Is Arab world a 'victim' of western 'information technology'?
Countries' images in the past used to depend on what the people in those countries produce in terms of development, innovation, science and art. That image was a natural result of the achievements and the work done in those countries for the benefit of their people and other peoples too.
But since forces known for their right-wing extremism took control of the world's broadcast, print and electronic media, they started to be an important factor in shaping a positive or negative image of countries; and in this way interests, policies and extremist ideologies started to form the image of many countries.
This problem has been exacerbated by the media revolution to the extent that it has become difficult, in many cases, to arrive at the truth or to discern reality and distinguish it from this deliberately manufactured image which is, sometimes, at odds, or in sharp contrast, with reality.
Right-wing forces in the West, which realised the role of the media, have exerted a monopoly over the media (60 per cent of the British media, for instance, is owned by one person). That is why the media has turned, in recent years, into a tool in war, aggression, torture, forgery and in justifying the crimes of tyrants.
Agreed with this description of the Arab press... and the New York Times, although possibly that's not what the editorialist intended. A neat demonstration about why it's important to be very clear about the subject when writing for publication.
And that is why the Arabs' image is being manufactured by their enemies, while Israel's image has remained that of 'an oasis of democracy', although it launches wars and practices genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people.
Ah, but Israel does so democratically, including the votes of the 20% who are Arabs.
The Arab world is a model victim of the age of information technology,
So true. The Arab world had so much more freedom of speech before outsiders had access via the internet.
despite the fact that it possesses the largest number of satellite TV stations in the world in proportion to its population; for the number of satellite stations does not mean the existence of a strategy or that these stations reflect the causes of these countries or present these causes on the local and global level in an appropriate and useful manner.
Most of the world does not watch Arab-language television shows, so communicating the nation's causes to the rest of the world simply isn't going to happen.
The problem has reached a degree where it has become difficult for outside observers of the Arab media
That would be MEMRI and Camera. They're watching your shows to catch your lies.
to have an actual assessment of Arab causes and their expected role in supporting these causes.
Camera and MEMRI have their own assessment of Arab causes, so don't expect them to support you.
For instance, these days the second anniversary of the brutal Israeli aggression in Gaza is marked, while the victims of that aggression are still homeless as a result of the continuing criminal Israeli blockade.
I think I know where Sea of Fire Man went after he was fired by North Korea...
Nevertheless, Arab media outlets have neither preoccupied themselves with the anniversary or exposed continuing Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza, Hebron, Negev, Lod and Nablus despite the growing support of people with free consciences in Turkey, Europe, Asia and South America who try to break this racist blockade.
Both Israelis and Arabs are semites, as Arab speakers are so keen to note when accused of antisemitism. How then can racism be an issue?
In this framework, the arrival of the Mavi Marmara ship in Istanbul port constituted a Palestinian event par excellence. The people of Istanbul rushed to meet the ship which had carried the martyrs of freedom, while Palestinian flags were waved everywhere.
A prototypical Palestinian event, indeed. Palestinians and their supporters became casualties disproportionately more than their opponents, property was wasted and destroyed, and the goal was not accomplished. In other words, death, destruction, and failure are the Palestinian way.
The exiled archbishop of occupied Jerusalem, Hilarion Capucchi, made a moving speech, particularly when he asserted his determination to see occupied Jerusalem in his lifetime and when people repeated Allahu Akbar after him in a scene in which all religious differences disappeared for the sake of gaining freedom and dignity for the Palestinian people. Rebuttal: Squeal like a pig, Abdullah.
#3
That Picture reminds me of the old story about the chicken rancher whom loved drumsticks so much he bred 6 Legged chickens.
Anr went broke because he couldn't catch them, they could run 60 MPH.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/05/2011 11:09 Comments ||
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#4
There was the story of just some guy in California who raised a few chickens in his backyard. One of his hens produced an enormous egg, that produced an equally enormous rooster.
It was just an oddity for a while, even killing a stray dog that broke into its pen to fight it, until it matured enough to start mating at the typical age of about one year, and the chickens it mated with started to produce very large eggs.
Some of the chickens died trying, but the chicks that survived were proportionally giants like the rooster--the mutation was dominant.
Suddenly the major chicken producers panicked, and offered him tens of thousands of dollars to kill all the giant birds, on the simple logic that chickens at their current size are profitable, but larger would sink the price of chicken meat.
Eventually they met his price. Kind of a pity, really, as today the genetic study of such a mutation could be astronomically valuable.
Barack Obama owes his presidency in no small part to the power of rhetoric. It's too bad he doesn't appreciate the damage that loose talk can do to America's tax system, even as exploding federal deficits make revenues more important than ever.
At his Arizona State University commencement speech last Wednesday, Mr. Obama noted that ASU had refused to grant him an honorary degree, citing his lack of experience, and the controversy this had caused. He then demonstrated ASU's point by remarking, "I really thought this was much ado about nothing, but I do think we all learned an important lesson. I learned never again to pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA brackets. . . . President [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS."
Just a joke about the power of the presidency. Made by Jay Leno it might have been funny. But as told by Mr. Obama, the actual president of the United States, it's hard to see the humor. Surely he's aware that other presidents, most notably Richard Nixon, have abused the power of the Internal Revenue Service to harass their political opponents. But that abuse generated a powerful backlash and with good reason. Should the IRS come to be seen as just a bunch of enforcers for whoever is in political power, the result would be an enormous loss of legitimacy for the tax system.
Our income-tax system is based on voluntary compliance and honest reporting by citizens. It couldn't possibly function if most people decided to cheat. Sure, the system is backed up by the dreaded IRS audit. But the threat is, while not exactly hollow, limited: The IRS can't audit more than a tiny fraction of taxpayers. If Americans started acting like Italians, who famously see tax evasion as a national pastime, the system would collapse.
One reason why Americans don't act like Italians is that they see the income-tax system as basically fair in execution. A tax audit or a tax-fraud prosecution is still seen, usually, as evidence that someone has done something wrong. If it comes instead to be seen as "just politics" then the moral component of the system will be gone. For the system to work, people have to believe that it is fundamentally fair. Obama acts like a roman emperor and his band of cronies the elite in an ivory tower. He is setting the stage for a really nasty and potentially violent backlash against the federal government.
#4
It's not like we weren't warned, in his own words.
Exactly. And now he is using "Executive directive" (see Royal Decree) to get the FCC, EPA, IRS and other agencies to do the work that both the public and Congress voted against and do not want.
At the end of last year I reflected here at Pajamas Media that 2009 represented a "tipping point for domestic terror." Grimly, that assessment has borne out -- recall the terror attacks aimed at New York City's Times Square and Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square, the Baltimore recruiting station bomber, and the virtual host of homegrown terror arrests racked up this year.
Domestic terror attempts, at any rate. Our guys have done yeoman's work to prevent a successful major attack here at home. Thank you, invisible ones!
While the domestic terror trend has continued unabated, elements of pre-violent, or rather stealth, jihad are taking firm root in our government, military, judicial, and educational institutions, without the slightest opposition from the Obama administration and our homeland security agencies. In fact, if we've seen anything this year, it has been the willingness of government officials to lend their support to aid this stealth jihad.
The failure to recognize the "civilizational jihad" being waged against us is a bipartisan problem. Driven mainly by Muslim Brotherhood front groups [eg CAIR, ISNA, university MSAa] and pushed by non-violent Islamist organizations in the West, the threat remains badly underrated by our national security establishment. But it was placed front and center by the report titled "Shariah: The Threat to America," issued by the Team B II panel of national security experts including former CIA Director Jim Woolsey and former DIA Director Lt. Gen. Ed Soyster.
This past year we have had an onslaught of examples demonstrating how far the stealth jihad outlined by Team B II has advanced:
A long list of stories at the link, some of which were reported here at Rantburg at the time, others of which are even more disturbing.
Patrick Poole is a regular contributor to Pajamas Media, and an anti-terrorism consultant to law enforcement and the military.
#1
And there are many yet more that will not ever get reported. Every American must admit that LEO and our Military and Intel have done a magnificent job.
[Dawn] The liquidation of the Punjab Governor Salman Taseer this afternoon in Islamabad by an armed guard reportedly deputed for his security raises the fundamental issue once again: that religious indoctrination is feeding the fires of hatred and intolerance. Although details as to the motive of the crime have yet to emerge, by the very trappings it seems little else but a crime of hate.
Mr Taseer had few friends left in his last days. His outspoken defence of the Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, who was accused of blasphemy under questionable charges leveled against her by fellow Mohammedan villagers and who has been on the death row in a Punjab prison for over a year awaiting appeal in a higher court, made him a hate figure for krazed killer and Islamist outfits and parties. Major religious parties called out nationwide strikes on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve to demand Aasia Bibi's execution under the controversial blasphemy law, and to condemn her sympathisers, Mr Taseer being one of the foremost public figures amongst the latter group and thus the object of hate.
He, along with the PPP MNA Sherry Rehman, who has courageously sought to repeal or amend the blasphemy law, have been the only leaders to openly oppose the controversial law, like Benazir Bhutto before them had opposed extremism and Talibanisation and paid for it with her life, while a deafening silence prevails on the subject within the ranks of the PPP itself.
On the political front too Mr Taseer became a controversial figure in his home province the day President Zardari appointed him the governor in Punjab to watch over a provincial government led by his political arch rivals, the Sharif brothers. The sacking of Shahbaz Sharif's government in 2009, the imposition of governor's rule and then the restoration of Mr Sharif under court orders in March 2009 as the chief minister, added to the political bitterness that existed between Mr Taseer and the Sharifs. There was little love lost between the rivals till the time of Mr Taseer's liquidation, with no signs of any rapprochement on the anvil whatsoever.
Of late the Sharifs responded to Mr Taseer's political opposition to their way of governance by resorting to means that were both unfair and untenable. Often volleys were fired at his personality, and his family's lavish and somewhat indulgent--read 'un-Islamic'-- lifestyle. Only last month Mr Taseer was accused of having left the country without informing the Punjab government in breach of the state protocol; a sustained media campaign followed which despite its best efforts failed to prove that Mr Taseer had gone abroad. Earlier photographs of his family partying away in the privacy of their home were placed in the media. Mr Taseer had the courage and the old world grace not to be bogged down or issue a denial in the face of such ungainly criticism that was clearly below the belt.
The Islamists openly called for his dismissal from the office for supporting the case of the Christian convict, for seeking presidential pardon for her, if it should come to that, and for being a vociferous opponent of the so-called Islamic laws that were introduced by Gen Ziaul Haq and which at best have remained highly controversial. A few also threatened to try Mr Taseer for condoning blasphemy against Islam. But he in that ideological sense represented the somewhat traditional liberal stance of the PPP, which the party itself has not truly been very comfortable with of late.
It remains to be seen what actually motivated the killer to open fire on Mr Taseer, inflicting a fatal wound, but it is not far from informed conjecture to say at this point that the motivation could have most likely been religious intolerance which leads to extreme reactions. The trend is rampant nowadays, and has led to wholesale killing of citizens, attacks on Sufi shrines and places of worship of rival Mohammedan sects, and of the minorities.
This is partly because hypocrisy takes the best of many politicians from across the spectrum. Even non-religious parties like the MQM, the PML-N and the PML-Q, could be seen losing their composure when it comes to issues such as demanding the release of Dr Aafia Siddiqui from her American prison, citing little else in her defence besides her bona fides as a Mohammedan woman convict, but in reality wishing to add to the woes of their political rivals' government. Similar is the stance taken on American dronezaps, even though everyone knows that Pakistain Army provides or shares the intelligence over which such aerial strikes are carried out against krazed killer elements.
Back to Mr Taseer's liquidation, it was rather uncanny to overhear a conversation that I did between two security guards outside the building they were deputed to guard, within minutes of the news of Mr Taseer's death breaking. One guard congratulated the other on the liquidation while the other responded by saying that the killer was indeed a very courageous man, God be praised.
This is not the country that makes one feel very safe.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2011 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
And that is why the Arabs' image is being manufactured by their enemies, while Israel's image has remained that of 'an oasis of democracy', although it launches wars and practices genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people.
Barack Obama owes his presidency in no small part to the power of rhetoric. It's too bad he doesn't appreciate the damage that loose talk can do to America's tax system, even as exploding federal deficits make revenues more important than ever.
