As ideologies harden to fanaticism and people with banners herd into warring camps, it remains possible — still — to stand above the fray.
In these most vicious of partisan times, it seems impossible to remain above the fray, examining the issues dispassionately and with no regard for preconceived notions. It is a dangerous era when people feel compelled to take sides, in which the other is regarded as mortal enemies who are, without exception, always wrong.
Standing aside the battlefield to describe the action — the normal behavior of an observer — is fraught with its own peril. It invites attacks from all factions who insist on defining the undefinable, i.e., someone who belongs to neither side. Criticizing either group does not put you in the camp of the other.
The survival of journalism depends on fighting under no flag and being free of ideology. Having no ideology of course opens you up to attack from ideologies of all sides. We depend on readers who understand our mission and the dwindling space we occupy.
Of course there are some battlefields on which you cannot stand on the sidelines merely observing. There shouldn’t be two camps for or against genocide.
On this issue, Consortium News has made it clear to which camp it belongs.
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Do we know what we don’t know. Let us the exam the views of John Stuart Mill on the subject.
”Yet it is as evident in itself , as any amount or argument can make, that ages are no more infallible than individuals; every age – INCLUDING OUR OWN OF COURSE – ”having held many opinions with subsequent ages, have deemed not only false but actually absurd. And it is as certain that many opinions now general will be rejected by future ages, as it is that many, once general, are rejected by the present …” But tyranny is always omnipresent as stated by Mill:
”Our merely social intolerance kills no-one, roots out no opinions, but induces men to disguise them, or to abstain from any active effort for their diffusion. With us heretical opinions do not perceptibly gain, or even lose, in each decade or generation; they never blaze out far and wide; but continue to smoulder in narrow circles of thinking and studious persons among whom they originate, without ever lighting up the general affairs of mankind with either a true or deceptive light. And thus is kept up a state of things very satisfactory to some minds, because without the unpleasant process fining of fining or imprisoning anybody, it maintains all prevailing opinions outwardly undisturbed, while it does not absolutely interdict the exercise of reason by dissentients afflicted with the malady of thought. A convenient plan for having peace in the intellectual world, and keeping all things going on therein very much as they do already.”
I am pleased to be a many-year supporter of CN however modest that support has been. Even among independent media, I have seem my dollars shift from year to year as those I once sought out drank the Cool Aid of self righteousness over objective journalism. Great work from a great team of contributors.
In the abstract, this might make sense. “Can’t we remain above the fray and all get along?” No. In the here and now, there is a very big problem — and that is that the prevailing economic, military and social milieu so so badly skewed that it needs serious correction. Neoliberalism has destroyed our homes, our communities, our health and our very lives. IN THEORY, in a completely different world, a socialist pushback could be a bad thing and harden into fanaticism, but this is not the world we live in. In the world we live in, the neoliberals and parasites, genocide mongers and war profiteers need savage correction; the pendulum not only has to swing back, it has to snap back brutally hard. There really is no getting along and above the fray consistent with justice for the vast majority. “Can’t we stay above the fray” is nice ‘ all, but not just now.
Nowhere in this piece is the phrase “all get along.” This is not about that at all. It’s not about citizens getting along. This short piece is about journalism. How journalism cannot succumb to partisanship the way the US media, especially, has if it is to fulfill its role in society. The piece is about Consortium News being totally non-partisan, how this is essential to journalism, but also how it invites attacks from partisans of all sides who can’t accept a news organization not being on their side.
Thank God for Consortium News and the thoughtful comments of its readers.I love everything about your journalism and your gentle requests for support with no pay wall required All your contributors are excellant writers and their articles are always informative even when not entirely persuasive.I wish you and your loved ones a healthy new year filled with at least a bit of the care and good will with which Consortium News blesses the world.
I’ve been away and now wish to return to the valuable information and perspectives this site provides. It is, in my view, unquestionably the best comment forum around, in terms of quick response, thoughtful and reasoned ideas, and collegiality amongst responders instead of carping and ugly language. A pleasure to read indeed. Thank you CN.
Hear, Hear, Consortium News!!
In WW1 many Jews including German Jews financially assisted England in its war effort and this outraged many Germans . Did this rage in any way justify the Holocaust? Clearly not. Hamas breaking out of its inhumane open air concentration camp killed Jewish civilians and took others hostage. Did the fact that they were being held in this way justify this action. Clearly not. Did these outrageous actions in any way justify the reaction of the Zionists in killing thousands of civilian Gazans including children? Most clearly not. But any and every country who refuse to sign on asking for a cease fire are clearly indicating that they feel that the killing of the defenceless thousands including children is justified. They are clearly on the wrong side of the moral barrier and as time will tell on the wrong side of history
Very well said! However, I am appalled at constant references in the media to the barbarism of the October 7 attack by Hamas.
Firstly, Gaza is illegally occupied by Israel and occupied people have a legal right to resist. This occupation has been brutal, especially since 2007, when Gaza was placed under siege, limited as to water, food and any items barred from entry by the Israelis. This siege destroyed Gaza’s economy.
Secondly, Hamas did not run riot to murder civilians. Their raid was designed to take hostages and prisoners of war to exchange for the release of Palestinians, mainly from the West Bank who are illegally imprisoned in Israeli military prisons.
It was also a protest against repeated Israeli incursions into the Al Aksa mosque and the attacks on worshippers.
Another aim was to stall the impending normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, under the Abraham accords, which would have virtually isolated the Palestinians from the key Arab states. Hamas knew that there would be a huge overreaction by Israel, which the Arab and Islamic states could not condone.
Secondly, Hamas did not kill 1,200 people. The IDF itself has admitted that it probably caused half of the deaths on that day. Helicopter pilots could not distinguish between Hamas and civilians, but were ordered to fire indiscriminately. This is attested to by survivors. Furthermore, the cars and buildings destroyed and burned with people inside point to the use of hell fire missiles, which the lightly armed Hamas fighters did not carry. This is attested to by military analysts.
It id also the case that not all of those who entered Israel through the breached wall were Hamas fighters. Other Gazans ventured into Israel behind Hamas. For many, this was their first time outside the Gaza ghetto.
Yet despite all this being on the public record nearly every journalist persists in claiming that Hamas killed 1,200 people!
If only every article that mentioned Hamas would include a link to what you have written here so clearly!
I agree Pauline. In fact it seems to me that this was a Zionist set up from the very start with the most heavily guarded frontier in the world suddenly losing every level of its electronic and physical barriers and this not even noticed by the highly skilled guardians of the barrier. And of course Egypt has constantly warned the Zionists in the days before the breach that the Gazans were gathering in groups clearly practising for a breach. This was the excuse to do what they are now doing. Exterminating Gaza’s Palestinians old and young male and female.Along with all of their buildings hospitals schools clinics along with the buildings of the cities bureaucracies which keep them running. All reduced to torn flesh, babies detached limbs and rubble. In a word Genocide.
Yes, Jonathan Cook, Max Blumenthal, and The Middle East Eye have covered the ‘true facts’ of October 7. But as Cook points out, total Israeli denial of any other than their narrative, and the prevention of any investigation (such as that requested by Human Rights Watch), helps Israel keep the narrative alive that it’s all about Hamas and Iran…thus fooling the majority of people in the US who really are very ‘undereducated’ (to be polite) about what their own country has been doing vis-a-vis Israel for all the decades going back to Truman’s manipulation of the ‘democratic’ process around UNGA 181 in November 1947.
It would be devastating if Consortium News could not survive, because we the readers who depend on a daily dose of sanity must have enough money to keep it going. Of all causes, this should be at the top of the list. If we on the true left let one of the only voices of reason die then we have nobody to blame but ourselves for the state of the world. We all have to dig deep you don’t want that on your conscience.
Thank you for those worth while thoughts, I am doing my best to follow the ideology of common sense, much too rare these days.