Last night Bill Moyers Journal featured two very important stories. The first was about the fraud at the heart of the Banking Crisis facilitated by the most prestigious institutions on Wall Street. Now there is a diary on the Rec list about what is actually mandated by the law in opposition to a claim by Black highlighted by another Rec listed diarist. To me that is peripheral to the main point of Black and Moyers whole discussion of this massive wave of corporate facilitated fraud that resulted in our economic crisis.
But that is not the focus of this diary. The second story Moyers featured was a discussion between Moyers, Glen Greenwald, and Amy Goodman on the American Media. It was a fascinating conversation and I urge all of you to read (or watch) all of it. I'd like to focus on some observations that Glen Greewald made about the things omitted from our main stream corporate media.
Bill Moyers Journal
BILL MOYERS: Glenn, what stories are you covering that you think are being ignored by mainstream press?
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, let's start with the fact that there is a very widespread perception, one that's growing with more and more revelations, by the day. That what the United States did over the last eight years, in terms of how we detained people, how we interrogated people, how we tortured people and kidnapped them, and shipped them off to black sites, where they were completely disappeared is something that is not only disgraceful, and a fundamental violation of what we claim our political values to be but are crimes. Very serious war crimes. If you look at political discussions that take place on most major television no shows, about that. What you'll find is this implied consensus that Americans don't want their political leaders spending time on investigations and looking to the past. And that's absolutely false. It's a case where public opinion is distorted. Polls show that large numbers of Americans, even 50 percent believe that there should be investigations into whether or not crimes were committed. Because if we don't investigate when our political leaders break the law, it means that there's no rule of law. Look at our policy toward Israel, and this continuous blind support for whatever the Israeli government does. Something that's about to get even more harmful to our interests now that there's a very right wing extremist party with racist factions within the government in Israel. Polls show that if you ask Americans do you think the U.S. Government should be on the side of Israel, on the side of the Palestinians, or should be even-handed? Seventy percent, seven out of ten, will say that the government should be even-handed in that conflict. And yet, that is an opinion that is virtually never heard. Debates about our policy toward Israel is something that is essentially frozen out. You can go across those issues, and find the same dynamic.
Many diaries here have been devoted to both of these glaring omissions in the corporate media's narrative of current events. It is imperative for our government to come to grips with both of these vital issues. Not doing so would undermine the very foundations of our rule of law here at home demonstrating that a ruling elite is NOT bound by our laws. Not doing so would also would give up our prerogative to take the initiative and to do what's in America's best interests instead of blindly supporting Israel's new Right Wing Government. A Government that includes the right wing extremist party Yisrael Beiteinu as Netanyahu's senior partner, and Barak with his fragment of the Labor party as a fig leaf, and very junior partner.
Issues like these that the corporate media is doing its best to sweep under the rug are the most attractive thing about D-Kos and the Netroots in general, and its issues like these must be highlighted by the Netroots to make the jump to the corporate media when continuing to ignore them becomes too obvious and embarrassing.
Hearty congratulations go out to Amy Goodman and Glen Greenwald the recipients of the 2009 Izzy Award, a recognition they richly deserve.
