GULFS AND GULFS OF BLOOD

BILL O’REILLY AND TOM SHALES DEBATE MEDIA BIAS

TWO VIEWS OF FIDEL CASTRO

Being a creature of the past, I thought of 1965 as the TV news this morning excitedly reported that the Senate had given the President a big “victory” by a 77-23 margin. I thought about the another gulf and another war. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution that gave an earlier President, Lyndon Johnson a mandate to make war on Vietnam. Only two Senators had the guts then to stand yp against the bulldozer of patriotic sentiment, arm twisting, media manipulation, information management, pulsating propaganda and a national consensus shaped by elite opinion makers. Six million people paid the price, and history, to borrow a phrase from Fidel C’s 1956 “History WilL Absolve Me” Speech (about whom I will have more to say). The sorid history of that war ‘absolved’ the dissenters and damned the majority who in later years would regret the tragedy of it all and then promptly forget the lessons.

THE UN IS NEXT

Now .the Administration Juggernaut moves back to Turtle Bay in New York City where the UN Security Council will be rolled over with carrots and sticks to join in playing the game of regime change. Significantly, a not an hour two after the Senate capitulated, the Nobel Committee announced it would honor another American president, Jimmy Carter, a human rights proponent and peacemaker in his senior years with the prestigious Peace Prize. That decision shows another gulf in world opinion between the a managed US public and the rest of the world.

While most of the media scores this as a big win for Bush push, few outlets speculate on the number of civilian casualties to come. Reuters is reporting that the US military now has a plan to occupy Iraq which suggests that their regime will become ours. ( “U.S. Has a Plan to Occupy Iraq, Officials Report : The White House is developing a detailed plan to install anAmerican-led military government in Iraq if the U.S.topples Saddam Hussein.”)

A BRIGHT SIDE?

Liberals at Washington’s Economic Policy Institute are putting a brighter spin on the House vote which has also been taken as a vindication of White House hegemony not warning of a growing split in domestic politics. They say; “Despite tremendous pressure from the White House, 133 lawmakers voted against the Bush-Gephardt war resolution (H.J.Res.114). Among the 296 “yea” votes, numerous Representatives expressed deep misgivings with regards to voting in favor of the Bush-Gephardt war resolution.

“The absence of unreserved support for the President’s war resolution conveys opposition to the President’s pre-emption doctrine,” declared Gulf War veteran and EPIC Executive Director Erik Gustafson. “We are encouraged to see many Members of Congress courageously take a step further by altogether rejecting the President’s request of war authority.”

“On both sides of the aisle, congressional offices report getting flooded with letters, faxes, calls and emails from constituents who oppose a war in Iraq. Feeling this pressure and expressing fears about the risks involved with a U.S. war in Iraq, some Republicans broke ranks with their party by refusing to grant the President’s request for war authority.”

The most provocative quote of the day comes from a Yale University Constitutional law professor of my acquaintance, Jack Balkin, “Thepresident is right about one thing. . . Today the world faces a single manarmed with weapons of mass destruction, manifesting an aggressive, bullyingattitude who may well plunge the world into chaos and bloodshed if hemiscalculates. This person, belligerent, arrogant, and sure of himself,truly is the most dangerous person on Earth. The problem is that his name isGeorge W. Bush, and he is our president.”

IS FOX NEWS BIASED? (IS WATER WET?) BILL O REILLY v TOM SHALES

Ok, now that my leanings are out and before I continue to violate the Faux News dictim of ” We report, You Decide,” we bring you a snatch of a recent conversation on media bias between Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales and Fox News Commisar Bill O Reilly:

“O’REILLY: … what is it about this network that rankles you?

SHALES: This whole phony no-spin thing. I mean, come on. You — this is the objective network, and all the others are, you know, subjective, whatever the opposite is. Come on. You lean to the right, and you think the others lean to the left. So you’re entitled to lean to the right.

O’REILLY: Is it you — I mean, are you talking about me or are you talking about the network?

SHALES: Well, I’m talking about you the network. I don’t know about you personally.

O’REILLY: Yes, but I’m different than the network. I mean, you know, this…

SHALES: You asked me about the network…

O’REILLY: Right.

SHALES: … not about you. I’m answering…

O’REILLY: So you think the network leans…

SHALES: … your question.

O’REILLY: … leans to the right? Now do you object…

SHALES: Yes. Everybody does.

O’REILLY: … to that?

SHALES: No. You know what? I think this is perfectly fine. If you want to lean to the right, go ahead. If you lean…

O’REILLY: Then why do you…

SHALES: … far enough, you fall over.

O’REILLY: But why do you dislike us so much?

SHALES: Because I don’t lean to the right, and I — I like to…

O’REILLY: Ah-ha!

SHALES: I like to get the news straight.

O’REILLY: Ah-ha. This is offends your sensibility in — all right.

SHALES: No.

O’REILLY: You just said it. You don’t like the network because you don’t…

SHALES: I’d like to get things straight. I’d like to get the straight news. I would like there to be no — absolutely no prejudice or bias at all…

O’REILLY: Well, we do…

SHALES: … and that would be a wonderful world if we could have that.

O’REILLY: OK. We do a news analysis program here. Do you have a problem with THE O’REILLY FACTOR news analysis program?

SHALES: Well, no. This is your show with your signature on it.

O’REILLY: OK, but is it — do you have a problem with news analysis at all?

SHALES: As a practice? As an art form?

O’REILLY: Yes. As a practice on television.

SHALES: No, of course not.

O’REILLY: All right. So you don’t have any problem with the way we conduct ourselves.

SHALES: Just separate the two things….”

AM I SEEING THINGS? MICHAEL MOORE PRAISED BY NY POST

It is easy to talk about “separating the two things” when so much of the news process is invisible involving who you talk to and who you don’t, how many sources you use, how carefully you check what you report etc etc. I will say this about Rupert Murdoch and his minions. They seem less unwilling to have outspoken critics on than CNN and the other ostensible middle of the road networks. Also I was surprised and delighted this moring to find the New York Post giving a rave review to Michael Moore’s new film BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE which opens in New York and LA this weekend. Somehow it is more timely than ever — dealing as it does with gun violence in the USSA — while the DC area sniper continues his senseless spree of killing. Yesterday, the killer claimed his ninth victim, giving all the TV News shows something to focus on other than war with Iraq.

WHO ARE THE TERRORISTS?

The debate over media bias in reporting from the Middle East continues to rage. Here’s Amira Hess of Ha’aretz, the brave Israeli journalist who reports from Palestinian areas on the use of words like terrorist in that context: “A Palestinian is a terrorist when he attacks Israeli civilians on both sidesof the Green Line - in Israel and the territories - and when he attacksIsraeli soldiers at the gates of a Palestinian city. A Palestinian is aterrorist when an army unit breaks into his neighborhood with tanks and heshoots at a soldier who gets out of a tank for a moment, and he is aterrorist when he is hit by helicopter fire and is holding a rifle.Palestinians are terrorists whether they kill civilians or soldiers.

“The Israeli soldier is a fighter when he shoots a missile from a helicopteror a shell from a tank at a group of people who gather in Khan Yunis, afterthe fighter or one of his colleagues fires a shell or a missile at a house -from which the army says a Qassam rocket was fired - and kills a man andwoman. He is a fighter when he encounters two armed Palestinians in thebrush. The Israeli soldier kills armed people and kills civilians. He killssenior commanders of battalions of murderous terrorists and he killskindergarten-aged children and the elderly in their homes. More accurately,they are killed by IDF fire. Most accurately, they are killed, claimPalestinian sources.

“The security authorities and the legal authorities chase down every singlePalestinian terrorist. Hundreds are arrested and interrogated forinformation about a single person. This is war, but the Palestinians are notarrested as prisoners of war who have immunity from interrogation and trial.Their names are known, every detail of the investigation and the chargesheets against them are open and can be published. If and when a weakinvestigation actually identifies an Israeli soldier who deviated (meaninghe killed or used his weapon improperly, or looted, or abused people atcheckpoints), his identity remains concealed. In hundreds of other cases,the army says “we are unfamiliar with the complaint.” In thousands of othercases, nobody bothers anymore to ask the IDF.”

FIDEL ON TV AND IN A NEW FILM

Tonite, 20/29 fans will be treated to Barbara Walters latest interview with Fidel Castro., There is some kind of chemistry between those two., 25 years ago, when she did her first interview with Castro, traipsing after him in the Cuban countryside, I remember seeing the unedited transcript of the original interview which had been purloined and leaked to the underground press in which Fidel’s more political points were mostly edited out. His Barbara’s preview of her program tonight appeared in an email that ABC is circulating.

“But that was then. This is now. This past Sunday I returned to Havana andfound a city that had changed little since my last visit, but a man who has.First of all, Castro came to our interview (held in the so-calledPresidential Palace) wearing not his usual khaki fatigues, but a navy bluesuit and tie. His beard is now gray but except for a stiff knee, he seems ingood health.

“This interview also lasted almost three hours, primarily because Castro keptaffirming the same themes - the accomplishments of his socialist society. Heis, however, extremely complimentary about the American people and obviouslyis anxious to have normal relations. He refused to be drawn into a debateabout President Bush’s demands on Cuba, which could lead to a lessening ofthe embargo. He was, however, vehement in his denial of the accusations bythe U.S. State Department, which recently accused him of giving falseinformation on terrorism and producing biological weapons.

“”They are absolute lies,” Castro said.” See ABC for more. If you want a more textured and less sanitized view of Castro make sure you see Estela Brava’s new documentart Fidel. Here is her description of her film. It might be fun to watch both reports, compare and contrast: “The new documentary film by Estela Bravo, FIDEL, offers a unique opportunity to view the man through exclusive interviews with Castro himself, historians, public figures and close friends, with footage from the Cuban State archives. †

Alice Walker, Harry Belafonte, and Sydney Pollack discuss the personality of the man. †Former and current US government figures including Arthur Schlesinger, Ramsey Clark, Wayne Smith, Congressman Charles Rangel and a former CIA agent offer political and historical perspectives on Castro and the long-standing US embargo against Cuba. †Family members and close friends, including Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, offer a window into the personal life of Fidel. †Bravoís camera captures him swimming with bodyguards, visiting his childhood home and school, joking with Nelson Mandela, Ted Turner and Muhammad Ali, meeting Elian Gonzalez, and celebrating his birthday with members of the Buena Vista Social Club.” It opens in New York in two theaters on Oct 18th.

MEDIA NEWS ROUNDUP (See Mediachannel front page too!)

On the media front, the New York Times reports that the FCC has finally found a merger too blatant to approve. The Times reports:”Saying the deal isn’t in the public’s interest, federalregulators blocked the merger of the nation’s two largestsatellite television broadcasters.”….The always well done Media Unspun carries an excellent summary of the latest on Germany’s media biggie, Bertelsmann.

“Bertelsmann’s newest biography is a damning potboiler. The subject? The company’s own Nazi collaboration in World War II Germany. Having fessed up to its Third Reich past, how quickly will Bertelsmann be able to leave it behind? That depends on the outlet you’re reading.

“Bertelsmann’s self-fiction had for years cast it as part of the Resistance. According to media outlets, the new report — commissioned by Bertelsmann — four years in the making and 800 pages in length, describes Bertelsmann as a Nazi collaborator that made use of Jewish slave labor to print materials distributed to Adolph Hitler’s troops. The report also noted that the company’s leader at the time, Heinrich Mohn, was a patron of the SS. “Built on a lie,” was how the British newspaper the Independent characterized the news. The Financial Times pointed out that Bertelsmann didn’t just make money during the rise of the Nazi party. It profited mightily. As the peach paper put it, Bertelsmann’s entire success is “thanks to its subservience to Nazi ideology.” The London Times chimed in by noting that it was by publishing fare such as “Bombers and Machine Guns Over Poland” that Bertelsmann was able to grow to the empire whose stable of authors now includes Danielle Steele and John Grisham…”

PBS: GOOD NEWS AND BAD

On the PBS front, I watched a rather boring Frontline on Missile Defense last night that rehashed all the arguments about this multi-billion dollar boondoggle. I know I should have watched it all, but I have grown to old too toleraate Newt and the Fear brigade.Following that film in New York was a more compelling intriguing and hard to watch documentary on the bloodletting in Liberia, a country once considered “America’s step child.” It was done by Liberians and showed how the US abandoned the country to chaos, and killing during the Reagan Administration. (:”The White House said we had no interests there,” said one official with a smirk of guilt and disgust.”) So much for Washington’s concern with people in other lands. The film showed the bloodshed without flinching. Scary.

The story that I posted here about my experience with PBS on our film about Florida continues to generate response. One person wrote Voter March: “There’s lots of unhappy people out here who’ve been lobbying our congressional reps and demonstrating against the destruction of U.S. democracy. Sounds to me like it’s time for us to turn that energy to PBS. Think about all those endless Public TV drives for viewer donations…Meanwhile, we are getting more and more requests for copies as in Brian’s email from Hanover: ‘ Having read about Mr. Schechter’s documentary, I’d be interested in screening it up here in Hanover– just thing to get our local politburo riled up. Please, how could this be arranged?” Some good news: The film will be shown on New York’s Channel on the ay before election day. The bad news: It will be screened after midnight when Charlie Rose signs off. At least some folks will see it. See: http://www.itvs.org/coungtingon democracy for a list of other stations carrying the show. To order copies, call 800-343-5540. Find out if it is running where you live.

A “MEDIA MERGER” WE LIKE

Finally, may I express all of Globalvision’s admiration and congratulations to two of our favorite people who met during the production of our South Africa Now series more than a decade ago. Mark Burns and Yvette Tomlinson will be having their own media merger today with a wedding on New York’s posh upper East Side. Mark is a fabulous editor who left us for more lucrative work at the networks. Yvette went on to graduate with a Spike Lee scholarship from the NYU Film School and go on to an emerging career of producing and directing features. We send all of our love and support. And, congrats. Too, to Jimmy C for his long overdue recognition.

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