Re: NPR bias

On Sun, Jan 13, 2002 at 01:37:37AM -0500, shadowman-IfOL7F/[email protected] muttered something about:

> good point.  i agree that wealthy corporations (especially wealthy
> Jewish-owned banks) dictate U.S. policy in the Israeli-Palestinian issue
> but i admit i have some naivete with regard to corporate influence apropos
>  media coverage, especially NPR.

Careful, that veers toward a pretty nasty antisemitic stereotype.

As for corporations dictating policy, I think that's a pretty clumsy view.
Israel is our chief proxy in the region, which we use to control the region;
we use other proxies, but the long money has been on Israel for a long time.
Note: while our use of this proxy is wrapped in tones of care and concern
and loyalty, we're really using the Israelis for our own ends, and that's
not good for Israelis, especially the ones who get killed by Palestinian
resistance. (Of course our proxy use of Israel is even *worse* for the
Palestinians, but that's a relatively easy point for lefties to see.)

> however, i must also explain that i became more or less a Palestinian
> sympathizer by listening to NPR and their coverage of the Palestinian
> perspective.  

Sure, and that's a good thing; but it's also entirely consistent with NPR's
coverage *over all* being pro-Israeli. It just may not be *as* pro-Israeli
as everything else, so that, by contrast, it can seem pro-Palestinian. But
that's only an illusion, I think, ultimately.

> i agree that most white institutions are racist and NPR is not above the
> fray, however, Jewish people are not "white" and that's who corporations
> seem to be supporting.

Yeah, they really are; they are relative latecomers, arriving into the White
fold after the Irish, whose presence there firmed up by WWII and was
solidified by Kennedy's election. In this regard, however, the Jews presence
in the White camp is paralleled by Asians presence in the minority camp;
i.e., for both groups it's always a matter of degree and local variation.
Antisemitism is still a very real thing in this country, even while Jews
tend, on average, to do pretty well socially and economically. But, then, I
doubt we'll see a Jewish president anytime soon, say.

Asians, on the flip side, are very often used as the 'ideal minority' as a
bludgeon with which to continue beating up on blacks, hispanics, etc. (Which
use is ultimately as demeaning and degrading of Asians as our proxy use of
Israel is to punish and control both Palestinians and the wider region;
though, actually, these uses probably aren't as analogous as I've just
suggested since it often seems that we allow Israel to brutalize
Palestinians in order to keep them as our proxy, but our main goal in using
Israel is regional control and stability, *not* suppression of the
Palestinians; this is a bit different than the domestic case where
constructing Asians as the 'ideal minority' seems to have as its only point
continued denigration and suppression of blacks, hispanics, etc. -- In other
words, racial politics is complicated.) But that also means, historically,
that Asians are on the track to becoming White, even as there is often
anti-Asian violence and stereotype still around. I suspect that w/in my
lifetime Asians will have pretty much made the transition to being counted
as White... Remember, race is only superficially about appearance.

Kendall