The Rank Hypocrisy of NPR and the Mainstream Media on Ukraine

https://www.npr.org/2022/04/23/1094444837/opinion-the-failed-promise-of-never-again

I've been listening to NPR on and off for a long time, although much less so in recent years. The network has changed and I increasingly find it to be a waste of time. Thankfully my regional public radio station (WPSU) has some other programming that's worth while and so I still tune in from time to time.

I've never been a fan of Scott Simon who has hosted the Saturday morning show for decades. The show is more laid back and Simon seems to have more control of the content and often slips into editorial. And I suppose that's why I have often found it to be irritating – his moralizing gets under my skin. This is all the more true when one realizes that he makes hundreds of thousands of dollars and as such is thoroughly wed to the American system and the values of the upper middle class and even the wealthy – though he probably doesn't consider himself to be such.

I know the 'talent' at NPR justifies their salaries by appealing to the size of their audience. If they were in commercial radio with audiences of that size they would make millions per years and thus are unapologetic about their salaries which sometimes range well into the hundreds of thousands. But the argument falls flat. If you wanted wealth, then go into commercial radio. Your network relies on tax dollars and pledges and I've made some over the years but I'm not likely to again.

But here's where their argument really fails. Apart from NPR, what commercial venue is there for them to work for? Who would want them? No one. There isn't one. It's kind of a pathetic statement with regard to American culture but that's the reality.

So fine, they're overpaid and hypocritical when it comes to their public radio stance. But it's figures like Simon that rub me wrong, especially when it comes to his moralizing. I will grant he's talented and I still contend his interview with Amarillo Slim was probably his finest hour. I remember howling with laughter listening to the exchange.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1273380

But this recent commentary by Simon on Ukraine irritated me and demonstrated once again how money and class commitment can blind your judgment.

I expect Simon to echo the Anti-Russian line. NPR is part of the mainstream media and while the network was one of the few voices that even dared to question the official line during the lead up to Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003 – albeit weakly, those days are long gone. It's part of NPR's cultural shift that took place. Their reporters can be adversarial when interviewing foreign leaders but for the most part they don't question the official state line.

Simon tells the sad story of a Holocaust survivor (in her 90's) who was killed during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. It's one of the tragic stories of every war and indeed in this case her blood is on Putin's hands.

Simon weaves this story in with Bosnia, Rwanda, Xinjiang, and some other locations in Ukraine and laments that the promise of 'Never Again' has been repeatedly broken – the promise made in the wake of the Jewish Holocaust in WWII.

There is a sadness in this statement. It's sad that a man who has worked in the news business for all of his adult life has apparently learned little in the way of history and even less in the realm of reflection. If he bothered to do so he would come to realize that while Bosnia was a tragedy, the break-up of Yugoslavia was unnecessary and even encouraged by Western powers such as the United States who had their own goals in mind for the post-Cold War Balkans. But that complicates things and contextualises them – something American mainstream journalists avoid like the plague.

Likewise the tale of Rwanda is a little more complicated than is commonly perceived. Western powers (like the Belgium, the US, and France) played no small role in creating the conditions. That said, the Hutu's are to blame for the massacres. Why didn't the US intervene? The question usually assumes the US is supposed to intervene at all times and in all places. But in the case of Rwanda the bottom line was the US had no interest at the time. Simon knows this I'm sure but seems to lament it. And yet his lamentation is utterly hypocritical.

Never again? Well, what about the million plus dead in Iraq since the American intervention and invasion (1991-present)? Does he produce elegies for the dead Iraqis that lost relatives in the Iran-Iraq War (also fueled in part by the US), or those in Iran who died due to chemical attacks (which the US helped to coordinate). Does he give voice to the weeping mothers whose children were born deformed and died due to American Depleted Uranium? Of course not.

Does Simon lament the dead in Afghanistan? As the US played games in 1979 goading the USSR to invade, Washington helped to expand a war that would result in another million dead. And then in the aftermath of 9/11 when the US invaded a country that did not attack the United States, it fought a twenty year losing war that spread to neighbouring Pakistan. All told at least another two hundred thousand people died. These are people who survived the horrors of the British Partition of India, and the survivors of Afghanistan's long and terrible civil wars and invasions. There are many heartbreaking stories that can be told. Is Simon interested in hearing them?

More could be said about the US campaign in the Balkans. Indeed as Serbia was bombed in the 1990's, I wonder how many were killed that had survived the horrors of the Ustaše, only to die at the hands of NATO bombers seeking to consolidate control of the Balkans and to illegally carve out a new satrapy – Kosovo?

How many nameless people have died in Africa since the US launched its series of wars on the continent in the aftermath of 9/11? No one knows because most of these wars are secret and unreported. And yet how many died who had already endured unspeakable horrors in previous conflicts?

Never again? Does he really mean that? I don't' think so because the main purveyor of atrocities and civilian deaths over the past thirty years is the United States.

Instead Simon gets upset with Michael Moore because in Fahrenheit 9/11, he portrayed US troops too negatively. It's absurd, Moore is flag-waving patriot who despite a few instances of showing the bad behaviour of US troops and the kind of pictures of civilian deaths the US media wouldn't show – but shows regularly with Ukraine, actually paints a sympathetic view of the troops. His anger is with Bush and what his deceitful policies and war did to dehumanise Americans and American soldiers. As far as I'm concerned Moore is still way too deeply entrenched in the categories of American patriotism. And as far as Simon his moral categories are bankrupt.

Never again?

What of Yemen and the horrors unleashed there? The US isn't directly fighting in that war but its fingerprints are all over it. It wouldn't be happening if the US wasn't involved and providing logistical and diplomatic support and weaponry. Hundreds of thousands of died, many from famine and disease created by the war.

And while he cites Xinjiang, the truth is this – we don't really know what all is happening there. There are reasons to doubt Western reporting. I don't doubt that Beijing is capable of terrible oppression and is seeking to destroy Uighur culture. They've already committed similar crimes in Tibet and elsewhere. But the West's coverage is self-serving, much of the reporting is connected to intelligence agencies, and it's clearly part of a larger propaganda effort. There's no doubt that bad things are happening Xinjiang but the West can't be trusted to tell the truth. After all, they're harbouring (and presumably working with) the political wing of the al Qaeda affiliated East Turkestan Independence Movement (ETIM) and no longer considers it a terrorist organisation. This tells you that much of what has been reported to the public about the War on Terror over the past twenty plus years is rubbish.

The US tops the list of atrocities and war crimes. How is it able to mask its crimes and deceive the public as to its nature? More than anything else, apart from the indoctrination that takes place in the public schools and through television and the like, it relies on the media. It relies on corrupt figures like Scott Simon. Is he bribed? He doesn't have to be. Making hundreds of thousands a year he's been effectively bribed. He's part of the ruling class and shares its values and judgments. He's doing his job and has his reward.

Fine, such people have always whored themselves out to empires. It's nothing new. But I will not allow them to assume a tone of moral supremacy and I will not listen to their lectures and ruminations. Enjoy your money. Eat it. Bathe in it. But don't presume to tell me what is right and wrong.

Never again? But it keeps happening? That's right. Look in the mirror Scott Simon.