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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Huffington Post:
"Obama's FCC Expected to Abandon Net Neutrality, Universal Internet. On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that the Federal Communications Commission is expected to abandon its pledges to protect Net Neutrality and to ensure universal, affordable broadband. The story cites anonymous insiders confirming that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is 'leaning toward' siding with the most powerful phone and cable lobbyists on a crucial decision: whether the FCC will have any authority to protect an open Internet and make it available to all.
It is a testament to the phone and cable industry's overwhelming influence that they seem to have convinced the nation's communications agency to swear off authority to protect Americans' right to open communications. But it is stunning that Genachowski would even contemplate allowing it to stand, given President Obama's repeated pledge to ensure fast, affordable, universal Internet broadband for every American."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/04-5
-->Another Obama pledge abandoned in favor of big business. But that wasn't the point when The NY Times reported this story. In a long article about the debate, The Times printed one sentence in favor of new neutrality, while extensively quoting business executives who were against the concept. And, of course, Obama's capitulation didn't come up once.
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Inter Press Service:
"UNITED NATIONS - A month-long Review Conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) began Monday with a predictable target: Israel.
As the only Middle Eastern country armed with nuclear weapons, Israel has been treated as a political sacred cow, one whose weapons programs have not been publicly challenged either by the United States or Western powers.
But on Monday an overwhelming majority of U.N. member states - 118 out of 192 - wanted the defiant Jewish state to come clean with its nuclear weapons program and sign the NPT, which is aimed at halting the spread of these devastating armaments.
Speaking on behalf of the 118-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said the fact that Israel has refused to sign and ratify the NPT has resulted in the continued exposure of non-nuclear weapon states of the region to nuclear threats by the only country possessing these weapons of mass destruction."
-->But to The NY Times, this debate was all about Iran. Towards the end of a long article entitled "Iran Angrily Defends Nuclear Program," Israel's nuclear weapons were simply referred to as having "overshadowed the conferences in recent years." As always, The NY Times puts the interests of Israel's military regime above American's right to know.
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Russian Times:
"War is big bucks, especially for civilian, defense and private security contractors - the vital organs of today's military apparatus.
'Right now on the ground of Afghanistan the US has 140,000 people that are called contractors,' Jeremy Scahill, investigative journalist and author, estimated. 'Many of them are mercenaries just on the Department of Defense payroll. The State Department has another 14,000. [Barack] Obama during his presidency has doubled the number of armed contractors in Afghanistan. So, what we see is a radical outsourcing of war,' Scahill noted.
To put figures into perspective, government records show nearly 70% of the military budget is spent on contractors. Multinational corporations like Boeing Company, Raytheon Company and NorthRup Grumman Corporation, to name a few, are making a killing off of war.
'The whole system is the US addiction to privatized warfare,' Jeremy Scahill elaborated..."
-->One must read the Russian Times rather than The NY Times to understand the role of private contractors in Obama's war escalations. Our newspaper of record, however, did print an opinion piece somewhat critical of private contractors in November, 2009. The editorial, written by Thomas Freidman, does not mention Obama.
