RADIO DAZE: Hendrik Hertzberg on the dearth of liberal talk radio
Posted Tuesday, August 5, 2003 by vgdesign

New York City is the home base of Fox News, National Review, and “The Rush Limbaugh Show.” We’re in our tenth straight year under Republican mayors. And we’re the world headquarters of heartless, rapacious, crush-the-workers Finance Capitalism. But none of that makes our town Nirvana for conservatives. Politically, we’re blue through and through. Al Gore’s margin over George W. Bush here was four to one, and the city’s congressional delegation consists of twelve Democrats and one Republican. New York has its share of paleocons and more than its share of neocons (neoconservatism having been invented on the Upper West Side, circa 1968), but what we mostly have is noncons—that is, nonconservatives. We even have liberals.

You’d be hard put to notice that, though, from listening to the radio. As in the rest of the country, political talk radio here is dominated by the hard right. >>More

Stealing The Internet
Posted Tuesday, August 5, 2003 by vgdesign

Today, the part of the Net that is public and accessible is shrinking.
By Jeff Chester and Steven Rosenfeld, TomPaine.com

Ever stop to wonder what is really happening to the Internet these days?

The crackdown by the music industry on illegal downloading tells just part of the story. Even with the dot-com bust, the digital boom is here, as high-speed connections, faster processors and new wireless devices increasingly become part of life. But the thousands of lawsuits are not just about ensuring record companies and artists get the royalties they deserve. They're part of a larger plan to fundamentally change the way the Internet works.

From Congress to Silicon Valley, the nation's largest communication and entertainment conglomerates -- and software firms that want their business -- are seeking to restructure the Internet, to charge people for high-speed uses that are now free and to monitor content in an unprecedented manner. This is not just to see if users are swapping copyrighted CDs or DVDs, but to create digital dossiers for their own marketing purposes.

All told, this is the business plan of America's handful of telecom giants -- the phone, cable, satellite, wireless and entertainment companies that now bring high-speed Internet access to most Americans. Their ability to meter Internet use, monitor Internet content and charge according to those metrics is how they are positioning themselves for the evolving Internet revolution. >>More

The Web Rewires the Movement
Posted Tuesday, August 5, 2003 by vgdesign

By Andrew Boyd, The Nation

The Battle in Seattle brought to the world's attention a new global resistance movement that was not only made possible by the Internet but, as Naomi Klein has deftly pointed out, was shaped in its image. Sharing the Internet's architecture of interconnected hubs and spokes, the new movement was a coalition of coalitions, a decentralized network of campaigns "intricately and tightly linked to one another."

The net allows large mobilizations to unfold with minimal bureaucracy and hierarchy. "Forced consensus and labored manifestoes are fading into the background," Klein wrote in 2000, "replaced instead by a culture of constant, loosely structured, and sometimes compulsive information-swapping."

But if Seattle was the birth of this new kind of organizing, last February 15's global peace demonstration marked its coming of age. That day, some 400,000 people turned out onto the streets of New York to protest Bush's impending war on Iraq, and close to 10 million more turned out in cities across the globe. It was arguably the single largest day of protest in world history; the New York Times  dubbed its participants "the other superpower."

The day sent a clear message about the grassroots organizing power of the net: It enabled the antiwar movement to turn out its base quickly and cheaply, do an end run around corporate-controlled media and reach into the politically disaffected American mainstream. >>More

War casualties overflow Walter Reed hospital
Posted Monday, August 4, 2003 by vgdesign

By Jon Ward, The Washington Times

Officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center are referring some outpatients to nearby hotels because casualties from operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have overloaded the hospital's convalescence facility.

"We have an informal agreement with any number of hotels in the area. If we come to this point, they will take [patients] for us," said Walter Reed spokesman Jim Stueve. "They're very supportive and cooperative when we need that assistance."

Mr. Stueve could not specify how many soldiers are in hotels, but said Walter Reed is referring about 20 patients or their relatives to hotels each day. Hotels in Silver Spring, just across the D.C. line, offer discounted rates for outpatients and their families, and the military pays the bill.
...
"We have flights coming in almost every night from Landstuhl, so you don't book that sucker up solid so when you have your No. 1 priority come in, you say, 'You can't stay here,' " Mr. Stueve said. >>More

Comedy Central’s ‘The Daily Show’ At Top Of Political And Media Satire
Posted Monday, August 4, 2003 by vgdesign

Jon Stewart could barely contain himself.

A congressman had publicly called a colleague a "fruitcake" and, since it happened on a Friday night, Stewart couldn't joke about it on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" until three days later.

"I do believe we need to go to a 24-hour fake news channel," he said. "Fox can't be the only fake news channel out there!"

Stewart can't wait to bare the absurdities of the news and the people who cover it, and his sharp humor has made "The Daily Show" a growing force. No one hit the comic mark more consistently during the war in Iraq. As an election year approaches, Stewart's in top form.

He and "The Daily Show" are up for five Emmys next month, and the Television Critics Association gave him two awards last month. The critics even nominated "The Daily Show" for best achievement in news, along with "60 Minutes" and "Nightline." >>More

The Likely Story: Why The Dots Were Never Connected
Posted Monday, August 4, 2003 by vgdesign

Three weeks after taking office, George W. Bush signed a National Security Presidential Directive that restructured the National Security Council. It included this command:

"The existing system of Interagency Working Groups is abolished."

The Counter-Terrorism Security Group, Critical Infrastructure Coordination Group, Weapons of Mass Destruction Preparedness, Consequences Management and Protection Group, and the interagency working group on Enduring Constitutional Government were all abolished, to be reconstituted at some time in a new incarnation.

"Except for those established by statute, other existing NSC interagency groups, ad hoc bodies, and executive committees are also abolished as of March 1, 2001"

No wonder they couldn’t connect the dots. >>More

BBC beats Labour in battle for public trust
Posted Monday, August 4, 2003 by vgdesign

By Cathy Newman, Financial Times Chief Political Correspondent

More people trust the BBC than Tony Blair, a MORI poll reveals today, signalling the extent to which the public's faith in the prime minister's honesty has been shaken by the row over the Iraq war.

Mr Blair is trusted by 41 per cent of the British public; the BBC by 59 per cent, the survey finds. More people also have trust in Andrew Gilligan, the BBC journalist at the centre of the dispute over the justification for war, than in Geoff Hoon, defence secretary. >>More

Norman Solomon: Media have gone soft on Bush White House
Posted Monday, August 4, 2003 by vgdesign

This summer, many journalists seem to be in hot pursuit of the Bush administration. But they have an enormous amount of ground to cover. After routinely lagging behind and detouring around key information, major American news outlets are now playing catch-up.

The default position of U.S. media coverage gave the White House the benefit of doubts. In stark contrast, the British media has been far more vigorous in exposing deceptions about Iraq. Consider the work of two publicly subsidized broadcasters: The BBC News has broken very important stories to boost public knowledge of governmental duplicities; the same can hardly be said for NPR News in the United States.

One of the main problems with American reporting has been reflexive deference toward administration players such as Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. Chronic over-reliance on official sources worsened for a long time after 9/11, with journalists failing to scrutinize contradictions, false statements and leaps of illogic. >>More

MEDIA-MIDEAST: Voice of Peace to Rise Again
Posted Monday, August 4, 2003 by vgdesign

By Peter Hirschberg, Inter Press Service (IPS)

JERUSALEM, Aug 1 - For 20 years, intrepid Israeli peace campaigner Abie Nathan broadcast his message of coexistence to Jewish and Arab listeners from his boat in the Mediterranean Sea, which housed his pirate Voice of Peace radio station.

In 1993, suffering from lack of funding, the station broadcast its last track -- Pete Seeger's 'We Shall Overcome'. Nathan then scuttled the ship.

Some peace activists, comforting themselves, suggested that The Peace Ship, as it was named, had achieved its aim: it ceased broadcasting in the very year that the Israelis and Palestinians signed the Oslo peace accords. But then the peace process got bogged down, derailed and finally collapsed as Israelis and Palestinians went back to war.

Some activists began thinking that an unequivocal message of peace needed to be heard again on the airwaves. Now, ten years after the Voice Of Peace went silent, it is being reincarnated. This time round, it will be a joint Israeli- Palestinian station, it will broadcast in Hebrew and Arabic, and will be land- based, transmitting from the West Bank city of Ramallah. >>More

John Gorman: THE COWERING CROWL
Posted Monday, August 4, 2003 by vgdesign

As DOJ investigates Clear Channel, will anything really change on radio, and will "payola" continue?

David Crowl (rhymes with mole) is a man with a mission. As Clear Channel radio’s regional senior VP, he’s the corporate fire chief assigned to stations in Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, Cincinnati and Chicago. His duty is to put out fires resulting from the programming and promotion of stations under his watch.

The once mighty and arrogant Crowl is cowering because he doesn’t have a choice. His San Antonio corporate masters are the subject of two separate Department of Justice investigations. The edict is so stringent that Clear Channel ordered Crowl to do whatever it takes to neutralize problems created by its controversial programming and promotion. This includes negotiating settlements with community groups and organizations threatening to take legal action against the company.

It’s culture shock for Crowl, who’s used to barking out orders to his subordinates like a rabid junkyard dog. Instead of encouraging the customary Clear Channel brand of brash behavior and promotions gone wild, he’s now on a campaign of peace, understanding and serving the community.

Crowl fancied himself a Clear Channel puppet master. Now, he’s the puppet. >>More

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW WITH FORMER SENATOR GARY HART
Posted Sunday, August 3, 2003 by symbolman

If anyone knows that the United States – and the Bush Administration – should have seen September 11th coming, it’s Gary Hart.

Former Colorado Senator Gary Hart co-chaired both the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, which issued three public reports forecasting the age of terrorism and outlined a new, post-Cold War national security policy, as well as the Council on Foreign Relations task force on homeland security, which recently released its report "America—Still Unprepared, Still in Danger".

Many of the issues Hart presciently raised and discussed in the 1970s and 1980s—including military reform, intelligence reform, energy independence, and a number of others—have now begun to re-enter the arena of national debate. In the late 1990s, Hart's mastery of security issues and grasp of foreign policy led him to make multiple and tragically unheeded predictions—one as late as September 5, 2001—that America would be attacked by terrorists using weapons of mass destruction.>> More

Thanks to BUZZFLASH for bringing us the TRUTH once again!

U.S. may lose chance to negotiate with Iran
Posted Sunday, August 3, 2003 by vgdesign

By WARREN P. STROBEL and JOHN WALCOTT, Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - A terrorist group based in U.S.-controlled Iraq continues to broadcast propaganda into Iran, purchase equipment and move about the country without interference from American authorities, despite a White House order banning any U.S. support for the group, according to senior administration officials.
...
The Office of Special Plans, which deals with policy toward Iran and Iraq, is under congressional scrutiny for lapses in postwar planning in Iraq; for relying too heavily on intelligence from Iraqi exiles and foreign governments; for allegations that it manipulated intelligence; and for employing a large number of like-minded advisers and consultants who, according to current and former employees, ignored the professional staff and kept their colleagues in the dark about what they were doing.

"I personally witnessed several cases of staff officers being told not to contact their counterparts at State or the National Security Council because that particular decision would be processed through a different channel," wrote Karen Kwiatkowski, a now-retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who worked in the Pentagon's Near East policy office until February. She recently wrote about her experience for the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.

Two senior officials said some activities of the Special Plans Office bore a disturbing resemblance to the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration, in which officials on the National Security Council staff shipped arms to Iran and funneled some of the proceeds to Nicaraguan opposition groups in violation of official policy and without the knowledge of most - although not all - other officials.

Similarly, these officials say, the Pentagon's Special Plans Office appears to have run its own operations independent of the rest of the government, with potentially disastrous results.

"This is a huge tar baby for the administration," said one senior official. "We're only beginning to find out what all was going on in there." >>More

The wages of deceit
Posted Sunday, August 3, 2003 by vgdesign

By Aisha Umar Yusuf, The Weekly Trust - Abuja, Nigeria

... In the final analysis, about the best thing to have come out of the Iraqi war is the demystification of America. Today everybody knows the US administration for what it is, a power-drunk monster every ready to pounce on any "justifiable" target. The few who believed that America could rise to its responsibilities as the world’s strongest nation when the need arises have learnt from the American attitude to Liberia. And the best part of this all, is that even the phenomenally ill-informed American public is finally getting wise to the follies of its present administration.

The next step is for Americans to make sure that George Bush is an ex-occupant of the White House next year. From all we’ve witnessed, the real regime change is needed more in the US than anywhere else in the world. Britons will do themselves a lot of good by pushing hard for Blair’s resignation. These twin brothers in evil deserve nothing less than the "shame" of leaving office. The wages of deceit is shame. The first Gulf War cost the first George Bush his second term, the second war should, as a consequence cost George Bush Jr the next elections.

From September the 11th, which most investigations show was made in America by Americans to the Afghan war and the Iraqi after it, a chain of lies and deceit was used to feed the world’s fertile imagination. For instance, a few hours after the attacks on the twin towers on September 11th a footage of Palestinians celebrating the attack on America was shown on the CNN and most major TV networks in the US. Yet a few journalists with sharp memories and well-kept libraries soon recalled that they had seen the film before. On close examination, they remember it as the ten-year-old picture of Palestinians celebrating Saddam Hussein’s attack on Israel during Gulf War I.

This grand duplicity was only the first shot. >>More

My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool
Posted Sunday, August 3, 2003 by vgdesign

By FRANCIS A. BOYLE, CounterPunch

It is now a matter of public record that immediately after the terrible tragedy of September 11, 2001, U.S. Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld and his pro-Israeli "Neoconservative" Deputy Paul Wolfowitz began to plot, plan, scheme and conspire to wage a war of aggression against Iraq by manipulating the tragic events of September 11th in order to provide a pretext for doing so. Of course Iraq had nothing at all to do with September 11th or supporting Al-Qaeda . But that made no difference to Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the numerous other pro-Israeli Neo-cons in the Bush Jr. administration.

These pro-Israeli Neo-cons had been schooled in the Machiavellian/Nietzschean theories of Professor Leo Strauss, who taught political philosophy at the University of Chicago in their Department of Political Science.
...
Chicago routinely trained me and numerous other students to become ruthless and unprincipled Machiavellians. That is precisely why so many neophyte Neo-con students gravitated towards the University of Chicago or towards Chicago Alumni at other universities. The University of Chicago became the "brains" behind the Bush Jr. Empire and his Ashcroft Police State. >>More

MoD denies it tried to burn Kelly documents
Posted Sunday, August 3, 2003 by vgdesign

By Martin Bright and Kamal Ahmed, The Observer

The Ministry of Defence confirmed last night that a document at the centre of a security breach three days after the suicide of government weapons adviser David Kelly had been passed to police investigating the death of the scientist.

But the MoD fiercely denied allegations that it had attempted to burn or shred a 'media plan' relating to Kelly at their Whitehall headquarters.

The Daily Telegraph  reported that officials were preparing to incinerate a media strategy dealing with the fallout from the Kelly affair when they were spotted by security guards.

The incident revolves around the troubled department of Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, whose officials have been accused of releasing Kelly's name to the media. >>More

Investigation into The Circumstances Surrounding The Death of Dr. David Kelly
>>The Hutton Inquiry