Fantasyland Media:

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.

---------

Guardian UK
"America's leading human rights organization has accused Israel and its supporters of an 'organized campaign' of false allegations and misinformation, including "extremely personal attacks" on its staff, in an attempt to discredit the group over its reports of war crimes in Gaza.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) ties the campaign – which has included accusations that the group's reports on the Jewish state are written by 'anti-Israel ideologues' and that it has sought funds from Saudi Arabia – to a statement by a senior official in the Israeli prime minister's office in June pledging to 'dedicate time and manpower to combating' human rights organizations...'

Iain Levine, HRW's program director, said that while the organization had long attracted criticism, in recent months there had been significant attempts to intimidate and discredit it.

'I really hesitate to use words like conspiracy, but there is a feeling that there is an organized campaign, and we're seeing from different places what would appear to be co-ordinated attacks ... We are having to spend a lot of time repudiating the lies, the falsehoods, the misinformation.'

Spearheading some of the criticism is NGO Monitor in Jerusalem, an Israeli group funded by wealthy US donors which includes (Elie) Wiesel on its advisory board. It has accused HRW staff of having a 'political agenda' to attack Israel."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/13/israel-human-rights-watch-gaza

-->The NY Times, didn't cover this possible conspiracy against America's leading human rights organization. Our newspaper of record is more interested in protecting Zionist lobby.

-------------------

Guardian UK:
"A United Nations special investigator who was blocked from visiting the US by the Bush administration has accused the American government of pouring billions of dollars into rescuing banks and big business while treating as 'invisible' a deepening homeless crisis.

Raquel Rolnik, the UN special rapporteur for the right to adequate housing, who has just completed a seven-city tour of America, said it was shameful that a country as wealthy as the US was not spending more money on lifting its citizens out of homelessness and substandard, overcrowded housing.

'The housing crisis is invisible for many in the US,' she said. 'I learned through this visit that real affordable housing and poverty is something that hasn't been dealt with as an issue. Even if we talk about the financial crisis and government stepping in in order to promote economic recovery, there is no such help for the homeless.'

She added: 'I think those who are suffering the most in this whole situation are the very poor, the low-income population. The burden is disproportionately on them and it's of course disproportionately on African-Americans, on Latinos and immigrant communities, and on Native Americans.'"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/12/un-investigator-us-neglect-homeless

-->The NY Times reported on her visit to the US, but somehow managed to omit what Ms. Rolnik had to say about greedy banks and the homeless. The NY Times doesn't report on shame when it comes to the wealthy elite.

-------------------

The Onion:
"KABUL, AFGHANISTAN— According to sources at the Pentagon, American quagmire-building efforts continued apace in Afghanistan this week, as the geographically rugged, politically unstable region remained ungovernable, death tolls continued to rise, and the grim military campaign persisted as hopelessly as ever.

In fact, many government officials now believe that the United States and its allies could be as little as six months away from their ultimate goal: the total quagmirification of Afghanistan.

'We've spent a lot of time and money fostering the turmoil and despair necessary to make this a sustaining quagmire, and we're not going to stop now,' President Barack Obama said in a national address Monday night. 'It won't be easy, but with enough tactical errors on the ground, shortsighted political strategies, and continued ignorance of our vast cultural differences, we could have a horrific, full-fledged quagmire by 2012.'"
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/u_s_continues_quagmire_building

-->The NY Times would never bring itself to admit the insanity of US empire building. So factual news comes through comedy rather than through the mainstream media.

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.

---------


BBC World Service:
"Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new BBC poll has found widespread dissatisfaction with free-market capitalism.

In the global poll for the BBC World Service, only 11% of those questioned across 27 countries said that it was working well.  Most thought regulation and reform of the capitalist system were necessary...

More than 29,000 people in 27 countries were questioned. In only two countries, the United States and Pakistan, did more than one in five people feel that capitalism works well as it stands.

Almost a quarter - 23% of those who responded - feel it is fatally flawed. That is the view of 43% in France, 38% in Mexico and 35% in Brazil.

And there is very strong support around the world for governments to distribute wealth more evenly. That is backed by majorities in 22 of the 27 countries..."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/09-1

-->Needless to say, the NY Times was not interested in a poll that questioned world capitalism or favored a more equitable distribution of wealth.

-------------------

"Hezbollah is rapidly rearming in preparation for a new conflict with Israel, fearing that Benjamin Netanyahu's government will attack Lebanon again prior to any assault on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Last week, Israeli commandos seized a ship in the Mediterranean loaded with almost 400 tonnes of rockets and small arms – which Israel claimed was being sent from Iran to its Hezbollah allies. In dramatic further evidence of growing tensions, the Observer has learned that Hezbollah fighters have been busy reinforcing fixed defence positions north of the Litani river.
Having lost many of its bunkers in the south, Hezbollah is preparing a new strategy to defend villages there."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/08/hezbollah-rearms-against-israel

-->The NY Times does its best to hide Israeli war crimes. Indications of another Israeli assault against Lebanon never made it into print.

-------------------

CNN World:
"The United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution endorsing a U.N. report calling for both Israel and Palestine to carry out independent investigations of possible war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip during last winter's conflict...

It calls on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to report to the General Assembly within three months 'with a view to considering further action, if necessary, by the relevant United Nations organs and bodies, including the Security Council.'

Passage was expected, given the widespread support for the Palestinians and the strong criticism of Israel that resonated in the speeches by 45 nations during the two-day debate. The resolution, brought forward by approximately 20 Arab League members, passed by a vote of 114-18 by the 192-member body."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/11/05/un.gaza/

-->The NY Times covered the Goldstone report in the UN General Assembly. It gave one sentence to the Palestinian Ambassador, three paragraphs to the Israeli Ambassador, and two paragraphs to the official US position condemning the UN action.

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.

---------

Guardian:

"International negotiators lost one of the key elements to a successful deal on global warming today after Democratic leaders in the US Congress ruled out passing a climate change law before 2010. In the latest obstacle on the road to the UN summit in Copenhagen next month, Senate leaders ordered a five-week pause to review the costs of the legislation.

The delay, which would push a Senate vote on a climate change bill into next year, frustrates a last-minute push by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, to get America to commit itself at home to cut greenhouse gas emissions before the Copenhagen meeting. World leaders – and US officials – have repeatedly said US legislation is crucial to a deal on global warming.

Merkel used a historic address to a joint session of Congress today to urge America to act on climate change, stating that success at Copenhagen rested on the willingness of all countries to accept binding reductions in carbon emissions."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/03/merkel-senate-delay-climate-debate

-->Congress and the president failing the world on climate change? The story was on the NY Times Blog, but didn't make it into print.

-------------------

"The US House of Representatives has rejected as 'irredeemably biased' the findings of a UN-sponsored report which says Israel committed war crimes during its military assault on the Gaza Strip.

The house on Tuesday voted 344 to 36 in favour of a non-binding resolution calling on Barack Obama, the US president, to maintain his opposition to the report, which was written by a panel led by Richard Goldstone, a South African judge.

The report accused Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group, which has de facto control of Gaza, of war crimes during the 22-day conflict in December and January.

But most of its criticism was directed towards Israel's conduct during the offensive, in which human rights organisations say about 1,400 Palestinians - many of them women and children - were killed."

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/11/200911320434191455.html

-->This is, of course, the dirty business the US Congress covering up Israeli war crimes. Our own John Hall was one of the co-sponsors of the resolution. Shameful really. By hiding Israeli's massacre of civilian populations, the US government insures that these crimes will continue. The NY Times would rather not report on all this, continuing its policy of aiding and abetting Israeli murder in Gaza.

-------------------

Poughkeepsie Journal

"RHINEBECK - With an election looming, a talk on the electoral process appears to have turned political in a Rhinebeck High School class.

Students said Dutchess County Legislator Joel Tyner, D-Clinton, tried to persuade them to vote for him during a talk he gave to their economics class..."

-->We usually do national and international stories. But this local one is so bad that we are going to make an exception. This story came out days before the county election. The student names were fed to the newspaper by the Republican Party. There was no attempt to question other students, or to gather any information that would have revealed: most students thought the presentation was excellent, a number of Republican officials had done similar presentations this fall, Joel Tyner was a Rhinebeck graduate who has made over ten presentations at the school, the teacher had invited him to speak at a Participation in Government class.

This is just swift boating journalism Poughkeepsie style. In the process, both the local Republicans and the Poughkeepsie Journal have proven themselves to be much less than Dutchess County deserves. And Joel Tyner won anyway!