By Way of an Explanation

Advocatus Diaboli

Deep in my heart I hate despots and priests.
Still more the genius who sucks up to them.

by Friedrich Hölderlin, 1797,
translated by David Young (used with his permission),
published in Margie, v. 6, 2007.

Thanks for the kind remarks about this blog. I don't plan on bowing out for ever -- BUT I am going to cut way back on how much I listen to NPR news. And I don't think I'll be back to posting on such a frequent basis any time soon.

I started this blog with the naive expectation that if the utter lack of impartiality and integrity of NPR news could be illustrated, carefully researched and documented then there would be a broad and significant group of NPR listeners who would reject the blather and outright propaganda that NPR serves up every day, and - who knows - might pester their local stations into cutting back on NPR news (or dropping it altogether). Alas, the NPR juggernaut seems to be gaining steam - like the war business , it's a growth industry. Frankly, I've also run into too many "liberals" and "educated" folk who think NPR is a fairly good and informative program no matter how much fact and documentation one confronts them with to the contrary. We do live in a country of amnesia and denial, don't we?

The work of listening and re-listening to NPR reports and then checking and cross-checking their unfounded assertions and misinformation has been a major time sink (not to mention a soul-killing exercise - even for an atheist!). I have a full time job in a library, I have two teenage sons who I love to death, a partner who likes to see me away from the computer once in a while, and a second profession as a poet. That doesn't leave much time for skittles and beer. I've put in a good year and a half at this because I think it's crucial to challenge the critical role that NPR plays in our country: making the most violent, sadistic, stupid and greedy US policies palatable, acceptable and refined for the college educated and "liberal" crowd - and eventually a younger, more hip generation of listeners.

The one great joy of this blog - and I really mean this - has been the fine community of readers and commentators who are in evidence here. I've become very fond of reading the wit, rants zingers, and insights of responders. I do know people read this blog. If you click on the sitemeter logo down below you can find out a lot of interesting stats: NPR Check is approaching 50,000 hits, someone at NPR reads it nearly everyday, and it gets a daily average of about 70-80 hits. BTW, NPR Check has also been picked up often by FAIR.org, a few less times by Cursor.org, and a couple of times on Crooks & Liars [much thanks to them].

Anyway, the archives will always be here and I encourage anyone to beg, borrow, or steal any and all posts that I've made or research I've done. Also feel free to steal any graphics I've made: you can find them in the side link.

With the elections rolling, the lastest Persian Gulf of Tonkin incident, the endless GWOT and zombified Iraq, etc. there's no doubt there will be more disgraceful coverage of it all on NPR. I'll just be listening and posting less; that's all...

O, and that's me in the picture.

Partisan Polarization, Not

On Friday's ATC NPR gives a lot of attention to a one day conference in Oklahoma. According to Michele Norris, "there's a movement afoot to try to fix a broken, polarized system, or at least there's a one day bipartisan forum geared in that direction. A group of centrists will gather...."

Norris talks to former Sen. David Boren, now the president of University of Oklahoma who tells us "what we've seen, and it's been growing over the last twenty years is partisan polarization and it's literally paralyzing the country."

This kind of report illuminates the ideological bent of NPR. Is polarization what is broken about our political system? What about corporate influence, the military industrial complex, the role of money in campaigns, etc.

In the report Boren claims that Republicans and Democrats both block any legislative moves by the opposing party, and Norris offers silent assent. As readers of this blog know, I'm no big fan of Democrats, but seriously, to put equal blame on Democrats and Republicans for polarization is ridiculous. Anyone who follows politics knows that Republicans have moved to the far right and - since Gingrich's contract on America - have adopted a take-no-prisoners approach to politics. Consider Clinton's impeachment or the "nuclear option" in the Senate a few years back.

Secondly, in the wake of 9/11 there was an astounding (disgraceful?) bipartisan backing of everything Republicans proposed. Where was polarization in the attack on Afghanistan, the Patriot Act, and the invasion of Afghanistan? The polarization has come from the Republican Party with its far right militarism, homophobia, anti-immigrant rhetoric, and extremist Christian attacks on our secular system of government.

NPR insists on calling this "Bipartisanship Conference" a meeting of "centrists" as if the center lies between the extreme right of the Republican party and the center right of the Democratic Party. This skewed view of the ideological continuum explains a lot about NPR's constrained coverage of the news.