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Gandalf Grey
Guest
Things Your Media Mama Didn't Tell You
By Dave Lindorff
Created Jun 12 2007 - 9:13am
The fact that most Americans oppose the war in Iraq, and want the president
impeached, is testimony to the native intelligence and common sense of the
citizens of this nation.
It sure isn't thanks to the quality of the news we're getting here in
America!
Here are ten things you don't know if you just depend on the corporate media
for your information:
1. Most Americans would like to see this president and vice president
impeached and removed from office. Newsweek magazine published a scientific
poll last October showing that 51 percent of us favor impeachment (including
29 percent of Republicans!), but the corporate media, which normally haven't
met a poll they won't publish, didn't publicize this one. And now, when the
numbers supporting impeachment are surely even higher, you can't even pay a
polling outfit to ask the question. No wonder most people who favor
impeachment still think they're odd ducks.
2. There is a bill, filed in the House of Representatives on April 24 by
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), calling for the impeachment of Vice President
Cheney. Since it was filed, it has gained six co-sponsors, including a
member of the House Democratic leadership, Rep. Janice Shakowsky (D-IL).
Most major media have ignored this important story completely. Most
Americans also don't know that the Vermont State Senate voted overwhelmingly
this spring to call on Congress to impeach the president.
3. The president has been declared a felon in federal court. Yet even after
Federal District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled last August that President
Bush and the National Security Agency were committing serial Class A
felonies and were violating both the First and Fourth Amendments by spying
on Americans' communications without first obtaining warrants, Bush
continued ordering the NSA to continue the patently illegal program for at
least half a year. In reports on the spying program, the corporate media
never mention that it has been declared a felonious activity by the federal
court.
4. Fifteen Democratic state party organizations have passed impeachment
resolutions calling on Democrats in Congress to initiate impeachment
proceedings against the president and vice president. The most recent of
these, the Democratic Party of Oklahoma, passed its resolution at the
party's annual convention on May 19. Other Democratic Party conventions, in
states from Nevada and California to Massachusetts and North Carolina, have
passed similar resolutions. Most have been ignored by the corporate media
even in their own states.
5. Bush's so-called "coalition of the willing" is not so willing and is not
really much of a coalition either. When's the last time you've heard how
many countries are on board with the US in the war and occupation of Iraq?
The reality? Britain, the only significant contributor of combat troops
besides the U.S., is pulling out, as Italy and Spain did earlier, and many
other countries, like Denmark, Lithuania and others, plan to be out of Iraq
by August or at the latest December. One indication of the seriousness of
situation: the Pentagon no longer lists the countries that are members of
the "coalition." The only mainstream report I've seen laying out this
collapse in international support for Bush's war was in USA Today last
February.
6. The Homeland Security Department last year awarded Halliburton $385
million in a no-bid contract to construct prison camps designed to hold tens
of thousands of unspecified prisoners in the event of domestic unrest.
Meanwhile, President Bush has signed a bill altering the insurrection act so
that he can declare martial rule and order active duty troops to take charge
anywhere in the domestic US in the event of "public disorder." No one in the
corporate media has reported on these developments or asked the White House
to explain what it's all about.
7. There is evidence that Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, was a patron of the
Washington Madam whose client book of high-class call-girls is causing many
in Washington political circles--mostly Republicans it appears, who
apparently need to pay for their sex--to sweat. So far no mention of the
Cheney angle in the corporate media, though they've been having fun with the
broader story of a political sex scandal. No mention either of how a brave
West Point cadet a few weeks ago refused to shake Cheney's hand on stage
when the vice president was handing out this year's diplomas at the Army's
premiere officer academy.
8. Among the "worst of the worst" of the "evildoers" captured and held as
"enemy combatants" at Guantanamo were children, some of them preteens and
kids who were under 15 when captured and brought to the island of Cuba--so
many in fact that the military had to set up a special facility, called Camp
Iguana, just for adolescent and pre-pubescent "fighters." The corporate
media have barely reported on this atrocity (the New York Times ran only one
article mentioning child captives, in June 2005). The only wider coverage of
this outrage came recently when the government tried to prosecute one such
alleged child "terrorist"--Omar Khadr--only to have the military judge in
charge toss his case out because the government had misclassified him.
Khadr, we learned, was captured in 2001 in Afghanistan at the ripe age of
15, making him one of the older child captives brought to and interrogated
at Guantanamo. Under international law, the U.S. was supposed to treat this
and other child soldiers as victims, not as war criminals. Khadr, a Canadian
by birth, instead has spent five years doing hard time in US captivity.
9. Well-researched reports on the rampant theft of both the 2000 and 2004
elections, and on Republican plans for theft of the 2008 election, such as
Mark Crispin Miller's Fooled Again, have gone unmentioned in the corporate
media. Books on the subject, like Miller's and like Greg Palast's best
selling Armed Madhouse, have never been reviewed.
10. And of course, there's my own book. The Case for Impeachment, despite
its having sold over 20,000 copies in hardcover, and despite its having now
come out in a mass-market paperback edition, in both cases printed by a
mainstream publisher, St. Martin's Press, has not received a single review
in the corporate media. In this, my co-author Barbara Olshansky and I are
not alone. None of the books on the impeachable crimes of this
administration, including one by Nixon-era impeachment panelist and former
congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, and one by Judiciary Chair Rep. John
Conyers, has been reviewed by a mainstream media outlet.
What we're talking about here is nothing less than a media blackout of
important stories and news.
Thanks to the internet and to the grapevine, and thanks to their basic
native intelligence, most Americans seem to understand that we're being lied
to and cheated. What the media blackout of important news does manage to do,
however, is keep us all thinking that we are in a minority in opposing
things like illegal wars, a trampled Constitution, and stolen elections.
In fact, however, we're actually the majority. Once we realize this, maybe
we will have a movement, instead of a just nation of isolated cynics and
complainers.
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Dave Lindorff
Created Jun 12 2007 - 9:13am
The fact that most Americans oppose the war in Iraq, and want the president
impeached, is testimony to the native intelligence and common sense of the
citizens of this nation.
It sure isn't thanks to the quality of the news we're getting here in
America!
Here are ten things you don't know if you just depend on the corporate media
for your information:
1. Most Americans would like to see this president and vice president
impeached and removed from office. Newsweek magazine published a scientific
poll last October showing that 51 percent of us favor impeachment (including
29 percent of Republicans!), but the corporate media, which normally haven't
met a poll they won't publish, didn't publicize this one. And now, when the
numbers supporting impeachment are surely even higher, you can't even pay a
polling outfit to ask the question. No wonder most people who favor
impeachment still think they're odd ducks.
2. There is a bill, filed in the House of Representatives on April 24 by
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), calling for the impeachment of Vice President
Cheney. Since it was filed, it has gained six co-sponsors, including a
member of the House Democratic leadership, Rep. Janice Shakowsky (D-IL).
Most major media have ignored this important story completely. Most
Americans also don't know that the Vermont State Senate voted overwhelmingly
this spring to call on Congress to impeach the president.
3. The president has been declared a felon in federal court. Yet even after
Federal District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled last August that President
Bush and the National Security Agency were committing serial Class A
felonies and were violating both the First and Fourth Amendments by spying
on Americans' communications without first obtaining warrants, Bush
continued ordering the NSA to continue the patently illegal program for at
least half a year. In reports on the spying program, the corporate media
never mention that it has been declared a felonious activity by the federal
court.
4. Fifteen Democratic state party organizations have passed impeachment
resolutions calling on Democrats in Congress to initiate impeachment
proceedings against the president and vice president. The most recent of
these, the Democratic Party of Oklahoma, passed its resolution at the
party's annual convention on May 19. Other Democratic Party conventions, in
states from Nevada and California to Massachusetts and North Carolina, have
passed similar resolutions. Most have been ignored by the corporate media
even in their own states.
5. Bush's so-called "coalition of the willing" is not so willing and is not
really much of a coalition either. When's the last time you've heard how
many countries are on board with the US in the war and occupation of Iraq?
The reality? Britain, the only significant contributor of combat troops
besides the U.S., is pulling out, as Italy and Spain did earlier, and many
other countries, like Denmark, Lithuania and others, plan to be out of Iraq
by August or at the latest December. One indication of the seriousness of
situation: the Pentagon no longer lists the countries that are members of
the "coalition." The only mainstream report I've seen laying out this
collapse in international support for Bush's war was in USA Today last
February.
6. The Homeland Security Department last year awarded Halliburton $385
million in a no-bid contract to construct prison camps designed to hold tens
of thousands of unspecified prisoners in the event of domestic unrest.
Meanwhile, President Bush has signed a bill altering the insurrection act so
that he can declare martial rule and order active duty troops to take charge
anywhere in the domestic US in the event of "public disorder." No one in the
corporate media has reported on these developments or asked the White House
to explain what it's all about.
7. There is evidence that Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, was a patron of the
Washington Madam whose client book of high-class call-girls is causing many
in Washington political circles--mostly Republicans it appears, who
apparently need to pay for their sex--to sweat. So far no mention of the
Cheney angle in the corporate media, though they've been having fun with the
broader story of a political sex scandal. No mention either of how a brave
West Point cadet a few weeks ago refused to shake Cheney's hand on stage
when the vice president was handing out this year's diplomas at the Army's
premiere officer academy.
8. Among the "worst of the worst" of the "evildoers" captured and held as
"enemy combatants" at Guantanamo were children, some of them preteens and
kids who were under 15 when captured and brought to the island of Cuba--so
many in fact that the military had to set up a special facility, called Camp
Iguana, just for adolescent and pre-pubescent "fighters." The corporate
media have barely reported on this atrocity (the New York Times ran only one
article mentioning child captives, in June 2005). The only wider coverage of
this outrage came recently when the government tried to prosecute one such
alleged child "terrorist"--Omar Khadr--only to have the military judge in
charge toss his case out because the government had misclassified him.
Khadr, we learned, was captured in 2001 in Afghanistan at the ripe age of
15, making him one of the older child captives brought to and interrogated
at Guantanamo. Under international law, the U.S. was supposed to treat this
and other child soldiers as victims, not as war criminals. Khadr, a Canadian
by birth, instead has spent five years doing hard time in US captivity.
9. Well-researched reports on the rampant theft of both the 2000 and 2004
elections, and on Republican plans for theft of the 2008 election, such as
Mark Crispin Miller's Fooled Again, have gone unmentioned in the corporate
media. Books on the subject, like Miller's and like Greg Palast's best
selling Armed Madhouse, have never been reviewed.
10. And of course, there's my own book. The Case for Impeachment, despite
its having sold over 20,000 copies in hardcover, and despite its having now
come out in a mass-market paperback edition, in both cases printed by a
mainstream publisher, St. Martin's Press, has not received a single review
in the corporate media. In this, my co-author Barbara Olshansky and I are
not alone. None of the books on the impeachable crimes of this
administration, including one by Nixon-era impeachment panelist and former
congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, and one by Judiciary Chair Rep. John
Conyers, has been reviewed by a mainstream media outlet.
What we're talking about here is nothing less than a media blackout of
important stories and news.
Thanks to the internet and to the grapevine, and thanks to their basic
native intelligence, most Americans seem to understand that we're being lied
to and cheated. What the media blackout of important news does manage to do,
however, is keep us all thinking that we are in a minority in opposing
things like illegal wars, a trampled Constitution, and stolen elections.
In fact, however, we're actually the majority. Once we realize this, maybe
we will have a movement, instead of a just nation of isolated cynics and
complainers.
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson