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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Japan Times:
"JERUSALEM – Germany has warned Israel to attend a periodic U.N. human rights review on Tuesday or face 'severe diplomatic damage,' Haaretz newspaper reported on Sunday.
Israel cut all ties with the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council in March 2012, after it announced it would probe how Israeli settlements may be infringing on the rights of Palestinians.
'On Friday, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle sent a personal letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warning that Israel’s failure to attend the Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review would cause the country severe diplomatic damage and Israel’s allies around the world would be hard-pressed to help it,' Haaretz wrote."
-->The NY Times doesn't cover stories about Israel's human rights abuses and about the frustration of the rest of the world at the continuing illegal occupation. Readers in Japan are told, but not readers in America.
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Common Dreams:
"Two weeks after Edward Snowden’s first revelations about sweeping government surveillance, President Obama shot back. 'We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this information not just in the United States, but, in some cases, threats here in Germany,' Obama said during a visit to Berlin in June. 'So lives have been saved.'
In the months since, intelligence officials, media outlets, and members of Congress from both parties all repeated versions of the claim that NSA surveillance has stopped more than 50 terrorist attacks. The figure has become a key talking point in the debate around the spying programs. ...
"We've heard over and over again the assertion that 54 terrorist plots were thwarted” by the two programs, (Sen. Patrick) Leahy told (NSA chief Gen. Keith) Alexander at the Judiciary Committee hearing this month. 'That's plainly wrong, but we still get it in letters to members of Congress, we get it in statements. These weren't all plots and they weren't all thwarted. The American people are getting left with the inaccurate impression of the effectiveness of NSA programs.' "
-->How do these stories get spread anyway? The NY Times helps, by not printing these comments by Sen Patrick Leahy, and by avoiding any investigative journalism that might expose the fact that the President and the NSA have been lying to the American people.
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Common Dreams:
"125 racial justice, community, and faith organizations are demanding that the U.S. Justice Department launch a civil rights investigation into the dragnet surveillance of Muslims at the hands of the New York Police Department.
In a searing letter released Thursday, organizations including the NAACP, the American Civil Liberties Union, and South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) blast the NYPD's 'discriminatory surveillance,' which they charge 'is based on the false and unconstitutional premise, reflected in the NYPD’s published radicalization theory, that Muslim religious belief, practices, and community engagement are grounds for law enforcement scrutiny.'
Starting in 2002 following the 9/11 attacks, the NYPD has systematically surveilled Muslims at mosques, bookstores, neighborhoods, and restaurants for no reason other than their faith. This has included sending paid infiltrators into mosques, student organizations, and other associations to spy on individuals, document conversations, and take photographs. The NYPD has mapped New York to single out Muslim communities for monitoring."
-->The NY Times didn't cover these demands by 125 human rights organizations. Instead, our newspaper of record printed a book review entitled "Enemies Within," which defends the NYPD's targeting of Muslim groups.
"Despite the authors’ efforts to blacken Cohen and his unit, the squad does not come off all that badly. In this account, at least, they seem clownish but relatively harmless."
So much for The NY Times defending our civil liberties.
