On Saturday NPR returned to the scene of the crimes of El Salvador's 1980s bloodbath - a US-nurtured extreme-right orgy of torture and murder against organized labor, the poor, church leaders, and leftists (and their families, friends, associates, or potential associates).There were a few problems with the report. Jason Beaubien's reporting isn't great; he does a little plastic surgery on history, claiming "The Reagan administration jumped into the Cold War conflict spending billions of dollars to fight the Marxist guerrillas while Cuba and other communist states backed the FMLN." That's a rather tidy and truncated version of the long history of US support for the murderous right in El Salvador - gathering steam and corpses especially in the 1960s. It also ignores the historical record of who killed most of those 75,000 plus civilians in the "Cold War conflict." But the really nasty propaganda is front loaded by Lianne Hansen in introducing the report:
"The FMLN is a coalition of left wing groups, but it's dominated by the communist party. One of the biggest questions after the FMLN victory is how far to the left the President Elect Mauricio Funes will move El Salvador."Dominated by the communist party? That's a stunning assertion. Dominated by revolutionaries and former guerrillas - okay. But the communist party? In all the articles I found, the communist party is mentioned as important, but not dominant. In the report Jason Beaubien comments that "El Salvador appears at times to be stuck in the Cold War." (Psst, Jason, I think El Salvador's not the only one!)
Finally for Hansen to claim that "one of the biggest questions...is how far to the left...blah, blah, blah" is quite telling. No surprise, but that seems to be the big question keeping some Foxes awake at night. That's definitely the question of the profiteers and oligarchs who have exploited El Salvador mercilessly, but it's not the question troubling the Catholic Church in El Salvador or the progressive movement in the United States.
7 comments:
Liane looks good in red. It matches her simpering voice perfectly. Red-baiting may be coming back into style.
That's the way hubby Conan "The Barbarian" likes her, Porter.
Brilliant post, mytwords.
I remember when Negroponte was appointed "Homeland Security Tsar" or whatever. I wrote Iscreep about his coverage and reminded him of the few details of N's involvement with training and running death squads and torturers in Guatemala and he wrote me back with seeming genuine outrage that I would question such a paragon of American righteousness.
Maybe a billboard outside their DC offices with the lot of them sporting a bloody upper lip.
Wow, gopol - that's far more responsive than the good ol' robo-response that many of us are accustomed to. Make sure you get that sucka' framed and mounted!
I wrote this morning, when Wan Williams occupied Cokie Roberts' rather wide seat, and more or less demanded that, in future, shenever Wan was introduced on NPR, his ties to Faux Noise and h is allegiance to Roger Ailes and Ruper Murdoch should be announced.
Wan still gots his eyes on the prize, babeeee.
When I was getting my tires changed today, Focks Noose was on in the store and I beheld Uncle Wan, pontificating with Freddie 'The Beetle' Barnes, and our avuncular one was yowling about how Obama was playing up the relaxed act and all. NPR's 'senior correspondent' was even getting a tad fussy with his indignant attitude, sitting there with just a touch of distinguished grey at his temples, pursing his aristocratic mouth, struttin' his stuff on his foxed-out gig, in which he is now a sort of center of attention, bein' that the prez is Afr-Amer and all. What better than a person of color to pick at the scabs Barack Hussein's pustulatin' on behalf of the Great (unwashed) American Public?
As most of us learned in junior high, whenever a "news' story is couched in one of the "isms', it is most probably propaganda.
The definition of most of the "isms" "fascism, communism, capitalism, Marxism, etc" is so fluid as to be essentially meaningless except as propaganda.
So Liane's "report" passes the propaganda "sniff test' (Liane, you stinky little thing, you)
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