Fair and Balanced from 1% Radio

Last Monday (3/19/12) on Morning Edition, Steve Inskeep and Sylvia Poggioli presented a casebook study in NPR's contempt for popular democracy and its use of false equivalency to smear leftists.  I heard this report last Monday, but was headed off for a vacation and so am posting on it late.

Poggioli was reporting on the economic crisis in Greece and how it has upended the political system there.   Inskeep introduces the report with this little frame:

"the old political system is collapsing and extremist parties are rising in popularity."

Early in the report Poggioli reports on a demonstration by the police officers' union against the austerity measures approved by the Greek Parliament.  She comments,

"They ominously waved their handcuffs at Parliament, shouting take your bailout plan and get out of here."

She does tell us that the head of the union "accused Greece's international lenders of plundering his country and even called for their arrest." Yes, so extreme and unhinged; why would anyone think that the international financiers are plundering Greece?

Poggioli presents poll results showing that "the four small leftist parties are ahead by 43 percent and could win a majority and in theory form a governing coalition."  Poggioli then states the following completely antidemocratic idea as if it were basic commonsense: "That terrifies Greece's creditors, some of whom have questioned the wisdom of holding elections."

Apparently, "the four small leftist parties" are the left side of the "extremist parties" that Inskeep warned of in the opening.  Equating these leftists with the extreme right, Poggioli states,

"And it's not just the left that's gaining popularity. So are two new far-right movements. One is the ultranationalist and neo-fascist Golden Dawn, which preaches the superiority of the white race.....Its bookshop is filled with tracts on Nazism and sells t-shirts of Hitler."

Brilliant really, how a neo-fascist, supremacist party which sells Hitler t-shirts is put on the same footing as leftist parties that oppose the austerity measures.  In case your not convinced that Poggioli and NPR want listeners to equate leftist parties (and individuals) who oppose 1% predatory, job-killing rule with Nazi-loving genocidal rightists, here's Poggioli to hammer home the point:

 "At the other end of the political spectrum, one of the parties doing well in the polls is far-left Syriza that wants to re-negotiate the terms of the bailout."

Indeed, the oh-so-scary leftist SYRIZA party which wants to "re-negotiate the terms" (such extremism!) of the rapacious and suicidal "bailout" package being forced on Greece by the international banking community (with Germany in the lead) is on the other end of the spectrum from a genocidal, Hitler adoring party!

Of Extremists and Militants

(source of graphic)

Seriously, if you were a reporter and you found out that a "Christian" film festival featured an independent "Christian" film that was the largest grossing independent film of 2008, and you found out that this film festival was offering a grand prize of $100,001 - wouldn't you be curious to know more about the groups and people organizing and funding such things? Not NPR, and definitely not Barbara Bradley Hagerty who apparently has never heard of Google or Lexis Nexis or investigative journalism.

She tells us that the festival is called the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival and that Doug Phillips is its organizer. I'd call those leads, and with just a little research you can find some very interesting things about them.

Take the festival for example. Here's it's website, and you will notice in its header it states that it is a project of Vision Forum Ministries. Do a little poking around this "Christian" film festival website and you'll find some fascinating movies on the program page, including this culturally sensitive gem of a film set in Togo which "begins with the meeting and marriage of a young man and woman. After multiple miscarriages, the family asks for help from the local charlatan."

Don't stop at the festival site, though. Take a gander at the Vision Forum Ministries site and be sure to see what these "conservative Christians" (as Scott Simon calls them) believe about biblical patriarchy. And don't miss out on festival organizer and Vision Forum Ministries president, Doug Phillip' biography. If you still don't quite get what these Christofacists are up to you might want to read Doug's blog post from June 2004 where he notes - among other things -

• "Vision Forum opposes the pagan notion of pluralism....America should serve only Jesus Christ and acknowledge Him alone as the true lawgiver."
• "...we seek to drive from the land every manifestation of homosexuality. Furthermore, Sodomy was a punishable crime at common law and should remain such."
• "The Bible makes no distinction between homosexuals, pedophiles, bestials and rapists. All are criminals, the toleration of which brings judgment on the land and devastation to children."

You have to wonder whether Hagerty is just lazy or if she and NPR are sympathetic to these kinds of Christian extremists. It's really a disservice to Christians to call them conservative Christians, especially when every other report on NPR regarding the US "war on terror" mentions Islamic militants and Islamic extremists.

Robbins' Fetid Baloney Sandwich

On NPR News what do you call a an outdoor prison camp where the 2000 inmates "live outside, sleeping on cots in hundreds of old canvas tents in the broiling summer heat and the chilly desert winter"? It's "the place called Tent City, Joe Arpaio's most famous invention" where "the idea is to make life tough and humiliating."

And when male inmates are forced to wear "a black and white striped uniform usually worn over pink underwear" that's just "the Sheriff's fashion creation" that inmates "model" for the NPR reporter.

Even when Robbins tells us that "for food the Sheriff serves the inmates green, as in fetid baloney sandwiches" the tone is humorously matter of fact.

I considered writing a parody of Ted Robbins' pro-police state report on Maricopa Sherrif Joe Arpaio, but it was just too depressing to try. His story is disgusting, and echoes the humorous euphemisms that torturers often use to describe their crimes.

It is telling that on a morning when anti-immigrant/nativist racism is making the news, NPR chooses to do a folksy send up of this anti-immigrant, racist, prisoner-abusing Sheriff, Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County in Arizona. CNN covered this creep back in 1999 - and the story has grotesque foreshadowing of Abu Ghraib - inmates exposed to hot and cold weather in run down tents and forced to where humiliating underwear. In fact the Maricopa Sheriff's office drew the attention of Amnesty International back in 1997 for abuses and reported torture with stun guns - and the intervention of the ACLU in 2007 for abuse to a quarantined TB patient. But on NPR Arpaio is introduced by Steve Inskeep as "a man enforcing laws at all costs..." and his perverted practices are described by Robbins as "either innovative or a throw-back to harsher times."

There are times when I think maybe I'm a bit too critical of NPR, and then they run a piece like this and I just think, why would anyone with a conscience want to support this mockery of journalism.

Nice Christian Reconstructionists

Scott Simon interviewed Washington Post reporter Hanna Rosin about Patrick Henry University, an far-right, Bible-as-literal-truth based university that has deep roots in the current White House.

The report is a maddeningly sloppy and de-contexualized downplaying of the threat of Christian Reconstructionism and Christian Extremism in the United States. Nothing is mentioned about the armed wing of Christian extremism as evidenced by Blackwater or the takeover of military chaplain corp and the Air Force Academy by Christian extremists.

Instead of a serious discussion of this troubling movement Simon and Rosin engage in the childish nonsense about how "nice" the students of Patrick Henry are. They don't give one bit of attention to the founder and chancellor, Michael Farris and his roots in Christian Reconstructionism, and that in spite of his leaving COR because he supposedly "doesn't believe in theocracy", he still is deeply entwined with the Christian Reconstructionist movement.

Simon tells us that students of Patrick Henry "tend to be smart, thoughtful...and nice" and asks Rosin "so why are some people so frightened by them?" Even though Rosin mentions that students at Patrick Henry call themselves "the tip of the spear" who talk about "taking back the nation," she mainly talks about how amazing the students are. One who lived with her for months is described as "so fabulous, and so smart, and so impressive, and so incredibly successful, and attractive and funny."

Seriously, is there any serious journalist or thinker who doesn't know that agents of the most vile and reactionary change and policies can be "nice," "funny," "thoughful," "smart," and even "attractive?"

A particularly insidious portion of the interview comes when Rosin claims that her "lefty journalist" friends, would ask her - regarding her Patrick Henry boarder - "Why are you harboring Nazis in your attic?" To which the ever "nice" Scott Simon says, "What was she scared of. I mean that strikes me, I've got to say, as a very hard-hearted reaction. You know call someone living in your attic a Nazi just because what, she's Christian?"

My reactions were first, I seriously doubt that Rosin of the Washington Post even knows any leftist journalists. Secondly, I imagine that such comments were not made to her as fodder for critiquing on the air with Scott Simon. Finally, it really pissed me off to hear Simon say that the reactions are because the student is a "Christian." No it is because she represents the Christian Supremacist/Dominionist "tip of the spear." And yes that is something to greatly fear and something that responsible journalists should be trying to uncover and not downplay.

Blackwater, Blackshirts

Monday afternoon finds Anne Garrels swimming in Blackwater. Of this nascent praetorian guard all Garrels can say is "…they have a reputation for being really tough. When they’re on the streets people back off" (she forgot to mention or get shot). I love the matter of fact way she describes the supposed government of Iraq's authority over the US legion of blackshirts; "It’s not clear that the Iraqi government has any authority over Blackwater or that Blackwater has had to have a license…” I guess embed Garrels is the "liberal" perspective on Blackwater because to analyze the situation NPR does a hard right over to Mark Hemingway of National Review Online. As you can guess, not a peep about the Christian militarist leanings and history of Blackwater. Is is NPR or National Review? Hard to tell...

For God's Sake

I should first say that I am an atheist and secular humanist. However, I have a great deal of respect for people of faith who wrestle with the complexities of belief and try to live an ethical life. The one principle that I've retained and cherish from my Catholic upbringing is the Golden Rule.

What does disturb and disgust me is religion in the service of power, domination and violence - and news reports like those on Morning Edition today that present the most reactionary religious organizations as if they were mainstream, legitimate and reasonable.

Take a listen to the first report in which NPR visits the National Convention of Religious Broadcasters in Orlando, Florida. In this brief report about Republican candidates wooing the religious extreme right we hear from representatives of such groups as the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, and Salem Communications.

Following this report NPR looks at Democratic candidates through the lens of Michael Comartie , vice president of the neoconservative Ethics and Public Policy Center. Comartie makes several bogus claims about how "nonreligious" the Democratic base is and how only conservatives have religious values.

The story NPR should be covering is the one featured on Democracy Now! this week: the infiltration of the government and military achieved by the extremist religious organizations that they portray as mainstream. It would also be refreshing to hear from progressive Christians who reject the Dominionist ideology of the far right (including this evangelical group from my hometown of Jacksonville, Florida!).