New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote a tedious column today (10/11/11) about how the real radicals are the centrists, not the Wall Street occupiers. (Read Dean Baker to see what Brooks is getting wrong.) But this jumped out at me:
A third believe the U.S. is no better than Al-Qaeda, according to a New York magazine survey.
How would someone “survey” a leaderless, ever-shifting mass of protesters? I am not sure, and it’s not really what New York did. They asked a series of questions–some of them obviously cheeky–to 100 activists at Liberty Plaza. As you can see:
Rank yourself on the following Scale of Liberalism:
Not liberal at all: 6
Liberal but fairly mainstream (i.e., Barack Obama): 3
Strongly liberal (i.e., Paul Krugman): 12
Fed up with Democrats, believe country needs overhaul (i.e., Ralph Nader): 41
Convinced the U.S. government is no better than, say, Al-Qaeda (i.e., Noam Chomsky): 34
It’s not surprising that activists at Occupy Wall Street say they identify more with Chomsky than with Obama, regardless of whether you put a description that doesn’t reflect Chomsky’s worldview next to his name. It’s hard to believe that the magazine took this very seriously anyway. But it does provided Brooks with useful anti-protester fodder for his column defending the top 1 percent.
When did Murdoch buy New York magazine? That’s a pretty Fox-y question, innit?
Still, if the question is related to body counts …
I’m impressed that 75 out of the 100 surveyed identified with the recognizably left representatives, Nader and Chomsky (can we please find one under 70?). You forgot to mention Brooks identification as Adbusters as being best known for a perhaps anti-semitic piece it ran in 2004. Much better known for that,undoubtedly, than for poking critical fun at advertising and corporate culture in general.
This survey proves one thing: most people have a perverted concept of what conservative means. For example, George Will identifies himself as a conservative, but he favors war: destroying property, killing people, creating chaos, and annihilating culture. How does this conserve anything?
A true conservative wishes to protect the environment (not destroy it), to nurture life (not end it), to advance civilization (not retard it), to husband natural resources (not viciously exploit them), and so forth.
No surprises here. What would one expect from none other than Michelle Bachmann’s campaign advisor? Case closed.
I would of liked this question asked of our oh so confused and angry sign carriers.
.On a scale of one to ten, how much do you blame jews on wall street for your problems?Then ask the question….did you vote for Obama.Let the fun begin
The U.S. government is better than Al Qaeda …. at killing innocent people.
Oh my God Martin, if you can’t see the difference between “targeting” innocent people…….
Michale e is targeting innocent people with smear a fine tradition of the Pirates of Wall St. and the present NeoCon(federates) in gov’t and corporations infesting gov’t and the corporate press. But then our Mr. Brooks,/b> is one of the more recent acolytes to the choros of spin in the corporate networks encircling us. Soft spin, hard spin and all the variations in between they move their devil pens to cover the truth with lies to make it reflect the world as they see it not close to reality.
The USA is the top terrorist state and has killed far more innocent people than any number of terrorist cells around the world. Not even close to the body count alone. Not counting the injured and wrecked property an jobs also gone. Not even close.
Michael e, it’s hard to take seriously anyone who cannot write, and then also displays a total lack of reason in what he tries to communicate.
P.S. Don’t you have a space bar on your keyboard?
There is no end to Michael e’s ignorance. The U.S. has targeted “innocents” either with our own military or by proxy throughout our history.
Start with the Native Americans we slaughtered and continue on up to General Smedley Butler, the most decorated commadant in Marine Corp history:
In August, 1931, the much decorated Commandant of the Marine Corps. General Smedly Butler stunned an American Legion convention in Connecticut with the following:
“I spent 33 years…being a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1916. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City (Bank) boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street…In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested…I had…a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, promotions…I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three cities…The Marines operated on three continents…”
“Kill everyone over ten!”
– General Jacob Smith. (Many years ago, in a past now almost lost in memory, General Shafter once said: “My plan would be to disarm natives in the Philippines, even if we have to kill half of them.” General Jacob Smith added: “I want no prisoners, I wish you to kill and burn; the more you kill and burn, the better it pleases me…I want (Samar converted) into a howling wilderness.” Close to one million Filipinos were massacred by American troops between 1898 and 1916.)
The CIA Operation Phoenix in Vietnam was responsible for 20,000 assassinations (Vietnamese sources put the figure at 40,000). The CIA, with British help, put Suharto into power in Indonesia in a violent bloody coup. The massacre of 200,000 people in East Timor followed.
The CIA, with the help of US military, has been helping to maintain corrupt and bloody regimes all over Central America. Death squads, disappearances, torture, victim mutilation are all par for the course.
The US, using the CIA as its lead agency, is widely acknowledged as the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism. During the Reagan years alone, the CIA proxy army the Contras killed 8,000 Nicaraguan civilians. In Chile the bloody overthrow of the Allende regime saw 130,000 Chileans murdered, tortured and disappeared. The CIA intervention in Latin and Central America is one long litany of unspeakable bloody tragedy.
In the week that the six Jesuit priests and their housekeepers were killed, at least 28 Salvadoran civilians were killed including a union leader, a leader of a university women’s group, nine members of an Indian farming cooperative and ten students. Their deaths were attributed to the Atlacatl Battalion, created, trained and equipped by the US. The Atlacatl Battalion were trained in counter-insurgency by the US Army School of Special Forces. Victims of the death squads are not just killed, their bodies are mutilated and left on display to serve as a warning to others.
The CIA orchestrated the overthrow of the democratically elected Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954 led to the genocide of 180,000 indigenous Guatemalans. I’ve met Col. Roetinger (ret.), the man who was sent down to Guatemala to orchestrate the coup and to this day he regrets what he did.
EVERYBODY should go to YouTube and watch the 7 minute presentation by former CIA agent John Stockwell detail how 6 million People Were killed in CIA secret wars against third world countries.
BUT TO IGNORANT PEOPLE LIKE MICHAEL E., ONLY AL QAEDA TARGETS INNOCENT PEOPLE. REALLY?? REALLY???
Larry Siegel makes a good point. We are always aware when the media slants things to favor Wall Street, but we rarely even hear about covert actions that are done to favor special interests, and often are harmful to our broader national interests. I myself have been watching old reruns of Combat lately, with valient Sargeant Saunders and his heroic squad taking down Nazis. I never watch war movies about Viet Nam or our current conflicts. We don’t like to be reminded about the ugly realities do we? We prefer our illusions. That’s what the media does to us. It reinforces our make believe world, keeps us sedated, and child like. Everyday I meet someone who tells me they don’t like reading the news. It’s all too negative they say. That aspect of our nature is why the cost of a loaf of bread had to reach a months wages before French peasants went ballistic and ended a monarchical system which should never have existed in the first place. The entire history of our species is the same story.
Wealth concentration is greater in America today than it was in France in 1789. It is amazing just how gullible and closeted the human mind is. We tolerate high unemployment, huge national debt, declining wages, and decline in general without lifting a finger to do anything to fix it. We just submit to the talking heads. The fact that protests are taking place may be a sign that it is already too late us. I suppose for many milions whose jobs have been exported, and whose lives are hopeless, it is too late.
Yes. Jamie H., yes . . . . Um, Powerless Stooge, upwards of 80 million people were killed in WWII, the vast majority of them civilians. Was it somehow “better” than Vietnam? “Combat” is far more “utterly make-believe” than, say, “Platoon” or “The Hurt Locker.” WWII was a supreme, cosmic catastrophe, despite the fact that many think of it as the “Good War.” (Mostly draft-dodgers and current right-wingers.)
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Tim is right….WW2(the necessary war) was the height of targeting civilians.Today our military is built around “smart”weapons that lessen collateral damage.There is not one bit of training in any of our military arms now engaged, that plans for attacks on innocents.Period.If your point is innocents die in any war…….that is a given.War is still the height of folly.
Larry if you actually believe that the CIA has killed 6-5-4-3-2 or one million people:or any other massive charge of holocaustal numbers…..If someone has convinced you of this than I understand your posts a bit more .Your anti American attitudes.But realize Obama and all the rest in our government would be guilty of war crimes against humanity on par with Hitler.Allow that I don’t believe that.I don’t think most Americans are going to be sold on this line of thought.I suppose WE just don’t get it.
Chomsky is not a liberal, he has written many pieces criticizing liberalism. He is an anarcho-syndicalist and has said so on many occasions. The media’s notion that liberalism and conservatism are the only philosophies on the planet is another example of its bias.