http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
---------
"As more journalists seek permission to accompany U.S. forces engaged in escalating military operations in Afghanistan, many of them could be screened by a controversial Washington-based public relations firm contracted by the Pentagon to determine whether their past coverage has portrayed the U.S. military in a positive light.
U.S. public affairs officials in Afghanistan acknowledged to Stars and Stripes that any reporter seeking to embed with U.S. forces is subject to a background profile by The Rendon Group, which gained notoriety in the run-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq for its work helping to create the Iraqi National Congress. That opposition group, reportedly funded by the CIA, furnished much of the false information about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction used by the Bush administration to justify the invasion.
Rendon examines individual reporters' recent work and determines whether the coverage was "positive," "negative" or "neutral" compared to mission objectives, according to Rendon officials. It conducts similar analysis of general reporting trends about the war for the military and has been contracted for such work since 2005, according to the company."
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=64348
-->The Associated Press covered this story, but it was mostly Pentagon denials. The NY Times did not print the story at all, having passed a Pentagon screening long ago. All the news that the Pentagon sees fit to print.
-------------------
"The lobbyists have, as they did with the obscene bailouts for banks and investment firms, hijacked legislation in order to fleece the citizen. The five largest private health insurers and their trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, spent more than $6 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2009. Pfizer, the world’s biggest drug maker, spent more than $9 million during the last quarter of 2008 and the first three months of this year. The Washington Post reported that up to 30 members of Congress from both parties who hold key committee memberships have major investments in health care companies totaling between $11 million and $27 million. President Barack Obama’s director of health care policy, who will not discuss single-payer as an option, has served on the boards of several health care corporations.
Obama and the congressional leadership have shut out advocates of single-payer. The press, including papers such as The New York Times, treats single-payer as a fringe movement. The television networks rarely mention it. And yet between 45 and 60 percent of doctors favor single-payer. Between 40 and 62 percent of the American people, including 80 percent of registered Democrats, want universal, single-payer not-for-profit health care for all Americans. The ability of the corporations to discredit and silence voices that represent at least half of the population is another sad testament to the power of our corporate state..." -Chris Hedges
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/24-1
-->The NY Times has spent little time discussing this disgusting sellout to the health insurance industry. The newspaper sold out to corporate interests long ago.
-------------------
"The conventional wisdom, however, has been that the Democrats are suffering from some sort of political Icarus syndrome. They are flying too high and too soon, and the public disapproval will send them crashing back to earth.
The problem with that rationale, at least in our numbers this week, is that it doesn't match with the data.
Across the board, the drops among Obama and the Democratic Party have come not from the loyal opposition, nor have they come from dismayed Independents.
They have come from Democrats...
Anyone who thinks the protracted arguments over health care aren't frustrating the Democratic base need look no further. A ten-point dip in net favorability, in a single week, is a pretty solid statement."
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/142136/as_obama%27s_popularity_dwindles_among_his_supporters%2C_media_gets_the_reason_exactly_wrong/
-->The NY Times writes about Obama's falling poll numbers: "extensive political research, which show that confidence in Mr. Obama’s leadership has fallen throughout the summer largely because of the health care debate." No mention of the fact that it is all Democrats deserting the ship because of his move to the right on this issue and many others.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
---------
"The last person to see Syed Mehmood Hashmi as a free man was his friend Mohammed Haroon Saleem, who on June 6, 2006, drove Hashmi to London's Heathrow Airport, walked him to the security checkpoint, and watched him hoist his bag and head for the gate. But Hashmi never made his flight. At passport control, constables pulled him from the line and told him they had an extradition warrant on behalf of the US government. He was to be charged with aiding Al Qaeda.
Today Hashmi, who is 29, sits in a windowless cell, in solitary confinement. He is not allowed to watch television or listen to the radio or read a newspaper unless it is at least 30 days old and censored. He is not allowed to speak to guards, other inmates, or the media, or to write anyone but his attorney and his family (once a week on three single-sided pages). The only people cleared to visit, besides his lawyer, are his mother and father. Hashmi's lawyer, Sean Maher, says the isolation is slowly driving his client mad.
Hashmi is not in Guantanamo Bay, nor is he an enemy combatant. He's a US citizen, born in Pakistan and raised in Flushing, Queens, facing trial in federal court in Manhattan. His home for the past two years has been the Special Housing Unit at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a stone's throw from the Brooklyn Bridge. Hashmi might be guilty, he might not. We may never know-because when he goes before judge and jury later this year he won't get a fair trial. Much of the government's evidence against him is secret, and he can't see it because he doesn't have a security clearance. Maher, who does have a security clearance, can't see much of it either. Maher finds this incredible."
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/07/thousand-little-gitmos
-->A thousand little Gitmos around our country imprisoning US citizens without due process? One right in NY City? Not newsworthy according to the NY Times, which has never covered this story.
-------------------
"WASHINGTON - The U.S. government continues to withhold even the most basic information about prisoners in the Bagram detention facility in Afghanistan, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a New York-based legal rights organization.
An April 2009 ACLU Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents and information about the detainment of prisoners at Bagram has yielded dead ends with both the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)...
Bagram is a major topic of interest for several human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the International Justice Network, which have criticized the Obama Administration's record on promoting justice in its overseas prisons, comparing conditions at Bagram to those at the much- criticized U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/15-2
-->Readers of the NY Times haven't read about these human rights criticisms. Our newspaper of record follows the Pentagon's advice on which countries to investigate. Of course, we get tons of reports about supposed human rights abuses in Iran. US media in service of empire.
-------------------
"Why is Afghanistan so important? A glance at a map and a little knowledge of the region suggest that the real reasons for Western military involvement may be largely hidden.
Afghanistan is adjacent to Middle Eastern countries that are rich in oil and natural gas. And though Afghanistan may have little petroleum itself, it borders both Iran and Turkmenistan, countries with the second and third largest natural gas reserves in the world. Russia is first...
Rivalry for pipeline routes and energy resources reflects competition for power and control in the region. Pipelines are important today in the same way that railway building was important in the 19th century. They connect trading partners and influence the regional balance of power. Afghanistan is a strategic piece of real estate in the geopolitical struggle for power and dominance in the region."
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/679670
-->Is there another reason for our occupation of Afghanistan? One would think that the NY Times would at least cover this motivation for the recent US surge in troops. But US imperialism is never a subject the NY Times deems "Fit to Print."
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
---------
"The last person to see Syed Mehmood Hashmi as a free man was his friend Mohammed Haroon Saleem, who on June 6, 2006, drove Hashmi to London's Heathrow Airport, walked him to the security checkpoint, and watched him hoist his bag and head for the gate. But Hashmi never made his flight. At passport control, constables pulled him from the line and told him they had an extradition warrant on behalf of the US government. He was to be charged with aiding Al Qaeda.
Today Hashmi, who is 29, sits in a windowless cell, in solitary confinement. He is not allowed to watch television or listen to the radio or read a newspaper unless it is at least 30 days old and censored. He is not allowed to speak to guards, other inmates, or the media, or to write anyone but his attorney and his family (once a week on three single-sided pages). The only people cleared to visit, besides his lawyer, are his mother and father. Hashmi's lawyer, Sean Maher, says the isolation is slowly driving his client mad.
Hashmi is not in Guantanamo Bay, nor is he an enemy combatant. He's a US citizen, born in Pakistan and raised in Flushing, Queens, facing trial in federal court in Manhattan. His home for the past two years has been the Special Housing Unit at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a stone's throw from the Brooklyn Bridge. Hashmi might be guilty, he might not. We may never know-because when he goes before judge and jury later this year he won't get a fair trial. Much of the government's evidence against him is secret, and he can't see it because he doesn't have a security clearance. Maher, who does have a security clearance, can't see much of it either. Maher finds this incredible."
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/07/thousand-little-gitmos
-->A thousand little Gitmos around our country imprisoning US citizens without due process? One right in NY City? Not newsworthy according to the NY Times, which has never covered this story.
-------------------
"WASHINGTON - The U.S. government continues to withhold even the most basic information about prisoners in the Bagram detention facility in Afghanistan, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a New York-based legal rights organization.
An April 2009 ACLU Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents and information about the detainment of prisoners at Bagram has yielded dead ends with both the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)...
Bagram is a major topic of interest for several human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the International Justice Network, which have criticized the Obama Administration's record on promoting justice in its overseas prisons, comparing conditions at Bagram to those at the much- criticized U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/15-2
-->Readers of the NY Times haven't read about these human rights criticisms. Our newspaper of record follows the Pentagon's advice on which countries to investigate. Of course, we get tons of reports about supposed human rights abuses in Iran. US media in service of empire.
-------------------
"Why is Afghanistan so important? A glance at a map and a little knowledge of the region suggest that the real reasons for Western military involvement may be largely hidden.
Afghanistan is adjacent to Middle Eastern countries that are rich in oil and natural gas. And though Afghanistan may have little petroleum itself, it borders both Iran and Turkmenistan, countries with the second and third largest natural gas reserves in the world. Russia is first...
Rivalry for pipeline routes and energy resources reflects competition for power and control in the region. Pipelines are important today in the same way that railway building was important in the 19th century. They connect trading partners and influence the regional balance of power. Afghanistan is a strategic piece of real estate in the geopolitical struggle for power and dominance in the region."
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/679670
-->Is there another reason for our occupation of Afghanistan? One would think that the NY Times would at least cover this motivation for the recent US surge in troops. But US imperialism is never a subject the NY Times deems "Fit to Print."
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
---------
"Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, personally intervened to suppress evidence of CIA collusion in the torture of a British resident, the high court heard today.
The dramatic turn emerged as lawyers for Binyam Mohamed, the UK resident abused in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Morocco and Guantánamo Bay, joined by lawyers for the Guardian and other media groups, asked the court to order the disclosure of CIA material."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/29/binyam-mohamed-cia-torture
-->The NY Times covered this story, but in its usual way, omitting any critical information about the US. "The British government has fought to keep some details of Mohamed's treatment secret, arguing it could harm U.S.-U.K. intelligence-sharing if the information was released." No mention of the US secretary of state's involvement.
-------------------
"Reporting from Washington -- As a candidate for president, Barack Obama lambasted drug companies and the influence they wielded in Washington. He even ran a television ad targeting the industry's chief lobbyist, former Louisiana congressman Billy Tauzin, and the role Tauzin played in preventing Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices.
Since the election, Tauzin has morphed into the president's partner. He has been invited to the White House half a dozen times in recent months. There, he says, he eventually secured an agreement that the administration wouldn't try to overturn the very Medicare drug policy that Obama had criticized on the campaign trail."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-healthcare-pharma4-2009aug04,0,5474025.story?track=rss
-->The New York Times covered this story, but without any mention of Obama's campaign ads criticizing Tauzin.
-------------------
"A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."
In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/04-9
-->Erik Prince implicated in the murder of government witnesses? Such stories won't be troubling to you if you depend on the NY Times for your news. It didn't cover this story.
News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.
---------
"Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, personally intervened to suppress evidence of CIA collusion in the torture of a British resident, the high court heard today.
The dramatic turn emerged as lawyers for Binyam Mohamed, the UK resident abused in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Morocco and Guantánamo Bay, joined by lawyers for the Guardian and other media groups, asked the court to order the disclosure of CIA material."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/29/binyam-mohamed-cia-torture
-->The NY Times covered this story, but in its usual way, omitting any critical information about the US. "The British government has fought to keep some details of Mohamed's treatment secret, arguing it could harm U.S.-U.K. intelligence-sharing if the information was released." No mention of the US secretary of state's involvement.
-------------------
"Reporting from Washington -- As a candidate for president, Barack Obama lambasted drug companies and the influence they wielded in Washington. He even ran a television ad targeting the industry's chief lobbyist, former Louisiana congressman Billy Tauzin, and the role Tauzin played in preventing Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices.
Since the election, Tauzin has morphed into the president's partner. He has been invited to the White House half a dozen times in recent months. There, he says, he eventually secured an agreement that the administration wouldn't try to overturn the very Medicare drug policy that Obama had criticized on the campaign trail."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-healthcare-pharma4-2009aug04,0,5474025.story?track=rss
-->The New York Times covered this story, but without any mention of Obama's campaign ads criticizing Tauzin.
-------------------
"A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."
In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/04-9
-->Erik Prince implicated in the murder of government witnesses? Such stories won't be troubling to you if you depend on the NY Times for your news. It didn't cover this story.
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