Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Common Dreams:
"Sparking concerns that party leadership is making the same mistakes that have rendered them increasingly powerless and without an inspiring vision, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is reportedly carrying out a massive staff shake-up in which veteran progressives are being purged and 'left out in the cold.'

"This doesn't bring the party together, it deepens the divide at a time we need all hands on deck," James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute and prominent Sanders supporter who was ousted from the DNC Executive Committee, wrote on Twitter Thursday. ...

According to Alex Seitz-Wald of NBC News, Zogby is hardly alone. '[S]everal key longtime officials have lost their posts since the staff changes began,' Seitz-Wald writes, a fact that many have interpreted as 'retaliation for their opposition to DNC Chairman Tom Perez.'

-->The neoliberal faction of the Democratic Party is getting rid of progressives, and the NYT didn't think it newsworthy. Our newspaper of record likes the corporate wing of the party. Why tell on them?

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Common Dreams:
"Documents Reveal Active U.S. Support of Indonesian Mass Killings in 1960s.
While some describe the newly-released cables as showing the U.S. 'stood by' as atrocities were committed, documents show American support amounted to active involvement.

Newly declassified files from the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta confirm the extent to which American officials supported the killings of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians in the 1960s, as the U.S. worked to keep Southeast Asia from falling into Communist control.

This narrative emboldened the Indonesian military, paramilitaries and others to oversee the killings of 500,000 Indonesians who were suspected Communists, including students and union members."

-->The NYT takes stories like this and sends them down the memory hole. No wonder most Americans see US foreign policy as benevolent. The rest of the world knows better.

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Common Dreams:
"Carnage in Somalia Was 'Revenge' for Children Killed in US Raid: Report
Suggesting blowback, investigators say bomber may have had very personal reason for attack: the killing of civilians by U.S. forces earlier this year.

New details emerged Tuesday about the possible motivations behind a bomb attack that killed more than 300 people in the Somalia capital of Mogadishu over the weekend—the deadliest such violence in the nation's history—with the information suggesting the bombing may been in direct retaliation for a raid by U.S. soldiers this summer that left 10 civilians, including children, dead."

-->The NYT never reports stories like this. If the real reasons were given print space, the US empire might begin looking like the cause of world terrorism rather than the solution. 

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Common Dreams:
"The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Wednesday filed a lawsuit to challenge a Kansas law that requires any company or individual who contracts with the state to sign a statement certifying that they are not actively engaged in boycotting Israel.

'This law is an unconstitutional attempt by the government to silence one side of a public debate by coercing people not to express their beliefs, including through participation in a political boycott,' said ACLU attorney Brian Hauss. The law took effect July 1, 2017. 'From the Boston Tea Party to the Montgomery bus boycott to the campaign to divest from businesses operating in apartheid South Africa, political boycotts have been a proud part of this country's constitutional tradition.'

The lawsuit could have sweeping consequences nationally. Kansas' law is similar not only to laws adopted by other states but also to the Israel Anti-Boycott Act that has been introduced in the U.S. House and Senate."

-->When it comes to Americans' freedom of speech, the NYT takes the side of the Israel Lobby. It didn't report this story.

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The Guardian UK:
"Over half of all police killings in 2015 were wrongly classified as not having been the result of interactions with officers, a new Harvard study based on Guardian data has found.

The finding is just the latest to show government databases seriously undercounting the number of people killed by police.

'Right now the data quality is bad and unacceptable,' said lead researcher Justin Feldman. 'To effectively address the problem of law enforcement-related deaths, the public needs better data about who is being killed, where, and under what circumstances.' "

-->Are the US Police hiding the number of murders being committed by them? The number of killings could easily be twice what is reported. The NYT wasn't interested in printing this story, and readers had to find it in the UK Guardian. 

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972 Magazine:
"Jewish students feel unsafe on campus? A new study says otherwise. In recent years numerous studies have created the impression that university campuses across the United States are a hotbed of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment. These studies describe Jewish student experiences on campus, painting an alarming portrait of a politically unsafe climate for Jewish students who are ill equipped to deal with these challenges. ...

A new study published by Stanford University Graduate School of Education contests these beliefs, arguing not only that campuses are a safe place for Jewish students, but also that students are alienated by the very nature of the debate on anti-Semitism and the Israel-Palestine conflict. This groundbreaking new qualitative study, called 'Safe and on the Sidelines,' is based on a 10-month study of Jewish students on five campuses across California. ...

Contrary to what we often hear about Jewish experience on campus, the report argues that 'students reported feeling comfortable on their campuses, and, more specifically, comfortable as Jews on their campuses.' ... In the study, less than 10 percent of respondents articulated the belief that anti-Israel sentiment is, by definition, anti-Semitism."

-->The NYT often conflates anti Israel sentiment on US campuses with anti-Semitism. Too bad our newspaper of record didn't report this new study.

Thursday, October 12, 2017

The NYT:
"After 78 Killings, a Honduran Drug Lord Partners With the U.S."

-->In a recent front page article, the NYT wonders how the violence got so bad in Honduras. In the long article, there is not one mention of the popularly elected reformer, President Zelaya, who had been overthrown by a military coup in 2009. Nor any mention of the US backed thugs who took over. In fact, there is no mention of the coup at all. Down the NYT memory hole, that always favors militarism and empire building.

For those interested in how the US brought down Zelaya, we would have to look at an outside publication. To the NYT, the story is all about drug lords and US efforts to arrest them. The real story of the US and Hillary Clinton's involvement with setting up a military dictatorship in Honduras has be read in Aljazeera.

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The Guardian UK:
"The US government has declared 'black identity extremists' a violent threat, according to a leaked report from the FBI’s counter-terrorism division.
The assessment, obtained by Foreign Policy, has raised fears about federal authorities racially profiling activists and aggressively prosecuting civil rights protesters. ...

The FBI’s dedicated surveillance of black activists follows a long history of the US government aggressively monitoring protest movements and working to disrupt civil rights groups, but the scrutiny of African Americans by a domestic terrorism unit was particularly alarming to some free speech campaigners.

'When we talk about enemies of the state and terrorists, with that comes an automatic stripping of those people’s rights to speak and protest,' said Mohammad Tajsar, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. 'It marginalizes what are legitimate voices within the political debate that are calling for racial and economic justice.' ”

-->The mouthpiece of the FBI, our very own NYT, didn't print this story. 

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The Guardian UK:
"The speech by British Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn at last week’s annual party conference included an unequivocal declaration of solidarity with the Palestinians. 'Let’s give real support to end the oppression of the Palestinian people, the 50-year occupation and illegal settlement expansion and move to a genuine two-state solution,' he told delegates as they rose to their feet in applause. ...

In truth, Corbyn’s declaration of support for the Palestinian cause came as sections of his party’s establishment demonstrated once again that they are determined to subvert his leadership. And the issue they have selected as his Achilles’ heel relates directly to the debate about the Palestinians’ future. ... Given that they failed to be rid of Corbyn, sections of the party establishment have concentrated instead on wounding him, in the hope that the injury will eventually prove fatal.

The accusation that has gained most traction, gleefully repeated by a British media openly hostile to the Labour leader, is that, under Corbyn’s watch, anti-semitism has spread like wildfire through the party. On this view, Corbyn’s support for Palestinian rights has unleashed a dormant Jew hatred from the dark recesses of the British left."

-->This nasty story of how the charge of "anti-Semitism" is being used to wound and disable true progressives in the Labour Party wasn't covered in the NYT. Maybe that's because our newspaper of record ignores the same tactics being used in the Democratic Party here at home.

Wednesday, October 04, 2017

The Guardian:
"Nestlé pays $200 a year to bottle water near Flint – where water is undrinkable.
While Flint battles a water crisis, just two hours away the beverage giant pumps almost 100,000 times what an average Michigan resident uses ...

Despite having endured lead-laden tap water for years, Flint pays some of the highest water rates in the US. Several residents cited bills upwards of $200 per month for tap water they refuse to touch.

But just two hours away, in the tiny town of Evart, creeks lined by wildflowers run with clear water. The town is so small, the fairground, McDonald’s, high school and church are all within a block. But in a town of only 1,503 people, there are a dozen wells pumping water from the underground aquifer. This is where the beverage giant Nestlé pumps almost 100,000 times what an average Michigan resident uses into plastic bottles that are sold all over the midwest for around $1."

-->The neoliberal dream, where even the water is privatized by giant corporations. The NYT, neoliberal cheerleader for decades, didn't print this story.

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The Guardian UK:
"Shredding 'Failed Dogmas of Neoliberalism,' Corbyn Charts Bold New Vision for UK. ...

In a rousing speech at the Labour Party's annual conference in Brighton, England on Wednesday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn took aim at the 'callous and calculating' austerity agenda of Prime Minister Theresa May, slammed the 'failed dogmas of neoliberalism' that produced the deadly Grenfell Tower fire, and argued that his party—bolstered by its ambitious 'for the many, not the few" manifesto—is now at the "threshold of power.'

'We are now the political mainstream,' Corbyn declared to a packed auditorium. 'Our manifesto and our policies are popular because that is what most people in our country actually want, not what they're told they should want.' "

-->Jeremy Corbyn, like Bernie Sanders, is rarely quoted in the pro corporate pages of the NYT. It prefers quotes from those like the Conservative Party's Philip Hammond: "We saw Labour in the raw, exposed for what it has sadly become: a party taken hostage by a clique of hard-left extremist infiltrators, people who despise Britain's values and talk down our country."

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The Guardian:
"The UN human rights commissioner, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, has sent letters to an estimated 150 international and Israeli businesses warning them that they may be included in a UN database of companies involved with illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The letters have been sent as part of the legal verification and clarification process to give businesses identified as working in settlements the right of reply before the database is published in December.

Reports that the high commissioner’s office was pushing ahead with its work to publish the database by the end of this year, despite the strong opposition of the Trump administration and Israel, emerged in August."

-->No sign of this story in the NYT, the Israeli Lobby's newspaper of record when it comes to whitewashing the occupation of Palestine.
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