What The Subliminal Messages Of Experts’ Propped-Up Books On Skype And Zoom Tell Us
It’s always interesting to see what people, and in particular experts who are being interviewed on Zoom or Skype, choose to prop up behind them in order to send subliminal messages to viewers.
Some props (especially books) are germane to the topic at hand but some are not. In the latter case, the interviewee is usually pushing some other cause.
For example on the Jan 15, 2021 broadcast of PBS News Hour, the book Heather Boushey propped up prominently behind her was one she herself had edited with two others: Recession Ready: Fiscal Policies to Stabilize the American Economy. Boushey is the incoming member Council of Economic Advisers in the Biden administration.
So, fair enough. The question she was called upon to answer was why so much money (“1.9 trillion on top of the trillions that were dished out by the federal government last year”) was necessary in the Biden “stimulus package.” Her propped-up book gave me confidence in what she was saying and I tried to ignore the irritation I felt with her soothing voice and facial expressions, which seemed to me to be studied.
But a few minutes later, NewsHour jumped to Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, on the topic of the Biden vaccination plan.
Propped up behind him is a biography of Abba Eban written by Robert St. John, a journalist who had reported for AP and NBC Radio from Europe on WWII and subsequently on Israel.
St. John is described on Wikipedia as, “An eloquent non-Jewish spokesman for Jewish causes, he maintained close ties with the Jewish state and was honored by Jewish and Israeli institutions. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, called him ‘our goyisher Zionist.’”
According to one reviewer, this Zionist biography of Abba Eban, a British Zionist who became an Israeli minister, is missing “insight and inside… as St. John purveys official Israeli history, including discredited versions of the Six Day War.”
Needless to say, this to me was an uncomfortable distraction in the background. Dr. Hotez’ solemn pronouncements on the Biden vaccination program to tackle the “deception on a national scale” of the Trump administration were neither trustworthy nor reassuring.
To be fair, Hotez also had another book to his left, the title of which debunked the notion that vaccination causes autism (Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad). But the fact that he was undeceived on one issue (vaccination safety) but taken in by another (the Zionist deceptive version of the history of Palestine) is puzzling. A blurb on his book notes, “Dr. Hotez uses his knowledge of vaccine science and experiences as a parent of a child with autism to dispel the dangerous myths the anti-vaccine movement spread.”
I wonder what experiences Dr. Hotez, a scientist and Jewish American, has had with Zionism that allows him to cling to the faulty knowledge and dangerous myths the Zionist movement spreads.
As a Palestinian American, I continue to marvel at Dr. Hotez’s and the world’s numbness (including the world of media, both news and entertainment) to the historic evil that has created the apartheid state of Israel.
See my open letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Re: U.S. National Security, Auschwitz and Israel.
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Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank.
