For some of the Irish media below,
it's open anti-Americanism.
They hate America and want it to fail.
They are hostile to democracies like Israel,
and romanticise third world
fascist revolutionaries like the Palestinians.
They hate capitalism and long for socialism.
They hate the fact that Ireland, of all places,
is one of the greatest capitalism
success stories in the history of the world.
For others below,
it's not so much open anti-Americanism
as just general negativity
- endless carping and criticism of America, Britain and Israel
(the three countries that have leadership or frontier roles
in the defence of western liberal civilization).
These journalists
believe it is the duty of a journalist
to be slyly cynical and negative
about everything the government does.
There is some merit in this, of course,
but it is not the same thing as a dispassionate search for truth.
In particular, if you feel that the government is doing something
far more idealistic, noble and heroic
than anything the media have ever done in their lives,
then the media's endless negativity is hard to take.
For anyone who cares about the War on Islamism,
much of this commentary
is just
tedious, pointless and demoralising to listen to.
It is the criticism of people who don't seem to care,
who don't seem to really want the west to win.
It is the negative criticism of enemies and neutrals,
who wish you ill,
rather than the positive criticism of friends.
Orwell
sums up why it is hard
to listen to people like this.
It is possible to criticise
while still basically backing the west,
as people like
Ralph Peters, Michael Ledeen, and Cox and Forkum show.
In contrast, none of the people below are clearly on the side
of the west.
Why we must never abandon this historic
struggle in Iraq,
by Tony Blair, April 11, 2004,
The Observer -
sums up how I see the cynical, negative, whining media
in this age when the governments
they criticise are being heroic,
noble and idealistic:
"The truth is, faced with
this struggle,
on which our own fate hangs, a significant part of Western
opinion is sitting back,
if not half-hoping we fail, certainly replete with
schadenfreude
at the difficulty we find."
High Bias
- Orson Scott Card
on why it is difficult to listen to people like RTE and the Irish Times
at a time like this:
"When a nation is at war
.. we don't want to hear the news from neutral parties. We want the news to be accurate,
yes ...
But when a negative story comes out, we want the people telling us the news to say it with regret.
And when America wins, we want our news media to tell us with excitement and happiness.
In other words, we want to hear the truth from a friend.
From someone who is one of us."
Not from someone, like RTE and the Irish Times,
who is neutral or hostile.
Michael Jansen on Iraq, July 23, 2007:
"the overwhelming number of insurgents are Iraqi nationalists fighting for liberation."
They are of course fighting for no such thing.
They are fighting to enslave Iraq, not liberate it.
Paul Gillespie
speaks at a "press freedom" conference in
Dubai in the UAE.
Freedom House say:
"Citizens of the UAE cannot change their government democratically.
The UAE has never held an election.
...
Laws prohibit criticism of the government, ruling families, and friendly governments".
So does Gillespie criticise Dubai?
No. He criticises Israel, the only country in the region with a free press.
And yet he does not call for a boycott of
China, Russia, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Pakistan,
the Palestinian Authority, Rwanda, Syria and Vietnam.
Why not?
Tom Clonan's whitewash of Syria, Irish Times, 10 Mar 2009.
Based on having some fun social occasions (which you can have anywhere in the world)
he thinks Syria is alright, and is unfairly demonised.
It is America and Israel that need to change, apparently.
Not (for example) for Syria to grant
political freedom
and
economic freedom
to its oppressed people.
No, that would be "simplistic".
He says Jewish and Christian communities live "in relative harmony".
A more realistic look at the
Jews of Syria
says they have been persecuted until there are only 100 of them left.
A more realistic look at the
Christians of Syria
describes them as "a small frightened community".
He refers in those so-familiar leftie sneer quotes to
"the Bush administration's 'global war on terror' ".
Is he really under the delusion that the War on Islamism was just about Bush?
That the struggle against
the global jihad
is over
now that the great Obama is President?
He talks about "peace" and utters not a word about
Syria's support for war against Israel and Lebanon
through Hezbollah and Hamas,
and Syria's support for war against Iraq, America and Britain
through the Iraqi resistance.
Syria and its ally Iran are the two major sponsors of war in the region.
And yet Syria wants "peace".
What a whitewash.
Irishman travels to US, comes back with suitcase full of cliches
- Jon Ihle on Ian Kilroy's letters from America.
"It's just been an endless stream of reductive, condescending crap from start to finish:
credulous about those who share his prejudices and incurious about those who don't.
...
Good riddance."
Why reading The Irish Times
makes me annoyed:
Richard Waghorne
notes three typical references to "neo-cons"
in one short period in The Irish Times
in 2005, by
Fintan O'Toole, Anthony Glavin and Eddie Holt
- three men who show no sign of ever actually understanding
what neo-cons are.
To them, "neo-con" is simply "evil",
their understanding seeming to come from
Chomskyite fantasy like
The Power of Nightmares
and similar ill-informed third-hand sources.
They, like the rest of the Irish left, show no sign of ever having read
neo-conservative writers
like
Victor Davis Hanson
to see what they say.
I wouldn't mind so much if Fintan O'Toole and Eddie Holt read
Victor Davis Hanson
and then told us what was wrong with him.
But they never even engage with him.
Holt will criticise irrelevant people like
Pat Robertson
who nobody is interested in.
Why doesn't he read serious, influential neo-cons like
Victor Davis Hanson
and then reply?
As Richard Waghorne says in the post above:
"The consistent problem is a refusal
.. to engage with neo-conservativism as a philosophy".
Neo-cons, in one line, are people who
want to end all dictatorships on earth, by force if necessary.
It's a very appealing philosophy to me,
far more appealing than the left-wing alternative.
Now you can argue that it is naive, or impossible,
or will involve too much war,
or will make things worse,
or is not our problem,
or is cultural imperialism,
or that third world people don't want democracy and human rights.
That's fine.
But at least then you're engaging with
what neo-conservativism actually is.
That's all I ask of the left
and of people like
Richard Dawkins.
Read the neo-conservatives
and tell us why they are wrong.
I regularly read your ill-informed nonsense, as this post proves.
Why don't you return the favour and read our side
and tell us why it is wrong?
So over breakfast I read some rubbish about America
by the novelist
Colum McCann in the
Irish Times.
It makes me mad that anyone could write such nonsense.
Waghorne brilliantly notes that McCann is slagging off American soldiers at Shannon,
and putting words in their mouth, but:
"It's noticeable that
...
McCann doesn't bother to actually ask the soldiers what they think."
My favourite Tony Allwright letter to the Irish Times,
that they did not publish:
"Madam,
James Hyde states that "many thousands of us (the people)
keep making it clear we are against our Government's support of America's war in Iraq".
No doubt this is true, but is it not a sad indictment on such people?"
In fairness, the Irish Times do make an effort to include
token right-wingers now and then.
But sometimes they just can't help themselves.
Here's something that you just have to laugh at:
About Obama's useless, issue-dodging speech:
"his address gracefully began his objective
...
Obama skilfully inserted seven major policy tensions
...
forceful yet even-handed
...
an excellent start to reframing relations."
Aren't newspapers meant to be sceptics, "speaking truth to power",
rather than uncritical boosters of the government line?
Alas no. For scepticism about Obama, you need the Internet.
It describes the assassination of Hamas leader
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in Jan 2010
as "this act of international terrorism".
How is this in any way ethically different from the capture of
Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in May 1960?
The Irish Times even calls on Israel to extradite suspects to Dubai!
Dubai is a tyranny.
It is ranked as the worst status, "Not Free", by Freedom House.
Does the Irish Times even care?
Ian O'Doherty, February 19, 2010, is baffled by the uproar:
"were they right to do it?
Frankly, I find it hard to understand anyone who doesn't simply shrug their shoulders and realise that it's one fewer terrorist planning murderous attacks on civilians."
Not:
"Non-Muslims fearful of never-ending future of Muslim attacks",
which would be far more to the point.
No, "Muslims fearful after Muslim attacks"
is obviously the main story.
No one expects the Irish Times to celebrate
the killing of blood-soaked terrorists, but how about just a simple
headline:
"America kills leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq".
But no, the headline had to be:
"Fears killing may lead to retaliatory attacks".
But of course.
Ooh, that sounds bad.
Until you realise (as the headline hides from you) that this is
Wesley Clark,
well-known partisan Democrat
who ran for the 2004 Democrat presidential nomination.
But somehow "Democrat criticises Republican" doesn't have the same ring to it!
In fact the real story is
"Wesley Clark is now completely mad",
since he is pouring cold water on McCain's decades of
military and security experience,
while supporting Obama, who has
no military and security experience at all!
Hot Air titled this
"How stupid is Wesley Clark?"
This headline difference sums up why I prefer blogs to the mainstream media.
The blogs always get the real story.
Oh this is genius.
The worst Islamist terror homeland attack in 7 years
happens under the watch of their beloved Obama,
and what is the Irish Times editorial about?
Gun laws!
Yes, that was the cause of the attack, obviously.
Not jihad.
Not Islamism.
Gun laws!
This hilariously biased CNN report on talk radio, Oct 2009,
reminds me of the patronising way
the Irish Times often
spins the news.
Instead of wondering why people prefer talk radio to CNN
(or blogs to the Irish Times),
they bring on a
New York psychiatrist
to explain what is wrong with their brains.
(By the way, I did some Googling and discovered to my surprise that the psychiatrist
is a
donor to the Democrats.)
As Greg Gutfeld
says, this report is pure bias:
"CNN Perplexed By Talk Radio ... Now, only CNN could do this with a straight face. According to the network, some say talk radio is "viciously partisan," without of course defining "some," as "people who work at CNN." And so the segment began, with CNN using a shrink to examine the typical listener, as though he belonged to a rare breed of lizard that dines only on feces."
Comment:
"Am I the only one who is at the point where I simply roll my eyes when I see / hear this crap?
Do those tools really think people are that stupid?"
The Sunday Business Post
must be the weirdest newspaper in Ireland.
It pulls off the unique feat of managing to be
pro-capitalist and yet anti-American, anti-British and anti-Israeli.
It's like a bunch of lefties who have finally realised
that socialism doesn't work, but don't yet realise
that all their other beliefs are wrong too.
"International law confers the right to take arms against
foreign occupation.
...
Of course Iraqi resistance people have committed terrorist acts,
but so has the United States"
- Harry Browne,
Village,
23-29 Dec 2004,
on the
Iraqi fascist "resistance"
that is fighting to prevent democracy being set up in Iraq.
Village shuts down, Aug 2008.
Not enough Chomskyites in Ireland it seems.
One of its investors,
Michael Smith,
said he wanted a magazine that was
"uniquely left wing in its editorial stance, because I believe there is a niche for such a magazine",
but that Village turned out to be:
"suffocatingly Gramsciite".
It's hard to please everyone!
Village back up, Nov 2008, with Michael Smith now as editor.
He must think it's different,
but it still seems "suffocatingly Gramsciite" to me.
Phoenix is all anonymous, and it's all left-wing, all republican,
anti-American and anti-Israel.
To be taken seriously only if you agree with that kind of thing.
Typical of Phoenix
was their endless portrayal of
Minister for Justice
Michael McDowell
as a "Nazi".
What an example of "Freudian Projection".
McDowell was of course the principal opponent of
extreme nationalist fascism
and organised crime
in Ireland.
While the republicans that Phoenix
is so sympathetic to are the only people in Ireland who
actually supported the Nazis.
Their anti-Israel supplement carried (without criticism) a highlighted quote from
a representative of the Fatah terrorist organisation
and a highlighted quote from
a representative of the Hamas terrorist organisation.
See this dreadful article
(or via here)
on the suicide bombing of Jewish women and children
in Turkey by Islamofascists.
It is a half-apology for the Islamofascists.
And it is Israel, of course, that is really to blame.
Non-Irish opponents of the west
appear regularly in the Irish media.
At least, far more regularly than non-Irish defenders of the west.
For instance,
I have seen the anti-American, anti-Israeli polemicists
Robert Fisk and
John Pilger
a hundred times
in the Irish press.
I have never seen
Victor Davis Hanson
even once.
Well, some people really do live on different planets.
Interestingly, this leftie analysis agrees that RTE Radio and Newstalk 106
are both left-wing, perhaps explaining why
I can't stand radio in Ireland.
There is much less diversity
in radio than in newspapers.
Bizarrely, Harry Browne thinks the Irish Times would sell more if it was more left-wing!
The opposite is true for me.
I don't buy it, since 9/11,
because it is so left-wing.
I wish there was a quality, pro-American, non-left-wing Irish daily.
I would buy it all the time.
As it is, I tend to buy British newspapers, and read American and Israeli news online,
since there is no non-left-wing Irish daily newspaper.
Rebelling against the left-leaning Irish media is a natural reaction:
For example, I had paid little attention to
Libertas and Declan Ganley
until it became clear that Phoenix,
Village
and the Irish Times
absolutely
hated them
and were obsessed with them.
There seemed to be a constant stream of negative stories about them.
My natural reaction:
If the left-leaning elite hate them so much,
there must be something good about them.
I ended up voting for them.
Richard Downes is typical of the left's opposition
to the neo-conservative dreams of bringing democracy to the Arab world.
He has written an entire book on Iraq,
and yet
he has no constructive suggestion for what should be done next.
All we know is that, whatever is done, Richard Downes will criticise it.
Question: "What do you think is the solution to the war in Iraq?"
Richard Downes: "There is no solution. At least there's no solution that is quick and doesn't involve yet more disruption and loss of life. The decision to invade Iraq is the key event in all of this. It is like they have made an omelette and now we want the eggs back. But what is happening in Iraq is impossible to reverse. What we are seeing now has a long way to run and the Iraqis are the victims of this."
I'm sure that gives him a sense of moral superiority, but:
(1) it doesn't tell us what to do next, and:
(2) it seems to blame the people with good intentions,
when of course the people with wicked intentions
- the Islamists
- are responsible for all the death and destruction since liberation.
Why not blame the evil Islamists trying to stop democracy?
Are they not moral agents?
Are they mere animals?
He reminds me of Orwell's criticism of the left in WW2:
"their generally negative, querulous attitude,
their complete lack at all times of any constructive suggestion."
Classic example of RTE bias:
Richard Crowley,
18 July 2006,
reports that 81% of Israelis support their government's actions in Lebanon,
but then RTE do not interview any of them.
Instead they extensively interview the 17% who don't.
They
even feature a crackpot unveiled Israeli Arab young woman
(Abir Kopty,
Center for Arab Citizens of Israel)
who praises Iranian Hezbollah for "liberating" South Lebanon.
The irony of having bare shoulders and praising "liberated"
Hezbollah-controlled, sharia-friendly South Lebanon seems to escape her.
Of course, she lives in Israel.
I don't mind them interviewing minority (17%) nutjobs like this,
so long as they interview the sane (81%) majority as well.
But to exclude them totally.
Richard Crowley clearly has contempt for the majority view in Israel,
as shown by not interviewing them,
and also by his language:
"The opinion poll suggests support for the government's policy in Lebanon
is still very strong", he says patronisingly.
Very subtle. It indicates that there is something wrong or provisional with this support,
that it must be only temporary.
It's like a Socialist Workers Party member saying "Polls suggest support for bourgeois democracy
is still very strong".
Why are the Israelis so stupid that they still don't agree
with comfortable Irish lefties?
Surely they will see sense and catch up with the advanced mind of Richard Crowley some day.
What's wrong with saying "is very strong" and just reporting the facts?
Though at least Pat Kenny allows
Eamon Delaney
of Magill
to provide a lone voice of sanity.
There is very little diversity on state radio and TV
in Ireland.
Some people are clearly anti-American and anti-west.
Many others are just endlessly negative and critical.
Nobody is clearly pro-west.
Eamon Dunphy epitomises the failure of private media to provide diversity.
He is (or was) the most prominent "alternative" to RTE's
endless diet of leftie anti-Americanism.
So what does he provide?
An endless diet of leftie anti-Americanism.
My introduction to Eamon Dunphy was as a bog standard anti-American leftist,
a fan of
Robert Fisk.
So I was startled to discover that he used to be more on the right.
See his
1992 attack on the Workers Party.
There is very little diversity on private radio and TV in Ireland.
Some people are clearly anti-American and anti-west.
Many others are just endlessly negative and critical.
Nobody is clearly pro-west.
The problem with private radio in Ireland
is it's just
the same stuff as state radio.
Unlike in the US
- where private-sector
talk-radio
provides diversity
to counteract the anti-West line
of state-supported radio -
in Ireland private radio simply parrots the same line as state radio.
The appalling Carole Coleman
has been on my TV screen
throughout the War on Terror,
endlessly sneering
at Bush,
and constantly negative
about everything America does.
Her distaste and contempt for Bush has been obvious for
years.
When I heard she was to interview Bush before his visit,
my first thought was:
"Well there's no point watching that.
We'll learn nothing."
And I was right.
Coleman could have seized
her once-in-a-lifetime chance,
and asked the President
some
good (and yes, tough) questions, such as:
"Who's next?"
"Is the war against the suicide-bombing
foreign Islamist volunteers in Iraq the
climax of the War on Islamism,
or just Act One?"
"How would America respond to a nuclear 9/11?"
"Why doesn't America
(or Israel) bomb Iran's nuclear weapons program?"
"Why are you an ally of Saudi Arabia?"
But instead of this,
instead of asking something new,
Coleman
just gave a bunch of tired leftie speeches about the past,
delivered in her usual rude, obnoxious style.
Why Bush agreed to be interviewed by this person I don't know.
Had his people never heard of her?
Why didn't the US Embassy in Ireland
explain who she was?
Coleman opens by clearly saying that RTE is only going
to represent one view:
"Mr. President, you're going to arrive in Ireland in about 24 hours' time,
and no doubt you will be welcomed by our political leaders.
Unfortunately, the majority of our public do not welcome your visit because they're angry over Iraq, they're angry over Abu Ghraib. Are you bothered by what Irish people think?"
I can't stand the fact that she represents all of Ireland as agreeing with her.
But I admit that "the majority" appears to be true.
65 percent of Irish opposed the visit.
I just wish that RTE spoke for the 35 percent,
and not just for the 65 percent.
Coleman says:
"But I think there is a feeling that the world has
become a more dangerous place because you have taken the focus off al Qaeda and diverted into Iraq."
So Coleman now suddenly
cares about the war against al Qaeda??
That would be news to anybody who has been watching RTE
for the last couple of years.
This "Iraq distracts from the WoT" argument is hilarious,
when made by people who never supported the WoT in the first place.
A good rule for life is:
Beware
of taking advice from neutrals and enemies.
Take advice only from friends, who actually want you to win.
The White House should listen to
the criticisms of people like
Michael Ledeen.
They should not listen to
the criticisms of people like
Carole Coleman.
I wanted to slap him,
Carole Coleman's memoirs of the interview,
The Sunday Times, October 09, 2005
What a glimpse into the parochial, insular leftie world of RTE.
"'What would you ask the president of the United States?' I enquired of
everyone I met in the following days. Ideas had already been scribbled on scattered notepads in my bedroom,
on scraps of paper in my handbag and on my desk, but once the date was confirmed, I mined suggestions
from my peers in RTE and from foreign policy analysts.
I grilled my friends in Washington and even pestered cab drivers.
After turning everything over in my head, I settled on a list of 10 questions."
And what does she ask?
A load of tired leftie talking points, instead of something like
the challenging questions I suggested above.
Does she not know any neo-cons?
What is wrong with RTE that they couldn't ask a single non left-wing question?
Like an adolescent student,
she actually thinks "free world"
is an ironic term:
"'You were given an opportunity to interview the leader of the free world and you blew it,'
she began.
I was beginning to feel as if I might be dreaming.
I had naively believed the American president was referred to as the
'leader of the free world' only in an unofficial tongue-in-cheek sort of way by outsiders,
and not among his closest staff."
I can't stand that my tax money was going to pay for someone like her.
The state should simply get out of the media business, full stop.
All media should be private.
Some people think it is a sign of right-wing madness
to think RTE and the BBC are
left of centre.
Surely it is obvious, they say, that RTE and the BBC are objective.
Right-wingers are bound to find it "left-wing",
and left-wingers are bound to find it "right-wing".
That's just a sign of its success, they would say.
Consider the following:
When I had a soft left view of foreign policy, I considered RTE and the BBC
to be objective.
Doesn't that indicate something wrong?
I suspect you are soft left of centre yourself,
if you think RTE and the BBC are objective.
Am I right?
Be honest.
What you need to do is show me right-wingers who think RTE and the BBC are objective.
Tell me here.
Survey of Americans, Jan 2007
shows
Democrats are far more likely
to think the media is unbiased than Republicans.
Doesn't that more or less prove the media is biased towards the Democrats?
Leftist Harry Browne
graphs the media, and
thinks RTE is left of centre.
Doesn't that indicate something wrong?
When it comes to things I still agree with the left on, such as sex and atheism,
I still feel RTE and the BBC are pretty objective.
But I guess that means something really is wrong.
Or put it this way.
On this page I list newspaper and TV/radio people that I think are left-wing.
On this page
I list newspaper people that are right-wing,
but I am unable to list any TV/radio people.
I cannot think of any TV/radio people in Ireland that are clearly right-wing.
Newspapers, even the left-wing newspapers, are much more diverse than TV/radio.
I don't actually mind that RTE and the BBC are not objective.
I'm not objective myself. I look on the world a certain way. I spin the news.
Everybody spins the news based on how they look at the world. It's impossible not to.
What I object to is:
(1) the claim that they are objective,
and: (2) that I have to pay for it.
Either make them private and voluntary (in which case they can be as subjective as they like),
or, if taxpayers have to pay for them, make them objective.
Is it possible to be objective at all?
I think it's impossible for one person to be objective.
But there is a model for how a collective can produce something fairly objective.
I find
Wikipedia to be broadly objective
(neither left nor right).
So I'm not impossible to please. It's not the case that unless something is right-wing
I will consider it left-wing.
I can give you an example of objective
(neither left nor right): Wikipedia.
How does Wikipedia manage it?
The answer is simple.
Both left-wing and right-wing people are writing.
The right-wing positions are not paraphrased by unsympathetic left-wingers.
They are written in the language the right-wingers would use themselves.
Then the left respond in the language they would use themselves.
The right-wingers also force the inclusion of uncomfortable topics that the left-wingers
would avoid
(just as the left-wingers force the inclusion of uncomfortable topics the right would avoid).
The lesson for RTE and the Irish Times is that it's not enough to have left-wing journalists
trying to summarise what the strange right-wingers believe.
You have to hire right-wing journalists as well as left, and let them write it in the way
a right-winger would think.
Wikipedia has left-wing and right-wing writers, and the end product sounds objective.
RTE and the Irish Times have only left-wing writers,
and when they try to paraphrase right-wing ideas
they invariably distort them.
We are biased, admit the stars of BBC News,
Simon Walters, Mail on Sunday,
21st October 2006.
Former BBC political editor Andrew Marr said:
"The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias."
A BBC executive said:
"Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC's culture, that it is very hard to change it."
In 1985, 92 percent of Democrats and 88 percent of Republicans had a favourable view of TV network news.
Sounds like it was unbiased once.
In 2007, 84 percent of Democrats but only 56 percent of Republicans have a favourable view of it.
Sounds like it is unbiased no longer.
In 1985, 34 percent of Republicans thought the press was too critical of America.
In 2007, 63 percent do.
As for who is telling the truth about Iraq,
I would trust the U.S. military more than the Irish or UK media.
Republicans share my scepticism about the media.
76 percent of Republicans broadly think the military is giving an accurate picture of the war.
Only 34 percent think the press is.
With Democrats it is reversed.
Only 36 percent of Democrats think the military is giving an accurate picture of the war.
While 56 percent think the press is.
Could we have a new definition of the left:
The left are the people who believe what they read in the papers
and see on TV.
US survey, June 2008
(see details)
at end of 2008 presidential primaries
and start of the general election proper.
54% of Americans think Obama has received the softest media treatment so far.
Only 22% think McCain has.
44% of Americans think in the general election the media will try to help Obama.
Only 13% think it will try to help McCain.
70% of Republicans expect the media will try to help Obama.
Only 8% think it will try to help McCain.
82% of Republicans think reporters offer biased coverage of election campaigns.
Only 56% of Democrats think so.
83% of conservatives think reporters are biased.
Only 50% of liberals think so.
Again, the left are the people who think the media is unbiased.
Bruce Bawer
describes the poverty of media in Europe compared to the
diversity of media in the US.
He talks about Norway, but he could be talking about Ireland:
After discussing the US, he says:
"Nothing remotely approaching this breadth of news and opinion
is available in a country like Norway.
Purportedly to strengthen journalistic diversity
(which, in the ludicrous words of a recent prime minister,
"is too important to be left up to the marketplace"),
Norway's social-democratic government actually subsidizes several
of the country's major newspapers (in addition to running two of its three
broadcast channels and most of its radio); yet the Norwegian media are
(guess what?) almost uniformly social-democratic
- a fact reflected not only in their explicit editorial positions
but also in the slant and selectivity of their international coverage."
"Most Norwegians are so accustomed to being presented with only one position
on certain events and issues (such as the Iraq War) that they don't even
realize
that there exists an intelligent alternative position."
Eoghan Harris on the utter failure of the Irish Times and RTE:
A formidable leader of the conservative revolution,
on how the Irish Times and RTE
don't even understand what's going on
under Bush
since 9/11.
A vast democratic revolution
is underway in the Middle East,
led by radical thinkers in the US who are sick of "realpolitik"
and want to spread freedom instead,
and the Irish Times and RTE
are so blinded by their prejudices
that they are missing the whole story.
Why Palestinians are the pet project of the Irish left, 9 Dec 2001.
-
"As the Americans conclude their triumphant campaign against the Taliban,
you have to admire the resilience of that radical young toff, Sir Montrose D'Olier.
[RTE and the Irish Times]
As a result of dud tips received from his resident guru Robert Fisk,
he has been wrong about three wars in the past 10 years: the Gulf War, the Kosovo War
and the war against the Taliban. And if you took your politics from RTE and the Irish Times
you would have been wrong too."
"Both the Irish Times and RTE have been consistently hostile to this
war,
even when it became clear that most Iraqis want to see Saddam gone
... RTE in particular has been so partisan as to be propagandist."
"This is the 5th war which RTE has read wrong, and for the same set of reasons
- a combination of anti-American
prejudice, a total ignorance of America's advances
in high-tech warfare, and an invincible inability to understand ..
George Bush and the so-called Pentagon hawks"
"RTE's poor professional reporting ..
arises from its bad politics. Montrose has an anti-American canteen
culture that cuts it off from
a constantly-changing world. Over the past 10 years, RTE has been biased against
American-led interventions in five wars:
the first Gulf War, Bosnia,
Kosovo, Afghanistan and now the Second Gulf War.
..
But if RTE was wrong in the past, it is much more likely to be wrong in the future."
Media Bite
The "Media Bite" site is interesting because it shows the view of the
Irish media
from the intelligent but extreme left.
Media Bite
by David Manning
and Miriam Cotton
- Trying to get even more left-wing bias in the Irish media!
Check out their links
to know where they're coming from.
The Media Bite lefties complain about the sole, token, once a week,
right-wing column in the Irish Times,
a tiny balance to 6 days a week of left-wing opinion columns, leaders,
and left-wing news reporting.
They want it 100 percent left!
Media Bite says:
"writers such as Charles Krauthammer represent a massive right wing shift compared broadly speaking to the rest of the paper.
Why would he exist in the Irish Times?
And the same with Mark Steyn before and to a lesser extent Kevin Myers, who has a sort of humour value."
Note that both Steyn and Myers have been dumped,
but Media Bite are still complaining about them!
O'Toole, Assistant Editor at The Irish Times,
defends his paper
as exposing their readers to these awful ideas simply because they are influential.
But he too would be happy if the paper was 100 percent left:
"Personally I wouldn't mourn the loss of Charles Krauthammer from the Irish Times, though you might miss the display of prejudice, ignorance and bigotry."
In part 2,
Media Bite describes Iran,
the no.1 state enemy of the West,
a country that is directly engaged in killing American and British troops
and Israeli civilians,
and a country that threatens a genocide of the innocent Jews of Israel,
as "yet another, non-combatant country which has thus far broken no law while
enduring much provocation from the US and the UK."
What planet do these people live on?
It gets even worse!
David Manning of Media Bite
ask for better media treatment for the vile war criminals
the Iraqi "resistance"!
"I was wondering whether there is a compassionate view of the resistance, or 'insurgency' as it has been dubbed by the occupiers, that needs to be told?"
Even Lara Marlowe's incredibly biased Iraq reporting isn't left-wing enough for him!
What's incredible is never once
does Manning suggest the Iraqi resistance
try non-violent protest, or even stand for election!
He seems perfectly happy for them to go straight to violence.
Surely violence should be the last resort, not the first?
(Indeed, the only resort here.
The resistance do nothing else.
They even suicide bombed the elections.)
Manning's sympathy for the
right-wing religious death squads
in Iraq
is deplorable,
but he seems like an intelligent guy,
and (I think) is young,
so there's a reasonable chance that
someday he will get sense,
understand the cruelty and tragedy of the human condition a bit better,
and leave this naive Chomskyite view of the world behind.
I must admit I don't read left-wing Irish blogs much.
Why bother when you get the same analysis on RTE, BBC
and the Irish Times?
Whereas the right-wing Irish blogs offer something different to the
mainstream discourse.
This
is an Irish gay blog that is
hostile to Israel,
the only country in the
Middle East where gays have rights.
It is also interesting because it gets an
incredible amount of traffic
(155,000 visits per month).
Is this Ireland's biggest political blog?
Is it a political blog at all?
Are the hits mostly because of something else?
Bock The Robber says, Feb 2010, that the Israeli team that assassinated the
Hamas leader in Dubai in Jan 2010 are "terrorists".
He also says Gaza is a "concentration camp".
Well it is a totalitarian Islamist tyranny run by Hamas, but I doubt that's what he means.
I've no idea who this guy is,
but I thought
this
was very funny:
"The United Nations represents the noblest ideal which has yet arisen
since modern nations came into being."
So the idea that dictators should have a vote on what happens in the world,
and we in the democracies should "obey" them,
is "the noblest ideal which has yet arisen
since modern nations came into being"!
I do enjoy it when relentlessly negative cynics like this guy
finally take a break from telling you what they are against
(America, Britain, Israel, neo-cons, etc.)
and make the error of telling you what they are for.
Tony Allwright
surveys letters to the Irish Times after the
Gaza flotilla clash of 31 May 2010.
It is hard for a young person growing up in Ireland
to realise that the Israelis are the good guys.
It takes a lot of independent thought and standing against the crowd,
often including one's own parents and teachers.
"The mentality of the English left-wing intelligentsia can be studied in half a dozen weekly and monthly papers. The immediately striking thing about all these papers is their
generally negative, querulous attitude, their complete lack at all times of any constructive suggestion. There is little in them except the irresponsible carping of people who
have never been and never expect to be in a position of power."
- George Orwell,
"England Your England",
1941,
The Lion and the Unicorn
(also here).
The negative, defeatist, hypercritical whining
I hear on my radio, my TV, and in my newspaper
is perfectly described by Orwell.
I really understand
why politicians pay so little attention
to negative whining critics like the above.
"Throughout history, civilizations rise and fall.
They fall for the same reason ...
the lack of will to defend her, a cancer which starts not from the bottom but invariably from the top.
...
It has always been this way. If you feel you see it happening now, before your very eyes, well
.. you are not alone.
A society unwilling to enforce the laws that civilize it,
that is unable or unwilling to see the advantages of civilization,
a society led by the pampered, the narcissistic and the corrupt,
is not long for this Earth. Our enemies look at us and see precisely these symptoms,
and the symptons are worsening.
...
One thing they do not see, however - also there. They do not see the Remnant.
They do not see the power and resilience of what the irreplaceable Victor Davis Hanson
has referred to as "the Old Breed."
Nock and Isaiah believed that the purpose of the Remnant was to rebuild a new civilization from the ashes of those destroyed by their own masters. And certainly to date this has always been their main function.
But there is something different -- just perhaps, something fundamentally different this time around. Because today, for the first time in human history, common people can communicate directly with one another. We are no longer dependent on spineless politicians and the jaded masters of the press to color our opinions of the world. For the first time in human history, the Remnant can reach out to each other on these gossamer threads of a world-wide web.
I believe - utterly - that this ability for the common person to communicate with other common people, this internet, will allow us to end-run the cycle of civilization. I believe it in my bones.
My friends, Western Civilization is not on its last legs.
Western Civilization is going to the stars.
Count on it."
- Bill Whittle, May 21, 2007.
The fantastic thing about the modern world
is that we are no longer dependent on the media.
And this may ultimately mean that Iraq will be won where
Vietnam was lost.
For example,
when, in any previous war, could one read, whenever one liked,
positive, morale-boosting, optimistic propaganda
by those who wished the troops well?
(I do not use "propaganda" here as a negative word, but rather to describe
writing that is
open and honest about being subjective and partisan.)
One could never read such happy propaganda easily
in Vietnam, the Cold War, or even WW2
or any previous war,
except dull state propaganda written by the civil service.
But now one can everywhere read
optimistic, pro-troops propaganda
written by private individuals for free as a labour of love.
This is something new, that the Internet has enabled, and that old media
had suppressed.
reminds me of the patronising way
the Irish Times often
spins the news.
Village shuts down, Aug 2008.
Not enough Chomskyites in Ireland it seems.
One of its investors,
Michael Smith,
said he wanted a magazine that was
"uniquely left wing in its editorial stance, because I believe there is a niche for such a magazine",
but that Village turned out to be:
"suffocatingly Gramsciite".
It's hard to please everyone!
before his visit to Ireland, June 2004,
perfectly encapsulates RTE's institutional
anti-Americanism.
Since 1995.
