http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
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Aljazeera:
"The cold war ended two decades ago, but dreams of an impenetrable missile shield from Ronald Reagan - who once called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" - are firmly back on the US national security agenda.
Late on Wednesday, the US tested its newest round of interceptors, spending $100m to blast a missile from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean towards California.
The anti-ballistic missile system failed, as the kill vehicle designed to blow the projectile out of the sky missed its target, adding to a long-list of unsuccessful tests for the expensive weaponisation scheme.
Since the end of the cold war the US has spent 'approximately $100bn' on missile defence systems, Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the Missile Defence Agency, told Al Jazeera.
Wednesday’s failed long-range test was important because it involved an attempt to intercept a dummy warhead, rather than the usual testing scheme of just maneuvering the missile to a particular point in space, said Ian Anthony, the research coordinator for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a think-tank in Sweden."
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2010/12/20101217172028248218.html
-->The NY Times gave a brief history of US missile defense efforts in November. The story didn't mention the complete failure of such systems to intercept incoming missiles, and the huge cost borne by the American people. And our newspaper of record made no mention of this latest failure.
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The Guardian, UK
"The United Nations is investigating a complaint on behalf of Bradley Manning that he is being mistreated while held since May in US Marine Corps custody pending trial. The army private is charged with the unauthorised use and disclosure of classified information, material related to the WikiLeaks, and faces a court martial sometime in 2011.
The office of Manfred Nowak, special rapporteur on torture based in Geneva, received the complaint from a Manning supporter; his office confirmed that it was being looked into. Manning's supporters say that he is in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day; this could be construed as a form of torture. This month visitors reported that his mental and physical health was deteriorating...
In an interview with MSNBC, Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, described Manning as a political prisoner and called on human rights organisations to investigate."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/23/un-treatment-leaks-bradley-manning
-->No mention by The New York Times of the UN investigation of Bradley Manning's mistreatment. The victims of the US police state are off limits when it comes to all the news that's fit to print.
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Miami Herald:
"It was three months into Barack Obama's presidency, and the administration -- under pressure to do something about alleged abuses in Bush-era interrogation policies -- turned to a Florida senator to deliver a sensitive message to Spain:
Don't indict former President George W. Bush's legal brain trust for alleged torture in the treatment of war on terror detainees, warned Mel Martinez on one of his frequent trips to Madrid. Doing so would chill U.S.-Spanish relations.
Rather than a resolution, though, a senior Spanish diplomat gave the former GOP chairman and housing secretary a lesson in Spain's separation of powers. 'The independence of the judiciary and the process must be respected,' then-acting Foreign Minister Angel Lossada replied on April 15, 2009."
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/25/v-fullstory/1988286/wikileaks-how-us-tried-to-stop.html#ixzz19YeC4vgg
-->The NT Times didn't cover this Wikileaks story. Maybe it put Barak Obama in too bad a light. Maybe it showed the US empire doesn't give a damn about human rights.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
Committee to Stop FBI Repression:
"The FBI came unannounced to knock on doors at two apartments in Chicago this morning. FBI agent Robert Parker, under orders from U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office, delivered a subpoena to Maureen Murphy. Murphy, like several other individuals served subpoenas, is an organizer with the Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago.
This continues the repression unleashed by Fitzgerald on the anti-war movement since September 24th, when fourteen subpoenas were delivered to anti-war, labor, and solidarity activists in coordinated raids involving more than 70 federal agents. Armed FBI agents raided homes, taking computers, phones, passports, documents, notebooks, and even children’s artwork. A total of 23 subpoenas have been served to activists around the country."
-->Back to the bad old days of FBI political oppression of dissent. This time, advocating for Palestinian human rights seems to be the offense. Can free speech survive the FBI? Congress had real doubts about this when the FBI was formed about a hundred years ago. Nor has anything the FBI done since the Palmer Raids given us much reassurance. And our media shows little interest in this latest assault on civil liberties.
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Common Dreams:
"We are deeply disappointed that the chairman chose to ignore the overwhelming public support for real Net Neutrality, instead moving forward with industry-written rules that will for the first time in Internet history allow discrimination online. This proceeding was a squandered opportunity to enact clear, meaningful rules to safeguard the Internet’s level playing field and protect consumers.
The new rules are riddled with loopholes, evidence that the chairman sought approval from AT&T instead of listening to the millions of Americans who asked for real Net Neutrality. These rules don't do enough to stop the phone and cable companies from dividing the Internet into fast and slow lanes, and they fail to protect wireless users from discrimination. No longer can you get to the same Internet via your mobile device as you can via your laptop. The rules pave the way for AT&T to block your access to third-party applications and to require you to use its own preferred applications."
The new rules are riddled with loopholes, evidence that the chairman sought approval from AT&T instead of listening to the millions of Americans who asked for real Net Neutrality. These rules don't do enough to stop the phone and cable companies from dividing the Internet into fast and slow lanes, and they fail to protect wireless users from discrimination. No longer can you get to the same Internet via your mobile device as you can via your laptop. The rules pave the way for AT&T to block your access to third-party applications and to require you to use its own preferred applications."
-->The NY Times puts a happy face on the FCC decision, characterizing the ruling as "a classic Washington solution — the kind that pleases no one on either side of the issue." Obama is portrayed as "fulfilling a campaign promise" rather then selling out to big business. What else is new?
----------
Human Right Watch:
"This report consists of a series of case studies that compare Israel’s different treatment of Jewish settlements to nearby Palestinian communities throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It describes the two-tier system of laws, rules, and services that Israel operates for the two populations in areas in the West Bank under its exclusive control, which provide preferential services, development, and benefits for Jewish settlers while imposing harsh conditions on Palestinians.
The report highlights Israeli practices the only discernible purposes of which appear to be promoting life in the settlements while in many instances stifling growth in Palestinian communities and even forcibly displacing Palestinian residents. Such different treatment, on the basis of race, ethnicity, and national origin and not narrowly tailored to meet security or other justifiable goals, violates the fundamental prohibition against discrimination under human rights law."
-->Israel violating basic human rights in the occupied territories? Isn't that conclusion supporting terrorism, or speech that goes against what the US government wants us to believe? Maybe that is why The NY Times covered several recent Human Rights Watch reports on China, and none on Israel. It did print a letter, however, by Eli Wiesel, Alan Dershowitz and others criticizing Human Rights Watch's "focus on Israel."
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
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FireDogLake.com:
"Saturday the White House announced that the following noble protectors of American workers endorsed the NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade agreement:
US Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue; President of the National Association of Manufacturers John Engler; Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit; JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon; Amway CEO and top Republican funder Dick DeVos; Big Bank lobby group Financial Services Roundtable President Steve Bartlett; and more.
That's an impressive array of people who are dedicated to protecting the ultra-rich and not giving a damn about real working Americans or American jobs. How could the Obama White House top that?
Here's the second round of endorsements from the White House for NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade; mind you the White House is actually bragging about these names:PhRMA, Wal-Mart, RIAA, AT&T, Mitch McConnell
It's like a party for the Corporate Axis of Evil, and Obama's throwing a kegger."
-->One has to read alternative media to understand what the "free trade" agenda all about: multinational corporate profits at the expense of workers and the environment. But that point of view would never make it into the pages of The NY Times.
------------
Guardian UK:
"A scandal involving foreign contractors employed to train Afghan policemen who took drugs and paid for young 'dancing boys' to entertain them in northern Afghanistan caused such panic that the interior minister begged the US embassy to try and 'quash' the story, according to one of the US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks.
In a meeting with the assistant US ambassador, a panicked Hanif Atmar, the interior minister at the time of the episode last June, warned that the story would 'endanger lives' and was particularly concerned that a video of the incident might be made public.
The episode helped to fuel Afghan demands that contractors and private security companies be brought under much tighter government control. However, the US embassy was legally incapable of honouring a request by Atmar that the US military should assume authority over training centres managed by DynCorp, the US company whose employees were involved in the incident in the northern province of Kunduz."
-->Perhaps a story about "dancing boys" was too off-color for readers of The NY Times. It didn't cover the story. But most stories that put the US occupation of Afghanistan in a bad light are censored by our newspaper of record.
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Inter Press Service:
"WASHINGTON - A diplomatic cable from last February released by Wikileaks provides a detailed account of how Russian specialists on the Iranian ballistic missile programme refuted the U.S. suggestion that Iran has missiles that could target European capitals or intends to develop such a capability.
A key Wikileaks document which should have resulted in stories calling into question the thrust of the Obama administration's ballistic missile defence policy in Europe based on an alleged Iranian missile threat has produced a spate of stories supporting the existing Iranian threat narrative. In fact, the Russians challenged the very existence of the mystery missile the U.S. claims Iran acquired from North Korea.
But readers of the two leading U.S. newspapers never learned those key facts about the document.
The New York Times and Washington Post reported only that the United States believed Iran had acquired such missiles - supposedly called the BM-25 - from North Korea. Neither newspaper reported the detailed Russian refutation of the U.S. view on the issue or the lack of hard evidence for the BM-25 from the U.S. side."
-->Did The NY Times come clean after being exposed by Wikileaks? Not really. In a recent article entitled: "Wider Window Into Iran’s Missile Capabilities Offers a Murkier View," there are references to differing opinions on Iran's missile capabilities. No mention of the Russian evidence. Is The NY Times selling war on Iran the same way it sold war on Iraq? Whipping up hysteria for military intervention by reporting what the Pentagon says as the whole truth? Of course it is.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
Inter Press Service:
"A special envoy from President Barack Obama raised the possibility in a secret meeting with senior Iraqi military and civilian officials in Baghdad Sep. 23 that his administration would leave more than 15,000 combat troops in Iraq after the 2011 deadline for U.S. withdrawal, according to a senior Iraqi intelligence official familiar with the details of the meeting.
But the White House official, Puneet Talwar, special assistant to the president and senior director for the Gulf States, Iran and Iraq on the National Security Council (NSC) staff, said the deployment would have to be handled in a way that was consistent the president's pledge to withdraw U.S. troops completely from Iraq under the 2008 agreement, the official said.
Talwar suggested that the combat troops could be placed under the cover of the State Department's security force, the Iraqi intelligence official told IPS..."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/16
-->Another peace promise being broken by our peace prize president? The NY Times didn't think this latest betrayal of the antiwar movement even worth reporting on.
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Reuters:
"GENEVA - The new U.N. torture expert urged the United States on Tuesday to conduct a full investigation into torture under the Bush administration and prosecute offenders as well as senior officials who ordered it.
Juan Ernesto Mendez told Reuters he also hoped to visit Iraq to probe a 'very widespread practice of torture' of detainees with the help of coalition forces, revealed in confidential U.S. files issued by Wikileaks.
He will also try to visit the U.S. detention centre at Guantanamo -- on condition that he is granted private interviews with prisoners still being held by the Obama administration, he said in his first interview with an international media organisation since taking up the independent post two weeks ago.
'The United States has a duty to investigate every act of torture. Unfortunately, we haven't seen much in the way of accountability,' said Mendez, himself a former torture victim, in the wide-ranging interview at the United Nations in Geneva."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/16-7
-->Stories like this make the empire look bad. Of course The NY Times wouldn't report it.
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The Hill:
"Anti-war Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) says he will force a vote on a hard date for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan on the heels of reports they could remain there at least through 2014.
Kucinich said Wednesday that he will force a vote via privileged resolution at the beginning of the next Congress on ending the war in Afghanistan by the end of 2011...
His announcement comes after The New York Times reported that the Obama administration has stressed that it will leave troops in place at least through the end of 2014 in an effort to persuade Afghans and the Taliban the U.S. intends to complete its mission."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/11-5
-->The NY Times doesn't report on Congressional initiatives to end the war. Major news sources in the US still overwhelmingly support the wars in the Middle East, even though the American people do not.
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
------------
Inter Press Service:
"A special envoy from President Barack Obama raised the possibility in a secret meeting with senior Iraqi military and civilian officials in Baghdad Sep. 23 that his administration would leave more than 15,000 combat troops in Iraq after the 2011 deadline for U.S. withdrawal, according to a senior Iraqi intelligence official familiar with the details of the meeting.
But the White House official, Puneet Talwar, special assistant to the president and senior director for the Gulf States, Iran and Iraq on the National Security Council (NSC) staff, said the deployment would have to be handled in a way that was consistent the president's pledge to withdraw U.S. troops completely from Iraq under the 2008 agreement, the official said.
Talwar suggested that the combat troops could be placed under the cover of the State Department's security force, the Iraqi intelligence official told IPS..."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/16
-->Another peace promise being broken by our peace prize president? The NY Times didn't think this latest betrayal of the antiwar movement even worth reporting on.
------------
Reuters:
"GENEVA - The new U.N. torture expert urged the United States on Tuesday to conduct a full investigation into torture under the Bush administration and prosecute offenders as well as senior officials who ordered it.
Juan Ernesto Mendez told Reuters he also hoped to visit Iraq to probe a 'very widespread practice of torture' of detainees with the help of coalition forces, revealed in confidential U.S. files issued by Wikileaks.
He will also try to visit the U.S. detention centre at Guantanamo -- on condition that he is granted private interviews with prisoners still being held by the Obama administration, he said in his first interview with an international media organisation since taking up the independent post two weeks ago.
'The United States has a duty to investigate every act of torture. Unfortunately, we haven't seen much in the way of accountability,' said Mendez, himself a former torture victim, in the wide-ranging interview at the United Nations in Geneva."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/16-7
-->Stories like this make the empire look bad. Of course The NY Times wouldn't report it.
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The Hill:
"Anti-war Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) says he will force a vote on a hard date for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan on the heels of reports they could remain there at least through 2014.
Kucinich said Wednesday that he will force a vote via privileged resolution at the beginning of the next Congress on ending the war in Afghanistan by the end of 2011...
His announcement comes after The New York Times reported that the Obama administration has stressed that it will leave troops in place at least through the end of 2014 in an effort to persuade Afghans and the Taliban the U.S. intends to complete its mission."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/11-5
-->The NY Times doesn't report on Congressional initiatives to end the war. Major news sources in the US still overwhelmingly support the wars in the Middle East, even though the American people do not.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
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The Media Consortium:
"Last week, the Federal Reserve announced a plan to buy an additional $600 billion worth of Treasury bonds in an attempt to stimulate the economy. On Democracy Now!, economist Michael Hudson argues that the $600 billion T-bill buy will help Wall Street at the expense of ordinary Americans.
The Fed justifies the purchase as an infusion of cash into the U.S. economy. The buy-up will certainly be an infusion of cash into U.S. banks. In effect, the Fed will help the government pay back the banks that lent money to finance deficit spending. The hope is that these banks, suddenly flush with cash, will help the U.S. economy by lending money to finance projects that will create wealth and jobs (i.e. opening factories and hiring more workers).
However, as Hudson points out, there’s no guarantee that the banks are going to use the windfall to build wealth in the U.S. On the contrary, he argues, there’s every reason to suspect that they’ll invest the money overseas in currency speculation deals."
-->Another 600 billion for the banks to speculate with, with nothing going to the average American worker. Try to find this analysis in the mainstream media. The NY Times, as usual, obscured the give-away in an article entitled: "Fed to Spend $600 Billion to Speed Up Recovery."
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Agence France Presse:
"GENEVA - The United States faced a barrage of calls to investigate allegations of torture and shut down Guantanamo Bay detention centre on Friday in its first review by the UN's top human rights assembly.
European countries joined appeals for a halt to the death penalty, and there was trenchant criticism of Washington's recent human rights record during wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the detention and interrogation of terror suspects."
-->Not much in mainstream media about this condemnation by the UN Human Rights Assembly. I guess Obama was supposed to change things, and newspapers like The NY Times don't really want readers too upset with business as usual in the US Empire.
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The Patriot-News:
"Tracking the Twitter activity of law-abiding citizens was part of the Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security’s intelligence surveillance program.
According to internal Homeland Security e-mails produced through a Right-To-Know request, one of the targets of such surveillance was the Berks Peace Community, a 50-year-old group of Quaker-affiliated senior citizens. They gather on the Penn Street Bridge in Reading every Friday and quietly hold signs questioning America’s 'war habit.'
The e-mails also indicate that monitoring the tweets of law-abiding citizens was 'part of the intelligence effort that is conducted daily... on behalf of the PA Office of Homeland Security.' "
According to internal Homeland Security e-mails produced through a Right-To-Know request, one of the targets of such surveillance was the Berks Peace Community, a 50-year-old group of Quaker-affiliated senior citizens. They gather on the Penn Street Bridge in Reading every Friday and quietly hold signs questioning America’s 'war habit.'
The e-mails also indicate that monitoring the tweets of law-abiding citizens was 'part of the intelligence effort that is conducted daily... on behalf of the PA Office of Homeland Security.' "
-->Why bother reporting on the eavesdropping of our national security state when the President can decide who to assassinate without charges or trail. Does free speech exist when one's life can be taken away by the state without judicial process? Maybe that is why The NY Times didn't cover this story.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
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Citizens for Legitimate Government:
"The Obama Effect: The Demise of the Democratic Party and a Gift to the Country By Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D. 11 Dec 2009
The decision to escalate Afghanistan War should put the final nail in the coffin of "change" and "hope" that Democrats and others crawled into when they supported Obama. The evidence that Obama is every bit the representative of the corporate oligarchy and no less a corporate shill than the rest has been mounting for nearly a year-or well before the election for the cognoscenti. Only fanatics could have heard Obama's speech on Afghanistan and failed to hear the resonances of Bush. But the writing was on the wall over a year ago when Obama supported the bailouts of the banks and brokerage firms that leveraged their destruction of the economy on the foreclosures of homes. Few could miss the fact that the health care reform bill, should it ever pass, will be another unwarranted and gratuitous bailout-this one of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies... Only a working-class majority can overcome the power elite and end the wars.
-->Why can't the mainstream media come up with such an analysis? Instead, we hear this week that Obama is too far to the right. Don't trust the talking heads paid for by the corporate media. They can be counted on to always advise a move to the right, with less government regulation, and more tax cuts for the very rich.
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Inter Press Service:
"WASHINGTON - The revelation by Wikileaks of a U.S. military order directing U.S. forces not to investigate cases of torture of detainees by Iraqis has been treated in news reports as yet another case of lack of concern by the U.S. military about detainee abuse.
But the deeper significance of the order, which has been missed by the news media, is that it was part of a larger U.S. strategy of exploiting Shi'a sectarian hatred against Sunnis to help suppress the Sunni insurgency when Sunnis had rejected the U.S. war.
And Gen. David Petraeus was a key figure in developing the strategy of using Shi'a and Kurdish forces to suppress Sunnis in 2004-2005.
The strategy involved the deliberate deployment of Shi'a and Kurdish police commandos in areas of Sunni insurgency in the full knowledge that they were torturing Sunni detainees, as the reports released by Wikileaks show."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/01-6
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/01-6
-->The US military responsible for the sectarian violence that still plagues Iraq? Americans will never see that part of Wikileaks in the major US media, which often serves to support such US occupations in the Third World. The best The NY Times can do is run "People Magazine" like articles attacking the Jullian Assange, as in: "WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Chased by Turmoil."
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WAMC/NPR:
Marketplace offered a special segment last week on controlling the federal deficit. The head of the Columbia School of Business Administration was there to claim that the problem is really with Social Security. This despite the fact that Social Security has run surpluses for decades, billions of dollars owed retiring American workers. The surpluses all went to funding US wars and giving tax cuts to the very rich. Social Security is still running a large surplus and will so for the foreseeable future. But Wall Street wants its cut, like the insurance companies wanted their cut of healthcare. So the mainstream media, including WAMC/NPR, must constantly distort the facts about Social Security. How else to rob the majority for the benefit of the richest?
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
Common Dreams:
"It’s a perfect storm. And I’m not talking about the impending dangers facing Democrats. I’m talking about the dangers facing our democracy.
First, income in America is now more concentrated in fewer hands than it’s been in 80 years. Almost a quarter of total income generated in the United States is going to the top 1 percent of Americans...
Washington says nothing can be done. There’s no money left.
No money? The marginal income tax rate on the very rich is the lowest it’s been in more than 80 years. Under President Dwight Eisenhower (who no one would have accused of being a radical) it was 91 percent. Now it’s 36 percent. Congress is even fighting over whether to end the temporary Bush tax cut for the rich and return them to the Clinton top tax of 39 percent.
Much of the income of the highest earners is treated as capital gains, anyway — subject to a 15 percent tax. The typical hedge-fund and private-equity manager paid only 17 percent last year. Their earnings were not exactly modest. The top 15 hedge-fund managers earned an average of $1 billion.
Congress won’t even return to the estate tax in place during the Clinton administration – which applied only to those in the top 2 percent of incomes.
It won’t limit the tax deductions of the very rich, which include interest payments on multi-million dollar mortgages. (Yet Wall Street refuses to allow homeowners who can’t meet mortgage payments to include their primary residence in personal bankruptcy.)...
No money? The marginal income tax rate on the very rich is the lowest it’s been in more than 80 years. Under President Dwight Eisenhower (who no one would have accused of being a radical) it was 91 percent. Now it’s 36 percent. Congress is even fighting over whether to end the temporary Bush tax cut for the rich and return them to the Clinton top tax of 39 percent.
Much of the income of the highest earners is treated as capital gains, anyway — subject to a 15 percent tax. The typical hedge-fund and private-equity manager paid only 17 percent last year. Their earnings were not exactly modest. The top 15 hedge-fund managers earned an average of $1 billion.
Congress won’t even return to the estate tax in place during the Clinton administration – which applied only to those in the top 2 percent of incomes.
It won’t limit the tax deductions of the very rich, which include interest payments on multi-million dollar mortgages. (Yet Wall Street refuses to allow homeowners who can’t meet mortgage payments to include their primary residence in personal bankruptcy.)...
The perfect storm: An unprecedented concentration of income and wealth at the top; a record amount of secret money flooding our democracy; and a public becoming increasingly angry and cynical about a government that’s raising its taxes, reducing its services, and unable to get it back to work."
-Robert Reich
-->The perfect storm threatening our democracy will not be a subject of our national media, which is owned by that tiny minority of US citizens who are so egregiously abusing America's working class.
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Common Dreams:
"Take the comparative news and feature coverage of Glenn Beck’s rally in Washington, D.C. on August 28 with the rally at the same place a month later, organized by 400 progressive labor, religious, civil rights, student and environmental groups.
In the Washington Post, it was not even close. For the progressive rally of comparable size, representing tens of millions of Americans, the Post devoted a short article presaging the event and a regular news story that day on page 3, which cited Mr. Beck’s preposterous estimate of 500,000 for his meeting (A CBS-retained consulting firm estimated Beck’s rally drew just under 90,000).
For the Beck rally, the Post went all out. A huge page one story spilled generously onto the inside pages. The FOX network talkers’ assembly got articles proceeding and after the gathering. The Times, while not so gushing, did manage to give Beck a startling ego-inflating headline—'Where Dr. King Once Stood, Tea Party Claims His Mantle.' And Beck is a TV media man promoting political action, a role that formerly was taboo.
The op-ed pages showcase the news media’s rightwing bent even more than the news articles. The op-ed pages of the Post are over-represented with war-mongering columnists and contributors. The media watchdog FAIR reported in their monthly magazine Extra that, in one nine-month period during 2009, the ratio of op-ed’s supporting wars and interventions outnumbered op-ed’s by the anti-interventionists by ten-to-one. This in an overwhelmingly liberal Democratic city, no less."
-Ralph Nader
-->For the "Perfect Storm" threatening our democracy, we get a media obsessed with right wing propaganda and war talk. To change America, we must end the dominance of the corporate based national media.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
Salon:
"At this point, I didn't believe it was possible, but the Obama administration has just reached an all-new low in its abysmal civil liberties record. In response to the lawsuit filed by Anwar Awlaki's father asking a court to enjoin the President from assassinating his son, a U.S. citizen, without any due process, the administration late last night, according to The Washington Post, filed a brief asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit without hearing the merits of the claims.
That's not surprising: both the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly insisted that their secret conduct is legal but nonetheless urge courts not to even rule on its legality. But what's most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is 'state secrets': in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are 'state secrets,' and thus no court may adjudicate their legality." -Glenn Greenwald
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/26-5
-->Why doesn't The New York Times express outrage at this further shredding of the US Constitution? The story printed by The NY Times was very balanced, with some quotes supporting extrajudicial assassinations and some against. Our newspaper of record did not see fit to make this a subject of an editorial, and didn't bother quoting Mr. Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer who has written two books on the abuse of executive power.
(UPDATE: On Sept 30, The New York Times finally published an editorial condemning Obama's civil liberties record.)
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Huffington Post:
"The war on dissent, rather than terrorism, continued full steam with FBI SWAT teams breaking down doors at 7 am Friday (Sept 24) morning and raiding the homes of several anti-war leaders and activists in Minneapolis, Chicago and possibly a couple other Midwest cities. Members of the FBI's 'Joint Terrorism Task Force' spent a few hours at each Minneapolis residence, seizing personal photographs and papers, computers and cell phones as well as serving Federal Grand Jury subpoenas on the various activists.
Obviously the scathing review of post 9-11 FBI 'terrorism investigations' targeting various peace and social justice groups completed by the Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) and just issued four days ago gave no pause to the FBI to reflect before continuing to do more of the same. Nor did accompanying media revelations about the FBI having improperly conducted surveillances of an antiwar rally in Pittsburgh; the Catholic Worker peace magazine; a Quaker activist, the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh, of members of the environmental group Greenpeace and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and of a small student group of anti-war activists in Iowa City, Iowa who were targeted for 9 months in 2008.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/coleen-rowley/inspector-general-critici_b_738932.html
-->The New York Times reported the FBI break-ins, but failed to link them to the Department of Justice's highly critical report of other FBI "Terrorism Investigations."
------------
Haaretz Newspaper
"Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be the winner of the construction-freeze crisis: The 10-month suspension of building in the settlements will not be extended and the prime minister has given up nothing. Peace talks with the Palestinians will continue, the coalition is as strong as ever, and the government enjoys some freedom of movement regarding the settlers and the U.S. administration.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, his threats to the contrary, will not scuttle the peace talks that have barely begun just because Netanyahu isn't extending the freeze. U.S. President Barack Obama, preaching for the moratorium to continue, can't force it on Netanyahu on the eve of the congressional elections when his party's leaders are calling for negotiations to continue without regard to the settlements."
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/the-winner-in-the-settlement-row-is-netanyahu-1.315719
-->Refreshing analysis by the Israeli newspaper of the left. It is too bad that the American media can't seem to focus on Obama's inability or unwillingness to demand an end to the illegal settlements in the West Bank.
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
Salon:
"At this point, I didn't believe it was possible, but the Obama administration has just reached an all-new low in its abysmal civil liberties record. In response to the lawsuit filed by Anwar Awlaki's father asking a court to enjoin the President from assassinating his son, a U.S. citizen, without any due process, the administration late last night, according to The Washington Post, filed a brief asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit without hearing the merits of the claims.
That's not surprising: both the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly insisted that their secret conduct is legal but nonetheless urge courts not to even rule on its legality. But what's most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is 'state secrets': in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are 'state secrets,' and thus no court may adjudicate their legality." -Glenn Greenwald
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/26-5
-->Why doesn't The New York Times express outrage at this further shredding of the US Constitution? The story printed by The NY Times was very balanced, with some quotes supporting extrajudicial assassinations and some against. Our newspaper of record did not see fit to make this a subject of an editorial, and didn't bother quoting Mr. Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer who has written two books on the abuse of executive power.
(UPDATE: On Sept 30, The New York Times finally published an editorial condemning Obama's civil liberties record.)
------------
Huffington Post:
"The war on dissent, rather than terrorism, continued full steam with FBI SWAT teams breaking down doors at 7 am Friday (Sept 24) morning and raiding the homes of several anti-war leaders and activists in Minneapolis, Chicago and possibly a couple other Midwest cities. Members of the FBI's 'Joint Terrorism Task Force' spent a few hours at each Minneapolis residence, seizing personal photographs and papers, computers and cell phones as well as serving Federal Grand Jury subpoenas on the various activists.
Obviously the scathing review of post 9-11 FBI 'terrorism investigations' targeting various peace and social justice groups completed by the Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) and just issued four days ago gave no pause to the FBI to reflect before continuing to do more of the same. Nor did accompanying media revelations about the FBI having improperly conducted surveillances of an antiwar rally in Pittsburgh; the Catholic Worker peace magazine; a Quaker activist, the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh, of members of the environmental group Greenpeace and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and of a small student group of anti-war activists in Iowa City, Iowa who were targeted for 9 months in 2008.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/coleen-rowley/inspector-general-critici_b_738932.html
-->The New York Times reported the FBI break-ins, but failed to link them to the Department of Justice's highly critical report of other FBI "Terrorism Investigations."
------------
Haaretz Newspaper
"Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be the winner of the construction-freeze crisis: The 10-month suspension of building in the settlements will not be extended and the prime minister has given up nothing. Peace talks with the Palestinians will continue, the coalition is as strong as ever, and the government enjoys some freedom of movement regarding the settlers and the U.S. administration.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, his threats to the contrary, will not scuttle the peace talks that have barely begun just because Netanyahu isn't extending the freeze. U.S. President Barack Obama, preaching for the moratorium to continue, can't force it on Netanyahu on the eve of the congressional elections when his party's leaders are calling for negotiations to continue without regard to the settlements."
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/the-winner-in-the-settlement-row-is-netanyahu-1.315719
-->Refreshing analysis by the Israeli newspaper of the left. It is too bad that the American media can't seem to focus on Obama's inability or unwillingness to demand an end to the illegal settlements in the West Bank.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
WAMC/NPR:
A special report from the national NPR described the effectiveness of trade sanctions against Iran. There were some successes, according to the report. But real progress is still a long way off. The report cited Turkey and China as major obstacles in "stopping Iran from building nuclear weapons."
-->Notice how the debate in the US media has gone from whether Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons to how best to stop them from building the bomb. It is an important step to take, at least from the Pentagon's point of view. Establishing a nuclear weapons program in Iran is like establishing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before that misguided invasion.
Reading or listening to US media, one can understand the direction of US interventions in the Third World. First, the big lie. And then the US media repeating that lie again and again until most people consider it the consensus of informed opinion. But how did our media become the conduit for Pentagon propaganda? And how long has our "free press" been feeding us what the government wants us to believe?
------------
Common Dreams:
"Israeli Company Hired by State Government to Spy on Pennsylvanians and Other Americans.
The surprise disclosure that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, through its state Homeland Security Agency, along with a number of local police departments in the state, have been employing a private Israeli security company with strong links to Mossad and the Israeli Defense Force grows increasingly disturbing when the website of the company, called the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response, is examined...
The description for the Tactical Advantage course, which the website says was designed for military, law enforcement and security personnel, describes the program as 'intense, dirty, aggressive and based on Israeli Counter-Terror Schools policy.' It says 'This course pushes trainees to the physical and mental edge.' American organizations which engage in protests and rallies, hearing that reference to the Israeli Counter-Terror Schools policy, might recall the IDF’s handling of the aid flotilla that was boarded on the high seas by IDF troops as they read these lines."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/19-1
-->An Israeli security company with links to their secret service is spying on political activists in Pennsylvania. But our newspaper of record, The NY Times, is disinterested in stories critical of Israel's power in the United States. Perhaps the newspaper has its own links to Mossad.
------------
The Raw Story:
"That the Food and Drug Administration is opposed to labeling foods that are genetically modified is no surprise anymore, but a report in the Washington Post indicates the FDA won't even allow food producers to label their foods as being free of genetic modification.
In reporting that the FDA will likely not require the labeling of genetically modified salmon if it approves the food product for consumption, the Post's Lyndsey Layton notes that the federal agency 'won't let conventional food makers trumpet the fact that their products don't contain genetically modified ingredients.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/19-0
-->The NY Times ran a story about GM salmon the same day. But the piece avoided any mention of the labeling controversy. When it comes to corporate policies that threaten human health, The NY Times can be counted on to toe the business line. Just look at the last decade's worth of positive articles on nuclear energy.
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
WAMC/NPR:
A special report from the national NPR described the effectiveness of trade sanctions against Iran. There were some successes, according to the report. But real progress is still a long way off. The report cited Turkey and China as major obstacles in "stopping Iran from building nuclear weapons."
-->Notice how the debate in the US media has gone from whether Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons to how best to stop them from building the bomb. It is an important step to take, at least from the Pentagon's point of view. Establishing a nuclear weapons program in Iran is like establishing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before that misguided invasion.
Reading or listening to US media, one can understand the direction of US interventions in the Third World. First, the big lie. And then the US media repeating that lie again and again until most people consider it the consensus of informed opinion. But how did our media become the conduit for Pentagon propaganda? And how long has our "free press" been feeding us what the government wants us to believe?
------------
Common Dreams:
"Israeli Company Hired by State Government to Spy on Pennsylvanians and Other Americans.
The surprise disclosure that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, through its state Homeland Security Agency, along with a number of local police departments in the state, have been employing a private Israeli security company with strong links to Mossad and the Israeli Defense Force grows increasingly disturbing when the website of the company, called the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response, is examined...
The description for the Tactical Advantage course, which the website says was designed for military, law enforcement and security personnel, describes the program as 'intense, dirty, aggressive and based on Israeli Counter-Terror Schools policy.' It says 'This course pushes trainees to the physical and mental edge.' American organizations which engage in protests and rallies, hearing that reference to the Israeli Counter-Terror Schools policy, might recall the IDF’s handling of the aid flotilla that was boarded on the high seas by IDF troops as they read these lines."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/19-1
-->An Israeli security company with links to their secret service is spying on political activists in Pennsylvania. But our newspaper of record, The NY Times, is disinterested in stories critical of Israel's power in the United States. Perhaps the newspaper has its own links to Mossad.
------------
The Raw Story:
"That the Food and Drug Administration is opposed to labeling foods that are genetically modified is no surprise anymore, but a report in the Washington Post indicates the FDA won't even allow food producers to label their foods as being free of genetic modification.
In reporting that the FDA will likely not require the labeling of genetically modified salmon if it approves the food product for consumption, the Post's Lyndsey Layton notes that the federal agency 'won't let conventional food makers trumpet the fact that their products don't contain genetically modified ingredients.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/19-0
-->The NY Times ran a story about GM salmon the same day. But the piece avoided any mention of the labeling controversy. When it comes to corporate policies that threaten human health, The NY Times can be counted on to toe the business line. Just look at the last decade's worth of positive articles on nuclear energy.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
Common Dreams:
"Washington, D.C., is leading the transformation of urban public education across the country—at least according to Time magazine, which featured D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee on its cover, wearing black and holding a broom. Or perhaps you read it in Newsweek or heard it from Oprah, who named Rhee to her 'power list' of 'remarkable visionaries.'
But there’s nothing remarkably visionary going on in Washington. The model of school reform that’s being implemented here is popping up around the country, heavily promoted by the same network of conservative think tanks and philanthropists like Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and the Walton Family Foundation that has been driving the school reform debate for the past decade. It is reform based on the corporate practices of Wall Street, not on education research or theory. Indications so far are that, on top of the upheaval and distress Rhee leaves in her wake, the persistent racial gaps that plague D.C. student outcomes are only increasing...
Rhee continues to target career teachers, in action and words. In the spring and summer of 2009 the district hired more than 900 new teachers—three times the usual number of summer hires. Then, in October, Rhee announced that a newly discovered budget shortfall required that 266 teachers be laid off. Because the layoffs were budget related, principals were free to ignore the 'last hired-first fired' rules in the union contract. According to the union, a substantial number of the laid-off teachers were older, more senior teachers, rather than those who had been hired the previous spring and summer. Students and parents protested as beloved teachers and counselors were yanked out of buildings."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/13-5
-->Very little in the US media questions "education reform" as presented by Bush and now Obama. But it involves the corporatization of public schools, and even to the firing of older, higher paid professionals. All the abuses of corporate America brought into the classroom.
------------
Guardian/UK:
"The bulk of the media often gets pulled along for the ride when the United States government has a serious political and public relations campaign around foreign policy. But almost nowhere is it so monolithic as with Venezuela. Even in the run-up to the Iraq war, there were a significant number of reporters and editorial writers who didn't buy the official story. But on Venezuela, the media is more like a jury that has 12 people but only one brain...
The 'all bad news, all the time' theme was overwhelmingly dominant even during Venezuela's record economic expansion, from 2003 to 2008. The economy grew as never before, poverty was cut by more than half, and there were large gains in employment. Real social spending per person more than tripled, and free healthcare was expanded to millions of people. You will have to search very hard to find these basic facts presented in a mainstream media article, although the numbers are hardly in dispute among economists in international organisations that deal with statistics...
Whatever happens, we can expect complete coverage of one side of the story from the media. So keep it in mind: even when you are reading the New York Times or listening to NPR on Venezuela, you are getting Fox News. If you want something more balanced, you will have to look for it on the web."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/12-4
-->How is it that a free society does not have a free press? Why does The NY Times continue to slander countries according to the Pentagon's enemies list? Like reporting on Nicaragua in the 1980's, there is no difference between what The NY Times reports and what the government wants you to read.
------------
Guardian/UK:
"Israel has snubbed five senior European foreign ministers, including the British foreign secretary, William Hague, by refusing to receive them for a planned visit to Jerusalem, according to reports in the Israeli press.
The respected Haaretz newspaper reported today that the visit, planned for Thursday, was officially rejected by the Israeli foreign ministry because of the date's proximity to the Jewish religious holiday, Yom Kippur, which begins on Friday evening. However, a senior Israeli official told Haaretz that the real reason was concern that EU ministers wanted to pressure Israel to extend its settlement construction freeze. The 10-month partial freeze is due to expire in two weeks.
The EU meeting is reported to have been initiated by the French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner and his Spanish counterpart, Miguel Moratinos, after discussions between them over the EU's efforts to promote the Middle East peace process. Hague would have been a member of the delegation."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/12/israel-refuses-eu-foreign-ministers
-->Of course, The NY Times would not cover that highlighted the illegal settlements or made Israel look bad. Here there is very little difference between what The NY Times reports and what the Israeli government wants you to read.
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
Common Dreams:
"Washington, D.C., is leading the transformation of urban public education across the country—at least according to Time magazine, which featured D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee on its cover, wearing black and holding a broom. Or perhaps you read it in Newsweek or heard it from Oprah, who named Rhee to her 'power list' of 'remarkable visionaries.'
But there’s nothing remarkably visionary going on in Washington. The model of school reform that’s being implemented here is popping up around the country, heavily promoted by the same network of conservative think tanks and philanthropists like Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and the Walton Family Foundation that has been driving the school reform debate for the past decade. It is reform based on the corporate practices of Wall Street, not on education research or theory. Indications so far are that, on top of the upheaval and distress Rhee leaves in her wake, the persistent racial gaps that plague D.C. student outcomes are only increasing...
Rhee continues to target career teachers, in action and words. In the spring and summer of 2009 the district hired more than 900 new teachers—three times the usual number of summer hires. Then, in October, Rhee announced that a newly discovered budget shortfall required that 266 teachers be laid off. Because the layoffs were budget related, principals were free to ignore the 'last hired-first fired' rules in the union contract. According to the union, a substantial number of the laid-off teachers were older, more senior teachers, rather than those who had been hired the previous spring and summer. Students and parents protested as beloved teachers and counselors were yanked out of buildings."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/13-5
-->Very little in the US media questions "education reform" as presented by Bush and now Obama. But it involves the corporatization of public schools, and even to the firing of older, higher paid professionals. All the abuses of corporate America brought into the classroom.
------------
Guardian/UK:
"The bulk of the media often gets pulled along for the ride when the United States government has a serious political and public relations campaign around foreign policy. But almost nowhere is it so monolithic as with Venezuela. Even in the run-up to the Iraq war, there were a significant number of reporters and editorial writers who didn't buy the official story. But on Venezuela, the media is more like a jury that has 12 people but only one brain...
The 'all bad news, all the time' theme was overwhelmingly dominant even during Venezuela's record economic expansion, from 2003 to 2008. The economy grew as never before, poverty was cut by more than half, and there were large gains in employment. Real social spending per person more than tripled, and free healthcare was expanded to millions of people. You will have to search very hard to find these basic facts presented in a mainstream media article, although the numbers are hardly in dispute among economists in international organisations that deal with statistics...
Whatever happens, we can expect complete coverage of one side of the story from the media. So keep it in mind: even when you are reading the New York Times or listening to NPR on Venezuela, you are getting Fox News. If you want something more balanced, you will have to look for it on the web."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/12-4
-->How is it that a free society does not have a free press? Why does The NY Times continue to slander countries according to the Pentagon's enemies list? Like reporting on Nicaragua in the 1980's, there is no difference between what The NY Times reports and what the government wants you to read.
------------
Guardian/UK:
"Israel has snubbed five senior European foreign ministers, including the British foreign secretary, William Hague, by refusing to receive them for a planned visit to Jerusalem, according to reports in the Israeli press.
The respected Haaretz newspaper reported today that the visit, planned for Thursday, was officially rejected by the Israeli foreign ministry because of the date's proximity to the Jewish religious holiday, Yom Kippur, which begins on Friday evening. However, a senior Israeli official told Haaretz that the real reason was concern that EU ministers wanted to pressure Israel to extend its settlement construction freeze. The 10-month partial freeze is due to expire in two weeks.
The EU meeting is reported to have been initiated by the French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner and his Spanish counterpart, Miguel Moratinos, after discussions between them over the EU's efforts to promote the Middle East peace process. Hague would have been a member of the delegation."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/12/israel-refuses-eu-foreign-ministers
-->Of course, The NY Times would not cover that highlighted the illegal settlements or made Israel look bad. Here there is very little difference between what The NY Times reports and what the Israeli government wants you to read.
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
RobertReich.org:
"President Obama reportedly will propose two big corporate tax cuts this week.
One would expand and make permanent the research and experimentation tax credit, at a cost of about $100 billion over the next ten years. The other would allow companies to write off 100 percent of their new investments in plant and equipment between now and the end of 2011 at a cost next year of substantially more than $100 billion (but a ten-year cost of about $30 billion since those write-offs wouldn't be taken over the longer-term).
The economy needs two whopping corporate tax cuts right now as much as someone with a serious heart condition needs Botox.
The reason businesses aren't investing in new plant and equipment has nothing to do with the cost of capital. It's because they don't need the additional capacity. There isn't enough demand for their goods and services to justify it. Consumers aren't buying because they're trying to come out from under a huge debt load, including mortgage debt; they have to start saving because their nest eggs are worth substantially less; and they've lost or are worried about losing jobs and pay.
In any event, small businesses don't have enough profits against which to use these tax credits and deductions, and large corporations are sitting on over a trillion dollars of profits and don't need them."
-->Why isn't our media presenting these massive business tax cuts for what they are? Perhaps because big business controls big media.
------------
BoingBoing.net:
"Today, the ACLU, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) filed a lawsuit challenging the government's claimed authority to search, detain, and copy electronic devices ≠ including laptops, cell phones, cameras, etc. ≠ at the country's international borders without any suspicion of wrongdoing.
We carry a lot of private information on those devices, including pictures, personal emails, work-related documents, and much more. Normally, the Fourth Amendment requires the government to obtain a warrant before sifting through this information, and the First Amendment protects this information from unwarranted government scrutiny. The Fourth and First Amendments should also bar the government from rummaging through all that information and detaining the devices indefinitely without any suspicion, just because a person is crossing the border.
The plaintiffs are Pascal Abidor, a 26 year-old U.S.-French dual citizen and a Ph.D. student at McGill University in Montreal who was taken off an Amtrak train in upstate New York and whose laptop was detained and searched (including through personal materials like family photos and chat logs with his girlfriend) for 11 days; NACDL, an organization of approximately 10,000 attorneys with members who often travel overseas for work with documents protected by the attorney-client privilege; and the National Press Photographers' Association (NPPA), an organization of about 7,000 photojournalists."
-->The Wall St. Journal covered this story. But not The NY Times.
------------
Montreal Gazette:
"Quebec - The Harper government has quietly presented a bill in the House of Commons that would give U.S. officials final say over who may board aircraft in Canada if they are to fly over the United States en route to a third country.
'Canadian sovereignty has gone right out the window,' Liberal transport critic Joe Volpe told The Gazette in recent telephone interview. 'You are going to be subject to American law.'
Bill C-42 amends Canada's Aeronautics Act to allow airlines to communicate passenger information to 'a foreign state' for flights over that country without landing.
At present, airlines are only required to give passenger information to the U.S. government on flights landing in the United States."
-->No mention in the US media of this proposed spying on US citizens abroad.
------------
NPR's "51 Percent" likes doing programs about Afghanistan. The script is much like women's rights reporting on Iraq before the US invasion. The Pentagon sees these issues as a rallying cry for imperial occupations, a version of the Brits bringing "civilization" to their colonies. Wednesday's "51 Percent" report ended on a typical note: how "destructive" it would be if the West were to leave Afghanistan at this point, now that women are winning their rights. How much reporting does 51 Percent do on women's rights in Middle Eastern dictatorships supported by the US? Don't ask.
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
Inter Press Service:
"NEW YORK - Two of the nation's most influential human rights organizations have filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to carry out 'targeted killings' of U.S. citizens located far from any armed conflict zone. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) charge that the authority contemplated by the Obama administration is far broader than what the Constitution and international law allow. The organizations claim that, 'outside of armed conflict, both the Constitution and international law prohibit targeted killing except as a last resort to protect against concrete, specific, and imminent threats of death or serious physical injury. An extrajudicial killing policy under which names are added to CIA and military kill lists through a secret executive process and stay there for months at a time is plainly not limited to imminent threats.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/31-6
-->The NY Times discussed these issues in an Aug. 3 article, but has yet to report this lawsuit. The assassination of US citizens without trial should be the biggest story of the year. But most Americans seem unaware that their Constitutional rights are slipping away under President Obama. It is not something they see on TV or read about in the press.
------------
Guardian/UK:
"Dozens of Israeli actors, playwrights and directors have signed a letter refusing to take part in productions by leading theatre companies at a new cultural centre in a West Bank settlement, prompting renewed debate over the legitimacy of artistic boycott.
More than 60 have joined the protest over plans by Israel's national theatre, the Habima, and other leading companies to stage performances in Ariel, a settlement 12 miles inside the West Bank. The letter, to Israel's culture minister, Limor Livnat, says the new centre for performing arts in Ariel, which is due to open in November after 20 years in construction, would 'strengthen the settlement enterprise'.
'We want to express our dismay with the intention of the theatres' managements to perform in the new auditorium in Ariel and hereby declare that we will refuse to perform in the city, as in any other settlement.' Israel's theatre companies should 'pursue their prolific activity inside the sovereign territory of the state of Israel within the boundaries of the Green Line.' "
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/29/actors-boycott-west-bank-theatre
-->Israeli actors boycotting the West Bank because of illegal settlements? The story appeared in some readers' letters, but not as an actual story in our newspaper of record.
------------
In These Times:
"Like other workers around the country, employees say they're getting squeezed. They're expected to do more with less: fewer supplies, fewer breaks, and less money. Like the vast majority of American workers, they're not unionized. Company-wide profits, however, seem to be doing okay.
But in a move rarely seen since the Great Depression, Embassy Suites workers went on strike early this month over alleged lost wages. Although as nonunion workers they had few legal rights to protect their actions, they were united and angry. On August 9, workers walked off the job and formed a picket line at the hotel's entrance.
It was the latest in a series of bold actions by workers affiliated with UNITE HERE, the hotel workers union, this summer. In May, organizers at the Hyatt Regency Chicago were denied access to hotels to speak with workers; in response, the workers staged a brief wildcat walkout.
Last month, almost a thousand UNITE HERE workers and community supporters were arrested in civil disobedience actions around the country—many in cities where such actions had not occurred for decades—against the Hyatt corporation. And now the Embassy workers in Irvine walked off the job despite a lack of union recognition."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/26-2
-->Unions beginning to fight back when American workers are being screwed? Just like they did during the last Great Depression? Readers of the NY Times will never be made aware of corporations cheating workers in the US, or of union and nonunion employees fighting back. It didn't cover this story.
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
Inter Press Service:
"NEW YORK - Two of the nation's most influential human rights organizations have filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to carry out 'targeted killings' of U.S. citizens located far from any armed conflict zone. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) charge that the authority contemplated by the Obama administration is far broader than what the Constitution and international law allow. The organizations claim that, 'outside of armed conflict, both the Constitution and international law prohibit targeted killing except as a last resort to protect against concrete, specific, and imminent threats of death or serious physical injury. An extrajudicial killing policy under which names are added to CIA and military kill lists through a secret executive process and stay there for months at a time is plainly not limited to imminent threats.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/31-6
-->The NY Times discussed these issues in an Aug. 3 article, but has yet to report this lawsuit. The assassination of US citizens without trial should be the biggest story of the year. But most Americans seem unaware that their Constitutional rights are slipping away under President Obama. It is not something they see on TV or read about in the press.
------------
Guardian/UK:
"Dozens of Israeli actors, playwrights and directors have signed a letter refusing to take part in productions by leading theatre companies at a new cultural centre in a West Bank settlement, prompting renewed debate over the legitimacy of artistic boycott.
More than 60 have joined the protest over plans by Israel's national theatre, the Habima, and other leading companies to stage performances in Ariel, a settlement 12 miles inside the West Bank. The letter, to Israel's culture minister, Limor Livnat, says the new centre for performing arts in Ariel, which is due to open in November after 20 years in construction, would 'strengthen the settlement enterprise'.
'We want to express our dismay with the intention of the theatres' managements to perform in the new auditorium in Ariel and hereby declare that we will refuse to perform in the city, as in any other settlement.' Israel's theatre companies should 'pursue their prolific activity inside the sovereign territory of the state of Israel within the boundaries of the Green Line.' "
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/29/actors-boycott-west-bank-theatre
-->Israeli actors boycotting the West Bank because of illegal settlements? The story appeared in some readers' letters, but not as an actual story in our newspaper of record.
------------
In These Times:
"Like other workers around the country, employees say they're getting squeezed. They're expected to do more with less: fewer supplies, fewer breaks, and less money. Like the vast majority of American workers, they're not unionized. Company-wide profits, however, seem to be doing okay.
But in a move rarely seen since the Great Depression, Embassy Suites workers went on strike early this month over alleged lost wages. Although as nonunion workers they had few legal rights to protect their actions, they were united and angry. On August 9, workers walked off the job and formed a picket line at the hotel's entrance.
It was the latest in a series of bold actions by workers affiliated with UNITE HERE, the hotel workers union, this summer. In May, organizers at the Hyatt Regency Chicago were denied access to hotels to speak with workers; in response, the workers staged a brief wildcat walkout.
Last month, almost a thousand UNITE HERE workers and community supporters were arrested in civil disobedience actions around the country—many in cities where such actions had not occurred for decades—against the Hyatt corporation. And now the Embassy workers in Irvine walked off the job despite a lack of union recognition."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/26-2
-->Unions beginning to fight back when American workers are being screwed? Just like they did during the last Great Depression? Readers of the NY Times will never be made aware of corporations cheating workers in the US, or of union and nonunion employees fighting back. It didn't cover this story.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
Guardian/UK:
"Jerusalem rail firm planning to segregate carriages along gender lines.
Pressure from city's ultra-orthodox Jews has already led to some bus lines confining women to the rear of vehicles...
Under pressure from the influential and growing ultra-orthodox community, some bus lines in Jerusalem have introduced segregation, with women confined to the rear of the vehicle.
The segregation proposal is the second point of tension between the CityPass consortium and the council within a week. The company earlier distributed a consumer survey asking Jerusalem residents if they were 'bothered' that the light railway is to include stops in Arab neighbourhoods en route to connecting to Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/23/jerusalem-segregated-train-carriages
-->Women's rights under attack in Jerusalem's city center? The NY Times didn't cover this story because it is about Israeli policy, not about Taliban mistreatment. After all, The NY Times has a war to promote, and an imperialist ally to protect. Notice also that stops in Arab neighborhoods were being questioned. Like whites only buses in the deep south during Jim Crow.
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Inter Press Service:
"BOGOTA, Colombia - An unknown number of agribusiness owners and public employees at all levels, as well as far-right paramilitaries, have a common link with rural people who have been forced off their farms or killed in Colombia: the land stolen from the latter group in the armed conflict.
'It was a conspiracy. There were the ones doing the killing, others who would follow behind, buying up the land, and the third wave, who would legalize the new ownership of the land,' said former paramilitary chief Jairo Castillo or 'Pitirri,' who has lived in exile for 10 years and is serving as a key protected witness in the trials of legislators and other political leaders implicated in the 'parapolitics' scandal for their ties to the paramilitary groups."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/22-0
-->Our media rarely covers stories about corruption and death squad murders under governments that the US government supports with billions of military aid. Columbia has received the most such aid in South America, and its human rights record is by for the worst. Yet, most US citizens are never told about this. The Pentagon has dictated that Chavez is the enemy, and publications like The NY Times are all to willing to provide the propaganda.
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Huffinton Post:
"Hamid Karzai: U.S. Taxpayer-Funded Private Contractors Engaging In Terrorist, Mafia-Like Activity...
Afghanistan's embattled president Hamid Karzai said on Sunday that U.S. taxpayers were indirectly funding "mafia-like groups" and terrorist activities with the American government's support of private contractors inside his country.
In a rare U.S. media appearance, Karzai continued to press for the removal of the vast majority of U.S. private contractors by the end of this year. He argued that their continued presence inside Afghanistan was 'an obstruction and impediment' to the country's growth, a massive waste of money, and a catalyst for corruption among Afghan officials."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/22-2
-->The NY Times covered this story, but omitted references to "mafia-like groups" and terrorist activities being conducted by US contractors. In one story, Karzai favors a "four-month phaseout of all private security companies in Afghanistan." No mention of why at all. Another story suggests that Karzai is simply covering up his own corrupt regime by a reference to an "economic Mafia" of private contractors.
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
Guardian/UK:
"Jerusalem rail firm planning to segregate carriages along gender lines.
Pressure from city's ultra-orthodox Jews has already led to some bus lines confining women to the rear of vehicles...
Under pressure from the influential and growing ultra-orthodox community, some bus lines in Jerusalem have introduced segregation, with women confined to the rear of the vehicle.
The segregation proposal is the second point of tension between the CityPass consortium and the council within a week. The company earlier distributed a consumer survey asking Jerusalem residents if they were 'bothered' that the light railway is to include stops in Arab neighbourhoods en route to connecting to Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/23/jerusalem-segregated-train-carriages
-->Women's rights under attack in Jerusalem's city center? The NY Times didn't cover this story because it is about Israeli policy, not about Taliban mistreatment. After all, The NY Times has a war to promote, and an imperialist ally to protect. Notice also that stops in Arab neighborhoods were being questioned. Like whites only buses in the deep south during Jim Crow.
------------
Inter Press Service:
"BOGOTA, Colombia - An unknown number of agribusiness owners and public employees at all levels, as well as far-right paramilitaries, have a common link with rural people who have been forced off their farms or killed in Colombia: the land stolen from the latter group in the armed conflict.
'It was a conspiracy. There were the ones doing the killing, others who would follow behind, buying up the land, and the third wave, who would legalize the new ownership of the land,' said former paramilitary chief Jairo Castillo or 'Pitirri,' who has lived in exile for 10 years and is serving as a key protected witness in the trials of legislators and other political leaders implicated in the 'parapolitics' scandal for their ties to the paramilitary groups."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/22-0
-->Our media rarely covers stories about corruption and death squad murders under governments that the US government supports with billions of military aid. Columbia has received the most such aid in South America, and its human rights record is by for the worst. Yet, most US citizens are never told about this. The Pentagon has dictated that Chavez is the enemy, and publications like The NY Times are all to willing to provide the propaganda.
------------
Huffinton Post:
"Hamid Karzai: U.S. Taxpayer-Funded Private Contractors Engaging In Terrorist, Mafia-Like Activity...
Afghanistan's embattled president Hamid Karzai said on Sunday that U.S. taxpayers were indirectly funding "mafia-like groups" and terrorist activities with the American government's support of private contractors inside his country.
In a rare U.S. media appearance, Karzai continued to press for the removal of the vast majority of U.S. private contractors by the end of this year. He argued that their continued presence inside Afghanistan was 'an obstruction and impediment' to the country's growth, a massive waste of money, and a catalyst for corruption among Afghan officials."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/22-2
-->The NY Times covered this story, but omitted references to "mafia-like groups" and terrorist activities being conducted by US contractors. In one story, Karzai favors a "four-month phaseout of all private security companies in Afghanistan." No mention of why at all. Another story suggests that Karzai is simply covering up his own corrupt regime by a reference to an "economic Mafia" of private contractors.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
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Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
"The Israeli human rights group Breaking the Silence has posted more photos of IDF soldiers abusing or humiliating Palestinian prisoners to prove what many of us suspected - that similar pictures posted earlier on Facebook are the norm, not the exception. Israeli activists say such pictures reflect the inevitable dehumanization wrought by the Occupation. More 'trophy' pictures here. Graphic.
'It encapsulates precisely the feeling among soldiers serving in the territories. At some point, they stop seeing these handcuffed people as human beings.' said Yehuda Shaul of Breaking the Silence."
-->The NY Times didn't cover this story of IDF abuse of Palestinian detainees. Stories critical of Israel are often just left out.
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Guardian/UK
"NATO and the United Nations are cautiously considering a Taliban proposal to set up a joint commission to investigate allegations of civilians being killed and wounded in the conflict in Afghanistan, diplomats in Kabul have told the Guardian.
The Taliban overture, which came in a statement posted on its website, will revive a divisive debate about whether to conduct any formal talks with insurgents who are responsible for the majority of civilian casualties in Afghanistan, and whose assassination campaign now kills one person a day on average.
The Taliban statement called for the establishment of a body including members from the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, UN human rights investigators, Nato and the Taliban."
-->The Taliban trying to cooperate with NATO to limit the killing of civilians? That is not something The NY Times would consider helpful to the US war effort. Instead, we get a front page article on the Taliban stoning a couple to death for infidelity.
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Haaretz:
"Israel is to deploy three submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf, the Sunday Times reported on Sunday.
According to the Times report, one submarine had been sent over Israeli fears that ballistic missiles developed by Iran, and in the possession of Syria and Hezbollah, could be used to hit strategic sites within Israel, such as air bases and missile launchers.
Dolphin, Tekuma, and Leviathan, all German-made Dolphin class submarines of the 7th navy Flotilla, have been reported as frequenting the Gulf in the past, however, according to the Sunday Times report, this new deployment is meant to ensure a permanent naval presence near the Iranian coastline."
-->A nuclear confrontation in the Persian Gulf, brought on by nuclear missiles in Israeli submarines. This is the stuff of nightmares, and thankfully, The NY Times didn't trouble their readers with the story.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
---------
Al Jazeera:
"Arab opinion of the United States and its president Barack Obama has dimmed in the past year, while the popularity of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, has skyrocketed, according to an annual survey released by the US-based Brookings Institution on Thursday.
The survey found that a majority of Arabs continue to believe that peace between Israel and the Palestinians will never happen and that - unlike in past years - a larger number are identifying as Muslims, rather than as Arabs or citizens of a particular country.
The poll of nearly 4,000 people, done in conjunction with Zogby International, was conducted between June 29 and July 20 in six Middle Eastern countries...
Of those surveyed, 62 per cent said they had a negative view of Obama, compared with 23 per cent a year ago."
-->Obama very unpopular in the Middle East after his first year as president? A Middle East policy devoted to war and support of Israel already a failure? You wouldn't know it if you depended on The New York Times, which didn't cover the story.
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Guardian/UK:
"The White House was accused today of spinning a government scientific report into the amount of oil left in the Gulf of Mexico from the BP spill which had officials declaring that the vast majority of the oil had been removed.
As BP workers finished pouring cement into the well as a first step to permanently sealing it today, environmental groups and scientists - including those working with government agencies to calculate the scale and effects of the spill - said White House officials had painted far too optimistic a picture of a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) into the fate of the oil.
'Recent reports seem to say that about 75% of the oil is taken care of and that is just not true,' said John Kessler, of Texas A&M University, who led a National Science Foundation on-site study of the spill. 'The fact is that 50% to 75% of the material that came out of the well is still in the water...' "
-->Obama spinning tales of oil disappearing from the Gulf? Of course he is. He wants a return to offshore drilling to please one of his largest campaign contributors, British Petroleum. The New York Times helped with the coverup by not reporting this story.
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The Independent/UK:
"Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.
Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.
Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait."
-->The New York Times would never carry a story like this. US war crimes are rarely judged to be "fit to print."
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The NY Times:
"There’s a class war coming to the world of government pensions."
-->The NY Times printed this story about "class wars" on Aug. 6. Only the classes described in the article were state pensioners versus holders of 401K retirement accounts. No mention was made, of course, of the billionaires and their "tax cuts" so favored by the Republicans and Democrats. A continuation of tax cuts for billionaires would drain the treasury of 700 billion over the next 10 years. Now that is class war, waged by the very rich on everyone else. A war that The NY Times can't bring itself to cover.
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