Three years ago I was invited, along with 30 other guests – mainly politicians and journalists – to a private dinner party given by one of Britain’s richest Jews at a Jerusalem hotel. After a mediocre steak and some fantastic wine, we were addressed by our host. The British media were a disgrace, he told us, “real Goebbels-style.” Their coverage of the Second Lebanon War had totally ruined his summer holiday. And the British politicians, many of whom he had donated to in the past, were with few exceptions “all pusillanimous hypocrites” who had criticized Israel’s “disproportionate” response to Hezbollah’s attacks.
Media commentary on the upcoming 9/11 trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has raised concern that state secrets may be divulged, including details about how the Bush administration used torture to extract evidence about al-Qaeda.
“I think that we’re going to shine a light on something that a lot of people don’t want to look at” is how American Civil Liberties Union attorney Denney LeBoeuf put it, according to The New York Times on Saturday.
WebNote from Linda: Well that’s it. Now there is never any reason to watch CNN again. After Pat Buchanan left CNN, Lou Dobbs was the only patriot left standing to have a full time news anchor position – on any network.
Nightly he exposed corruption in state and federal government. Dobbs stood strong against the New World Order, Global Government, NAFTA, the WTO, CAFTA, the North American Union and all anti-sovereignty trade pacts.
Russia Today: H1N1 has only virus killed 1 (ONE) person in Ukraine. What killed all the other people? It is not Swine Flu! Voices about outbreak of pneumonic plague are being heard.
More than a year into the gravest financial crisis since the Great Depression, millions of Americans have seen their home values and retirement savings plunge and their jobs evaporate.
What they haven’t seen are any Wall Street tycoons forced to swap their multi-million dollar jobs and custom-made suits for dishwashing and prison stripes.
There are plenty of civil and class-action lawsuits from aggrieved investors angered by the losses in their mortgage bonds, hedge funds or pensions. Regulators have stepped up their vigilance after the fact. But to date, no captain of finance tied to the crisis has walked the plank.
Can you imagine the uproar if Reuters referred to the “mass killing” of Jews by Germans with the words: “Jews say it was a genocide, a term right-wing Germans and neo-Nazis reject….
Amira Hass was spot on when she said last week that her lifetime women’s award was an award for failure. The West Bank correspondent of the Israeli paper Haaretz eloquently explained herself on al-Jazeera’s English channel. She received an award for failure, she said, because despite all the facts that she and her journalistic colleagues had explained about Israeli occupation in Palestine, the world still did not understand what occupation meant and still used words like “terror” and “war on terror”. Amira was absolutely correct. Most of our Western press and television are as gutless as ever when they have to participate in what Noam Chomsky described as “the manufacture of consent”.
One Nation, under Occupation: Police departments nation-wide are acting as if this were a conquered country, and as if citizens were "enemy combatants."
A thin blanket of early evening darkness had draped itself across Alex Locklear’s home in Maxton, North Carolina when the armed intruders arrived.
Brandishing firearms, the invaders forced several people – including wheelchair-bound Nicholas Locklear and a pregnant woman – to the ground and then barged in through the rear door, threatening to “blow the brains” out of anyone who put up a struggle. One woman was so terrified that she fled, tripped over an unseen obstruction, and broke her arm.
Jon Stewart’s comedy news show The Daily Show is reportedly under fire from pro-Israeli groups for giving airtime to two pro-Palestinian figures on Wednesday night.
Stewart hosted Palestinian democracy activist Mustafa Barghouti and human rights activist Anna Baltzer, author of A Witness in Palestine, who explained the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the perspective of the Palestinian side.
According to a letter reportedly written by Baltzer and circulated by blogger Eric Johnson, the show “was overwhelmed with angry emails and phone calls prior to the appearance, and up until the last minute it seemed like they might cancel.”
An article in the journal,Sociological Inquiry, ["There Must Be a Reason": Osama, Saddam, and Inferred Justification, Vol. 79, No. 2. (2009), pp. 142-162. [PDF] casts light on the effectiveness of propaganda. Researchers examined why big lies succeed where little lies fail. Governments can get away with mass deceptions, but politicians cannot get away with sexual affairs.
This is the way our society deals with uncomfortable questions about “official” explanations for the inexplicable – by purging all dissenters, and even anybody who asks a question without necessarily having a ready-made answer. To the stake with them! Burn the heretics! Move along, nothing to see here – and don’t ask questions unless you want to completely marginalize yourself, lose your job, and be subjected to an intensive hate campaign….
The conservative newspaper/website Human Events gets a great deal of mileage by carrying Patrick J. Buchanan’s columns. According to its advertising directors, over half a million readers signed up to get his columns sent—along with ads— directly to their e-mail. Buchanan and Ann Coulter usually trade spots for the most popular columns on the site. Although several sites—such as VDARE.COM—carry Buchanan’s column online, when you click on “Pat Buchanan” at Drudge Report, you go straight to the Human Events archive.
The photographer was on patrol with the Marines when they came under fire. She found the courage and presence of mind to do her job. Her reward is to be condemned by the warmonger Gates as “insensitive.” Gates says her employer, the Associated Press, lacks “judgment and common decency.”
Journalists’ Recent Work Examined Before Embeds
By Charlie Reed – Stars and Stripes
As more journalists seek permission to accompany U.S. forces engaged in escalating military operations in Afghanistan, many of them could be screened by a controversial Washington-based public relations firm contracted by the Pentagon to determine whether their past coverage has portrayed the U.S. military in a positive light.
Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.
They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.
Many media outlets have misfired about guns. Countless newspapers and television networks — from CBS to MSNBC — have misreported that conservative protesters are threatening President Obama with guns at public events. It hasn’t happened.
In Portsmouth, N.H., a man carrying a gun, William Kostric, joined an Aug. 11 health care protest. This was blocks away and hours before Mr. Obama’s town-hall meeting in that city. Mr. Kostric was given permission to be on church property where the protest occurred and was not at the place the president visited. What most of the coverage left out was that Mr. Kostric didn’t carry his gun only for the protest; he legally carries a gun with him all the time for protection.
Charles Jaco was the CNN reporter famous for covering the 1990 Persian Gulf War. The first part of this video shows the stage set he was on, and he was clowning around with fellow CNN staff. The Saudi Arabian “hotel” in the background were fake palm trees and a blue wall in a studio. This clip was leaked by CNN staff.
The Federal Trade Commission is threatening to use antitrust and copyright laws to shut down the New Media – and save “mainstream” journalism
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which usually concerns itself with “consumer protection” issues, is now taking an interest in the journalism industry. The financially strappedNew York Timesreports:
“The commission is planning two days of workshops in December – titled ‘From Town Criers to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?’ – to examine the state of the news industry.”
Human Events vs. Pat Buchanan
By Charles Bloch – VDARE.com