Too bad, so sad.

[Mark Kohut]

Shows good 'reporting" from sound news sources, coupled with sound
opinion-formation and general historical
awareness

can com*e even *from internet writers!

good stuff and non-mainstream, what ever that is, writing, fer sure.
Belated congrats.

Wish I had read you then instead of the NYTimes.

On Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 6:17 AM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Well, I know *I* was opposed. And seeing as I was writing a daily email
> newsletter with an audited readership of just under 300K at the time
> (Internet famous, I was!), I have a written record to prove it.
>
> I also have documentary evidence to prove that conservatives of that time
> period were just as vile and allergic to reality and reason as are today's
> Trumptards, all the Frumses', Podhoretzes' and Kristolses' lamentations to
> the contrary notwithstanding.
>
> Recently, I went back and reviewed my writing from that era - much of it
> involving vigorous back-and-forthing with angry, pro-war, conservative
> subscribers - and one of the things that jumped out at me was the sneering,
> condescending joy they exhibited when the first part of the invasion was "a
> cakewalk". As if the world's only remaining superpower taking over a
> country that the international community had just spent a decade disarming
> was something to boast about.
>
> In fact, on April 5, 2013, when the conservatives were doing victory laps
> all over the media landscape, I wrote the following:
>
> *NEVER FORGET...*
>
> Despite a somewhat hairy start and some rough patches in the early stages
> of this whole "Iraq Attaq," the city of Baghdad seems about to fall and
> there are hints that Preznit Dubya is pretty much ready to declare victory.
> And yes, while it's true that American and British forces seem to be
> slicing through both the much-ballyhooed Republican Guard and the dreaded
> Fedayeen militia at will - there was a reported 3000-to-1 kill ratio during
> Saturday's incursion, alone - there are three things we should always
> keep in mind:
>
> - First: spiritually and physically, this war is mangling a generation
> <http://www.thedailycamera.com/bdc/county_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2423_1866804,00.html> of
> Americans, both on the battlefield and at home.
>
> - Second: this so-called "war of liberation" is actually a monstrous
> fucking slaughter.
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2537328,00.html>
>
> - Third: Preznit Dubya and his criminal administration constructed this
> entire wasteful, Satanic enterprise upon a foundation of propaganda,
> forgery, and outright lies
> <http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/03/04/01.html>. There is no valid
> ethical, moral or legal justification for it, no matter how "easy" the task
> might eventually turn out to seem… relatively speaking.
>
> Never forget these things. Even as you wave your little plastic flag at
> the homecoming parade on your TV screen, with its smiling soldiers
> resplendent under a blizzard of confetti and cheers, never forget that it's
> all a lie, and that no amount of wishful thinking can change that sorry
> fact.
>
> ***
>
> In other Daily Dirt editorials, I frequently warned that the occupation
> was far from secure, and was ultimately proven (tragically) correct. Not
> that I gloated at the time.
>
> Anyhoo, I think the invasion would have taken place no matter what. The
> Powers That Be wanted in, come Hell or high water.
>
> J
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 5:21 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Maybe Joseph is, as I just sent regarding Thomas...
>> ." a critical mass" is pretty tough to measure for even 'the newspaper of
>> record' and all the other media which it influences.
>> and when Judith Miller's sources--her supposed bedmate Chalabi---lied and
>> deceived, as did she---and lost her career over it, too little too late, we
>> can now, smart critical thinkers that we are, blame the *whole* NYTimes,
>> "mainstream media',whatever that is, now throw in the Wa Po and many others
>> because one very major story in the 'newspaper of record' was because
>> it--all the editors and publishers---were being played, well, not too smart
>> in my judgment.
>>
>> And as I just said to Thomas, would that administration NOT have gone to
>> war anyway?
>>
>> Some, say Barack Obama, saw through the evil of an impending Iraq war.
>> Many others too, esp all over media that I bet plisters followed. In fact,
>> I bet most plisters
>> were opposed, whaddya think? So now they can displace their anger on the
>> NYT and other 'mainstream media'? Okay.
>>
>> Here's my attempt at an aphorism of the day: When you can find out that
>> stories in double-sourced (at least) independently-verified stories in
>> media papers and
>> other vehicles are wrong---you know you have a way of measuring truth.
>>
>> and a simple social observation about a word: Have you all noticed how
>> the word 'lie' has come often to be used, even by many over trivial things,
>> to mean a mistake,
>> a wrongness, a nonfact, a non-truth independent of an actual willed
>> intention?
>>
>> Later,
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 5:01 AM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I imagine Joseph might be referring to the role played by such august
>>> journals as the New York Times in getting a critical mass of the American
>>> population to switch from opposing to supporting the US invasion of Iraq in
>>> 2003, a folly which has led to the unnecessary, superfluous deaths of
>>> upwards of a million innocent souls so far, and counting.
>>>
>>> I don't, however, blame "mainstream American journalism" any more than I
>>> do the populace that allowed itself to be persuaded. And of course, much
>>> less than the actual criminals at the top, many of whom knew that the
>>> rationale they proffered for their businessman's war* of first resort was
>>> nothing but a tissue of lies, because they knew that if they revealed their
>>> REAL reasons for the invasion (which, to be exceedingly fair, I'm sure they
>>> thought were good reasons), the American people wouldn't be so gung-ho for
>>> bloodshed.
>>>
>>> J
>>>
>>> On Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 3:55 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Joseph T:
>>>> "I agree that mainstream american journalism is complicit in much more
>>>> mass murder than any good they may have done."
>>>>
>>>> A remark so ignorant, even, maybe, so inherently vile in
>>>> even pretending this makes measurable sense about valid journalism, that
>>>> one shudders for the polity from the other side.
>>>>
>>>> So it goes.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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