The West’s “War on Humanity”: Imperialists’ Media Relentlessly Engaged in Media Warfare against Sovereign Nations. The Washington Post’s Double-Speak A recent article by The Washington Post’s Juan Forero, entitled Latin America’s new authoritarians, is just the latest example of how the imperialists’ media machine is relentlessly engaged in media warfare against sovereign nations in the South, in order to fertilise the ground for new or increased economic and military aggression against them.
Such psy-op campaigns also seek to influence events on the ground in target nations, in this case in Venezuela ahead of the October elections, where all signs point to another resounding victory for current President Hugo Chávez Frías. Americans and Historical Amnesia. In the Footsteps of D.
W. Griffith What Americans just don’t get is that most people see history differently than they do. In order to break this down, every semester I show Robert Wuhl’s HBO special “Assume the Position 101.” Wuhl proposes that U.S. history is Pop Culture and he discusses different events in American history and its American take. WikiLeaks: The Latin America Files. As Ecuador grants asylum to Julian Assange, here is a closer look at Cablegate in Latin America.
Editor's Note: On August 16, Ecuador announced that it would grant asylum to Julian Assange, citing the danger of political persecution by the United States if he is sent to Sweden. The decision followed the announcement that Assange has hired a renowned international human rights jurist, the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, to lead his defense against extradition to Sweden. Garzón, who spent more than a year in the late 1990s attempting to get Gen. Augusto Pinochet extradited from England to Spain for crimes against humanity, issued a statement calling the Swedish sexual misconduct allegations against Assange “arbitrary and baseless,” and declared: “There is clear political intentionality behind this affair, which explains his current situation.” Peter Kornbluh, guest editor of this issue of The Nation, thanks Andrew Kragie for energetic research assistance.
About the Author. No Kidding: The Most Incoherent Tom Friedman Column Ever. Cockburn on Tom Friedman. Carl Remick carlremick at hotmail.com Tue Sep 26 12:50:53 PDT 2000 [Sorry for being a repeat overposter, but I thought it worthwhile to share Alexander Cockburn’s NY Press column this week.
Glenn Greenwald. Would Putin Make a Better President Than Obama? “Every rouble spent in the social sphere should ‘generate justice.’ An equitable social and economic system is the main requirement for ensuring our sustained development during these years.”– Russian President Vladimir Putin Is Vladimir Putin really the “KGB thug” the US media makes him out to be? Take a look at this except from a book review in the New York Times and see what you think. “A decade ago it was possible to imagine two inner Putins wrestling for his soul: the K.G.B. thug versus the modernizer. Sadly, events since then suggest that the inflexible misanthrope we see is the only Putin we get…Even the most casual Putin-watcher has marveled at his narcissism, manifested in his odd habit of inviting cameras to record him bare-chested on horseback, swimming the butterfly stroke in a Siberian river, scuba diving and collecting skin samples from whales, among other stunts.
Read enough? Leon Panetta: Macho Renaissance man. Of all the ways in which America’s establishment media lionizes political leaders, none is quite as sycophantic as when it involves military policy and those who implement it.
As Chris Hayes recently learned, and as Brian Williams just eagerly exuded: unabashed, uncritical reverence is obligatory in this realm. And compulsion is hardly required: American journalists naturally swoon with adoration in the presence of shiny medals on uniforms and, especially, war gadgetry. As former military reporter John Parker, now a fellow at the University of Maryland Knight Center for Specialized Journalism-Military Reporting, put it in 2010: reporters covering military leaders “are co-opted by a combination of awe — interacting so closely with the most powerfully romanticized force of violence in the history of humanity — and the admirable and seductive allure of the sharp, amazingly focused demeanor of highly trained military minds.”
President Obama’s Non-Credible Statement on Leaks. President Obama, today, on the possibility of leaks from the White House: The notion that the White House would purposely release classified national security information is offensive, it’s wrong, and people, I think, need to have a better sense of how I approach this office and how the people around me approach this office . . . .
We are dealing with issues that can touch on the safety and security of the American people — our families or our military or our allies — and so we don’t play with that. This is not a credible statement. With regard to drones and the Bin Laden attack: It has been obvious for years that senior national security officials, including White House officials, regularly and opportunistically leak details to the press (or urge subordinate agencies to do so). CBS Pro-Drone Propaganda. On May 10, CBS's 60 Minutes presented a remarkably one-sided report on unmanned Air Force drones firing missiles into Afghanistan and Iraq.
Though the drones have been criticized for killing civilians in both countries, CBS viewers heard from no critics of the weapons.