I wrote a posting on CAJ-L Wednesday that concluded: But if you ask me, people who behave in the way of the Republicans described above (and in the article mentioned below) have the mindset of fascists.
A list regular named Doug Burn, who takes a more conservative view of the world, responded (my response is interspersed with his response, if that makes any sense):
> I'm not as surprised or as agrieved as Bill "mindset of
> fascists" Doskoch.
> I'm not surpised because consumer/reader backlash has been
> building for quite some time. I can recall as far back as the
> mid-70s at the University of Toronto when SDS (okay young
> ones, "Students for a Democratic Society") felt it was in
> their right to shut down meetings where guest speakers were
> considered too right wing. Over the last three decades we've
> had boycotts of wine from Chile, produce from Mexico,
> everything from South Africa, oil companies doing business in
> Sudan, etc. Most recently we've seen demonstrations in front
> of theatres screening The Passion of Christ and Farenheit
> 9/11. As we old hippies would say, "People are taking it to the street."
Doug cuts quite a non-journalistic swath there!
But let's stick to the facts of the Iconoclast and what appears to be going on in the U.S. media and political environment at the moment.
We are talking a paper that endorsed Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984, and Dubya himself in 2000. No commercial backlash of the "we will destroy you nature" from the Democrats towards the Iconoclast after those endorsements -- only from Bushies.
<sarcasm>Some indirect payback for the paper backing Chilean wine boycotts after the Pinochet-led coup, no doubt; the cabernet-sauvignons in particular have a big following in east-central Texas.</sarcasm>
I don't know if Doug was at the screening of Outfoxed or not at Media Democracy Day on Ryerson's campus last Saturday, but I think I was the only person in the theatre who would support allowing Fox News to be broadcast in Canada.
When asked why, I said: "For the same reason Al-Jazeera is allowed into Israel uncensored: To know what the enemy is thinking."
I found it quite ironic that "media democracy activists" would wring their hands over the tight controls on al-Jazeera (which for all practical purposes, is still unable to broadcast here) and yet mutter darkly about the need to keep Fox out; considering al-Jazeera could be considered the Fox News of the Middle East.
Control Room really didn't do justice to some of A-J's more anti-Semitic commentary. (If you want to see a review I wrote for CTV.ca, the URL is:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1090454169146_54 or http://tinyurl.com/6enfo)
I don't think I've ever supported the destruction of right-wing voices while bleating about the same treatment of left-wing ones. Those who do support such moves are hypocrites.
> I can't recall anyone on this list protesting advertisers
> that pulled their ads from Sinclair Broadcasting. Maybe this
> is just a matter of selective outrage.
I'm not against protests or boycotts per se, for that's part of democracy too. But I also don't recall anyone saying Sinclair should be put out of business.
If I may be allowed a slight digression, here's an excerpt from a Wednesday Globe and Mail story about chief Bush strategist Karl Rove:
>>>
Before hitting the big time, Mr. Rove developed a reputation running judicial-election campaigns in the South, turning previously tame affairs into slugfests. After winning a hard-fought campaign against a Rove-backed Republican judge, Alabama Democratic Judge Mark Kennedy decided not to run for re-election.
According to an account in this month's Atlantic Monthly magazine, the Rove machine targeted Mr. Kennedy's volunteer work with abused children.
A whisper campaign was started, implying that the judge was a pedophile, pointing to one of his own campaign ads where he is pictured holding hands with some of the children.
Rather than face that kind of campaign, Mr. Kennedy pulled out of the race.
The most infamous of the dirty tricks credited to Mr. Rove, but never proven to be his, came during the 2000 Republican primary when Mr. Bush entered South Carolina well behind Mr. McCain for the presidential nomination.
Using a tactic known as "push-polling," where a bogus pollster phones voters asking leading questions, suggestions were circulated that Mr. McCain had betrayed his country while he was a PoW in Vietnam and had fathered a child with a black prostitute.
Mr. McCain's fortunes sank and Mr. Bush won the primary and ultimately the Republican nomination.
<<<
FULL STORY:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20041020.wxcarlrove20/BNStory/specialUSelection/ OR http://tinyurl.com/3ze2d
Rove-style Republicans don't just play to win; they play to destroy.
Here's another quote from the Salon interview with Ron Suskind:
>>>
Next for Suskind was an Esquire profile of Rove, which featured John DiIulio's "star turn," as Suskind calls it. Dilulio served briefly as director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. In a seven-page memo to Suskind about his resignation, he detailed how the White House suffered "a complete lack of a policy apparatus," how everything is "being run by the political arm" -- in a notable turn of phrase, "the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."
DiIulio, under pressure from the White House, abjectly apologized, asserting his charges were false (note: He did it *before the article was published* - Bill D.). "That was an overreach," says Suskind. "And that caused great reaction in the media community. People just said, What was that? Why would somebody like John DiIulio, such a proud member of the public dialogue, why would he say his own experiences were baseless and groundless?"
One month later Suskind met Paul O'Neill, Bush's former treasury secretary, and their conversation turned to DiIulio. Suskind recalls the
meeting: "O'Neill says, 'Goodness gracious. Why would a guy like that say his own comments were baseless and groundless?' And then he says, 'These people have very long memories and they're as nasty as they come, and I've met them all. And John DiIulio is a young guy and I guess he had to make some tough decisions about whether he could afford a 50-year struggle with them professionally and personally. And I guess he decided he couldn't, so he pled for mercy.' <<<
FULL STORY:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/20/ron_suskind/
Maybe "mindset of fascists" was too strong. Does "mindset of psychopaths" work for everyone?
> BTW: In Toronto, at least, I rarely see graffitti on the news
> boxes of the Toronto Star and rarely the Globe but just about
> every National Post box has "Fascist" scawled on it.
Nah, too easy.
Bill Doskoch
Toronto, ON
And before that ...
Here was a post I wrote in response to Tom Popyk, who first brought the Suskind Salon article to my attention through his CAJ-L posting:
To follow up on that, here's a repeat posting of a segment of an Iconoclast editorial written after the Crawford, Texas-area newspaper said on Sept. 28 it wasn't endorsing Bush:
"We have been told by several avid Bush supporters that the days when newspapers publish editorials without personal repercussions are over. As publishers, we have printed editorials for decades, and have endorsed candidates, both Republican and Democrat. When Bush was endorsed four years ago, the Gore supporters did not respond with threats, nor did Democrats when we endorsed Reagan twice. Republicans did not threaten us personally or our business when we endorsed Carter and Clinton for their first terms. ...
"The new mode of operation, I am told, is that when a newspaper prints an editorial of which some sectors might disagree, the focus is now upon how to run the newspaper out of business."
Links and such stuff at:
http://billdoskoch.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2004/10/13/159262.htmlBut if you ask me, people who behave in the way of the Republicans described above (and in the article mentioned below) have the mindset of fascists.
Bill Doskoch
Toronto, ON
http://billdoskoch.blogware.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-caj-list@marlo.eagle.ca
> [mailto:owner-caj-list@marlo.eagle.ca] On Behalf Of tpopyk
> Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 7:40 AM
> To: caj
> Subject: Salon invu with Suskind.
>
>
> More on Suskind's NYT story on Bush --- some
> interesting analysis on the current media climate, not
> altogether different from Stewart's rant against
> Crossfire-type partisanship and unsourced speculation.
>
>
> http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/20/ron_suskind/index1.html
> Do you think there's a coordinated attempt to knock journalists down
> so that what they have to say is taken less seriously?
>
> There is a varied, national, forceful, coordinated
> campaign to do that, to try to create doubt about the long-held and
> long-respected work of the mainstream media. Absolutely. So that
> Americans believe that what we do and say, what the mainstream media
> offer, is not of value, is not honest, is not factually accurate.
> And [that we are] not in any way connected to strong
> traditions of American public dialogue, that we've
> been co-opted, that we're not objective, and that
> essentially we are carrying forward an agenda.
>
> I fiercely disagree with that. I talk to more
> Republicans now than Democrats [for my stories]. This
> is not simply the effort of a single party [of people
> criticizing Bush]. It's the effort of a group within a single
> party. There are many, many conservatives and libertarians
> and Republicans who believe ardently in the value of public
> dialogue based on fact. Paul O'Neill is one of them. There
> are lots of Republicans who are troubled by this tactical
> force, this kill-or-be-killed desire to essentially undermine
> public debate based on fact.
>
> [snip]
>
> That's the whole idea, to somehow sweep away the
> community of honest brokers in America -- both
> Republicans and Democrats and members of the
> mainstream press -- sweep them away so we'll be left
> with a culture and public dialogue based on assertion
> rather than authenticity, on claim rather than fact.
> Because when you arrive at that place, then all you
> have to rely on is perception. And perception as the handmaiden of
> forceful executed power is the great combination that we're seeing now
> in the American polity.