Real History and the Middle East today’s ” AR-online” again AR-Online recent issues: May 1999 April 1999 March 1999 February 1999 January 1999 December 1998 November 1998 October 1998 September 1998 The Yellow Times July 25, 2002 A glitch in the Matrix. By Gabriel Ash Columnist [ Open footnotes in separate window ] (United States) – Aaron Brown , who has his own late night news show on CNN, is a man who inspires confidence.
With his soft voice and his light, wistful smile, Brown is the incarnation of worldly thoughtfulness. In his demeanor, as well as in his words, Brown makes a simple promise to the viewer: on his show he will not allow emotions to obstruct the search for clarity; softly and politely, he will get to the bottom of things. Unfortunately, the confidence inspiring demeanor is part of the confidence game of the Corporate Media. Brown’s real talent lies elsewhere.
He is CNN’s best reality patcher – the man you call when there is “a glitch in the Matrix.” Such a glitch occurred on the night of Monday, July 22, when an Israeli F-16 jet, carrying out a so-called “targeted assassination,” dropped a one ton bomb on a building in a crowded neighborhood in Gaza City, killing 15 Palestinians in their homes, among them nine children. Why was this a glitch?
The time and place of the Israeli attack raised questions regarding two cherished pillars of the “reality” manufactured by U.S. media news shows. The first pillar is the belief that Israel, being “a Western beachhead,” and “the only democracy in the Middle East,” values the life of civilians. This belief allegedly gives Israel the moral high-ground vis-Ã -vis the Palestinian resistance.
The second pillar of “reality” threatened on Monday was the belief that Israel is, and always has been, interested in peace, only to be nstantly rebuffed by the “lack of a partner.” The first pillar: life Aaron Brown got to the salvage of the first pillar immediately in the introduction of the show. Listen and appreciate: “…we’re going to begin tonight with the Middle East. It was an Israeli F-16. A missile hit some buildings.
We’ll get into the details in a moment.” “But it seems clear that either the planning was horrible, or that the missile missed [its] target, or the Israelis simply didn’t care who they killed if they got their man, a Hamas military leader.” “At the risk of provoking an e-mail barrage, we reject the latter possibility. We don’t believe the Israeli government would risk killing a couple of hundred people in order to maybe – maybe – get one guy.” “But, of course, some people will believe that.
In the same way some people who support Israel will believe anything bad about Palestinians, some Palestinians will believe anything evil about Israel. It is just one of the many reasons the tragedy of the Middle East is the most maddening story for us to report.” “It is not our nature to assume the absolute worst about any people, and we’re not going to do that here. Others may. No, what we will do is what we always do. We will look for facts and we will report them as we find them.
And the facts alone tonight aren’t going to make anyone – anyone – feel very good.” Do you see how Brown manages in just a few sentences to a) point out the unsettling nature of the event, b) explain why it is unsettling, c) promise to stick to the facts, d) and, without any factual justification, dismiss the unsettling hypothesis out of hand as something that “other people” (presumably inferior) might believe, but one that “we” refuse to believe?
You have witnessed the class act of a true professional. Let’s go