Author: R J Adams

A recent article in Sparrow Chat, “No Healthcare For Aussies”, stated:

“In it’s 1996 report “Buying A Movement”, the ultra-conservative organization “People for the American Way” describe the Manhattan Institute as…….”

Of course, as one commenter, “Matt”, rightly pointed out the organization “People for the American Way” is most certainly not ultra-conservative. It’s president, Ralph G Neas, states on their website:

“We’re fighting to maintain and expand 50 years of legal and social justice progress that right-wing leaders are trying to dismantle. We won’t let them turn back the clock on our rights and freedoms.”

Sparrow Chat apologizes to its readers for this inadvertent, but misleading mistake.

“Rebellion must have an unassailable base, something guarded not merely from attack, but from the fear of it: such a base as the Arab revolt had in the Red Sea ports, the desert, or in the minds of men converted to its creed. It must have a sophisticated alien enemy, in the form of a disciplined army of occupation too small to fulfil the doctrine of acreage: too few to adjust number to space, in order to dominate the whole area effectively from fortified posts. It must have a friendly population, not actively friendly, but sympathetic to the point of not betraying rebel movements to the enemy. Rebellions can be made by 2% active in a striking force, and 98% passively sympathetic. The few active rebels must have the qualities of speed and endurance, ubiquity and independence of arteries of supply. They must have the technical equipment to destroy or paralyze the enemy’s organized communications, for irregular war is fairly Willisen’s definition of strategy, “the study of communication,” in its extreme degree, of attack where the enemy is not. In 50 words: Granted mobility, security (in the form of denying targets to the enemy), time, and doctrine (the idea to convert every subject to friendliness), victory will rest with the insurgents, for the algebraical factors are in the end decisive, and against them perfections of means and spirit struggle quite in vain.” ~ T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) Encyclopaedia Britannica, Fourth Edition 1929.

It’s a shame Bush, Blair and cronies didn’t read Lawrence before they invaded Iraq. It might have saved 100,000 lives.

Filed under: Pathetically ignorant

A whole bundle of congratulations must go to NBC and its show, clinic NBC Nightly News, cialis broadcast Sunday July 22nd, for managing to cast a really heavy slur over the British Broadcasting Corporation, by intimating the Corporation had a policy of deliberately misleading its viewers.

While there have been occasional problems over the last twelve months, mainly due to inexperienced production staff panicking during live shows when technical problems have caused on-air phone-in competitors to be suddenly cut-off, any suggestion that the BBC is deliberately misleading viewers is both shameful and inaccurate.

Another “gaff” slobbered over by NBC was an edited clip of the Queen, showing her apparently walking off in a huff while being filmed. This clip was never publicly aired except in a private viewing to journalists as part of a “forthcoming attractions” meeting, and was shown along with many other clips of upcoming fall programming. While the clip had been edited out of context and the Queen had never been guilty of such behavior, the documentary in question was not made by the BBC, but by RDF Media, a company independent of the BBC, who admitted their negligence in the editing department as soon as the problem came to light.

It is also necessary to point out that none of these incidents has involved the News Department, which has consistently produced accurate and balanced reporting that often leaves NBC News looking like a poorly produced, small town, amateur pantomime.

Quite why, with the plethora of news stories available in the world today, NBC should find it necessary to run such an outrageous slur on a fellow TV broadcaster is questionable in the extreme.

Is it possible those in control feel the BBC is broadcasting the truth of the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan and giving Americans a chance to understand what their government is actually up to in the Middle East, while American news channels slant the coverage to maximize US successes, in an effort to stem further erosion in this country of support for the war?

Congratulations NBC for a glorious example of American media underhandedness.

One is reminded of a certain individual who once remarked:

“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Filed under: Media hypocrisy