- Re: Only consistent since the conversion, apparently, b. T'other b gives some chapter and verse. Worth Archived Message
Posted by margo
on December 17, 2019, 2:11 pm, in reply to "Re: Only consistent since the conversion, apparently, b. T'other b gives some chapter and verse. Worth"
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I mentioned Blumenthal's father's politics because I saw it mentioned in a few of the below-the-line comments. You're correct, brooks, it's not relevant here and was a superfluous mention. That said, I have mentioned Aaron Mate's father Gabor Mate in reference to Aaron's insightful brand of interviewing because I imagined the paternal wisdom influenced the offspring. It's incorrect, though, to 'imagine' or 'assume', and I would apologise to Blumenthal for that. The line on 'implication of intelligence' was a line not aimed directly at Blumenthal but at all journalists who have been silent or complicit in any obvious way. I studied journalism during the high propaganda years of apartheid SA and unwittingly knew some of the intelligence journalists of that era, who were later outed in biographies and Truth & Reconciliation hearings. The greatest surprise was that it was some of the most deeply involved, activist journalists, who were not quite who we thought they were. After reading widely for years and previously looking up to western journalists, I've definitely become more cynical and reached a stage where I'm unapologetically suspicious of many western journalists. It's a case of "once lied to... then lied to, again and again ... one loses trust and turns away." Mark Curtis and Matt Kennard's article in Daily Maverick on how a whole newspaper is essentially 'captured' (the Guardian) further illustrates to me how few true journalists actually exist. less for smears by innuendo against journalists risking their lives and sacrificing their careers to tell the truth about things that matter and expose the crimes of their own government None less than Julian Assange, who really is risking his life and has sacrificed his career, pays the highest price of all. Blumenthal, like Greenwald, Monbiot, Taibbi, Khalek and others are excellent journalists and I continue to read their work. But I do note that they are all free - one or two rather well-renumerated ... and not really making any big noise about Assange's fate (unfortunately the litmus test, for me) - and I conclude that perhaps they aren't really posing any major threat. This is just my opinion and is not said to undermine their work. We need all the information we can get from all quarters because it might soon dry up as *real* investigative work of the Wikileaks type (not the Intercept, Rolling Stone type) is about to be criminalised, via the Assange Precedent. |