> They fish out dirts in others while their home country is never exposed to their investigative journalism.
True, and the same can be said of RT, and many others.
This actually seems to be the default configuration for the market in journalism (whether the funding comes from advertising or the state). Afflicting the comfortable even-handedly is a privilege very few news organizations have. There is almost always a hand that feeds them they are reluctant to bite.
The best we can reasonably hope for (WRT Aljazeera) is a competing org with a different source of funding.
You can make the same argument about American news media. Fox News and MSNBC are propaganda machines for their respective political views/parties. I’m not sure what your comment adds to the discussion.
That's a very different argument. Fox News and MSNBC are biased, no doubt, but the US is definitely "exposed to their investigative journalism". They spend quite a bit of time reporting on problems they see in US government and society.
That is, I'm sure there will be no shortage of people who will explain how Fox News and MSNBC are happy to talk about problems as long as they don't rock the boat. It's fine to continuously speak about crumbling infrastructure, but it's not as fine to speak about the economical benefits of war and that the society happily accepts the death of hundreds of thousands of foreigners for it, because that would become very uncomfortable very quickly.
I'm not an expert on Al Jazeera, but I've never seen a negative story from them about Qatar and the article seems to suggest the US government thinks they wouldn't.
I'm not sure what you mean with the last parts of your sentence. I've definitely seen stories from Fox News and MSNBC about the economical benefits of war or foreigners dying in war. Many of the anchors on those networks take great pride in making things uncomfortable for the powers that be, although they disagree on precisely who those powerful people are.
Have you seen economic benefits of paying low income foreign labour (Qatar)? Have you seen them investigate what was causing low income foreign workers to die suddenly? Did they investigate how they got the rights to host world cup? The list is endless.
I quite frankly don't give two shits about what is happening in their home country, and whether or not they are doing anything about it. Because I don't live in it.
If you want to be informed about the world, you aren't going to get there without reading radically different news sources, that don't share a common bias. If all you read is domestic news, your information sources have too much common bias for you to get a clear picture of what is actually happening.
I think it does make sense. When UAE-Israel peace/recognition deal was announced, Al Jazeera journalists were the ones who seemed to be complaining the most on Twitter about it. They have built a good reputation for journalism and I think they are going to exert that influence for their state, just like I have seen lately even SCMP do.
Sure, they do cover lots of parts of the world, and do some really good in-depth reporting but there is a definite bias to their reporting and selectiveness in what they cover, and if it is a state influenced, good to call it out.
Al Jazeera is Qatari. UAE and Qatar don't get along well with one another, so why wouldn't they complain about it? If it wasn't for the oil I'd expect the US to be aligned with Qatar.
Why would US be aligned with Qatar over UAE? I don't find much difference in UAE and Qatar. The whole 2022 FIFA world cup being held in Qatar has been a blot on the sport from possible corruption in bidding to gross worker(human) right violations in construction.
> why wouldn't they complain about it?
Wouldn't it be nice if journalists try to stay unbiased and do factual reporting and not be a broadcast arm for their state's interests. If they can't, it seems appropriate to brand them as a foreign mission.
Personally, Al Jazeera English has been a valuable source of counter propaganda to the hegemonic western media companies I usually end up getting my news from (NYT, Guardian, Atlantic, etc. on the liberal end and WaPo, BBC, etc. on the more neutral/conservative end).
I think it’s fair to say they are more directly aligned with Qatar and don’t do as good a job criticizing their owners as John Oliver with ATT. But, I cannot find anyone, not even BBC, that does as good a job at covering grassroots organization efforts and local stories from South America, Africa, the middle-east (particularly Palestinian stories), South Asia, and parts of East Asia.
It has been refreshing to see humanizing perspectives of people who are usually cast as ‘the other’ or ‘backwards’ implicitly or explicitly in western media.
I wonder if Australian, European, or Israeli news/media companies ever have to register as foreign agents.
Thanks, will definitely try them out.
I find The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, ProPublica, and maybe controversially, The Intercept do good primary source journalism in the US.
ProPublica is definitely in my bookmarks too. Things like The Intercept and Project Syndicate are so hit or miss depending on the author. The Intercept was so solid when it just started. Then gradually you start seeing Greenwald start arguing with all the other corporate journalists from WaPo and NYT they're hiring en masse on Twitter...
If you think the Atlantic is on the "liberal end" and the WaPo is on the "neutral/conservative" end of the news spectrum, I think you have a fuzzy understanding of the political divides in US news sources.
True, perhaps I am wrong in my classification. Maybe not fair to say WaPo is conservative. And The Atlantic does give space to neo-liberal ideas. It’s very biased by how and which stories have stuck in my mind from these sources.
So true, most western media are tainted with bias towards propoganda of western governments. Aljazeera is the first station I've seen that has really shed a light on what happens in the middle East
On whose orders did we do this and why now? Of course... Israel.
For all the talk about foreign meddling, we never hear anything about israel. You here endless propaganda about russia, china, etc, but never about israel. I'm sure putin and xi wish they had the influence in the US that israel has.
Has part of a presidential election ever kicked off in moscow or beijing like trump did with israel? Can you imagine the lunatic hysteria it would have kicked off in traditional and social media?
Is there any country, other than israel, that you cannot boycott as an american. You can boycott china. You can boycott russia. Heck you can even boycott america as an american. But you can't boycott israel.
Not to save america, but israel. Imagine if they say they exist to save china or russia. We'd call that treason.
Yes, lets investigate russian and chinese foreign meddling. But lets not stop there. Lets go deeper. Saudi meddling and all the way up to israeli meddling.
I have not posted on this account for many months for non tech topics, because discourse on HN has taken an unfortunate turn over the last few years. This is a fantastic example of it, (the greying of this comment) and so incenses me that I'm willing to speak up in defense of it.
There are active measures to _prohibit boycott of israel_ in the US. This is A Fact. [0] Multiple states, as well as the ACLU, have issued rulings declaring this unconstitutional, but it blazes on. [1]
We are being pushed to give up FUNDAMENTAL LIBERTIES with almost no meaningful awareness, and anyone who speaks against it is immediately labeled an antisemite. As someone married to an orthodox jew, I will say openly: the fact that these are scary moves is even discussed within _our family_ and is by no means a dogwhistle for hate, so why is it so aggressively silenced outside?
When it comes to the South or so-called Bible Belt, support for Israel is unconditional. It has transcended other political topics, including Constitutional rights, and become religious dogma. Billy Graham's ministry and the "Left Behind" series of novels were very influential there. I would be more surprised to hear an evangelical Christian criticizing Israel than a Jew or an actual Israeli.
As a non-american the USA-Israel relationship it is interesting and weird. As an outsider an ignorant about foreign policy it seems like they are the same country, or Israel being something like an overseas american territory and not a country in itself.
And I wonder, do israeli people feel the same connection with the USA?
Pompeo's support for Israel has a motive that goes beyond the American mainstream.
He's an Evangelical Christian and believes in an imminent "Rapture" that can only happen when Biblical prophecies are fulfilled. Among these is the return of Jews to the Holy Land. [1]
In other words, the Secretary of State is literally trying to bring about the end of the world.
If this were Iran, people would be talking about a delusional theocracy.
The juxtaposition of gay marriage ruling and rapture in his speech is, to me, identical to saying "burn all gays".
The irony is this ideology is about as anti-Christian as it gets. Jesus had very few nice things to say about wealthy people, and yet Christianity Inc. loves to sell Americans on the idea of prosperity theology. The book of Job expressly states it's bullcrap. This is why I consider it a cult, they aren't that serious about the religious aspects at all, they just like the parts where some people are rewarded (physically taken to heaven, i.e. the rapture) and their non-believer enemies are all murdered.
There are a lot of evangelicals openly wishing for the apocalypse. They've produced fetishized, low-budget war movies and animations depicting that moment. As someone who grew up in a protestant sect of Christianity it is one of the biggest things that have given me pause in supporting or participating in it.
I read Left Behind, back in the day. I knew it was popular but am surprised it had such a lasting effect.
Pompeo and Pence are Christian Dominionists. They believe in the rapture. Armageddon is real, and to bring about the end times and second coming, 2/3rds of Jewish blood must saturate the land of Israel. The other 1/3 become Christians (of course). So they aren't friends of Israel as it seems, they need them for their perverse eschatology.
Trump is the least interesting or relevant aspect.
>For all the talk about foreign meddling, we never hear anything about israel. You here endless propaganda about russia, china, etc, but never about israel. I'm sure putin and xi wish they had the influence in the US that israel has.
One reason you might be downvoted is because of this false equivalency. Yes, Israel is a big player in US politics. However they do it the old fashioned way of political pressure and negotiation. This has always been allowed. I'm not making a value judgement on that, just recognizing it is traditional foreign policy behavior. The accusations against Russia and to a lesser extent China are very different. They are being accused of a new and more nefarious meddling that has included accusations of hacking, compromising politicians, and massive grass roots style propaganda efforts (maybe Israel is guilty of these too, but I haven't seen any credible accusations of such behavior). I can certainly see how someone might think all the actions from all these countries are equivalent "meddling", but from a legal and tradition standpoint it is like comparing lobbying with straight bribery. One is much more acceptable than the other.
>However they do it the old fashioned way of political pressure and negotiation.
Jonathan Pollard would be the biggest contrary example.
Here's an article talking about all kinds of other spying that Israel done in the U.S., enough that: "The intelligence community would always be urging the highest level of threats, while the State Department would be saying, 'This is not going to go over very well, we can't give this kind of rating, because there will be certain consequences in terms of travel warnings and restrictions.'"
Once again this is traditional old foreign policy activity. We are probably doing the exact same spying on them. I'm not saying it is right, but it is accepted as a reality. It is different when this information is gathered for informational purposes which appears to be the case for Israel rather than when it is dumped on Wikileaks to achieve a specific political end like with the accusations of Russian meddling.
Jonathan Pollard was not suborned by the Mossad, he literally decided on his own that he wants to spy for Israel and offered intelligence to a random army officer he met. Everyone spies on everyone, I don't think there's a single foreign office employee in Germany that was surprised say, that the US tapped Angela Merkel's phone, among other world leaders. The US spies on all its allies as well as enemies, it's basically table-stakes in international relations.
> One reason you might be downvoted is because of this false equivalency.
We all know the reasons for the downvotes. And funnily enough I predicted "false equivalency", "israel is our ally" or "whataboutism" response. You guys never disappointed. Like robots writing off a script.
> and massive grass roots style propaganda efforts (maybe Israel is guilty of these too, but I haven't seen any credible accusations of such behavior)
No? Ever look in the mirror? You are right, the zionist movement doesn't exist. But the real worry isn't the grassroots, it's the political elites that israel has in their pocket. Not to mention all the pro-israel "american right" all over youtube and social media.
> However they do it the old fashioned way of political pressure and negotiation. This has always been allowed.
Right, if you can say one thing about israel is that they play by the rules. /s
Everything you accused china, russia, etc of, israel does, but "better". Not only that, they go beyond what china, russia, etc does. Including terrorism, sinking american ships, killing american troops, etc.
> One is much more acceptable than the other.
No, none of them are acceptable - but especially israel.
Funny, you rarely see defense of china or russia, but in traditional and social media, there is always people justifying and defending israel. Where are the china/russia/etc grassroots movement? Where is their influence?
The easiest way to debunk everything you wrote is the fact that we are talking about israel. Israel is nothing to america and to americans. Historically, economically, demographically, etc. But why are so much foreign policy, media, money, etc devoted to israel. It's easy to understand why russia or china or even north korea feature prominently. But why israel? But then again you already know all this so I'll end this here.
And it's not just the US, they are meddling in the UK as well ( but we all knew this anyway ).
And out come the anti-semitic dog whistles of Zionism, the USS Liberty, and "political elites that israel has in their pocket". You can criticize Israel and its politics all you want, but you cross a line when you say something like "Israel is nothing to america and to americans". You are stating that any American Jews who want a Jewish homeland are not truly American.
The American MIC needs dependable world conflict to drive demand for its products. That's why we give Israel billions and they give it back to us for weapons.
Even though the reporting can be very biased, Al Jazeera was one of the only news channels we watched in the military, along with BBC. I wish we had similar news agencies in the USA that show actual world news, and aren't just attractive people sitting around a table, gossiping about Democrats/Republicans.
The closest I've found is a local public television station that has a block of PBS Newshour, Newsline, DW News, BBC World News, and France 24. It'd be nice if they had Al Jazeera, or even a few more broadcasts from other parts of the world, but I imagine English language broadcasts are rare in certain places.
> "If you agree with it, it's truth. If you don't agree, it's propaganda. Pretend that it is all propaganda. See what happens on your analysis reports."
It is a window into the culture of the source -- and often the only one accessible to us.
This is not to say that journalists should not strive to report without bias, they should do so, but rather that unbiased coverage is an ideal never rightly claimed as fully achieved.
Seconded. It's very biased on mideast politics and especially Palestine/Israeli stuff, but in general they do a really great job of covering the global south and non-OECD countries. A slow news day in the US is generally not a slow news day globally.
The global weather is super intriguing. The resolution is so low that I can't figure out for whom it is useful, e.g., "It's raining in sub-Saharan Africa"
Our it could be that it really doesn't fit your views on mideast politics. Western media is totally silent on many issue directly caused by western powers in the region.
Why do you watch the BBC? Maybe it is better if you are not in the UK, but it is heavily biased towards the Westminster government, and does not give a fair picture of and to Welsh, Scottish, and (Northern) Irish concerns.
I agree that it is less bad than Fox and other Murdoch media.
They still have far fewer dogs in the race for an American consumer. I can imagine that to a lot of those folks, goings-on in the British government aren't that important or interesting and so the bias doesn't really affect anything.
Western media are certainly no strangers to bias. The difference is that no matter where you are in the political spectrum you can find media sympathetic to your belief.
Foreign news, even state controlled (RT, for example) is always valuable. Partly because we know those news outlets are biased and politically motivated, and adjust our own perception accordingly. Though the glorification of suicide bombing and the killing of US soldiers on Al Jazeera always left a very bad taste in my mouth circa 2003-2004.
The problem is that our news outlets are biased and politically motivated as well, it's just the pressure comes from money and "access". And we don't admit it to ourselves.
A simple example is a person or company will go to a specific outlet to break negative news so they can get a head start on the story. For access to the scoop, the outlet helps write a truthful but "friendly" narrative.
This happens all of the time with large businesses also, and it's evident in the headlines. Where did you think all of that PR consulting money goes?
> glorification of suicide bombing and the killing of US soldiers on Al Jazeera always left a very bad taste in my mouth.
Are we talking about the same Al Jazeera? I've never seen such glorification. I am an American living internationally for a long time now and, where I used to value BBC World, I have preferred Al Jazeera English for close to ten years at least.
I think this was mostly perceived to be on their Arabic station, not the English one. In those days people I know who watched the Arabic Al-Jazeera said it was a whole different channel than the English one (in terms of bias, etc).
(Although I didn't hear anything specifically about support for suicide bombings).
I'm curious about the "glorification of suicide bombing" you mention. I mostly watch Al-Jazeera in the UK and my understanding is that Al-Jazeera English should be considered an almost entirely separate entity from the other (Arabic language?) Al-Jazeera that is regarded to have ties to the Muslim brotherhood etc.
From my perspective with the pro Qatari bias in mind Al-Jazeera English is one of the only quality news stations available; especially since, due to their bias, they will focus on underreported stories such as the Rohingya.
Are the issues you mention relevant to the English language channel?
> glorification of suicide bombing and the killing of US soldiers on Al Jazeera
I've read AJE occasionally for years; I read BBC for the same reason: to get perspective outside of North America. I've NEVER noticed anything so egregious... I've considered the reporting and editorial to be at par with BBC. Can you provide examples? Is the english content significantly different from other languages?
This administration's xenophobia is really starting to annoy. But the silver lining is that at least President Trump and his supporters have all but guaranteed 16 years of Democrats in the White House. Maybe the damage he has caused in just 4 years can be repaired in that time.
That's a bunch of baloney though. The only reason it comes down to those states is because the other states have already decided. WI does not matter more than CA, that is for sure. If a Republican ever won CA it would be a FAR bigger deal than any little swing state.
California was a Republican-leaning swing state before 1992. It has a long, long history of being such, such as unexpectedly going to Wilson and giving him reelection in 1916.
> California was a Republican-leaning swing state before 1992.
California was, in Presidential politics, a Republican stronghold, not a swing state, prior to 1992. (Between Truman in 1948 and 1992, the only Democrat to win in California was Johnson in 1964; precious little swinging going on for a “swing” state.)
State and Congressional/Senate politics were less one-sided, though.
>California was, in Presidential politics, a Republican stronghold, not a swing state, prior to 1992. (Between Truman in 1948 and 1992, the only Democrat to win in California was Johnson in 1964; precious little swinging going on for a “swing” state.)
Look at the margins of those wins during those years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...). The state consistenly voted very close to how the nation voted. Some years it voted slightly more Republican (Nixon in 1960 and Ford in 1976), other years less (Eisenhower won fewer Californian votes in 1956 than in 1952, contrary to the national trend), but it was always close when the national race was close. That Michigan, Pennsyvania, and Wisconsin hadn't voted Republican in 30 years didn't not make them swing states in 2016.
> That Michigan, Pennsyvania, and Wisconsin hadn't voted Republican in 30 years didn't not make them swing states in 2016.
If they actually hadn't for 24 years, and had only done it once then, and hadn't done previously for another 20 years, so that in 10 presidential elections preceding they had each gone Republican exactly once—as was the case in California leading in to 1992, but with reversed partisan polarity—it would have made it silly to call them swing states.
That racists exist is not a valid argument. And you heard it here first, no Republican will see the inside of the Oval Office until maybe 2037, and you have yourself and Trump to thank. He has single handedly wrecked the Republican Party. He never should have gotten this nomination. Republicans should have looked everywhere for a young John McCain if they hoped to win. Trump is a disgrace, one long skid mark, like the one in your shorts, since he took office.
How does that indicate that Trump is racist? It's pretty well known that his father probably had some racial bias, and the article makes it very clear that this happened at the onset of Trump's career, when the company was still under control of his father. How many people do you know that believe everything their parents do? In my opinion his actions show he is clearly not a racist. I'm sorry, but one lawsuit 50 years ago against his father's company does not prove that Trump himself is a racist
> But the silver lining is that at least President Trump and his supporters have all but guaranteed 16 years of Democrats in the White House. Maybe the damage he has caused in just 4 years can be repaired in that time.
Interesting take. The last time one party had control for 16 years was after Hoover, who was considered one of the worst in history, but there was a World War in there to help the Democrats retain control.
So it'll be interesting to see if plays out.
If the Democrats are smart, and Biden wins, they'll convince Biden to step down after 25 months so Harris can take over. Then she'd still be eligible to run for two more terms, but run as an incumbent both times.
>Maybe the damage he has caused in just 4 years can be repaired in that time.
At this point I feel the problem with the US is less the system and more the people. It's less than two months from the election, nearing 200,000 covid deaths, and the outcome is somehow uncertain. That's an indictment on Americans and frankly it's hard seeing common sense return anytime soon. The fissures are generational. Enough people don't want to see the damage repaired to affect the everyday political process to ensure it won't be. US is in need of a great leader , Biden doesn't feel up to the task. T
Part of the Israel/UAE/Qatar drama. USCENTCOM is hosted in Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, IIRC it's US largest forward base in the region. I doubt US plans to move it to UAE. Doesn't seem like smart diplomacy but not unsound gamble for current admin's ME foreign policy goals. Trumps fishing hard for that Nobel Peace prize.
On a tangential note, it's bizarre how only certain twitter accounts are marked "state media" and all western media accounts (e.g. BBC) are left alone.
I think youtube marks anything government affiliated. It marks CBC as gov owned and its run at a fair distance from the gov. Maybe twitter is trying to only mark media that is state mouth pieces, then again VoA is literally founded for propaganda purposes.
Maybe there isn't any solid evidence (yet) that Ruptures is a Russian fake news outlet but when I poked around their site[1] for all of ten minutes it certainly seemed like it had the makings of one. So I can't say I blame twitter/their algorithm for flagging it as such. When I searched the names of their handful of journalists and editors many of them had made appearances in RT videos on YouTube and Facebook.
A lot of people make appearances on RT. Would you ask that if a website had most of their reporters have appearances at some point for the BBC? Would you ask for The Intercept to be classified as state sponsored media? How about the Daily Wire? How about Fox News, MSNBC, CNN?
You can't classify a media source as state sponsored simply because its editors agree with an alternative viewpoint. That is just ridiculous.
They should really be asked what is their precise criterion is for using the term "public broadcast service" instead, when it seems to simply be euphemism for the same thing.
I'm from the Caribbean and I find I learn a lot more about what's happening in the world. For years I've watched BBC and CNN international and found them way too biased to from a properly unbiased view about most stories.
Full text:
The Justice Department ordered a digital news network based in the United States and owned by Al Jazeera, the media company backed by the royal family of Qatar, to register as a foreign agent, surprising a high-level delegation from Doha just as officials from the two nations met to strengthen diplomatic and economic alliances.
Al Jazeera suggested the move was part of a separate deal, signed on Tuesday and brokered by the Trump administration, in which the United Arab Emirates, a Qatari rival, normalized diplomatic relations with Israel. The Emirates ambassador to the United States said that was not true.
In a letter dated Monday that was obtained by The New York Times, the Justice Department said that AJ+, a network that primarily produces short videos for social media in English as well as Arabic, French and Spanish, engages in “political activities” on behalf of Qatar’s government and should therefore be subject to the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Qatar, the letter said, provides the network’s funding and appoints its board of directors.
“Journalism designed to influence American perceptions of a domestic policy issue or a foreign nation’s activities or its leadership qualifies as ‘political activities’ under the statutory definition,” said the letter, which was signed by Jay I. Bratt, the chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence division, “even,” the letter added, “if it views itself as ‘balanced.’”
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 183 ms ] threadTrue, and the same can be said of RT, and many others.
This actually seems to be the default configuration for the market in journalism (whether the funding comes from advertising or the state). Afflicting the comfortable even-handedly is a privilege very few news organizations have. There is almost always a hand that feeds them they are reluctant to bite.
The best we can reasonably hope for (WRT Aljazeera) is a competing org with a different source of funding.
That is, I'm sure there will be no shortage of people who will explain how Fox News and MSNBC are happy to talk about problems as long as they don't rock the boat. It's fine to continuously speak about crumbling infrastructure, but it's not as fine to speak about the economical benefits of war and that the society happily accepts the death of hundreds of thousands of foreigners for it, because that would become very uncomfortable very quickly.
I'm not sure what you mean with the last parts of your sentence. I've definitely seen stories from Fox News and MSNBC about the economical benefits of war or foreigners dying in war. Many of the anchors on those networks take great pride in making things uncomfortable for the powers that be, although they disagree on precisely who those powerful people are.
If you want to be informed about the world, you aren't going to get there without reading radically different news sources, that don't share a common bias. If all you read is domestic news, your information sources have too much common bias for you to get a clear picture of what is actually happening.
Sure, they do cover lots of parts of the world, and do some really good in-depth reporting but there is a definite bias to their reporting and selectiveness in what they cover, and if it is a state influenced, good to call it out.
> why wouldn't they complain about it?
Wouldn't it be nice if journalists try to stay unbiased and do factual reporting and not be a broadcast arm for their state's interests. If they can't, it seems appropriate to brand them as a foreign mission.
I think it’s fair to say they are more directly aligned with Qatar and don’t do as good a job criticizing their owners as John Oliver with ATT. But, I cannot find anyone, not even BBC, that does as good a job at covering grassroots organization efforts and local stories from South America, Africa, the middle-east (particularly Palestinian stories), South Asia, and parts of East Asia.
It has been refreshing to see humanizing perspectives of people who are usually cast as ‘the other’ or ‘backwards’ implicitly or explicitly in western media.
I wonder if Australian, European, or Israeli news/media companies ever have to register as foreign agents.
Sorry but no, WaPo is absolutely not on the neutral/conservative end. I suppose some argument could be made for BBC being more neutral.
I would put WaPo on the liberal end, and WSJ on the neutral/conservative end.
For all the talk about foreign meddling, we never hear anything about israel. You here endless propaganda about russia, china, etc, but never about israel. I'm sure putin and xi wish they had the influence in the US that israel has.
Has part of a presidential election ever kicked off in moscow or beijing like trump did with israel? Can you imagine the lunatic hysteria it would have kicked off in traditional and social media?
Is there any country, other than israel, that you cannot boycott as an american. You can boycott china. You can boycott russia. Heck you can even boycott america as an american. But you can't boycott israel.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/rights-protesters/new-...
Trump, Pompeo and his administration openly state that Trump exists to save Israel.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/pompeo-suggests...
Not to save america, but israel. Imagine if they say they exist to save china or russia. We'd call that treason.
Yes, lets investigate russian and chinese foreign meddling. But lets not stop there. Lets go deeper. Saudi meddling and all the way up to israeli meddling.
Edit: Insta downvote. Interesting.
There are active measures to _prohibit boycott of israel_ in the US. This is A Fact. [0] Multiple states, as well as the ACLU, have issued rulings declaring this unconstitutional, but it blazes on. [1]
We are being pushed to give up FUNDAMENTAL LIBERTIES with almost no meaningful awareness, and anyone who speaks against it is immediately labeled an antisemite. As someone married to an orthodox jew, I will say openly: the fact that these are scary moves is even discussed within _our family_ and is by no means a dogwhistle for hate, so why is it so aggressively silenced outside?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Anti-Boycott_Act [1] https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/congress-laws-suppress...
And I wonder, do israeli people feel the same connection with the USA?
The Middle East is an important region to the US. Israel has friendly relations with the US. Israel is also surrounded by hostile neighbors.
Why wouldn’t they have close relations?
He's an Evangelical Christian and believes in an imminent "Rapture" that can only happen when Biblical prophecies are fulfilled. Among these is the return of Jews to the Holy Land. [1]
In other words, the Secretary of State is literally trying to bring about the end of the world.
If this were Iran, people would be talking about a delusional theocracy.
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/6959f506-6ee6-4d31-9372-ba34d5291...
The juxtaposition of gay marriage ruling and rapture in his speech is, to me, identical to saying "burn all gays".
The irony is this ideology is about as anti-Christian as it gets. Jesus had very few nice things to say about wealthy people, and yet Christianity Inc. loves to sell Americans on the idea of prosperity theology. The book of Job expressly states it's bullcrap. This is why I consider it a cult, they aren't that serious about the religious aspects at all, they just like the parts where some people are rewarded (physically taken to heaven, i.e. the rapture) and their non-believer enemies are all murdered.
I read Left Behind, back in the day. I knew it was popular but am surprised it had such a lasting effect.
Trump is the least interesting or relevant aspect.
One reason you might be downvoted is because of this false equivalency. Yes, Israel is a big player in US politics. However they do it the old fashioned way of political pressure and negotiation. This has always been allowed. I'm not making a value judgement on that, just recognizing it is traditional foreign policy behavior. The accusations against Russia and to a lesser extent China are very different. They are being accused of a new and more nefarious meddling that has included accusations of hacking, compromising politicians, and massive grass roots style propaganda efforts (maybe Israel is guilty of these too, but I haven't seen any credible accusations of such behavior). I can certainly see how someone might think all the actions from all these countries are equivalent "meddling", but from a legal and tradition standpoint it is like comparing lobbying with straight bribery. One is much more acceptable than the other.
Jonathan Pollard would be the biggest contrary example.
Here's an article talking about all kinds of other spying that Israel done in the U.S., enough that: "The intelligence community would always be urging the highest level of threats, while the State Department would be saying, 'This is not going to go over very well, we can't give this kind of rating, because there will be certain consequences in terms of travel warnings and restrictions.'"
https://www.newsweek.com/israels-aggressive-spying-us-mostly...
We all know the reasons for the downvotes. And funnily enough I predicted "false equivalency", "israel is our ally" or "whataboutism" response. You guys never disappointed. Like robots writing off a script.
> and massive grass roots style propaganda efforts (maybe Israel is guilty of these too, but I haven't seen any credible accusations of such behavior)
No? Ever look in the mirror? You are right, the zionist movement doesn't exist. But the real worry isn't the grassroots, it's the political elites that israel has in their pocket. Not to mention all the pro-israel "american right" all over youtube and social media.
> However they do it the old fashioned way of political pressure and negotiation. This has always been allowed.
Right, if you can say one thing about israel is that they play by the rules. /s
Everything you accused china, russia, etc of, israel does, but "better". Not only that, they go beyond what china, russia, etc does. Including terrorism, sinking american ships, killing american troops, etc.
> One is much more acceptable than the other.
No, none of them are acceptable - but especially israel.
Funny, you rarely see defense of china or russia, but in traditional and social media, there is always people justifying and defending israel. Where are the china/russia/etc grassroots movement? Where is their influence?
The easiest way to debunk everything you wrote is the fact that we are talking about israel. Israel is nothing to america and to americans. Historically, economically, demographically, etc. But why are so much foreign policy, media, money, etc devoted to israel. It's easy to understand why russia or china or even north korea feature prominently. But why israel? But then again you already know all this so I'll end this here.
And it's not just the US, they are meddling in the UK as well ( but we all knew this anyway ).
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/07/israeli-dipl...
further thoughts at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23858477
> "If you agree with it, it's truth. If you don't agree, it's propaganda. Pretend that it is all propaganda. See what happens on your analysis reports."
This is not to say that journalists should not strive to report without bias, they should do so, but rather that unbiased coverage is an ideal never rightly claimed as fully achieved.
The global weather is super intriguing. The resolution is so low that I can't figure out for whom it is useful, e.g., "It's raining in sub-Saharan Africa"
I agree that it is less bad than Fox and other Murdoch media.
Just an example: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/06/qatar-gul...
Western media are certainly no strangers to bias. The difference is that no matter where you are in the political spectrum you can find media sympathetic to your belief.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_America
The problem is that our news outlets are biased and politically motivated as well, it's just the pressure comes from money and "access". And we don't admit it to ourselves.
A simple example is a person or company will go to a specific outlet to break negative news so they can get a head start on the story. For access to the scoop, the outlet helps write a truthful but "friendly" narrative.
This happens all of the time with large businesses also, and it's evident in the headlines. Where did you think all of that PR consulting money goes?
Are we talking about the same Al Jazeera? I've never seen such glorification. I am an American living internationally for a long time now and, where I used to value BBC World, I have preferred Al Jazeera English for close to ten years at least.
(Although I didn't hear anything specifically about support for suicide bombings).
From my perspective with the pro Qatari bias in mind Al-Jazeera English is one of the only quality news stations available; especially since, due to their bias, they will focus on underreported stories such as the Rohingya.
Are the issues you mention relevant to the English language channel?
I've read AJE occasionally for years; I read BBC for the same reason: to get perspective outside of North America. I've NEVER noticed anything so egregious... I've considered the reporting and editorial to be at par with BBC. Can you provide examples? Is the english content significantly different from other languages?
More like just Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Wisconsin will decide everything.
This system sucks.
California was, in Presidential politics, a Republican stronghold, not a swing state, prior to 1992. (Between Truman in 1948 and 1992, the only Democrat to win in California was Johnson in 1964; precious little swinging going on for a “swing” state.)
State and Congressional/Senate politics were less one-sided, though.
Look at the margins of those wins during those years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...). The state consistenly voted very close to how the nation voted. Some years it voted slightly more Republican (Nixon in 1960 and Ford in 1976), other years less (Eisenhower won fewer Californian votes in 1956 than in 1952, contrary to the national trend), but it was always close when the national race was close. That Michigan, Pennsyvania, and Wisconsin hadn't voted Republican in 30 years didn't not make them swing states in 2016.
If they actually hadn't for 24 years, and had only done it once then, and hadn't done previously for another 20 years, so that in 10 presidential elections preceding they had each gone Republican exactly once—as was the case in California leading in to 1992, but with reversed partisan polarity—it would have made it silly to call them swing states.
It’s not like the other states don’t have a say (often bigger than the states you listed) it’s just that they are firmly in one camp or the other.
Just because you don’t understand the system, doesn’t mean it sucks.
https://www.npr.org/2016/09/29/495955920/donald-trump-plague...
Very doubtful.
I have never seen articles really critical of their own government.
So it'll be interesting to see if plays out.
If the Democrats are smart, and Biden wins, they'll convince Biden to step down after 25 months so Harris can take over. Then she'd still be eligible to run for two more terms, but run as an incumbent both times.
At this point I feel the problem with the US is less the system and more the people. It's less than two months from the election, nearing 200,000 covid deaths, and the outcome is somehow uncertain. That's an indictment on Americans and frankly it's hard seeing common sense return anytime soon. The fissures are generational. Enough people don't want to see the damage repaired to affect the everyday political process to ensure it won't be. US is in need of a great leader , Biden doesn't feel up to the task. T
I've seen individual Chinese accounts without any publicly known state affiliation marked as well.
Twitter claims their rule includes them, but if Voice of America doesn't count as "state-affiliated media" then what would?
If it walks like a duck and all...
[1] For anyone curious: https://ruptures-presse.fr
then CNN, MSNBC, FOX, and NYT should be marked as state media as well by that measure.
You can't classify a media source as state sponsored simply because its editors agree with an alternative viewpoint. That is just ridiculous.
Al Jazeera suggested the move was part of a separate deal, signed on Tuesday and brokered by the Trump administration, in which the United Arab Emirates, a Qatari rival, normalized diplomatic relations with Israel. The Emirates ambassador to the United States said that was not true.
In a letter dated Monday that was obtained by The New York Times, the Justice Department said that AJ+, a network that primarily produces short videos for social media in English as well as Arabic, French and Spanish, engages in “political activities” on behalf of Qatar’s government and should therefore be subject to the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Qatar, the letter said, provides the network’s funding and appoints its board of directors.
“Journalism designed to influence American perceptions of a domestic policy issue or a foreign nation’s activities or its leadership qualifies as ‘political activities’ under the statutory definition,” said the letter, which was signed by Jay I. Bratt, the chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence division, “even,” the letter added, “if it views itself as ‘balanced.’”