Robert Parry is the Cuba Gooding Jr. of journalism.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

Last edited Mon Jul 21, 2014, 06:45 PM - Edit history (1)

Remember Cuba Gooding Jr.? Of course you do.

He came on big on the scene in Boyz in the Hood. Then he won an Oscar for Jerry McGwire.

And then a few more memorable roles....and then, somewhere between then and now, something happened.

And now he's doing Boat Trip, straight to DVD stinkers and Ben Carson biopics.

Point is, someone can have accolades from long ago and it pretty much means jack shit as it relates to today.

So I don't care that Robert Parry was an esteemed journalist back in the 1980s. He's shown himself to be a complete and utter hack today, willing to repeat total bullshit from Russian state media to pander to a tinfoil hat audience here in the West.

His "journalism" today is hearsay and with an obvious agenda. He's nowhere near respectable and quoting him won't make you sound any more informed on the situation.

[geek tragedy]

1. his complaint is that Kerry is being too effective at convincing the rest of the world

that it was the separatists.

it's Kafkaesque

[Tommy_Carcetti]

8. Completely irresponsible.

From labeling what happened in February as a "coup" without any sort of evidence whatsoever, to grossly distorting the events behind the May 2nd mob violence in Odessa, to this most shameful incident of all where he insists his "sources" can prove the Ukrainian military was behind the shootdown.....he's oblivious to the truth.

But some people want to skate on what he did 30 years ago and then rant indignantly if people call Parry on his bullshit.

He's a bullshit artist.

[geek tragedy]

10. he chases access with minor Russian officials--unless it's a miracle

that his 'sources' always happen to tell him exactly what the Russian government wants out there.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

16. My sources tell me Robert Parry enjoys wearing women's high heels.

There. It's in print (sort of), and I've got "sources" to back me up.

Now will someone post a defense of me if anyone calls me out on what I just wrote regarding Parry's choice of footwear?

[Rex]

2. Robert Parry or Dr. Paul Krugman...gee which one am I going to believe.

Gosh! Such a hard choice...NOT.

[The Magistrate]

3. Good Analogy, Sir

[conservaphobe]

4. What happened to these people is a truly good man got in the White House.

And they can't wrap their tiny little brains around it.

Some on the left became fans of them when they were covering the neocon era, but now that has passed... they are has-beens peddling garbage fit for Infowars and WND.

Hey, I guess they gotta pay the bills.

[Cha]

60. Exactly.. They make $$$ from coming up with CTs to throw at Obama.. with bush he didn't have to

don his . Part of the Profiteering left.. it's his bread and butter.

[zappaman]

5. Hey what about this?

Not sure, but I think it won best picture...

[NuclearDem]

6. Oh, now you've done it.

"Why do you love the BFEE" in 3...2...1...

[Octafish]

23. Ha ha. How many banksters, war criminals and traitors are in jail?

Zero.

[NuclearDem]

47. Well, you know me, just a banker/war criminal apologist.

[Octafish]

7. I am surprised DUers know so little about the First Amendment.

Instead of attacking Parry for doing his job, why not point out where he's wrong.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

9. Wait.....is the government trying to silence Parry?

No?

Then it has zilch to do with the 1st Amendment.

The First Amendment does not make anyone immune from criticism. Not even your beloved Robert Parry. Read it again.

[Octafish]

12. Your attempt to discredit him works to silence him.

As for the First Amendment -- Parry is doing his job as a reporter, calling them as he sees them.

So what did he write that makes you smear him? Was it pointing out that Kerry is rushing to judgment?

[Tommy_Carcetti]

14. I'm some random dude on an internet discussion board. I'm not silencing anyone.

Trust me.

I'm sure the US government won't be imprisoning Parry for what he writes on Ukraine, no matter what bullshit he spews out on the page. That's why I have no idea why you are bringing the 1st Amendment into this.

[Octafish]

20. The press is the only business mentioned in the Constitution.

There is a good reason for that. If you don't know what it is, I'm sorry.

[NuclearDem]

58. Right.

Other than lawyers, authors, inventors, and the post office.

[conservaphobe]

11. The First Amendment: A Primer

[Octafish]

15. How profound. Parry covers Obama the same way he covers Poppy Bush or Dim Bush or anyone else.

So, what did Parry write that makes you criticize him?

[conservaphobe]

18. Just the stuff that would pass for an Infowars or WND article.

So pretty much everything he's written in the past 6 or so years.

[Octafish]

22. Thanks. Now I see where you're coming from. Same treatment was given to Joseph Stiglitz.

The guy told the truth. He got the treatment.

[MinM]

68. Ex-L.A. Times Writer Apologizes for "Tawdry" Attacks on Gary Webb

Jesse Katz admits that attacking journalist Gary Webb's CIA-cocaine expose ruined Webb's life
By Nick Schou Thursday, May 30 2013

Nine years after investigative reporter Gary Webb committed suicide, Jesse Katz, a former Los Angeles Times reporter who played a leading role in ruining the controversial journalist's career, has publicly apologized — just weeks before shooting begins in Atlanta on Kill the Messenger, a film expected to reinstate Webb's reputation as an award-winning journalist dragged through the mud by disdainful, competing media outlets.

Webb made history, then quickly fell from grace, with his 20,000-word 1996 investigation, "Dark Alliance," in which the San Jose Mercury News reported that crack cocaine was being peddled in L.A.'s black ghettos to fund a CIA-backed proxy war carried out by contra rebels in Nicaragua...

No journalist played a more central role in the effort to obscure the facts Webb reported than former L.A. Times reporter Katz. But on May 22, Katz, who has penned a Los Angeles magazine story hitting newsstands now that resurfaces the Gary Webb episode, essentially apologized, on KPCC-FM 89.3's AirTalk With Larry Mantle.

Katz was discussing "Freeway Rick Is Dreaming" in the July 2013 issue of Los Angeles magazine, in which he profiles Ricky Ross, the notorious crack-cocaine dealer with whom Katz has a long, tortured relationship. In 1994, shortly after Ross got out of prison for coke trafficking, Katz wrote that Ross was the mastermind of America's crack-cocaine epidemic, at his peak pushing half a million rocks a day.

"If there was one outlaw capitalist most responsible for flooding Los Angeles' streets with mass-marketed cocaine, his name was 'Freeway' Rick," Katz's 1994 L.A. Times article claimed. "Ross did more than anyone else to democratize it, boosting volume, slashing prices and spreading disease on a scale never before conceived."

But Webb's 1996 Mercury News series exposed a startling fact: Ross' mentor and chief supplier, who helped him climb to the top of the crack trade, was Nicaraguan exile Oscar Danilo Blandón Reyes. Blandón belonged to one of Nicaragua's most prominent political families and was a major backer of the "contras" — a rebel movement secretly created by the CIA to overthrow the leftist Sandinista rebels...

http://www.laweekly.com/2013-05-30/news/gary-webb-jess-katz-crack/

SOS .. some of the same treatment that Gary Webb received. At least posthumously Gary Webb is getting some belated accolades ..

Keep up the good fight Octafish.

[Major Hogwash]

26. Eggs-actly!

Octafish's problem is with Tommy, and others, using their 1st amendment rights to criticize Parry.

[Octafish]

27. No, I've no problem with that.

I've a problem with people who have a problem with Parry doing his job. He reported what he knows about the situation in Ukraine and put it together in the way it makes sense to him.

Parry's track record for professional integrity goes back to 1974. In that time, he's tackled the hardest stories, often alone and usually ahead of the pack.

Calling him "Cuba Gooding Jr." doesn't really have anything to do with that. Nor does it having anything to do with respecting anyone's right to say anything they please.

It's attacking the messenger that is wrong. That is not the sign of democratic debate, it's the sign of the propagandist.

[Major Hogwash]

29. Dude, you're DU's resident CT author and copy/paster of CT articles.

You can calm down bashing Kerry and Obama anyday, but you won't.

You think "attacking the messenger" is wrong, until you do it yourself.

[Octafish]

32. Please feel free to show me where I ''attack the messenger.''

While I often do cut and paste articles, please show where I've intentionally lied or presented information that was not true on DU. Also show where I bash Kerry or Obama, otherwise you're living up to your name.

Go through my Journal on DU3 or DU2.

I stand behind when I write. And if I do make a mistake, I admit it and apologize. With 40,000 posts, that has happened surprisingly few times.

So, please show where I post BS, otherwise don't smear me.

[Major Hogwash]

38. Here you go!!!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5272241

"What have you written worth reading, geek tragedy?"

Someone's ox got gored, and now you're playing the "I'm innocent of attacking anyone that attacks my heroes" game.

Good luck with that.

[zappaman]

40. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Poster loves to say other DUers are paid to post here.

[Octafish]

44. Nice smear. Show where I wrote that.

You won't find it, even if I have asked why you spend so much time to minding my posts.

[zappaman]

49. Sure Brad here ya go.

'Are you paid by the post or are you paid by the hour, zappaman?"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2261046

Not the first time you've said it, but you know that so I don't have to link to more do I?

Nice try though.

[SidDithers]

51. Well this is awkward too...nt

Sid

[zappaman]

56. I just remember the ones directed at me.

I'm sure you have your own!

[1StrongBlackMan]

54. Oops ...

damn the DU search function!!!!

[NuclearDem]

55. Damn search function evil empire!

[Octafish]

57. Oh, yes. The post where you and your tag team egged me to observe WTF?

DUers are free to go through that thread to see why I posted that.

Do you have any other examples?

Better yet, do you have any examples of where you add to what we know about the crimes of the national security state -- which is usually why I bother to post.

[zappaman]

59. "Egged you"?

No, I showed you was fibbing.

[Octafish]

62. No. ''Organized Character Assassination.''

Not that it has anything to do with you, but what Snowden found reminds me:



http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024689867

[1StrongBlackMan]

61. Did you write it, or not? ...

your challenge(s) suggested that you didn't (or at a minimum, no one could find it) ... but they did. It's really that simple.

[Octafish]

63. So what? That's the best they can do in 40,000 posts?

Please, turn it into an OP and have a vote and ask who has integrity, zappaman or Octafish?

[zappaman]

65. Caught ya, huh?

Plenty more posts just like it, which you know since you wrote them.
You crack me up though so

[1StrongBlackMan]

66. I'll take that as a "Yes", I wrote it ...

but I am too ... whatever ... to admit it, as admitting a mistake is sooooo weak."

Thanks.

[SidDithers]

42. Well this is awkward...

Sid

[Octafish]

45. No, the only thing awkward is your tag team approach.

Acting as a flock shows a lack of facts and an inability for analysis. It's called groupthink.

[Octafish]

43. So, what's the answer?

And is your name also geek tragedy?

[CBGLuthier]

25. Yes, I too am amazed how little people understand the first amendment

Like your grotesque distortion of it assuming we can not condemn reporters we disagree with. WE are not the government. We can suggest certain voices be silenced if we do not want to hear them. We are not going to arrest him or put him in jail for what he says.

[Octafish]

28. Guess you missed the point, too, then.

All Robert Parry is doing is telling the truth as he sees it. Just because it doesn't jibe with what the New York Times and ABCNNBCBSFoxNutwork says should tell you something. By making Parry out to be some kind of villain makes it harder to hear the difference.

[SidDithers]

31. 'Cause, as we all know, the First Amendment protects journalists from criticism and ridicule...

Sid

[Octafish]

33. Do you have similar press protections in Canada?

You don't write like it.

[SidDithers]

34. In Canada, journalists aren't protected from criticism and ridicule either...nt

Sid

[zappaman]

41. Thanks for the info!

[NuclearDem]

48. Let's read the First Amendment!

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;

Oh my! Did you see that?

Congress shall make no law

Well, now I'm confused. If what the First Amendment protects are speech, the press, religion, right to assembly, and petition from laws aimed at detracting them (in the context of speech and the press, censorship), that must mean Tommy is Congress!

Ha! Figured him out. That must be it, because that's the only way invoking the First Amendment when someone criticizes a journalist makes any sort of logical sense whatsoever.

[zappaman]

50. So we can blame Tommy for all the nonsense going on in Congress

cuz he IS congress???

[NuclearDem]

52. It was sneaky, I'll give him that.

Masquerading as a private citizen voicing an opinion on a discussion board with absolutely no apparent power to actually censor or silence anyone.

But ha! We saw his silly charade, and now we know the truth! And good thing that hypothesis totally checks out, too, since if it were total nonsense, then it'd make invoking the First Amendment seem like an awfully silly and desperate attempt at misdirection from a topic we felt uncomfortable with.

[greatauntoftriplets]

69. Tommy is ALL 435 members of Congress!?!?!?

He must be tired. And confused.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

71. And bloated. nt

[SidDithers]

13. Well done...

Sid

[KittyWampus]

17. I think he's been out of the loop for a long time but he still thinks he's

relevant. Or grasps at anything that'll keep the illusion alive.

[Caretha]

37. Could you draw me a map of that

I understand you're an expert in Russian topography.

[KittyWampus]

64. what a bizarre non sequitur- if you can't stay on topic how about not replying to me.

But if you want me to draw you a map, here's one just for fun with lots of winky smilies because I'm just KIDDING:

[KoKo]

19. And You Have Jimmy Carter as your Avatar?

For Shame........

[JackRiddler]

21. It's so important to have a list.

[KoKo]

24. Good Grief.....did Obama's Poll Numbers go Down or something today?

It's amazing the epithets against fellow DU'ers on this site. It makes me wonder what is going on...that there such hysteria here on DU where long time posters are suddenly going after OTHER long time posters and trying to trash them and their views on the current issues.

I like Obama's personality....I think he tried to do a few things he promised..but, as a Free American Democratic Citizen....I thought that Democratic Underground (member since 2001) was a site that would be free of RW Doctrine and more focused on Dem Party Building for the future.

Must be bad for some out there that this is where they go...to attack Dem Reporters, Dem Members of DU and the "Free Press" which we know isn't free much here in USA anymore...so we go to International News. But, then Snowden revealed how Websites can be manipulated for Post Counts and Views. I've seen it go on here.......with 7,000 views for a Dog Mutilations and Off Stories that one can watch on their local TV "Nightly News" if you want murder and crimes against the innocents..including females, animals and children.

Maybe the views for those Posts are accurate...but, it seems odd a political website would deal with what we all see on our nightly news (if we watchevery night as having to do with National/International Issues ignoring Infrastructure Repair, Right to Clean Water and Food (Fracking and GMO's in our environment and food supply) and yet those distracting, heart rendering posts get Thousands of Views where Political Issues get much less attention on a Political Named Web Site.

Mostly it's folks who never post articles to invite discussion but Snark and Attacks with no discussion but just what most Dems got used to as "Faux News/Limbaugh style tactics.

Let us know when you have some articles you post with REAL DEM NEWS and you SPEND TIME doing posts that come from Historically Acclaimed Books, Reporters or Other Resources that aren't CNN/FAUX/MSNBC (occasionally they are credible)MIC Conservative Radio/Video/ and Radio Free America Propaganda.

"Talking Points" from sites that CAVED TO CORPORATIONS/Gov't Propaganda from MIC /Wall Street ....so long ago that they are quite suspect.

Have at it....the general public is waking up and the poll numbers must be showing that so go at the REAL DEMS here on this site to drive us off... But, if you drive us off here...we are NOT without Resources elsewhere. Because we are Involved/Activist Democrats who Vote in ALL ELECTIONS...Local and not just Presidential...

Carry On.. 's....

[countingbluecars]

30. You seem to have quite a superiority complex

going on there. I'm betting that there are plenty of us here who may not agree with you but still are "Involved/Activist Democrats who Vote in ALL ELECTIONS...Local and not just Presidential..."

BTW Isn't your heading snarky?

[Skittles]

46. great post KoKo

good to see you

[FSogol]

35. True dat! K&R. n/t

[Caretha]

39. All I friggin'

want to know is ....does he have boxes made of cardboard in his garage & does his girlfriend dance around poles?

Answer me that! I'll be sure to come to the proper conclusion when I have those details.

[Cha]

53. THank you, Tommy! Cuba did a Ben Carson biopic? Oh dear.. Parry's "agenda" is to show

that he can come up with any and all CTs against America and the haters will suck it up with a straw.

[Puzzledtraveller]

67. Ben Carson bio pics?

[Tommy_Carcetti]

70. What pays the bills, I suppose.

Sad, since Gooding's certainly not without talent.