Fantasyland Media

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Fantasyland Media:

Al Jazeera:

"Arab opinion of the United States and its president Barack Obama has dimmed in the past year, while the popularity of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, has skyrocketed, according to an annual survey released by the US-based Brookings Institution on Thursday.

The survey found that a majority of Arabs continue to believe that peace between Israel and the Palestinians will never happen and that - unlike in past years - a larger number are identifying as Muslims, rather than as Arabs or citizens of a particular country.

The poll of nearly 4,000 people, done in conjunction with Zogby International, was conducted between June 29 and July 20 in six Middle Eastern countries...

Of those surveyed, 62 per cent said they had a negative view of Obama, compared with 23 per cent a year ago."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/08-3

-->Obama very unpopular in the Middle East after his first year as president? A Middle East policy devoted to war and support of Israel already a failure? You wouldn't know it if you depended on The New York Times, which didn't cover the story.

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Guardian/UK:

"The White House was accused today of spinning a government scientific report into the amount of oil left in the Gulf of Mexico from the BP spill which had officials declaring that the vast majority of the oil had been removed.

As BP workers finished pouring cement into the well as a first step to permanently sealing it today, environmental groups and scientists - including those working with government agencies to calculate the scale and effects of the spill - said White House officials had painted far too optimistic a picture of a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) into the fate of the oil.

'Recent reports seem to say that about 75% of the oil is taken care of and that is just not true,' said John Kessler, of Texas A&M University, who led a National Science Foundation on-site study of the spill. 'The fact is that 50% to 75% of the material that came out of the well is still in the water...' "

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/06-3

-->Obama spinning tales of oil disappearing from the Gulf? Of course he is. He wants a return to offshore drilling to please one of his largest campaign contributors, British Petroleum. The New York Times helped with the coverup by not reporting this story.

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The Independent/UK:

"Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.

Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.

Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/24-0

-->The New York Times would never carry a story like this. US war crimes are rarely judged to be "fit to print."

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The NY Times:

"There’s a class war coming to the world of government pensions."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/your-money/07money.html?scp=1&sq=class%20war&st=cse

-->The NY Times printed this story about "class wars" on Aug. 6. Only the classes described in the article were state pensioners versus holders of 401K retirement accounts. No mention was made, of course, of the billionaires and their "tax cuts" so favored by the Republicans and Democrats. A continuation of tax cuts for billionaires would drain the treasury of 700 billion over the next 10 years. Now that is class war, waged by the very rich on everyone else. A war that The NY Times can't bring itself to cover.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Fantasyland Media:

Common Dreams:

"According to the Washington Post today, the U.S. intelligence system, in the years since 9/11, has become so massive and lacking in oversight that it is impossible to know how effective it is. The America Civil Liberties Union has long warned about the civil liberties implications of expanding secret government intelligence programs without oversight.

In 2007, Congress created an independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board with some significant powers for overseeing anti-terrorism efforts, but the Obama administration has failed thus far to appoint anybody to that board.

'The intelligence system that is supposed to protect the nation's security now presents a grave threat to our liberties and our democracy. A sprawling and largely unaccountable complex of government agencies and private corporations now controls a huge amount of information about ordinary Americans, monitors their telephone calls and emails and administers a slew of secret watchlists. The unchecked growth of this intelligence system is endangering the very fabric of American democracy.' "

-Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/07/19-14

-->Bloat and erosion of civil liberties under the Obama administration? The NY Times did not print this story.

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OpenLeft.com:

"Liz Fowler, a key staffer for U.S. Sen. Max Baucus who helped draft the federal health reform bill enacted in March, is joining the Obama administration to help implement the new law...

Fowler headed up a team of 20-some Senate Finance Committee staffers who helped draft the bill in the Senate. She was Baucus' top health care aide from 2001-2005 and left that job in 2006 to become an executive at WellPoint, the nation's largest private insurer. She was vice president of public policy at WellPoint, helping develop public-policy positions for the company. In 2008, she rejoined Baucus to work on health reform legislation."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/14-7

-->Few reporters in Washington even report on this stuff anymore. The revolving door between corporations and government is so ubiquitous that newspapers like The NY Times don't consider it news at all.

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Madre:

"On Monday, Sabbar Kashur, a young Palestinian man from East Jerusalem, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for something called 'rape by deception.' Apparently, Mr. Kashur had consensual sex with a Jewish Israeli woman after assuring her that he was also Jewish. When she found out that he had lied to her, she went to the police.

Imagine living in a society where you can say, 'I wish I had never slept with you. I’m going to the cops.' Only it’s not funny because Sabbar Kashur will probably go to jail for a year and a half. Meanwhile, efforts to combat actual sexual violence are undermined by a cynical distortion of the term rape. The real crime here, of course, is miscegenation. Anyone from the US should recognize the Jerusalem District Court’s ruling for what it is: an anti-miscegenation measure on par with the now-defunct US laws against 'race mixing' that were once used to uphold white supremacy...

In the US, anti-miscegenation laws were on the books until 1967, when the Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional. That was the same year that Israel began its occupation of Sabbar Kashur’s home in East Jerusalem. Since then, Israelis have fine-tuned their own obsession with racial purity."

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/07/21-19

-->Judgements making interracial marriage and interracial sex illegal in Israel don't get coverage in The NY Times, the newspaper that is the special guardian of Israel's public image in America.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Fantasyland Media:

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 keep from the public eye.

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Guardian UK: National Security Archive

"It is more than 35 years since he was shunted out of office, but the thought of Richard Nixon's finger on the nuclear trigger still has the power to terrify.

Now it has been revealed that the highly erratic president's metaphorical digit was hovering even closer than was widely realised as his administration laid plans for an atomic strike against North Korea in 1969 following the shooting down of a US spy plane.

According to newly revealed government documents, Nixon is even believed to have ordered nuclear bombers to be put on standby for an immediate strike after North Korean jets downed the American plane as it flew over international waters collecting electronic and radio intelligence..."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/07/nixon-north-korea-nuclear-strike

-->The evidence of Nixon's finger on the nuclear trigger may well terrify those readers in other countries whose media is less censored. But in the US, there is little mention of this story, despite the fact that the National Security Archive is a university based American research institute.

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FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

"Many PBS stations around the country will begin airing a three-part, three-hour documentary tonight (7/12/10) about Reagan-era Secretary of State George Shultz. According to the New York Times, the unusually lengthy, completely uncritical tribute is partially sponsored by corporations linked to Shultz's corporate career.

The special, Turmoil and Triumph, was funded by the Stephen Bechtel Fund and Charles Schwab. Shultz was a board member at both companies, and was president of the Bechtel Corporation from 1975 to 1982.

According to reviews, the documentary takes an overwhelmingly positive, even gushing stance. The Times' Alessandra Stanley points out, 'There is no mention that Mr. Shultz was a cheerleader for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while still on the board of Bechtel, a construction and engineering firm that won huge contracts that were later criticized by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.' "

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4114

-->PBS, like much of "public" broadcasting has had to relay on corporate money for a long time. The result were predictable, documentaries made to glorify right wing militarism and weapons manufactures.

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Haaretz:

"Presbyterian leaders strongly backed a proposal Friday calling for the U.S. government to end aid to Israel unless the country stops settlement expansions in disputed Palestinian territories. The move was immediately criticized by Jewish groups....

The report is meant as a guide for the denomination's more than 2 million members in many facets of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship. It was approved with 82 percent of the vote during the church's annual general assembly in Minneapolis.

'We feel we've brought together people who previously had trouble talking about some of these issues together,' said the Rev. Karen Dimon of Northminster Presbyterian Church in North Syracuse, N.Y., and chairwoman of the committee that produced the 172-page report."

http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/u-s-presbyterians-urge-government-to-end-israel-aid-over-settlements-1.301071

-->Even though this story is about the US Presbyterian church, The NY Times declined to cover it. The NY Times is more protective of Israel's image than newspapers published there.

Fantasyland Media:

Guardian UK: National Security Archive

"It is more than 35 years since he was shunted out of office, but the thought of Richard Nixon's finger on the nuclear trigger still has the power to terrify.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/07/nixon-north-korea-nuclear-strike

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FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4114

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Haaretz:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/u-s-presbyterians-urge-government-to-end-israel-aid-over-settlements-1.301071

-->Even though this story is about the US Presbyterian church, The NY Times declined to cover it. The NY Times is more protective of Israel's image than newspapers published there.

Fantasyland Media:

Guardian UK: National Security Archive

"It is more than 35 years since he was shunted out of office, but the thought of Richard Nixon's finger on the nuclear trigger still has the power to terrify.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/07/nixon-north-korea-nuclear-strike

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FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4114

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Haaretz:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/u-s-presbyterians-urge-government-to-end-israel-aid-over-settlements-1.301071

-->Even though this story is about the US Presbyterian church, The NY Times declined to cover it. The NY Times is more protective of Israel's image than newspapers published there.

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Fantasyland Media:

Common Dreams: Maude Barlow quoted on Democracy Now

"On the eve of this G-20 gathering, let’s look at a few facts. Fact, the world has divided into rich and poor as at no time in our history. The richest 2% own more than half the household wealth in the world. The richest 10% hold 85% of total global assets and the bottom half of humanity owns less than 1% of the wealth in the world. The three richest men in the world have more money than the poorest 48 countries. Fact, while those responsible for the 2008 global financial crisis were bailed out and even rewarded by the G-20 government’s gathering here, the International Labor Organization tells us that in 2009, 34 million people were added to the global unemployed, swelling those ranks to 239 million, the highest ever recorded...

The declarations have already been drafted, the failures already spun. Instead, this global royalty who have more in common with one another than they do with their own citizens and are here really to advance the issues and interest of their class are also here just to advance the status quo that serves the interest of the elite in their own countries and the business community or the B-20, the new term, a community that will get private and privileged access to advance their free market solutions to these eager leaders. The agenda is more of the bad medicine that made the world sick in the first place. Environmental deregulation, unbridled financial speculation, unlimited growth, unregulated free trade, relentless resource exploitation, tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts to Social Security and a war on working people. In other words, savage capitalism."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/02-6

-->No corporate sponsored American media would dare offer these views. But the reality of savage capitalism is there for anyone willing to look beyond the everyday propaganda in our newspapers and on our TV.

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Media Matters for America: Report by the Kennedy School of Government

"Torture Study Reveals Appalling Cowardice of America's Newspapers...

From the early 1930's until the modern (US waterboarding) story broke in 2004, the newspapers that covered waterboarding almost uniformly called the practice torture or implied it was torture: The New York Times characterized it thus in 81.5% (44 of 54) of articles on the subject and The Los Angeles Times did so in 96.3% of articles (26 of 27). By contrast, from 2002-2008, the studied newspapers almost never referred to waterboarding as torture. The New York Times called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture in just 2 of 143 articles (1.4%). The Los Angeles Times did so in 4.8% of articles (3 of 63). The Wall Street Journal characterized the practice as torture in just 1 of 63 articles (1.6%). USA Today never called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture."

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/01-11

-->So waterboarding is torture in the nation's media only when the US doesn't do it. There is hardly a more dramatic example of the use of America's media for propaganda. All the news that's fit to print, according to the Pentagon.

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Rethinking Schools:

"Teachers have always been devalued in the United States, but in the past months the pace and intensity of the attacks have escalated sharply....If closing the achievement gap were the goal, we would see demands for adequate, equitable resources and funding for every student in every school; demands, for example, for quality early childhood education programs, full-time librarians, robust arts and physical education programs, mandated caps on class size, and enough time for teachers to prepare and collaborate. We would also see a renewed commitment to affirmative action in university admissions; a drive to recruit and nurture teachers of color; a commitment to ensure that students come to school ready to learn because their families have housing, food, medical care, and jobs; and an end to zero tolerance discipline policies that criminalize youth.

But if these attacks on teachers aren't about ending the systemic racism that continues to undermine our education system, what is the goal? With forces as seemingly disparate as the Obama administration, the Walton Foundation, the late Milton Friedman, and the New York Times all pushing the same ideas, this is a complicated question, but there are at least two major goals: destroy the power of the teachers' unions, and turn the public school system from a public trust into a new market for corporate development. From the time of Reagan, who used his "welfare queen" stories to scapegoat the poor as a basis on which to destroy the welfare system, this has been a tried-and-true approach to privatization: use visceral anecdotes to whip up hysteria that a system is 'broken,' argue that only market competition can fix the situation, and then sell off pieces of the public sector to private corporations."

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/06-7

-->Of course, the real story here is the destruction of our system of public education by both corporate funded political parties. Our media, including The NY Times, plays an important role in obscuring this particularly dangerous assault on the public good.

Thursday, July 01, 2010

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 keep from the public eye.

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Salon: by Glenn Greenwald
"How Many Americans are Targeted for Assassination?

When The Washington Post's Dana Priest first revealed (in passing) back in January that the Obama administration had compiled a hit list of American citizens targeted for assassination, she wrote that 'as of several months ago, the CIA list included three U.S. citizens.' In April, both the Post and the NYT confirmed that the administration had specifically authorized the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki. Today, The Washington Times' Eli Lake has an interview with Obama's top Terrorism adviser John Brennan in which Brennan strongly suggests that the number of U.S. citizens targeted for assassination could actually be 'dozens'...

Nobody...disputes the right of the U.S. or any other country to kill someone on an actual battlefield during war without due process. That's just obvious, but that's not remotely what Brennan is talking about, and it's not remotely what this assassination program is about. Indeed, Brennan explicitly identified two indistinguishable groups of American citizens who 'will face the full brunt of a U.S. response': (1) those 'on the battlefield in Afghanistan or Iraq'; and (2) those 'in a Yemen or in a Pakistan or in Somalia or another place.' In other words, the entire world is a 'battlefield' -- countries where there is a war and countries where there isn't -- and the President's 'battlefield' powers, which are unlimited, extend everywhere..."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/06/25-6

-->The powers of the US President to kill US citizens just keep growing. It is nothing less than the replacement of our Constitution rights with the self made rules of a military dictatorship. The NY Times didn't cover this troubling interview.

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School of Americas Watch:
"One Year Later: Honduras Resistance Strong Despite US Supported Coup...

The media has ignored the revival of US hard power in the Americas and the widespread resistance which challenges it.

A pro-democracy movement, the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP) formed in the coup's aftermath. Despite horrendous repression, it has organized the anger and passion of a multitude of mass-based popular movements -- landless workers, farmers, women, LGBTQ folks, unions, youth and others-- and spread a palpable energy of possibility and hope throughout the country.

These forces of democracy have been subjected to police killings, arbitrary detentions, beatings, rape and other sexual abuse of women and girls, torture and harassment of journalists, judges and activists. Prominent LGBTQ activists, labor organizers, campesinos and youth working with the resistance have been assassinated. Leaders have been driven into exile."
http://www.soaw.org/presente/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=309&Itemid=74

-->;In one of the most despicable acts of journalism this last year, The NY Times continues to whitewash the coup in Honduras. Our newspaper of record has never explored why the coup was supported by Washington (Honduras' joining of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, the closing down of the Soto Cano Air Base important to the US military). Nor has it reported on the widespread resistance to the coup in almost all of Latin America. The NY Times articles could have been written in the Pentagon, and probably were.

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Common Dreams:
"House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Tuesday that Congress will not pass a traditional budget resolution this year because long-term deficit questions are better left to President Obama's bipartisan deficit commission, an 18-member panel charged with creating a plan to bring down the deficit to 3 percent of the economy by 2015...

Two of Mr. Obama's own presidential campaign and transition team members last month penned an article entitled, 'Has Obama Created a Social Security 'Death Panel?'

The article's co-authors Nancy Altman and Eric Kingson, now co-directors of the group Social Security Works, point to the clear interest among some commission members in rolling back Social Security...

Altman and Kingson also point out that if the Treasury were to repay the billions it has borrowed from Social Security, the program would pay out the full benefits owed for more than another 25 years."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/06/23-5

-->The cutting of Social Security to pay for the ongoing wars and the bailout of Wall St. is probably the biggest story left untold by this nation's media. It would be too explosive. Citizens would at least see what their own government was doing to them.