Holding a ‘Go Donald!’ Media Accountable for ‘Normalizing Extremism’

Calling out media for enabling a “grave threat to democracy.”

By Janine Jackson
Great Britain won’t actually ban Donald Trump from the country but Parliament did spend time taking seriously what was called Trump’s “poisonous, corrosive” effect on public discourse. At the same time, actors, writers and others, including Harry Belafonte, Eve Ensler and Noam Chomsky, launched a Stop Hate Dump Trump campaign, that included serving notice to media that they “are accountable for normalizing Trump’s extremism by treating it as entertainment, by giving it inordinate and unequal air time and by refusing to investigate, interrogate or condemn it appropriately.”

For some journalists, this might provoke questions: Reporters can’t ignore public figures, but is there daylight between covering news of a person and providing them a near-constant, legitimizing megaphone?

For media executives, though, the main question seems to be: What time does the bank open?

I’m thinking of a report from December by Lee Fang at The Intercept (12/10/15), about how, with visions of campaign ad dollars sparkling in his eye, CBS chief executive Les Moonves cheered on Trump’s candidacy at an investor presentation: “The more they spend, the better it is for us, and: Go Donald! Keep getting out there!”

This was after Trump’s comments about Mexico sending rapists to the US and his call for Muslim Americans to have to “register” with the government.

In an earlier investor meeting, Moonves had joked, “Looking ahead, the 2016 presidential election is right around the corner and, thank God, the rancor has already begun.”

The same media companies that behind the scenes cheerfully acknowledge a preference for rancor or extremism if it keeps candidates spending money, and lobby furiously against campaign finance reforms that might interrupt their cash flow, also—Fang reminds us—present themselves as neutral observers of the electoral process.

Moonves may have said, “This is fun, watching this, let them spend money on us…. We’re looking forward to a very exciting political year in ’16″—but that doesn’t mean that media companies just see green rather than red or blue. They don’t care only about profit-making, but also about maintaining the policies and laws that protect that profit-making.

Which may be why, when asked about electoral politics by Time magazine in 2004 (9/27/04), Sumner Redstone, then executive chair of CBS and Viacom, said, “Viacom is my life, and I do believe that a Republican administration is better for media companies than a Democratic one.”

___________________
Janine Jackson is the host of CounterSpin and the program director of FAIR.

Reprinted with permission from Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.

The CIA Created the Label 'Conspiracy Theorist' To Combat Questions on its Role in the Kennedy Assassination — Here's the Memo

The CIA was concerned that not enough Americans were buying into the report on the assassination of president John F. Kennedy issued by the Warren Commission. So the CIA issued a memo on how to deal with the "conspiracy theories" (a term coined by the CIA) on JFK's murder. A close look at the 1967 memo suggests that pundits in mainstream media are still using talking points that come almost verbatim from that CIA memo. Here's one of the most overused CIA-provided talking points: "Claim that it would be impossible for so many people to keep quiet about such a big conspiracy." — Sound familiar?

Photo by Lucie Höhler.

By WTStaff

[...]

In 1967, the CIA Created the Label “Conspiracy Theorists” … to Attack Anyone Who Challenges the “Official” Narrative

Conspiracy Theorists USED TO Be Accepted As Normal

Democracy and free market capitalism were founded on conspiracy theories.

The Magna Carta, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and other founding Western documents were based on conspiracy theories. Greek democracy and free market capitalism were also based on conspiracy theories.

But those were the bad old days …Things have now changed.

The CIA Coined the Term Conspiracy Theorist In 1967

That all changed in the 1960s.

Specifically, in April 1967, the CIA wrote a dispatch which coined the term “conspiracy theories” … and recommended methods for discrediting such theories. The dispatch was marked “psych” – short for “psychological operations” or disinformation – and “CS” for the CIA’s “Clandestine Services” unit.

The dispatch was produced in responses to a Freedom of Information Act request by the New York Times in 1976.

The dispatch states:

2. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization.

The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.

3. Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the [conspiracy] question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active addresses are requested:

a. To discuss the publicity problem with and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors) , pointing out that the [official investigation of the relevant event] made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by … propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation.

b. To employ propaganda assets to and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (II) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories.

4. In private to media discussions not directed at any particular writer, or in attacking publications which may be yet forthcoming, the following arguments should be useful:

a. No significant new evidence has emerged which the Commission did not consider.

b. Critics usually overvalue particular items and ignore others. They tend to place more emphasis on the recollections of individual witnesses (which are less reliable and more divergent–and hence offer more hand-holds for criticism) …

c. Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States, esp. since informants could expect to receive large royalties, etc.

d. Critics have often been enticed by a form of intellectual pride: they light on some theory and fall in love with it; they also scoff at the Commission because it did not always answer every question with a flat decision one way or the other.

f. As to charges that the Commission’s report was a rush job, it emerged three months after the deadline originally set. But to the degree that the Commission tried to speed up its reporting, this was largely due to the pressure of irresponsible speculation already appearing, in some cases coming from the same critics who, refusing to admit their errors, are now putting out new criticisms.

g. Such vague accusations as that “more than ten people have died mysteriously” can always be explained in some natural way

5. Where possible, counter speculation by encouraging reference to the Commission’s Report itself. Open-minded foreign readers should still be impressed by the care, thoroughness, objectivity and speed with which the Commission worked. Reviewers of other books might be encouraged to add to their account the idea that, checking back with the report itself, they found it far superior to the work of its critics.

Here are screenshots of part of the memo:

Summarizing the tactics which the CIA dispatch recommended:

• Claim that it would be impossible for so many people to keep quiet about such a big conspiracy


• Have people friendly to the CIA attack the claims, and point back to “official” reports


• Claim that eyewitness testimony is unreliable


• Claim that this is all old news, as “no significant new evidence has emerged”


• Ignore conspiracy claims unless discussion about them is already too active


• Claim that it’s irresponsible to speculate


• Accuse theorists of being wedded to and infatuated with their theories


• Accuse theorists of being politically motivated


• Accuse theorists of having financial interests in promoting conspiracy theories

In other words, the CIA’s clandestine services unit created the arguments for attacking conspiracy theories as unreliable in the 1960s as part of its psychological warfare operations.

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Donald Trump Talks at a 4th-Grade Level. Maybe That’s Why the Fox News Audience Loves Him

The culture of anti-intellectualism in America is fueling hateful, racist demagogues -- in politics and on TV. While study after study demonstrate that political conservatives are relatively stupid.

Illustration provided by Graham Richardson.

___________

"Several studies even found a positive correlation between how often one watches Fox News and the degree to which one’s worldview is misinformed."

By Phil Torres
It’s a cliché to say that democratic states can’t function properly without an informed electorate. But it’s absolutely true. And this is why, heading into the 2016 election year, I’m nervous about the future. With Donald Trump leading the Republican presidential contenders, even many Republican die-hards are shaking in their boots.

But Trump isn’t the cause, just the symptom. The deeper cause is a strain of anti-intellectualism that runs through the roots of American culture. And while this strain is found on both sides of the political spectrum (see some liberals on vaccines and chemtrails), it’s mostly concentrated among religious conservatives on the political right. For those who espouse anti-intellectualism, conspiracy theories have the same clout as legitimate science, the opinions of non-experts are just as credible as those of the experts, and ideology takes precedence over the cold hard facts.

The US has fostered a culture of anti-intellectualism more than “most other Western countries.” While traveling through Europe and the UK for extended periods of time, I’ve often been quite envious of how respectful other countries are toward those with knowledge in the fields of science and the humanities. In the UK, for example, it’s generally not seen as “uncool” to have a higher degree from a good university. Often, it confers the degree-holder a certain social respect and admiration. Many of the top comedians in the UK have attended institutions like Oxford and Cambridge, including Michael Palin, Eric Idol, John Cleese, David Mitchell, Richard Ayoade and Stephen Fry. And shows such as “QI,” which combines academic discussions with uproarious, irreverent humor, are popular hits.

Not only is the U.S. unique for its love affair with anti-intellectualism, but this romantic relationship appears to have grown stronger over the past few decades. A primary reason for this is no doubt the huge influence that conservative media have had on American culture, such as Fox News, which is currently the most trusted news network in the country. The problem is that “Fox News” is a misnomer. The network is, to quote Jon Stewart, more of a “relentlessly activist” organization for conservative causes than an intellectually honest conveyor of information. Indeed, there are to date at least seven academic studies that have found that Fox News’ viewership constitutes the most misinformed audience out there.

From climate change to healthcare, the Iraq War to the country of Obama’s birth (no, it’s not Kenya), denizens of Fox News are more confident about falsehoods than viewers of any other news network. Several studies even found a positive correlation between how often one watches Fox News and the degree to which one’s worldview is misinformed.

What’s most dangerous about Fox News, though, isn’t its cynical use of Orwellian doublespeak, as in “Fair and Balanced” and “No Spin Zone,” to conceal a conservative agenda. Nor is it the network’s repeated failure to accurately report the facts. Rather, the most dangerous consequence of Fox News is that it discourages that most important form of rigorous curiosity called critical thinking. If people want a single phenomenon to blame for the gradual decline of the American empire, direct your wagging finger at the devaluation of critical thinking skills.

It’s not an accident that Fox News wants an audience that isn’t preoccupied with carefully dissecting complex social, political, economic and religious issues. Critical thinking is perhaps our very best strategy for apprehending the true nature of reality, and as the great comedian Stephen Colbert once declared, “reality has a well-known liberal bias.” In other words, critical thinking could lead to liberalism — or worse, to that most dreaded form of liberal fanaticism called secular progressivism.

Scientific studies actually back up this line of reasoning. Consider a 2012 studypublished in Science, one of the most prestigious journals in the world. This study found that when people are prompted to use their critical faculties, they become less likely to affirm religious statements. In other words, there’s a causal link between “analytical thinking” and religious disbelief. Perhaps this is why the Republican Party of Texas literally wrote into its 2012 platform that, “We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs [that] have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs.” God forbid children start questioning their “fixed beliefs” about religion — or politics.

Yet another peer-reviewed paper found that people who think “deliberately” and “effortfully” about certain topics tend to express more liberal views. As the authors put it, “political conservatism may be a … consequence of low-effort thought,” meaning that, “when effortful, deliberate thought is disengaged, endorsement of conservative ideology increases.” Moving from how people use their brains to the brain’s innate capacity, multiple studies have reported that liberals (and atheists) have higher average IQs than conservatives. One study even found that low childhood IQ predicts conservative and racist beliefs later in life. It follows from such data that the divide between right and left isn’t just about differing social, political, and economic philosophies. It’s also about the the role of the intellect in determining our normative worldviews.

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Big Media Protects White Men: ‘Willing to Kill’ Extremists Turned Into Peaceful ‘Rancher’s Rights Protesters’

By Ben Norton
Of all extremist groups, the far right is consistently given the kindest news coverage in US corporate media. This weekend, the world witnessed a prime example of such friendly treatment in action.

Armed far-right anti-government militants occupied a federal building in Oregon late on January 2 and announced they would remain there indefinitely. Although the armed occupation was ostensibly organized to protest the imprisonment of ranchers on arson charges, the ultra-conservative militants made it clear from the beginning that they were willing to use violence, and hoped to inspire a larger anti-government uprising.

Major US media outlets ignored these basic facts, nevertheless, instead characterizing the far-right militants as peaceful “ranchers’ rights protesters” and “activists.”

The armed occupation was organized by Ammon and Ryan Bundy, sons of right-wing extremist Cliven Bundy. Cliven led a similar standoff with the federal government in 2014, in which scores of heavily armed far-right militants occupied federal land, many pointing guns at government authorities. No militants were killed, or even injured, in the incident.

When the ongoing Oregon occupation began, the extremists said they would use violence if need be to fight what they deemed government “tyranny.” Early on the morning of January 3, Ian Kullgren, a politics reporter for the Oregonian local newspaper, spoke with Ryan Bundy, who told him the far-right occupiers are willing to kill and be killed.

I talked to Ryan Bundy on the phone again. He said they're willing to kill and be killed if necessary. #OregonUnderAttack

— Ian Kullgren (@IanKullgren) January 3, 2016

The armed militants stressed to Kullgren that they are “ready to die”:

Bundy said feds' actions are violation of constitution. Founding fathers were ready to die, and so are they. #OregonUnderAttack

— Ian Kullgren (@IanKullgren) January 3, 2016

Before the occupation began, participant Jon Ritzheimer posted a declaration on YouTube (12/31/15; Indian Country, 1/3/15) in which he encouraged the head of the ranching family to “die a free man” fighting the “oppressive, tyrannical” federal government, and announced he was “100 percent willing to lay down my life to fight against tyranny in this country.”

There were few photos of the armed occupation at this time, but Guardian photographer Jason Wilson visited the site on the night the occupation began, and shared a picture of the extremists with heavy weapons. Wilson’s photo made it indisputable, from the start, that the militants were armed. Many media reports would later question or even downright ignore this fact.

This is as close as I was allowed to get to the armed militia occupying the Malheur Wildlife Refuge HQ. #burnsoregon pic.twitter.com/DPztu0VsVU

— Jason Wilson (@jason_a_w) January 3, 2016

The Associated Press, which many local outlets rely on for coverage of national and international news, released one of the earliest reports on the incident on the night of January 2. The piece began:

A peaceful protest Saturday in support of an eastern Oregon ranching family facing prison terms for arson was followed shortly afterward by an occupation of a building at a national wildlife refuge.


Peaceful protest in Oregon rancher arson case followed by building takeover at national wildlife refuge: https://t.co/nsIKxQlyIu

— The Associated Press (@AP) January 3, 2016

Leading with the description of a “peaceful protest” suggested that this movement–led by people willing to “kill and be killed”–was a nonviolent one. This article did not make it clear that the militants were armed; in fact, it implied they weren’t, reporting:

Some local residents feared the Saturday rally would involve more than speeches, flags and marching. But the only real additions to that list seemed to be songs, flowers and pennies.

(The pennies were a reference to protesters throwing pennies at the courthouse doors to signify that “civilians were buying back their government.”)

AP published a more detailed follow-up piece on the night of January 3 with the ambiguous, contextless headline, “Oregon Standoff Latest in Dispute Over Western Lands.” This article did point out in the opening line that the right-wing occupiers are armed and motivated by “anti-government sentiment.”

The New York Times (1/2/16) was similarly vague in its reporting. The leading US newspaper employed the passive voice to obscure who was responsible for the armed occupation. “Wildlife Refuge Occupied in Protest of Oregon Ranchers’ Prison Terms” was the headline for its report—glossing over the fact that those occupying this federal installation were armed right-wing extremists prepared to use lethal force.

The New York Times (1/3/16) published a follow-up piece that conveyed in the headline that the occupiers were armed: “Armed Group Vows to Continue Occupation at Oregon Refuge.”

NBC (1/3/16) characterized the militants as “rancher’s rights protesters.” It headlined its report on the story “Ammon Bundy, Rancher’s Rights Protesters Occupy Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.”

NBC euphemistically referred to the extremists as “reportedly armed protesters,” even though its report was published hours after the Guardian photographer Wilson publicly shared the aforementioned photo showing that the militants were heavily armed.

The Wall Street Journal (1/3/16) initially titled its report “Protesters Occupying Oregon Wildlife Refuge Ask Militia Members to Join Them.” Later, the Journal acknowledged that the militants were armed, changing the headline of the piece to “Oregon Armed Protest Leader Says Group Will Defend Occupied Building.”

Reuters (1/3/16) headlined its report “Protesters Occupy Oregon Wildlife Refuge as Dispute Over Western Range Flares,” again euphemistically characterizing the right-wing extremists as mere “protesters.” Only in the middle of the piece did Reuters acknowledge that the militants are armed.

Numerous news outlets employed similarly misleading tactics, downplaying the extremism of the armed occupation and ignoring details that had been widely known hours before.

CNN, for instance, described the paramilitary occupation as an “armed protest” and the militants as “armed protesters” in its interview with extremist leader Ammon Bundy.

In general, large corporate media conglomerates were much more euphemistic in tone and acontextual in their reporting. Smaller independent media outlets tended to be more accurate. Mashable (1/3/16), for instance, reported on “the armed militants occupying a federal building in Oregon.”

The double standards in reporting were striking, particularly compared to the way in which US media treated Black Lives Matter civil rights protests and victims of police brutality. Media outlets have frequently characterized peaceful Black Lives Matter activists as dangerous, with protests in Ferguson, Missouri, blamed on “outside agitators.” Corporate media are quick to jump on sketchy claims of African-American and left-wing threats, as with claims of an “anarchist plot to ambush cops on Halloween” or a “Teen Purge” in Baltimore, but when actual right-wing militants openly declare an armed insurrection against federal “tyranny,” that somehow fails to alarm journalists.

This hypocrisy was vociferously condemned on social media.

Terrorist: To be, or not to be- that is the question #OregonUnderAttack pic.twitter.com/rTVQMSnS1q

— Carlos Latuff (@LatuffCartoons) January 3, 2016

If only people of color could were privileged enough to be labeled a "militia" when occupying federal building w/ guns. #oregonunderattack

— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) January 3, 2016


Did I miss the call for the national guard in Oregon? I recall them in Ferguson and Baltimore. #OregonUnderAttack

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) January 3, 2016

The infamous “terrorism” double standard was sometimes remarked upon in corporate media itself. The Washington Post (1/3/16) published an op-ed asking “Why Aren’t We calling the Oregon Occupiers ‘Terrorists?'” CNN (1/3/16) ran a more forceful opinion piece, “Face it, Oregon Building Takeover Is Terrorism.”

Media double standards vis-à-vis far-right extremism are a commonplace by this point. The hands-off response of the government—which said it had no plans to deal with the armed occupation—is striking, if not unexpected; the response of the media even more so.

As much as the right complains about the US media’s supposed “liberal bias,” news outlets were enormously euphemistic and gracious in their portrayal of the Oregon occupation. Such graciousness is not extended to other extremist groups.

___________
Ben Norton is a journalist and writer based in New York City. He is currently a politics staff writer at Salon. His website can be found at BenNorton.com, and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton.

Reprinted with permission from Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.

CNN Cites Racist Twitter Trolls to Undermine Black CEO Who is Pushing for Diversity: Claims 'CEO Takes Heat for Diversity Remarks' - The 'Heat' Came from Right-Wingers and Neo-Nazis

CNN sites tweets by @_AltRight_ and @PoliticalShort. But a close look at @_AltRight_'s timeline reveals anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and anti-gay rants and attacks on working women "who are on strike against bearing children."  A look at @PoliticalShort's timeline reveals @PoliticalShort tweeting stuff like, "Obama sympathizes with Islam" and a photograph of Donald Trump in a car pointing a gun and saying, "Get in, Pussy. We're making America Great again."

It appears that CNN deliberately used racist twitter to undercut the diversity goals of an African-American corporate CEO.

By Sara Ashley O'Brien
Rosalind Brewer, CEO of Sam's Club, said she prioritizes diversity at the company. And she's getting a lot of heat for it.

In the interview with CNN's Poppy Harlow that aired last week, Brewer talked candidly about her commitment to diversity.

CNN cited this Twitter user as one of the critics of an African-American CEO that should be taken seriously.
The CEO, Rosalind Brewer, was attacked by racist trolls for trying to bring diversity to corporate America.

"I demand it of my team," said Brewer, who is the first woman and first African American to lead a division within Walmart, which owns Sam's Club.

She said she also talks to her suppliers about diversity: "Every now and then you have to nudge your partners. You have to speak up and speak out. And I try to use my platform for that. I try to set an example."

Brewer, who has been CEO since 2012, shared an anecdote about meeting with one supplier earlier that day.

"The entire other side of the table was all Caucasian male," she said. "That was interesting."

She said that while she chose not to address it with everyone in the room, she was "going to place a call" to the supplier.

That comment spurred a lot of backlash. People called Brewer a "racist" and encouraged a boycott of Sam's Club stores using the hashtag #boycottracistsamsclub.

Sam's Club is anti-White, Boycott them. Boycott Walmart as well. #BoycottRacistSamsClub
— Alt Right (@_AltRight_) December 15, 2015

DYK that the official stance by @SamsClub is to discriminate against White people as CEO Rosalind Brewer explains https://t.co/aWQrAWzx1m
— Nick Short (@PoliticalShort) December 14, 2015

Hundreds of social media posts in past day have contained the hashtag, according to Keyhole, a real-time social tracking company. The vast majority of these posts have come from male users.

Doug McMillon, Walmart President and CEO, is in Brewer's corner.

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The American Newspapers that Praised Hitler

The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, The Cleveland Press, The New York Herald Tribune, and The Columbus Dispatch were among the newspapers that had kind things to say about The Führer.

By Rafael Medoff
“The train arrived punctually,” a Christian Science Monitor report from Germany informed its readers, not long after Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. “Traffic was well regulated” in the new Germany, and policemen in “smart blue uniforms” kept order, the correspondent noted. “I have so far found quietness, order, and civility”; there was “not the slightest sign of anything unusual afoot.”

RELATED STORY: Who Funded Adolf Hitler? - The Answer Might Surprise You

As for all those “harrowing stories” of Jews being mistreated—they seemed to apply “only to a small proportion”; most were “not in any way molested.” Overall, the Monitor’s dispatch declared, the Hitler regime was providing “a dark land a clear light of hope.”

Why did many mainstream American newspapers portray the Hitler regime positively, especially in its early months? How could they publish warm human-interest stories about a brutal dictator? Why did they excuse or rationalize Nazi anti-Semitism? These are questions that should haunt the conscience of U.S. journalism to this day.

Some of the U.S. press coverage of Hitler’s first weeks in power was rooted in unfamiliarity with the man and his movement. The Nazis had risen from barely 18 percent of the national vote in mid-1930 to become Germany’s largest party only two years later, and gained power just months after that. Knowing little about Hitler and Nazism, many American editors and reporters assumed, based on previous experience, that a radical candidate would show some restraint once in office.

An editorial in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin on Jan. 30, 1933, asserted that “there have been indications of moderation” on Hitler’s part. The editors of The Cleveland Press, on Jan. 31, claimed the “appointment of Hitler as German chancellor may not be such a threat to world peace as it appears at first blush.” Frederick Birchall, Berlin bureau chief for The New York Times, found “a new moderation” in the political atmosphere following Hitler’s rise to power.

Events on the ground quickly overtook those optimistic predictions. Soon after Hitler assumed power, all Jews were dismissed from government jobs and ousted from a wide range of other professions, from dentistry to the movie industry. Sporadic anti-Jewish violence erupted throughout the country—and was amply reported in the American press. The Chicago Tribune described assaults in which Jews were “hit over the heads with blackjacks, dragged out of their homes in night clothes and… taken off to jail and put to work in a concentration camp.” The New York Evening Post reported that “an indeterminate number of Jews… have been killed. Hundreds of Jews have been beaten or tortured. Thousands of Jews have fled. Thousands of Jews have been, or will be deprived of their livelihood. All of Germany’s 600,000 Jews are in terror.”

Yet some American journalists presented a very different view of Germany. Birchall of the Times, in a March 12 radio broadcast from Berlin, reported that “German violence had been spent” and predicted that “prosperity and happiness” would soon prevail. A page-one dispatch from the New York Herald Tribune’s Berlin correspondent on March 25 asserted that while the situation of German Jewry was “an unhappy one,” many atrocity stories were ”exaggerated and often unfounded.”

[...]

Some American editors and reporters perceived Nazi actions against Jews not so much as attacks on Jews per se, but rather as resentment over some aspects of the Jews’ own (alleged) behavior.

The New York Herald Tribune’s Berlin correspondent, John Elliott, claimed the Nazis were targeting Jews not because of their “race,” but because they were political opponents of the Hitler regime. According to Elliott, even Albert Einstein was “detested by the Nazis more for his pacifism than for his Jewish blood.”

The editors of The Columbus Dispatch believed the Nazis were reacting to the “large Jewish element in the financial, commercial, professional, and official life of present-day Germany.” A Christian Science Monitor editorial declared that it was the Jews’ own “commercial clannishness” which “gets them into trouble.”

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Big Media's Psychological Warfare Against Social Media?: San Bernardino 'Terror Couple' DIDN'T Post 'Pro-Jihad' Statements on Social Media — Says FBI

Psy-Op Targeting Americans?: Corporate media, political pundits, politicians, and stooges representing various intel agencies have used the "they posted pro-jihad statements on social media" myth to justify mass surveillance of social
media accounts.

By Colin Lecher
After reports suggested that San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik posted support for jihad on social media before receiving a US visa, the Department of Homeland security is reportedly reviewing its practices, and presidential candidates are weighing in on the visa vetting process. But FBI Director James Comey is disputing that the posts were easily visible on social media.

Comey reportedly said that the two San Bernardino shooters communicated in "direct, private messages," and that the agency has "found no evidence of posting on social media by either of them at that period in time and thereafter reflecting their commitment to jihad or to martyrdom." He said reporting suggesting that they had posted publicly on social media was "a garble," according to The Washington Post.

It's unclear what medium Comey was referring to when he said "private messages," although other reporting this week has suggested Malik sent private Facebook messages about jihad to a small group of friends. Comey has previously said the couple had similar discussions as far back as late 2013. Other reports, citing a Facebook source, had suggested that Malik posted support for ISIS from an alias account as the shooting was unfolding.

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How Big Media Put Donald Trump In Front: Trump and Bernie Sanders Have Similar Percentages - ABC Gave Trump 80 Minutes, Sanders 20 Seconds

As Trump Surges, New Polls Underscore Corporate Media's 'Bernie Blackout'

'The corporately-owned media may not like Bernie’s anti-establishment views but for the sake of American democracy they must allow for a fair debate in this presidential campaign.'

By Lauren McCauley
New Wall Street Journal/ NBC News polling numbers out Sunday showed that Donald Trump continues to lead the wide and varied Republican presidential field and—despite increasingly inflammatory rhetoric—reached a new high with 27 percent support.

The latest survey comes on the heels of an analysis by the Tyndall Report which showed that media coverage of Donald Trump eclipses that of all his rivals from both parties.

According to the study of nightly news programs on NBC, CBS and ABC, Trump has received more network coverage than all the Democratic candidates combined and accounts for 27 percent of all campaign coverage thus far.

What's more, there appears to be a concerted "blackout" of news about Bernie Sanders, despite similar voter support.

As Eric Boehlert at Media Matters for America pointed out this week, "The network newscasts are wildly overplaying Trump, who regularly attracts between 20-30 percent of primary voter support, while at the same time wildly underplaying Sanders, who regularly attracts between 20-30 percent of primary voter support."

In fact, ABC World News Tonight devoted a total 81 minutes this year to Donald Trump's campaign and just about 20 seconds to Sanders' candidacy—a ratio of 81:1 which Boehlert calls a "stunning revelation." This comes despite the fact that a recent poll found that Sanders would beat Trump by eight points in the general election.

In a campaign statement, Sanders' campaign manager Jeff Weavers said that media channels were ignoring the progressive candidate because his campaign is an affront to the corporate-dominated system.

"The corporately-owned media may not like Bernie’s anti-establishment views but for the sake of American democracy they must allow for a fair debate in this presidential campaign," Weavers said. "Bernie must receive the same level of coverage on the nightly news as other leading candidates."

The campaign has even begun a petition calling on corporate-owned channels to "start covering Bernie."

Commenting on the stark divide on Sunday, columnist Juan Cole suggests that with Trump's anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant messaging propelling some followers to take drastic action, the corporate media may be posing a "danger to society."

Cole writes:

What better for corporate news. You pretend there isn’t a candidate in the race addressing growing economic inequality or the woes of the working class. You put all the spotlight on someone who insults and even incites against Mexican-Americans, African-Americans and Muslim-Americans. It is a tried and true tactic of the American business class to keep the workers and middle class divided by playing up minor ethnic issues. The end result, however, is fire-bombing of mosques and attacks on minorities and other white hood phenomena familiar from past epochs of American history.

For his part, the U.S. Senator from Vermont continues to lead Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire with 50 percent of likely Democratic voters in the state, compared with her 40 percent, according to the latest CNN/WMUR tally. Meanwhile, a Fox News survey released on Sunday found Clinton leading Sanders in Iowa 50 to 36 percent.

Reprinted with permission from Common Dreams.

Donald Trump is an Example of How Relying On TV for Your Main Source of Information Will Rot Your Mind

It's not an accident that his attention span lasts exactly one news cycle. He's exactly like the rest of America, except that he's making news, not following it – starring on TV instead of watching it. Just like we channel-surf, he focuses as long as he can on whatever mess he's in, and then he moves on to the next bad idea or incorrect memory that pops into his head... He surely believes he saw that celebration of Muslims in Jersey City, when it was probably a clip of people in Palestine. When he says, "I have a great relationship with the blacks," what he probably means is that he liked watching The Cosby Show.

— Matt Taibbi

Illustration by DonkeyHotey

It's Too Late to Turn Off Trump: We can't change the channel on the culture he's exposed

By Matt Taibbi
Some people in the news business are having second thoughts this week about their campaign strategy. They're wondering if they created a monster in Donald Trump.

The LA Times published a piece about how the tone of Trump's TV appearances has changed, now that's he's fully out of the closet as an aspiring dictator, with his plans to ban all Muslims and close the Internet and whatever else he's come up with in the last ten minutes.


The paper noted that the candidate had unusual trouble on Morning Joe, a show that usually doubles as Trump's weekly spa treatment:

"Typically, the billionaire TV personality is able to bluster his way through morning talk shows. But Trump had an unusually contentious appearance Tuesday morning on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe,' where co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski grilled him on his proposals to keep Muslims out of the U.S....

"'It certainly puts the burden on the people conducting the interviews to be tougher the more controversial his comments are,' Scarborough told The Times after the exchange."

The paper went on to dig in to the ethics of covering Trump:

"Trump represents something of a quandary for the media, especially TV networks. Privately, TV news producers acknowledge that Trump has turbocharged their ratings…"

Essentially, TV news producers are wondering: "How do we keep getting the great ratings without helping elect the Fourth Reich?"

In the same piece, Joe Scarborough said the problem was that Trump gives such great access to the media, just like John McCain did in 2000. "When John McCain was letting members of the press on his Straight Talk Express bus," Scarborough explained, "other Republicans always said he got the benefit of the doubt."

In other words, Trump is so open and accommodating with the press that it makes it hard for reporters to hammer his insane ideas. Scarborough doesn't seem to realize it, but that's a pretty damning admission.

There are some people now who are urging the media to ignore Donald Trump, and simply not cover him. But it's a little late for that.

The time to start worrying about the consequences of our editorial decisions was before we raised a generation of people who get all of their information from television, and who believe that the solution to every problem is simple enough that you can find it before the 21 minutes of the sitcom are over.

Or before we created a world in which the only inner-city black people you ever see are being chased by cops, and the only Muslims onscreen are either chopping off heads or throwing rocks at a barricades.

This is an amazing thing to say, because in Donald Trump's world everything is about him, but Trump's campaign isn't about Trump anymore. With his increasingly preposterous run to the White House, the Donald is merely articulating something that runs through the entire culture. It's hard to believe because Trump the person is so limited in his ability to articulate anything. Even in his books, where he's allegedly trying to string multiple thoughts together, Trump wanders randomly from impulse to impulse, seemingly without rhyme or reason. He doesn't think anything through. (He's brilliantly cast this driving-blind trait as "not being politically correct.")

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The White Heroin Crisis:  Do White Pundits and TV Producers Have a No-Snitch Policy On Exposing Crises in the White Community?

Scot Nakagawa has criticized William Schneider of MSNBC for using Asian-Americans—thirty-eight culturally distinct groups—as a model minority, arguing that Schneider is aiming to shame black people by comparison. He contends that such labeling conceals the problems—like sex trafficking and poverty—that afflict some Asian-American communities.—Ishmael Reed

Photo by Iqbal Osman.

Why We’re Shocked by White Heroin Use

Do White pundits and TV Producers Have a No-Snitch Policy On Exposing Crises in the White Community?

By Ishmael Reed 
The way former Kremlinologists were able to detect trends behind the Iron Curtain was to read the poems of Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Andrei Voznesensky. My white students have been writing poems for years about dysfunctional behavior behind the lesser-known “Suburban Curtain.” They write about absentee white fathers who were “tourists” in their homes or absent parents who gave them money, which they spent on drugs. “Debutantes sniffing cocaine from dirty toilet seats” appeared in my student J. Cody Peterson’s “La Jolla. In 3 Acts,” about one of California’s high-income cities.

Now suddenly, that curtain has been drawn back. Three MSNBC moderators—Tamron Hall, Andrea Mitchell and Luke Russert— were recently shocked to discover that white people use heroin. Hall said white people are not the image that one usually associates with the drug. On April 17, Mitchell said that she came to focus on the heroin epidemic only when the governor of Vermont addressed it in a speech. On April 18, Russert described Connecticut as an “unlikely” zone for heroin use. “Unlikely” because for decades the media have associated heroin with black people. And even when filming addicts in a clinic and concealing the identity of three white men, MSNBC showed the face of a black addict who was seeking help.

Black people and families were first diagnosed with a “tangle of pathologies” in Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s notorious 1965 The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. He said black women were on the way to creating a new species, even though any matriarch on welfare at the time was likely a member of the senator’s own tribe: Celtic-American. Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, a pop-sociological update on Moynihan’s themes, is also of Scots-Irish descent. Now National Review writer Kevin Williamson, author of a recent article about Appalachia called “The White Ghetto,” cites a tangle of pathologies among white people of Scots-Irish descent.

Why turn this incriminating lens from black people to white people? There have been reports of drug epidemics in white communities since at least 1995, when on March 20 of that year The New York Times reported, “The typical person whose death is related to heroin in the Philadelphia area is likely to be white, employed and living in a middle-class suburb.”

Since the 1990s, the epidemic in white rural and suburban areas has grown. No curtain is big enough to draw across the suffering on display, with 669,000 Americans using heroin in 2012, a 65 percent increase from 2002. A recent film, Gateway to Heroin, quoted a Boston undertaker who had buried “hundreds” of white kids who had died from opiate overdoses. Another filmmaker attuned to the problem of the white underclass is Debra Granik, with her award-winning films Down to the Bone and Winter’s Bone.

Maybe if the pundits and reporters had paid attention in 1995, almost twenty years ago, the problem wouldn’t be as devastating. At the time, a study emerged indicating that all was not well in suburbia. A 1997 SUNY study surprised its authors when their interviews with white women revealed that 92 percent of those interviewed had experienced battering or had seen their mothers or sisters battered. “Domestic violence is not a phenomenon found only in poor and working-class homes,” Weis said in a press release, but is “found widely in very privileged homes as well.” Weis added that the 31 black women respondents were much more open about the violence they saw and experienced. “The white women in the study, on the other hand, were very secretive,” Weis wrote. She speculated that such secretiveness served to protect the popular image of family life in the white community and that shame and secrecy were encouraged by the media focus on demonizing black people.

Do white pundits, reporters and TV news producers have a no-snitch policy on exposing social crises in the white community? While popular culture, novels, film and theater portray the black boogeyman as a threat to women (more so than the mostly white men who deny Medicaid to the poor and send black and Hispanic women to prison for drug crimes), white men’s treatment of white women is rarely discussed. I’ve challenged the white men who finance black boogeyman products to address the issue of domestic violence against white women. Why isn’t Nicholas Kristof on this?

Meanwhile, Scot Nakagawa has criticized William Schneider of MSNBC for using Asian-Americans—thirty-eight culturally distinct groups—as a model minority, arguing that Schneider is aiming to shame black people by comparison. He contends that such labeling conceals the problems—like sex trafficking and poverty—that afflict some Asian-American communities.

The latest shedding of light on the “tangle of pathologies” in the white community is to be encouraged. Better late than never. Maybe no longer will the white community be treated as Lake Wobegon, with the black community as a sort of waste disposal across the tracks for the country’s social problems.


Originally published in The Nation,  June 4, 2014

The Racist Brainwashing of Big Media, Hollywood & Science Continues Unabated — Recent Examples

Softening Depictions of White Criminals and
leaving the Black Ones Looking 'Hard'
These men were charged with the same crimes. But for the whites,
an Iowa newspaper used their yearbook photographs, while
they used mugshots for the blacks.

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Racial Brainwashing in Science

The skin color of prehistoric or stone age Europeans is almost always depicted
like that of the man on the left, when it should be more like the man on the right.

A recent gene study* concluded that a stone-age hunter had blue eyes and "dark, African skin". But an Illustrator (left) couldn't resist drawing a typical white man for an article about the finding. This is often how Western archeologists and historians move Africans from the center of human history to the periphery. On the right, is a depiction of the "first Europeans," created by a forensic scientist and derived from 35,000-year-old fossilized fragments of skull and jawbone
discovered seven years ago.

By Ronald David Jackson

Archeology and Ancient History is often "gentrified"* in its depictions of the stone-age peoples of Europe. A recent gene study on the remains of a 7,000-year-old "Mesolithic European" published in Nature, emphasized the man had dark skin, and dark or brown hair." “This guy had to be darker than any modern European, but we don’t know how dark,”said, Dr Lalueza-Fox, one of the authors of the study quoted in article published in Forbes. Interestingly, the original title of the Forbes article was "Stone-Age Hunter Had Blue Eyes And Dark, African Skin" but was changed to "Blue-Eyed African Caveman Found In Europe."

RELATED STORY: How Modern Europeans Only Arrived 5,000 Years Ago - According to Latest Genetic Study

Lalueza-Fox's study didn't supply any illustrations of exactly what their 7,000-year-old man with "dark African skin" may have looked like, yet in the illustration accompanying the Forbes story (see above, left) , the skin color is that of a typical European. This is how Western Archeologists and Historians often wipe Africans and other non-whites from history. On the right, is a depiction of the "first Europeans," derived from 35,000-year-old fossilized fragments of skull and jawbone discovered seven years ago. The clay sculpture was created by a leading British forensic scientist, Richard Neave. The first "modern" humans are believed to have evolved in Africa and migrated around the world about 60,000 years ago.

*Analysis of this genome in the context of other ancient samples suggests the existence of a common ancient genomic signature across western and central Eurasia from the Upper Paleolithic to the Mesolithic. The La Bran˜a individual carries ancestral alleles in several skin pigmentation genes, suggesting that the light skin of modern Europeans was not yet ubiquitous in Mesolithic times. Moreover, we provide evidence that a significant number of derived, putatively adaptive variants associated with pathogen resistance in modern Europeans were already present in this hunter-gatherer...

"Of the ten variants, the Mesolithic genome carried the ancestral and non-selected allele as ahomozygote in three regions:C12orf29 (a gene with unknown function), SLC45A2 (rs16891982) and SLC24A5 (rs1426654) (Table 1). The latter two variants are the two strongest known loci affecting light skin pigmentation in Europeans20–22 and their ancestral alleles and associated haplotypes are either absent or segregate at very low frequencies in extant Europeans (3% and 0% for SLC45A2 and SLC24A5, respectively) (Fig. 2). We subsequently examined all genes known to be associated with pigmentation in Europeans22, and found ancestral alleles in MC1R, TYR and KITLG, and derived alleles in TYRP1, ASIP and IRF4 (Supplementary Information). Although the precise phenotypic effects cannot currently be ascertained in a European genetic background, results from functional experiments20 indicate that the allelic combination in this Mesolithic individual is likely to have resulted in dark skin pigmentation and dark or brown hair. Further examination revealed that this individual carried theHERC2 rs12913832*C single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and the associated homozygous haplotype spanning theHERC2–OCA2 locus that is strongly associated with blue eye colour23. Moreover, a prediction of eye colour based on genotypes at additional loci usingHIrisPlex24 produced a 0.823maximal and 0.672 minimal probability for being non-brown-eyed (Supplementary Information). The genotypic combination leading to a predicted phenotype of dark skin and non-brown eyes is unique and no longer present in contemporary European populations. Our results indicate that the adaptive spread of light skin pigmentation alleles was not complete in some European populations by the Mesolithic, and that the spread of alleles associated with light/blue eye colour may have preceded changes in skin pigmentation."

Derived immune and ancestral pigmentation alleles in a 7,000-year-old Mesolithic European,  Nature  (2014)  doi:10.1038/nature12960

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Turning Biblical History and the Bible 'White'

By Ronald David Jackson
In the very beginning, Mother Mary and Baby Jesus were usually depicted as black and this was considered the norm, as demonstrated by the early "Black Madonnas" that can be found throughout Europe: Our Lady of the Hermits in Einsiedeln, Switzerland (above: top, left), Our Lady of the Pillar in a Gothic Cathedral in Chartes, France (top, right), and Our Lady of Jasna Gora in the Jasna Gora monastery at Czestochowa, Poland (bottom, left), which arrived in Poland in the 1300's and was said to have been discovered in Jerusalem. However, today almost all of the depictions of Mary and Jesus look indisputably Caucasian, like the one painted by Giovanni Battista Salvi Da Sassoferrato (bottom, right), in the mid-1600's.

In America, almost all depictions of Mary and Jesus are white, even in African American churches and homes. This is how modern Christianity moves Africans from the center of biblical history to the periphery. That is, when Africans are discussed in biblical history at all. Racism's apologist often contend that those who point out such racial discrepancies are being "overly sensitive" or "racial" and are "playing the race card." God and Christianity "has no color" they often say. But they see no "race card" when Mary and Jesus are depicted as white.

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Gentrifying Ancient Egyptian History
Almost every time Hollywood producers or documentary makers create a film
about Ancient Egypt, the Egyptians look like this:

Yet almost every time authentic Ancient Egyptian artifacts are unearthed,
the Ancient Egyptians look like this:

This is often how Western archeologists, historians and documentary makers move Africans from the center of Ancient Egyptian history and culture to the periphery. It's like claiming "Columbus discovered America" and helped usher in "civilization" when in fact he was lost when he landed on the island of Hispaniola (now called Haiti and the Dominican Republic) in 1492. By that time the Americas had already been populated with high civilizations like the Incas and the Aztecs. Some, like the Maya, where established in the Americas as far back as 2600 BC.

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Making Non-White Children Believe They're 'Ugly'
Many cartoons embed a racial message about beauty when it comes to "race."
Monitor what your children watch on TV or the Internet or they may
fall prey to sinister producers with racial agendas.

If you can stomach this poison, you can watch the entire episode HERE

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Walt Disney Was A 'Bigot' - Says Meryl Streep: Was She Correct?

By Tim Appelo

The actress accused the mogul of being sexist, racist and anti-Semitic, but experts who have dug in to the icon's controversial legacy say the truth is more complicated.

Meryl Streep caused eyebrows to raise throughout Hollywood with her appearance Jan. 7 at the National Board of Review awards ceremony at which she attacked Walt Disney as a man who “had some racist proclivities” and “supported an anti-Semitic industry lobbying group and [was] a gender bigot.” Streep, who is starring in the Disney studio's big-screen adaptation of the musical Into the Woods, which will be released next Christmas, was on hand to present a best actress trophy to Emma Thompson, who plays Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers opposite Tom Hanks’ Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks.

Has Disney Changed Much?

Top: The Princess with the 'Dastardly Villain' - Bottom: The Princess with the 'Man of Her Dreams'
From Walt Disney's, "The Princess and the Frog"

“I thought, ‘Oh, wow, she didn’t have to do that,’ ” says one startled awards consultant. “She’s giving an award to Emma Thompson for a film that’s sort of a love letter to Disney! But she’s Meryl Streep -- she can say whatever she wants.” Says one male Academy member of Streep: “What a silly woman! How the hell does she say that? Pick on a dead guy whom she didn’t know.”

Continue Reading...

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High Fashion Magazines Often Send A Message
About 'Beauty' and 'Race'

The fashion magazine Cosmopolitan, paired photographs of whites and non-whites, and informed its readers that the beauty of non-whites didn't measure up.

Charged with same crime, Iowa paper shows black suspects’ mug shots but whites get yearbook pics

By David Ferguson
In Iowa newspaper is accused of pro-white bias after it handled the same alleged crime between two different sets of suspects in radically different ways.

Blogger Rafi D’Angelo at SoLetsTalkAboutIt.com pointed out that in reports filed on successive days, the The Gazette in Cedar Rapids printed mug shot photos of black burglary suspects and yearbook photos for white burglary suspects.

On March 23, the Gazette‘s Lee Hermiston reported that three University of Iowa wrestlers were arrested after being caught in possession of several items that had been stolen from local homes in Marion, Iowa. The three suspects — Ross Lembeck, Seth Gross and Logan Ryan, all 19 and all white — were shown in the Gazette‘s pages in the their freshman yearbook pictures, wearing matching coats and ties.

According to the Gazette, “The three wrestlers were charged with possessing alcohol under the legal age. Lembeck was charged with drunken driving. Gross was charged with interference with official acts because he fought with officers, police said. Ryan was cited and released.”

They are accused of at least seven burglaries in the area.

On the same day, Hermiston reported on four African-American suspects charged with a burglary in Coralville, Iowa, but this group of suspects — Kwain E. Crawford, 36; Milton Whitehead, 50; Quentin D.W. Eatman, 24; and Curtis J. Johnson, 29 — were all pictured in their police mug shots.

The four men were charged with breaking into a residence on March 20 around 4:00 a.m. and assaulting the occupants. They were reportedly looking for a gun, but left instead with a TV, around $240 in cash and a cell phone.

Currently, the Gazette‘s website shows mug shots of the wrestlers, but D’Angelo obtained screen shots of the original article.

Someone on the Gazette‘s original Facebook thread about the article pointed out the disparity, only to have another commenter say, “Good point other than it’s safe to say those blacks didn’t have school pics…”

Another commenter said, “Why are they referred to as ‘wrestlers?’ Are they wrestling in the story? I though they were burglars.”

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Cosmopolitan Gets Dragged on Twitter For ‘Racist’ Beauty Guide

By Clutch
If you’ve ever wondered who Cosmopolitan’s magazine’s main demographics were, a recent beauty article may answer that question. Cosmo decided the best way to capture what’s out and what’s in – when it comes to beauty- was to do side-by-side pictures of celebrities and models.

But here’s the kicker. The ‘outs’ were all Black women. The ‘ins’ were all white women.

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