Representative Press Blog

Playing the Game

David Duff asks"...who exactly is doing all this 'suppressing' and *how* do they do it? Instead you make yet another assertion: "...and look at the degree of deception and manipulaion going into maintaining the support [for Israel].
In a country with a free press, TV and radio all competing with each other, to say nothing of the net, I can only repeat my question: WHO is doing the deceiving and manipulating, and exactly HOW do they do it?"

The editors and reporters are doing the deceiving and manipulating and they are doing it by going about doing it. This isn't complicated. Chomsky explains this on p111 of Understanding Power" Chomsky explains that a complicated filtering system arises because of the way the system functions. I think Chomsky would agree that even the hiring process is a filtering system, employers are aware of what these reporters have written in the past and have a sence of what they will write about and expecially how they will present topics to the public. Chomsky says, "the whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter. It weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on-because they're dysfunctional to the institutions."
Orwell wrote it is not an official ban, facts are kept out of the press "not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that particular fact." - text of Orwell's Preface to Animal Farm Make sure you buy a copy of Animal Farm with the preface. CLICK HERE: This copy does include Orwell’s proposed but unpublished preface to the original edition

Chomsky has explained (see p 112 of Understanding Power" ) "So take Tom Wicker at the New York Times: when you talk to him about this kind of stuff, he gets very irate and says, "Nobody tells me what to write." And that's perfectly true, nobody tells him what to write-but if he didn't already know what to write, he wouldn't be a columnist for the New York Times." Chomsky explains that people are either in those positions because they have internalized the understanding that there are certain things not proper to say so they "play the game" automatically or of course sometimes there are people who consciously "play the game."

I will add details about the Iraq War (see Big Media Refuses to Report this Basic Fact: Attacking Iraq Violates International Law), but to explain quickly, the media basically refused to report to the public that the war was illegal. Mr. Harper rationalizes that facts about the illegality of the Iraq War don't belong in the news but rather in opinion columns. There are the kinds of excuses guys like Doug Harper make with themselves. Notice too how poorly the media behaved, the Washington Post now says something like "gee whiz, we though the war was an inevitability so that's why we didn't have a focus on serious questions about WMD."

I will add details to this post but more examples are on p241 of "World Orders old and New". World Orders Old and New Specifically examples of facts being supressed about Israel. The NYT's Thomas Friedman is an example, he reviewed "Two decades of Seeking Peace in the Middle East" and the major Arab Iincluding PLO) intiatives of these two decades were excluded.

The suppression of the fact that Sadat offerd peace in 1971 is another example. "in its two-page obituary after Sadat's assassination, The Times not only suppresses the actual fats but explicitly denies them, sating that until his 1977 trip to Jerusalem Sadat was unwilling "to accept Israel's existance as a sovereign state." Newsweek refused even to print a letter correcting outright falsehoods on this matter by their columnist George Will, though the research department privately conceded the facts. (Chomsky spoke by telephone with teh reseach department and admitted Chomsky correctly pointed out the facts, whcih were reported back in 1971 even in Newsweek. But the game is to suppress them now so thye did) The practice is standard." See page 31 of "Pirates and Emperors, Old and New : International Terrorism in the Real World"

The out right fraud continues and people unwilling to deal with it continue to suppress it. Take Thomas Friedman and Doug Harper. I wrote Mr. Harper an email where I pointed out that Thomas Friedman is one of the people deceiving the public. Friedman writes, "the fact is that bin Laden never focused on this issue. He only started talking about "Palestine" after September 11, when he sensed that he might be losing the support of the Arab street." (p311 of Longitudes & Attitudes ) and "Osama bin Laden never mentioned the Palestinian cause as motivating his actions until he felt he was losing support in the Arab world." (p361-362 of Longitudes & Attitudes ) What Friedman has written is a flat out lie. To give just one example that disproves what Friedman wrote: "Your position against Muslims in Palestine is despicable and disgraceful. America has no shame. " - Osama bin Laden May 1998
I also have to wonder how in this invented scenario Friedman knows what bin Laden "sensed" about the Arab street.

Ok, in his email back to me, Mr. Harper omits the above paragraph and when he posted on his web site his letter which quotes my letter the above paragraph is omited. Mr. Harper doesn't want to tell his readers about this. He wasn't told not to post it, he is doing it to play along.

For God sakes, do you see how Harper behaves when the facts are laid out right in front of him? He refuses to see that the German AP story reported the story correctly. He refuses to acknowledge the facts when they are pointed out to him.

Mr. Harper insists, "You practically have to read between the lines to learn that there were dozens or hundreds of Americans who intervened to stop the abuse of Iraqi prisoners"

I said: No, you could read the third sentence of the German AP article: "The newspaper's sources are soldiers of the Oregon National Guard, who had tried to help the abused Iraqis", but that is not good enough for you.

Mr. Harper wrote, "Three parts of the story: prison abuse, U.S. soldiers do the right thing, U.S. commanders call them off, citing Iraqi sovereignty. The missing second element, in the German AP version, stokes the fuels of anti-Americanism in Europe by preventing the "good" American troops from being seen. That, to me, is a bias, intended or not."

I explained: The second element is not missing. Your inability to see it is the problem. I recommend "Understanding Power" by Chomsky, see p111 Please consider reading it.


Did you notice this? Doug Harper is so heavily indoctrinated that he can't see "the second element".
And he has a chip on his shoulder to boot. Harper wants to call names like "Chomskyite" and raise the barriers to honest debate so that he can't possible concede he was wrong.

Notice how he slinks off, never admitting the truth. After all the facts that are pointed out to him, he still prefers snide comments like: "David, does that make him a "Doubtless Thomas"?" and never gets around to responding to me directly about the final points I made. Did you notice that or not?