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.

------

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.

------

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.  

------

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.

------

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."

------

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. 

------

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.

------

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.
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)