Sunday, November 28, 2004

Hating America on Fox: An Open Letter to John Gibson

By Rosemarie Jackowski

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Posted 11/28 | Add a Comment

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  1. Excellent! Well said.

    Posted by Joe Lester from  on  11/28  at  09:32 PM

  2. As always, thanks Rosemarie for making me feel not so alone at the outrage I feel at the US government, the biggest terrorist organization on the planet.  Bob McChesney does a one-hour NPR radio program, “Media Matters,” out of University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana on Sundays.  Today his guest mentioned that the US has over 100 military bases around the world.  He asked the audience rhetorically if they knew who was second, with how many.  The answer?  No other country has a single military bases in a foreign country.

    Posted by Tracy McLellan from  on  11/28  at  09:35 PM

  3. Many years ago when I worked for a company here in Canada I would remark in amazement, “A billion dollars worth of communication equipment, yet we have forgotten how to communicate!” It is not that American people are dumb, but instead they are quite simply not informed. It is even in your Constitution that you be kept informed so that the people can decide. The will of the people is supposed to be reflected by its government, not the other way around: this is the idea of representation. Who do the Bush Administration represent? The people of the United States of America? I highly doubt it: for if this is true you as a country are in great peril. But I have been to the United States a number of times, and have found that you are a people as kind and decent as anywhere else in the world.


    Nice work Rosemarie. It is a difficult thing to be harsh on oneself if only to wonder what in the world are you are doing to others. I am hopeful that the people will somehow become informed about what their government is doing with your hard earned tax dollars so that their President can “spend” what he believes he has earned. Spend what he has earned? He has earned nothing except to respect the will of the people of his country. Left unchecked it appears that he will spend your great country into bankruptcy. It is morally bankrupt now: just look at Iraq. The rest follows as sure as the residue of their lies are revealed.

    If the people running the multi-billion dollar communication systems for informing the public cannot be shaken from their trance, at least for now this type of forum is available to those who need to know and want to be informed. It is perhaps the birthplace of a great new movement. Your and your colleagues are to be commended. Well done.

    Posted by Frank from Canada  on  11/28  at  10:58 PM

  4. According Chalmers Johnson in The Sorrows of Empire (very highly recommended, I imagine it was reviewed at PA but can’t recall off hand), as of 9/01 the US Dept. of Genocide “acknowledged at least 725 American military bases existed outside” the US. This number does not include secret bases, of which there are four in Isreal, for example, and a number of other ad hoc military facilties that are leased and so on. I don’t mean to toot my own horn but the paper at http://www.wisehat.com (US Militarism) goes into many of the details of the virtual US imperium. As Johnson says, miltarism is the hand maiden of empire. The military empire is now so vast and corrupt, and interwoven into the fabric of the US economy and culture that it is fast destroying the Republic (yeah, tell me something I don’t know!).

    Posted by Rhino Rick from  on  11/29  at  05:48 AM

  5. It frightens me that the all the usual jokes about this situation -i.e. “they hate because we are free,"- seem tired.

    I guess this is an example of some hawks realizing that they aren’t as universally loved as they think they should be. I do love when they say, “and we’ve given them so much.” I think the smart response, “Arabs gave you math. So why do you hate them?”

    Posted by micah holmquist from  on  11/29  at  01:20 PM

  6. Good comments, thanks...I usually have called it the
    “Dept of Offense” but I like your term better, the “Dept of Genocide”. Micah, when they criticize Arabs, I usually tell them to try balancing their check books using Roman Numerals. Tracy, That is really something to think about...no other country has any bases in other countries. The real point of this Fox program was to gain sympathy for the U.S. I think that they shot themselves in the foot with this one...an hour long program telling how the U.S. is hated all aroung the world.

    Posted by rosemarie jackowski from  on  11/29  at  01:35 PM

  7. Rosemarie,

    How big is the audience of FNC outside of the United States? I guess I tend to think as if it is not very large and thus see their programs as trying to convey a message to people in the U.S. Certainly it could serve more than one purpose, but the in the U.S. the implicity message of programs and books with these sentiments is that there is something seriously wrong with the rest of the world.

    Posted by micah holmquist from  on  11/29  at  10:17 PM

  8. Fox News has a cult following among the burgeoning neocon movement in Canada, who succesfully lobbied to get it introduced.  Fox may indeed, like MSNBC, have special “Canadian” programming with David Frum and others who we sent south.  I have written the CRTC to complain about the “racist language” used on Fox that they used to officially sanction Al Jazzeera, but the CRTC which is allowing in Al Jazeera was cowed by the Neocons who said “You want Al Jazeera, then give us Fox.”

    Posted by j cummings from  on  11/29  at  10:58 PM

  9. Fox’s Carl Cameron uncovered the Israeli “art student” story - vix investigative reporting.  Let’s say that Blum goes on O’Reilly.  He’d charm him and then offer him a fallafel.  I think the real danger of Fox though is its legitimation of Islamophobia and Homophobia, even Judeophobia (I once saw O’Reilly bitch about Hillary Clinton and those “Haseedik Joos") This is why it is surprising that it is being allowed into Canada.

    Posted by j cummings from  on  11/29  at  11:05 PM

  10. “As always, thanks Rosemarie for making me feel not so alone at the outrage I feel at the US government, the biggest terrorist organization on the planet.”

    Please are you nuts. This artical is a bunch of BS period. I have news for all of you we realy don’t care if you like us or not. If you live in the US and feel this way leave if its so damn bad here. If your not happy here why would you stay? Free up some room for some people who would love to have the chance to live free. Hell I don’t like a resturant I eat somewhere else, I don’t like a movie I go see another. Make a statement drop your citizenship in the US Show that big bad US Goverment. LOL Here is what I say God bless the United States of America and those who defend her. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

    Posted by ScrewIslam from Chicago  on  11/30  at  06:26 PM

  11. Thanks Archie Bunker.

    Posted by Tracy McLellan from  on  11/30  at  10:49 PM

  12. To the redneck from Chicago (not Tracy), did you know bud that your country devours the rest of the world’s resources? So if you were a real conservative you would consume locally and keep your damn nose out of the rest of the world’s business. President Eisenhower warned against the Military Industrial (Congressional) Complex. There are now over 725 US millitary bases scattered around the world to secure YOUR greedy standard of living. If we do move from USA (and I did) we must still endure the extreme arrogance and stupidity of America. In Japan we are now threatened by North Korean belligerence (completely justified) because the US uses Japan as a military outpost to the detriment of the indigenous inhabitants. Stop listening to “talk radio” and give your brain a break.

    Posted by Rhino Rick from  on  12/01  at  06:43 AM

  13. Mr. ScrewIslam’s sentiments, however objectionable they may be to some, are a natural derivative of the segregationist condition called nationalism.  It is the function of boundaries to separate and divide.  And as long as we subscribe to the commonly perceived “virtues” of maintaining nationalistic boundaries, such sentiments will have rich, boundaried soil for their fruition.

    Here’s what others had to say on this issue too.

    “There is a higher form of patriotism than nationalism, and that higher form is not limited by the boundaries of one’s country; but by a duty to mankind to safeguard the trust of civilization.” Oscar S. Strauss

    “The root of the problem is very simply stated: if there were no sovereign independent states, if the states of the civilized world were organized in some sort of federalism, as the states of the American Union, for instance, are organized, there would be no international war as we know it....  The main obstacle is nationalism.” Norman Angell

    “Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.” Albert Einstein

    “Our true nationality is mankind.” H. G. Wells

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  12/01  at  10:33 AM

  14. The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.  Thomas Paine

    Posted by rosemarie jackowski from  on  12/01  at  11:58 AM

  15. I don’t know if this is true elsewhere… but the most popular type of real estate development in my city (the fastest growing city in America) is… the gated community or subdivision.

    Tell me that this isn’t a stark symptom of our prevailing cultural mindset.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  12/01  at  12:08 PM

  16. NR...you bring up an important point about gated communities. Isn’t that proof, that as a society, we don’t really like one another very much. People don’t want to live near those who have less than they do. It is still OK to be prejudiced against those who are without money. We are brain washed into believing that anyone can be rich and that there is a correlation between wealth and how good or how smart one is. One-upsmanship is so deeply ingrained in our culture that we now have a culture of meaness.  I have seen communities that have tried to keep shelters for the homeless out. I also have known families that have been forced to live in their cars or a tent. That is tough in Vermont. When it comes to compassion, we haven’t got much of it in the good ol’USA. Maybe that explains why we can be so cold blooded about the slaughter in Iraq.  If we don’t like each other, how can we like them?

    Posted by rosemarie jackowski from  on  12/03  at  05:18 PM

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