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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DeSmog Blog:
"The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has had a 'no fly zone' in place in Mayflower, Arkansas since April 1 at 2:12 PM and will be in place "until further notice," according to the FAA website and it's being overseen by ExxonMobil itself. In other words, any media or independent observers who want to witness the tar sands spill disaster have to ask Exxon's permission.
Mayflower is the site of the recent major March 29 ExxonMobil Pegagus tar sands pipeline spill, which belched out an estimated 5,000 barrels of tar sands diluted bitumen into the small town's neighborhoods, causing the evacuation of 22 homes.
The rules of engagement for the no fly zone dictate that no aircraft can fly within 1,000 feet of the ground in the five-mile radius surrounding the ExxonMobil Pegasus tar sands pipeline spill. The area located within this radius includes the nearby Pine Village Airport.
-->The NY Times didn't cover the story of this government/corporate news blackout. No pictures from the sky of the massive oil spill. Sort of like not printing pictures of the war dead coming home. Why get the public outraged over US wars overseas or US corporate destruction of the environment?
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JusticeOnLine:
"Government documents obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) through its FOIA records requests reveal that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), an agency created after the September 11 attacks under the rubric of combating terrorism, conducts daily monitoring of peaceful, lawful protests as a matter of policy.
Functioning as a secret political police force against people participating in lawful, peaceful free speech activity, the heavily redacted documents show that the DHS 'Threat Management Division' directed Regional Intelligence Analysts to provide a 'Daily Intelligence Briefing' that includes a category of reporting on 'Peaceful Activist Demonstrations' along with 'Domestic Terrorist Activity.' (p. 68) ...
In preparation for planned protests in New York City on October 15, 2011, the DHS documents show coordination between federal and local authorities to use New York City’s permitting scheme to frustrate, obstruct or stop free speech activities. ...
The documents show a Department of Homeland Security that appears obsessed with the question of whether any and all protests that are being surveilled receive media attention and coverage. ... 'Taken together, the two sets of documents paint a disturbing picture of federal law enforcement agencies using their vast power in a systematic effort to surveil and disrupt peaceful demonstrations. The federal agencies’ actions were not because Occupy represented a 'terrorist threat' or a 'criminal threat' but rather because it posed a significant grassroots political challenge to the status quo,' stated Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the PCJF."
-->The NY Times, itself guilty of suppressing coverage of most peaceful demonstrations, didn't print this story.
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NYT Book Review:
"... In their conclusion, the authors rightly note the squeamishness of America's modern presidents in dealing with genocide. Woodrow Wilson, a true idealist, virtually ignored Turkey's slaughter of a million or more Armenians. ...
More recently, Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama employed little more than words to condemn the atrocities in Darfur. Historically speaking, Roosevelt comes off rather well. ..."
-->Dr. David Oshinsky, writing for the The NY Times, doesn't come off nearly as well. Woodrow Wilson the idealist? That's what was always taught in tenth grade history. But Wilson was a virulent racist, a defender of child labor abuses, and an avowed enemy of women's right to vote. He won the presidency by promising to keep America out of World War I, only to enter it when US banking interests were put at risk. He signed the worst laws the country has ever seen suppressing freedom of speech, and was instrumental in sending Eugene Debs, Socialist candidate for president, to prison.
Bush and Obama should be ashamed of what went on in Darfur? Can't the good professor come up with anything better? The Guantanamo prison, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the targeted killing of American citizens by drones? What kind of history is Dr. Oshinsky teaching at NYU? The same type of lobotomized history that readers of the NY Times are often subjected to.
