Thursday, April 05, 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:

"According to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), the pharmaceutical, medical device, and biotechnology industries spent over $700 million in lobbying between 2009 and 2011, surpassing other special interest spending such as big oil and insurance industries.
The extreme spending comes as this year's 'industry-friendly proposals' face the House and Senate, such as legislation limiting the FDA’s drug and medical device scrutiny.
'Congress is also considering legislation that would relax conflict-of-interest standards for federal advisory members at the FDA, allowing scientists with a financial stake in the outcome to vote on panels that approve or reject drugs and medical devices,' states UCS."
-->The NY Times doesn't do a very good job reporting on corporate influences on governmental regulators. Or newspaper of record often omits such damning reports like this one from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
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Guardian UK:
"US acted to conceal evidence of intelligence failure before 9/11. Operation Foxden, delayed by turf war between the FBI and the CIA, given green light three days before the al-Qaida attacks...
The US government shut down a series of court cases arising from a multimillion pound business dispute in order to conceal evidence of a damning intelligence failure shortly before the 9/11 attacks, MPs were told.
Moreover, the UK government is now seeking similar powers that could be used to prevent evidence of illegal acts and embarrassing failures from emerging in court, David Davis, the former shadow home secretary, told the Commons."
-->The NY Times did not cover Operation Foxden or the attempts by the US government to conceal intelligence failures prior to 9/11. Readers must go to an British publication for "all the news that's fit to print."

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Guardian UK
"A group political activists and journalists has launched a legal challenge to stop an American law they say allows the US military to arrest civilians anywhere in the world and detain them without trial as accused supporters of terrorism.
The seven figures, who include ex-New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, professor Noam Chomsky and Icelandic politician and WikiLeaks campaigner Birgitta Jonsdottir, testified to a Manhattan judge that the law – dubbed the NDAA or Homeland Battlefield Bill – would cripple free speech around the world.
They said that various provisions written into the National Defense Authorization Bill, which was signed by President Barack Obama at the end of 2011, effectively broadened the definition of 'supporter of terrorism' to include peaceful activists, authors, academics and even journalists interviewing members of radical groups."
-->The Bill of Rights being defended by America's leading intellectuals. Not of interest to The NY Times, which didn't print this story.
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Common Dreams:
"A heartbreaking report from Save the Children and East Jerusalem YMCA Rehabilitation Program on the more than 8,000 Palestinian children living under Israeli occupation who have been arrested, handcuffed, blindfolded, detained and often brutalized in Israeli prisons, usually for throwing stones - and that doesn't include those caught in the assaults on Gaza. An estimated 90% suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Unsurprisingly, there is little help for them."
-->No sign of this report in The NY Times, which routinely leaves out stories of Palestinian suffering in the West Bank and Gaza.