Supposedly, the panelists, moderated by Jami Floyd of WNYC (only 30% listener supported) will be talking about “What is the state of press freedom in the United States?” and the ability of the public “news consumers” to discern “fake” versus “real” news.
The interesting thing is that while each of these panelist may get held up as some kind of journalism hero, each of them have their critics with astute observations as to what they are truly about-
Jim Acosta? Jim Acosta’s standing up for the First Amendment press freedoms has been criticized as a sham. July 13, 2019, Jim Acosta was promoting his book “Enemy of the People” about defending the First Amendment at the Newseum. Matt Orfalea captured Acosta on video as he asked Acosta to stand up for the press freedom of Julian Assange who is being pursued by the United States for publishing information about this country’s war crimes. Acosta embarrassed himself mightily in a sickening spectacle, exquisitely documented by Mr. Orfalea.
See:
Jim Acosta Refuses to Defend Free Press & Julian Assange (FULL)I first saw this video at a live Jimmy Dore Show (his radio show is carried on WBAI radio 99.5 FM- 100% listener supported) in Brooklyn. Jimmy Dore is a comic who gets almost all his mileage in humor about politics that simultaneously;y teaches media literacy, as in don’t believe what the corporate media serves up to you as truth.
Speaking of Jimmy Dore. . .
Joy Reid? Joy Reid has made herself a perfect target for Mr. Dore’s comically expressed scorn. Joy Reid has gone after Susan Sarandon. Ms. Reid scoldingly tweeted:
Susan Sarandon is...Mr Dore tweeted in response:
- not a feminist
- anti-Obama
- unbothered by Hollywood sexual harassment
- and still convinced Hillary Clinton would have been more dangerous than Trump
My god, she’s Phyllis Schlaffley!
Mr. Dore has more than one YouTube segment up taking Ms. Reid to task. See:Joy Reid is..
-not a journalist
-anti-Progressive
-unbothered by corporate propaganda,
-and still pretends Neoliberalism isn't the problem
My god, she has no integrity!
Joy Reid Self Owns In 3 Tweets, (Like a typical MSNBC on-air personality, Joy Reid’s paycheck depends on her pretending to not understand the problem.) March 13, 2018Suzanne Nossel? Suzanne Nossel has been taken on by some heavyweights
MSNBC Host Caught Smearing Actual Journalist & Cries Wolf (taking on the fact that Joy Reid trying to say that Juliane Assange published inaccurate information— he didn’t.), July 9, 2017
Proof MSNBC Tells Hosts What To Say On Air, September 17, 2017
Here are some:
Truthdig: The Hijacking of Human Rights, by Chris Hedges (Chris Hedges “On Contact”can be heard on WBAI, 100% listener supported), April 08, 2013
The appointment of Suzanne Nossel, a former State Department official and longtime government apparatchik, as executive director of PEN American Center is part of a campaign to turn U.S. human rights organizations into propagandists for pre-emptive war and apologists for empire. . .Antiwar.blog: An Appeal to PEN: Exec. Director Suzanne Nossel Must Go, by John V. Walsh and Coleen Rowley, April 3, 2013.
. . . Nossel, who was deputy assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs under Hillary Clinton in a State Department that was little more than a subsidiary of the Pentagon, is part of the new wave of “humanitarian interventionists” . . .
. . Nossel, in the contentious year she headed Amnesty International USA before leaving in January, oversaw a public campaign by the organization to support NATO’s war in Afghanistan. She was running Amnesty International USA when the organization posted billboards at bus stops that read, “Human Rights for Women and Girls in Afghanistan — NATO: Keep the Progress Going.
. . . She worked as a State Department official to discredit the Goldstone Report, which charged Israel with war crimes against the Palestinians. . . . She has advocated for expanded armed intervention in countries such as Syria and Libya. She has called for a military strike against Iran if it does not halt its nuclear enrichment program. . . .she wrote: “Democrats must be seen to be every bit as tough-minded as their opponents. Democratic reinvention as a ‘peace party’ is a political dead end.” “In a milieu of war or near-war, the public will look for leadership that is bold and strident . . .
Is this the résumé of a human rights advocate in the United States? Are human rights organizations supposed to further the agenda of the state rather than defend its victims?
Suzanne Nossel is a disturbing choice as the new executive director of PEN, American Center (PEN), an American branch of the worldwide association of writers and related professions devoted to free expression and "the ideal of one humanity living in peace in the world." The stark contrast between the statements of Arthur Miller and Suzanne Nossel above is enough to sound an alarm. But Nossel’s career path, the masters she has served, the stances she has taken and the activities she has sponsored demonstrate profound differences with PEN. . . . She is an embodiment of the ongoing, and all too successful, cooption of the Human Rights movement by the U.S. government.Salon: Deferring Justice: Clinton emails show how State Dept. undermined U.N. action on Israeli war crimes– U.S. government boasted it "deferred" the Goldstone Report through "political work," preventing justice for Gazans, by Ben Norton and Jared Flanery, November 20, 2015.
* * * *
Nossel had previously worked at the State Department under Hillary Clinton. Nossel is often credited with coining the phrase "Smart Power" (1), which Clinton repeated interminably in her Senate confirmation hearings to characterize how she would run State and which Nossel defined in a 2004 article in Foreign Affairs as "assertive leadership — diplomatic, economic, and not least, military." . . .
* * * *
Before working at State, Nossel worked at Human Rights Watch, which has come under increasing criticism for its distorted accounts of the Chavez government in Venezuela and other official enemies of the US. And before that she worked at the UN under Richard Holbrooke as the Clintons masterminded the bombing of Yugoslavia and. . .
* * * *
PEN Shows No Concern for Julian Assange or Bradley Manning.
. . . Today a search on the PEN, America, web site readily yields entries for Pussy Riot, Ai Weiwei and Liu Xiaobo, but nothing is to be found for "Bradley Manning "or "Julian Assange"! That in itself speaks volumes about Nossel’s PEN. As Chomsky and others have often pointed out, the primary duty of intellectuals is to critique their own ruling elite. After all, we can most affect our own rulers and it is their actions we are most responsible for. And that is what requires genuine courage. Criticizing elites in countries that are America’s official enemies is an easy and secure career path.
Nossel's career reflects the revolving door between the U.S. State Department and human rights organizations. As a former deputy assistant secretary of state, Nossel proclaimed in a speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank in 2011, "At the top of our list is our defense of Israel, and Israel’s right to fair treatment at the Human Rights Council."Are these the people we should be listening to on the subject of press freedom? Is this the panel that should be at the Brooklyn Book fair? They all seem, for entirely unsupportable reasons, to be against Julian Assange and against giving him the support that free press advocates should be giving him.
* * * *
. . . Under the leadership of Nossel, Amnesty International-USA came under fire from anti-war groups like CODEPINK for creating ads featuring the words "NATO: Keep the progress going" superimposed over Afghan women in burqas. In a 2012 Wellesley College discussion with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and World Bank President James Wolfensohn, Nossel also spoke positively of the 2011 NATO bombing of Libya, and lamented that there was "a continued impasse" in the Security Council that prevented similar "forceful action" against Syria.
Plus, should they be telling us what "fake" news is? They all seem to be promulgating fake news.
Maybe it all the more insidious that Brooklyn Fair has some legitimately liberal and progressive speakers on some of its panels. Bill McKibben will be speaking about climate. I've written about Lewis Hyde and his writing about the public commons. He will be speaking.
But snuck in among these speakers will be ringers like Jim Acosta, Suzanne Nossel, and Joy Reid, delivering deceptive messages.
Another favorite ringer we've spotted likely delivering a deceptive message is Eric Klinenberg, who will be delivering an address to New York City Librarians telling them how to defend NYC libraries and what is at stake in terms of their survival. Really?
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