"As historians ponder George W. Bush’s disastrous presidency, they may wonder how Republicans perfected a propaganda system that could fool tens of millions of Americans, intimidate Democrats, and transform the vaunted Washington press corps from watchdogs to lapdogs.
To understand this extraordinary development, historians might want to look back at the 1980s and examine the Iran-Contra scandal’s “lost chapter,” a narrative describing how Ronald Reagan’s administration brought CIA tactics to bear domestically to reshape the way Americans perceived the world.
That chapter — which we are publishing here for the first time — was “lost” because Republicans on the congressional Iran-Contra investigation waged a rear-guard fight that traded elimination of the chapter’s key findings for the votes of three moderate GOP senators, giving the final report a patina of bipartisanship."
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/30/9992/
---> A "lost chapter" indicating CIA and private investment in feeding propaganda to the US people? Since the NY Times is tied up feeding propaganda about Iran to the public, it was too busy to cover this story.
---------
"Civil Liberties Groups Sue for Info on Cell Phone Lojacking...The complaint brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation seeks to compel the release of “all records pertaining to [the government’s] policies, procedures and practices followed to obtain mobile phone location information for law enforcement purposes,” especially when that information is sought without a warrant...
Cell providers are required to be able to pinpoint a phone’s location under “Enhanced 911? rules originally intended to aid police and paramedics when a mobile user called 911."
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/04/10100/
--->So, are you being tracked by your cell phone? Without a search warrant? You would think that story would be interesting to readers of the NY Times. But many of the government's invasions of privacy are kept hidden by the country's media, including the NY Times, which didn't cover this Civil Liberties suit.
---------
"In just the last month, a number of major newspapers have announced they are cutting their news staffs:
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel will cut 1,300 full-time employees;
The Tampa Tribune is laying off 21 newsroom employees;
The Daytona Beach News-Journal, up for sale, will slash 99 positions; and
The Los Angeles Times will cut 250 jobs, including 150 newsroom employees. And, the paper said, it will "trim story length."
In all, more than 900 newspaper jobs slashed in just 30 days."
http://www.commondreams.org/donate071708.htm
--->The NY Times reported a story about less news coverage, based on a survey of top editors at 259 newspapers. The story attributed the diminished coverage to financial pressures, but made no reference to the massive cuts in newsroom staff. Another NY Times story did mention 150 newsroom employees being cut from the LA Times.
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Friday, July 25, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Fantasyland Media
"GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba - The U.S. government is blocking the American Civil Liberties Union from paying attorneys representing suspected terrorists held here, insisting that the ACLU must first receive a license from the U.S. Treasury Department before making the payments.
ACLU director Anthony Romero on Tuesday accused the Bush administration of “obstruction of justice” by delaying approval of the license, which the government argues is required under U.S. law because the beneficiaries of the lawyers’ services are foreign terrorists.
“Now the government is stonewalling again by not allowing Americans’ private dollars to be paid to American lawyers to defend civil liberties,” Romero said. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/09/10230/
--- >Although the NY Times has published stories about Guantanamo, this example of US attempting to subvert justice must have seemed to anti- American. The NY Times did not publish the story.
---------
"Madlala-Routledge thinks that the struggle against the occupation is not succeeding (in the West Bank) because of U.S. support for Israel - not the case with apartheid, which international sanctions helped destroy. Here, the racist ideology is also reinforced by religion, which was not the case in South Africa. "Talk about the 'promised land' and the 'chosen people' adds a religious dimension to racism which we did not have."
Equally harsh are the remarks of the editor-in-chief of the Sunday Times of South Africa, Mondli Makhanya, 38. "When you observe from afar you know that things are bad, but you do not know how bad. Nothing can prepare you for the evil we have seen here. In a certain sense, it is worse, worse, worse than everything we endured. The level of the apartheid, the racism and the brutality are worse than the worst period of apartheid.
"The apartheid regime viewed the blacks as inferior; I do not think the Israelis see the Palestinians as human beings at all. How can a human brain engineer this total separation, the separate roads, the checkpoints? What we went through was terrible, terrible, terrible - and yet there is no comparison. Here it is more terrible. We also knew that it would end one day; here there is no end in sight. The end of the tunnel is blacker than black. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1000976.html
--- >The NY Times hardly prints any news critical of human rights abuses by Israel. A story like this would never get by the pro-Israeli censors. True to form, this visit to the West Bank by black South Africans was never covered.
---------
"A US air strike killed 47 civilians, including 39 women and children, as they were traveling to a wedding in Afghanistan, an official inquiry found today. The bride was among the dead.
Another nine people were wounded in Sunday's attack, the head of the Afghan government investigation, Burhanullah Shinwari, said.
Fighter aircraft attacked a group of militants near the village of Kacu in the eastern Nuristan province, but one missile went off course and hit the wedding party, said the provincial police chief spokesman, Ghafor Khan.
"We found that 47 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed in the air strikes and another nine were wounded," said Shinwari, who is also the deputy speaker of Afghanistan's senate. "They were all civilians and had no links with the Taliban or al-Qaida." http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/11/afghanistan.usa
--- >The NY Times covers this story slightly differently. Instead of the head of the Afghan government's investigation (and member of the Afghan senate) being quoted, it is "local officials." Maybe that is why the NY Times reported 27 civilians killed rather than 47.
ACLU director Anthony Romero on Tuesday accused the Bush administration of “obstruction of justice” by delaying approval of the license, which the government argues is required under U.S. law because the beneficiaries of the lawyers’ services are foreign terrorists.
“Now the government is stonewalling again by not allowing Americans’ private dollars to be paid to American lawyers to defend civil liberties,” Romero said. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/09/10230/
--- >Although the NY Times has published stories about Guantanamo, this example of US attempting to subvert justice must have seemed to anti- American. The NY Times did not publish the story.
---------
"Madlala-Routledge thinks that the struggle against the occupation is not succeeding (in the West Bank) because of U.S. support for Israel - not the case with apartheid, which international sanctions helped destroy. Here, the racist ideology is also reinforced by religion, which was not the case in South Africa. "Talk about the 'promised land' and the 'chosen people' adds a religious dimension to racism which we did not have."
Equally harsh are the remarks of the editor-in-chief of the Sunday Times of South Africa, Mondli Makhanya, 38. "When you observe from afar you know that things are bad, but you do not know how bad. Nothing can prepare you for the evil we have seen here. In a certain sense, it is worse, worse, worse than everything we endured. The level of the apartheid, the racism and the brutality are worse than the worst period of apartheid.
"The apartheid regime viewed the blacks as inferior; I do not think the Israelis see the Palestinians as human beings at all. How can a human brain engineer this total separation, the separate roads, the checkpoints? What we went through was terrible, terrible, terrible - and yet there is no comparison. Here it is more terrible. We also knew that it would end one day; here there is no end in sight. The end of the tunnel is blacker than black. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1000976.html
--- >The NY Times hardly prints any news critical of human rights abuses by Israel. A story like this would never get by the pro-Israeli censors. True to form, this visit to the West Bank by black South Africans was never covered.
---------
"A US air strike killed 47 civilians, including 39 women and children, as they were traveling to a wedding in Afghanistan, an official inquiry found today. The bride was among the dead.
Another nine people were wounded in Sunday's attack, the head of the Afghan government investigation, Burhanullah Shinwari, said.
Fighter aircraft attacked a group of militants near the village of Kacu in the eastern Nuristan province, but one missile went off course and hit the wedding party, said the provincial police chief spokesman, Ghafor Khan.
"We found that 47 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed in the air strikes and another nine were wounded," said Shinwari, who is also the deputy speaker of Afghanistan's senate. "They were all civilians and had no links with the Taliban or al-Qaida." http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/11/afghanistan.usa
--- >The NY Times covers this story slightly differently. Instead of the head of the Afghan government's investigation (and member of the Afghan senate) being quoted, it is "local officials." Maybe that is why the NY Times reported 27 civilians killed rather than 47.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Fantasyland Media
In a new analysis released today comparing the conventional military capabilities of the United States and Iran, experts at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation conclude that the current threat posed by Iran is exaggerated by conflating it with Iran's potential, but far from certain, acquisition of a nuclear weapon in the future.
The United States will spend 99 times more on defense than Iran in the upcoming fiscal year. U.S. fighter aircraft outnumber Iranian aircraft 12.4 to 1, and American planes like the F-22 Raptor are far superior to aging Iranian aircraft.
“It is dangerous to allow speculation about what Iran might be able to do in the future to permeate debates about the threat posed by Iran today,” said Carah Ong, Iran Policy Analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. “Conflating future and present threats creates an artificial sense of urgency about what the United States must do to protect itself.”
http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0707-07.htm
--->Such rational talk, however, is missing from the NY Times. It didn't cover this story at all, although it published 58 stories in the last month about Iran and nuclear weapons.
---------
In recent weeks we’ve again seen an escalation of US/Israeli threats to attack Iran. Among many other examples, the House of Representatives is currently considering a resolution promoted by AIPAC that would effectively demand a blockade against Iran. This resolution has over 200 co-sponsors (including our own supposedly antiwar Rep. Kirstin Gillibrand), although a surge of opposition has prevented it from being passed so far. The resolution is H. Con. Res. 362.
Here’s what those promoting military attacks and blockades on Iran don’t want Americans to know: there’s an offer on the table that could resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program and allow both sides to claim victory.
The former US Ambassador to the United Nations Thomas Pickering has made a case for talks with Iran without pre-conditions on multilateral uranium enrichment in Iran. It is even on Youtube.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kGZFrFxVg8A
--->But such stories don't sit well with the NY Times as this country eases into war with Iran. It didn't cover Pickering's statement. Nor has it covered House Res. 362 in the last month. The only "362" found in pages of the NY Times since early June is a story about a Mets and the Phillies game (the batting average of baseball player Damion Easley).
---------
The highly regarded American journalist Seymour Hersh just confirmed that the U.S. Congress authorized a $400-million plan to overthrow Iran’s government and incite ethnic unrest. This column reported a year ago that U.S. and British special forces were operating in Iran, preparing for a massive air campaign. Israel’s destruction of an alleged Syrian reactor last fall was a warning to Iran.
This week a Pentagon official claimed an Israeli attack on Iran was coming before year end.
Other Pentagon and CIA sources say a U.S. attack on Iran is imminent, with or without Israel. The Bush administration is even considering using small tactical nuclear weapons against deeply buried Iranian targets. http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/ 2008/07/05/6077376-sun.php
--->The NY Times reports the story as "Mixed Reactions to Report on U.S. Moves Against Iran," although the only quotes used were those questioning Hersh's research and motives.
The United States will spend 99 times more on defense than Iran in the upcoming fiscal year. U.S. fighter aircraft outnumber Iranian aircraft 12.4 to 1, and American planes like the F-22 Raptor are far superior to aging Iranian aircraft.
“It is dangerous to allow speculation about what Iran might be able to do in the future to permeate debates about the threat posed by Iran today,” said Carah Ong, Iran Policy Analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. “Conflating future and present threats creates an artificial sense of urgency about what the United States must do to protect itself.”
http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0707-07.htm
--->Such rational talk, however, is missing from the NY Times. It didn't cover this story at all, although it published 58 stories in the last month about Iran and nuclear weapons.
---------
In recent weeks we’ve again seen an escalation of US/Israeli threats to attack Iran. Among many other examples, the House of Representatives is currently considering a resolution promoted by AIPAC that would effectively demand a blockade against Iran. This resolution has over 200 co-sponsors (including our own supposedly antiwar Rep. Kirstin Gillibrand), although a surge of opposition has prevented it from being passed so far. The resolution is H. Con. Res. 362.
Here’s what those promoting military attacks and blockades on Iran don’t want Americans to know: there’s an offer on the table that could resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program and allow both sides to claim victory.
The former US Ambassador to the United Nations Thomas Pickering has made a case for talks with Iran without pre-conditions on multilateral uranium enrichment in Iran. It is even on Youtube.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kGZFrFxVg8A
--->But such stories don't sit well with the NY Times as this country eases into war with Iran. It didn't cover Pickering's statement. Nor has it covered House Res. 362 in the last month. The only "362" found in pages of the NY Times since early June is a story about a Mets and the Phillies game (the batting average of baseball player Damion Easley).
---------
The highly regarded American journalist Seymour Hersh just confirmed that the U.S. Congress authorized a $400-million plan to overthrow Iran’s government and incite ethnic unrest. This column reported a year ago that U.S. and British special forces were operating in Iran, preparing for a massive air campaign. Israel’s destruction of an alleged Syrian reactor last fall was a warning to Iran.
This week a Pentagon official claimed an Israeli attack on Iran was coming before year end.
Other Pentagon and CIA sources say a U.S. attack on Iran is imminent, with or without Israel. The Bush administration is even considering using small tactical nuclear weapons against deeply buried Iranian targets. http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/ 2008/07/05/6077376-sun.php
--->The NY Times reports the story as "Mixed Reactions to Report on U.S. Moves Against Iran," although the only quotes used were those questioning Hersh's research and motives.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Fantasyland Media
This nation is grievously and knowingly failing the young men and women who wear the uniform of its military services, and nothing demonstrates that more powerfully than the suicides of soldiers. According to the Army’s own figures, the rate of suicide among active duty personnel nearly doubled between 2001 and 2006. The number then grew even higher in 2007, when suicide ranked third as the cause of death among members of the National Guard...
Veterans, too, are in trouble. In May, the head of the National Institute of Mental Health warned of “a gathering storm.” Thomas Insel told the American Psychiatric Association that one in five of the 1.6 million soldiers who have been deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan (or more than 300,000) suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome or depression. Potentially life-threatening mental disorders, including self-destructive behavior like addiction, raise the prospect, in Insel’s words, of “suicides and psychological mortality trumping combat deaths.”
Repeated deployments to war zones, combined with meager support upon returning home, are leaving many soldiers adrift. Each one who commits suicide, or attempts to (more than 2,000 last year), shows this...
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/30/9976/
---> This from the Boston Globe op-ed. Veteran suicide rates, however, get very little media coverage in the US. Bob Herbert referred to suicide rates in an op-ed column in the NY Times on June 24. Where are the news stories?
---------
Not only did the four energy giants - BP, Exxon Mobil, Shell and Total - write their own contracts with the Iraqi government, an unheard-of practice: they have also reportedly secured rights of first refusal on the far more lucrative 30-year production contracts expected once a new US-sponsored oil law is passed, allowing a wholesale western takeover...
It's a similar story when it comes to the future of the US occupation itself. The last thing on anyone's mind, we were told when the tanks rolled in, was permanent US control, let alone the re-colonisation of Iraq... But five years on, George Bush and Dick Cheney are putting the screws on their Green Zone government to sign a secret deal for indefinite military occupation, which would effectively reduce Iraq to a long-term vassal state.
In April, I was leaked a draft copy of this "strategic framework agreement", intended to replace the existing UN mandate at the end of the year. Details of the document, which came from a source at the heart of the Iraqi government, were published in the Guardian - including indefinite authorisation for the US to "conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security". Since then, much more has emerged about the accompanying "status of forces agreement" the US administration wants to impose: including more than 50 US military bases, full control of Iraqi airspace, legal immunity for US military and private security firms, and the right to conduct armed operations throughout the country without consulting the Iraqi government.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/26/usforeignpolicy.usnationalsecurity
---> Our new colony, Iraq? The US media keeps us in the dark about the workings of our own empire.
---------
Cuba has approved what is believed to be the world's first registered lung cancer vaccine and is offering it to Cuban and foreign patients in its hospitals.
The therapeutic vaccine CimaVax EGF extends life with few side effects, and is another step in Cuba's expertise in biotechnology. It was unveiled on Monday at Havana's centre of molecular immunology.
It has been shown to boost survival rates by an average of four to five months, and in some cases much longer. It does not prevent lung cancer. Unlike chemotherapy, CimaVax EGF is said to have few side effects because it is a modified protein which attacks only cancer cells.
"It's the first such vaccine registered in the world," said Gisela González, who headed the project begun in 1992. The drug is in various clinical trials, some in Canada and Britain, and is expected to be approved next in Peru.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jun/26/cancer.cuba
---> You would think a breakthrough in cancer would be a big news item in the US. Not with a media that does the government's bidding.
---------
Wednesday, July 2 on WAMC/NPR
How great that NPR is finally reporting on the health coverage in other developed countries, something few Americans know about. Today's program was an excellent analysis of Germany's healthcare system that covers all citizens, even offers dental, and costs half of what we pay here.
The reason? To NPR, it is because German doctors are paid less! Not a word is spoken about the massive costs imposed by private insurance companies in this country. There was mention of higher "administrative" costs in the US, but no reference to why that might be.
What a wonderful exercise in pretending to talk about the healthcare crisis without exposing on the major cause of it. Sort of like describing the fall of Poland without mentioning the German Army. Just shoddy journalism? No, this is corporate controlled media.
Veterans, too, are in trouble. In May, the head of the National Institute of Mental Health warned of “a gathering storm.” Thomas Insel told the American Psychiatric Association that one in five of the 1.6 million soldiers who have been deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan (or more than 300,000) suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome or depression. Potentially life-threatening mental disorders, including self-destructive behavior like addiction, raise the prospect, in Insel’s words, of “suicides and psychological mortality trumping combat deaths.”
Repeated deployments to war zones, combined with meager support upon returning home, are leaving many soldiers adrift. Each one who commits suicide, or attempts to (more than 2,000 last year), shows this...
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/30/9976/
---> This from the Boston Globe op-ed. Veteran suicide rates, however, get very little media coverage in the US. Bob Herbert referred to suicide rates in an op-ed column in the NY Times on June 24. Where are the news stories?
---------
Not only did the four energy giants - BP, Exxon Mobil, Shell and Total - write their own contracts with the Iraqi government, an unheard-of practice: they have also reportedly secured rights of first refusal on the far more lucrative 30-year production contracts expected once a new US-sponsored oil law is passed, allowing a wholesale western takeover...
It's a similar story when it comes to the future of the US occupation itself. The last thing on anyone's mind, we were told when the tanks rolled in, was permanent US control, let alone the re-colonisation of Iraq... But five years on, George Bush and Dick Cheney are putting the screws on their Green Zone government to sign a secret deal for indefinite military occupation, which would effectively reduce Iraq to a long-term vassal state.
In April, I was leaked a draft copy of this "strategic framework agreement", intended to replace the existing UN mandate at the end of the year. Details of the document, which came from a source at the heart of the Iraqi government, were published in the Guardian - including indefinite authorisation for the US to "conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security". Since then, much more has emerged about the accompanying "status of forces agreement" the US administration wants to impose: including more than 50 US military bases, full control of Iraqi airspace, legal immunity for US military and private security firms, and the right to conduct armed operations throughout the country without consulting the Iraqi government.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/26/usforeignpolicy.usnationalsecurity
---> Our new colony, Iraq? The US media keeps us in the dark about the workings of our own empire.
---------
Cuba has approved what is believed to be the world's first registered lung cancer vaccine and is offering it to Cuban and foreign patients in its hospitals.
The therapeutic vaccine CimaVax EGF extends life with few side effects, and is another step in Cuba's expertise in biotechnology. It was unveiled on Monday at Havana's centre of molecular immunology.
It has been shown to boost survival rates by an average of four to five months, and in some cases much longer. It does not prevent lung cancer. Unlike chemotherapy, CimaVax EGF is said to have few side effects because it is a modified protein which attacks only cancer cells.
"It's the first such vaccine registered in the world," said Gisela González, who headed the project begun in 1992. The drug is in various clinical trials, some in Canada and Britain, and is expected to be approved next in Peru.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jun/26/cancer.cuba
---> You would think a breakthrough in cancer would be a big news item in the US. Not with a media that does the government's bidding.
---------
Wednesday, July 2 on WAMC/NPR
How great that NPR is finally reporting on the health coverage in other developed countries, something few Americans know about. Today's program was an excellent analysis of Germany's healthcare system that covers all citizens, even offers dental, and costs half of what we pay here.
The reason? To NPR, it is because German doctors are paid less! Not a word is spoken about the massive costs imposed by private insurance companies in this country. There was mention of higher "administrative" costs in the US, but no reference to why that might be.
What a wonderful exercise in pretending to talk about the healthcare crisis without exposing on the major cause of it. Sort of like describing the fall of Poland without mentioning the German Army. Just shoddy journalism? No, this is corporate controlled media.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Fantasyland Media
According to data compiled by Andrew Tyndall, a television consultant who monitors the three network evening newscasts, coverage of Iraq has been “massively scaled back this year.” Almost halfway into 2008, the three newscasts have shown 181 weekday minutes of Iraq coverage, compared with 1,157 minutes for all of 2007. The “CBS Evening News” has devoted the fewest minutes to Iraq, 51, versus 55 minutes on ABC’s “World News” and 74 minutes on “NBC Nightly News.” (The average evening newscast is 22 minutes long.)
CBS News no longer stations a single full-time correspondent in Iraq, where some 150,000 United States troops are deployed.
Journalists at all three American television networks with evening newscasts expressed worries that their news organizations would withdraw from the Iraqi capital after the November presidential election. They spoke only on the condition of anonymity in order to avoid offending their employers.
--->This was a story from the NY Times, which does not hesitate to criticize TV news coverage. For the average person in the United States, the war has just gone away. Except for the patriotic advertising from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and the Army Advantage Fund. Why have the news any different than the advertising anyway?
---------
The UN children's fund UNICEF has severed ties with an Israeli billionaire and financial backer due to his suspected involvement in building settlements in the West Bank, UNICEF said on Friday.
Lev Leviev, a real estate and diamond mogul who is one of the richest men in Israel, has supported UNICEF with direct contributions and indirectly by sponsoring at least one UNICEF fund-raiser.
UNICEF decided to review its relationship with Leviev after a campaign ... found "at least a reasonable grounds for suspecting" that Leviev companies were building settlements in Palestinian territory, a UNICEF official said.
--->The NY Times publishes only positive stories about Lev Leviev, an important diamond merchant and real estate developer in New York. It didn't cover this story, although the Israeli paper, Haaretz did.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/tags/index.jhtml?tag=UNICEF
---------
WASHINGTON - A Cambridge-based human rights organization said it has found medical evidence supporting the claims of 11 former detainees who were allegedly tortured while in American custody between 2001 and 2004, in what a former top US military investigator said amounts to evidence of war crimes.
Medical evaluations of the former inmates found injuries consistent with the alleged abuse, including the psychological effects of sensory deprivation and forced nudity as well as signs of “severe physical and sexual assault,” Physicians for Human Rights said in a report scheduled for release today.
The report also alleges that in four of the cases, American health professionals appeared to have been complicit by denying the detainees medical care and observing the abuse but making no effort to stop it - charges that, if true, represent gross violations of medical ethics.
--->Few media outlets in this country covered this story. The NY Times didn't, although the Boston Globe did. Perhaps the story is too anti-American for the general public to read.
---------
A Senate investigation has concluded that top Pentagon officials began assembling lists of harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002 for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and that those officials later cited memos from field commanders to suggest that the proposals originated far down the chain of command, according to congressional sources briefed on the findings.
The sources said that memos and other evidence obtained during the inquiry show that officials in the office of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld started to research the use of waterboarding, stress positions, sensory deprivation and other practices in July 2002, months before memos from commanders at the detention facility in Cuba requested permission to use those measures on suspected terrorists.
--->The NY Times prefers a lighter touch on such stories. Instead of accusing the Pentagon of torture, the Times presents them as unsure of the right direction. The NY Times story is entitled: "Notes Show Confusion on Interrogation Methods."
----------
--->The NY Times gets this week's award for the most effective propaganda images. In a recent story about the truce between Israel and Hamas, there are two pictures, one for each side. The Palestinians are in black hoods carrying rocket launchers. And the Israeli soldiers? They are playing volleyball. Masterful pro-Israeli propaganda. Something Isabel Kershner, the NY Times reporter with Zionist ties, is very good at.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/world/middleeast/20mideast.html?hp
CBS News no longer stations a single full-time correspondent in Iraq, where some 150,000 United States troops are deployed.
Journalists at all three American television networks with evening newscasts expressed worries that their news organizations would withdraw from the Iraqi capital after the November presidential election. They spoke only on the condition of anonymity in order to avoid offending their employers.
--->This was a story from the NY Times, which does not hesitate to criticize TV news coverage. For the average person in the United States, the war has just gone away. Except for the patriotic advertising from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and the Army Advantage Fund. Why have the news any different than the advertising anyway?
---------
The UN children's fund UNICEF has severed ties with an Israeli billionaire and financial backer due to his suspected involvement in building settlements in the West Bank, UNICEF said on Friday.
Lev Leviev, a real estate and diamond mogul who is one of the richest men in Israel, has supported UNICEF with direct contributions and indirectly by sponsoring at least one UNICEF fund-raiser.
UNICEF decided to review its relationship with Leviev after a campaign ... found "at least a reasonable grounds for suspecting" that Leviev companies were building settlements in Palestinian territory, a UNICEF official said.
--->The NY Times publishes only positive stories about Lev Leviev, an important diamond merchant and real estate developer in New York. It didn't cover this story, although the Israeli paper, Haaretz did.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/tags/index.jhtml?tag=UNICEF
---------
WASHINGTON - A Cambridge-based human rights organization said it has found medical evidence supporting the claims of 11 former detainees who were allegedly tortured while in American custody between 2001 and 2004, in what a former top US military investigator said amounts to evidence of war crimes.
Medical evaluations of the former inmates found injuries consistent with the alleged abuse, including the psychological effects of sensory deprivation and forced nudity as well as signs of “severe physical and sexual assault,” Physicians for Human Rights said in a report scheduled for release today.
The report also alleges that in four of the cases, American health professionals appeared to have been complicit by denying the detainees medical care and observing the abuse but making no effort to stop it - charges that, if true, represent gross violations of medical ethics.
--->Few media outlets in this country covered this story. The NY Times didn't, although the Boston Globe did. Perhaps the story is too anti-American for the general public to read.
---------
A Senate investigation has concluded that top Pentagon officials began assembling lists of harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002 for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and that those officials later cited memos from field commanders to suggest that the proposals originated far down the chain of command, according to congressional sources briefed on the findings.
The sources said that memos and other evidence obtained during the inquiry show that officials in the office of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld started to research the use of waterboarding, stress positions, sensory deprivation and other practices in July 2002, months before memos from commanders at the detention facility in Cuba requested permission to use those measures on suspected terrorists.
--->The NY Times prefers a lighter touch on such stories. Instead of accusing the Pentagon of torture, the Times presents them as unsure of the right direction. The NY Times story is entitled: "Notes Show Confusion on Interrogation Methods."
----------
--->The NY Times gets this week's award for the most effective propaganda images. In a recent story about the truce between Israel and Hamas, there are two pictures, one for each side. The Palestinians are in black hoods carrying rocket launchers. And the Israeli soldiers? They are playing volleyball. Masterful pro-Israeli propaganda. Something Isabel Kershner, the NY Times reporter with Zionist ties, is very good at.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/world/middleeast/20mideast.html?hp
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Fantasyland Media
Last weekend’s National Conference on Media Reform in Minneapolis was a freewheeling, articulate, committed gathering of activists, policy wonks and everyday citizens dedicated to the idea that there can be no real democracy without a media democracy — independent reporting from diverse communities free of the interference and spin of government and big business...
Some 3500 assembled to participate in panels and hear a range of speakers that included my colleague Bill Moyers, Senator Byron Dorgan, Center for Internet and Society founder Lawrence Lessig, Naomi Klein, Louise Erdrich and Dan Rather. Participants grappled with mobilizing grass roots movements around such hot button issues as continuing, big media consolidation and net neutrality — two words perhaps more elegantly phrased as “Internet freedom” keeping cyberspace open and accessible to all, regardless of income.
--->That story is from Common Dreams. The major sources of US media didn't even cover this story of emerging media reform in America. There was nothing on it in the NY Times.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/13/9603/
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Former Democratic presidential contender, Dennis Kucinich, has called for the impeachment of George W Bush claiming that the president set out to deceive the nation, and violated his oath of office with the Iraq war.
The Ohio representative yesterday introduced 35 articles of impeachment against Bush on the floor of the US House of Representatives. Kucinich unveiled a list of alleged illegal and improper acts by Bush, including war crimes.
He accused Bush of executing a "calculated and wide-ranging strategy" to deceive citizens and Congress into believing that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States.
He went on to say that Bush and Cheney lied to Congress and the American public about the reasons for invading Iraq in 2003 and abused their offices in order to conduct the "War on Terror" following the 9/11 attacks.
--->The NY Times, like most of the Democratic Party, remains uninterested in impeachment. America's newspaper of record didn't cover this story, although it gave wide coverage to Bill Clinton's impeachment for conducting a sex act in the White House. That was sex. This is the preservation of our Constitution, just not as important a story.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article3786591.ece
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FALLUJAH - Babies born in Fallujah are showing illnesses and deformities on a scale never seen before, doctors and residents say.
The new cases, and the number of deaths among children, have risen after “special weaponry” was used in the two massive bombing campaigns in Fallujah in 2004.
After denying it at first, the Pentagon admitted in November 2005 that white phosphorous, a restricted incendiary weapon, was used a year earlier in Fallujah.
In addition, depleted uranium (DU) munitions, which contain low-level radioactive waste, were used heavily in Fallujah. The Pentagon admits to having used 1,200 tonnes of DU in Iraq thus far.
Many doctors believe DU to be the cause of a severe increase in the incidence of cancer in Iraq, as well as among U.S. veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War and through the current occupation.
--->The NY Times has had one piece on depleted uranium in Iraq since 2005, and that was in a letter to the editor. With determined investigative reporting like that, who needs media reform?
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/12/9567/
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By now, billions have evidently gone into single massive mega-bases like the U.S. air base at Balad, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. It's a "16-square-mile fortress," housing perhaps 40,000 U.S. troops, contractors, special ops types, and Defense Department employees. As the Washington Post's Tom Ricks, who visited Balad back in 2006, pointed out - in a rare piece on one of our mega-bases - it's essentially "a small American town smack in the middle of the most hostile part of Iraq." Back then, air traffic at the base was already being compared to Chicago's O'Hare International or London's Heathrow - and keep in mind that Balad has been steadily upgraded ever since to support an "air surge" that, unlike the President's 2007 "surge" of 30,000 ground troops, has yet to end.
--->The American permanent occupation of Iraq is the big story that always gets left out of our media. Occupation is the forbidden subject, be it in Gaza, the West Bank or Iraq. There is no freedom of the press in America when it comes to reporting on the empire.
http://www.americanempireproject.com/
Some 3500 assembled to participate in panels and hear a range of speakers that included my colleague Bill Moyers, Senator Byron Dorgan, Center for Internet and Society founder Lawrence Lessig, Naomi Klein, Louise Erdrich and Dan Rather. Participants grappled with mobilizing grass roots movements around such hot button issues as continuing, big media consolidation and net neutrality — two words perhaps more elegantly phrased as “Internet freedom” keeping cyberspace open and accessible to all, regardless of income.
--->That story is from Common Dreams. The major sources of US media didn't even cover this story of emerging media reform in America. There was nothing on it in the NY Times.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/13/9603/
---------
Former Democratic presidential contender, Dennis Kucinich, has called for the impeachment of George W Bush claiming that the president set out to deceive the nation, and violated his oath of office with the Iraq war.
The Ohio representative yesterday introduced 35 articles of impeachment against Bush on the floor of the US House of Representatives. Kucinich unveiled a list of alleged illegal and improper acts by Bush, including war crimes.
He accused Bush of executing a "calculated and wide-ranging strategy" to deceive citizens and Congress into believing that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States.
He went on to say that Bush and Cheney lied to Congress and the American public about the reasons for invading Iraq in 2003 and abused their offices in order to conduct the "War on Terror" following the 9/11 attacks.
--->The NY Times, like most of the Democratic Party, remains uninterested in impeachment. America's newspaper of record didn't cover this story, although it gave wide coverage to Bill Clinton's impeachment for conducting a sex act in the White House. That was sex. This is the preservation of our Constitution, just not as important a story.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article3786591.ece
---------
FALLUJAH - Babies born in Fallujah are showing illnesses and deformities on a scale never seen before, doctors and residents say.
The new cases, and the number of deaths among children, have risen after “special weaponry” was used in the two massive bombing campaigns in Fallujah in 2004.
After denying it at first, the Pentagon admitted in November 2005 that white phosphorous, a restricted incendiary weapon, was used a year earlier in Fallujah.
In addition, depleted uranium (DU) munitions, which contain low-level radioactive waste, were used heavily in Fallujah. The Pentagon admits to having used 1,200 tonnes of DU in Iraq thus far.
Many doctors believe DU to be the cause of a severe increase in the incidence of cancer in Iraq, as well as among U.S. veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War and through the current occupation.
--->The NY Times has had one piece on depleted uranium in Iraq since 2005, and that was in a letter to the editor. With determined investigative reporting like that, who needs media reform?
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/12/9567/
---------
By now, billions have evidently gone into single massive mega-bases like the U.S. air base at Balad, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. It's a "16-square-mile fortress," housing perhaps 40,000 U.S. troops, contractors, special ops types, and Defense Department employees. As the Washington Post's Tom Ricks, who visited Balad back in 2006, pointed out - in a rare piece on one of our mega-bases - it's essentially "a small American town smack in the middle of the most hostile part of Iraq." Back then, air traffic at the base was already being compared to Chicago's O'Hare International or London's Heathrow - and keep in mind that Balad has been steadily upgraded ever since to support an "air surge" that, unlike the President's 2007 "surge" of 30,000 ground troops, has yet to end.
--->The American permanent occupation of Iraq is the big story that always gets left out of our media. Occupation is the forbidden subject, be it in Gaza, the West Bank or Iraq. There is no freedom of the press in America when it comes to reporting on the empire.
http://www.americanempireproject.com/
Friday, June 13, 2008
Fantasyland Media
Desmond Tutu, the South African Nobel laureate, called for an end to the "abominable" Israeli blockade of Gaza yesterday and condemned a "culture of impunity" on both sides of the conflict.
Tutu was in Gaza on a three-day mission, sent by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the deaths of 18 Palestinians from a single family, who were killed by a wave of Israeli artillery shells in Beit Hanoun in November 2006. Tutu said he was in a "state of shock" after seeing Gaza and taking detailed witness testimony from survivors of the incident.
"We saw a forlorn, deserted, desolate and eerie place," he said. "The entire situation is abominable. We believe that ordinary Israeli citizens would not support this blockade, this siege, if they knew what it really meant to ordinary people like themselves." The international community was also at fault, he said, for its "silence and complicity".
-This story from The Guardian. The NY Times, of course, is part of of the silence and complicity. It didn't carry this story at all, although other statements by Desmond Tutu about violence in South Africa were covered.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/30/israelandthepalestinians.middleeast
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FORMER US president Jimmy Carter today claimed Europe should be "embarrassed" by the way it had allowed Israel to treat Palestine. Mr Carter used a visit to Wales to spell out how he thinks Britain can help bring peace to the Middle East.
Speaking on a visit to the Hay Festival, the Democrat, who led Americans from 1977 to 1981, said: “They should be encouraging the formation of a unity government that includes (Palestinian political parties) Hamas and Fatah.
“They should be encouraging Hamas to have a ceasefire in Gaza alone as a first step, with Israel as it has announced in the past it wanted to.”
He added: "It's a horrible punishment of them and to see Europe go along with this, I think is embarrassing. It should be embarrassing. There's no reason to treat people this way."
-This story is from IC Wales in the UK. Carter's statements about Gaza are completely ignored by the NY Times. Two references to Carter were made recently in the NY Times, but both refer to the history of Camp David. The Israeli lobby works hand in hand with America's premier newspaper, making sure you don't hear about Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians.
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/05/25/carter-blasts-eu-over-palestine-91466-20972824/
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GENEVA - As the 61st annual World Health Assembly gathers in Geneva this week, a major issue that the world’s governments are struggling with is patents on medicines, and whether the option to digress from a strict patent system should be endorsed by the United Nations World Health Organisation (WHO).
The United States is the sole country obstructing the ability of the WHO to push for a more flexible intellectual property system, according to several sources. This issue is being negotiated at the WHO’s Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (IGWG).
According to the WHO’s website, “developing countries remain largely excluded from the benefits of modern science.” IGWG’s mandate is “to prepare a global strategy and plan of action on essential health research to address conditions affecting developing countries disproportionately.”
-The NY Times, a staunch defender of US pharmaceutical companies, didn't carry this story.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/22/9127/
----------
This week the Guardian broke the news that an upcoming report from Reprieve (human rights organization) documents the use of as many as 17 American warships as floating prisons to hold detainees in the “war on terror”. The report apparently documents not only descriptions of detentions at sea from released Guantánamo detainees, most of whom presumably were held in the early days of the “war on terror”, but also more recent detentions on US warships, particularly in the Horn of Africa, a current hot spot for disappearances carried out by the US military and intelligence agencies.
The report also claims that in the last two years there have been several hundred renditions — another practice thought to have ceased after President Bush declared an end to it in 2006.
-When this story finally breaks in the US, it will not be because of the NY Times, which has refused to run this story.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/09/9515/
Tutu was in Gaza on a three-day mission, sent by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the deaths of 18 Palestinians from a single family, who were killed by a wave of Israeli artillery shells in Beit Hanoun in November 2006. Tutu said he was in a "state of shock" after seeing Gaza and taking detailed witness testimony from survivors of the incident.
"We saw a forlorn, deserted, desolate and eerie place," he said. "The entire situation is abominable. We believe that ordinary Israeli citizens would not support this blockade, this siege, if they knew what it really meant to ordinary people like themselves." The international community was also at fault, he said, for its "silence and complicity".
-This story from The Guardian. The NY Times, of course, is part of of the silence and complicity. It didn't carry this story at all, although other statements by Desmond Tutu about violence in South Africa were covered.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/30/israelandthepalestinians.middleeast
----------
FORMER US president Jimmy Carter today claimed Europe should be "embarrassed" by the way it had allowed Israel to treat Palestine. Mr Carter used a visit to Wales to spell out how he thinks Britain can help bring peace to the Middle East.
Speaking on a visit to the Hay Festival, the Democrat, who led Americans from 1977 to 1981, said: “They should be encouraging the formation of a unity government that includes (Palestinian political parties) Hamas and Fatah.
“They should be encouraging Hamas to have a ceasefire in Gaza alone as a first step, with Israel as it has announced in the past it wanted to.”
He added: "It's a horrible punishment of them and to see Europe go along with this, I think is embarrassing. It should be embarrassing. There's no reason to treat people this way."
-This story is from IC Wales in the UK. Carter's statements about Gaza are completely ignored by the NY Times. Two references to Carter were made recently in the NY Times, but both refer to the history of Camp David. The Israeli lobby works hand in hand with America's premier newspaper, making sure you don't hear about Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians.
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/05/25/carter-blasts-eu-over-palestine-91466-20972824/
----------
GENEVA - As the 61st annual World Health Assembly gathers in Geneva this week, a major issue that the world’s governments are struggling with is patents on medicines, and whether the option to digress from a strict patent system should be endorsed by the United Nations World Health Organisation (WHO).
The United States is the sole country obstructing the ability of the WHO to push for a more flexible intellectual property system, according to several sources. This issue is being negotiated at the WHO’s Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (IGWG).
According to the WHO’s website, “developing countries remain largely excluded from the benefits of modern science.” IGWG’s mandate is “to prepare a global strategy and plan of action on essential health research to address conditions affecting developing countries disproportionately.”
-The NY Times, a staunch defender of US pharmaceutical companies, didn't carry this story.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/22/9127/
----------
This week the Guardian broke the news that an upcoming report from Reprieve (human rights organization) documents the use of as many as 17 American warships as floating prisons to hold detainees in the “war on terror”. The report apparently documents not only descriptions of detentions at sea from released Guantánamo detainees, most of whom presumably were held in the early days of the “war on terror”, but also more recent detentions on US warships, particularly in the Horn of Africa, a current hot spot for disappearances carried out by the US military and intelligence agencies.
The report also claims that in the last two years there have been several hundred renditions — another practice thought to have ceased after President Bush declared an end to it in 2006.
-When this story finally breaks in the US, it will not be because of the NY Times, which has refused to run this story.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/09/9515/
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