Thursday, December 06, 2012

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 to keep from the public eye.

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Rabble.CA:
"An old man in Gaza held a placard that reads: 'You take my water, burn my olive trees, destroy my house, take my job, steal my land, imprison my father, kill my mother, bombard my country, starve us all, humiliate us all but I am to blame: I shot a rocket back.'

The old man's message provides the proper context for the timelines on the latest episode in the savage punishment of Gaza. They are useful, but any effort to establish a 'beginning' cannot help but be misleading.

The crimes trace back to 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled in terror or were expelled to Gaza by conquering Israeli forces, who continued to truck them over the border for years after the official cease-fire. The persecution of Gazans took new forms when Israel conquered the Strip in 1967. From recent Israeli scholarship we learn that the goal of the government was to drive the refugees into the Sinai, and if feasible the rest of the population too."
http://rabble.ca/news/2012/12/noam-chomsky-significance-un-palestine-vote-and-recent-violence-gaza

-->Mainstream media would never print such words, even thought they were said recently by America's foremost intellectual, Noam Chomsky. His searing insight into the ways of empire are just considered to toxic for the average American reader.

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Common Dreams:
"An analysis by advocacy group Oil Change International and Earth Track, found that 'fossil fuel subsidies in rich countries are, on average, five times greater than those same countries' pledges towards climate finance—support to developing countries to address climate change and its impacts.'

During the COP18 climate conference in Doha, Qatar, activists from less affluent countries have called upon G20 leaders to help poorer nations cope with climate change—in the form of compensation for their greater greenhouse gas emissions.
But according to the Oil Change International report released this week, fossil fuel subsidies in 2012 are likely to total $775 billion—although an exact figure will not be known because governments are 'hiding their handouts to oil, gas and coal.'

G20 leaders have taken 'very little concrete action in phasing out fossil fuel subsidies,' the report continues.."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/12/03-6

-->The mainstream media, including The NY Times didn't touch this story. Why are the rich countries continuing to subsidize big oil and other fossil fuels? Safer for the media not to even ask this question. 

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NY Times:
"Last spring, when the Vatican issued a harsh assessment of the group representing a majority of American nuns accusing them of 'serious doctrinal problems,' Sister Sherman, 60, said she responded the way she always does when she feels something deeply. She wrote a song.

The words popped into her head two days after the Vatican’s condemnation, as she was walking down the hallway in her order’s ministry center, feeling hurt and angry: 'Love cannot be silenced,' she thought. 'It never has. It never will.' She went into the center’s dining room and tried out the lyrics on some of her sisters. They liked the message."

-->We like The NY Times for printing this story. Here is the song she wrote, and we would like to dedicate it to Fr. Roy Bourgeois, founder of the SOA campaign to close the School of America's. He was dismissed from the priesthood last week for his activism on human rights.

SONG: Sister Sherman...Love Cannot Be Silenced

Friday, November 30, 2012

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 to keep from the public eye.

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Guardian UK:
"A group of Nobel peace prize-winners, prominent artists and activists have issued a call for an international military boycott of Israel following its assault on the Gaza Strip this month.

The letter also denounces the US, EU and several developing countries for what it describes as their 'complicity' through weapons sales and other military support in the attack that killed 160 Palestinians, many of them civilians, including about 35 children.

The 52 signatories include the Nobel peace laureates Mairead Maguire and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel; the film directors Mike Leigh and Ken Loach; the author Alice Walker; the US academic Noam Chomsky; Roger Waters of Pink Floyd; and Stéphane Hessel, a former French diplomat and Holocaust survivor who was co-author of the universal declaration of human rights.

'Horrified at the latest round of Israeli aggression against the 1.5 million Palestinians in the besieged and occupied Gaza Strip and conscious of the impunity that has enabled this new chapter in Israel's decades-old violations of international law and Palestinian rights, we believe there is an urgent need for international action towards a mandatory, comprehensive military embargo against Israel,' the letter says."

-->The NY Times has not covered this story yet (Nov. 28). We will see in the coming days if our newspaper of record can bring itself to report on this condemnation of Israel and call for a military embargo.

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FAIR:
"CBS turns to benefit-cutting bosses for 'fiscal cliff' commentary. The CBS Evening News has decided the best way to inform viewers about the impending 'fiscal cliff' is to let corporate CEOs affiliated with the Fix the Debt campaign recommend cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

On November 19, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein was tapped for his apparent expertise in long-term budget forecasting. His message was simple: Benefit cuts are necessary. 'The entitlements, and what people think that they're going to get, because it's not going to--they're not going to get it,' he asserted."

...The following night, anchor Scott Pelley had a new expert: Honeywell CEO David Cote, who warned that the country's debt load meant that 'we've got to do something.'

...On November 21, CBS Evening News was still on the case. The experts this time were, as anchor Jeff Glor put it, 'two men who say they know how it should be done--if only Washington would listen.' The two are Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, who co-chaired a 2011 White House debt commission. The chairs issued a report, based on drastically shrinking the federal government, that was championed by many in the press, but failed to be approved by the full commission. Both are co-founders of the corporate-backed 'Fix the Debt' campaign.

...That was followed on the broadcast by another segment with Goldman Sachs' Blankfein."

-->The mainstream media is pulling out all the stops to get Americans scared enough to give up Social Security and Medicare benefits so that the very rich and the corporations they own can pay even less taxes. This redistribution of wealth to the elite is supported by both parties and almost all the media. Working people are about to be robbed again.  

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Common Dreams:
"Ten Numbers the Rich Would Like Fudged: 1. Only THREE PERCENT of the very rich are entrepreneurs. 2. Only FOUR OUT OF 150 countries have more wealth inequality than us. 3. An amount equal to ONE-HALF the GDP is held untaxed overseas by rich Americans. 4. Corporations stopped paying HALF OF THEIR TAXES after the recession. 5. Just TEN Americans made a total of FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS in one year. 6. Tax deductions for the rich could pay off 100 PERCENT of the deficit. 7. The average single black or Hispanic woman has about $100 IN NET WORTH. 8. Elderly and disabled food stamp recipients get $4.30 A DAY FOR FOOD. 9. Young adults have lost TWO-THIRDS OF THEIR NET WORTH since 1984. 10. The American public paid about FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS to bail out the banks. Bonus for the super-rich: A QUADRILLION DOLLARS in securities trading nets ZERO sales tax revenue for the U.S."

-->When will The NY Times or any other newspaper report on this transfer of wealth to the super rich? Pieces of the puzzle are sometimes offered, but no news media wants to look at the entire picture of how the American people are being swindled by the billionaires, and what devastation this means for the rest of us.

Friday, November 16, 2012

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 to keep from the public eye.

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Common Dreams:
"As boisterous threats of the 'fiscal cliff' persist and progressive voices urge President Barack Obama to avoid falling for shortsighted solutions to illusory ultimatums, a group of corporate lobbyists and CEO's going by the name of 'The Campaign to Fix the Debt' are set to unleash an onslaught of campaign ads which propose bipartisan 'compromises' to the problem, but in reality would act as a 'Trojan horse concealing massive corporate tax breaks that would make our debt situation much worse,' according to a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies.

The Fix the Debt campaign, made up of more than 80 CEOs of 'America’s most powerful corporations,' has raised $60 million to lobby for a debt deal that 'would reduce corporate taxes and shift costs onto the poor and elderly,' including large cuts to social programs such as Medicare and Social security, the report finds.

With ‘Fix the Debt,' CEOs are trying to 'pass themselves off as noble leaders who are willing to compromise in order the save America from financial ruin,' but are actually 'leveraging the Fiscal Cliff' in order to push age old attempts to avoid paying taxes at the expense of those in need, says report co-authors Scott Klinger and Sarah Anderson."

-->The NY Times has covered this CEO group in quite a different way. There is little mention of what these CEOs are really after. In fact, the group is praised in a number of articles, like a recent one entitled "Business Chiefs Step Gingerly Into a Thorny Budget Fight."

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Guardian UK:
"It is remarkable that social security hasn't been a more prominent issue in the presidential race. After all, Governor Romney has proposed a plan that would imply cuts of more than 40% for middle-class workers just entering the labor force. Since social security is hugely popular across the political spectrum, it would seem that President Obama could gain an enormous advantage by clearly proclaiming his support for the program.

But President Obama has consistently refused to rise to the defense of social security. In fact, in the first debate, he explicitly took the issue off the table, telling the American people that there is not much difference between his position on social security and Romney's.

On its face, this is difficult to understand. In addition to being good politics, there are also solid policy grounds for defending social security. The social security system is perhaps the greatest success story of any program in US history. By providing a core retirement income, it has lifted tens of millions of retirees and their families out of poverty. It also provides disability insurance to almost the entire workforce. The amount of fraud in the system is minimal, and the administrative costs are less than one 20th as large as the costs of private-sector insurers...

But there is another set of economic considerations affecting the politics of social security. These considerations involve the economics of the political campaigns and the candidates running for office. The story here is a simple one: while social security may enjoy overwhelming support across the political spectrum, it does not poll nearly as well among the wealthy people – who finance political campaigns and own major news outlets. The predominant philosophy among this group is that a dollar in a workers' pocket is a dollar that could be in a rich person's pocket – and these people see social security putting lots of dollars in the pockets of people who are not rich."

-->Why is it that our mainstream media in our country can't tell it like it is? The NY Times and NPR would never even whisper these words to the American people. Our media is simply part of the conspiracy against the rights of working people. 

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Common Dreams:
"Is Netanyahu Planning Nuclear Attack on Iran? 

Netanyahu thinks ballistic missiles carrying tactical nuclear warheads will be necessary to take out Iran's Fordow uranium enrichment facility near the city of Qom. The site is buried deep beneath a mountain...

From The Sunday Times:
Well aware of the hostile international response to even the suggestion of a nuclear attack, the option is not being debated publicly. But last week it was referred to indirectly by Shaul Mofaz, head of the Kadima party and leader of the opposition.

For some time Mr Mofaz, 64, a former defense minister and one of the few Israeli politicians privy to the country’s nuclear secrets, has believed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is playing a dangerous game."

-->The NY Times coverage of Netanyahu's plans conveniently leaves out any mention of the possible use of nuclear weapons against Iran.

Thursday, November 08, 2012

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 to keep from the public eye.

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Jacabo Timerman's book, Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number explains fascism in a unique way. Coming back from Argentina this week, I have been reading about his life during the "Terror" of the Generals and afterwards. 

His obituary in The NY Times proved to be too good an example of censorship to pass up, even though it was written back in 1999. In the obit, Timerman is described as a, "lifelong committed Zionist" and there is only one line devoted to his next book, The Longest War: Israel in Lebanon.

In fact, Timerman was very critical of Israel for its support of the Argentinian generals, who ended up disappearing 30,000 people, including many Jews. “I saw with my own eyes how Argentinian jailers tortured Jews in prison while the Israeli government requested the Jewish community there to remain silent.”

For a less censored view of Timerman, we must go to the "London Review of Books" article on The Longest War.

"Jacobo Timerman believes that the Palestinians deserve a state of their own in the West Bank and Gaza. ‘We’re all Palestinians,’ he declares. And he also declares: ‘I have discovered in Jews a capacity for cruelty that I never believed possible ... I fear that in our collective subconscious we are not perhaps repelled by the possibility of a Palestinian genocide.’ The Begin-Sharon Government is ‘reactionary’, ‘anti-democratic’, crazy."

What a shame that the obituary of The NY Times losses all this meaning in trying to paint Timerman as pro Israel. Timerman's greatness lies in his tireless championing of human rights, not in his fidelity to Zionism.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

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 to keep from the public eye.

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Democracy Now:
The debates are little more than corporate controlled charades. Since they are funded and manipulated by corporate America, there is little chance that the two major candidates will be offered any questions that deviate from a very scripted interpretation of the issues facing our country.

On its Oct. 16th program, Democracy Now offered two examples in the Vice Presidential debate moderated by Martha Raddatz. The first was a question that assumed that Iran was a grave military threat to the United Sates. The second example was an assumption by Ms. Raddatz that Social Security and Medicare are going broke and taking the national budget down with them.

These assumptions are the familiar lies pitched to the American people by both major parties and by our media, so it is not surprising that they would take center stage in debates sponsored by corporate America. 

-->No major media, including The NY Times, makes any attempt to reveal the hypocrisy of our presidential and vice presidential debates. The fact that these assumptions are contrary to a great deal of military and economic evidence means nothing. From the scripted questions to elimination of other presidential candidates, it is all show and no substance, very much like the supposed "democracy" we enjoy in these United States.  It's much closer to a Disney World theme park than any real government by the people.

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Common Dreams and The Independent UK:
"A new study links the U.S. bombardment of Iraq to a toxic legacy of birth defects in two of the country's heavily hit cities.

The study published in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology looked at the southern city of Basra and the central city of Fallujah and found a staggering rise in miscarriages and birth defects including Anencephaly and Spina Bifida in the years following heavy bombardment of 2003 and 2004.

The authors of the study found elevated levels of mercury and lead -- 'an integral part of war ammunition and are extensively used in the making of bullets and bombs,' according to U.S. forces -- in the children.

The Independent UK adds:
Dr. [Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, one of the lead authors of the report and an environmental toxicologist at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health] said that for the first time, there is a 'footprint of metal in the population' and that there is 'compelling evidence linking the staggering increases in Iraqi birth defects to neuro-toxic metal contamination following the repeated bombardments of Iraqi cities'. She called the 'epidemic' a 'public health crisis". "

-->The NY Times doesn't do war crimes committed by the empire. It didn't cover this story.

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Common Dreams:
"On Monday, a judge will oversee pretrial hearings for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo prisoners who are accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks. One of the key issues Army Col. James Pohl will decide on is whether or not there will be any public testimony by the prisoners regarding their torture and detention in CIA custody.

The defense lawyers are asking to abolish a 'presumptive classification' process that treats any discussion of what happened to the defendants during their time in secret CIA detention as a top national security secret. Mohammed’s defense attorney, David Nevin, called the war court system a 'rigged game,' reports the Miami Herald. According to Nevin, attorneys and defendants 'are forbidden to discuss between themselves anything from what Mohammed says the CIA did to him to his historical perspective on jihad.'

The ACLU is at the hearings this week and will give a statement arguing that the censorship of torture is a constitutional challenge. In a press release, the ACLU cites the government's most recent filing (PDF):

'The government has effectively claimed that it owns and controls the defendants’ memories, thoughts and experiences of government torture. These chillingly Orwellian claims are legally untenable and morally abhorrent.' "

-->The NY Times gave one sentence to the ACLU's objections, preferring to concentrate its story on the "atmosphere" in court and what the defendants were wearing. Orwellian coverage considering the absence of defendants' rights.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

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 to keep from the public eye.

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Common Dreams:
"On 30 May, Dan Rather, one of America's best-known journalists, announced that Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez would die 'in a couple of months at most'. Four months later Chávez is not only alive and campaigning but widely expected to win re-election on Sunday.

Such is the state of misrepresentation of Venezuela – it is probably the most lied-about country in the world – that a journalist can say almost anything about Chávez or his government and it is unlikely to be challenged, so long as it is negative. Even worse, Rather referred to Chávez as 'the dictator' – a term that few, if any, political scientists familiar with the country would countenance.

Here is what Jimmy Carter said about Venezuela's 'dictatorship' a few weeks ago: 'As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we've monitored, I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.' "

-->The NY Times coverage of Venezuela is always seething with contempt. As propaganda arm of the empire, our newspaper of record has constantly distorted its election coverage. For weeks, readers were told that the election was close and the Chavez might lose. The triumph of his strong win (along with 80% of the population voting), is denigrated through a careful choice of pictures. The front page has a shot of a polling place in a rundown part of town with a uniformed soldier opening a small, metal door for the crowd outside (think military control and widespread poverty). 

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Seed Daily:
"A study published this week by Washington State University research professor Charles Benbrook finds that the use of herbicides in the production of three genetically modified herbicide-tolerant crops - cotton, soybeans and corn - has actually increased.

This counterintuitive finding is based on an exhaustive analysis of publicly available data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agriculture Statistics Service. Benbrook's analysis is the first peer-reviewed, published estimate of the impacts of genetically engineered (GE) herbicide-resistant (HT) crops on pesticide use.
In the study, which appeared in the the open-access, peer-reviewed journal "Environmental Sciences Europe," Benbrook writes that the emergence and spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds is strongly correlated with the upward trajectory in herbicide use.

Marketed as Roundup and other trade names, glyphosate is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide used to kill weeds. Approximately 95 percent of soybean and cotton acres, and over 85 percent of corn, are planted to varieties genetically modified to be herbicide resistant."

-->The NY Times buries its environmental news in its "Green" Blog. That way, it can cover a story like this without upsetting its friends in the pesticide industry.   Monsanto can do no wrong in print where it counts. 

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Common Dreams:

"As the battle of California's Proposition 37 reaches its final weeks, the latest figures show the staggering amount big agricultural firms are pouring into the campaign to prevent foods with genetically modified ingredients from being labeled.

MapLight Voter's Edge, a nonpartisan guide to ballot measures, reports that $4.1 million has been raised on the Yes side, the side that favors the labeling, and $34.5 million on the No side, the anti-labeling side. Despite the huge spending disparity, Californians are overwhelmingly in favor of labeling, a recent poll shows...

Yes on 37 campaign manager Gary Ruskin cites a recent study showing the explosion of pesticide use due to genetically modified crops, saying the results show why corporations like Roundup maker Monsanto and pesticide giant Dupont are fighting the labeling.

'As we see from the data, GMOs are a fantastic boon for the pesticide industry. That’s why the world’s largest pesticide companies have spent nearly $20 million to defeat Proposition 37 and our right to know what’s in our food,' said Ruskin.' "

-->The NY Times covers these points, but again, not in print. This time it is the "Opinionator Blog" used to bury the bad news about Monsanto and Dupont.

Thursday, October 04, 2012

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 to keep from the public eye.

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Common Dreams:
"Introducing a couple from Texas who, despite their objection, had the natural gas sucked out from beneath their property by the Chesapeake Energy Corporation without paying a dime in compensation, an investigative report by Reuters recounts how the gas giant has embarked on an aggressive nationwide 'landgrab' with a series of legal maneuvers and industrial fracking equipment in tow.

In a special report, The casualties of Chesapeake's 'land grab' across America, a review of official state records by Reuters shows that since January 2005, the Texas agency in charge of granting waivers under a land regulation statute—known as Rule 37—'rejected just five of Chesapeake's 1,628 requests' to access land without the owners permission.

The exemptions granted by the state 'effectively secured [Chesapeake's] ability to drain the gas' from private properties without royalties or other payments."

-->Are there other dangers posed by the fracking companies to residents of New York State? The NY Times didn't cover this obvious abuse of corporate power.

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Huffington Post:
"The Obama administration has overseen a sharp increase in the number of people subjected to warrantless electronic surveillance of their telephone, email and Facebook accounts by federal law enforcement agencies, new documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union on Friday revealed.

The documents, released by the ACLU after a months-long legal battle with the Department of Justice, show that in the last two years, more people were spied on by the government than in the preceding decade. The documents do not include information on most terrorism investigations and requests from state and local law enforcers. Nor do they include surveillance by federal agencies outside Justice Department purview, like the Secret Service.

Department of Justice agencies obtained 37,616 court orders for information about phone calls in 2011, according to the documents. That's an increase of 47 percent from the 25,535 orders obtained by the government in 2009. Including Internet and email information requests, more than 40,000 people were targeted in 2011."

-->The NY Times didn't cover this story with all the excitement about the upcoming election. Warrantless electronic surveillance is another area that the two parties behave as one, not something our mainstream media wants people to notice. 

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The Sydney Morning Herald AU:
"New evidence has emerged that all Guantanamo Bay detainees, including David Hicks, were drugged involuntarily with a substance that has a long history as a truth serum. Recently declassified US documents revealing medical procedures have shown that scopolamine was administered to all detainees taken to the Cuban detention centre.

The documents, which were standard operating procedures for nursing staff, were obtained by the independent US news outlet Truthout, and reveal that the rationale for the drug's use on all detainees was to prevent motion sickness.
However, US military experts have said that scopolamine is not recommended for motion sickness because of its severe side effects.

The US government has not responded to questions by The Sun-Herald about drugs given involuntarily to detainees. The Sun-Herald revealed this month that Mr Hicks and other detainees were drugged against their will with unknown substances and that detainees' medical records were incomplete, with the names and dosages of drugs removed."

-->Drugs given Guantanamo inmates instead of a fair trial? That's the way things work in the Empire. The NY Times, the propaganda instrument of the Empire, is not about to dwell on human rights abuses by the US military. Our newspaper of record didn't print this story. 

Sunday, September 30, 2012

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 to keep from the public eye.

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Common Dreams:
"Alternative to Wikileaks Arises in Iceland. With the imprisonment of Bradley Manning and detainment of Julian Assange, WikiLeaks is effectively on hold. But that does not mean that leaks and whistleblowing activities have stopped.

GlobaLeaks lists a large number of leak sites, which are active to different degrees. Soon The Associated Whistleblowing Press (AWP) will be added to the list.

'One of the main motivations for the AWP is to unite journalists around the world and bring stories to light,' says Brazilian journalist Pedro Noel, one of the main people behind the initiative. 'WikiLeaks used to analyse and report on the files they released, but they don’t do that any more.' "

-->The NY Times prefers "People Magazine" stories about Julian Assange's personal life to reporting about international freedom of the press. Our newspaper of record didn't print this story.

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Common Dreams:
"Gallup poll finds that US news consumers are tuning out and losing faith with each passing cycle. Fewer are watching. And those that do tune in are less and less impressed by what they see. That's the discovery of a new Gallup poll conducted earlier this month and released today in a report that shows Americans' distrust of the corporate press, and specifically political news coverage, hit an all-time high this year, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media.

The negativity toward the media is at an all-time high for a presidential election year. This reflects the continuation of a pattern in which negativity increases every election year compared with the year prior. The current gap between negative and positive views -- 20 percentage points -- is by far the highest Gallup has recorded since it began regularly asking the question in the 1990s. Trust in the media was much higher, and more positive than negative, in the years prior to 2004 -- as high as 72% when Gallup asked this question three times in the 1970s. Distrust was also measured by political affiliation, where Gallup found that Republicans are the least trustful of the news, followed by those who consider themselves independents. Democrats exhibit the most confidence in the media, but even their level of trust topped out at less than 60%."

-->The NY Times gave a passing reference to this recent Gallop poll, but it was buried in a story about the presidential race, and omitted any mention of the "corporate press" as being what Americans distrust. The NY Times, of course, is the epitome of the corporate controlled press.

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Common Dreams:
"Study Finds Tumors in Rats Fed Monsanto GM Corn.  A new study released Wednesday by a team of scientists in France claims to have discovered a noticeable increase in tumors and kidney disease in lab rats that have been fed GMO foods produced by big ag corporation Monsanto.

The controversial study, which quickly came under fire from several GMO experts around the world, prompted France's Jose Bove, vice-chairman of the European Parliament's commission for agriculture and GMO opponent, to claim 'the study finally shows we are right and that it is urgent to quickly review all GMO evaluation processes.'

The study, published by the peer-reviewed journal Food and Chemical Toxicology and conducted by scientists at the University of Caen, said rats fed on a diet containing NK603, a seed variety made tolerant to Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller, or given water with Roundup at levels permitted in the United States, died earlier than those on a standard diet. According to the data, rats on the GM diet developed mammary tumors, as well as severe liver and kidney damage."

-->The NY Times sees no evil when it comes to GMO foods. It didn't print this story, and in its Dot Earth blog, referred to the study as an example of a “single-study syndrome,” that supports an "agenda, no matter how tenuous — or dubious — the research might be." Dubious reporting by The NY Times.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

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 to keep from the public eye.

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Think Progress:
"On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on US Sunday talk shows, scaremongering about Iran's nuclear program. Meet the Press allowed Netanyahu to give a completely false picture of the Iran nuclear issue, without challenging his scaremongering through reference to known facts...

Here's what journalists on Meet the Press should have pointed out:

The most highly enriched uranium that Iran is currently known to be producing, and the sort which Netanyahu was referring to in his statement, is 'medium-enriched' uranium, not weapons-grade uranium. That enrichment is currently under UN inspection, so to convert it to weapons-grade uranium, Iran would have to first expel UN inspectors. A recent bipartisan experts' report, signed by former senior military and political officials from both Republican and Democratic Administrations, noted that UN inspections 'would almost certainly reveal any Iranian efforts to begin enriching uranium beyond 20% at declared sites.' Furthermore, the IAEA's most recent report stated that Iran's stockpile of 20% enriched uranium actually decreased in the three months period proceeding the report, since Iran converted a portion of the stockpile into fuel plates for use in their medical research reactor."

-->So why is the US mainstream media not questioning the Netanyahu line? That question goes back to the undue influence the Israeli Lobby has on all American foreign policy, from mainstream media to the US Congress.

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Common Dreams:
"Does President Obama Want to Cut Social Security by 3 Percent? That is a pretty simple and important question. Unfortunately most voters are likely to go to the polls this fall without knowing the answer.

If the backdrop to this question is not immediately clear, then you should be very angry at the reporters who cover the campaign. One of the items that continuously comes up in reference to the budget deficit is President Obama's support for the plan put forward by the co-chairs of his deficit commission, Morgan Stanley director Erskine Bowles and former Senator Alan Simpson. On numerous occasions President Obama has indicated his support for this plan.

One of the items in the Bowles-Simpson plan is a reduction in the annual cost-of-living adjustment of roughly 0.3 percentage points. This would be accomplished by using a different index that, by design, would show a lower measured rate of inflation. It is important to recognize that this is an annual cut that would accumulate over time. After a retiree has been receiving benefits for 10 years the cut would be 3.0 percent, after 20 years it would be 6 percent. If a typical retiree lives long enough to get benefits for 20 years the average benefit cut over their years of retirement would be 3 percent."

-->And that is not the only cut in Social Security the Bowles-Simpson plan outlined. Why can't our mainstream media tell Americans then truth: that both presidential candidates plan cuts to Social Security?

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The Guardian UK:
"Efforts to force reluctant Icelandic taxpayers to pick up the bill for unhonoured deposit guarantees extended to hundreds of thousands of British and Dutch savers are to be heard in a court in Luxembourg.

Despite repeated attempts to reach a negotiated settlement for Icesave customers, Icelandic voters have twice rejected proposals to repay the British and Dutch governments in a national referendum...

Lawyers for Iceland will argue on Tuesday that there is no requirement on the state to stand behind the guarantee fund, and, even if there were, the global financial crisis in the autumn of 2008 was so exceptional as to release Iceland from such a requirement."

-->Iceland didn't pay its debts to foreign banks? This story is a secret in the US media. In fact, Iceland has recovered from the dark days of its 2008 banking collapse precisely because it didn't slash social spending to pay international banks. For all The NY Times coverage of the Greek debt crisis, the experience of Iceland is always omitted. Our newspaper of record always sides with international banking.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

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 to keep from the public eye.

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Common Dreams:
"What an official of the rightwing government of Honduras is calling the 'most important project in half a century,' critics of the neoliberal plan to build private cities in the Central American nation are calling a 'catastrophe' and argue that so-called 'chartered cities' would violate the rights of all Hondurans, with particularly negative impacts for the nation's indigenous population.

President Porfirio Lobo—who came to power in a military coup in 2009—has fully endorsed the proposals to create privately-funded 'charter cities' as a way to attract foreign investment to his nation. Details remain elusive, but the experimental cities would be modeled on independently-governed and profit-driven business center cities, so-called 'free trade zones' like Dubai or Hong Kong, but would be built virtually from scratch on lands to be determined by the government.

Inspired by US economist advisers—namely US economist Paul Romer, a graduate of the University of Chicago school of economics and currently a professor at the Stern School of Business at NYU—the cities would operate outside the control of the regular Honduran government and have 'their own police, laws, government and tax systems.' " http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/09/06-6

-- >In US supported Latin American dictators, we see the Neoliberal future of America. The NY Times rarely prints criticism of Honduras, and certainly would not want to call attention to the plans multilateral corporations have of overthrowing the last traces of democracy.

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Common Dreams:
"Trade negotiators from the US and eight other Pacific Rim countries met outside of Washington, DC Wednesday, commencing a new round of the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement negotiations, also known as 'Nafta on steroids.'

The TPP negotiations began in 2007 and have been carried through by the Obama administration and several Pacific nations under conditions of 'extreme secrecy' without press, public or policymaker oversight. Although most of the content involved in the discussions have been kept in secret, document leaks have revealed that negotiators are working out deals which could hamper free speech on the Internet, reduce access to affordable medicines, deregulate environmental laws, and harm labor rights around the world. Earlier this year Public Citizen posted a leaked document from a past TPP meeting on their website revealing that the pact will give multinational corporations radical new political powers in global trade, including the allotment of vast legal powers to multinational corporations over governments." http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/09/06-11

-- >This story appeared in The NY Times "Green Blog," although not in print. The on-line article extolls the wonders of sharing "green growth" between nations. Only the last sentence states that one group considers the talks "overly secretive."

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Common Dreams:
"The rate of Arctic Sea ice melt has caught scientists by surprise, leaving them to describe the current record low levels as 'amazing,' 'a Goliath' and 'unprecedented.'  While a record low was recorded on Aug. 26, the ice level continues to fall, and the National Snow and Ice Data Center reports that there is still a week left in the melting season.

The speed of the Arctic ice melt is astounding, scientists say. 'It is a greater change than we could even imagine 20 years ago, even 10 years ago,' Dr. Kim Holmen, international director of the Norwegian Polar Institute told the BBC. 'And it has taken us by surprise and we must adjust our understanding of the system and we must adjust our science and we must adjust our feelings for the nature around us.'

'This year's melting season is a Goliath,' also notes geophysicist Marco Tedesco, director of the Cryospheric Processes Laboratory at City University of New York, the Wall Street Journal reports. 'The ice is being lost at a very strong pace.' " http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/09/07-3

-- >This news about the Goliath ice melt wasn't important enough for The NY Times to print. More important stories took the front page that day, like what a Muslim woman was told in a premarital counseling class in Egypt.


Thursday, August 30, 2012

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 to keep from the public eye.

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Common Dreams:
"The Obama administration finalized new fuel economy rules Tuesday, boasting new requirements that are slated to double fuel efficiency of new cars and trucks sold in the US over the next 13 years; however, environmental scientists at the Center for Biological Diversity warned Tuesday that the new numbers are misleading in the complex regulations. Due to loopholes in the plan, total greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks will actually increase from 2017 through 2025 and over the long term...

According to CBD, several loopholes in the rules will actually allow an increase in total greenhouse gas emissions. The rules titled, 'Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE,' allows automakers to produce cars with poorer mileage by using credits acquired by selling natural gas and electric vehicles, changing air conditioning fluid to one that pollutes less, and placing louvers on car grilles to improve aerodynamics."

-->The NY Times omitted this bad news in its story on the new fuel economy rules. Our newspaper of record called the new standards: "a victory for environmentalists and advocates of fuel conservation" and "one of President Obama’s proudest accomplishments." 

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Guardian UK:
 "Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel laureate and icon of the anti-apartheid struggle, has withdrawn from a seminar in South Africa in protest at the presence of Tony Blair and the former prime minister's support for the 2003 Iraq war.

'The archbishop is of the view that Mr Blair's decision to support the United States' military invasion of Iraq, on the basis of unproven allegations of the existence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, was morally indefensible,' said Roger Friedman, a spokesman for the cleric, who won the Nobel peace prize in 1984.

'Morality and leadership are indivisible. In this context, it would be inappropriate and untenable for the archbishop to share a platform with Mr Blair,' he added.

-->The NY Times doesn't like to admit how unpopular the US invasions of the Middle East are in the rest of the world. Desmond Tutu is making the Empire look bad, so the story never got printed in our newspaper of record.

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Common Dreams:
"Testimony by ex-Israeli Defense Force soldiers reveals a devastating portrayal of ill-treatment and abuse of Palestinian youth by members of Israel's occupying army in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The testimony by more than 30 soldiers, and fashioned into a booklet by Breaking the Silence, an organisation of former IDF soldiers dedicated to speaking out against Israeli policy in the occupied territories, contains descriptions of beatings, intimidation and humiliation of Palestinian children.

'It is crucial that people in Israel are confronted about what it means for Palestinian children to live under military occupation,' says Yehuda Shaul, one of the founders of Breaking the Silence.

'This is what [Israeli] society is made of, you cannot ignore it, you cannot just run away from it — this is who we are as people and I think this is something we should face.' "

-->Our premier newspaper, The NY Times, just doesn't print articles like this about Israel. It chooses to both ignore and run away from presenting the truth to its readers.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

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 to keep from the public eye.

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Reuters:
"CIA agents have written books about it. Former President George W. Bush has explained why he thought it was necessary and legal. Yet the al Qaeda suspects who were subjected to so-called harsh interrogation techniques, and the lawyers charged with defending them at the Guantanamo Bay military tribunals, are not allowed to talk about the treatment they consider torture.

Defense attorneys say that and other Kafkaesque legal restrictions on what they can discuss with their clients and raise in the courtroom undermine their ability to mount a proper defense on charges that could lead to the death penalty.
Those restrictions will be the focus of a pretrial hearing that convenes this week.

Prosecutors say every utterance of the alleged al Qaeda murderers, and what their lawyers in turn pass on to the court, must be strictly monitored precisely because of the defendants' intimate personal knowledge of highly classified CIA interrogation methods they endured in the agency's clandestine overseas prisons."

-->The NY Times printed a short editorial calling the Guantanamo Bay military tribunals a "regrettable step in undermining the rule of law." Why not include more specifics and make it a news story on page one if is so regrettable?

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World Socialist Website:
"The secrecy surrounding the U.S. use of drone attacks must end, and each drone strike carried out by the U.S. should be independently investigated, London barrister and UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism Ben Emmerson said Sunday. 

Emmerson is preparing a report for the next session of the Human Rights Council in March covering the use of drone attacks, which have spiked since Obama's presidency. 

He questioned the legality of the drone strikes and noted the growing global outrage over their use.

'We can't make a decision on whether it is lawful or unlawful if we do not have the data. The recommendation I have made is that users of targeted killing technology should be required to subject themselves, in the case of each and every death, to impartial investigation. If they do not establish a mechanism to do so, it will be my recommendation that the UN should put the mechanisms in place through the Human Rights Council, the General Assembly and the Office of the High Commissioner.' "

-->The NY Times doesn't print many official statements that criticize the empire. Our newspaper of record is too busy hiding America's violations of international law.

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Guardian UK:
"Violence by Jewish settlers has been cited for the first time in a US state department list of "terrorist incidents", as Israeli political leaders condemned a string of recent attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

The inclusion of assaults on Palestinian targets in the annual report on terrorism reflects growing concern in Israel and internationally that violence by a minority of Jewish extremists could trigger a new cycle of conflict and further damage the prospects of a peace agreement between the two sides.

"Attacks by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinian residents, property and places of worship in the West Bank continued,' said the Country Reports on Terrorism 2011. It referred to 'price tag" operations, meaning violence committed by radical settlers against Palestinians in retribution for actions by the Israeli government or army deemed to be 'anti-settler'.

US and European officials have become more vocal in criticising settler violence amid fears that the actions of a minority of Jewish extremists could provoke a militant response from Palestinians. According to the UN, violent attacks by settlers on Palestinians and their property, mosques and farmland has increased by almost 150% since 2009."

-->The NY Times doesn't just doesn't print articles like this about Israel, even when the story involves the US State Department. Instead, it runs stories like "A Settler Leader, Worldly and Pragmatic," a very favorable profile of the settlement leader, Dani Dayan. 
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