counterf**k has a lot of nerve talking about cherry picking today. i'm so tired of the crap ass show. i'm telling myself 'fair is not counterf**k, fair is not counterf**k' to avoid pulling the link to fair on my blogroll.
but i'm sick of that smarmy little show. and more so after a party tonight where i heard 1 complaint after another about it and how it was hurting the organization (fair).
today, steve rendell does the usual b.s. which is to note dexy's comments (c.i. covered it last friday in 'Post-Gazette editorializes it's time to leave, Dexy Rats Out') and rendell offers no criticism, NONE, of flikins. counterf**k is such a joke that we should all embrace janeane jackson's cackle and send it right back at the show.
if any 1's wondering, no counterf**k did not run any kind of clarification that their smarmy little crap about the cbs evening news last week was wrong. if you missed it (read the third estate sunday's review's 'Yapping Watchdogs Miss The Point'), counterf**k pondered of katie couric's alleged increase in soft news, 'could this have anything to do with the program's post-hype third place finish?'
but katie couric didn't come in 3rd for the week, she came in 3rd on monday, september 11th and though counterf**k couldn't tell you last week and wouldn't tell you today, almost a million people vanished from the overnights - almost a million viewers decided not to watch the network news monday, september 11th.
jeff cohen, in an interview, makes the point that fair goes after the new york times more than anything. not on counterf**k. no, on that show it's one pass after another. it's a pass today for dexy who's quoted but not critiqued, leaving listeners with the impression that dexy is a reporter that there's not reason to criticize (despite being identified by the washington post as the reporter the military went to when they needed to plant a story).
counterf**k is a joke and it's made itself a joke.
one friend c.i.'s brought it up in the roundtable we did doing tonight (for saturday's gina & krista round-robin) let it rip on counterf**k and if counterf**k can't get its act together, it is going to drag fair under.
jeff cohen notes how important fair is and i agree with that. but fair needs to grasp that counterf**k is listened to by the mainstream media and that the lack of facts on counterf**k is hurting fair's ability to be heard because it (a) plays favorites (such as when janine jackson interviews a mother jones reporter about a false link between 9-11 and iraq that was published in the new york times and the reporter identifies 1 of chris hedges 2 sources but jackson can't be bothered with asking, 'was hedges willing to tell you the name of the 2nd source who burned him?') and (b) appears grossly uninformed.
if counterf**k doesn't grasp the problems with dexter filkins' 'reporting' - not limited to his disney-fied version of the november 2004 slaughter of falluja - then that's a problem. if they grasp it but can't or won't comment on it, they need to realize doing that drags down not just their reputation but fair's as well.
i heard about that tonight at a party we attended, a party crowded with mainstream journalists. i finally asked, 'did every 1 hear listen to the show?' no. it was probably 3 out of 15 and the 3 had e-mailed and called the others throughout the day. but counterf**k is getting a bad reputation. not as a brave watchdog that calls out the mainstream, but as a program that looks the other way.
if fair wants to have any pull with their action alerts they better get it together on counterf**k. the 3 at the party that did listen to the latest show have listened to it enough to list all these examples - many of which i either missed or didn't notice if i heard that broadcast.
i don't mind the cackle (and the 1 who had called c.i. to complain about it identified himself, i thought it was some 1 else actually) but i do mind it when it comes when the work's not done. and that's the general attitude of the 14 who cornered me after a reporter identified me as the 1 who's not that crazy about counterf**k.
i'm not. i've noted that i think the program covers too many silly things (like playing a comedian's speech), but i believe i said then (this was at the time i was miscarrying and i'm not going to go back and read that post) that if it did it for you, listen. it wasn't for me.
but that attitude was before i heard tonight, in great detail, how much the show defeats the aims of fair by not doing its job and that's how the mainstream sees it.
if you've been called out by the show (for the record, no 1 was from fox 'news'), you probably do pay greater attention to see who else gets called out and, as 1 who had been called out noted tonight, 'i never acted as a plant for the government' (referring to dexy's being a go-to-guy for the u.s. military when they wanted to plant stories in the press).
and he had a solid point. there was no criticism of dexy. i've complained about that before. but tonight, hearing 15 reporters get very loud and vocal about how the so-called watchdog calls out this person or that but takes a damn pass on the propaganda guy for the military, i can tell you that the program is blowing fair's credibility. this included a reporter who leans left personally though not in print and felt like his mistake being noted was, indeed, fair until he noticed the things that were avoided. with dexy being noted and not criticized today, he was especially offended over what was a minor error (that the paper ran a correction on) leaving him targeted while i-sell-it-for-the-military dexy gets pass after pass.
they're blowing their credibility. i asked about media matters because i knew c.i.'s take on it and wasn't surprised that it was the same. (c.i.'s take on the way the media feels about the 2 - which is based on what friends in the press tell c.i.) media matters is more 'in your face' and doing much more work on any given day. that's allowed fair to take on a sort of 'prestige' as the older (i'd argue gentler) watchdog. but when that radio program does what it did today, it destroys fair's credibility.
and here's the thing, it shouldn't take reporters pointing that out. the fact that they refuse to criticize dexter filkins and his 'reporting' is enough to harm their credibility. there were others among the 15 who'd been called out by fair or the radio program and there wasn't a 1 who had done anything as non-journalistic as dexy.
if their purpose is to provide easy criticism and giggles, counterf**k should be quite proud. but if they want to have any real impact on the press, they need to start doing some work and showing some fairness because there is a huge backlash against what is seen as they're playing favorites and their refusal to hold every 1 in the mainstream media accountable by the same standards.
if any 1's offended by the comments above, they need to listen to counterf**k and take a good hard look at the content. fair's too important for the program to undermine the organization.
i heard about that for over a half hour. at which point, i needed a smoke. i dragged kat off with me to act as a buffer in case any 1 followed. (kat ended up taking a few drags off my cigarette so i guess i'm now the playground pusher of the cancer-stick set.)
by the way, her latest cd review is up today: "Kat's Korner: 'Mommy, May I Pet With Danger?'"
so read it already, you'll be rolling.
as always, addressing iraq, here's c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Friday, September 22, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, the 2700 mark for US military fatalities in Iraq looms ever closer (2697), the Defense Department learns (again) that the press makes the best lobbyist, and, as Democrats continue to run from Iraq, activists continue to speak out and organize.
Starting with peace news, Mima Mohammed (Los Angelse Times) reports on Helga Aguayo's statements regarding her husband, war resister Agustin Aguayo, who decided to self-check out September 2, 2006: "My husband has never broken a law and I am proud of him. He doesn't want to support the war -- he cannot do so conscientiously. He is a conscientious objector, but the Army forced him to become a resister." Helga Aguayo was speaking Wednesday at Camp Democracy (which continues free and open to the public through October 1st) in Washington, DC. and stated that her husband will turn himself in but he will not go to Iraq.
Also reporting on war resistance and Camp Democracy, Tim Wheeler (People's World Weekly) covers war resister Ricky Clousing's speech from this past weekend where Clousing noted what he saw "an innocent Iraqi killed before my eyes by U.S. troops. I saw the abuse of power that goes without accountability" and notes some of the torture techniques he observed and how Bully Boy "is seeking legal cover. . . . He is seeking another loophole to continue what they have been doing." Ricky Clousing announced at the Seattle Veterans for Peace conference in August that he would be turning himself in after self-checking out. He did so and that military has charged him with desertion and the war drags on . . .
While the military gets all the money they can grab (that's at the top, it never flows down to the enlisted). AP reports that today $70 billion more for quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan were added to the trough "as they wrapped up talks on a $447 billion Pentagon funding bill. The additional war frunds would bring the total approved by Congress for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan [. . .*] to more than $500 billion, with another installment likely to come next spring."
The bumper sticker reads: "Bully Boy illegal invaded Iraq and all I got was a mountain of debt."
"*"? AP feels the need to insert "since September 11, 2001" into the sentence for some unknown reason. Are they attempting to repeat the discredited "link" between Iraq and 9-11? Clearly Congress approved no war spending measures on September 11th. AP also notes that the Defense Department got what it wanted and AP ties it to those reports of an overstretched (economically) military. Again we ask the question of Thom Shanker and Michael R. Gordon's report (New York Times) today:"Is it news or is it fundraising?"AP also editorializes with this: "Even opponents of the war tend to support the measure because it supports U.S. troops in harm's way." Actually, cutting off the spending would cut the war. But don't rock the conventional 'wisdom' boat, don't tip the boat over. Which is apparently the m.o. for Dems when it comes to the November elections. Arianna Huffington (The Huffington Post) reports that the big plan revolves around stressing the economy and ignoring Iraq: "In poll after poll, voters place Iraq well above the economy when asked which issue will most affect their vote this year. And when you combine concerns about the war with concerns about terrorism/national security, it's the economy that is 'a distant reality.' Yet Democrats keep returning to the same domestic-issues-uber-alles thinking that cost them the elections in 2002 and 2004. They can't really believe that people are more interested in raising the minimum wage, middle class tax relief, and college affordability than they are in who's going to keep them from being blown up, can they? The Dems are like a bunch of crack addicts who know that the stuff is killing them, but keep reaching for the pipe."
This as Lolita C. Baldor (AP) reports that James Thurman (US "Maj. Gen.") loosens his grip on reality (further?) and claims that attacks on civilians in Iraq are down. Well pay it forward, Thurman. America can't afford universal health care but can pay $500 billion (and counting) for wars? Turman also stated that, "As we clean up the streets, we find a city capable of starting to function properly." Street cleaners? That's what US troops are being kept in Iraq for? No, they aren't street cleaners and Thurman needs to work a little harder at his illustrations (working harder at capturing reality might cause a blood vessel to explode so we'll accept the fact that he's an Operation Happy Talker and move on.)
In the real world (which Thurman is welcome to visit), Patrick Cockburn (Independent of London) reminds: "The pervasive use of torture is only one aspect of the utter breakdown of government across Iraq outside the three Kurdish provinces in the north. In July and August alone, 6,599 civilians were killed, the UN says." The torture, the UN has stated, is being committed by a variety of groups including 'government forces.' Tim Reid (Times of London) reports that the White House takes offense to the UN report and denies it. We all await Condi Rice trotting out her "No one could have guessed" line yet again.
Bombings?
AFP reports, that in Baghdad, two bomb detector/defusers were killed when a bomb they were attempting to defuse exploded. Reuters reports a civilian dead from a roadside bomb in Latifiyaand sixteen wounded from bombs in Baghdad.
Shootings?
AFP reports that four Iraqi police officers were shot dead in Baquba. AP reports that attacks on mosques and homes resulted in four shooting deaths in Baghdad. China's People's Daily notes that four houses were set on fire in the attacks. Reuters reports one civilian shot dead in Kirkuk and that Nomass Atout shot dead "near his house in Diwaniya".
Corpses?
KUNA reports that 48 corpses were discovered in Baghdad today. AP reports a corpse ("blindfolded . . . bound") was discovered in Musayyib. Reuters reports two corpses discovered in Mosul and a woman's corpse found in Kirkuk. That should be 64 deaths reported, counting corpses, thus far today.
Returning to peace news, Paul Hogarth (Beyond Chron) reports, " About 25 activists gathered at the Office of Supervisor Chris Daly yesterday to display the Code Pink Peace Ribbon Quilt, and to kick off the Declaration of Peace Week of Action. The Declaration, which has been endorsed by over 180 peace and justice organizations throughout the country has three basic platforms: (1) bring our troops home now, (2) establish a plan to end the war in Iraq, and (3) prevent future U.S. invasions such as Iran, Syria or North Korea."
