2008, some 22.8 million viewers watched the programs, a decline of 53 percent since 1980. Only 15.6 percent of American households tuned in to the programs, down 61 percent in the same period. Moreover, the median age of nightly news viewers was 61.3 years for all three network newscasts in 2008.
A Gallup poll at the end of December 2008 found that for 31 percent of Americans, the Internet is now a daily news source, a 50 percent increase since 2006.
The network news programs, concoctions of superficial “sound bites,” half-truths and outright pro-government and pro-military propaganda, fully deserve their ratings crisis. The cable channels, which have gathered their own following, are no alternative, having concentrated their recruiting efforts, it would seem, on well-coiffed, but otherwise unprepared men and women quite at a loss when anything interrupts their carefully rehearsed presentations.
Analyzing the extent to which Cronkite represented something different, and better, involves considering how the US political and media establishment as a whole has shifted in the past several decades, under conditions of the decline of American capitalism in global economic terms. Different historical periods produce different public personalities.
The repudiation of New Deal or even Kennedy-like liberalism and the relentless war on the remnants of the welfare state, as well as the spelling out of—and acting upon—the doctrine of the unlimited right of American imperialism to use force wherever and whenever it likes (the so-called Bush Doctrine, pursued as well in all its important aspects by the Barack Obama administration), calls “from the vasty deep” a different sort of human type than that represented by Cronkite. Today’s anchor people, paid vast sums of money, without important knowledge or scruples, conduits for the “official story” in virtually every case, are a sorry lot.
Cronkite emerged as a reporter under different historical conditions. The son of a dentist, born in St. Joseph, Missouri on the eve of US entry into World War I, Cronkite initially pursued journalism in the middle of the Depression in Houston, Texas. After a brief stint in radio back in Missouri, he went to work for United Press (UP), the news service, becoming a World War II correspondent. Cronkite covered a number of critical battles, including the invasion of Normandy in June 1944 and the Battle of the Bulge.
After the war, significantly, he was the chief UP correspondent at the Nuremberg war crimes trials of Nazi leaders; Cronkite also served a stint as the wire service’s Moscow bureau chief.
Cronkite’s career in television, where he was truly to make his name, began in 1950, when he was invited to join CBS News by Edward R. Murrow. Prior to and during the war, Murrow gathered around him at CBS a number of talented journalists, including William L. Shirer (future author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich); Eric Sevareid, who had had contact with the left in Minneapolis as a student; Charles Collingwood, who would be an outspoken critic of McCarthyism; Howard K. Smith, a fixture at CBS and later ABC until the late 1970s; Richard Hottelet, another UP correspondent, who remained with CBS News for 41 years; Larry LeSueur, who wrote a book about his experiences on the Russian front, “Twelve Months That Changed the World,” and others.
On top of the desperation and upheaval of the Depression, and the New Deal, a number of these reporters experienced fascism in Europe in a personal and intimate fashion.
In 1940 Smith interviewed Hitler at his retreat in Berchtesgaden, along with Himmler and Goebbels. When he refused to include Nazi propaganda in his reports, the Gestapo seized his notes and threw him out of the country. Hottelet was arrested by the Nazis as a suspected spy at the outset of World War II, and imprisoned for four months.
Shirer was present in Vienna for the German annexation of Austria in 1938. Based in Berlin during the pre-war period, he attended Hitler’s major meetings, including several of the Nuremberg rallies. These individuals went through and were marked by genuine and significant experiences. Cronkite too came of age intellectually at that time. Having reported on great events, he and the others had a certain conception of being a newsman—as an exposer of truths and big injustices—and even a capacity for moral outrage. The narrow postwar political framework, however, within which these individuals would subsequently be obliged to operate was established early on. In 1947, Shirer, perhaps the most talented of the crowd, was forced out at CBS, without Murrow’s coming to his assistance, for criticizing the Truman Doctrine (that the US, as leader of the “free world,” must lead a worldwide crusade against communism) and the network’s kowtowing to corporate sponsors. Shirer was named in Red Channels, the anti-communist tract published in 1950, and blacklisted for all intents and purposes. Cronkite was not of that stature. He apparently found no great difficulty in accepting the limits set by the American establishment during the Cold War. He was known to be critical, as was Murrow, of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the anti-communist witch-hunting, but he made a career for himself nonetheless. He began doing the news for a CBS station in Washington, D.C, and by 1953 he was appearing on nationally aired public affairs programs. Cronkite narrated the first episode in the semi-documentary series You Are There in February of that year. The program, which made use of a number of blacklisted actors and writers (including Walter Bernstein and Arnold Manoff in the latter category), as well as several future feature film directors (Sidney Lumet, John Frankenheimer and Bernard Girard), recreated famous historical events, with CBS News reporters, in modern dress, interviewing the various participants. Each program would end with Cronkite intoning, “What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times... and you were there.” As pompous as this may sound, the program had an undeniable gravitas. It may be that Cronkite eventually became the anchor on the CBS evening news program precisely because he was something of a lowest common denominator. In late 1961 competition for the job emerged between Collingwood, Sevareid and “the outsider, Walter Cronkite,” journalist David Halberstam notes in his The Powers That Be (2000). Halberstam argues that Cronkite’s “style was now more compatible with what the show needed. His roots were in the wire service, he was the embodiment of the wire-service man sprung to life, speed, simplicity, scoop, a ten-minute beat ... He came through to his friends and to his listeners alike as straight, clear, and simple, more interested in hard news than analysis. ... He looked like Middle America, there was nothing slick about his looks (he was the son of a dentist in St. Joe, Missouri, and his accent was midwestern). He was from the heartland, and people from the Midwest are considered trustworthy, they are of the soil rather than of the sidewalks, and in American mythology the soil teaches real values and the sidewalks teach shortcuts.” Cronkite retained the anchor job at CBS for nearly twenty years, famously announcing the death of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, along with other traumatic events of those explosive decades. In February 1968, in the wake of the Tet Offensive, in which Vietnamese nationalist forces stunned the US military, Cronkite toured the southeast Asian country and on his return reported his “personal” conclusions to his viewers: “For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. This summer's almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred thousand more American troops to the battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster. ... “[I]t is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, (sic) and did the best they could.” President Lyndon Johnson is alleged to have watched the program and commented, more or less, “If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost the country.” In the midst of growing anti-war sentiment and turmoil, Johnson announced his decision not to run for another term as president on March 31. Later, in 1968, Cronkite grew visibly angry over the brutal treatment of anti-war protesters outside the Democratic national convention in Chicago at the hands of city police and referred to the latter as “thugs.” Around this time, Cronkite was voted “the most trusted man” in America. The technological transformation of the evening news during Cronkite’s tenure (at the time he became anchorman, the CBS evening news was a 15-minute broadcast produced in primitive conditions) and its sociological transformation into a critical instrument for shaping and manipulating public opinion on a daily basis, are subjects for a separate discussion. Inevitably, no one in his position escapes becoming an institution, and there is no need to portray Cronkite in unduly glowing colors. He was, in the end, a figure of the liberal establishment. His oft-noted enthusiasm for the US space program (he also reported on the landing of the first man on the moon 40 years ago), while no doubt genuine, seemed motivated as well by the desire to see Americans unified around something “uplifting” in a period of discontent and strife. Still, one can also see in his excitement over space exploration a genuine belief and confidence in science and progress. Cronkite lived through or witnessed significant and world-changing events, the Depression, fascism in Europe, the war, the McCarthyite purges, as well as the civil rights movement and the upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He clearly maintained, and this is now almost entirely lost in the American media, a democratic sensibility and a feeling for ordinary people. In Reporting America at War (Michelle Ferrari and James Tobin, 2003), for example, Cronkite is quoted in the following manner: “I think it’s one of the reasons why news people, as a group, are inclined to be more liberal than others. They live with the common people. I’m talking about the beat reporters. This isn’t true of anchor people today or of editors sitting back in the home office. But those who are out there with the people understand a great deal more about what the average man and woman have to live through. “I think that, in some ways, the high pay of editors and anchor people today is unfortunate, because it has removed them from the actual environment of the working man in America. In my early days as a reporter, our salaries were equivalent to a fireman’s, a policeman’s, a stock clerk’s and those were the people we drank with in the evening. Those were the people whose budget problems we understood.” In the comments he also criticized the increasing determination of the US military to suppress the truth about its interventions. He noted that “any war situation ... is the most intimate commitment that the American government can make of its people. ... We need to know every detail about how they [US troops] are performing in our name, both when they perform well and when they perform badly. It’s most important when they perform badly, as a matter of fact. So war should be covered intimately.” He went on: “Today we have no independent film of the [1991] Persian Gulf War—none—because our correspondents, our film crews, were not permitted to go out on the front with the troops. They should have been. The tape they shot should have been sent back to censorship. If it couldn’t be released immediately, at least it would be held for eventual release and for history. We don’t have that history now. That history is lost to us. It’s a crime against the democracy.” The processes Cronkite refers to have qualitatively deepened and worsened. There is no news coverage worth speaking about of the neo-colonial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the US media has become little more than an arm of the state and the military. The author also recommends: Exit NBC anchor Tom Brokaw: a nonentity in the service of wealth and power


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-08-06--The Convo Couch: Beirut Lebanon Disaster, Cori Bush defeats Incumbent, Republicans outleft the Dems?

The Convo Couch: Beirut Lebanon Disaster, Cori Bush defeats Incumbent, Republicans outleft the Dems? & more!

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible .
Share with kin , friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise .
Introducing The Convo Couch , another very fine resource on the left—I 'm talking left , folks , not treacherous IDpol liberals , which of course we would never feature or recommend on The Greanville Post .
Why ?
Because one of our central missions is to expose the liberals/Democrats ' treacheries and bankrupt ideology , if we can use that word to describe their filthy tegument of lies and hypocrisy .
The Convo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , operates out of YouTube , which is inherently dangerous ( to them ) , since YouTube is Google and Google is the enemy .
They could be deleted any time , as Google has done with numerous progressives who were suppressed precisely at the point they were beginning to acquire a sizable audience and a respectable monetized platform to keep them afloat .
Let 's face it , folks , owned uniformly by sociopathic billionaires , and staffed with executives and front men who embody the values of capitalism—predation , opportunism , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the service of the imperialist empire , which , as we all know here , means endless wars , including nuclear war , grotesque inequality , fascism , and ecocide— the corporate media are our enemy .
Let me repeat that : the corporate media are our enemy .
The US empire is evil , and the media is one of its chief weapons for pacification and mass deception .
The media enables and shields the empire , and that 's why they are our enemy .
About that ( and probably why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when Trump , like a broken clock , denounces the `` fake media '' , he is right .
The MAIN source , by far , of fake news is the establishment media .
They have been feeding us fake news for generations , probably for well over a century , something to be expected given their assigned function in the maintenance of the capitalist order .
So , to say they can not be trusted is to state the obvious , and to be kind .
Always support ( dependable not wacko @ @ @ @ @ @ @ simple question of justice and survival.—PG Speaking of strange explosions As Craig and Fiorella show , there 's plenty to suspect ( Israeli involvement ) in the Beirut disaster , stout forgetting the appalling ineptitude and corruption bordering on treason that facilitated this tragedy , something somewhat endemic in Lebanon given its patchwork of oft-warring tribalistic alliances , and the country 's significant component of pro-West fifth columnists .
That said , just watch this closely , and draw your own conclusions .
How far fetched is to suspect the Israeli/American hand in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans now call a `` bunker buster '' ?
BONUS Longer footage as delivered by ABC News ( US network ) , whose spin must always be watched with suspicion .
However , observe the images .

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The Convo Couch
Introducing The Convo Couch, another very fine resource on the left—I'm talking left , folks, not treacherous IDpol liberals, which of course we would never feature or recommend on The Greanville Post. Why? Because one of our central missions is to expose the liberals/Democrats' treacheries and bankrupt ideology, if we can use that word to describe their filthy tegument of lies and hypocrisy. The Convo Couch, like our comrade Caleb Maupin, operates out of YouTube, which is inherently dangerous (to them), since YouTube is Google and Google is the enemy. They could be deleted any time, as Google has done with numerous progressives who were suppressed precisely at the point they were beginning to acquire a sizable audience and a respectable monetized platform to keep them afloat.
Let's face it, folks, owned uniformly by sociopathic billionaires, and staffed with executives and front men who embody the values of capitalism—predation, opportunism, hypocrisy, careerism, and mendacity in the service of the imperialist empire, which, as we all know here, means endless wars, including nuclear war, grotesque inequality, fascism, and ecocide— the corporate media are our enemy. Let me repeat that: the corporate media are our enemy. The US empire is evil, and the media is one of its chief weapons for pacification and mass deception. The media enables and shields the empire, and that's why they are our enemy. About that (and probably why it resonates in many quarters), when Trump, like a broken clock, denounces the "fake media", he is right. The MAIN source, by far, of fake news is the establishment media. They have been feeding us fake news for generations, probably for well over a century, something to be expected given their assigned function in the maintenance of the capitalist order. So, to say they cannot be trusted is to state the obvious, and to be kind. Always support (dependable not wacko) alternative media. It's a simple question of justice and survival.—PG
Craig Pasta Jardula @yopasta Co-Host of @theconvocouch Fiorella Isabel @Fiorella_im Reporter/journalist, activist, organizer, News KPFK, 1/2 @TheConvoCouch on YT insta:fiorellaisabellah https:// facebook.com/fiorellaisabel 89 @yopasta Co-Host of, a progressive talk show discussing and analyzing the daily news cycles and introducing new grass root personalities and candidates. •@Fiorella_im Reporter/journalist, activist, organizer, News KPFK, 1/2 Beirut Lebanon Disaster, Cori Bush defeats Incumbent, Republicans outleft the Dems? & more!
Speaking of strange explosions
As Craig and Fiorella show, there's plenty to suspect (Israeli involvement) in the Beirut disaster, stout forgetting the appalling ineptitude and corruption bordering on treason that facilitated this tragedy, something somewhat endemic in Lebanon given its patchwork of oft-warring tribalistic alliances, and the country's significant component of pro-West fifth columnists. That said, just watch this closely, and draw your own conclusions. How far fetched is to suspect the Israeli/American hand in this mess? Is this what the Americans now call a "bunker buster"?
BONUS
Longer footage as delivered by ABC News (US network), whose spin must always be watched with suspicion. However, observe the images.


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-08-07--America Chooses a New Mideast Policeman

America Chooses a New Mideast Policeman

This explains the wanton and brazen geostrategic moves that Turkey has been making of late in Iraq , in Syria , in Lebanon , in Yemen , in Libya , in Algeria and even in Greece : all seemingly with America ’ s approval .
Egypt , Saudi Arabia , the Gulf nations and Israel have all been side-stepped for this lauded position and the crown has been handed over to Turkey .
Turkey : the global capital of the Muslim Brotherhood .
Of course , this choice and policy have not been made officially public , but all indications @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this conclusion .
Many will be surprised that Israel , the US ’ s number one ally was not chosen to continue in its role as the US ’ s attack dog in the Middle East , especially after many contiguous decades of holding this powerful position .
Let us therefore look at why Turkey was chosen over Israel , and there we will find many a cynical reason .
First , after Wahabism/ISIS was defeated in Lebanon , in Iraq , in Syria , and to a large extent in Yemen , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ therefore disposable , and the nation allies that provided the Wahabi fodder have therefore also been downgraded and elbowed right off the pick list .
Egypt has been elbowed off too as Israel , AIPAC and the US ’ s Deep State have a deep distrust of Cairo and would never allow it to militarily dominate the Middle East because the vast majority of the Egyptian people remain aligned with Pan Arabism , despite the Egyptian government being pro ‘ normalization ’ with Israel .
And Israel ?
Well , here lies the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Israel in fact will very much remain a ‘ shadow enforcer ’ of the region that dictates its needs to DC , and DC will subsequently dictate Israel ’ s wishes to Ankara , and furthermore , Ankara will therefore be operating the frontlines to enable continuing Israeli theft of Arab land and resources .
Simply , Israel is currently incapable of both policing and simultaneously thieving more Arab land , all due to the Axis of Resistance holding Tel Aviv in its military crosshairs .
Israel can currently only perform one task @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and not without .
Its current military weak status can not be stretched out across the region where military challenges to its power are on the increase by the Axis of Resistance .
No longer able to go to war with its neighbors , yet absolutely needing to go to war to reverse the strategic pincer that its neighbors and their allies have forced upon its neck , Israel today is militarily checked and its very head lays in a guillotine , therefore , to assign it any further regional policing duties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the security of Israel itself .
Israel will have to contend itself with merely operating safely from behind the Turkish back , albeit for the foreseeable future .
The advantages of picking Turkey are the following : 1- Being a member of NATO , it can call on NATO ’ s army to assist it in any major military challenges it may face from the Axis of Resistance and other regional upstarts , be they in Iraq , Syria or even in Egypt .
After all , who better suppress the Arabs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years experience in Arab oppression ?
The Turks certainly have a much larger army than Israel , and their air force is not exactly made of paper-mâché .
The Turkish Deep State has no problem standing in the frontlines of battles against Arab nations ( and Iran ! )
while a geopolitically weak Israel steals more Arab land for Greater Israel , so long as a Turkish Empire can possibly re-emerge out of this equation .
Israelis are desperate to weaken their Arab and Iranian foes , and seeing that neither Wahabism nor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on to do this , so… enters the Turkish army , backed by NATO if need be , to do just that for them .
2- Unlike Israel , Turkey can call upon its vast cache of local and global Muslim Brotherhood militias and institutions to repress and challenge the Axis of Resistance wherever it may be needed .
Turkey has no problem losing Iran and Russia as allies over this as it will be rewarded with expanded trade deals with Europe and the US instead – and here the prospect of reviving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Arab losses is just impossible for Erdogan and the Turkish Deep State to resist .
Israel and ISIS militaries combined have failed to successfully confront or even put a dent in the Axis of Resistance shield and military advancement , so it now falls on Turkey ’ s army and its Muslim Brotherhood global proxies to take on this role .
Here America would be strategically foolish itself to take on the Axis of Resistance on the battlefield , as it will find itself in a quagmire deeper than Vietnam when it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to address the rapid rise of Chinese power .
Moreover , regarding Israel ’ s security , Turkey could come in through the north of Lebanon to rescue Israel if need be , thus sandwiching the Lebanon and Hezbollah tight between the Israeli military in the south and the unleashed post-Ottoman army in the north .
This is very desirable for the Israeli military architects .
Also , importantly , the US bringing Turkey closer into its fold gives the Pentagon unfettered marine access to neighboring Russia : Turkey here being a mere @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its mainland .
It certainly appears to make geopolitical and military sense for the US to choose Turkey as policeman and police dog at this time , but , who guards the dog ?
How will the US and Israel check Turkey ’ s insatiable Ottomanesque expansionist ambitions in the process ?
Well , there are many ways to check Ankara , some are carrots and some are sticks .
The carrots being offered to Ankara are preferential and enticing new trade deals with Europe and America , gas-pipe deals with Israel , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can be dangled would be Turkey ’ s admission to the Europe Union ( or what ’ s left of it ) – a reward that Ankara has for decades aspired to achieve but failed at .
And should Turkey do anything that upsets Israel while policing the mideast , the supremely harsh stick would be the cutting off of all existing trade deals with American and Europe , plus massive US sanctions that would quickly sink the Turkish Lira , as indeed the US had intentionally dabbled with last year .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the US ’ s public support and mass funding of Kurdish groups inside of Turkey : a color revolution designed to unseat Erdogan and his party , as well as throw the Turkish nation into a sudden tailspin of internal unrest and mass violence .
Summarized , with the choice of Turkey , you will have a trio of Arabphobes ruling and policing the middle east : the US , Israel and Turkey .
Turkey taking the position of the front lines , backed by the US , and commanded by Tel Aviv @ @ @ @ @ @ @ US and Israel ’ s new ISIS .

by Taxi • The Unz Review Running out of time, and desperate to gather focus and forces to fast pivot east to confront a rapidly rising Chinese superpower, America is currently arranging for its exit from the Middle East in a way that militarily secures its allies and proxies there, especially that of Israel. Naturally, it has to pick a top dog from its kennel of allies to police the region in its absence, and pick one, indeed, it has.
Turkey.
Not Israel.
This explains the wanton and brazen geostrategic moves that Turkey has been making of late in Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Yemen, in Libya, in Algeria and even in Greece: all seemingly with America’s approval.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf nations and Israel have all been side-stepped for this lauded position and the crown has been handed over to Turkey. Turkey: the global capital of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Of course, this choice and policy have not been made officially public, but all indications clearly point in this direction and to this conclusion. Many will be surprised that Israel, the US’s number one ally was not chosen to continue in its role as the US’s attack dog in the Middle East, especially after many contiguous decades of holding this powerful position. Let us therefore look at why Turkey was chosen over Israel, and there we will find many a cynical reason.
First, after Wahabism/ISIS was defeated in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Syria, and to a large extent in Yemen, it has been downgraded as incompetent and therefore disposable, and the nation allies that provided the Wahabi fodder have therefore also been downgraded and elbowed right off the pick list. Egypt has been elbowed off too as Israel, AIPAC and the US’s Deep State have a deep distrust of Cairo and would never allow it to militarily dominate the Middle East because the vast majority of the Egyptian people remain aligned with Pan Arabism, despite the Egyptian government being pro ‘normalization’ with Israel.
And Israel? Well, here lies the great deception in outwardly picking Turkey. Israel in fact will very much remain a ‘shadow enforcer’ of the region that dictates its needs to DC, and DC will subsequently dictate Israel’s wishes to Ankara, and furthermore, Ankara will therefore be operating the frontlines to enable continuing Israeli theft of Arab land and resources. Simply, Israel is currently incapable of both policing and simultaneously thieving more Arab land, all due to the Axis of Resistance holding Tel Aviv in its military crosshairs. Israel can currently only perform one task: incremental land theft WITHIN Historic Palestine, and not without. Its current military weak status cannot be stretched out across the region where military challenges to its power are on the increase by the Axis of Resistance. No longer able to go to war with its neighbors, yet absolutely needing to go to war to reverse the strategic pincer that its neighbors and their allies have forced upon its neck, Israel today is militarily checked and its very head lays in a guillotine, therefore, to assign it any further regional policing duties would be too risky for both Empire and the security of Israel itself. Israel will have to contend itself with merely operating safely from behind the Turkish back, albeit for the foreseeable future.
The advantages of picking Turkey are the following:
1- Being a member of NATO, it can call on NATO’s army to assist it in any major military challenges it may face from the Axis of Resistance and other regional upstarts, be they in Iraq, Syria or even in Egypt. After all, who better suppress the Arabs than the Arabphobic Ottomans with their 400 years experience in Arab oppression? The Turks certainly have a much larger army than Israel, and their air force is not exactly made of paper-mâché. The Turkish Deep State has no problem standing in the frontlines of battles against Arab nations (and Iran!) while a geopolitically weak Israel steals more Arab land for Greater Israel, so long as a Turkish Empire can possibly re-emerge out of this equation. Israelis are desperate to weaken their Arab and Iranian foes, and seeing that neither Wahabism nor the IDF can no longer be relied on to do this, so… enters the Turkish army, backed by NATO if need be, to do just that for them.
2- Unlike Israel, Turkey can call upon its vast cache of local and global Muslim Brotherhood militias and institutions to repress and challenge the Axis of Resistance wherever it may be needed. Turkey has no problem losing Iran and Russia as allies over this as it will be rewarded with expanded trade deals with Europe and the US instead – and here the prospect of reviving a new Ottoman Empire at the cost of Arab losses is just impossible for Erdogan and the Turkish Deep State to resist.
Israel and ISIS militaries combined have failed to successfully confront or even put a dent in the Axis of Resistance shield and military advancement, so it now falls on Turkey’s army and its Muslim Brotherhood global proxies to take on this role. Here America would be strategically foolish itself to take on the Axis of Resistance on the battlefield, as it will find itself in a quagmire deeper than Vietnam when it is needing to withdraw from the region to address the rapid rise of Chinese power.
So Turkey’s pick makes perfect geostrategic sense to Pax Americana.
Moreover, regarding Israel’s security, Turkey could come in through the north of Lebanon to rescue Israel if need be, thus sandwiching the Lebanon and Hezbollah tight between the Israeli military in the south and the unleashed post-Ottoman army in the north. This is very desirable for the Israeli military architects.
Also, importantly, the US bringing Turkey closer into its fold gives the Pentagon unfettered marine access to neighboring Russia: Turkey here being a mere marine hop away from Russian waters and its mainland.
It certainly appears to make geopolitical and military sense for the US to choose Turkey as policeman and police dog at this time, but, who guards the dog? How will the US and Israel check Turkey’s insatiable Ottomanesque expansionist ambitions in the process? Well, there are many ways to check Ankara, some are carrots and some are sticks. The carrots being offered to Ankara are preferential and enticing new trade deals with Europe and America, gas-pipe deals with Israel, and here the ultimate golden carrot that can be dangled would be Turkey’s admission to the Europe Union (or what’s left of it) – a reward that Ankara has for decades aspired to achieve but failed at.
And should Turkey do anything that upsets Israel while policing the mideast, the supremely harsh stick would be the cutting off of all existing trade deals with American and Europe, plus massive US sanctions that would quickly sink the Turkish Lira, as indeed the US had intentionally dabbled with last year. And, worst of all sticks would be the US’s public support and mass funding of Kurdish groups inside of Turkey: a color revolution designed to unseat Erdogan and his party, as well as throw the Turkish nation into a sudden tailspin of internal unrest and mass violence.
Summarized, with the choice of Turkey, you will have a trio of Arabphobes ruling and policing the middle east: the US, Israel and Turkey. Turkey taking the position of the front lines, backed by the US, and commanded by Tel Aviv.
To conclude, Turkey is the US and Israel’s new ISIS.
(Republished from Plato's Guns by permission of author or representative)


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-08-07--Weird Video: Eraserhead; Folger’s Dad in the Tub; Cardi B for the Census

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS .
BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON .
SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT .
Cultural nuggets from the annals of cinema , tv , advertising , and other corners , all reflecting aspects of our strange , semi-deranged culture .
The West is not normal , folks .
It can be horrid , it can be tedious , it can be smug , and sometimes it can even be funny .
David Lynch is for most people , including critics , unclassifiable .
Following his often troubling vibes ( which most auteurs do , anyhow ) in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who also gave us Mulholland Drive and The Lost Highway ) breaks most `` sacred '' rules to build an utterly strange , dreamlike and compelling ( when not revolting ) world that mixes imagery redolent of steampunk with nightmarish biology , all along apparently drawing great inspiration from the likes of Kafka and Dali .
In sum , weird .
Folgers new Coffee commercial is the best In this age of stifling PC keeping all establishment channels in tight conformity with the new stentorian rules of propriety dictating interactions between races , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subdivisions of the human race , it 's almost miraculous we accidentally bump into this extremely irreverent , Buñuelesque tv spot for , of all things , Folger 's coffee .
The fact no one has yet gotten hysterical over this highly peculiar spot for breaking just about every standing code of conduct in our cancel-obsessed culture is perhaps itself testimony to its uniqueness and , yes , it 's both refreshing and surprising .
I am awfully glad that Zombie Chris , whose YT commentary and sense of humor we appreciate , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has the slightest idea about how a major marketer 's commercial is produced—the sheer work and detail involved ; the countless hoops that need to be jumped through ; the things that need to be cut to avoid the slightest whiff of impropriety that might offend some priggish soul in New York or Opelousas—this must seem like a profound mystery .
It certainly does to me .
Folks , heads have rolled for much less than this , much less .
Weird .
NYC Census 2020 Message from Cardi B Cardi tells `` @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the Census OK , folks , so let 's get this straight : Cardi B , the super-talented in-your-face Dominican/Trinidadian dynamo , is not Donna Reed .
Reed , the beautiful farm girl from Iowa lives on in another cultural warp , mainly the Wonderbread white 1950s .
Cardi is pure , unadulterated 21st century—product of the finally ascendant multicultural brew that makes our society tick with rich new strains of humanity .
For Cardi , born in Manhattan and brought up in the Bronx , the one with the Goddess fingernails @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that 's right , a rapper who is not afraid to admit to a past that would scandalize every prig in this ridiculously prudish nation , is nothing if not the ultimate antidote to tedium .
That 's why we are a bit piqued by the firestorm in a teacup kicked up by the whiners who think Cardi B `` does not represent New York '' .
Does not represent NYC ?
Whaddayamean she does not represent NYC ?
!
!
!
Pal , you got ta be kidding .
Just weird @

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.
Weird Video
COMMENTARY BY PATRICE GREANVILLE
Cultural nuggets from the annals of cinema, tv, advertising, and other corners, all reflecting aspects of our strange, semi-deranged culture. The West is not normal, folks. It can be horrid, it can be tedious, it can be smug, and sometimes it can even be funny.
THE BIG SCREEN
ERASERHEAD (1977)
by David Lynch
[dropcap]D[/dropcap]avid Lynch is for most people, including critics, unclassifiable. Following his often troubling vibes (which most auteurs do, anyhow) in this 1977 surrealist horror film Lynch (who also gave us Mulholland Drive and The Lost Highway) breaks most "sacred" rules to build an utterly strange, dreamlike and compelling (when not revolting) world that mixes imagery redolent of steampunk with nightmarish biology, all along apparently drawing great inspiration from the likes of Kafka and Dali. In sum, weird.
TV COMMERCIALS
SUPER MERITORIOUS MENTION
Folgers new Coffee commercial is the best
Zombie Chris approves, and we agree
(Video courtesy by Zombie Chris)
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n this age of stifling PC keeping all establishment channels in tight conformity with the new stentorian rules of propriety dictating interactions between races, genders, ages, nationalities and other subdivisions of the human race, it's almost miraculous we accidentally bump into this extremely irreverent, Buñuelesque tv spot for, of all things, Folger's coffee. The fact no one has yet gotten hysterical over this highly peculiar spot for breaking just about every standing code of conduct in our cancel-obsessed culture is perhaps itself testimony to its uniqueness and, yes, it's both refreshing and surprising. I am awfully glad that Zombie Chris, whose YT commentary and sense of humor we appreciate, agrees. Furthermore, to anyone who has the slightest idea about how a major marketer's commercial is produced—the sheer work and detail involved; the countless hoops that need to be jumped through; the things that need to be cut to avoid the slightest whiff of impropriety that might offend some priggish soul in New York or Opelousas—this must seem like a profound mystery. It certainly does to me. Folks, heads have rolled for much less than this, much less. Weird.
TV COMMERCIALS
SPECIAL MENTION
NYC Census 2020 Message from Cardi B
Cardi tells "mi gente, presente" to register with the Census
[dropcap]OK[/dropcap], folks, so let's get this straight: Cardi B, the super-talented in-your-face Dominican/Trinidadian dynamo, is not Donna Reed. Reed, the beautiful farm girl from Iowa lives on in another cultural warp, mainly the Wonderbread white 1950s. Cardi is pure, unadulterated 21st century—product of the finally ascendant multicultural brew that makes our society tick with rich new strains of humanity. For Cardi, born in Manhattan and brought up in the Bronx, the one with the Goddess fingernails and extravagant lissome hair, a rapper, that's right, a rapper who is not afraid to admit to a past that would scandalize every prig in this ridiculously prudish nation, is nothing if not the ultimate antidote to tedium. That's why we are a bit piqued by the firestorm in a teacup kicked up by the whiners who think Cardi B "does not represent New York". Does not represent NYC? Whaddayamean she does not represent NYC? !!! Pal, you gotta be kidding. Just weird.
(Note: Cardi wants her folks to believe the Census will make a difference in their lives, but she's wrong. In theory, like Civics 101 (the fantasy script of US democracy), maybe. In reality, nah. It won't happen. The ruling class spends all its time figuring ways of enlarging its wealth and power, plotting new crimes and betrayals, and public needs barely register on its radar. Maybe that's only logical because the US is not a real democracy. Contrary to official propaganda, it never was. Check this, this and this, if you don't believe me.)


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-08-08--Milo, Conspiracy Theories, Stalin & Hamilton – Caleb & Brent

Caleb 's chats are the ideal tool for those who wish to acquire a solid understanding of contemporary history in @ @ @ @ @ .
An informal chat with Caleb Maupin and Brenton Lengel ( anarchist playwright ) , @ @ @ @ @ of news , lies , distortions , rumors , idiocies ( i.e.
, Purity spirals @ @ @ @ @ ideologies that shape our world .

Caleb's chats are the ideal tool for those who wish to acquire a solid understanding of contemporary history in an easy, accessible manner.
An informal chat with Caleb Maupin and Brenton Lengel (anarchist playwright), as guide to the multitude of news, lies, distortions, rumors, idiocies (i.e., Purity spirals), hypocrisies, and ideologies that shape our world.


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-08-08--Lebanon’s corrupt, colonial system leads to explosion catastrophe

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible .
Share with kin , friends and workmates and @ @ @ @ @ .
EDITED AND HOSTED BY THE GREANVILLE POST WARNING : WE APOLOGISE FOR THE PESTILENTIAL @ @ @ @ @ ADS BEING INJECTED BY BOTH THE TRUMP AND BIDEN CAMPAIGNS .
Pushback with Aaron Maté @ @ @ @ @ followed years of ignored warnings by government officials about the ammonium nitrate stored at the @ @ @ @ @ Rania Masri says that the disaster is the product of a corrupt , sectarian political @ @ @ @ @ .
Guest : Rania Masri , lecturer and activist .
Twitter : @ rania_masri Facebook @ @ @ @ @ of The Grayzone and its main guest ( both of whom we respect ) , @ @ @ @ @ main thread seem to apply .
( Despite the evidence pointing to Lebanon 's inbred @ @ @ @ @ we do n't think that Israel 's or America 's hands are entirely clean in @ @ @ @ @ are ) .

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.
EDITED AND HOSTED BY THE GREANVILLE POST
WARNING: WE APOLOGISE FOR THE PESTILENTIAL, UBIQUITOUS and HIGHLY INTRUSIVE ADS BEING INJECTED BY BOTH THE TRUMP AND BIDEN CAMPAIGNS.
Pushback with Aaron Maté The catastrophic explosion in Beirut followed years of ignored warnings by government officials about the ammonium nitrate stored at the port. Lecturer and activist Rania Masri says that the disaster is the product of a corrupt, sectarian political system maintained by foreign powers. Guest: Rania Masri, lecturer and activist. Twitter: @rania_masri Facebook: facebook.com/rania.masri
Regarding this episode of The Grayzone and its main guest (both of whom we respect), the following comments from the main thread seem to apply. (Despite the evidence pointing to Lebanon's inbred corruption and sectarian idiocies, we don't think that Israel's or America's hands are entirely clean in this affair, they rarely are).
[post-views]


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-08-08--OH NO! There’s a Russian connection in the Beirut Blast? (MUST WATCH!)

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thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-08-08--TikTok and America’s fake Internet Freedom War and End of Internet Utopianism

You ’ ve probably heard about this whole TikTok business .
Donald Trump has given the company 45 days to either sell itself to an American firm or be banished from our borders .
So it looks like TikTok is going to be forced to sell to a bunch of drooling Silicon Valley oligarchs for pennies on the dollar .
“ Nice viral app you got there , kid .
Would be a shame if something were to happen to it .
Hey , we just want to help out !
” A bipartisan War With China campaign has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so something like this ban was just a matter of time .
What ’ s incredible is how many influential people on the prog-left are cheering it on .
Ryan has gone full pro-empire and is totally on board with Donald .
But I guess it shouldn ’ t be surprising .
There ’ s a coaliton of prog-type journalists and political activists in DC — many of them centered around The Intercept and Matt Stoller ’ s elite-driven antitrust movement — that ’ s been pushing for a clash with China .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Matt , really believe that China is a “ new Nazi Germany ” — which to me is code “ we must go to war with China.
” What other response to can there be to a new Nazi Germany , right ?
We must stop these shifty asians from wrapping their tentacles around the rest of the planet !
I ’ m going to write something longer about the politics surrounding the TikTok ban as the story evolves , but I want to get a few quick thoughts down on paper now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of this ban is that it shows that Internet utopianism is pretty much dead .
Don ’ t know about you , but the sooner we bury that corpse the better .
From the start of the dot com boom , Silicon Valley and America ’ s political elite has done a great job of marketing the Internet as a totally new type of technology — a utopian system that ’ s removed from American imperial and business interests .
Google ?
Facebook ?
Apple ?
eBay ?
These companies aren ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way !
They ’ re neutral technological platforms involved in connecting and empowering people .
They ’ re serving users with digital democracy , regardless of their nationality or politics .
They ’ re post-ideological and post-historical !
For a long time a lot of people believed this sales pitch .
Even Silicon Valley bought into its own hype .
Of course , this idea of technological neutrality was itself extremely ideological and underpinned by massive historical revisionism .
As I show in my book Surveillance Valley , the Internet has always been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power .
The Internet has always been a weapon — ever since it was developed by Pentagon in the 1960s and then unleashed on the world in early 1990s .
This ban of TikTok proves my point .
But there ’ s something bigger going on , too .
It shows once again that no one really believes in Silicon Valley global utopianism anymore .
Read reporting on the issue and you ’ ll find that a kind of paranoid realpolitik prevails these days .
No one talks about the Internet being a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all about how technology can be weaponized by a rival power againstAmerican interests .
If an Internet company is Chinese , it naturally must be an extension of Chinese national power .
If a company is Russian , the Russian government must be benefitting from its use somehow .
And if a company is American — like Google or Facebook — it of course must pledge allegiance to American imperial interests .
And Google and Facebook publicly agree .
The logic makes a lot of sense — and represents the hard reality that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what ’ s surprising is that is also represents a total reversal in American political culture .
From the moment that computer networking emerged in consumer culture , everyone believed in openness .
It was a fundamental religious tenet of the Information Age .
From Al Gore to Newt Gingrich to Wired magazine — the consensus was that open networks , like open markets and free trade , would create a new global order… This is a short version of a longer piece only available to subscribers — read it here .

You’ve probably heard about this whole TikTok business. Donald Trump has given the company 45 days to either sell itself to an American firm or be banished from our borders. So it looks like TikTok is going to be forced to sell to a bunch of drooling Silicon Valley oligarchs for pennies on the dollar. “Nice viral app you got there, kid. Would be a shame if something were to happen to it. Hey, we just want to help out!”
A bipartisan War With China campaign has been building for quite a while now, so something like this ban was just a matter of time. What’s incredible is how many influential people on the prog-left are cheering it on.
Ryan has gone full pro-empire and is totally on board with Donald. But I guess it shouldn’t be surprising.
There’s a coaliton of prog-type journalists and political activists in DC — many of them centered around The Intercept and Matt Stoller’s elite-driven antitrust movement — that’s been pushing for a clash with China. Many of them, like Ryan and Matt, really believe that China is a “new Nazi Germany” — which to me is code “we must go to war with China.” What other response to can there be to a new Nazi Germany, right? We must stop these shifty asians from wrapping their tentacles around the rest of the planet!
The Bulletin, 1886
I’m going to write something longer about the politics surrounding the TikTok ban as the story evolves, but I want to get a few quick thoughts down on paper now.
To me the most interesting part of this ban is that it shows that Internet utopianism is pretty much dead. Don’t know about you, but the sooner we bury that corpse the better.
From the start of the dot com boom, Silicon Valley and America’s political elite has done a great job of marketing the Internet as a totally new type of technology — a utopian system that’s removed from American imperial and business interests. Google? Facebook? Apple? eBay? These companies aren’t extensions of American imperial power. No way! They’re neutral technological platforms involved in connecting and empowering people. They’re serving users with digital democracy, regardless of their nationality or politics. They’re post-ideological and post-historical!
For a long time a lot of people believed this sales pitch. Even Silicon Valley bought into its own hype.
Of course, this idea of technological neutrality was itself extremely ideological and underpinned by massive historical revisionism. As I show in my book Surveillance Valley, the Internet has always been an instrument of American economic and military power. The Internet has always been a weapon — ever since it was developed by Pentagon in the 1960s and then unleashed on the world in early 1990s.
This ban of TikTok proves my point.
But there’s something bigger going on, too. It shows once again that no one really believes in Silicon Valley global utopianism anymore.
Read reporting on the issue and you’ll find that a kind of paranoid realpolitik prevails these days. No one talks about the Internet being a post-political platform. Now it’s all about how technology can be weaponized by a rival power againstAmerican interests. If an Internet company is Chinese, it naturally must be an extension of Chinese national power. If a company is Russian, the Russian government must be benefitting from its use somehow. And if a company is American — like Google or Facebook — it of course must pledge allegiance to American imperial interests. And Google and Facebook publicly agree.
The logic makes a lot of sense — and represents the hard reality that has always underpinned information technology. But what’s surprising is that is also represents a total reversal in American political culture.
From the moment that computer networking emerged in consumer culture, everyone believed in openness. It was a fundamental religious tenet of the Information Age. From Al Gore to Newt Gingrich to Wired magazine — the consensus was that open networks, like open markets and free trade, would create a new global order…
This is a short version of a longer piece only available to subscribers — read it here.


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-08-09--Harlem’s Pearl – James Baldwin

Harlem’s Pearl – James Baldwin

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“ The American idea of progress is how fast I become white .
And it ’ s a trick bag .
Because they know perfectly well I can never become white .
I have drunk my share of dry martinis ; I have proven myself civilized in every way I can .
But there is an irreducible difficulty : something doesn ’ t work .
Well , I decided : I might as well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , UC Berkeley , 1979 [ 1 ] randson of a slave , the eldest of nine children in a Harlem family rooted in bitter poverty , he grew up amidst junkies , winos , pimps , racketeers , pick-pockets , and con-artists .
Surrounded by despair , he took refuge in literature , reading with such focused intensity that his mother took to hiding his books .
[ 3 ] He knew the Bible so well he became a teen sensation in the pulpit , luxuriating in Old Testament rhetoric and poetry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he could get his hands on close to home .
`` There were two libraries in Harlem , ” he remembered , “ and by the time I was thirteen I had read every book in both libraries and I had a card downtown for Forty-second street .
`` [ 4 ] His brilliance stood out .
One of his teachers , a Communist with a Theatre Project job thanks to the WPA , began giving him books and taking him to plays and movies and museums , nurturing his keen mind while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supposed master race : `` She gave me my first key , my first clue that white people were human , '' Baldwin said .
[ 5 ] Racism affected everything , often in unexpected ways .
Baldwin , for example , had learned from his mother to always offer his seat to a woman when he rode the subway .
But in church some preachers taught that he should never surrender his seat to a white woman , because that would be “ an act of servility.
” Baldwin solved the conundrum @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
[ 6 ] But other racial dilemmas were not so easily side-stepped , such as when two police officers beat him “ half to death ” when he was but ten years old .
[ 7 ] Somehow emerging literate , self-assured , and honest in a world that defined him as but a half-step removed from jungle savagery , he found himself perpetually in danger of doing or saying something that would trigger disaster .
At 18 , he lost control of his suppressed rage and hurled a glass of water @ @ @ @ @ @ @ service in a segregated New Jersey restaurant , watching along with the astonished patrons as it shattered against the mirror behind the bar .
The following year Harlem erupted in a race riot as he buried his father , whose rage had consumed him long before the tuberculosis that finished him off .
Five years after that , young James had had more than enough of the brutalities of American life , and fled the U.S. “ about five minutes before being carried off to Bellevue.
” [ 8 ] Reaching Paris with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ French , he spent his nights there on park benches consoling the victims of France 's Algeria campaign , while his pent-up bitterness at all he had endured in the U.S. came spilling out .
[ 9 ] For an entire year he was busy “ breaking up bars , knocking down people , ” he later remembered , eventually ending up in jail .
“ You ’ ve been taught that you ’ re inferior , ” he explained , “ so you act as though you ’ re inferior .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to get at , you really believe it.
” [ 10 ] When the chaos subsided , Baldwin discovered that his life had at last become personal , allowing him a detached look at the crippling racial obsession ravaging his native land .
Like an Old Testament prophet he sounded the alarm in the pages of The Fire Next Time : `` This is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen , and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them , that they have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it . ''
He saved his richest contempt for the willfully blind : `` It is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent .
It is the innocence which constitutes the crime .
`` [ 11 ] Brilliant , driven , deeply troubled , he warned that time was running out to atone for slavery .
`` If we do not now dare everything , '' he wrote , `` the fulfillment of that prophecy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a slave , is upon us : God gave Noah the rainbow sign , No more water , the fire next time !
`` [ 12 ] Baldwin ’ s soaring rhetoric landed with a sickening thud against the deaf ears of the liberal establishment , which was busy dragging its feet in response to a civil rights movement that Baldwin more accurately called America ’ s latest “ slave rebellion.
” [ 13 ] Embarrassed by the screaming headlines and distressed at the propaganda coup the USSR was reaping from racial upheaval @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moved only reluctantly and belatedly to support the black freedom movement .
[ 14 ] While blacks were set upon by mobs , clubbed with lead pipes , and shot , bombed , jailed , and killed , Attorney General Robert Kennedy ’ s FBI agents took notes and filed reports , but made no general move to enforce the law against rioting police and KKK vigilantes .
Concerned about losing support in Congress , JFK opted to shore up his southern political base , appointing racist judges to the bench , including @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ pinks , radicals and black voters ” from overturning segregation , and another in Mississippi who saw no point in registering “ a bunch of niggers on a voter drive.
” [ 15 ] In the midst of all this , Baldwin sent Attorney General Robert Kennedy a telegram taking the Kennedy administration to task for the siege of Birmingham , and Kennedy responded by inviting him to assemble a group of black luminaries for a meeting in his New York apartment .
It did n't go well .
Baldwin 's brother @ @ @ @ @ @ @ face .
Playwright Lorraine Hansberry blasted the `` specimens of white manhood '' portrayed in a recent Time magazine photo : Alabama police pinning a black woman to the ground with a knee to her throat , better known today as the George Floyd maneuver .
Lena Horne suggested sarcastically that Kennedy try promoting his policy of Jim Crow collaboration to Harlem residents , but warned that `` we ai n't going , because we do n't want to get shot . ''
Freedom Rider Jerome Smith , crippled for life from a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to have to meet with Kennedy at all ( in order to have his rights respected ) .
He told the shocked Attorney General that he could no longer conceive of fighting for his country in uniform , but was nearly ready to pick up a gun against it .
Baldwin and his guests pleaded with Kennedy to have the president send troops to quell racist violence in Birmingham , and demanded to know why he himself had n't escorted James Meredith when be became the first black student to register at Ole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Baldwin and his group demanded a demonstration of moral commitment by the White House .
The President , they insisted , should escort a black child into a Deep South school , so that any racist who spat on that child would also be spitting on the nation .
Kennedy dismissed the idea as a meaningless moral gesture .
Son of a bootlegger , helped into office by Mob connections , he recommended that blacks pull themselves up the way his family did .
With luck , he concluded brightly , one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years .
Forty more years and blacks might get relief from racist terror - on top of the 400 years they had already endured – and then only if they behaved themselves !
Baldwin told Kennedy his comment was absurd .
The point was , he said , that a Kennedy could already be president , while blacks , who had arrived in America long before the Irish Catholics , were “ still required to supplicate and beg for justice.
” When Kennedy remained unmoved and unmovable , Baldwin emerged from the meeting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and unresponsive to the Negro 's torment .
`` [ 16 ] The FBI marked him down as a “ Communist , ” and though he flew all the way from Paris , he was not allowed to speak to the March on Washington three months later , [ 17 ] where Dr. King delivered his “ I Have A Dream ” speech .
Eighteen days after that speech a bomb exploded in Birmingham , blasting four black girls attending Sunday school into eternity .
Dreams are one thing ; change , quite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ at bottom an optimist , ” [ 18 ] he gradually gave up hope that the United States would change , as a string of assassinations ( Medgar Evers , Malcolm X , Martin Luther King , Fred Hampton , Mark Clark ) made it increasingly obvious it had no intention of doing so .
To the extent the country defined itself as white , he thought , to that same extent it was irrelevant .
Change would come , but from elsewhere .
When Black Power emerged and Baldwin expressed sympathies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , white liberals often expressed consternation at what they saw as his retreat from integration and reconciliation .
Baldwin took a certain pleasure in setting them straight : [ 19 ] white people had long ago ( forcefully ) integrated the country , he reminded them , the facts not being subject to dispute , as “ my grandmother never raped nobody.
” [ 20 ] Furthermore , the “ negro problem ” was actually a “ white problem , ” as it was they who invented the “ nigger ” fantasy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it .
The burden was on them to discover why .
[ 21 ] Until they did , all talk of racial reconciliation was premature , if not consciously diversionary .
Such relentless honesty proved hard to handle even for the most balanced and resourceful minds .
In a three-part discussion with Baldwin in August , 1970 , Margaret Mead ’ s detailed anthropological and historical knowledge checked Baldwin ’ s tendency toward poetic exaggeration through seven fascinating hours of wide-ranging conversation .
But when Israel-Palestine came up , Baldwin ’ s passion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s faltering reason .
“ I have been the Arab , in America , at the hands of the Jews , ” he said , denouncing Israel ’ s 1948 displacement of the Palestinians by “ an entirely irreligious people ” based incongruously on “ something that is written down by Jehovah on a tablet.
” Mead lost her composure at this , and accused Baldwin of making a racist comment , “ just because there have been a bunch of Jewish shopkeepers in Harlem.
” [ 22 ] But there was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or at any other time in his career .
He was just telling the truth .
And he never stopped .
In 1974 , he won the Cathedral of St. John the Divine 's centennial medal for the `` artist as prophet , '' and was invited to address a congregation for the first time since his teen years .
Using the Old Testament story of David slaying Goliath and the Philistines , the diminutive Baldwin let loose a blast of hyper-articulate fury at the U.S. `` betrayal '' of its black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a `` motherfucker . ''
The subdean of the cathedral , unhappy with the tone of the service , confided to the dean : No one ever before has said 'motherfucker ' from the pulpit of St. John the Divine . ''
The Dean replied that times had changed : `` It 's about time someone did .
`` [ 23 ] Thirteen years later , Baldwin ’ s funeral took place in that very same church , and mourners celebrated his wildly improbable and incredibly abundant life .
Maya Angelou called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 24 ] Toni Morrison remembered that “ the season was always Christmas ” when he was around , and thanked him for replacing evasion and hypocrisy with clarity and beauty in his 6895 pages of published work .
[ 25 ] Amiri Baraka praised his “ insistent elegance ” and ranked the importance of his work with Dr. King and Malcolm X .
[ 26 ] Of course , taking fair measure of a life lived on three continents , and dedicated to human liberation by embracing every vulnerability , probing all weaknesses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ truths is an impossible task .
Perhaps all one can say is that - by the power of his spoken and written words - Baldwin transformed a horrifying legacy of pain and rage into grace and light .
It ’ s hard not to be grateful for that .
Had he lived , Baldwin would have turned 96 years old tomorrow .
Happy Birthday , James , and well done !
[ 13 ] Reflections of James Baldwin , speech at UC Berkeley , January 15 , 1979 ( broadcast on C-SPAN 3 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ] Howard Zinn , A People ’ s History of the United States , ( Harper , 1980 ) p. 445 ; Baldwin , The Fire Next Time , pps .
117-18 [ 16 ] The account of the Bobby Kennedy meeting is from : James Campbell , Talking At The Gates – A Life of James Baldwin , ( Viking , 1991 ) pps .
163-5 ; David Leeming , James Baldwin – A Biography , ( Henry Holt , 1994 ) pps .
222-6 ; W. J. Weatherby , James Baldwin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I .
Fine , 1989 ) pps .
221-4 [ 21 ] I Am Not Your Negro ( film ) [ 25 ] Toni Morrison , “ James Baldwin : His Voice Remembered – Life In His Language ” New York Times , December 20 , 1987 [ 26 ] Amiri Baraka , “ James Baldwin , “ His Voice Remembered – We Carry Him With Us ” New York Times , December 20 , 1987

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.
Michael K. Smith
“The American idea of progress is how fast I become white. And it’s a trick bag. Because they know perfectly well I can never become white. I have drunk my share of dry martinis; I have proven myself civilized in every way I can. But there is an irreducible difficulty: something doesn’t work. Well, I decided: I might as well act like a nigger.” —James Baldwin, UC Berkeley, 1979[1]
“A dangerous individual.”[2]. F.B.I. field report
G
randson of a slave, the eldest of nine children in a Harlem family rooted in bitter poverty, he grew up amidst junkies, winos, pimps, racketeers, pick-pockets, and con-artists.
Surrounded by despair, he took refuge in literature, reading with such focused intensity that his mother took to hiding his books.[3] He knew the Bible so well he became a teen sensation in the pulpit, luxuriating in Old Testament rhetoric and poetry. By then he had devoured everything he could get his hands on close to home. "There were two libraries in Harlem,” he remembered, “and by the time I was thirteen I had read every book in both libraries and I had a card downtown for Forty-second street."[4]
His brilliance stood out. One of his teachers, a Communist with a Theatre Project job thanks to the WPA, began giving him books and taking him to plays and movies and museums, nurturing his keen mind while teaching him an ironic lesson about the supposed master race: "She gave me my first key, my first clue that white people were human," Baldwin said. [5]
Racism affected everything, often in unexpected ways. Baldwin, for example, had learned from his mother to always offer his seat to a woman when he rode the subway. But in church some preachers taught that he should never surrender his seat to a white woman, because that would be “an act of servility.” Baldwin solved the conundrum by never sitting down on the subway.[6] But other racial dilemmas were not so easily side-stepped, such as when two police officers beat him “half to death” when he was but ten years old.[7]
Somehow emerging literate, self-assured, and honest in a world that defined him as but a half-step removed from jungle savagery, he found himself perpetually in danger of doing or saying something that would trigger disaster. At 18, he lost control of his suppressed rage and hurled a glass of water at a waitress who had refused him service in a segregated New Jersey restaurant, watching along with the astonished patrons as it shattered against the mirror behind the bar. The following year Harlem erupted in a race riot as he buried his father, whose rage had consumed him long before the tuberculosis that finished him off. Five years after that, young James had had more than enough of the brutalities of American life, and fled the U.S. “about five minutes before being carried off to Bellevue.”[8]
Reaching Paris with $40 to his name and no French, he spent his nights there on park benches consoling the victims of France's Algeria campaign, while his pent-up bitterness at all he had endured in the U.S. came spilling out.[9] For an entire year he was busy “breaking up bars, knocking down people,” he later remembered, eventually ending up in jail. “You’ve been taught that you’re inferior,” he explained, “so you act as though you’re inferior. And on the level that is very difficult to get at, you really believe it.”[10]
When the chaos subsided, Baldwin discovered that his life had at last become personal, allowing him a detached look at the crippling racial obsession ravaging his native land. Like an Old Testament prophet he sounded the alarm in the pages of The Fire Next Time: "This is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it." He saved his richest contempt for the willfully blind: "It is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime."[11]
Brilliant, driven, deeply troubled, he warned that time was running out to atone for slavery. "If we do not now dare everything," he wrote, "the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!"[12]
Baldwin’s soaring rhetoric landed with a sickening thud against the deaf ears of the liberal establishment, which was busy dragging its feet in response to a civil rights movement that Baldwin more accurately called America’s latest “slave rebellion.”[13] Embarrassed by the screaming headlines and distressed at the propaganda coup the USSR was reaping from racial upheaval in the U.S., the Kennedy administration moved only reluctantly and belatedly to support the black freedom movement.[14] While blacks were set upon by mobs, clubbed with lead pipes, and shot, bombed, jailed, and killed, Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s FBI agents took notes and filed reports, but made no general move to enforce the law against rioting police and KKK vigilantes. Concerned about losing support in Congress, JFK opted to shore up his southern political base, appointing racist judges to the bench, including one in Georgia who sought to prevent “pinks, radicals and black voters” from overturning segregation, and another in Mississippi who saw no point in registering “a bunch of niggers on a voter drive.”[15]
In the midst of all this, Baldwin sent Attorney General Robert Kennedy a telegram taking the Kennedy administration to task for the siege of Birmingham, and Kennedy responded by inviting him to assemble a group of black luminaries for a meeting in his New York apartment. It didn't go well. Baldwin's brother David shook a fist in Kennedy's face. Playwright Lorraine Hansberry blasted the "specimens of white manhood" portrayed in a recent Time magazine photo: Alabama police pinning a black woman to the ground with a knee to her throat, better known today as the George Floyd maneuver. Lena Horne suggested sarcastically that Kennedy try promoting his policy of Jim Crow collaboration to Harlem residents, but warned that "we ain't going, because we don't want to get shot." Freedom Rider Jerome Smith, crippled for life from a Mississippi beating, said he was nauseated to have to meet with Kennedy at all (in order to have his rights respected). He told the shocked Attorney General that he could no longer conceive of fighting for his country in uniform, but was nearly ready to pick up a gun against it.
Baldwin and his guests pleaded with Kennedy to have the president send troops to quell racist violence in Birmingham, and demanded to know why he himself hadn't escorted James Meredith when be became the first black student to register at Ole Miss.
Kennedy laughed.
Failing to see anything funny, Baldwin and his group demanded a demonstration of moral commitment by the White House. The President, they insisted, should escort a black child into a Deep South school, so that any racist who spat on that child would also be spitting on the nation.
Kennedy dismissed the idea as a meaningless moral gesture. Son of a bootlegger, helped into office by Mob connections, he recommended that blacks pull themselves up the way his family did. With luck, he concluded brightly, one of them might be president in forty years.
Forty more years and blacks might get relief from racist terror - on top of the 400 years they had already endured – and then only if they behaved themselves! Baldwin told Kennedy his comment was absurd. The point was, he said, that a Kennedy could already be president, while blacks, who had arrived in America long before the Irish Catholics, were “still required to supplicate and beg for justice.”
When Kennedy remained unmoved and unmovable, Baldwin emerged from the meeting profoundly depressed, pronouncing him "insensitive and unresponsive to the Negro's torment."[16] The FBI marked him down as a “Communist,” and though he flew all the way from Paris, he was not allowed to speak to the March on Washington three months later,[17] where Dr. King delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech. Eighteen days after that speech a bomb exploded in Birmingham, blasting four black girls attending Sunday school into eternity.
Dreams are one thing; change, quite another.
Though Baldwin regarded himself as “at bottom an optimist,”[18] he gradually gave up hope that the United States would change, as a string of assassinations (Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Fred Hampton, Mark Clark) made it increasingly obvious it had no intention of doing so. To the extent the country defined itself as white, he thought, to that same extent it was irrelevant. Change would come, but from elsewhere.
When Black Power emerged and Baldwin expressed sympathies for a new generation of black radicals, white liberals often expressed consternation at what they saw as his retreat from integration and reconciliation. Baldwin took a certain pleasure in setting them straight:[19] white people had long ago (forcefully) integrated the country, he reminded them, the facts not being subject to dispute, as “my grandmother never raped nobody.”[20] Furthermore, the “negro problem” was actually a “white problem,” as it was they who invented the “nigger” fantasy, and they who were continually tormented by it. The burden was on them to discover why.[21] Until they did, all talk of racial reconciliation was premature, if not consciously diversionary.
Such relentless honesty proved hard to handle even for the most balanced and resourceful minds. In a three-part discussion with Baldwin in August, 1970, Margaret Mead’s detailed anthropological and historical knowledge checked Baldwin’s tendency toward poetic exaggeration through seven fascinating hours of wide-ranging conversation. But when Israel-Palestine came up, Baldwin’s passion for truth proved more reliable than Mead’s faltering reason. “I have been the Arab, in America, at the hands of the Jews,” he said, denouncing Israel’s 1948 displacement of the Palestinians by “an entirely irreligious people” based incongruously on “something that is written down by Jehovah on a tablet.” Mead lost her composure at this, and accused Baldwin of making a racist comment, “just because there have been a bunch of Jewish shopkeepers in Harlem.”[22]
But there was no trace of anti-Semitism in Baldwin then, or at any other time in his career. He was just telling the truth.
And he never stopped. In 1974, he won the Cathedral of St. John the Divine's centennial medal for the "artist as prophet," and was invited to address a congregation for the first time since his teen years. Using the Old Testament story of David slaying Goliath and the Philistines, the diminutive Baldwin let loose a blast of hyper-articulate fury at the U.S. "betrayal" of its black brethren, and thunderously dismissed President Nixon as a "motherfucker."
The subdean of the cathedral, unhappy with the tone of the service, confided to the dean: No one ever before has said 'motherfucker' from the pulpit of St. John the Divine."
The Dean replied that times had changed: "It's about time someone did."[23]
Thirteen years later, Baldwin’s funeral took place in that very same church, and mourners celebrated his wildly improbable and incredibly abundant life. Maya Angelou called him a “great soul.”[24] Toni Morrison remembered that “the season was always Christmas” when he was around, and thanked him for replacing evasion and hypocrisy with clarity and beauty in his 6895 pages of published work.[25] Amiri Baraka praised his “insistent elegance” and ranked the importance of his work with Dr. King and Malcolm X.[26]
Of course, taking fair measure of a life lived on three continents, and dedicated to human liberation by embracing every vulnerability, probing all weaknesses, and excavating the most deeply buried truths is an impossible task. Perhaps all one can say is that - by the power of his spoken and written words - Baldwin transformed a horrifying legacy of pain and rage into grace and light.
It’s hard not to be grateful for that.
Had he lived, Baldwin would have turned 96 years old tomorrow. Happy Birthday, James, and well done!
MICHAEL K. SMITH, Senior Contributing Editor has published three books, “The Greatest Story Never Told – A People’s History of the American Empire, 1945-1999,” “Portraits of Empire,” and “The Madness of King George. His fourth book, “Rise to Empire,” is forthcoming. He holds a B.A. in Psychology and a Master’s Degree in Humanities. He has lived in Central America, Mexico, and Japan. He currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. , Senior Contributing Editor has published three books, “The Greatest Story Never Told – A People’s History of the American Empire, 1945-1999,” “Portraits of Empire,” and “The Madness of King George. His fourth book, “Rise to Empire,” is forthcoming. He holds a B.A. in Psychology and a Master’s Degree in Humanities. He has lived in Central America, Mexico, and Japan. He currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.
REFS
[1] Reflections of James Baldwin, C-SPAN, March 3, 2007
[2] William J. Maxwell, James Baldwin – The FBI File (Arcade Publishing, 2017) Chapter 21, p. 167
[3] W. J. Weatherby, James Baldwin – Artist on Fire, (Donald I. Fine, 1989) p. 15
[4] James Baldwin and Margaret Mead – A Rap on Race, (J. B. Lippincott, 1971) pps. 45-6
[5] A Rap on Race, p. 31
[6] A Rap on Race, p. 55
[7] A Rap on Race, p. 213
[8] Notes of a Native Son (Beacon, 1955) p. 97; A Rap on Race, p. 56
[9] A Rap on Race, p. 242
[10] A Rap on Race, p. 57
[11] James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, (Dell, 1962) pps. 15-16
[12] The Fire Next Time, p. 141
[13] Reflections of James Baldwin, speech at UC Berkeley, January 15, 1979 (broadcast on C-SPAN 3 March 3, 2007)
[14] Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, (Harper, 1980) p. 445; Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, pps. 117-18
[15] Tom Hayden, Reunion – A Memoir, (Random House, 1988) p. 59
[16] The account of the Bobby Kennedy meeting is from: James Campbell, Talking At The Gates – A Life of James Baldwin, (Viking, 1991) pps. 163-5; David Leeming, James Baldwin – A Biography, (Henry Holt, 1994) pps. 222-6; W. J. Weatherby, James Baldwin – Artist on Fire, (Donald I. Fine, 1989) pps. 221-4
[17] Leeming, p. 296
[18] A Rap on Race, p. 88
[19] Leeming, p. 185
[20] Baldwin 1965 Cambridge Union debate with William F. Buckley Jr.
[21] I Am Not Your Negro (film)
[22] A Rap on Race, pps. 215-16
[23] Leeming, p. 322
[24] Maya Angelou, “When Great Trees Fall,” bookpatrol.net, May 29, 2014
[25] Toni Morrison, “James Baldwin: His Voice Remembered – Life In His Language” New York Times, December 20, 1987
[26] Amiri Baraka, “James Baldwin, “His Voice Remembered – We Carry Him With Us” New York Times, December 20, 1987