• Home
  • About
  • Concepts, Coins, and Terms
    • Anthropolitical Psychology
      • Civilizational Narcissism
      • Conflict – Language Uptake – Social Programming and Scripting – A Suggestion
        • Language Uptake – Programming – On Learning to Listen
        • Mouth –> Ear –> Mind –> Heart System
        • Social Grammar
      • Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy
      • Malignant Narcissism
      • Narcissistic Scripting
      • Normative Remirroring
      • Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation
    • FTAC – “From The Awesome Conversation”
    • God Mob
    • Intellectual Battlespace
    • Islamic Small Wars
    • New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left
    • Political Spychology
    • Shimmer
    • Syndicate Red Brown Green
  • Library
    • About Language
    • Alpha by Author
    • Dicks and Spooks – Political Spychology
    • Judaism and Jewish Culture and Life
    • Russian Section
  • Comments and Contact
  • X of Interest
    • A-Z Links
    • Alpha – Zulu
      • Associated Articles of Governance – United States of America
      • Daniel L. Everett – Reading Highly Recommended
      • Khamenei and Iran – Assorted Reference
      • Lee Smith’s Comment on ‘Media Warfare’ in the Middle East
      • Lies are Told for Only Two Reasons
      • On Being a War Journalist — Francesca Borri in Syria – 7/1/2013
      • Putin and Russia — Assorted Reference

BackChannels

~ Conflict, Culture, Language, Psychology

BackChannels

Tag Archives: journalism

FTAC: Forked: Loyalty to a United States President v Obligation to the Constitution of the Nation

12 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Free Speech, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Journalism, Political Psychology, Politics

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Fake News, feudalism v democracy, integrity, journalism, medieval v modern, President Donald J. Trump

President Donald J. Trump at Rally, Evansville, Indiana, August 30, 2018

President Donald J. Trump at Rally, Evansville, Indiana, August 30, 2018.

President Trump’s own behavior x actions x associations x utterance speaks for him, and the so-called “biased media” is only turning up what may be associated with his real estate enterprises and his name.

Perhaps some Americans demand to see a memorandum of understanding between Putin and Trump that doesn’t exist, but the Trump associates going to jail, plea bargaining their way down, or hiding behind some convoluted national security screen (Felix Sater) very much exist (ask their kids) and the impression of collusion (much like the appearance of conflict of interest that executives should seek to avoid) only worsens.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2018/09/07/mafia-don-laundering-the-authoritarian-presidents-image/

If the east-west conflict game of choice is chess, then perhaps Americans have been forked between the obligation to defend the Constitution of the United States and continued loyalty — when it matters — to a President suspect, at least, of eliding the law for his business interests and treating issues concerning himself as if he were the unquestionable leader of a feudal estate.


Also Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/02/02/united-states-of-america-basic-training/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/10/23/fake-news-genuine-fake-news-the-real-fake-news-get-your-fake-news-here/

Related Online

Glader, Paul. “10 Journalism Brands Where You Find Real Facts Rather Than Alternative Facts.” Forbes, February 1, 2017.

–33–

From Correspondence: Power’s Tool: Ideology (Any): And the Journalist’s Predicament

29 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Asides, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Free Speech, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Journalism, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

despotism, dictatorships, information warfare, journalism, perceptual control, political manipulation, political power, propaganda, public relations, war reporting

I don’t know how far back in modern history the penchant for exploiting or killing journalists go, but as much has been a part of the peril for the intrepid since I signed on here in 2006/7.  The evildoers haven’t the innocence required to boast their programs with authentic faith; instead, they manipulate their programs — the Communism, the Islamism, possibly the Capitalism as well, and all other such — to assault their enemies while corralling their believers. Power has become a deeply cynical game beloved of dictators. They will say anything to direct, focus, and incite their mobs. It’s into that environment that it seems modern “war reporters” now walk. They are no longer “telling the other side of the story” — they’re either helping the other side produce their “optics” — or they’re getting whacked.

What the west may do in conflict is adhere convincingly through doctrine to their own arguably superior ethical and moral codes.

Would only that there were that “Hail Dorothy” moment when the Wicked Witch has melted and the army subjected to the poor bitch is found to have no complaints.


Related in Titles

Committee to Protect Journalists

Dictators Without Borders

Murder Without Borders

The First Casualty


BackChannels trope regarding dictatorships —

“Different Talks — Same Walk!“



–33–

 

Pravda — Real To the Marrow

27 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, A Little Wisdom, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Free Speech, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Journalism, Philology, Political Psychology, Politics, Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

against "active measures", authenticity in speech, freedom of speech, honesty, information space, integrity, journalism, totalitarianism

In the New Age of Active Measures, the countermeasure is the conveyance of truth — not “alternative truth” or multiple possibility derived from promoted fantasia — supported by great curiosity and integrity as married to equally great journalism and scholarship.


A friend promoted the Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty project as focused against deceptive and disingenuous political cant designed to whip up extremist emotion and stupidity in Asia as well as in its older domains.

In regard to information and integrity in speech online, BackChannels has published a few related posts that may convey an image about Potemkinism in political speech: there are those who project through language the way they might wish their followers would see the world and themselves.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/10/23/fake-news-genuine-fake-news-the-real-fake-news-get-your-fake-news-here/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/23/moscows-rules-a-module/

BackChannels really hasn’t an issue with political presentation and “show business” in general but rather than with a depth in totalitarianism in which accusation (especially “reflection in the mirror“) and conflict (and related barbarism) would seem to have no point but of the completely artificial conveyance of image.

–33–

FTAC: “Fake News!” Cheerleaders, Enablers, Sources . . . .

02 Sunday Jul 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Journalism

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

American aristocracy, American New Ignorance, American proto-fascism, democracy, Fake News, journalism, New Nationalism, proto-fascism

Inspiration: another baseless Trumpeted attack on CNN.


Posted elsewhere earlier today:

If there’s “Fake News” among the majors of “Big Media”, there must be fake journalists and institutions passing along their fakery to young journalists.

https://www.cjr.org/

http://www.poynter.org/

http://www.pulitzer.org/

http://ejc.net/

I’ve been arch in the opener (of course): The organizations noted have each devoted themselves and inspired young journalists toward excellence.

The weakness in democracy resides in the absence of meaningful political education in the constituents or deliberate disinformation, generally by way of the “agent provocateurs” of foreign sponsors. Basically, if the voters fail their history tests 🙂 and sustain their disinterest in most domestic and foreign affairs, then they leave the character of the government up to government elites and potentially elite influences. If that’s where we’re going, government may as well become a private business benefiting private interests and exploiting as much of the public as possible.

In some ways, such a process may be inevitable, as we rely on others to keep other machinery humming while each of us does our thing even if as free as we may be to independently read and pursue research curiosity. We’re plainly limited x time / day x energy and cannot “ride herd” on the reporting on critical issues.

Still, I would question the leader who attempts to dissolve the credibility of the professional journalism community while engaged in turning a state into something of a private fief.


Fault for American ignorance in relation to the “Fourth Estate”, not to mention the foundations of American political culture and America’s leadership (or perhaps now former leadership) in the greater world may be assigned to generations of business and technical interests on our public education systems. The failure to transmit cultural basics and values down to the floor of the economy is signal of cultural failure.


–33–

FTAC – On the Taming of the Wild Press

17 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

freedom of speech, Integrity in Reporting, Intimidation of the Press, journalism, press freedom, Putin, Trump

Unlike Sputnik, which serves Moscow, the American press is free and not in the flattery business.

Many journalists who achieve a decent wage from a major newspaper have done so on their investigative doggedness and straightness.

American presidents both craft but also inadvertently create their own image – and thinking Americans (aye, there’s the rub) don’t rely on just one news presentation or “cut” on an important story to produced in their own minds at least a seemingly reliable image of a state of affairs.

In government, of course, the stakes rise and the accuracy of intelligence becomes even more critical to power.

In Moscow: for President Putin, the world is – or is made – as he wishes to see it, and he himself is seen as he would have the public know him. There the press has been intimidated, steered, and trained, and from time to time “disciplined” by murder.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/05/ten-years-putin-press-kremlin-grip-russia-media-tightens


Elementary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2015/russia (2015)
http://euromaidanpress.com/2015/06/28/putin-now-seeking-to-intimidate-journalists-into-not-covering-his-opponents/ – 6/28/2016
http://euromaidanpress.com/2015/06/20/putin-rebuilding-the-iron-curtain-in-his-typical-hybrid-fashion/ – 6/20/2015
http://www.gq.com/story/journalism-in-vladimir-putins-russia – 1/13/2017

“The situation in Khimki is not normal; this is a kind of military dictatorship,” says Yevgeniya Chirikova, a member of In Defense of Khimki Forest, a local environmental group. “Journalists and public figures are constantly being threatened. It’s as if our local authorities cannot accept any different way of thinking.”

Over the past year there has been a series of violent attacks on independent journalists here, culminating in the controversial death in late March of newspaper designer Sergei Protazanov, who had been preparing an issue of the oppositionist Grazhdanskoye Soglasiye devoted to electoral fraud in Khimki’s March 1 mayoral contest. That election was won by the candidate of the pro-Kremlin United Russia Party.

Weir, Fred.  “Russian Journalists Face Violence, Intimidation.”  The Christian Science Monitor, April 28, 2009.


Addendum

When asked by journalists of contacts between his presidential campaign and Russian operatives, he deflected the questions and put the focus instead on what he described as “illegal” government leaks and “dishonest” media coverage.

“The press is out of control,” he said. “The level of dishonesty is out of control,”

After weeks of disclosures in newspapers over turmoil in his administration, he told one reporter to “sit down” for a rambling question.

“Tomorrow, they will say: ‘Donald Trump rants and raves at the press,'” Trump said. “I’m not ranting and raving. I’m just telling you. You know, you’re dishonest people . . . .”

Holland, Steve.  “‘I’m not ranting and raving.’  Trump on defensive in first solo news conference.”  Reuters, February 17, 2017.


In a Twitter rant that extended into work hours, Mr. Trump at once dismissed the entire Russia story as “fake” and made up, and pledged to hunt down the officials in the government who have supplied the details. He demanded an apology from the “failing” New York Times and accused the news media of making up stories and sources, even as he said he wanted those sources apprehended.

Weisman, Jonathan.  “Trump Denounces ‘Low-Life Leakers,’ Pledging to Hunt Them Down.”  The New York Times, February 16, 2017.

–33–

Smearing Trump – A Glance at the Sketchy Information (Disinformation) Machinery

15 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Journalism, Philology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Active Measures, disinformation, Fake News, journalism

Key Name Search: “Ivana Kamenski”.

The noun has been moving around the more suspect corners of the web as the “hooker who had sex with Donald Trump”.

As if?

BackChannels would strongly suggest “As if” on this one.

Two days ago, good ol’ “World News Daily” shouted “Russian Hooker Who Had Sex with Donald Trump Mocks His “Tiny Penis” (January 13, 2017) and put up a composite photo (since cropped by BackChannels) featuring this babe:

alleged-Kamensky-cr.jpg

Oh, but lookee here (screen-captured and sized for this blog):

alleged-Zakharova-2-19-2016-524x.jpg

Last February, The New York Daily News gave the same woman play as “Svetlana Zakharova” AKA “Svetlana Travis” AKA “Svetlana Travis Zakharova” in a piece titled, “The former $5G-a-night Russian call girl who accused Eliot Spitzer of choking her appears to write a cryptic social media post about being ‘silent'” (February 19, 2016).

What do you make of that?

A Facebook friend on the Traditional Far Left — the Aesthetic Left, the Left of guitar players and poets and magical brownies — shared with me this morning the World News Daily piece.  The look-up that followed brought a host of similar put-ups from the alley off the mainstream of everything.  BackChannels let the matter drop for a few hours — and then thought to look again for the shocker to emerge in the staid BBC or ever respectable Reuters — and so far, so good: the “news” shared to BackChannels this morning by the perhaps Naive Aesthetic Left appears a true paste-up.

–33–

Also in Media: “Journalists as Witnesses at Hungarian Revolution” | RealClearHistory | Jefferson Flanders | November 4, 2016

23 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Free Speech, Hungary, Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Cold War, free press, history, Hungarian Revolution, Hungary, journalism

The mass media coverage of the Hungarian Revolution offered an object lesson in the value of a free press. As the faltering Communist regime lost control of the borders, foreign correspondents were able to enter the country. Once there, the absence of government “minders” and censors allowed journalists to report what they saw, “without fear or favor of friend or foe.” The result: a balanced, independent, and accurate account of what was happening on the ground in Hungary.

Source: Journalists as Witnesses at Hungarian Revolution | RealClearHistory – 11/4/2016.

FTAC – A Note on ‘Trump – Manafort – Millian – Kilimnik’ and the Irrelevance of Old News

25 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

21st Century Feudalism, information, journalism, politics, time, Trump-Manafort

In paraphrase, the prompt was how would Hitler have been viewed if he had not produced the genocide of the Jews of Europe, i.e., The Holocaust.


Hitler would not have been Hitler without the ‘racial” foundations of Nazism already laid through the 1920s.

I’ve noted only recently the near concurrence of Stalin’s installation as the leader of the Soviet Union, the establishment in 1928 of the Muslim Brotherhood (in response to western colonial abuses, but also accessing religious supremacist thought in defense of Egyptian Muslims), and the already-built intellectual ferment — papers circulating in universities — for Nazism.

I have tried venturing toward the kind of conversation Stalin may (!) have had with Hitler in the course of coming to a delusional agreement over the parsing of Europe between them and then Hitler’s treacherous move against the same.

It’s too soon to draw the comparison “Stalin : Hitler” as “Putin : ? ”   , but that there is a conversation between feudal powers may be something that cannot be either doubted nor overlooked nor in content — i.e., what’s the story behind the public’s glimpses of Manafort, Millian, and Kilimnik? — known.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/paul-manafort-ukraine-kiev-russia-konstantin-kilimnik-227181

What appears to my _imagination_ is a conversation involving medieval lords and their knights, who are today well paid “nobility” suited up in suits and carrying briefcases full of explosive agreements.  

From the Politico article:

Joking aside, Trump has demonstrated more interest in Russia’s affairs than in perhaps any other area of foreign policy. And his laissez faire approach toward Russia’s confrontational relations with its neighbors, combined with his open admiration of its authoritarian President Vladimir Putin and his employment of Manafort, have led experts from across the political spectrum to predict that a Trump presidency would augur to the Kremlin’s benefit.

How far passed is the election season “past” as America moves toward the inauguration of its new President?

The conversation prompted here is only quasi-public or constrained by the social distribution chosen for the original topic post. Therefore, we may be of the public, but we may also note in passing that this now old “Trump-Manafort” news has been discarded from the public conversation.

As news, it’s old news.

As a theme (for foreign policy wonks) it may remain relevant, but as much becomes a conversation between specialized journalists and researchers, and therefore politically irrelevant.


The public will rush on to the next day’s headlines, and the same will overlay, blanket, and suffocate the previous day’s curiosity and its items of interest.

The powerful and wealthy of the world have always inhabited a world greater than their own family, clan, tribe, and nation-state: whether Chinese political elites or Forbes-listed billionaires, the world has no boundaries and its laws must suit them for them to keep them, provided, lol, they keep a lot of other interested parties — above the table and quite some distance beneath it — interested in their success and largesse.

–33–

← Older posts
  • Compassion
  • Empathy
  • Justice
  • Humility
  • Inclusion
  • Integrity
____________

Caution: The possession of anti-Semitic / anti-Zionist thought may be the measure of the owner's own enslavement to criminal and medieval absolute power.
___________

Diane Weber Bederman Recommends BackChannels on Facebook!

"If you want to read great ideas and great prose, check out this FB page: BackChannels. James S. Oppenheim is a brilliant writer Get a glass of wine or a cup of coffee, sit down and enjoy."

Recent Posts

  • Munich Security Conference: Pence’s Silent Moment; Brief Nod to Russian and Norwegian Energy Sourcing
  • Two American Military Intelligence Officers: One Dies A Hero; One Defects to the Islamofascist Devolution of Iran
  • Sudan Protests: Bashir’s Sadistic Dictatorship Paints Its Own Picture
  • Venezuela’s Turkish Connection and Other Notes on Dictatorships Surrounding EU / NATO
  • Responding to Tulsi Gabbard’s Tweet ” . . . No to Nuclear War . . . No to Regime Change Wars”
  • Venezuela: Military Mafia-Borne Political Absolutism v Democratic Distribution of Power and Rule-of-Law

Categories

  • 21st Century Feudal
  • A Little Wisdom
  • Also in Media
  • American Domestic Affairs
  • Anti-Semitism
  • Asides
  • BCND – BackChannels News Day
  • Books
  • Conflict – Culture – Language – Psychology
  • Epistemology
  • Events and Other PSA's
  • Extreme Brown vs Red-Green
  • Fast News Share
  • foreign aid
  • Free Speech
  • FTAC
  • FTAC – From The Awesome Conversation
  • International Development
  • Islamic Small Wars
    • Gaza Suzerain
  • Journal
    • Library
  • Journalism
  • Links
  • Notes On Reading BackChannels
  • Philology
  • Philosophy
  • Poetry
  • Political Psychology
  • Political Spychology
  • Politics
  • Psychology
    • Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy
  • Referral
  • Regions
    • Africa
      • Central African Republic
      • Kenya
      • Libya
      • Mali
      • Morocco
      • Nigeria
      • South Africa
      • Sudan
      • Tunisia
      • Zimbabwe
    • Asia
      • Afghanistan
      • Burma
      • China
      • India
      • Myanmar
      • North Korea
      • Pakistan
      • Turkey
    • Central America
      • El Salvador
      • Guatemala
      • Honduras
      • Mexico
    • Eastern Europe
    • Eurasia
      • Russia
      • Ukrain
      • Ukraine
    • Europe
      • France
      • Hungary
    • Great Britain and United Kingdom
    • Iberian Peninsula
    • Middle East
      • Egypt
      • Gaza
      • Iran
      • Iraq
      • Israel
        • Palestinia
      • Jordan
      • Kurdistan
      • Lebanon
      • Qatar
      • Saudi Arabia
      • Syria
      • United Arab Emirates
      • Yemen
    • North America
      • Canada
      • United States of America
    • Norther Europe
    • Northern Europe
      • Sweden
    • South America
      • Argentina
      • Brazil
      • Columbia
      • Ecuador
      • Venezuela
    • South Pacific
      • Australia
      • Papua New Guinea
      • West Papua
  • Religion
  • Spain
  • Syndicate Red Brown Green
  • transnational crime
  • Uncategorized
  • Visual Data

Europe

  • Defending History
  • Hungarian Spectrum
  • Yanukovych Leaks

Great Britain

  • Stand for Peace

Israeli and Jewish Affairs

  • Chloe Simone Valdary

Journals

  • Amil Imani
  • New Age Islam

Middle East

  • Human Rights & Democracy for Iran
  • Middle East Research and Information Project

Organizations

  • Anti-Slavery
  • Atlantic Council
  • Fight Hatred
  • Human Rights First Society
  • International Network Against Cyberhate
  • The Center for Victims of Torture

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.com

Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
“The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

Blog at WordPress.com.