Vic Neptune Scoffs At a Famous Walter Cronkite Moment

     Selective outrage.  It could be a class taken by corporate TV news people and by politicians, but it's a form of acting they practice without deformations of their consciences.  Not being part of the political, lobbying, or news media groups, I must imagine why Joe Scarborough of MSNBC (to name just one of these dishonest purveyors of cockeyed morality), in ranting about the unfolding humanitarian disaster in Aleppo, failed to point out the similarity of buildings wrecked in warfare in Syria with those in Gaza City, or Beirut.  Thinking he was making an important statement, Scarborough said that "mankind" is to blame for the horrors in Aleppo.  "What this says about all of us," he claimed on his show this morning, is something we need to be thinking about.  Therefore--I'll finish his thought--I'm to blame, my neighbor's dog is to blame, the college students living down the street from me are to blame, some random breast cancer survivor in Ohio is to blame, Stan Lee of Marvel Comics is to blame....
     Scarborough's stupid generalization fails to point at someone who really is to blame for the carnage in Aleppo: Bashar al-Assad.  And what about the rebels, armed with First World weaponry, much of it supplied by the United States?  They, too, are to blame.  I'm not at all to blame for Aleppo's destruction, or for the War on Terror.  Nations bombing Syria, including Assad's air force, are to blame, too.  The U.S., Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, all of them concerned with oil, influence in the Middle East, and maintaining the struggle for top dog position, are to blame for Syria's chaos and human toll.
     Scarborough, typical of viewpoints in establishment U.S. news, didn't find the atrocities committed by the Israeli government and Israeli Defense Forces in their many wars against Palestinians and the Lebanese something to condemn.  MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, during the last Israeli assault on Gaza City, often showed lengthy images of that crowded place lit up by bombardments and flares.  On the screen, a densely populated city attacked night and day, while news commentators interviewed Israel's "defense" apologists here and abroad.  Mass murder happening before their eyes, and they speak as if it's Israel's "right" to defend itself, when all their leaders have been doing is committing an offense against humanity that should be punished with lifelong prison terms.
     What's happening in Aleppo, what's been happening in Syria for five years, is atrocious, but when it suits Scarborough and others of his kind, the crimes there become truly horrifying and valid.  When Benjamin Netanyahu obliterates Palestinians, Scarborough and others of his kind have nothing to say about the victims.
     I don't know how some people compartmentalize outrage.  I'm the type of person who condemned the 9/11 attacks, but also condemned the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.  All of these aggressions were immoral and led to further immoralities.  Most people are not to blame for 9/11, or for the attacks against Afghanistan and Iraq by U.S. forces.  Osama bin Laden, the CIA that funded him and his Mujahideen, and shit-on-the-Third-World U.S. foreign policy, are to blame for 9/11.  George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, their cabinet, the U.S. news media and most American politicians of the early twenty-first century are to blame for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.  "Mankind" didn't react brutally to the Arab Spring, but Bashar al-Assad did.
     Distorting or lying about reality by news people and politicians suits those interests which don't want consumers of information to know what's going on in the world.  It could be that having an ignoramus speak the news or offer opinions about world events works doubly well, for it comes across as sincere, since the ignoramus, Joe Scarborough in today's example, makes lots of money, has his own show, knows where to stop the conversation if it gets too controversial (like admitting that Palestinians are human), and, since he loves himself, his salary, and his own voice, isn't about to do anything drastic, like displease his corporate masters.  Walter Cronkite, after all, though he voiced, on air, his opposition to the Vietnam War, waited until he was nearing retirement, and after that war had already claimed millions of lives.  That weak condemnation of the Vietnam War by a corporate journalist is still considered a "brave" act.
     In America, land of free speech, it's corporate journalists who have very little to say about the truth.  This past year it eventually became good ratings for journalists to argue with Trump's mouthpieces, so they got "tough" and went for it once their bosses told them to behave like real journalists (ask follow-up questions).
     If you ever watch Morning Joe, look at the "window" behind Scarborough, at the two American flags fluttering in some real or CGI breeze.  He's as phony and insecure about his actual regard for his country as is Sean Hannity.  Why do "patriots" need props?  Would Scarborough love his country if he lost all his money, and would it be Mankind's fault if he went broke?

                                                                            Vic Neptune