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France-Info is the state run information channel of the state run mendacity station Radio-France, the de facto leading information radio broadcast in France.Faithful Frogfans (the word is not from me - I'll tell you about its author later) may actually remember
The specificity of its France-Info affiliate is that it's exclusively oriented towards "information" and "information" only. Unlike the other paws of the Radio-France Misinformation Behemoth, France-Info has no specialized radio talk shows of any kind. It's a rapid succession of "information" flashes and very short dedicated chronicles.
The "idea" being that, no matter when you'll turn your radio on, you won't have to wait more than 5 minutes to hear a "news" flash.
That could be a good idea just about anywhere else. But in France, it turns out to be, in effect, nothing more than a bludgeoning of half-truths, misleading records and plain propaganda, particularly when the "information" involves the US or Israel.
There is in fact, only one just soul that should be saved from this miserable sewer, Michel Cymes, animator of the health chronicle who, even on that touchy subject, is unusually fair and balanced.
Anyway, one good guy is not enough and so Sodom shall be destroyed. Please make sure your wife is not looking back, especially if you were unlucky enough to be the father of sons only and have no idea of the practical utility of a statue of salt when it comes to cooking, ironing, house cleaning and great nations breeding.
I have a perverse relationship with France-Info (And no, that 'Sodom shall be destroyed' bit was a digression. It is not related. You can forget about it now). I'm a long time early morning listener.
It is in fact, and by a deliberate choice (yeah, deliberate and perverse), the station on which my electric chanticleer is set, the one that wakes me up in the morning, every morning (week-end and holidays included. The dissident frogman knows no slackening and certainly does not share his flea bag with a statue of salt. Although that would be a jolly good reason to get up before dawn on a rainy Autumn Sunday)
Over the last three years, I can count on my fingers the mornings without a negative and deceptive "report", "information" or "testimony" directly related to the United States. And I still have a few fingers left.
What's more, if I was to count the mornings without a negative and deceptive "information" directly or indirectly related to the United States (but directly referring to its "evil influence"), I would gain back all my fingers - and would therefore be free to find out if there is any way to stimulate a statue of salt enough to father great nations.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about constant frontal attacks, even though these would happen regularly. Unlike the plot casters à la Meyssan, it seems that they still care a bit about a minimal reputation at France-Info. The daily dish is therefore made of this insidious anti-Americanism, so typical of a French press that had since long renounced to any information pretense.
Despite the appearances, waking up with this kind of mush is in fact a healthy exercise (no, forget that statue again) : passed the first stage of apoplectic indignation, it keeps you taut and stimulated (all right, stop being childish. I said forget the statue.)
And it sure fuels your sarcasm abilities.
This training is one of my morning rituals, and this is indeed the reason why I have a sharp memory of the finger count, among other things.
France-Info's constant insidious or open anti-Americanism is certainly nothing new, but it did, of course, become particularly intense during the Iraqi crisis. Over the past months, they demonstrated all the range of media bias and deception. They took the stance of the "anti-war" movement and consistently failed to report the dangers and crimes of Saddam's Arab Nazi Party before the liberation of Iraq started (apart from the variations on "Yes, Saddam is bad, but...), they found just about every wrong expertise by would-be experts (predicting the sinks in the sands and outbursts of Arab terror attacks around the globe), they went on the oil and "financial" interests and since then, faithfully reported each and every forgeries, half truths and downsides, taking systematically the anti-American side and "reporting" nothing else but negative opinions, estimates and events.
We had it all: the quagmires, the massacres, the defeats (they sang admirably the Iraqi Information Minister's Baghdad Airport' loony tune), the real lootings but more than all the false ones, the chaos, sabotages, the Iraqis "rebelling" against the "occupation forces" and so on.
And while Iraq was slowly but surely rising from the ashes of the Saddamite regime, while electricity, water and schools were being rebuild and reopened, France-Info reported nothing but the US and British soldiers body count, alternating the mornings without dead or wounded with another "interview" of an anonymous Baghdadi missing the regime of the Butcher (probably one of those camping in front of the Palestine Hotel) or the opinion of any given French "expert" on the Middle East, assuring us that this "American lunacy" was bound to fail.
Every morning over the last 10 months.
But yesterday morning, it suddenly changed and I honestly confess my surprise. Yesterday morning, it felt like we were suddenly sent back 3 years ago. Yesterday morning had the distinctive flavor of the usual insidious anti-American lamination, which leads me to conclude that this time, France-Info is really running short on the Iraqi "disaster".
Yesterday morning, after months of febrile focus on the Coalition in Iraq, hardly hiding an anxious desire to see it fail and a growing frustration in watching it performing not only well but extremely well, and like no armed force before, the France-Info editors apparently found no other way to
And they have a partial transcript online:
Thursday October 2nd, 2003This is, of course, followed by the good old ready-to-serve® topic #2:
Poverty in the United States
In the USA, there are more and more poors. According to the National Census Bureau, 35 millions of Americans live from now on below poverty level.
Another worrisome number: the amount of people without access to Social Security. It rose last year by 2.4 millions. There are now 44 millions of Americans without social protection.That was Céline Curiol in New York.
Since Céline didn't take the time to develop, I had to dig up things a bit and I assume she's referring to these 1999 numbers to bluntly claim that there are "more and more poor" in the United State in 2003 and rhythmically stir in strategic places the good old ready-to-serve® "below poverty level" concept, in a typical French journalist way that doesn't impress Jean-François Revel in his book Anti-Americanism recently translated in English :
[the famous poverty level] expression used indiscriminately by people who visibly ignore its technical meaning, as if this indicator had the same value in Canada and Zimbabwe.But again, Céline Curiol is not concerned by this kind of little details. The important thing is to hammer out: America is a selfish hell, capitalism is evil, the poor is the proof.
As for the good old ready-to-serve® "social security in the US of A" concept, I suggest we all go back reading the interesting thread of comments that recently took place here.
Else, I'm waiting for the pictures of millions of poor dead bodies piling up at the feet of the arrogant metal and glass buildings of Corporate America Capitalist Bloodsuckers, as did the thousands recently in refrigerator trucks on parking lots of the Most Beautiful Humane Solidary Social Democracy in the World.
Anyway, to finish with Céline Curiol, I shall offer you the conclusion of here short analysis that - for some reason - is not reproduced on the transcript online:
It's not good being poor in the world's richest country.Meaning certainly that it's worse than being poor in the world's poorest one. Or something.
Céline doesn't care anyway. Besides, the editorial staff reached Justin Vaisse, teacher in one of the Political Sciences faculties (France-Info doesn't care to precise which one. The Important Magic Word is "Science Po" anyway) presented as an expert on the United States, to back up Superficial Céline's statements.
The expert then explained that the poverty situation is bound to the economic context, but also to the choices of the Bush administration: tax cuts and reductions of the social budgets.
Now I'm not an expert teaching at Wherever Science Po', so I will simply kneel in awe before Justin the Magic Pundit while considering the full range of his analysis: there are more and more poor in the United States because the Bush Administration is taking less and less of their money.
I guess this explains a lot of things considering that 'Science Po' is a significant contributor to the "formation" of France's "elite".
Anyway, this concluded yesterday's daily France-Info America bashing.
Like I said, unlike Justin
On the other hand, I remember that Ronald Reagan, addressing the taxes issue, wrote in 1977:
The answer to the problem is, in fact, very simple, but it is nowhere near the political philosophy majority. Economists such as Paul McCracken from the Michigan University, Milton Friedman from Chicago University, Arthur Laffer from the USC, Alla Meltzer from the Carnegie-Mellon University and Arthur Burns, President of the Federal Reserve Board have, in their respective fashions, clearly stated that the government could increase its fiscal resources and enable the job creations we need, without inflation: by making the best of tax cuts for businesses and individuals.Judging by the 17 years (1983-2000) of almost continuous growth in the USA, the creation of millions of jobs and increase of the population from 248 to 281 millions, while Ronald Reagan has been - and still his - presented as a living disaster who created an utmost economic horror in the country "under his reign" (and we hear the same about Lady Thatcher's Great Britain), I guess I'm going to have a good but quick sarcastic laugh at Superficial Céline and Justin the Magic Expert.
We tried to create prosperity via public spending for more than four decades and it didn't work. (...) Two times in this century, at the beginning of the 20s and at the beginning of the 60s, we heavily lowered the taxes and the stimulating effect on economy has been substantial and immediate.
Because I'm just thinking that I have more chances to stimulate a statue of salt and engender great nations with her than for them to see their pathetic wishful thinking come to life.
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757 - AG
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758 - TB StLouis
TB StLouis
759 - fred
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763 - fred
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764 - JFM
JFM
But France Info is far worse: it is a public radio who has been hijacked by leftist journalists who use it to spread their propaganda at tax payer's expense without any kind of democratic be it direct or indirect towrds the people. Those thieves should be forced to refund the state for the integrality of their salaries since their admission, social contributions included AND pay interest.
As an example of France info in action. A few years ago the Pope visisted France for the "World Days of Youth" in Paris, one of the features was 100,000 catholics who joined hands forming a circle around Paris. There was a counterdemonstration organized by Reseau Voltaire, an organization headed by a such Thierry Meylan who owned a porn business and who after 9/11 wrote "L'effroyable imposture". The anti-pope demonstration attracted 80, EIGHTY persons. In any other country (except in San Marino of course :-) a demonstration attracting eighty persons would have been treated as irrelevant (your average marriage has more guests). But France Info dilligently interviewed one of the participants, perhaps Thierry Meylan himself thus allowing his ideas to be broacasted to millions of people. And there was no interview of any one of the one hundred thousand. Prime minister was Balladur, a catholic, so this was not France Info obeying orders of the government. It was mere highjacking of a tax-payer funded radio.
765 - the dissident frogman
the dissident frogman France