"So that was some half a century after the founding of a jewish organisation that had the stated goal of re-establishing Israel."
This was a movement that consisted by and large of immigrants buying land and living on the land they bought. You bring this up as if this is some sort of provocation. The situation was not militarized until much later, in reaction to Arab atrocities against the Jews who had been there and these settlers buying land.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic [wikipedia.org] and don't abuse the word."
The word "antisemitic" has a different definition. Why not look up the word I used? If you knew what it meant you would not have typed this. I actually argued as you do on this word at one time. Then I bothered to look up the word and found that I was, as you are now, wrong about the term: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/antisemitic. The article from your chosen source, wikipedia, is rather unequivocal: "While the term's semantics may imply that anti-Semitism is directed against all people of a Semite descent, it is in fact used exclusively to refer to hostility towards Jews.. This particular Wikipedia article is not even under dispute. You did not even look at your own source (the entry on the word "semite") which happens to mention that the term "antisemitism" refers exclusively to anti-Jewish sentiment.
"Second, when you call every kind of critisism of jewish people or the state of Israel anti-semitic then fine, but it is just diverting attention away from any possible solutions."
Since when is it not racist to criticize a "people"? (see bold characters) It does not divert attention, but instead focuses on the root cause of it: Arab/Muslim intolerance for Jews.
"Arguably they should have the right to keep their sources secret"
As long as the information about these sources do not fall under grand jury subpeona, they have the same rights to keep secrets as anyone else does. The Constitution does not afford "journalists" any special right to obstruct justice compared to anyone else. In fact, "journalist" is not any sort of specially recognized different group.
"It's actually considered pretty fundamental in freedom of press"
The First Amendment of the Constitution does not even mention or hint about it.
"Right, so lets take someone elses land and then be all surprised when they don't like it."
Here's a perfect example of this taking of land. And guess what? This was 1929, before you could use the existence of Israel as a flimsly cloak to hide your antisemitism behind.
"Last but not least, if you want a reservation where you can be free from routine atrocities, then the first thing to do is to create such a reservation in a way that does not cause lots of upset people, else you are just moving the problem around."
Pretty hard to do when the main reason you have "upset people" is that you dare to be Jewish and dare to insist on living.
"100 years ago there wasn't even any such thing as 'access' which was just expected and assumed"
100 years ago, there wasn't any such thing as "access" because there was really very little access. The information "pipes" were fewer, narrower, and slower. Remember, it took many days for information to get from one end of the command chain to the other for armies fighting in World War I.
"25 years ago there were 15 local news papers, today there are 10 local papers."
Are you counting all the newspapers, including the alternative weeklies? Or just some of them? I think you laughed before you counted.
"That same company owns several Radio stations and 5 of the 12 TV stations."
Probably several stations out of 25 or so, I would guess. How many TV stations were there 25 years ago?
"I know my news is filtered, censored, compacted, and regurgitated."
The filtering, compacting, and regurgitation (all of these quite subjective ideas) is all part of freedom of the press. What editorial writer does not filter, compact, and regurgitate? The "censored" is at a pretty low level. Ask Janet Jackson and Howard Sterm.
"So next time you look at the news, see how many companies own the local papers"
Let me see: 5 papers. The biggest daily is owned by one company (not sure I need to say that). Each of the 3 or 4 weekly papers is owned by a separate company. Only one of these existed 25 years ago.
"Bush has been paying reporters to publish propaganda More Than Once"
You are only complaining because Bush paid then to publish information you did not agree with. That is all propaganda is: information the user of the word does not like. From my point of view, Bush should spend $0 on this, just like Congress needs to zero out NPR and PBS funding.
"Judith Miller [wikipedia.org] never spent 85 days in jail"
She did not get jailed for reporting, or out of retribution for anything she printed. She got jailed for refusing to testify before a grand jury: something any one can be jailed for. Last time I checked, reporters were not in a special class to have a "get out of grand jury" card.
If you count this as an "action against a journalist", I can find numerous instances of journalists and reporters being arrested for drunk driving.
The atrocities and extermination attempts against the Jews in that area were going on long before the founding of Israel. Check into the Hebron pogram and the actual alliance between the pre-Israel Palestinian government and Nazi Germany. In fact, if not for the interminable harsh treatment, the Jews might not have even felt it necessary to establish some sort of "reservation" (Israel) where Jews would be free from the routine atrocities.
Many. Both personally, and in a general national demographic sense. Their numbers are growing. Anyone who participated in the genocide against them is very long dead. That problem is a situation with what America was, not what America is. In this, America is not unique. It is in a company with every country in the world, where the current inhabitants blissfully walk over the graves of the victims of their long-ago ancestors' crimes.
"As a result, most of the national and international news originates from a very small handful of people working for a few large media companies who are 'given' access to people and places where things are happening"
No, it doesn't. Most of the national and international news comes from a huge number of people that is growing larger all the time. You even mention "the newspaper that is printed in their city (probably there's only one)". There are many more newspapers now than there were 25 years ago.
" We know less than we used to about what is really going on in Iraq or Haiti or Venezuela or China and instead we just get the 'official' line mixed with a lot of spin and opinion"
Speak for yourself about knowing less. There are more channels of information about these places than there ever were.
"The council does not censor. It was founded by the mass media itself in 1968, and it sets general ethical guidelines, which the media tries to volentarily follow."
In Finland, is a newspaper permitted to ignore this Council (refuse to join it) and ignore its decrees and punishments? Is it really voluntary?
"3. Israel refuses to compensate people for very substantial losses resulting from the founding of Israel. Don't be surprised about those people being upset about this."
Why should they pay war criminals for self inflicted losses? The largest "loss" was, when at the time of the founding, the allied Arab powers decided to launch a "final solution" to push Israel into the sea. Large numbers of Palestinians left their homes to clear the battlefield: thus participating in attempted genocide.
" I do however agree that the palestinians have some very good reasons for fighting against Israel"
Name ONE. First and foremost of the reasons for the Palestinians NOT to engage in aggression against Israel is that it has forced Israel to occupy the West Bank and Gaza, and has caused casualties as Israel is forced to fight back.
"The Council has bitch-slapped various tv-channels and newspapers over time because of breach of the code of conduct"
Is this Council censoring the free press? Or just the stations owned by the government? If it is the latter, that is indeed nasty: a big government censorship board that even clobbers newspapers.
"As always, if you criticize Israeli politics, you are antisemitic"
Not always, but quite often.
"just as little as being negative to the aggression of the Israeli government means that we are anti semitic."
Since the Israeli government has never engaged in aggression, what is your reason for lying about it? Are you one of those who was not aware that the recent big conflict was caused when Lebanon (once again) invaded Israel? Grow up and let go of your hatred of the "fiendish Jew".
"Granted, reality may not be as shiny as the stated goal, but at least there IS this stated goal"
Does the presence of the stated goal really make that much of a difference? Stalin used a version of "optimize the public good, insure fairness and serve society members' interests", and so does Kim Jong Il.
"but they remain astonishingly blind to the much, much, greater power of big business in a capitalist society."
They are also aware that govenment is by far the biggest business at all, and that government's (ANY government's) claim of "optimize the public good, insure fairness and serve society members' interests." is nothing more than an example of the creation of a very good slogan.
"Media conglomerates are NOT democracies and will adopt whatever conduct maximises their profits"
They are controlled by the much more democratic and responsive control of the channel-change dial.
I've seen some silly analogies, but this one looks pretty good: comparing cat ownership to government control of media that is to be "independent" by charter.
"It seems to be a common mistake that people outside of Britain think the BBC is government controlled.
That's not a mistake at all. Organizationally it is entirely a part of the government of the United Kingdom.
"It isn't; in fact it's usually the first to be critical of the government."
How does that disprove anything? You will often get government divisions that criticize other government divisions. In fact, if you ever watch a session of Parliament, you might find a little dissent (sarcasm) here and there between participants in the government.
"It isn't funded by the government either; it is paid for by the license fee..."
Which is a form of tax, collected by the government and given to its division (the BBC), just like any other tax.
Slashdot Mirror
"So that was some half a century after the founding of a jewish organisation that had the stated goal of re-establishing Israel."
c . The article from your chosen source, wikipedia, is rather unequivocal: "While the term's semantics may imply that anti-Semitism is directed against all people of a Semite descent, it is in fact used exclusively to refer to hostility towards Jews.. This particular Wikipedia article is not even under dispute. You did not even look at your own source (the entry on the word "semite") which happens to mention that the term "antisemitism" refers exclusively to anti-Jewish sentiment.
This was a movement that consisted by and large of immigrants buying land and living on the land they bought. You bring this up as if this is some sort of provocation. The situation was not militarized until much later, in reaction to Arab atrocities against the Jews who had been there and these settlers buying land.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic [wikipedia.org] and don't abuse the word."
The word "antisemitic" has a different definition. Why not look up the word I used? If you knew what it meant you would not have typed this. I actually argued as you do on this word at one time. Then I bothered to look up the word and found that I was, as you are now, wrong about the term: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/antisemiti
"Second, when you call every kind of critisism of jewish people or the state of Israel anti-semitic then fine, but it is just diverting attention away from any possible solutions."
Since when is it not racist to criticize a "people"? (see bold characters) It does not divert attention, but instead focuses on the root cause of it: Arab/Muslim intolerance for Jews.
"Arguably they should have the right to keep their sources secret"
As long as the information about these sources do not fall under grand jury subpeona, they have the same rights to keep secrets as anyone else does. The Constitution does not afford "journalists" any special right to obstruct justice compared to anyone else. In fact, "journalist" is not any sort of specially recognized different group.
"It's actually considered pretty fundamental in freedom of press"
The First Amendment of the Constitution does not even mention or hint about it.
"Right, so lets take someone elses land and then be all surprised when they don't like it."
Here's a perfect example of this taking of land. And guess what? This was 1929, before you could use the existence of Israel as a flimsly cloak to hide your antisemitism behind.
"Last but not least, if you want a reservation where you can be free from routine atrocities, then the first thing to do is to create such a reservation in a way that does not cause lots of upset people, else you are just moving the problem around."
Pretty hard to do when the main reason you have "upset people" is that you dare to be Jewish and dare to insist on living.
"100 years ago there wasn't even any such thing as 'access' which was just expected and assumed"
100 years ago, there wasn't any such thing as "access" because there was really very little access. The information "pipes" were fewer, narrower, and slower. Remember, it took many days for information to get from one end of the command chain to the other for armies fighting in World War I.
"25 years ago there were 15 local news papers, today there are 10 local papers."
Are you counting all the newspapers, including the alternative weeklies? Or just some of them? I think you laughed before you counted.
"That same company owns several Radio stations and 5 of the 12 TV stations."
Probably several stations out of 25 or so, I would guess. How many TV stations were there 25 years ago?
"I know my news is filtered, censored, compacted, and regurgitated."
The filtering, compacting, and regurgitation (all of these quite subjective ideas) is all part of freedom of the press. What editorial writer does not filter, compact, and regurgitate? The "censored" is at a pretty low level. Ask Janet Jackson and Howard Sterm.
"So next time you look at the news, see how many companies own the local papers"
Let me see: 5 papers. The biggest daily is owned by one company (not sure I need to say that). Each of the 3 or 4 weekly papers is owned by a separate company. Only one of these existed 25 years ago.
"Bush has been paying reporters to publish propaganda More Than Once"
You are only complaining because Bush paid then to publish information you did not agree with. That is all propaganda is: information the user of the word does not like. From my point of view, Bush should spend $0 on this, just like Congress needs to zero out NPR and PBS funding.
"Judith Miller [wikipedia.org] never spent 85 days in jail"
She did not get jailed for reporting, or out of retribution for anything she printed. She got jailed for refusing to testify before a grand jury: something any one can be jailed for. Last time I checked, reporters were not in a special class to have a "get out of grand jury" card.
If you count this as an "action against a journalist", I can find numerous instances of journalists and reporters being arrested for drunk driving.
The atrocities and extermination attempts against the Jews in that area were going on long before the founding of Israel. Check into the Hebron pogram and the actual alliance between the pre-Israel Palestinian government and Nazi Germany. In fact, if not for the interminable harsh treatment, the Jews might not have even felt it necessary to establish some sort of "reservation" (Israel) where Jews would be free from the routine atrocities.
"seen any native americians lately?"
Many. Both personally, and in a general national demographic sense. Their numbers are growing. Anyone who participated in the genocide against them is very long dead. That problem is a situation with what America was, not what America is. In this, America is not unique. It is in a company with every country in the world, where the current inhabitants blissfully walk over the graves of the victims of their long-ago ancestors' crimes.
"Yes, that's right, the socialist government elected in Britain after WWII was practically indistinguishable from the Nazis."
The difference was only in degree. The UK government after WW2 was only mildly socialist (even if it was more socialist than what was before it).
"You are an utter fucking twat."
What you lack in knowledge of history, you make up with in erudite insults.
"Vietnam - a result of our ties to France and their sluggishness to give-up colonialism after WW2."
At the time of US involvement, the colonialism involved was entirely that of the USSR. And their effort turned out to be entirely successful.
"Why the hell do people in the USA expect the palestinians to accept something similar?"
They should be lucky to get even that after wholeheartedly engaging in a war of extermination against the Israelis.
"As a result, most of the national and international news originates from a very small handful of people working for a few large media companies who are 'given' access to people and places where things are happening"
No, it doesn't. Most of the national and international news comes from a huge number of people that is growing larger all the time. You even mention "the newspaper that is printed in their city (probably there's only one)". There are many more newspapers now than there were 25 years ago.
" We know less than we used to about what is really going on in Iraq or Haiti or Venezuela or China and instead we just get the 'official' line mixed with a lot of spin and opinion"
Speak for yourself about knowing less. There are more channels of information about these places than there ever were.
"The council does not censor. It was founded by the mass media itself in 1968, and it sets general ethical guidelines, which the media tries to volentarily follow."
In Finland, is a newspaper permitted to ignore this Council (refuse to join it) and ignore its decrees and punishments? Is it really voluntary?
"3. Israel refuses to compensate people for very substantial losses resulting from the founding of Israel. Don't be surprised about those people being upset about this."
Why should they pay war criminals for self inflicted losses? The largest "loss" was, when at the time of the founding, the allied Arab powers decided to launch a "final solution" to push Israel into the sea. Large numbers of Palestinians left their homes to clear the battlefield: thus participating in attempted genocide.
" I do however agree that the palestinians have some very good reasons for fighting against Israel"
Name ONE. First and foremost of the reasons for the Palestinians NOT to engage in aggression against Israel is that it has forced Israel to occupy the West Bank and Gaza, and has caused casualties as Israel is forced to fight back.
"The Council has bitch-slapped various tv-channels and newspapers over time because of breach of the code of conduct"
Is this Council censoring the free press? Or just the stations owned by the government? If it is the latter, that is indeed nasty: a big government censorship board that even clobbers newspapers.
"As always, if you criticize Israeli politics, you are antisemitic"
Not always, but quite often.
"just as little as being negative to the aggression of the Israeli government means that we are anti semitic."
Since the Israeli government has never engaged in aggression, what is your reason for lying about it? Are you one of those who was not aware that the recent big conflict was caused when Lebanon (once again) invaded Israel? Grow up and let go of your hatred of the "fiendish Jew".
"Granted, reality may not be as shiny as the stated goal, but at least there IS this stated goal"
Does the presence of the stated goal really make that much of a difference? Stalin used a version of "optimize the public good, insure fairness and serve society members' interests", and so does Kim Jong Il.
"And therefore the pressure is to entertain, rather than inform. "
No more and no less than any aspect of a free press.
"but they remain astonishingly blind to the much, much, greater power of big business in a capitalist society."
They are also aware that govenment is by far the biggest business at all, and that government's (ANY government's) claim of "optimize the public good, insure fairness and serve society members' interests." is nothing more than an example of the creation of a very good slogan.
"Media conglomerates are NOT democracies and will adopt whatever conduct maximises their profits"
They are controlled by the much more democratic and responsive control of the channel-change dial.
I've seen some silly analogies, but this one looks pretty good: comparing cat ownership to government control of media that is to be "independent" by charter.
"You really don't think the government in the USA has much influence over the media?"
It does, over NPR, PBS, and VOA. And it can bother Howard Stern and Janet Jackson over dwarves and boobies.
"Based on per-capita giving, America is almost dead last among first-world nations."
And based on the total amount, is it #2, or #1?
"It seems to be a common mistake that people outside of Britain think the BBC is government controlled.
That's not a mistake at all. Organizationally it is entirely a part of the government of the United Kingdom.
"It isn't; in fact it's usually the first to be critical of the government."
How does that disprove anything? You will often get government divisions that criticize other government divisions. In fact, if you ever watch a session of Parliament, you might find a little dissent (sarcasm) here and there between participants in the government.
"It isn't funded by the government either; it is paid for by the license fee..."
Which is a form of tax, collected by the government and given to its division (the BBC), just like any other tax.
"But, just because a media outlet is state owned does not mean it is state controlled."
If you own it, it is "part of you" and you control it.