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.
------
Guardian UK:
"Vietnamese general behind victories over French and US dies aged 102. Giap went on to defeat the US-backed South Vietnam government in April 1975, reuniting a country that had been split into communist and non-communist states...
'No other wars for national liberation were as fierce or caused as many losses as this war,' Giap told the Associated Press in 2005 in one of his last-known interviews. ... 'But we still fought because for Vietnam, nothing is more precious than independence and freedom.' "
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/vietnam-general-giap-dies
-->To The NY Times, however, there was no victory over the US, and General Giap had only "fought a superpower to a stalemate." Moreover, it was the good general that had caused all the carnage: "his willingness to sustain staggering losses against superior American firepower was a large reason the war dragged on as long as it did, costing more than 2.5 million lives — 58,000 of them American." The US military wasn't responsible for the slaughter; it was the general who fought so hard to rid Vietnam of the invaders!
Noam Chomsky predicted as much in 1982: "American imperialism has suffered a stunning defeat in Indochina. But the same forces are engaged In another war against a much less resilient enemy, the American people. Here, the prospects for success are much greater. The battleground is ideological. not military. At stake are the lessons to be drawn from the American war In Indochina; the outcome will determine the course and character of new imperial ventures."
------
Guardian UK:
"Radioactive Wastewater From Fracking Is Found in a Pennsylvania Stream. ...
Recently, a group of Duke University scientists decided to do some testing. They contacted the owners of one treatment plant, the Josephine Brine Treatment Facility on Blacklick Creek in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, but, 'when we tried to work with them, it was very difficult getting ahold of the right person,' says Avner Vengosh, an Earth scientist from Duke. 'Eventually, we just went and tested water right from a public area downstream.'
Their analyses, made on water samples collected repeatedly over the course of two years, were even more concerning than we’d feared. As published today in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, they found high concentrations of the element radium, a highly radioactive substance. The concentrations were roughly 200 times higher than background levels. In addition, amounts of chloride and bromide in the water were two to ten times greater than normal.
'Even if, today, you completely stopped disposal of the wastewater,' Vengosh says, there’s enough contamination built up that 'you’d still end up with a place that the U.S. would consider a radioactive waste site.' "
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2013/10/radioactive-wastewater-from-fracking-is-found-in-a-pennsylvania-stream/
-->The NY Times doesn't do many fracking stories, especially if they involve contamination and radioactivity.
------
Guardian UK:
"An octogenarian Roman Catholic nun, jailed for breaking into a nuclear weapons facility in Tennessee, is facing up to 30 years in prison after losing her plea for the most serious charge to be dropped.
Sister Megan Rice, 83, and two fellow peace activists staged a non-violent protest to symbolically disarm the Oak Ridge Y-12 nuclear weapons facility, home to the nation's main supply of highly enriched uranium, in July. They were initially charged with trespassing, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison, but felony charges quickly followed. They were eventually convicted of interfering with national security and damage to federal property.
This week, a judge denied a motion to acquit them of interfering with national security under the sabotage section of the US criminal code, which carries the harshest prison sentence of up to 20 years."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/nun-protesting-nuclear-weapons-denied-appeal
-->The NY Times does a lot of "People Magazine" stories about those in the news. The jailing of an 83 year old Roman Catholic nun and peace activist didn't make the cut.
Friday, October 11, 2013
Thursday, October 03, 2013
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 to keep from the public eye.
------
Guardian UK:
"The National Security Agency is storing the online metadata of millions of internet users for up to a year, regardless of whether or not they are persons of interest to the agency, top secret documents reveal.
Metadata provides a record of almost anything a user does online, from browsing history – such as map searches and websites visited – to account details, email activity, and even some account passwords. This can be used to build a detailed picture of an individual's life.
The Obama administration has repeatedly stated that the NSA keeps only the content of messages and communications of people it is intentionally targeting – but internal documents reveal the agency retains vast amounts of metadata.
An introductory guide to digital network intelligence for NSA field agents, included in documents disclosed by former contractor Edward Snowden, describes the agency's metadata repository, codenamed Marina. Any computer metadata picked up by NSA collection systems is routed to the Marina database, the guide explains."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/30/nsa-americans-metadata-year-documents
-->For The NY Times, "Marina" is fashion model Marina Krtinic, who has hair that is "proudly, unconventionally frizzy." Our president lying to the American people isn't as newsworthy as Marina's provocative hair style, according to America's premier newspaper.
------
Common Dreams:
"NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's words were entered as testimony at the European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee in Brussels on Monday.
'...A culture of secrecy has denied our societies the opportunity to determine the appropriate balance between the human right of privacy and the governmental interest in investigation. These are not decisions that should be made for a people, but only by the people after full, informed, and fearless debate. Yet public debate is not possible without public knowledge, and in my country, the cost for one in my position of returning public knowledge to public hands has been persecution and exile. If we are to enjoy such debates in the future, we cannot rely upon individual sacrifice. We must create better channels for people of conscience to inform not only trusted agents of government, but independent representatives of the public outside of government.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/01-8
-->Why wouldn't The NY Times print this short testimony by Edward Snowden? Does our newspaper of record think his words aren't relevant in the very country that is spying on all the world's internet communications? The lack of debate on civil liberties in America is a byproduct of our mass media's capitulation to governmental pressures.
------
Guardian UK:
"Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider.
It doesn't take much to fire up Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s and who was once described by the Republican party as "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist".
He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.
Don't even get him started on the New York Times which, he says, spends 'so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would' – or the death of Osama bin Laden. 'Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true,' he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011."
http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2013/sep/27/seymour-hersh-obama-nsa-american-media
-->Seymour Hersh is one of America's best know journalist, winner of the Pulitzer Prize when he exposed the My Lai massacre. All those credentials don't help him much when he is saying the wrong things about the US media. The NY Times didn't cover this story, but the NY Daily News did, only to leave out all his comments about the pathetic state of the US media.
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.
------
Guardian UK:
"The National Security Agency is storing the online metadata of millions of internet users for up to a year, regardless of whether or not they are persons of interest to the agency, top secret documents reveal.
Metadata provides a record of almost anything a user does online, from browsing history – such as map searches and websites visited – to account details, email activity, and even some account passwords. This can be used to build a detailed picture of an individual's life.
The Obama administration has repeatedly stated that the NSA keeps only the content of messages and communications of people it is intentionally targeting – but internal documents reveal the agency retains vast amounts of metadata.
An introductory guide to digital network intelligence for NSA field agents, included in documents disclosed by former contractor Edward Snowden, describes the agency's metadata repository, codenamed Marina. Any computer metadata picked up by NSA collection systems is routed to the Marina database, the guide explains."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/30/nsa-americans-metadata-year-documents
-->For The NY Times, "Marina" is fashion model Marina Krtinic, who has hair that is "proudly, unconventionally frizzy." Our president lying to the American people isn't as newsworthy as Marina's provocative hair style, according to America's premier newspaper.
------
Common Dreams:
"NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's words were entered as testimony at the European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee in Brussels on Monday.
'...A culture of secrecy has denied our societies the opportunity to determine the appropriate balance between the human right of privacy and the governmental interest in investigation. These are not decisions that should be made for a people, but only by the people after full, informed, and fearless debate. Yet public debate is not possible without public knowledge, and in my country, the cost for one in my position of returning public knowledge to public hands has been persecution and exile. If we are to enjoy such debates in the future, we cannot rely upon individual sacrifice. We must create better channels for people of conscience to inform not only trusted agents of government, but independent representatives of the public outside of government.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/01-8
-->Why wouldn't The NY Times print this short testimony by Edward Snowden? Does our newspaper of record think his words aren't relevant in the very country that is spying on all the world's internet communications? The lack of debate on civil liberties in America is a byproduct of our mass media's capitulation to governmental pressures.
------
Guardian UK:
"Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider.
It doesn't take much to fire up Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s and who was once described by the Republican party as "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist".
He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.
Don't even get him started on the New York Times which, he says, spends 'so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would' – or the death of Osama bin Laden. 'Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true,' he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011."
http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2013/sep/27/seymour-hersh-obama-nsa-american-media
-->Seymour Hersh is one of America's best know journalist, winner of the Pulitzer Prize when he exposed the My Lai massacre. All those credentials don't help him much when he is saying the wrong things about the US media. The NY Times didn't cover this story, but the NY Daily News did, only to leave out all his comments about the pathetic state of the US media.
Friday, September 27, 2013
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 to keep from the public eye.
------
NY Times:
There are all sorts of ways to promote a war and The NY Times is familiar with them all. One way is to offer highly sympathetic background stories on some high officials in the government who are pushing for war.
The recent story on Samantha Power, "A New U.S. Player, Put on World Stage by Syria" is a perfect example. The NY Times falls all over itself to extol her as a courageous fighter for human rights in the world. There is no end to positive quotes about her idealism and good intentions. The only question our newspaper of record can come up with is wether the "untested Ms. Power will be tough enough."
What is left out? Certainly any criticism of her incessant push for a US attack on Syria. Why didn't The NY Times include anyone challenging a new war in the Middle East? Also, The NY Times raises no questions about how her human rights campaigns in the past have dovetailed perfectly with the Pentagon's military ambitions (Libya, Sudan, the Balkans, and Darfur).
Added to all this is a little bit of glamour for this imperialist warmonger. "She is already kind of a celebrity there." The NY Times managed to portray Kissinger as a celebrity as he was bombing Southeast Asia. It is an old formula, and The NY Times has it down to a science.
------
RT News:
"In a furious critique that opened the UN's General Assembly meeting Tuesday immediately before President Obama took the podium, Brazil's president Dilma Rousseff blasted U.S. secret surveillance programs for violating her country's national sovereignty, attacking its democracy, and infringing on the human rights of its citizens.
'In the absence of the right to privacy, there can be no true freedom of expression and opinion, and therefore no effective democracy,' she declared in her strongest statements yet in the fallout following revelations that the NSA had directly spied on Rousseff. 'In the absence of the respect for sovereignty, there is no basis for the relationship among nations.'
'Tampering in such a manner in the lives and affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and, as such, it is an affront to the principles that should otherwise govern relations among countries, especially among friendly nations,' she charged."
-->The NY Times along with most US media did not cover this exceptional speech, but chose to bury it in a comment (paragraph 17) on Obama's talk to the UN.
------
Common Dreams:
"Most people have probably heard about the Wall Street efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare. There is a vast list of organizations like Campaign to Fix the Debt, the Can Kicks Back, Third Way, and many more that have as a central agenda item cutting back or privatizing Social Security and Medicare. When we hear one of these organizations tell us these programs should be cut it is not a surprise.
The question is why do mainstream news outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post use their news sections to tell the same stories? Last week when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued new long-range budget projections both papers were quick to ignore the numbers and to tell readers that we have to cut Social Security and Medicare.
The reason why this coverage was so bizarre is that it is not news that Social Security and Medicare will cost more in the decades ahead. We actually have known about the rising cost of these programs for about fifty years. ..."
-->All the elites in Washington as well as the US media want to use the latest fiscal crisis to cut Social Security. It is the continuation of the class wars being waged by the very richest against the rest of the country. The campaign is full of half truths, and reveals the propaganda role of the US media as clearly as the push for war against Syria.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
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 to keep from the public eye.
------
McClatchy:
"Syrian President Bashar Assad has repeatedly rejected requests from his field commanders for approval to use chemical weapons, according to a report this weekend in a German newspaper.
The report in Bild am Sonntag, which is a widely read and influential national Sunday newspaper, reported that the head of the German Foreign Intelligence agency, Gerhard Schindler, last week told a select group of German lawmakers that intercepted communications had convinced German intelligence officials that Assad did not order or approve what is believed to be a sarin gas attack on Aug. 21 that killed hundreds of people in Damascus’ eastern suburbs.
The Obama administration has blamed the attack on Assad. The evidence against Assad was described over the weekend as common sense by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough on CNN’s 'State of the Union.' "
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/09/201515/intercepts-caught-assad-rejecting.html#.UjB48-DAVYV
-->The NY Times omitted this important story because it undermines the US plans for war against Syria. Again, we have to question the independence of the US media in the American Empire.
------
Spiegel Online:
"... According to internal NSA documents from the Edward Snowden archive that SPIEGEL has been granted access to, the US intelligence service doesn't just bug embassies and access data from undersea cables to gain information. The NSA is also extremely interested in that new form of communication which has experienced such breathtaking success in recent years: smartphones.
In Germany, more than 50 percent of all mobile phone users now possess a smartphone; in the UK, the share is two-thirds. About 130 million people in the US have such a device. The mini-computers have become personal communication centers, digital assistants and life coaches, and they often know more about their users than most users suspect.
For an agency like the NSA, the data storage units are a goldmine, combining in a single device almost all the information that would interest an intelligence agency: social contacts, details about the user's behavior and location, interests (through search terms, for example), photos and sometimes credit card numbers and passwords.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/how-the-nsa-spies-on-smartphones-including-the-blackberry-a-921161.html
-->The NY Times has printed nothing about this latest leak by Edward Snowden, although a reference was made to it on one of its official blogs. Perhaps it calls into question Apple's latest wonder gadget, the fingerprint scanner on the iPhone 5S. Why doesn't the world just send their fingerprints to NSA?
------
Politico:
"AIPAC to go all-out on Syria. The powerful pro-Israel lobby AIPAC is planning to launch a major lobbying campaign to push wayward lawmakers to back the resolution authorizing U.S. strikes against Syria, sources said Thursday.
Officials say that some 250 Jewish leaders and AIPAC activists will storm the halls on Capitol Hill beginning next week to persuade lawmakers that Congress must adopt the resolution or risk emboldening Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear weapon. They are expected to lobby virtually every member of Congress, arguing that 'barbarism' by the Assad regime cannot be tolerated, and that failing to act would 'send a message' to Tehran that the U.S. won’t stand up to hostile countries’ efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, according to a source with the group.
'History tells us that ambiguity [in U.S. actions] invites aggression,' said the AIPAC source who asked not to be named. The source added the group will now be engaged in a 'major mobilization' over the issue."
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/aipac-syria-96344.html#ixzz2e7MVv0HX
-->The NY Times waited several days to report this story, and when it finally printed the news, the emphasis was on distancing Israel from the Israeli Lobby here in the US. The NY Times article seemed aimed at damage control for Israel rather than reporting the facts to the American people.
------
Common Dreams:
"A new analysis offers a look at the difference between campaign contributions from defense contractors to the senators who voted Wednesday on whether to approve a strike on Syria.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee members who voted 'yes' to a resolution authorizing military force 'received, on average, 83 percent more campaign financing from defense contractors than lawmakers voting against war,' Wired reported Thursday.
Based on data from OpenSecrets.org, the analysis showed the top recipients of contributions from defense industry employees and political action committees between 2007 and 2012 were Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) at $176,300 and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) at $127,350, both of whom voted 'yes.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/09/05-6
-->Readers of the NY Times never learned this disturbing fact that the pro-war Senators rake it in from the weapons makers. That is a basic truth in the American Empire that our newspaper of record can't bring itself to tell its readers.
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.
------
McClatchy:
"Syrian President Bashar Assad has repeatedly rejected requests from his field commanders for approval to use chemical weapons, according to a report this weekend in a German newspaper.
The report in Bild am Sonntag, which is a widely read and influential national Sunday newspaper, reported that the head of the German Foreign Intelligence agency, Gerhard Schindler, last week told a select group of German lawmakers that intercepted communications had convinced German intelligence officials that Assad did not order or approve what is believed to be a sarin gas attack on Aug. 21 that killed hundreds of people in Damascus’ eastern suburbs.
The Obama administration has blamed the attack on Assad. The evidence against Assad was described over the weekend as common sense by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough on CNN’s 'State of the Union.' "
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/09/201515/intercepts-caught-assad-rejecting.html#.UjB48-DAVYV
-->The NY Times omitted this important story because it undermines the US plans for war against Syria. Again, we have to question the independence of the US media in the American Empire.
------
Spiegel Online:
"... According to internal NSA documents from the Edward Snowden archive that SPIEGEL has been granted access to, the US intelligence service doesn't just bug embassies and access data from undersea cables to gain information. The NSA is also extremely interested in that new form of communication which has experienced such breathtaking success in recent years: smartphones.
In Germany, more than 50 percent of all mobile phone users now possess a smartphone; in the UK, the share is two-thirds. About 130 million people in the US have such a device. The mini-computers have become personal communication centers, digital assistants and life coaches, and they often know more about their users than most users suspect.
For an agency like the NSA, the data storage units are a goldmine, combining in a single device almost all the information that would interest an intelligence agency: social contacts, details about the user's behavior and location, interests (through search terms, for example), photos and sometimes credit card numbers and passwords.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/how-the-nsa-spies-on-smartphones-including-the-blackberry-a-921161.html
-->The NY Times has printed nothing about this latest leak by Edward Snowden, although a reference was made to it on one of its official blogs. Perhaps it calls into question Apple's latest wonder gadget, the fingerprint scanner on the iPhone 5S. Why doesn't the world just send their fingerprints to NSA?
------
Politico:
"AIPAC to go all-out on Syria. The powerful pro-Israel lobby AIPAC is planning to launch a major lobbying campaign to push wayward lawmakers to back the resolution authorizing U.S. strikes against Syria, sources said Thursday.
Officials say that some 250 Jewish leaders and AIPAC activists will storm the halls on Capitol Hill beginning next week to persuade lawmakers that Congress must adopt the resolution or risk emboldening Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear weapon. They are expected to lobby virtually every member of Congress, arguing that 'barbarism' by the Assad regime cannot be tolerated, and that failing to act would 'send a message' to Tehran that the U.S. won’t stand up to hostile countries’ efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, according to a source with the group.
'History tells us that ambiguity [in U.S. actions] invites aggression,' said the AIPAC source who asked not to be named. The source added the group will now be engaged in a 'major mobilization' over the issue."
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/aipac-syria-96344.html#ixzz2e7MVv0HX
-->The NY Times waited several days to report this story, and when it finally printed the news, the emphasis was on distancing Israel from the Israeli Lobby here in the US. The NY Times article seemed aimed at damage control for Israel rather than reporting the facts to the American people.
------
Common Dreams:
"A new analysis offers a look at the difference between campaign contributions from defense contractors to the senators who voted Wednesday on whether to approve a strike on Syria.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee members who voted 'yes' to a resolution authorizing military force 'received, on average, 83 percent more campaign financing from defense contractors than lawmakers voting against war,' Wired reported Thursday.
Based on data from OpenSecrets.org, the analysis showed the top recipients of contributions from defense industry employees and political action committees between 2007 and 2012 were Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) at $176,300 and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) at $127,350, both of whom voted 'yes.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/09/05-6
-->Readers of the NY Times never learned this disturbing fact that the pro-war Senators rake it in from the weapons makers. That is a basic truth in the American Empire that our newspaper of record can't bring itself to tell its readers.
Thursday, September 05, 2013
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 to keep from the public eye.
------
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.
------
McClatchy:
"WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s public case for attacking Syria is riddled with inconsistencies and hinges mainly on circumstantial evidence, undermining U.S. efforts this week to build support at home and abroad for a punitive strike against Bashar Assad’s regime.
The case Secretary of State John Kerry laid out last Friday contained claims that were disputed by the United Nations, inconsistent in some details with British and French intelligence reports or lacking sufficient transparency for international chemical weapons experts to accept at face value.
After the false weapons claims preceding the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the threshold for evidence to support intervention is exceedingly high. And while there’s little dispute that a chemical agent was used in an Aug. 21 attack outside of Damascus – and probably on a smaller scale before that – there are calls from many quarters for independent, scientific evidence to support the U.S. narrative that the Assad regime used sarin gas in an operation that killed 1,429 people, including more than 400 children. ..."
-->Why isn't the rest of the US media expressing a little doubt about Kerry's claims? No proof yet, and the same old lies we heard before about Iraq.
------
Mondoweiss:
"Last night M J Rosenberg posted an excerpt from a New York Times article published yesterday about the White House’s efforts to convince Congress of the wisdom of a strike on Syria. The excerpt said the Israel lobby group AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) was pushing a strike so that the US would also stand up to Iran, and it quoted a White House official calling AIPAC the “800-pound gorilla in the room.”
... both Annie Robbins and Max Blumenthal followed Rosenberg’s link to the Times article, and noted that it had been changed. Robbins tweeted at 9 PM: nytimes cut 'aipac the 800-pound gorilla in the room,' quote from article. no mention of aipac. they are ‘silent’!
... Blumenthal asks, 'I have never witnessed anything like this before. Is it standard practice for online New York Times reports to be scrubbed from existence and replaced with revised, updated articles containing different content? And if so, why was the replacement not acknowledged somewhere in the text of the article?' ”
-->The media won't talk about the Israeli lobby being behind this latest push for war against Syria. The NY Times even revised their own article to rid it of any mention of AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee). AIPAC has immense power not only to push the US into foreign wars, but also to control American media.
------
Washington Post:
"Senator John McCain plays poker on his IPhone during a U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing where Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey testify concerning the use of force in Syria, on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, Tuesday, September 3, 2013.
Update 6:38 p.m.: After the photo made the rounds on Twitter, McCain tweeted the following in response:
'Scandal! Caught playing iPhone game at 3+ hour Senate hearing - worst of all I lost!' "
-->Worst of all, the American people lost. No US media reminds the public that our military has used weapons of mass destruction any number of times in Iraq (white phosphorus and depleted uranium) and in Vietnam (agent orange and napalm). Moreover the US has helped Iraq use Sarin gas against Iran, and helped Israel use white phosphorus on Palestinians in Gaza. All this moral bombast about weapons of mass destruction depends on the US media not exposing these politicians as the immense frauds they really are.
------
Reuters (Sep 3):
"U.N.'s Ban casts doubt on legality of U.S. plans to punish Syria. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday that the use of force is only legal when it is in self-defense or with Security Council authorization, remarks that appear to question the legality of U.S. plans to strike Syria without U.N. backing. …
'The use of force is lawful only when in exercise of self-defense in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations charter and/or when the Security Council approves of such action,' Ban said. 'That is a firm principle of the United Nations.'
-->Readers of the NY Times, however, weren't given that quote and were left thinking that Ban Ki-moon didn't really answer the question. But it was the NY Times itself that chose to obfuscate the issue, not Ban Ki-moon. Reuters has the UN Secretary General declaring that a US attack would be illegal without UN approval. Let's look at how the NY Times got around that in its article.
NYTimes (Sep 3):
"Asked if Mr. Obama’s proposal would be illegal under the United Nations Charter, Mr. Ban answered, 'I have taken note of President Obama’s statement, and I appreciate efforts to have his future course of action based on the broad opinions of the American people, particularly Congress, and I hope this process will have good results.' "
Thursday, August 22, 2013
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 to keep from the public eye.
------
TechDirt.com:
"The saga of Lavabit founder Ladar Levison is getting even more ridiculous, as he explains that the government has threatened him with criminal charges for his decision to shut down the business, rather than agree to some mysterious court order. The feds are apparently arguing that the act of shutting down the business, itself, was a violation of the order...
That same article suggests that the decision to shut down Lavabit was over something much bigger than just looking at one individual's information -- since it appears that Lavabit has cooperated in the past on such cases. Instead, the suggestion now is that the government was seeking a tap on all accounts...
It sounds like the feds were asking for a full on backdoor on the system, not unlike some previous reports of ISPs who have received surprise visits from the NSA."
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130816/14533924213/feds-threaten-to-arrest-lavabit-founder-shutting-down-his-service.shtml
-->The NSA holds all the cards when it comes to snooping on American citizens. It can even close down businesses that don't cooperate. One business that often cooperates with the NSA is The NY Times, that didn't print this story.
------
Guardian UK:
"The US government's plan to use technology to create and manage fake identities for social interaction with terrorists is as appalling as it is amusing. It's appalling that in this era of greater transparency and accountability brought on by the internet, the US of all countries would try to systematize sock puppetry. It's appallingly stupid, for there's little doubt that the fakes will be unmasked. The net result of that will be the diminution, not the enhancement, of American credibility.
But the effort is amusing as well, for there is absolutely no need to spend millions of dollars to create fake identities online. Any child or troll can do it for free. Millions do. If the government insists on paying, it can use salesforce.com to monitor and join in chats. There is no shortage of social management tools marketers are using to find and mollify or drown out complainers. There's no shortage of social-media gurus, either.
Tools are quite unnecessary, though. Just get yourself a fake email account, Uncle Sam, and you can create and manage anonymous and pseudonymous identities across most any social service."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/17/us-internet-morals-clumsy-spammer
-->The NY Times didn't cover this story, although our newspaper of record is always ready to print stores about other governments' attempts to influence social media.
------
Guardian UK:
"People sending email to any of Google's 425 million Gmail users have no 'reasonable expectation' that their communications are confidential, the internet giant has said in a court filing.
Consumer Watchdog, the advocacy group that uncovered the filing, called the revelation a 'stunning admission.' It comes as Google and its peers are under pressure to explain their role in the National Security Agency's (NSA) mass surveillance of US citizens and foreign nationals.
'Google has finally admitted they don't respect privacy,' said John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog's privacy project director. 'People should take them at their word; if you care about your email correspondents' privacy, don't use Gmail.' "
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/14/google-gmail-users-privacy-email-lawsuit
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.
------
TechDirt.com:
"The saga of Lavabit founder Ladar Levison is getting even more ridiculous, as he explains that the government has threatened him with criminal charges for his decision to shut down the business, rather than agree to some mysterious court order. The feds are apparently arguing that the act of shutting down the business, itself, was a violation of the order...
That same article suggests that the decision to shut down Lavabit was over something much bigger than just looking at one individual's information -- since it appears that Lavabit has cooperated in the past on such cases. Instead, the suggestion now is that the government was seeking a tap on all accounts...
It sounds like the feds were asking for a full on backdoor on the system, not unlike some previous reports of ISPs who have received surprise visits from the NSA."
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130816/14533924213/feds-threaten-to-arrest-lavabit-founder-shutting-down-his-service.shtml
-->The NSA holds all the cards when it comes to snooping on American citizens. It can even close down businesses that don't cooperate. One business that often cooperates with the NSA is The NY Times, that didn't print this story.
------
Guardian UK:
"The US government's plan to use technology to create and manage fake identities for social interaction with terrorists is as appalling as it is amusing. It's appalling that in this era of greater transparency and accountability brought on by the internet, the US of all countries would try to systematize sock puppetry. It's appallingly stupid, for there's little doubt that the fakes will be unmasked. The net result of that will be the diminution, not the enhancement, of American credibility.
But the effort is amusing as well, for there is absolutely no need to spend millions of dollars to create fake identities online. Any child or troll can do it for free. Millions do. If the government insists on paying, it can use salesforce.com to monitor and join in chats. There is no shortage of social management tools marketers are using to find and mollify or drown out complainers. There's no shortage of social-media gurus, either.
Tools are quite unnecessary, though. Just get yourself a fake email account, Uncle Sam, and you can create and manage anonymous and pseudonymous identities across most any social service."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/17/us-internet-morals-clumsy-spammer
-->The NY Times didn't cover this story, although our newspaper of record is always ready to print stores about other governments' attempts to influence social media.
------
Guardian UK:
"People sending email to any of Google's 425 million Gmail users have no 'reasonable expectation' that their communications are confidential, the internet giant has said in a court filing.
Consumer Watchdog, the advocacy group that uncovered the filing, called the revelation a 'stunning admission.' It comes as Google and its peers are under pressure to explain their role in the National Security Agency's (NSA) mass surveillance of US citizens and foreign nationals.
'Google has finally admitted they don't respect privacy,' said John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog's privacy project director. 'People should take them at their word; if you care about your email correspondents' privacy, don't use Gmail.' "
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/14/google-gmail-users-privacy-email-lawsuit
Thursday, August 15, 2013
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 to keep from the public eye.
------
Common Dreams:
"Confirming what many people have suspected, Foreign Policy reports Tuesday that the CIA at one point kept a file on scholar and political activist Noam Chomsky.
According to Foreign Policy, the CIA has denied this claim for years. A series of Freedom of Information Act requests to the CIA turned up the same response: 'We did not locate any records responsive to your request.'
However, a FOIA request sent to the FBI from Foreign Policy through attorney Kel McClanahan has returned with a memo between the FBI and the CIA that experts say confirms the existence of a CIA file on Chomsky. ...
What's more is the fact that the CIA has not provided a copy of Chomsky's file through the legally binding Freedom of Information Act requests. According to Theoharis, this means that the file was likely illegally destroyed at one point."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/08/13-12
-->The CIA breaking the law in spying on America's best know intellectual and dissident? The NY Times treats its readers to endless stories about Chinese dissidents. Why not expose what is happing in the US? Our newspaper of record didn't report this lawbreaking by the CIA.
------
Guardian UK:
"A leader of the US congressional insurrection against the National Security Agency's bulk surveillance programs has accused his colleagues of withholding a key document from the House of Representatives before a critical surveillance vote.
Justin Amash, the Michigan Republican whose effort to defund the NSA's mass phone-records collection exposed deep congressional discomfort with domestic spying, said the House intelligence committee never allowed legislators outside the panel to see a 2011 document that described the surveillance in vague terms.
The document, a classified summary of the bulk phone records collection effort justified under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, was declassified by the Obama administration in late July."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/12/intelligence-committee-nsa-vote-justin-amash
-->The NY Times didn't cover this story. Ever supportive of the emerging US police state, The NY Times covers up such embarrassing revelations by not printing them.
------
Guardian UK:
"Beverly McGuire saw the warning signs before the town well went dry: sand in the toilet bowl, the sputter of air in the tap, a pump working overtime to no effect. But it still did not prepare her for the night last month when she turned on the tap and discovered the tiny town where she had made her home for 35 years was out of water. ...
Across the south-west, residents of small communities like Barnhart are confronting the reality that something as basic as running water, as unthinking as turning on a tap, can no longer be taken for granted. Three years of drought, decades of overuse and now the oil industry's outsize demands on water for fracking are running down reservoirs and underground aquifers. And climate change is making things worse.
In Texas alone, about 30 communities could run out of water by the end of the year, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality."
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/11/texas-tragedy-ample-oil-no-water
-->Hardly any of our national media can be bothered by what fracking and global warming are doing to rural communities. Hay, it's all about how wonderful new oil discoveries are in the Continental United States. The NY Times, which refused to cover this story, is often little more than the mouthpiece of corporate America.
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.
------
Common Dreams:
"Confirming what many people have suspected, Foreign Policy reports Tuesday that the CIA at one point kept a file on scholar and political activist Noam Chomsky.
According to Foreign Policy, the CIA has denied this claim for years. A series of Freedom of Information Act requests to the CIA turned up the same response: 'We did not locate any records responsive to your request.'
However, a FOIA request sent to the FBI from Foreign Policy through attorney Kel McClanahan has returned with a memo between the FBI and the CIA that experts say confirms the existence of a CIA file on Chomsky. ...
What's more is the fact that the CIA has not provided a copy of Chomsky's file through the legally binding Freedom of Information Act requests. According to Theoharis, this means that the file was likely illegally destroyed at one point."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/08/13-12
-->The CIA breaking the law in spying on America's best know intellectual and dissident? The NY Times treats its readers to endless stories about Chinese dissidents. Why not expose what is happing in the US? Our newspaper of record didn't report this lawbreaking by the CIA.
------
Guardian UK:
"A leader of the US congressional insurrection against the National Security Agency's bulk surveillance programs has accused his colleagues of withholding a key document from the House of Representatives before a critical surveillance vote.
Justin Amash, the Michigan Republican whose effort to defund the NSA's mass phone-records collection exposed deep congressional discomfort with domestic spying, said the House intelligence committee never allowed legislators outside the panel to see a 2011 document that described the surveillance in vague terms.
The document, a classified summary of the bulk phone records collection effort justified under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, was declassified by the Obama administration in late July."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/12/intelligence-committee-nsa-vote-justin-amash
-->The NY Times didn't cover this story. Ever supportive of the emerging US police state, The NY Times covers up such embarrassing revelations by not printing them.
------
Guardian UK:
"Beverly McGuire saw the warning signs before the town well went dry: sand in the toilet bowl, the sputter of air in the tap, a pump working overtime to no effect. But it still did not prepare her for the night last month when she turned on the tap and discovered the tiny town where she had made her home for 35 years was out of water. ...
Across the south-west, residents of small communities like Barnhart are confronting the reality that something as basic as running water, as unthinking as turning on a tap, can no longer be taken for granted. Three years of drought, decades of overuse and now the oil industry's outsize demands on water for fracking are running down reservoirs and underground aquifers. And climate change is making things worse.
In Texas alone, about 30 communities could run out of water by the end of the year, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality."
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/11/texas-tragedy-ample-oil-no-water
-->Hardly any of our national media can be bothered by what fracking and global warming are doing to rural communities. Hay, it's all about how wonderful new oil discoveries are in the Continental United States. The NY Times, which refused to cover this story, is often little more than the mouthpiece of corporate America.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)