Frank Rich: Wallflowers at the Revolution

[highplainsdem]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/opinion/06rich.html

-snip-

Al Jazeera English, run by a 35-year veteran of the Canadian Broadcasting Company, is routinely available in Israel and Canada. It provided coverage of the 2009 Gaza war and this year’s Tunisian revolt when no other television networks would or could. Yet in America, it can be found only in Washington, D.C., and on small cable systems in Ohio and Vermont. None of the biggest American cable and satellite companies — Comcast, DirecTV and Time Warner — offer it.

The noxious domestic political atmosphere fostering this near-blackout is obvious to all. It was made vivid last week when Bill O’Reilly of Fox News went on a tear about how Al Jazeera English is “anti-American.” This is the same “We report, you decide” Fox News that last week broke away from Cairo just as the confrontations turned violent so that viewers could watch Rupert Murdoch promote his new tablet news product at a publicity event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Unable to watch Al Jazeera English, and ravenous for comprehensive and sophisticated 24/7 television coverage of the Middle East otherwise unavailable on television, millions of Americans last week tracked down the network’s Internet stream on their computers. Such was the work-around required by the censorship practiced by America’s corporate gatekeepers. You’d almost think these news-starved Americans were Iron Curtain citizens clandestinely trying to pull in the jammed Voice of America signal in the 1950s — or Egyptians desperately seeking Al Jazeera after Mubarak disrupted its signal last week.

The consequence of a decade’s worth of indiscriminate demonization of Arabs in America — and of the low quotient of comprehensive adult news coverage that might have helped counter it — is the steady rise in Islamophobia. The “Ground Zero” mosque melee has given way to battles over mosques as far removed from Lower Manhattan as California. Soon to come is a national witch hunt — Congressional hearings called by Representative Peter King of New York — into the “radicalization of the American Muslim community.” Given the disconnect between America and the Arab world, it’s no wonder that Americans are invested in the fights for freedom in Egypt and its neighboring dictatorships only up to a point. We’ve been inculcated to assume that whoever comes out on top is ipso facto a jihadist.

-snip-

[chimpymustgo]

1. As always, Rich nails it. I have been stunned by the hostility even here at DU:

-edit-

The consequence of a decade’s worth of indiscriminate demonization of Arabs in America — and of the low quotient of comprehensive adult news coverage that might have helped counter it — is the steady rise in Islamophobia. The “Ground Zero” mosque melee has given way to battles over mosques as far removed from Lower Manhattan as California. Soon to come is a national witch hunt — Congressional hearings called by Representative Peter King of New York — into the “radicalization of the American Muslim community.” Given the disconnect between America and the Arab world, it’s no wonder that Americans are invested in the fights for freedom in Egypt and its neighboring dictatorships only up to a point. We’ve been inculcated to assume that whoever comes out on top is ipso facto a jihadist.

-edit-

**************

Even though many know better, the racism shoe has just gotten so comfy. And that's what Rich is saying.

[malaise]

4. True but the numbers searching for Al Jazeera on line

suggests a significant shift. People want real news.

[bobbolink]

2. I'm glad millions found it. Maybe that will spark demand!

[EFerrari]

3. Frank Rich couldn't be more wrong about social media

but as a long time fan, he gets to be wrong every once in a while.

[chimpymustgo]

5. His point is not wrong about the American ego-eccentric media's need to give it more credit

than due for the actual uprising. He might even have mentioned the self-immolations that were spreading across northern Africa/Middle East as despair and anger were reaching a critical mass that finally exploded with people taking to the streets.

-edit-

The social networking hype eventually had to subside for a simple reason: The Egyptian government pulled the plug on its four main Internet providers and yet the revolution only got stronger. “Let’s get a reality check here,” said Jim Clancy, a CNN International anchor, who broke through the bloviation on Jan. 29 by noting that the biggest demonstrations to date occurred on a day when the Internet was down. “There wasn’t any Twitter. There wasn’t any Facebook,” he said. No less exasperated was another knowledgeable on-the-scene journalist, Richard Engel, who set the record straight on MSNBC in a satellite hook-up with Rachel Maddow. “This didn’t have anything to do with Twitter and Facebook,” he said. “This had to do with people’s dignity, people’s pride. People are not able to feed their families.”

No one would deny that social media do play a role in organizing, publicizing and empowering participants in political movements in the Middle East and elsewhere. But as Malcolm Gladwell wrote on The New Yorker’s Web site last week, “surely the least interesting fact” about the Egyptian protesters is that some of them “may (or may not) have at one point or another employed some of the tools of the new media to communicate with one another.” What’s important is “why they were driven to do it in the first place” — starting with the issues of human dignity and crushing poverty that Engel was trying to shove back to center stage.

-edit-

[EFerrari]

6. The better point would have been that Egyptians have used social media

much more productively than Americans have.

And, while the government shut down the net on Jan 29, Egyptian activists found a way to work around and still use that tool -- I know because I was reading them.

The American media are wrong to confuse a tool with a motivation, that much is very true.

[underpants]

8. I think that the point is missed by Frank too. Social media allows quick access and short messages

take DU for example - compare posting on Twitter (which I have not done) or Facebook (done) to getting onto a forum click click click click and THEN have your message put out to whomever wants to pick it up. Now (as I understand it) on the Twit and FB you have an established network of "friends" who see everything you post and are waiting for it.

It is more like CB radio or ham radio. But it is faster and shorter - no wasted time with intros as people tend to talk more than they will type.


Rich does jump over the fact that only about 30% of Americans have internet access (other than on phones) but his point is pretty well taken. Al Jazeera has bureaus outside of NYC Atlanta DC and.... well that is all Fox and CNN have. Al Jazeera is like the news I grew up with, where we at least had "man on the street interviews" from the actual location not within walking distance of the studio with the same old cadre of talking heads coming in to talk about events thousands of miles away - mostly with "what I have heard" from establishment contacts who are going to state the status quo.

[trumad]

11. Uhh--

did you see the statistics of those who have it in Egypt---and those who have internet access?

[EFerrari]

12. Uhh, I've been too busy getting to know Cairo activists

on the intertubes.

[thaddeus_flowe]

7. I do not have a television. (thank god)

But I do get Al Jazeera for free on my iPhone.
Without commercials every 5 minutes...
And, without jihadist commentators as some claim.
I find their message to be mostly clear and impartial compared to cable news.

[chimpymustgo]

10. I like their commentators.

[highplainsdem]

9. kick

[J. N. Horsburgh]

13. Comment: "Wallflowers at the revolution" Frank Rich

In 1969, fresh from graduate school, I started visits with a psychiatrist. Along the way I learned and absorbed some lessons for living that have proven invaluable:1) You can do anything you want in your fantasies but must always recognize the difference between these and reality, 2) The drinker (of alcohol) is not always the best judge of his actions, and 3) If you "assume" and from this "conclude," consider the first thing you assume is almost always wrong, (and you will eat crow if acted upon). After the 2003 Iraq invasion it soon became apparent the reasons given for it were a sham. I listened to all 6 or 7 explanations of motive Tony Snow gave over about 2 years. None seemed credible to me. The reason for this is touched on in Maureen Dodd's review appearing today of Rumstud's new memoir - neither Bush/Cheney nor any in his administration was functioning adequately mentally. Accountability and responsibility as operative words and concepts appear to have been missing, replaced with "fantasy" in their psyches.

When I saw the word "Islamaphobia" in your piece I remembered (2004) of a Holy War or Crusade explanation topping my list of possible motives for Iraq. Remembering my psychiatrist's cautions, I was and am slow to assume and conclude. I do remember at the time reports in your paper of our generals there giving troops exactly this as a reason for being - Christians vs. Muslims - "We will show them." Other reports were of stifled religious freedom of non Christians in Boot Camps. To suggest to the public fantasy is reality as Bush did in his memoir and now Rumstud does in his - is ludicrous. President Carter and even "Free Lunch" Reagan, when faced with major "goofs" of their governing, admitted them publicly, took responsibility and initiated remedial actions. By 1998, Bill Clinton clearly saw himself deserving to be "above the law," and apparently to B/C any structural or legal restraints (like the Constitution) similarly were a constraint to "proper" governance. The ancient Greeks defined functioning Man as one fit in mind and body. Today, Lennonite doctors use any "Means" to propagate the flawed "end" of longevity for all. One doesn't need to be a Greek philosopher to recognize the attributes of a functioning man. He is and has been - at all times - one who demonstrates conscience, integrity, character and compassion for all others. Is God responsible for all this mental mayhem of the last 30 years or did we act irresponsibly when we created God? Down the road, could readers of e-mails like this one be considered "suspected terrorists?" ...Man must at all times take responsibility for his words and actions - if he doesn't or won't, he is not "human" - by definition.

J. N. Horsburgh