You do understand that there is a difference between doing something because one has a “profit motive” and doing something because the alternative would be 20 years in a labor camp? That’s even if I were to accept your assertion that “the media” (who? the Drudge Report? Salon.com?) is consistently sympathetic to “the government” (Congress? the President? the IRS?), which I actually consider quite a stretch.
But Zarathustra I can see the point your interlocutor is making, although the comparision between PRC media and US media is neither balanced nor accurate.
That being said, if one follows a number of different media outlets in several different lanuages, one does begin to note points of view. In the context of a situation where (a) nationalist sensitivities are involved (b) information is largely available only through official sources and independent verification is difficult because of (i) basic cost (ii) language (iii)distance (iv) expertise issues, the American media does tend to reflect (although not slavishly per se and not really meriting a straight up PRC comparision) official views. Partly a nature of time constraints and other resource related contraints, e.g. the reports now praising Bush all around, largely derived from… official or quasi-official sources. A matter of time/economic constraints rather than forced to take an official line.
In any case, I assure you one could note a real difference in the initial reports from American media and non-American media (ranging from European to Arab in my case) in re the situation, which partly reflected the issues I mention above.
Oh, no doubt. That’s why I tried to always check out the BBC web site, the Economist, and the Financial Times over the past few days to make sure that I wasn’t getting too caught up in the hype of American media outlets. I wouldn’t attribute this hype to corporate interests, however, at least in this most recent case–the only paper that I could see had a significant “corporate” stake in the issue was Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, and guess whose side they seemed to favor (largely by their silence)?
During the Gulf War, though, I did find myself getting distinctly queasy with all the rah-rah yellow ribbons and “I’ll go twenty miles to smoke a Camel” reporting. All of the factors you cite probably did come into play there. Even there, though, I’d argue that the media reflected the general population’s nationalism, rather than the interests of the media’s corporate masters. Americans do have a natural “rally round the flag” impulse, bcs we really are proud our our country and our servicemen.
(Maybe this is one area where the experience of Americans and Europeans really diverge. I had a roommate once from the Netherlands, and he said that during the Gulf War he was in a disco somewhere where there were also a bunch of Americans. For some reason the DJ played some American patriotic song–maybe the Star Spangled Banner–and all the Americans stood up and a few saluted without irony. My roommate said that seeing people behave like that positively freaked him out, but I couldn’t see what the problem was.)
But I don’t think that’s at all to say that there’s no difference between American and mainland Chinese societies, and that all truth is relative.
All along I was un-American to raise questions about our policies in Asia…Sorry if you think so but I don’t find it un-American. I find it to be logical reaction to finding out how much “spying” we were doing, and the “threat” of China.
Here’s some questions I’d like to see answered too.
http://www.nationalreview.com/buckley/buckley.shtml
Needs2know
Hehe. Well, you can’t claim Rupert isn’t rankly obvious can you?
I quite agree. Some corporate interest may work in there, but its hard to really claim its overwhelming across the board.
Well, perhaps this thread should die, given its at seven pages.
(Maybe this is one area where the experience of Americans and Europeans really diverge. I had a roommate once from the Netherlands, and he said that during the Gulf War he was in a disco somewhere where there were also a bunch of Americans. For some reason the DJ played some American patriotic song–maybe the Star Spangled Banner–and all the Americans stood up and a few saluted without irony. My roommate said that seeing people behave like that positively freaked him out, but I couldn’t see what the problem was.)
But I don’t think that’s at all to say that there’s no difference between American and mainland Chinese societies, and that all truth is relative. **
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No, it’s not at all un-American to raise questions about our policies in Asia. It is the duty of every good American to keep the government accountable to the people it represents.
That’s not what you were doing. You raised no questions; instead, you made some remarkably uninformed statements that reflected a knee-jerk “America is always wrong” reaction.
And so on. You asked no substantive questions about the Haianan Island incident; you just indulged in ad hominem attacks on the president and slurs on our military. That’s not demanding accountability from our leaders; that’s America-bashing.
Since the latest photos released by CNN show the late Wang Wei buzzing close enough to the U.S. plane for his face and a sign he was holding to be clearly seen, and the first-person accounts by the crew bear out that China was at fault, not the U.S., don’t you think that you ought to admit you were wrong?
And, yes, William Buckely raised some interesting questions.
Goboy…I still stand behind the statement that this current administration has been making an attempt to isolate us from the rest of the world. He has snubbed the Soviets, the Canadians, the Isralis and Palestinians. I didn’t say these things, they are observations made by the leaders themselves and others with more political acumen here at home. There are also those in agreement that the new president was behaving cowbow-ish in the first couple days of this fiasco but then had to back off on that stance. I didn’t propose that completely on my own.
Your constant assumptions that I had no basis for saying this is not based on facts. Just because I didn’t get all of my information off the internet and could not provide a cite for those making these claims does not mean that they were not being bandied about. Of course I could have listed sites for news articles and editorials that contained comments from the Canadian prime minister and Valdimir Putin on how they were “snubbed” by Mr. Bush. I just didn’t. Thought with all so many informed here that everyone would have seen this for themselves anyway. How you, someone that I admire for their obvious higher education can have been so myopic on this particular issue puzzles me. It’s important to remember what side of the bread the butter is on, but to vehemently support every policy of government without even taking into consideration it’s impact doesn’t seem like something you would do. I know you are old enough to remember the back-handed way our government has handled affairs in Southeast Asia in the past.
This may be just a difference in opinion and we’re both entitled to that, but I do think that Kyoto, and other behaviors by our government make as much difference as our military policy to other nations. Because we are “the superpower” everything we do is scrutinized. Everything we do gobally has impact whether it be economic, environmental or militaristic.
Needs2know
Dunno about anyone else, but I will go to sleep very peacfully tonight knowing that Zarathustra is not in any sort of American diplomatic position.
rjung…me too…isn’t he the poster that called them “gooks”.
Needs2know
No, I didn’t. I adapted a sarcastic tone in a completely different thread, in which we were debating the likelihood of war between the US and China. I was making fun of The Ryan for what I thought was an excessively macho position regarding our military capability versus China, and, through caricature, I was trying to point out that he was employing much the same logic that American generals had employed thirty or forty years ago in their aggression against a little country called Vietnam:
Needs2Know, I don’t have anything against you; I think that rhetorically, you’ve got some good instincts and just need to read up on the subject matter and have more practice in real debate. I say this because I have something to say to you, and I want you to understand that it’s not motivated by malice:
Libel is a form of rhetorical violence, Needs2Know, going beyond the mere poor-sportsmanship of ad hominem attacks. Imagine that we were debating this subject face to face, and you couldn’t answer the questions I put to you, so instead you uttered a shriek, leapt across the table, and tried to claw my eyes out. That’s about the size of it–when you feel humiliated in a debate, and instead of trying to use argument to defend yourself, you falsely attack the character of your opponent–that’s violence. And it’s also skating on thin ice: IANAL, and perhaps you should be glad of it.
That’s all I have to say in this thread.
Zarathustra
Sorry Z…that thread got so long that I simply could not keep up with some of the things being said…please forgive me if I insulted you in any way…
Needs2know
Heh:) Well, I was brought here on a different post by someone on a board I am on but this was the first post that I checked after I got into the boards:)
As someone that was in the military, I was stuck arguing with my brother about how there really was no way it was the EP-3’s fault for the crash and I kinda see that sort of thing playing out a bit here. From personal experience (I used to work on EA-6B’s–more maneuverable than EP-3’s and they were TRASHED when they tried to maneuver like other jets), I could automatically see no way that the EP-3 could have been directly at fault for the accident. I guess that I can understand a bit of the knee jerk reaction to the scenario but it is wrong.
As for the spy vs. spy thing. I think that there really isn’t an equivilent situation to compare this to because we haven’t been this aggressive against the Chinese, ever. The international waters distinction might not have been agreed to by a couple countries but it is my understanding that most of the world has a standard that is mutually agreed upon (the U.S. isn’t the odd one out in this case, it is China). Yeah Americans have been outraged (sorta–the tone was more of a ‘that is interesting’ sort of thing from my perspective and not really a general outcry) by Chinese spies acting within our noncoastal borders but this wasn’t a big surprise to us. The EP-3’s were a regular scheduled flight and had been seen in the past.
The comparison with the Soviet plane is interesting but not really equivilent either considering that the guy defected which means that he was basically saying “Here, free plane” to us (also keeping in mind that it wasn’t as sensitive a matter as this one). That we gave the plane back at all was a gesture of goodwill (overstating the case a bit here but…).
I guess I can see the international lack of enthusiasm for this case (it is the United States’ business) but I don’t think that saying any of the above is being “pro-American” or anything of that sort. In fact, some of the stated cases that have popped up in the thread only seem to reinforce the fact that we aren’t really all that peaceful with China right now and that our having a spy plane in the area wasn’t really that unreasonable (they have spies in our country, right?). Yeah I might say ‘surveylance’ plane but…
Anyhow, cool thread y’all:)
Ander
Needs2Know,
Don’t worry about it–I know it’s easy to get caught up in debate, especially a long one like this, and I need to be careful myself not to come across like I’m putting someone down. I’m certainly not in any position to criticize! I just thought that I ought to tell you that “racism” is kind of a hot button for a lot of people, and we all need to be careful to be civil in this regard.
Enjoyed the debate,
Zarathustra