Media Monopoly /Reform

On New Year's eve, former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff penned a Washington Post op-ed that argued "whole-body imagers" should be deployed world-wide.

[...]
Currently TSA has fielded 40 machines at 19 airports with more on the way. Indeed, the agency handed out a $25 million contract last October to Rapiscan Security Systems for 30 more peep-show devices with funds generously provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

What Chertoff failed to disclose however, is that since leaving the secret state's employ his security consulting firm, The Chertoff Group, "includes a client that manufactures the machines" according to The Washington Post.

Scannergate: Terror Scares A Boon for Security Grifters

[I'm going to break my rule and give a ton of links. Sorry if it's too much info at once] This video clip is from the BBC documentary The Century of the Self, and it explains how the media allows itself to be manipulated and used to further the ends of those in power. They did it 50 years ago. They did it to sell the war in Iraq. And they're doing it today. The lobbyists are people they tell us are people we have to trust. For instance, former DHS Sec. Michael Chertoff who's going to get his very own post in this series or former DNI Mike McConnell, who happens to have made a bundle out of security contracts at Booz Allen

Ten years after leaving the government, McConnell was finally making real money -- two million dollars a year at Booz-Allen.

video link

Over the last few weeks there have been a series of posts at different websites that have documented the latest variations of the conjunction of the military and anti-terror industrial complex with our government. I'm going to call it the Fear Industrial Complex because to be boxed in into the Military Industrial Complex would be inaccurate and wouldn't even come close to defining the collusion of 1) the military wing, with 2) the security wing, with 3) the Congressional wing, with 4) the Presidential wing and lastly 5) the media wing of the complex . There are so many links that if I tried to put them all in one post it would take several hours to put together and would shortshrift them all and be a disservice to the thought-provoking information.

With that, here's the first post by Frida Berrigan, with an intro by Tom Engelhardt in the link. I'm posting the entire thing because things like this have a way of disappearing

America’s Global Weapons Monopoly

A Village Fairy Tale: Coming From a Pro-Gun State Explains Health Care Opposition

By David Sirota - OpenLeft, 7/21/09

Taking a moment away from my book and column-writing, I just want to make a really important point that we all need to remember about the so-called "Blue Dogs" and "conservative Democrats" who are working their asses off to prevent real health care reform.

The Villagers in the D.C. media (ie. the power-worshiping pundits and journalists who preen around the nation's capital telling the Rest of Us what to think) continue to incessantly claim that "Blue Dogs" and "conservative Democrats" come from "moderate districts," and this is supposed to clearly explain their opposition to health care reform and progressive taxation to pay for said health care reform. If you've turned on a television, radio or computer, or if you are one of the few still reading newspapers, then you've been subjected to this meme repeatedly over the lats few weeks. And this meme is propaganda at its worst - or, propagandists might say, at its best.

[Two articles: The first one is from March but still accurate - how many single-payer stories have you seen on tv recently? Or in the Bee? And the second is recent but really something that has gotten under my skin - NPR has gone Fox News Lite. Seriously, listen to Talk of the Nation sometime, especially when they talk about any of the wars. And click on the pic for video of Laura Flanders. If you scroll down to the comments, I made one, which I'm going to expand on, here, once I get the time, which will be about the Manufacturing or Engineering of Consent by the media (yes, blogs too) and our political leaders]

FAIR Study: Media Blackout on Single-Payer Healthcare
Proponents of popular policy shut out of debate

Major newspaper, broadcast and cable stories mentioning healthcare reform in the week leading up to President Barack Obama's March 5 healthcare summit rarely mentioned the idea of a single-payer national health insurance program, according to a new FAIR study. And advocates of such a system--two of whom participated in yesterday's summit--were almost entirely shut out, FAIR found.

Single-payer--a model in which healthcare delivery would remain largely private, but would be paid for by a single federal health insurance fund (much like Medicare provides for seniors, and comparable to Canada's current system)--polls well with the public, who preferred it two-to-one over a privatized system in a recent survey (New York Times/CBS, 1/11-15/09). But a media consumer in the week leading up to the summit was more likely to read about single-payer from the hostile perspective of conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer than see an op-ed by a single-payer advocate in a major U.S. newspaper.

Over the past week, hundreds of stories in major newspapers and on NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer mentioned healthcare reform, according to a search of the Nexis database (2/25/09-3/4/09). Yet all but 18 of these stories made no mention of "single-payer" (or synonyms commonly used by its proponents, such as "Medicare for all," or the proposed single-payer bill, H.R. 676), and only five included the views of advocates of single-payer--none of which appeared on television.

Of a total of 10 newspaper columns FAIR found that mentioned single-payer, Krauthammer's syndicated column critical of the concept, published in the Washington Post (2/27/09) and reprinted in four other daily newspapers, accounted for five instances. Only three columns in the study period advocated for a single-payer system (San Diego Union-Tribune, 2/26/09; Boston Globe, 3/1/09; St. Petersburg Times, 3/3/09).

[...]

Why won't NPR cover real health care reform? Follow the money....

Wed, 06/17/2009 - 8:44pm — Mytwords

A few days ago a reader (h/t to Masbrow) mentioned an interesting article by Felice Pace in CounterPunch. Pace does a little exploring with the NPR search engine to see how poor, old single payer fares there. He notes that "...stories mention single payer. [but] I can find no NPR news reports or other shows which actually focused on single payer or on the movement to achieve it."*** This prompts him to ask, "Why is NPR refusing to report on what 60% of US citizens and the majority of health professionals want?" To answer that question he did a little more digging at NPR and found that (as of 2006) NPR's financial health care was mighty dependent on some heavy hitters in insurance industry:
• $1 million+: Farmers Insurance Group of Companies, Prudential Financial
• $500,000 - $999,999: Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America, Allstate Insurance Company, Northwestern Mutual Foundation
• $250,000 - $499,999: AARP, The Hartford Financial Services Group, UnumProvident
• $100,000 – $249,999: Liberty Mutual Insurance Company

[I've wanted to do this for a week but haven't had time. And I know this has been covered ... a little bit ... but no where near as much as the Iranian elections which have had wall-to-wall coverage. Wonder why that is? And it's nice that the Peruvian Parliament has "suspended" the disputed laws which caused the protests, but I have a feeling they will go back into place once the US military base at Palanquero, Colombia gets built - what? you haven't heard of it? Hmmm, sounds like one of the next blogs. Anyway click the links for the three articles, and here's another really good one from indymedia Ireland]

Massacre in the Amazon: The U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement Sparks a Battle Over Land and Resources

Raúl Zibechi | June 16, 2009

On June 5, World Environment Day, Amazon Indians were massacred by the government of Alan Garcia in the latest chapter of a long war to take over common lands—a war unleashed by the signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Peru and the United States.

Three MI-17 helicopters took off from the base of the National Police in El Milagro at six in the morning of Friday, June 5. They flew over Devil's Curve, the part of the highway that joins the jungle with the northern coast, which had been occupied for the past 10 days by some 5,000 Awajún and Wampi indigenous peoples. The copters launched tear gas on the crowd (other versions say that they also shot machine guns), while simultaneously a group of agents attacked the road block by ground, firing AKM rifles. A hundred people were wounded by gunshot and between 20-25 were killed.

The population of the nearby city of Bagua, some thousand kilometers northeast of Lima near the border with Ecuador, came out into the streets to support the indigenous people's demonstration, setting fire to state institutions and local office of the official party APRA (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana). Several police officers were attacked and killed in the counter-attack, and other indigenous protestors were killed by police. At the same time, a group of 38 police who were guarding an oil station in the Amazon were taken hostage. Some were killed by their captors, while some 1,000 Indians threatened to set fire to Station Number 6 of the northern Peruvian oil pipeline.

The versions are contradictory. The government claimed days after the events that there are 11 indigenous dead and 23 police. The indigenous organizations reported 50 dead among their ranks and up to 400 disappeared. According to witnesses, the military burned bodies and threw them into the river to hide the massacre, and also took prisoners among the wounded in the hospitals. In any case, what is certain is that the government sent the armed forces to evict a peaceful protest that had been going on for 57 days in the jungle regions of five departments: Amazonas, Cusco, Loreto, San Martin, and Ucayali.

The Inter-American Human Rights Commission (CIDH), part of the Organization of American States, condemned the violent acts on June 8 and reminded the Peruvian government of its obligation to clear up the facts and to compensate for the consequences and called on both sides to promote a process of dialogue.1 On June 9, the National Coordination of Human Rights announced that it found a series of irregularities and possible human rights violations in the Bagua area. It denounced the government's refusal to divulge what police are in charge of the investigation of the events, and expressed concern for the situation of 25 detained at the El Milagro base and the 99 arrested since a curfew was imposed in Bagua.2

President Garcia accused the Indians of being "terrorists" and spoke of an "international conspiracy," in which, according to government ministers, Bolivia and Venezuela are involved because as oil- and gas-producing countries they want to keep Peru from exploiting these resources and becoming a competitor.3 Just a few weeks ago, Peru granted asylum to the anti-Chavez leader, Venezuelan Manuel Rosas, accused of corruption, and three former Bolivian ministers from the government of Gonzalo Sanchez de Lazada prosecuted for the death of nearly 700 persons during the "gas war" of October 2003.

[...]

Peru: Battle lines drawn over the Amazon

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Most progressives are all too aware of the fact that political talk radio is still dominated by right wingers, who are able to influence public opinion more than we would like to believe. They spread disinformation which distorts the debate on all the major issues we care about like climate change, energy independence, health care, workers rights, the economy, taxation and foreign policy. The Republicans know this and are doing what they can to make sure liberal talk radio doesn't gain traction by refusing to advertise on progressive talk stations or during the airing of progressive talk shows and by buying progressive talk stations and changing the format to sports talk, music or something else, even in cases where the ratings of the progressive station are good and the local market is already saturated with stations with the format they change to. It is obvious that in many cases, these decisions to buy progressive talk stations and switch formats, or not to advertise on certain stations, must be influenced by something other than short-term profit.

Support Alternative Journalism in Sacramento by Helping BPM

Because People Matter, Sacramento's progressive newspaper, is looking for volunteers to help out with writing, editing, production and distribution.

Dan

To all of you who appreciate Because People Matter (BPM) and the chance to get progressive info to people still caught in the corporate media net:

Ever thought of being a citizen journalist? (Think of the POWER!)

It’s now time for new hands and minds and hearts to add their energies to the process of producing BPM. Some of us oldtimers—despite the fun and satisfaction we’ve had doing this little paper—are needing to move on to different endeavors.
BPM has been the sort of project that called to itself what it needed at any given time, a sign, I think, that the paper fills a real need.

As I write, there are already some new arrivals joining with BPM regulars to do the paper. But they need help.

UPDATE: Thanks to all those that helped, but it appears that Peter B's last show will be tomorrow (Fri). He is working on plans for a future show with perhaps a pod cast in the near future (June). You can send him an email peter@peterbcollins.com if you want to get the latest updates. It's another sad day for Progressive Radio...
--Bill

Act Today to Keep Peter B. Collins On Air

Peter B. Collins has been a great friend to the Sacramento Community and he needs our help. Please help him in any way that you can! Although he is no longer on the air in Sacramento (he's on Green 960 in SF), he is still one of the few radio show hosts who reports on the issues that are most important to us. We need to support the truth-tellers that aren't afraid to you speak truth to power! You can stream his show on his website (www.PeterBCollins.com), but unless he receives support now, he will be unable to continue his show.

You can send a donation directly to Peter B. Collins here

Please give Peter the support he deserves!

Thanks,
Bill

From Election Defense Alliance...

Action of the Day:

Help Keep the Peter B. Collins Show on Air
Broadcast beacon for election integrity needs our support

[Unfortunately we are being led by a caveman Governator who is an unfeeling ideologue just like the rest of the idiotic Republican legislators who think that cutting support to the most vulnerable is the way to solve their own manufactured crisis. Too bad he and the rest of the knuckledraggers don't have the cognitive ability of a gnat]

Joseph Stiglitz Nobel Prize winning economist:

"[T]ax increases on higher-income families are the least damaging mechanism for closing state fiscal deficits in the short run. Reductions in government spending on goods and services, or reductions in transfer payments to lower-income families, are likely to be more damaging to the economy in the short run than tax increases focused on higher-income families."

A California Carol: Watch our special holiday video

Unfortunately, California's Ebenezer Scrooge isn't going to have a Christmas morning change of heart and suddenly decide to provide funding for schools and health care. Not unless we the people demand that he stop cutting and start saving California by signing the Democratic budget deal.

That's why we're asking you to sign a holiday card that we're going to deliver to the Governor. Tell him that California deserves a leader, not a Scrooge, this holiday season!

Arnold's Media Enablers

Back in 2002-03 it was hard to get away from media coverage of the failing Gray Davis administration. At least, that's how it got framed in the state and even the national press. At the time I was living in Seattle and all the coverage I saw was of Davis screwing up this way or that way. Friends would ask why Californians voted to reelect someone so clearly incompetent. With media coverage like that it was never any doubt that Davis would lose the recall.

Five years later California is in a worse situation than we were in 2002-03, when Davis was blamed for everything that had gone wrong in California and was recalled just 11 months after having been reelected. Arnold has given us a $40 billion deficit - larger than anything Davis grappled with. And when Democrats, facing a severe cash crisis, got creative in finding a solution and gave Arnold almost everything he demanded, Arnold vetoed the solution anyway. California bankruptcy seems more likely than ever, a direct consequence of Arnold's actions.