Hide the Photos of the Maimed and the Dead, so the War Looks Sterile, Glorious and Successful.

They hide the dead to help the "fight for freedom." Most corporate news organizations have been cheerleaders for the wars waged by the party in power.  They curate the experience for you to spare you the trouble of thinking.  Think of Afghanistan. And see here.  Raw photography would end almost every war, so that's why you are not permitted to see the photos, especially photos of up-close suffering, maiming of civilians and death, in the corporate media. Not in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Iran or anywhere else that the US fights for "freedom." Robert Fisk, Robert Fisk (1946–2020) was a highly regarded British journalist and author:

I always remember when Madeleine Albright announced that Israel was under siege. For a brief moment, I asked myself, if there were Palestinian tanks in Haifa. How do we reach a stage where we so distort reality that we actually have a lethal effect on the conflict itself? The worst example of this, I'm sorry to say, is television, the way in which, unless an Iraqi is obliging enough in a war to die romantically beside the road in silhouette with all his arms still attached, you do not see the dead for viewers of television, not in the Arab world, I might add that in the West we do not see the dead, and thus our leaders, all of whom at the moment have ZERO experience of real war--the journalists do, but not our leaders in the West--they are able to present, to the public, war as a bloodless sand pit. War as something primarily to do with victory and defeat rather than death, which is exactly what is about on a large scale. War represents the total failure of the human spirit.

And I had a perfect example of this in 2003 I was in Baghdad. I was trying to get down to Basra. I got halfway, and then I was so frightened I could hardly write. And were so many bombs dropping from my own Air Force, among others, that I turned back to Baghdad. But Al Jazeera were in Basra, and they got back the same day to Baghdad with their video film, and I sat with them in their little tent. You probably realized that in a war, many of the big agencies pool their material, especially the television companies. So it was being sent through the satellite to Reuters in London, whose job was to edit the film. So of course, this was film of a civilian hospital. There were some soldiers brought in wounded and dead, but most of the pictures were of dead and wounded, women and children. They had been killed and wounded by British artillery fire in Basra. The British were besieging Basra while the Americans took the highway to claim Baghdad. And what was particularly revealing was, as they showed the film, I listened to the remarks coming back from London. You know, there were terrible scenes. It was one of a child holding its intestines and a woman with part of her hand missing. And there were screams and cries and lots of blood on the film. And the voice from London said, "You know, we can't really show this. You can't show this to people at tea time." And by this moment, I had my notebook out for The Independent, my newspaper. THIS was going to be tonight's story. So [Al Jazeera] said, "Please, please. Please, we risked our life for this. Just let us put out a little bit more of the film. Maybe you can use it." And of course, there were more pictures of blood and wounded children and dead children. And then the voice came back and said, "This is obscene. We can't put obscene pictures like this on Western television." They pleaded again by now, of course. My pen was skidding over the pages. These were great quotes, because this is what was wrong. And then the voice came back for the third and final time. "We can't show these pictures because we must respect the dead." Now you get the point. We didn't respect them when they were alive. We didn't respect them when we blew them to bits. But when they're dead, by God, we have to respect them.

Continue ReadingHide the Photos of the Maimed and the Dead, so the War Looks Sterile, Glorious and Successful.

Faux Anti-Semitism

We've already experienced many years of Wokists commonly trying to shut down meaningful conversations by using slurs. Here's a newscaster (the BBC's BBC's Laura Kuenssberg) trying to pull this cheap stunt on Tucker Carlson, who appropriately calls her out. He's absolutely correct. The mere fact that one opposes Netanyahu or opposes the current foreign policy of Israel (as I do) does not make one Anti-Semite or anti-Jewish.

BBC's Laura Kuenssberg: I mean, I am going to point out I probably don't need to, because our audience can see and hear for themselves pretty much everything that you've said in our conversation. Tucker Carlson, you you have put at the door of the Israeli government now to some people, that will be evidence that you are anti semitic. You are anti-Jewish.

Tucker Carlson: Oh, I know. I'm very anti semitic [Laughing]. And well, first of all, the State of Israel does not speak for all Jews at all, despite its claims. It does not. There are many, many Jews, many of whom I know, who don't think the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu speaks for them.

Laura Kuenssberg: I wasn't suggesting that. [talking over each other]

Tucker Carlson: Of course you were suggesting it. I've been in this business longer than you, and I understand what a slur looks like, and you're attempting to call me an anti Semite in a passive-aggressive way. Some people would say that. Well, I'm responding to your slur and saying that it's untrue. It does not apply to me. Doubtless there are anti Semites who don't like Israel. I'm not an anti Semite. I don't hate Israel. The Israeli government--this is documented, and I saw it personally-- steered the United States into a war that hurts the United States and the world. I'm offended by that. I didn't want it and I'm mad about it. Now I have every right to feel that way. That does not make me an anti-Semite despite your insinuation. And I think it's important that I say that. And by the way, I hope that you run this. I can't control whether or not you air this exchange. I hope that you will. Because I think it's important to push back against slurs like that, because they limit our ability to understand what's actually happening. This is not an attack by Jews on the United States. This is Benjamin Netanyahu moving the United States to do something he thinks will benefit him, but that does not benefit us. It's that simple.

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The 1963 Coup

Ron Paul:

ON PAUL: “There’s been a coup. We don’t have any resemblance to a government that believes in a republic. We don’t have honest money. We don’t have integrity. We don’t even have people in Washington who even pretend… to tell the truth.”

“[I believe the coup began on] November 22, 1963.”

IAN CROSSLAND: “What happened on that day?”

RON PAUL: “That was the day Kennedy was murdered by our government. You know, by the CIA.”

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Tucker Carlson: No More Blank Checks for Israel

Tucker Carlson's message needs to be blasted from every corporate news outlet:

It's time not to end it, not to set up an adversarial relationship, but to set up a healthy conventional relationship where Israel can pay its own bills and fund its own military and act within the constraints imposed on it by its own economy and population. That's what normal countries do. Most countries live with neighbors that don't like them, with whom they have testy relationships. But they make accommodations because they have no choice. There's no country in the world that acts with total impunity because it knows a much larger country will backstop it no matter what it does that just doesn't exist in the natural world, because it's not natural, it's grotesque, and it's terrible for the United States, and now it's obvious.

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Democrat Party War Mongering

There was no anti-war party on the presidential ballot in 2024.

Jeremy Loffredo:

There is a version of the Democratic Party that exists only in the imagination: the peace party, the anti-war party, the party that marched against the Iraq War and howled at its neocon designers. As Donald Trump (reportedly) accepted Iran’s ceasefire terms this week, some of the most pointed attacks coming his way from Democrats are not about the thousands of civilians killed, the weeks of brutal bombardments against medical centers and universities, or the global economic damage the war has caused. They are about the war ending before the U.S. and Israel finished the job.

And this is not a fringe phenomenon. It is a pattern coming from Democratic senators, the Democratic House Foreign Affairs Committee, ranking members of the Armed Services Committee, and some of the party’s most prominent voices. The liberal opposition party wants more war.

This pattern predates the war. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Kamala Harris called Iran America’s “greatest adversary,” vowed that Iran would never obtain a nuclear weapon under her watch, and argued that Iran’s attacks on Israel would not have happened under her presidency. The Democratic nominee for president was running on a promise to be harder on Iran than Donald Trump.

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