Max Blumenthal interview: 'GOP conducts Islamophobia campaign'

It's with Press TV's Autograph. An excerpt:

There was a shift in the Republican Party in 1964 under Barry Goldwater when Southern Democrats who had opposed civil rights moved into the Republican Party when then President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil rights Act allowing African Americans to have voting rights etc.

There is really no leadership in the country right now that is capable of putting this hatred back in the box; instead what you have are a bunch of Republican presidential hopefuls who really have no chance of defeating Obama competing with one another for who can be the most extreme - because the far right controls the party.

Today, Newt Gingrich who is the former House majority leader; who has had three wives and who cheated on his second wife with a congressional staffer and then left his second wife while she was recovering from cancer, he's going to the church of Pastor John Hagee, the foremost leader of Christian Zionism in the US.
Hagee believes the end of the world could come any day and that Islam is the religion of Satan and that if Jews fail to convert to Christianity they will burn in an everlasting lake of fire. Yet he is also a great supporter of Israel and hailed by Netanyahu as a friend to the Jewish people. Now, Newt Gingrich is making a pilgrimage to his church.

So this just shows how extreme the party has become; how it's gone from the big tent of Eisenhower to a one-ringed circus of Palin and Gingrich.

Max Blumenthal is one of my favourite journalists. You can read more of his writing on his website.

Avoiding the Bigger Picture

'"Any type of activity like that that puts our troops in harm's way would be a concern to this administration," Gibbs said.' And no, he wasn't talking about Obama's Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT FOR THE DUTCH...

John Vanocur writes in the IHT:-

From the left, a call to end the current Dutch notion of tolerance

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, the Netherlands had lived through something akin to a populist revolt against accommodating Islamic immigrants led by Pim Fortuyn, who was later murdered; the assassination of the filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, accused of blasphemy by a homegrown Muslim killer; and the bitter departure from the Netherlands of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali woman who became a member of Parliament before being marked for death for her criticism of radical Islam.

Now something fairly remarkable is happening again.

Two weeks ago, the country's biggest left-wing political grouping, the Labor Party, which has responsibility for integration as a member of the coalition government led by the Christian Democrats, issued a position paper calling for the end of the failed model of Dutch "tolerance."

It came at the same time Nicolas Sarkozy was making a case in France for greater opportunities for minorities that also contained an admission that the French notion of equality "doesn't work anymore."

But there was a difference. If judged on the standard scale of caution in dealing with cultural clashes and Muslims' obligations to their new homes in Europe, the language of the Dutch position paper and Lilianne Ploumen, Labor's chairperson, was exceptional.

The paper said: "The mistake we can never repeat is stifling criticism of cultures and religions for reasons of tolerance."

AL JAZEERA IN BURLINGTON ATTRACTS WORLDWIDE MEDIA ATTENTION

I love it when Burlington gets national and international coverage!

THE COUNTERSPIN program on FAIR features Ken Picard of Seven Days.

The GUARDIAN has done a piece on Tony Burman, the new boss of Al Jazeera.

In Burlington, New England, where a tiny city-owned broadcaster with a few thousand subscribers carries Al-Jazeera, complaints from locals prompted the company to announce that it will be taken off air, but a local Republican representative is supporting its continued presence, Burman claims, and that decision could be reversed.

Hmmm, I wonder who the Repub is. Any guesses?

Mr Burman will be attending next week's public forums on the Al Jazeera presence in Burlington.

TWO NEW HAMPSHIRE PAPERS with Vermont readership have editorials:

VALLEY NEWS (NH)

Channeling Free Speech
Al-Jazeera English on TV
***

Given what passes for television “news” programming in America these days, it's not astonishing that some viewers would like to banish a channel or two from the satellite or cable menu. That, however, seems quite different from what's going on in Vermont’s largest city, where Burlington Telecom is under pressure to drop the English language service of Al-Jazeera, the Arab-owned network based in Qatar.

As it happens, Burlington is one of the few places in the United States where Al-Jazeera English can be seen, others being Washington, D.C., Houston and parts of Ohio (figure that one out). It is largely invisible in this country because, in the words of the International Herald Tribune, “the reputation of its Arabic sibling as the preferred outlet for videos from Osama bin Laden has made the English-language version too hot to handle for some U.S. cable operators.”

Urging the municipally-owned Burlington Telecom to join the blackout is something called the Defenders Council of Vermont, whose 15 or 20 members conceive it as their mission to “educate the citizens of Vermont about the nature, reality and threat of radical Islam.” It seems not to have occurred to the Defenders that pulling the plug on an Arab-owned news service might not be the best way to educate Vermonters about the political and social perspectives of the Islamic world. Or that anyone offended by the programming has recourse to the TV viewer's ultimate trump card -- the remote.

This is not the only irony involved in this story, though. As the Associated Press reported earlier this week, the executive director of Burlington Telecom, Chris Burns, was only too happy to oblige the Defenders Council. He announced that the channel would be removed, but Mayor Bob Kiss put on the brakes until public reaction could be more thoroughly gauged. Perhaps in the meantime, the mayor will introduce the telecom director to the First Amendment, which, after all, is not only about the right to voice unpopular opinions but also about the right to hear them. If democracy is based on the notion that citizens best govern themselves by sorting through conflicting opinions in the marketplace of ideas, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a government entity to restrict the range of ideas about public affairs that are offered in that marketplace. It wholly contradicts the nation's democratic faith to believe that Americans are unable to distinguish between ideas that have merit and those that are spurious.

Beyond that, it seems to us that one of the gravest threats to national security in the 21st century is the extent to which America remains ignorant of the world and of how that world views this country. It is perhaps telling that BBC World, the BBC's round-the-clock news channel on which Al-Jazeera English was initially modeled, is also largely unavailable in the United States. In a dangerous world, Americans live in isolation at their own peril.

It is also worth noting that the English language service of Al-Jazeera recently hired as its new managing director Tony Burman, a former editor in chief of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. He plans to increase coverage of news in the United States heading into this fall's presidential election; invest in more news bureaus; and present “more provocative” news programming and investigative journalism. In short, Al-Jazeera English proposes to do what major American broadcast news organizations used to do.

Citing the Valley News editorial, the KEENE (NH) SENTINEL writes

What Al-Jazeera says
[I]t seems to us that one of the gravest threats to national security in the 21st century is the extent to which America remains ignorant of the world and of how that world views this country. It is perhaps telling that BBC World, the BBC's round-the-clock news channel on which Al-Jazeera English was initially modeled, is also largely unavailable in the United States. In a dangerous world, Americans live in isolation at their own peril ...

GREG GUMA REPORTS IN ON THE BT/AJE SITUATION

Greg Guma, author of The People's Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution, co-founder of the Vermont Guardian and former exec director of Pacifica, has written an overview about Burlington Telecom's dropping of Al Jazeera English in an article on Common Dreams and on his blog. The comments on the Common Dream article are worth a read, too.

AL JAZEERA ENGLISH COULD CHANGE THE WAY YOU SEE THE WORLD - IF YOU EVER GET TO WATCH IT

I attended yesterday’s meeting about Al Jazeera’s English language television programs continuing on Burlington Telecom. The meeting brought 100 or so people to the auditorum. Haik dropped in and has a few things to say.


The public comment was predictable. A majority of speakers wanted BT to continue broadcasting AJE and claimed the network brings more program diversity to Burlington; gives an alternative news (non-corporatist/consumerist) to viewers; is even a respected news source in Israel (a woman and I said that, actually); the issue is about free speech; if viewers didn’t like it, they could just not watch it, switch channels or turn it off. A minority of speakers said AJE in Burlington was an affront to the Jewish community here; maintained that AJE was hateful propaganda. Paul Decelles, a city councilor said he'd never subscribe because having AJE on the schedule is an insult to the veterans who have fought and died in Iraq and other American wars. (Actually, he's a free-market capitalist and doesn't want BT tied to the city.)

I also reminded the committee that BT's Chris Burns should be reprimanded for pulling the plug on AJE without having let them know of his decision or even asking for their advice.

I'm no judge, but the small coterie of zionists who complain that AJE is a propaganda assault on Jews are projecting: this local group has a political agenda, too: Victimhood. (I have rarely seen Israelis talk about the Roma, gay, communist or slav experiences during the holocaust. I will add that Ha'aretz's opinion pages are critical of Israel policy - funny how these kinds of views never came up last night; all this is O/T and possibly the subject of another post on here.)

There was a media presence. Channel 17 will no doubt have the meeting on its website. In identical stories by Dave Gram in the Times Argus and the Boston Globe (he’s the AP stringer here) I read:

Mousa Ishaq, a Palestinian born in the West Bank who has lived in Essex Junction for 30 years, said after the meeting that Al-Jazeera is not just an Arab propaganda organ, and that those urging its removal from Burlington Telecom would find some allies in the Middle East.

"Al-Jazeera has been kicked out of every single Arab country," he said. "Arab governments do not like Al-Jazeera."

Of course they don't: many governments in the Middle East (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait) are not democratic and oppress their citizens. Al Jazeera's in-depth reports on some of these countries goes against their rule!

So I did a quick google search “why arab governments don't like al jazeera” and found several reasons. The results also showed why our American government doesn't like AJE.

The following article below is more current (May, 2008) and even mentions BT’s carrying AJE. Read all of it for more background --

This headline should become a mantra for pro-AJE forces in Burlington!

Al Jazeera English Could Change The Way You See The World--If You Ever Get to Watch It

Stebbins says the U.S. government embarked on a campaign to deligitimize Al Jazeera's journalism. "I think we still live with the legacy of that campaign," he says of the Al Jazeera English network. "They still successfully manage to associate us with radicalism."

But Al Jazeera isn't radical, he argues. Its motto, Stebbins says, is "the opinion and the other opinion," and it encourages charged and open debate. At times, that debate can become heated, especially when it comes to U.S. foreign policy. "An Al Jazeera colleague said to me, the difference is that the Western media covers the war from where the missiles were fired," Stebbins says. "Al Jazeera covered it from where the missiles landed."

These below are older stories, but noteworthy:

al Jazeera awakens the Arab world

Neslen sees the channel reporting multiple viewpoints, journalism virtually unimaginable in the Western media, "a willingness to take risks in showing controversial images of the horrors of war, reporting from ‘behind enemy lines’, critical coverage of Saddam Hussein and George Bush alike and an avoidance of the 'news pool'."

A sign of the increasing interest being generated by al-Jazeera is the release of the film Control Room. Telling the story of how the channel decided and made the news during the Iraq war, the film has already broken box-office records in the US. With senior Bush officials accusing the station of anti-Americanism, an increasing amount of Americans clearly want to make up their own minds. The Christian Science Monitor highlighted the main thrust of the film: nobody has a monopoly on truth.

Al Jazeera and the Net – free speech, but don't say that

Essentially Al Jazeera's 'Iraqi propaganda' activities are no greater (perhaps even rather less) than those of many liberal media outlets. In the UK many of these have also been criticised by the government, but they have not been the subject of major hacking attacks, nor have hosting and services companies declined to do business with them. We should also clarify something regarding the footage of the prisoners and the dead servicemen; military spokesmen to the contrary, reproducing such images is not a breach of the Geneva Convention. The Geneva Convention is directed at governments, and does not cover news organisations. Al Jazeera has arguably broadcast images of the Iraqi Government breaching the Geneva Convention, but that is not the same thing.

To get this into perspective, note that one of the most striking pictures from the Vietnam war was of a South Vietnamese officer shooting a prisoner - do we argue that this should not have been published? If Al Jazeera had footage of an Iraqi shooting a British prisoner, should that be broadcast? The other way around? Are our standards today different from those of the 60s, or do the criteria differ depending on the nationalities of the participants and/or the audience? The answers are not straightforward, nor should they be. In deciding whether or not to report a story and how to report it news organisations have to take into account the motivation of the people they're covering, standards of taste and decency and likely impact on people involved, such as friends and family.

By Western standards Al Jazeera may have breached standards of taste and decency, and may not (again by Western standards) have sufficiently contextualised bin Laden and Iraqi exercises in propaganda. But by Middle Eastern standards Western media could similarly be accused of too readily parrotting propaganda in the other direction, and of too frequently operating a system of self-censorship. There's some merit to both points of view, the demise of Arnett being a good example of self-censorship, but there's no good reason for casting Al Jazeera into outer darkness - unless of course the problem is that its coverage has been increasingly reaching a Western audience.

AL JAZEERA COMES TO BURLINGTON

From Ken Picard/Seven Days about the "local matter" concerning censorship of news in Burlington:

AL JAZEERA will be covering today's Burlington Telecom Advisory Committee and the Citizen's Advisory Committee meeting today at the Contois Auditorium in Burlington's City Hall.

Be there at 4:00 p.m. to stand up for freedom, justice, and the American way. :-P

KISS BURNS GOOD-BYE? BT/AJE CONT'D....

Ken Picard reports on the 05/21/08 edition of Seven Days that Burlington's mayor, Bob Kiss, has stated that BT will not be dropping Al Jazeera anytime soon. Without getting advice or even informing the BT citizens advisory committee, Chris Burns of BT decided unilaterally to drop AJE. The BTAC will meet, maybe even take public comment [shocker!] at 4 p.m. next Tuesday in Contois.

There are a whole slew of letters on the BT/AJE deal in 7D (05/21/08), too.

And Haik Bedrosian on his blog continues to offer excellent comment and wise advice.

Democrats should not attack the mayor for stepping in. He's doing the right thing. A fledgling city department is veering off course and the mayor is responsible . So is the city council.

The Republicans may not philosophically agree with the city owning a telecom utility, but at least they understand it for what it is. Burlington Telecom is a political entity. There's no getting around that. I think that's great. Some people don't and believe all telecom utilities should be commercial or private. That's a debate we can have. But if the Dems try to accuse the mayor of politicizing what the Progs and the Republicans already know is political anyway, they run the risk of appearing out of touch and/or disingenuous. I hope they don't go there.

The fact is, this is a city department. There are oversight committees and there are processes. Burns cancelled the channel unilaterally without telling the oversight committees. That's un-democratic. This is a democracy, and Burlington Telecom is a public utility. If you want to infringe on someone's first amendment rights, you at least have to go through due process.

If y'all have time and the interest --

Open Forum: Open Government Committee

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

2nd Floor, Firehouse Gallery/City Arts

7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

If the BTAC meeting on Tuesday has not room for public comment, you'll have a chance to have your say on Wednesday. After all, BT is a city department whose focus is communication! Let's hope Channel 17, that Burlington bastion of free speech records these meetings and carries them live-stream on its nifty website!

IT'S YOUR NETWORK GOING DOWN THE TUBES

Haik as a brilliant post up about the continuing Burlington Telecom fracas... I couldn't agree more. It's a big deal, dear readers. Contact the BT oversight committee members and tell them to bring back Al Jazeera.

The Death of Burlington Telecom

Take away the soul and the philosophy and what have you got? A subscriber base of 2100 people who can't get their remotes to work. Your'e a cork in a tempest tossed ocean of Comcasts and Adelphias and Dish TVs. Nobody cares about you, little network. The only thing you had going was your commitment to free speech. The providence and the promise of opening up more and more channels of communication. The limitless possibilities.

Including Burlington Telecom, there are only two telecom providers in the United States broadcasting Al Jazeera English. Are we supposed to believe Al Jazeera wants to lose half its carriers in the United States? The choice is Burlington Telecom's to make.

There are 100 million people out there watching the Al Jazeera network. But here in America, with our so-called "freedom of speech" we don't have a choice. Virtually no one gets to see it. We should know what the rest of the world is learning. We should not be afraid of words and ideas. This isn't the middle ages.

Throughout time, whenever somebody has wanted to shut someone else up the thing to do is accuse the speaker of inciting civil unrest. I don't care if it's Galileo, Salmon Rushdie or Ozzy Ozbourne, the same dumb arguments get used. But let's examine the logical fallacy inherent in censorship, shall we? In order to know something deserves censorship, you have to watch it. If you watch it, then tell others not to, you're a hypocrite. If you don't watch it, and tell others not to either, you're an ignoramus.

A SPINNING TOP... AL JAZEERA & BURLINGTON TELECOM RUCKUS

I missed the Channel 17 5:25 call-in program yesterday regarding the BT/Al Jazeera commotion, so I don't really know what transpired. I did know that the regular group that has that Friday spot was unable to produce their show; some people, then, would say it was meant to be that Chan. 17 ran it. Good on Channel 17!

Thanks to BurlilngtonPol and others for keeping us up to speed: Haik has more disturbing news. We shouldn't let this story slide away. Today I did a cursory glance at the still user unfriendly new Free Press website for a report on this story: Bupkis

(Relatedly, Channel 17 features local activist Sandy Baird's commentary on the 60th anniversary of State Israel and the Palestinian exodus, the Naqba.)

WHO DECIDES ON CENSORSHIP?

SPREADING THE WORD - A POST WAS IN THE LOCAL FRONT PORCH FORUM --
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Al Jazeera pulled from Burlington Telecom

Censorship?

Who decides what Burlington Telecom cable subscribers watch and how is that decision arrived at? If you are concerned about Burlington Telecom's proposed pulling of Al Jazeera network from its line-up, come to Ch. 17 studios this Friday at 5:00pm to be part of a public conversation, there will be an opportunity for public comment and questions. Greg Eppler-Wood, Chairman of the Cable Advisory Committee and the Burlington Telecommunications Advisory Committee along with free speech advocate Sandy Baird, will talk about the process and the challenges of free speech within a municipally-owned cable provider.

When - May 16, 2008, Live at 5:25 - studio guests please plan to arrive by 5:00pm.
Where - 294 North Winooski Avenue, Burlington
More Info - Sam Mayfield, smayfield@cctv.org 862.3966 ext. 19

CHUTZPAH

In order to maximize the number of subscribers, the cable operator usually selects channels that are likely to appeal to a broad spectrum of viewers.

Burlington Telecom offers 135 TV channels in its most expensive bundle. That's not as many channels as other cable services offer, but it's still a wide array of "choices" for viewers. There's so much schlock and pap on there, most aren't worth watching -- Fox may be popular, but it certainly ain't news, right?

The AJR wrote in September, 2007 that Burlington was the first city in the US to offer cable access to Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera's arrival also can be attributed to the fiercely independent and free-thinking spirit of the state and to the left-leaning sentiments of its citizens. At last count, about 40 communities in Vermont had passed resolutions demanding President Bush's impeachment. The Vermont State Senate also approved a resolution asking Congress to initiate impeachment hearings against the president and vice president — the only state legislative body to have done so.

Such politics are coupled with a deep resentment among many Vermonters toward global media giants perceived as unchecked behemoths. Sanders, now an Independent U.S. senator, has organized two town-hall meetings focusing on media consolidation and cross-ownership. These gatherings are often standing-room-only affairs in which people lament media monopolies and their adverse effects on journalism and democracy.

Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that Al Jazeera's arrival on BT's cable lineup generated little controversy.

Wrong.

Apparently a small group of local Zionist malcontents have commplained about Al Jazeera's being on the line-up. Via BurlingtonPol, who got it from a blog I'm unfamiliar with, FlameApe, BT is dropping Al Jazeera. Haik calls BT a bunch of cowards, and they are. I've been watching Al Jazeera regularly on line for quite a while and they report much more than the US MSM does.

"JA... WILDERS. THAT'S THE NETHERLANDS, TOO"

Dutch MP Geert Wilders' release this week of his new film Fitma (an Arabic word for Ordeal), has received world-wide coverage. (Headline in today's Parool: 'The hype was better than the film'.) He not as flashy as Pim Fortuyn, another populist right-wing bigot politician who was assassinated in May, 2002. However Wilders + Fortuyn=media whore and do/did anything for attention.

Martin at Wis[s]e Words writes that it's not worth the bandwidth:

I don't really want to pay too much attention to his silly little film, because it is nothing but the usual warmed over Islamophobic cliches. You know the drill: the Islam is threatening your freedom, it wants to subjugate the entire world and kill all the unbelievers, it leads to terrorism (cue images of the September 11 attacks) and so on. Bo-oring.

Here's a short film produced by Radio Netherlands Worldwide about Fitma and Wilders -- and his effect on the multi-cultural Netherlands --

Security Hirsi Ali costs over €4m, Volkskrant

DutchNews.nl - Security Hirsi Ali costs over €4m, Volkskrant 3 October 2007

The cost of 24 hour protection for the former Dutch MP and outspoken critic of Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, must total at least €4m a year in bodyguards alone, says Wednesday’s Volkskrant.

Hirsi Ali returned unexpectedly to the Netherlands from the US earlier this week after the Dutch government refused to continue paying for her security in Washington where she has lived for the past year.

The Volkskrant bases its calculations on figures from the Netherlands’ biggest private security company Interseco and includes six bodyguards for round the clock cover. The cost of cars and secure accommodation is not included.

Justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin declined to give details on how much the government spends on protecting Hirsi Ali saying this could compromise her security, the paper says.

The Dutch government is prepared to go on paying Hirsi Ali’s security bills in the Netherlands but according to media reports on Wednesday, she is keen to return to the States and has asked for clarity on her position by Thursday.

The issue of Hirsi Ali’s security has divided MPs but according to today’s AD newspaper, a parliamentary majority is against the Dutch state paying for her security if she plans to live permanently in the US. Last week Hirsi Ali was given her green card allowing her to stay indefinitely in the US.

On Tuesday Hirsi Ali discussed the issue of her security with the national anti-terrorism coordinator Tjibbe Joustra but details of the discussion have not been made public.

‘It can’t be right to spend the taxpayers’ money of hard-working Dutch people in the US,’ Liberal (VVD) MP Laetitia Griffith is quoted as saying by ANP news service. Hirsi Ali was a VVD MP before leaving the country last year.

Although the GroenLinks have called for an emergency parliamentary debate on the issue, no date has been scheduled and it is uncertain wether it will take place.

DutchNews.nl Readers' comments
AEI has lots of money, but they won't pay for HA's security details. They also declined to commment.

I wonder if protecting Hirsi Ali in the US would be cheaper than in The Netherlands. After all, 1 US$ represents only 71 eurocents... nowadays

Dutch politician sets up Committee for ex-Muslims

Ehsan Jami, the eloquent, Persian-born, PVdA (Labour Party) polititican, committee founder, the Dutch male Hirsi Ali... much debated/debating rising star...best protected man in NL nowadays... who rejected Islam after the attack on the twin towers in 2001, has received death threats by Muslims, was physically attacked a few weeks ago and forced into hiding.

Mr Jami, 22, who has abandoned his studies as his political career has taken off, denied that the choice of September 11 was deliberately provocative towards the Islamic Establishment. “We chose the date because we want to make a clear statement that we no longer tolerate the intolerence of Islam, the terrorist attacks,” he said.

“In 1965 the Church in Holland made a declaration that freedom of conscience is above hanging on to religion, so you can choose whether you are going to be a Christian or not. What we are seeking is the same thing for Islam.”

But Maryam Namazie, chair of the Council of ex-Muslims in the UK who came to The Hague to sign a declaration of support for Ehsan Jami, doesn't see anything wrong with the date.

"If you're against the slaughter of people who were going about their daily business like New York and you're criticizing the movement that was responsible, what does that have to do with ordinary Muslims? I think that this is what political Islam often tries to do: equate themselves with all Muslims as a way of saying: 'If you criticise it, you're racist, you're attacking all Muslims'. That's not the case."

Fanatical Fear and Loathing

COUNTERPUNCH The Politics of Blind Hatred Who Are the Fanatics? --

Americans would be astonished at the criticisms in the Israeli press of the Israeli government's policies toward the Palestinians and Arabs generally. In Israel facts are still part of the discussion. If the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, could replace Fox "News," CNN, New York Times and Washington Post, Americans would know the truth about US and Israeli policies in the MIddle East and their likely consequences.

On September 1, Haaretz reported that Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, which represents 900 Congregations and 1.5 million Jews, "accused American media, politicians and religious groups of demonizing Islam" and turning Muslims into "satanic figures."

Read the rest: Who are the Fanatics?
by Paul Craig Roberts Counterpunch 5 September 2007