Genteel New York Times Turns Up Nose At Hoi Polloi Rabble Spoiling the Hamptons

The New York Times is nothing if not bourgeois to the core. (Check out its “Styles” and “Home” sections, where it's most obvious.)

Page One of the Sunday print edition is the most prominent and important slot in the Times universe. So it is reserved not just for what they consider the most important breaking stories of the prior 24 hours, but also more general news that they consider of particular significance and worthy of maximum attention.

So here's a story from page one, Sunday May 26, 2013, which I think lets us see a bit too much of the NYT's class bias beneath its facade of “objectivity,” rather like a glimpse of petticoat momentarily exposed beneath a lady's long skirt by a careless movement of her leg: “As Boozy Invaders Hit Beach, Hamptons Sound a Snooki Alert.” The dateline is Amagansett, NY. (Published online a day earlier, as with most NYT articles these days.) [1]

The article take up another half page inside, although that includes a large photo and a smaller one (p.17). It's not worth reading, I can attest. I'll just point out the prominent aspects of it, which is sufficient to make my point about NY Times snobbery. [2]

The headline on the continuation inside adds a word and deletes an “a:” “As Boozy Invaders Hit Beach, Hamptons' Residents Sound Snooki Alert.” So it's basically the same.

Apparently the “Snooki” connection is the purely hypothetical possibility that the TV show on which “Snooki” appears might shoot an episode in the Hamptons, based on the fact that they've gone to beaches in the state of New Jersey. In fact,“Snooki” is only mentioned in passing until the last two paragraphs of a 28 paragraph story, which is mainly about angst over crowds in summer. (WOW! Beaches have crowds in summer! Who knew? Stop the presses!!) Each of those paragraphs consists of a single sentence. The upshot is apparently that MTV has no plans to shoot in the Hamptons, but they don't rule it out. So the headlines took a bit of pure speculation as an excuse to use “Snooki” as a hook for the story. Hey, that's just good editing! Shows how topical and relevant and with it the NY T'imes is. I mean, just because the paper is run by sycophantic apple-polishing dweebs, the kind of people who were teachers' pets in school, doesn't mean it isn't hip to pop culture. It knows how to go after the “youth demographic.” Yeah, “Jersey Shore” watchers are sitting around in their bathrobes on Sunday, sipping their home-made cappuccinos, reading the NY Times, I'm sure. (To see what I mean about the kind of people who run the NYT, check out their pictures online. I think some can even be found at nytimes.com) [3]

Then there's a subhead on p.17: “A wealthy haven cringes at potential visitors from Jersey Shore.” The besieged rich people are cringing at the invasion of their haven. So it's Big News that some rich superparasites are in a tizzy about some unwashed masses spoiling their exclusive retreat by their mere presence on the beach. Apparently the ocean is properly reserved for the sole enjoyment of billionaires like NY City mayor Michael Billionaire Bloomberg and various multimillionaires. Wouldn't want someone of a lower class spoiling the view.

Finally the caption description of the large photo claims that it depicts “a rowdy crowd began showing up [last year] at Indian Wells Beach in East Hampton, adding to the crowds and transportation bedlam.” Bedlam! Look up “bedlam” and see what it means. It's a fancy synonym for chaos, with the added implication of madness. I guess there were some traffic snarls, maybe even traffic jams. Don't have a fainting spell, NYT! [4]

Well here's that photo. I can see what the NYT means.

See how “rowdy” they are? Look at all those people lying there! And sitting! And even standing!!

And as if that weren't bad enough, it looks like a couple of guys are actually walking!!! Motion!
That's kinetic activity! Man, they're out of control! Call in the National Guard!

Hey NYT, bible of the bourgeoisie- we live on this planet too. Get used to it.

1] A little background for my non-American and other readers who may be unfamiliar with some of these terms. “Snooki” is the nickname of a “reality TV” “star,” one Nicole Polizzi, on a show called “Jersey Shore” on MTV, which presents a mixed gender group of young people who are stereotypical New Jersey Italian-Americans, and by stereotypical I mean gross caricatures of people who are derogatorily called “guineas” in common parlance. (“Wops” is an even more derogatory term.) The cast has the exaggerated mannerisms, speech patterns and behavior of crude caricatures. “Snooki” is a short, big-breasted character/cast member. Naturally these aren't refined or sophisticated portrayals.

By the way, the only thing actually Italian about most Italian Americans is their ancestry. The Italian-American is really a type of person unique to the U.S. that evolved here, same as Irish-American. They don't even speak their ancestral languages. It's the same with African-Americans. These are all varieties of Americans, with no more than vestigial commonalities with the inhabitants of the lands of their mostly distant ancestors. Thus they are pseudo-ethnic “identities.” Yet their tribalism and conflicts between the groups are real. Like religious conflict, which is similarly based on nothing- there are no “gods,” and religious dogmas are virtually entirely myths from start to finish. Thus is real economic and political competition masked in both cases by bullshit. [Which is not at all to deny the grotesque racist oppression black Americans have been subjected to, and their current imprisonment in the socio-economic cellar of American society.]

“The Hamptons” is a series of seaside towns on Long Island, New York, east of New York City, where wealthy elitists congregate in the summers. (Amagansett, the dateline on the story, is one of these towns.) The homes there cost many millions of dollars, and summer rentals of those homes go for hundreds of thousands a dollar per month.

These rich people are mostly based in Manhattan, one of the five boroughs of New York City that includes the financial district at the lower end of the borough (“Wall Street,” which is an actual street) where the New York Stock Exchange and New York Federal Reserve are located, along with various financial firms. The rich themselves mostly live on the “upper east side,” an area that is really more midtown geographically, and is basically the area to the east of Central Park over to Lexington Avenue, running north and south between about E. 60^th and E. 90^th Streets. (The south and west sides of Central Park are also areas of rich people. In fact more and more of Manhattan is being colonized by the upper classes, including many non-citizens who buy residences, helping squeeze out the “lower” classes, who cannot afford multimillion dollar apartments or exorbitant rents.)

2]  The NYT is what's called a “broadsheet,” as opposed to “tabloid” newspapers, which have a smaller format. A half-page of the NYT is about 12 x 11 inches, a relatively large acreage when on your lap.

3]  To be “fair,” obviously this story will be of gossipy interest to rich people, an important part of the NYT's constituency. It's influence with such people accounts for much of the NYT's power and influence. But with a Sunday circulation of around a million (that's for the physical print edition, the actual newspaper) most of the readers are obviously not rich. They're just standing outside the charmed realm of the bourgeois elite, with their noses pressed to the glass, voyeuristically gazing at the imaginary perpetual dinner party inside.

4]  A day earlier, the web edition used the word "log jam" instead of bedlam. So they amped it up for Sunday print publication.

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None Dare Call It Terrorism

None in the U.S. media, that is. (And not just the U.S. media.)

There have been constant bombings of civilian targets for the past few weeks in Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Today's news:

Multiple car bombs in Baghdad and Basra. 34 killed. Crowded markets, a restaurant, a bus stop targeted- i.e. random civilians are the targets of this terrorism. Labeled “sectarian violence” by U.S. and some other Western establishment media. They “have taken Iraq back to the worst days' of the recent past, says the BBC. “A horrific morning here in Baghdad.” Eight explosions in Shiite areas, seven car bombs. Four targeted markets. Bodies of ten people found, were kidnapped in Anbar province. And policemen murdered at checkpoint. BBC puts the two week death toll at 200. “T” word not uttered however.

Another suicide bombing in Afghanistan, this one killing a politician. A couple of days earlier another bombing killed about a dozen. NPR affiliate WNYC says “a provincial politician was killed after violence erupted.” [5/20/13 morning.] That's how they describe a terrorist bombing- and using passive verbs! No one killed or murdered anyone, rather the victim was killed. No one was violent- violence erupted, like sunspots I suppose. And there certainly aren't any terrorists.

“The” media feels to need to explain why some bombings that kill civilians in public places are “terrorism” and others that usually slaughter even greater numbers are not. The only pattern I can discern is that the victims have to be “white.” It's not by location: of the numerous bombings in Indonesia by Islamofascists there, the only “terrorist” bombing was the one that killed Australian tourists. It's not by perpetrator: again, see Indonesia. It's not by the death toll: only 3 were killed in Boston last month, and none were killed by the goony “underwear bomber” or the “Times Square bomber,” both of whose bombs were duds. But all three of those are “terrorist” bombings.

“The” media keeps its criteria secret, as do the various Western governments. If anyone can see any definition operating here other than rank racism, I'd like to hear about it.

You might try asking your favorite establishment media to explain this. We can have fun with the predictably evasive and logically incoherent replies.

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New York Times Confers Legitimacy On Taliban Terrorists

But first...

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Is it only terrorism when “white” people are targets?

Or, more accurately, when the people or country are white?

Either that, or the U.S. media better explain what weird hidden political agendas drive its “coverage” of violent events. Politically motivated bombings by the same Islamic jihadists that the U.S. and its lackey nations and their media call “terrorists” when they're assassinated by the U.S., or when those groups try to blow up a couple of cargo planes with explosive printer toner cartridges, or take down a passenger jet with explosive underwear, are suddenly just “militants,” and their bombings plain old bombings, not “terrorist bombings,” when the victims are Pakistanis, or Nigerians, or Indonesians, or Turks. Same political movement, same ideological motivation, same deliberate murder of civilians, yet a different and lesser crime. Specifically, a much less serious crime, since according to the indoctrinational system, “terrorism” is the WORST POSSIBLE EVIL IN THE WORLD. That's certainly the attitude that is inculcated in the populace by the hysteria and outrage fed to us by Western bloc media.

But bombs in any of those places that target U.S. embassies, as happened in Africa in 1998, or even “Western” (i.e. “white”) tourists, are emphatically and always “terrorism.”

There are examples of this glaring and obvious double standard practically daily, which demonstrates that this inexplicable and unexplained devaluing of certain victims is routine and entrenched in U.S. establishment media. Obviously it is intended that we don't even notice the double standard, and that if we do notice, we just accept it as unremarkable, merely the natural order of things requiring no explanation, much less justification. As for assuming we wouldn't- or shouldn't- even notice; thanks for the insult to our intelligence, propagandists!

[See also: “What's the Difference Between a Terrorist Bombing And a Bombing?”]

Here are some examples on Sunday May 12^th from two “prestige” media outfits, NPR, and the crème de la crème of the U.S. bourgeois propaganda system, the august New York Times.

At 5 pm EST (Eastern Standard Time, the time zone of the east coast of the U.S., including Washington, D.C., New York City, and Boston, three important hubs of power), NPR led with a story about the bombings yesterday in Turkey in a city bordering Syria (Reyhanli, Turkey) with a large population of Syrian refugees. The Turkish government was quick to blame the Assad regime. (Probably correctly. That is, it's most likely a correct assumption.) Even though much devastation was caused, at least 43 people were killed and many injured, and the attack was obviously a wanton assault on civilians, the words “terrorism,” “terror,” or “terrorist” were not uttered in the story.

The next story starts by saying “the biggest terrorist trial in Germany in a long time.” It's the trial of a surviving member of a gang of neo-Nazi killers who went around murdering Turks (and one Greek) in Germany for a decade, and planting nail bombs (the poor man's cluster bomb- actually more like the poor man's Claymore mine) in marketplaces that permanently maimed people, to the indifference and hostility of the police, who brushed off the murders as communal spats among Turks or criminal gang activity. It wasn't until the Nazis made the mistake of killing a policewoman that suddenly “the authorities” took it seriously. That's when the German secret police when on a document destruction binge (unmentioned by NPR, natch) to hide its apparent links to the Nazis. Obviously they knew about them at the very least, and perhaps much worse.

So why are some serial killings by a gang of racist neo-Nazis in Germany “terrorism,” and large bombs that devastate a town in Turkey not? You tell us, NPR.

Meanwhile the New York Times did what it always does, demoting terrorism in non-elite countries to some lesser level of evil. It did this in two different articles this time. And in a third it couldn't seem to make up its mind whether the violence was “terrorism” or mere “militancy.” So it went with both.

First, on the front page, a story by Declan Walsh about the election victory of a former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif. [A corrupt, rich bastard, by the way, which is to say a typical Pak PM, who was overthrown previously by the military. Not because he was corrupt. Because he fired a couple of generals. The nerve of the guy!] The Times sub-subhead reads “Record Turnout Despite Taliban Attacks That Killed at Least 21.” That would be 21 on election day itself, so it gives a false impression of the true toll of the Taliban's terror campaign. And 21 is only about a third of the number the European Union says died that day. 21 is seven times the number killed in the Boston Marathon bombing, which was immediately labeled terrorism. The EU's figure of 64 is 21 times the death toll in Boston, which was 3. If you like, we could do the math for the over 100 killed overall by the Taliban in its attempt to stop the election. (The terrorism continues even after the election is over.) Or the thousands they have murdered over the last several years to impose their will and express their displeasure with particular people or policies- like the schoolgirl they almost succeeded in murdering on her way to school, to make the totally reasonable point that girls should not be allowed to be educated. And what better way to impose that sensible policy on other people than by stopping a school bus at gunpoint and shooting a child in the head?

(The last six paragraphs of the story are devoted to Walsh getting expelled from Pakistan, because of his “undesirable activities,” quoting the Paki “authorities.” As of press time the NYT wasn't able to pry any further explanation from the Pakis.) [1]

The article is mostly devoted to the election itself and the background of Sharif, and how it might affect the U.S. There is some reporting on the terrorism of the Taliban, who are mentioned by name- but the word “terrorism” (or “terror” or “terrorist”) does not appear. Instead we get “militant movement” (referring specifically to the Taliban by name) and “militant violence over the years.” Gee, when does it rise to the level of terrorism?

Walsh even quotes a statement from two days earlier (Friday, April 10th) by “the Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud” (who by the way lives quite openly and moves about freely in Pakistan, unmolested by the so-called authorities, a fact unmentioned by the Times- hey don't want the Paks to feel pressure to arrest an actual terrorist) ordering his “commanders to attack the 'infidel system' of democracy, warning that teams of suicide bombers would hit targets across the country.” Said “targets” being entirely civilian in nature, indeed chosen specifically for their political significance and to terrorize people away from voting. But that's not terrorism.

Now consider what may have been Walsh's weirdest paragraph:

“But the sense of a vibrant, if flawed, democracy was tempered by Taliban attacks throughout the campaigning. [Not “terrorist” attacks, note, even though these were attacks on civilians for a stated political purpose, to stop people from voting, by terrorizing them.] The militant [sic] movement's ability to derail campaigning, particularly in the mountainous northwest, was taken as a signal that it has evolved beyond its nihilistic guerrilla roots and has become a powerful political insurgency bent on upending Western-style democracy in Pakistan.”[“Ex-Premier Is Set To Regain power In Pakistan Vote,” NYT, Sun. May 12, 2013, pgs. 1 and 8, paragraph 22.]

So the fact that its terrorism is successful means it has “evolved beyond” its “nihilistic guerrilla roots” and is now a “political insurgency”? What's the difference between a “political insurgency” and a terrorist movement? Why was the IRA “terrorist,” why was the PLO, why is Hamas? Indeed, why was the ANC “terrorist”? (Dick Cheney, for one, still insists it was.)

Does not referring to the Taliban as a “powerful political insurgency” lend it legitimacy? Sounds like a political movement. Which it is, albeit a violent one. With totalitarian aims that include the utter abnegation of women. And it uses terrorism to achieve its ends. Which is the only sensible way to judge whether a group is “terrorist,” as opposed to the U.S. method, which decides based on the ideology, goals, or economic structure of an entity, or cynically to dovetail with some U.S. political ploy of the moment. (Hence Cuba is officially “terrorist,” says the U.S. State Department, keeper of the Official List of Which Nations Are Terrorist.)

I think what the Paki Taliban does- plants bombs to stop elections, assassinates officials who call for reform in the vicious “blasphemy” law used to persecute innocent Christians and others, shoots schoolgirls in the head for going to school, and much more, constitutes terrorism. The NY Times evidently does not, for some odd reason.

Notice also the characteristic mealy-mouthed passive voice, “taken as a signal.” By whom? Declan never says. I would guess by the NYT, for whatever bizarre reason. And what is “nihilistic guerrilla roots” other than an example of contorting oneself into a verbal pretzel to avoid the word “terrorist”?

I wonder why Hezbollah isn't “a powerful political insurgency” that has “evolved beyond its nihilistic guerrilla roots” instead of being a “terrorist” organization? Why isn't Hamas, which actually governs territory, and doesn't bomb polling places to try and stop elections? And what are we to make of FARC as “terrorist.” They've never engaged in suicide bombings, or bombings of crowds of civilians simply to cause mayhem and kill random strangers. In fact, they laid down their arms and tried to participate in elections some years back, and the Colombian bourgeoisie proceeded to double-cross them and sic its fascist death squads on them, murdering their candidates. Those are the same people who systematically slaughter labor organizers and honest journalists, with U.S. support.

Nor can it be claimed that the NYT is merely slavishly hewing to the U.S. Government line and calling “terrorist” only those orgs that the State Department puts on its “terrorist list.” I'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, that the Paki Taliban is on that list. (It sure should be.) But the Iranian terrorist group MEK, which has killed Americans, most certainly was on that list. But it still wasn't “terrorist.” Rather, it was “on the State Department list of terrorist organizations” or “listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization.” Notice the difference. When it came to MEK, being on “the list” was a legal technicality. And a technicality with no import, as a slew of U.S. politicians, including Fearless Terrorism Fighter Rudolph Giuliani, who provided material support to, and received lavish speaking fees from MEK, can attest to, given the lack of prosecution for their obviously illegal activities. [2]

The point is that while affecting a tone of neutral, objective reportage, the NY Times and other outlets of corporate state propaganda are presenting an almost funhouse mirror distortion of the world, an image warped by their secret, almost inscrutable hidden political and ideological agendas. Figuring out the motives and inner workings of the U.S. media is akin to Kremlin-watching. At times keeping up with who are the demons and who are okay is like playing Simon Says, with the media telling people who to love and hate, according to today's alliances of convenience and temporary political gambits by the U.S.

None of this should be taken to mean that I defend or endorse Hamas or Hezbollah, or FARC. But nor can I say they are all good or all bad. I prefer to be objective and not be forced to boo or cheer on the command of the rulers of the U.S. to suit their own interests, which they define as the national interest. In fact, ultimately what goes under the rubric of U.S. “national interests” are the class interests of the top layer of the corporate elite and megarich individuals. The rest of us just pay the taxes and fight the wars, while they tell us we have to sacrifice more to maintain their empire for them. This is called “patriotism.” To object is disloyalty, or treason, or “supporting terrorism.” Such is life in a Free Country.

In that “vibrant, but flawed” Paki democracy, it turns out that in some districts more ballots were cast than there are registered voters. A mere “flaw,” I suppose. Hey, nobody's perfect!

A few words about the NYT equating of elections with democracy, indeed a “vibrant democracy.” Of course this is nonsense. Pakistan is no more a democracy, which would be a country where the government actually has to answer to the people and where ultimate power rests with the people, than the U.S. is. In Pakistan cliques of rich people vie with one another for state power, similar to what the GOP and Democrats [sic!] represent here. Plus, in Pakistan, the civilian government doesn't even control the military. And as Mao Zedong so depressingly observed, “political power flows out of the barrel of a gun.” Which he thought was a good thing. Of course he was a thug who lusted for power his whole life, the more power the better. [3]

The second article in the Sunday paper (p.12) was “Car Bombings Kill Dozens in Center of Turkish Town Near the Syrian Border.” “At least” 43 were killed. An accompanying photo shows blackened buildings with their facades blown off. But they weren't “terrorist bombings.” The “T” word appears nowhere in that article either. This is the same story as on NPR I mentioned near the beginning, the terrorist attack on the city of Reyhanli.

                                         

      

                    

                                         Reyhanli, Turkey, after car bombings on Saturday May 11^th. Not terrorism,

                                                                       according to the New York Times.

In the third article the Times gets sloppy and seems to use “militant” and “terrorist” synonymously, something I've never noticed in the paper before. In fact, usually the two words never so much as appear in the same article. This is also on p. 12 and concerns the arrest in Egypt of “three militants with ties to Al Qaeda [so why aren't they “terrorists”?? Obama KILLS people with such “ties”] who were planning terrorist [AH! there it is] attacks in Egyptian cities and against a foreign embassy, the interior minister said Saturday.” (My italics.) That's most of the first paragraph.

So, a “foreign embassy” was a target. Guess which country's? That might be a hint to why these “militants” were going to commit a “terrorist” attack. If it was just some Egyptians in a marketplace getting blown up- feh, that's just a bombing, not a terrorist bombing.

I think I understand. The attacks in Egyptian cities, i.e. against Egyptian civilians, would have merely been “bombings,” acts of “militancy.” Whereas attacking an (U.S., perhaps, NYT?) embassy would be terrorism. Hence some of their attacks would be acts of “militancy,” and some “terrorism,” depending on the target. Some would be tragic news from a faraway land, others would be moral outrages, occasions for high dudgeon requiring the U.S. to kill somebody, somewhere.

The next day, Monday, (May 13^th) NPR and the NY Times are still hewing to what's obviously an editorial policy on when and when not to use the T word. (A policy that per standard establishment media practice is never explained to their targets, namely us.) Bright and early on NPR's “Morning Edition,” the regular presenter Steve Inskeep has a chat with- what do you know!- Declan Walsh of the NY Times. The same Walsh who just got kicked out of Pakistan and wrote the first article I discussed. He says of the just-concluded elections there, “there was a very strenuous campaign of violence” by “militants.” That would be a reference to the bombings, shootings, kidnappings, and constant bloodcurdling threats by the Taliban terrorists that killed “over 125” in the last month of campaigning, we're told. [According to the EU, 64 people were murdered just on election day- that apparently wasn't included in Walsh's total. BBC reported this later the same morning.] So he's sticking to the script.

Walsh further explains to Inskeep (and us) that the “Taliban” “abandoned the democratic process.”

Abandoned? When did they uphold it? They do have front parties with the same demented ideology. Does he mean those parties didn't run? I've heard nothing about that. Certainly if they didn't run, it would have been because they were ordered not to, or like the Taliban, suddenly believe that “democracy” is “UnIslamic,” as the Taliban have announced in justifying their terrorism-enforced edict that there should be no elections and no one better vote- or else.

I can see why the terrorists would prefer Pakistan's traditional military dictatorships. The Pak military has been very very good for Islamic terrorists. They actually were created as a nominally covert arm of the Pak military to attack India, especially the Indian province of Kashmir, as well as do other dirty work. By the way, Kashmir was actually divided into three, with about the same land area going to India, China, and Pakistan. For some reason the U.S. media never tells you that. I guess it's to support U.S. policy of telling India- Hey, just give Pakistan your part of Kashmir. Then you guys can be friends.

As if.

But I'll bet you the Pakis never try and pull their terrorism shit on China!

These days the Paki Taliban are feeling their oats, and thinking they should be running the show, not the ISI. The terrorists' ultimate goal is to take over Pakistan themselves, and its nuclear weapons arsenal. Meanwhile their ideological soul mates are trying to take over Afghanistan again, and have only recently been beaten back from taking over Mali and Somalia, at least temporarily.

So what should the U.S. media do? It should either use the word “terrorism” and its variants in a consistent, even-handed, objective manner, like actual journalists would do, or refrain from using the word at all if it is hopelessly tainted by its use as a political and ideological bludgeon against official enemies. But since the U.S. media is the propaganda arm of the corporate oligarchy, an oligarchy which is served by the U.S. Government (and by the 50 individual state governments as well) this will not happen. So it is up to us to be constantly skeptical and critical of the propaganda system to avoid being duped and brainwashed by it. That's more work than just being able to trust. (Hello there, welcome to the adult world!)

We live in interesting times. It is morally and ethically challenging to defend human values and not just throw in with either global imperialists or fanatical primitives. This requires resisting easy thinking. I offer my analyses to you to help you in this worthwhile endeavor.

1] He and the NY Times can be thankful they get privileged treatment. They aren't murdered, the way journalists get murdered in Pakistan by the ISI, or the way the U.S. military and U.S.-backed governments of Mexico, or Colombia, or Yemen assassinate them. Nor do NY Times employees get kidnapped and imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay like an Aljazeera employee was, where his captors pumped him for info on Aljazeera's inner workings and tried to force him to agree to be a spy for them in order to be let out of his cage in Gitmo and go home to his wife and children. Nor does the President of the United States call up a foreign government to demand that their reporters be locked up in prison, as Obama as done with the Yemeni journalist who revealed a civilian massacre in Yemen by a U.S. aerial attack. (Of course he was tortured also.)

2] Yet the Supreme Court recently ruled that if lawyers were to give free advice to the “terrorist” Tamil Tigers (since exterminated by the Sri Lankan rulers and army, along with a large number of Tamil civilians held hostage by the Tigers) on how to renounce terrorism and legalize themselves, that would be “material support for a terrorist organization” and subject to criminal prosecution. This is the kind of mind-twisting hyper-hypocritical double standard the U.S. legal system subjects us to. Obviously U.S. law is purely and simply an instrument of political power. Their judges are left to twist themselves into logical pretzels to give a judicial imprimatur to the cynical calculations of state power.

The MEK is A-okay, because influential politicians support them, and they help out in planting bombs in movie theaters in Tehran and other chores, such as assassinations, and spying on the regime for Israel and the U.S. (Gee, spying on one's own country for foreign powers, and hostile ones at that? Isn't that high treason? Nah, it's patriotism, because they're doing it for US.)

See, in order to wind up in prison (or dead), you have to be connected to a group the U.S. really doesn't like. Like charities that try and help the Palestinians and Lebanese subjected to Israeli bombardment and so forth. These are said to be “linked” to the “terrorist” Hamas and Hezbollah. Hey, if you get an email from someone on a U.S. shitlist, you're “linked to terrorism.” That's not an exaggeration. That's exactly the kind of “link” that is cited by the media, between Major Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter who killed 13 soldiers in 2009, and the now late Anwar al-Awlaki- aka Scourge of Yemen, to hear the U.S. media tell it. Why, his very genes are evil, thus they needed to bump off his 16 year old son in a restaurant two weeks after they offed al-Awlaki. [No, no, I'm not “defending” al-Awlaki. But anyone who defends government assassinations as routine policy is defending the most sinister form of oppressive state power.]

There are people rotting in U.S. prisons right now for donating to the wrong charity. Viewing the wrong website will get you on a terror suspect list too. Such unhealthy interest has been used as evidence in U.S. courts to convict people of “terrorism,” including for translating jihadist statements. (The ACLU was appalled by that last case, but they're terrorist sympathizers, of course, so who cares? Anyway, the ACLU has been a target of FBI and CIA infiltration going back decades, so they're a known “enemy” of the secret police, and thus unpatriotic.)

Cutting off any and all economic and humanitarian aid to the Palestinians- especially the ones living under Hamas- has long been U.S. policy. Palestinian political activists were persecuted by the Clinton regime for years for the crime of handing out leaflets that said the wrong things. (Namely pro-Palestinian things that of course highlighted Israeli oppression.) American Jews on the other hand are encouraged to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars annually to finance “settlement expansion,” i.e. the sacred mission by Jewish religious fundamentalists of “re”claiming the Land of Israel (as they imagine it), rightly theirs because “God” promised it to them. (So why doesn't “God” get rid of the Palestinians? Send in a flood or a hoard of locusts or a leprosy epidemic or something? Never mind, that must be an “anti-Semitic” question.) That's on top of the several billion a year in free money that all U.S. taxpayers are compelled to give to Israel to buy high tech U.S. weapons to bomb hospitals in Gaza with white phosphorous (see the Goldstone Report etc. if you think I'm making that up) shoot kids who throw rocks, (and non-violent protesters who don't) and so on. Israel, it's rarely mentioned, so therefore needs to be mentioned more often, is the top recipient of U.S. foreign aid. And those are grants, not loans.

Oh, but those horrible Hamas and Hezbollah are such religious fanatics! And they're suicide bombers! (Unlike World War II Japanese kamikaze pilots.) And they want to impose Sharia! (Whatever that is.) They cut off people's hands! (Our Saudi “allies” only cut off people's heads. What, the jihadists do that too? That's different! They're the Bad Guys. And besides, they videotape it! Anyway the Saudis only behead people who deserve it, like drug dealers and foreign maids.)

And they oppress women! (True enough, and they're loathsome for it, and for their general totalitarianism and imposing their religious CRAP.)

After all, the U.S. establishment cares so much about the oppression of Muslim women! Why wouldn't they? Hey, look at how the U.S. insists on equality for women in its own society! That's why women make just as much money as men for the same jobs. And half the members of Congress are women. And half the Fortune 500 companies are headed by women, and...

What's that? None of that is true? Far from it?

So what!

To quote the Great Man Himself, Ronald Reagan, “facts are stupid things.” They're stupid because they keep contradicting ideology, which is Truth Itself. (RR, GOP Convention speech, .)

3] Regarding the attitude of the U.S. government and corporate media towards elections. Their attitude is either to use the ritual of elections to validate as legitimate some oppressive government it supports, or slams elections as shams when they're in countries whose regimes they don't like, for economic or political reasons. For example, the NYT and the rest of the gang regularly held the “elections” that the PRI staged during its 75-year one-party dictatorship in Mexico. Only after the PRI's monopoly on power was broken did there start to creep into Timesland oblique references to past, shall we say, a taint of unfairness in Mexico's electoral process. And the elections of fascist state terror dictatorships, like “South” Vietnam under the rule of various generals, or El Salvador in the 1980s, where people were herded to the polls under a state reign of terror, are treated as if they're actual free and fair elections occurring in normal democratic lands. [See the book Demonstration Elections, by Herman and Brodhead, for example.] Japan is another example of a long-time one-party dictatorship that only recently has loosened up some, but to no avail in terms of real change in the power structure or social order.

On the other hand, perfectly legitimate elections that produce winners the U.S. doesn't like- such as in Venezuela since Hugo Chavez first won, or the Sandinistas in Nicaragua (after they overthrew Somoza), or Hamas among the Palestinians, running against the corrupt and venal PLO (now inflated into the grander-sounding Palestinian Authority, to which the Israelis have subcontracted repression in the West Bank, which helps Israel assassinate “militants,” and whose “security forces” are trained by those avatars of human rights, the CIA)- those elections are dismissed with contempt as shams or as somehow unfair.(Why, U.S. elections are perfectly fair! Even when five political apparatchiks on the Supreme Court do the electing! Just ask the U.S. media!)