I’ve been reading with interest that the Guardian has appointed two new blogger-columnists, one of whom makes perfect sense and the other just makes me scratch my head and say: Huh? They are Glenn Greenwald and Josh Trevino. Greenwald of course is a fighting tiger of the progressive blog world. He’s a great catch for The Guardian. But Trevino?
I can understand the desire to balance Greenwald’s progressive fusillades with a conservative equivalent, but Trevino is a creep of the lowest order. Ali Abunimah has exposed his homicidal rantings against the American contingent in the Gaza Freedom flotilla (which included Nobel laureate, Alice Walker):
Dear IDF: If you end up shooting any Americans on the new Gaza flotilla — well, most Americans are cool with that. Including me.
Thanks to Jesus’ General for that one, who notes that using this logic Josh would’ve encouraged the El Salvadoran death squads to murder American nuns (which they did). In this tweet, the right-wing incendiary likened the Flotilla to a “Nazi convoy:”
Not morally different from a Nazi convoy, is it? RT @KurtSchlichter: Sink the #flotilla. Enough screwing around with these psychos.
By the way, I could offer the link to these tweets a few days ago, but after his shellacking at the hands of Abunimah, Trevino has rather foolishly decided to put the evidence behind a protective barrier. You can only see his tweets now if you’re within his trusted inner circle. He doesn’t want anyone snooping through his rancid racist garbage. Perhaps wisely so.
To be clear, I don’t have a problem with someone supporting Israeli policy, even the Gaza siege, as long as they do so using reasonable rhetoric that eschews terms like “Nazi” and incitement to murder. There are those who can do this and if the Guardian wanted a conservative commentator it could’ve found such a person. But it went instead for a flamboyant, ranting showman. It wanted a slightly more cultured, domesticated version of Anne Coulter. And it got one, with a vengeance.
MJ Rosenberg has also tweeted about Trevino’s white supremacist public statements.
The former Texas Republican PR flack also tries to hide his client list from those years. From this Malaysian political blog, it would appear that the ruling Malaysian political party was once one of his clients. That’s the only way to explain an odd series of posts and columns in Huffington Post and Washington Times which attempted to argue that the ruling party’s prosecution of the leading Opposition political leader, Anwar Ibrahim, for sodomy, was justified. Since Trevino’s PR flackery also includes lots of spinning on behalf of pro-Israel clients, he appears to have won the Daily Double in attacking Ibrahim for being not just a Sodomite, but an anti-Semite.
A few years ago, a friend asked me whether he should consider joining a pro-Israel junket being organized by Trevino under the rubric of Act for Israel. I did some research (didn’t know much about Trevino at that point) and offered my opinion that it was a pro-Israel shill group. What was clever of Trevino was that he was inviting a group of progressive writers and bloggers to join an all-expense paid trip to Israel during the imbroglio over the Carmel fires. You’ll recall this natural disaster also involved massive unpreparedness of Israel’s civil authorities, including firefighters (no firefighting planes), which led to 40 unnecessary deaths including Haifa’s fire chief.
Under those particular circumstances, Israel’s friends thought it was imperative to co-opt a group of liberal writers to sing Israel’s praises. What I found astonishing about Trevino’s come-on to the group was his promise that he could offer side-trips to Gaza and the Lebanese border. It’s beyond odd that Trevino could promise an American journalist a trip to Gaza. Either he doesn’t know anything about the situation in Gaza (likely) or he was flat-out lying (possible).
Even before beginning his tenure at the Guardian as a formal columnist was forced to inaugurate it with a twisted partial mea culpa that was in itself a sack of lies. You read one of his disgusting tweets above. Here’s how he speaks today of what he wrote then:
…Any reading of my tweet of 25 June 2011 that holds that I applauded, encouraged, or welcomed the death of fellow human beings, is wrong…
Excuse me? This is like the cheating husband caught in flagrante delecto and saying: “Who’re you gonna believe? Me or your lyin’ eyes?” Well my lyin’ eye knows homicidal racism when I see it. You simply can’t lie it away as he has here.
Unfortunately, what the Guardian has bought here is a racist sack of garbage. A guy who’ll pretty up homophobic scare tactics for enough money. Someone who’ll politically pimp for Israel if the price is right. Sure, you can say he’s shed his former clients and now he’s an honest man. But who would believe that? Perhaps a Guardian editor…
The Guardian will accommodate anyone, with ANY views, except UKIP supporters and those who think that the police cover-up over the Stephen Lawrence murder had more to do with corruption than institutionalized racism. (At LEAST one of the murderers was a son of Clifford Norris, the business partner of the gangster Kenneth Noye. The Guardian really stamps on any comment which directs attention towards Noye and the bent (and very senior) coppers on his payroll. It’s almost as if Noye has a stake in the paper…)
There being only two grounds for being unacceptable to The Guardian, it’s remarkable that I should fail on both counts.
Surely their taking him on is a ruse under the guise of balance?
They take on a left wing progressive and instead of balancing with a mainstream Zionist they put in a meshuggena who will also portray the worst side of Zionism.
Thus the guardian will continue it’s anti Zionist bias twofold from both extreme non-representative sides of the spectrum of ideas.
RE: “Josh Trevino, Arab-Hating Pro-Israel Flack Takes Pride of Place at Guardian” ~ R.S.
MY COMMENT: It is a very sad day indeed when a once venerable institution like the Guardian associates itself with an unabashed racist like Trevino. It reminds me of CNN’s decision in January of 2006 to give Glenn Beck a one hour program in their prime-time lineup on Headline News.
Establishing a stone-age Zionist to promote anti-Zionism? Really???
Talking about homicidal racism, make sure you read, comprehend and let the world know of this eye-witness account of last night’s real life lynching of 3 Arab kids at Zion Square, the very heart of Jewish Jerusalem’s centre:
(Hebrew) http://www.haaretz.co.il/news/law/1.1803801
(English) http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/in-suspected-jerusalem-lynch-dozens-of-jewish-youths-attack-3-palestinians.premium-1.459002
The eye-witness account of the lynch on FB:
(Hebrew,) http://www.facebook.com/100elef/posts/350950271652148
This horror story in English:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4269794,00.html
One commenter wrote: “Ynet, the voice of Arab imperialism”
Nazism’s connection with facts in general and historical facts in particular is flimsy at best.
That’s its strength. That’s also the seed of its downfall.
What we’re yet to see is how much suffering it manages to inflict while it blooms.
The fact is that the Guardian has lost credibility among most informed international observers over the last five years or so.
It’s lack of good analysis of Syria, Iran, the Iraq war, the international economy, domestic issues in the US (mostly taken from the Washington Post), and its increasingly “tabloid” feel, all indicate that its best days are well behind it.
There isn’t yet a babe in a bikini on page 3, but they’re working to get there.
Maybe they can put Josh Trevino & a hot babe in a bikini on Page 3!
Well, in the days when The Guardian was a serious paper, it had Varoomska.
http://www.lambiek.net/artists/k/kent_john.htm
But when Polly Toynbee joined the staff, she started a hate campaign against John Kent and he went, taking his creation with him.
The Guardian has been on a slide ever since, which steepened when a former PA to the arms merchant, Tiny Rowland, became its editor in chief. The subsequent “anti-corruption” campaign against BAe systems reflects Mr Rowland’s and Mr Rusbridger’s past role as sales agents for Dassault.
No-one who has sold Dassault fighters and executive jets to African despots has any business questioning BAe’s ethical code, really. Dassault makes even Lockheed seem clean.