One thing the mainstream media excels at is pummeling the public with the images they deem important. It will be difficult to forget the constant barrage of images of Bush, Cheney, Rice and Powell as they were given free reign of the airwaves to hawk their lies. The constant drumbeat of WMD, aluminum tubes, mushroom clouds, and of course Iraq’s share of responsibility for the 9/11 attacks was so effective that even today there are still many people who believe that our invasion of Iraq was a form retribution and self-defense. Dissenting voices were given little if any access to the public airwaves.
Now we are in an election season and the focus has changed somewhat. Chastened by accusations of favoritism, the media have zeroed in on Barack Obama’s questionable associations. For a while we were treated to all Louis Farrakhan all the time. But Obama’s rejection and repudiation of Farrakhan necessitated another image. Enter Jeremiah Wright, candidate Obama’s now former pastor. On a bright note, this may finally put to rest the ridiculous public obsession that Obama might possibly be of the Muslim faith. Still, like the WMD hawkers of yesteryear, Mr Wright’s image and his damnation of American foreign policy and the devastation it has caused people of color appears in a continuous loop on the nightly news, the morning news, the overnight news, with nary a suggestion that what he is saying about our foreign entanglements might contain a kernel of truth. Of course, the same press that inundates us with the images of Jeremiah Wright has totally ignored the equally tactless John Hagee, founder of the Citizens United for Israel (CUFI), and endorser of John McCain. Perhaps pastor Hagee’s offensive language is not directed at the right people.
In its search for ratings and profits, the mainstream press has abrogated its responsibility to educate and inform the public and prefers to use its first amendment privilege to incite outrage – the very same behavior it has criticized in other news organizations, like Al-Jazeerah for example.
Nice post!
Watch Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s 9-11 sermon in context
“Tactless” is maybe a rather mild way to put it. But the big difference to me is that most of what I’ve heard from Wright is pretty much true, while Hagee spreads untruths about the tenets of Islam, the ideas and attitudes of Arab people, and the facts of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Obama is being nice to white Americans when he downplays the prevalence of racism. I agree with the anthropologist who had an op-ed in the Austin American-Statesman a couple of days ago saying that racism is endemic in the U.S.
While Hagee is obviously antagonistic towards Arabs (as well as gays, Catholics and all of us other evildoers), he is no friend of Jews either. Hagee’s interest in Israel through his group CUFI is purely millenialist – as he “befriends” Jews as the chosen people only insofar as it will facilitate the end times he awaits. Jews themselves are basically expendable and certainly won’t be whisked away with Hagee and his followers in any rapturous deliverance. Bill Moyers did a really great job of explaining and exposing CUFI a few weeks ago on his show:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03072008/profile.html
Good point about Hagee, ames58. I’m not especially knowledgeable about Christian doctrine, but his support of Israel did strike me as somewhat strange, and then I heard something along the lines of what you say. I read that the Israelis are well aware of the nature of his friendship. You’d think that with friends like this, they don’t need enemies, but apparently they will take support wherever they can get it.