Gregory Harms - The “Liberal” Media and American Foreign Policy

A recent article by Robert Naiman (Al Jazeera, Jan. 9) examines the New York Times’ current coverage of Iran’s nuclear program. In it he exposes a disappointing but unsurprising mishandling of the facts. References to the paper’s shameful prewar reportage on Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s regime are appropriate. But if the Times is indeed liberal, why the repeated adoption and promotion of misleading, hawkish assumptions?

The New York Times could probably be fairly described as liberal. The term has lost much relevance and meaning in recent years, along with its counterpart designation “conservative.” But if we apply the label generally to mean mildly progressive and roughly approximating the political center, one could reasonably assert that the Times falls within range of the liberal framework. (I would argue it’s right-of-center, but will remain general for present purposes.) The paper’s editorial positions on domestic issues and social policy are safely categorized as such. When it comes to gun control, abortion, gay rights, immigration and so on, the paper is in the vicinity of the center (it is important to bear in mind that liberalism is a centrist philosophy, not a leftist one). Moreover, key members of the paper’s staff – former executive editor Bill Keller, former public editor Daniel Okrent – have openly admitted as much.

Read More:

HTTP://WWW.COUNTERPUNCH.ORG/2012/01/13/THE-LIBERAL-MEDIA-AND-AMERICAN-FOREIGN-POLICY/

Steven D., Booman - Scary: Networks Spent Only 32 Minutes on Perilous Climate Change in 2011

 Over your GOP primary fix yet? How about something to read of real significance.

Did you know that the US Networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) devoted a grand total of 32 MINUTES and 14 news stories for all of 2011 to the single most important story of this century last year. It\'s true. Despite all the evidence, despite all the extreme weather events in the world, despite the study by a climate change skeptic(funded in part by the Koch Brothers) that concluded climate researchers had it right all along when they concluded that climate change was caused by all the giga-tons of greenhouse gases human beings are pumping into the atmosphere, 32 minutes of coverage on the US Television networks was all they deemed fit to broadcast. Take a look at how sharply their coverage declined (from Climate Progress) since 2007, the peak year of coverage about the world\'s climate:

Read More:

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/761536/scary%3A_networks_spent_only_32_minutes_on_perilous_climate_change_in_2011

FAIR press release on NYTimes misleading articles on Iran

CONTACT: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)

NEW YORK - January 6 - In two articles yesterday (1/5/12), the New York Times misled readers about the state of Iran's nuclear program.

On the front page, the Times' Steven Erlanger reported this:

The threats from Iran, aimed both at the West and at Israel, combined with a recent assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran's nuclear program has a military objective, is becoming an important issue in the American presidential campaign.

There is no such International Atomic Energy Agency assessment. The IAEA report the Times is mischaracterizing raised questions about the state of the Iranian program, and presented the evidence, mostly years old, that Iran's critics say points towards a weapons program. (This evidence has been challenged by outside analysts--see FAIR Media Advisory, 11/16/11.) But the IAEA report made no firm conclusion that Iran had a nuclear weapons program, and noted that its inspections of Iran's facilities continue to show no diversion of uranium for military purposes.

Elsewhere in the Times, readers saw this in a piece by Clifford Krauss about a potential conflict over the Strait of Hormuz:

Various Iranian officials in recent weeks have said they would blockade the strait, which is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, if the United States and Europe imposed a tight oil embargo on their country in an effort to thwart its development of nuclear weapons.

Again, Iran has said repeatedly and emphatically that they are doing no such thing.

Interestingly, the Times has changed the Web version of the Erlanger article, removing the relevant paragraph--but without noting the error.

Overstating the case on Iran isn't a new problem at the Times. One story last month (12/8/11) referred matter-of-factly to the "recent public debate in Israel about whether time is running out for a military strike to slow Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapon."

With tensions between Iran and the United States rising, and Republican presidential candidates agitating for a more confrontational stance, it is imperative that outlets like the New York Times get the story right. If the Times wishes to do better than it did during the run-up to the Iraq War, it should be more careful.

ACTION:
Contact the New York Times and ask it to investigate and explain the editing of the January 5 front-page article, and to correct both misleading assertions about Iran and nuclear weapons.

CONTACT:
New York Times
Public Editor Arthur Brisbane
Email: public@nytimes.com
Phone: 212-556-7652

Paul Krassner - Predictions for 2012

Politics: The electoral college will be replaced by a system where voters will choose the polling firm they trust the most. Barack Obama will be re-elected because his vice-presidential running mate Joe Biden will be replaced by Hillary Clinton, thereby gaining the women's vote. Failed Republican campaigners will all take other jobs. Mitt Romney will start smoking a pipe and portray the character Bob Dobbs in a movie about the cultish Church of the Subgenius. Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain will launch the bipartisan Adultery Party in 2016, joined by Democrats John Edwards and Bill Clinton. Ron Paul will unite with RuPaul and they'll perform onDancing With the Stars. Rick Santorum will be caught in an airport bathroom stall enjoying a gay encounter. Michele Bachmann will launch a lie-detector company. Rick Perry will copyright the word "Oops." And it will be revealed that Donald Trump was actually born on Mars; he will have a birth certificate to prove it, along with a photo of himself as a typical Martian baby with a comb-over.

Show Business: Vegetarian converts will include Lady Gaga, who will wear a dress made entirely of heirloom tomatoes, and Meatloaf will change his name to Tofuloaf. Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy will win Academy Awards for best male and female actors. Angelina Jolie will legally adopt Brad Pitt. Kim Kardashian will get married and divorced on the same day. The Tea Party will become a popular sitcom. Capital punishment executions will become a top-rated reality TV series. The Second Coming of Jesus Christ will occur live on a three-hour special to be telecast on every single channel simultaneously, with an offstage voiceover narration by God. Atheists and agnostics will picket the production, only to be struck by lightning. Howard Stern will expose himself on America's Got Talent. The Taliban and al-Qaeda will be the final competitors on The Biggest Terrorists. Hulu and Netflix will merge as Huflix.

Read More:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-krassner/predictions-for-2012_2_b_1187365.html

Video - Holiday Card to All

Video - North Point's iBand - Feliz Navidad

Feliz Navidad using borrowed iPhones and iPads at North Point Community Church.
Download more free music from North Point -- www.northpointmusic.org/christmas

Paul Craig Roberts - Tyranny in the Forecast -- The Outlook for the New Year

In March 2010 when I resigned from my column with Creator’s Syndicate and put down my pen, I received so many protests from readers that two months later I began writing again.  This renewed activity has resulted in this new year in a website of my own.     My columns will first appear on my site. Sites on which readers are accustomed to find my columns are permitted to continue to post my columns as long as they link to my site and indicate my copyright.  The site will stay up if reader support justifies it.  Otherwise, I will conclude that the cost of the site exceeds the value of what I have to say.     This past year has not been a good one for the 99%, and the new year is likely to be even worse. This column deals with the outlook for liberty.  The next will deal with the economic outlook. Read More: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28475

David Rosen - 8 Ways Your Privacy Is Being Eroded Online and Off

By David Rosen, AlterNet

Printed on December 29, 2011

http://www.alternet.org/story/153592/are_you_being_tracked_8_ways_your_privacy_is_being_eroded_online_and_off

In a recent hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Al Franken reminded his fellow Americans, “People have a fundamental right to control their private information.” At the hearing, Franken raised an alarm about Carrier IQ’s software, CIQ.

Few people have ever heard about CIQ. Running under the app functions, CIQ doesn't require the user’s consent (or knowledge) to operate. On Android phones, it can track a user’s keystrokes, record telephone calls, store text messages, track location and more. Most troubling, it is difficult to impossible to disable.

Carrier IQ, located in Mountain View, CA, was founded in 2005 and is backed by a group of venture capitalists. Its software is installed on about 150 million wireless devices offered through AT&T, HTC, Nokia, RIM (BlackBerry), Samsung, Sprint and Verizon Wireless. It runs on a variety of operating systems, including the Apple OS and Google’s Android (but not on Microsoft Windows).

At the hearing, Sen. Franken questioned FBI director Robert Muller about the FBI’s use of CIQ software. Muller assured the senator that FBI agents “neither sought nor obtained any information” from Carrier IQ.

Following Muller’s Senate testimony, Andrew Coward, Carrier IQ’s VP of marketing, told the Associated Press that the FBI is the only law enforcement agency to contact them for data. The FBI has yet to issue a follow-up “clarification.”

Click to read more ...

William Bowles - Empire and the Lies of the Corporate Media -- Are we Living in a Fool's Paradise?

By William Bowles

 

Global Research, December 21, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28308

Well 2011 has been nothing if not eventful but frankly, in spite of all the #Occupy this and #Occupy that, it's not been a good year for us progresssives or the planet. The Empire acts with increasing, not decreasing impunity, desperate now to try and keep ahead of events lest events take control of it.

Are we living in a fool's paradise?

A question keeps nagging at me: Are all of us, including the left, reacting to an entirely engineered reality, fed to us via an all-embracing media? We get blown this way and that, all of it being determined by whatever 'event' the globalized media decides to feed us with. Then, just as 'mysteriously', the 'event' disappears to be replaced by yet another 'event'.

The old Anarchist cry of 'Do not adjust your mind, there's a fault in reality' takes on an entirely new kind of import given the power of the media to determine what's 'real' for us.

What this means is that the media effectively acts as an agent provocateur for the state and big business as it decides for us what is actually going on in the world. In turn, progressives make decisions based not on what needs to be done, but as a reaction to the 'news' in a weird political version of the Heisenberg Effect.

Press coverage of the Summer Riots is a perfect example of this process in action whereby the media, by focusing solely on the violence and destruction, not only transformed it into a 'riot without a cause' but in doing so actually incited even more violence and destruction, just as ASBOs (Anti-Social Behaviour Orders) are worn as 'badges of honour' by alienated youth who actually go out of their way to get one (or two).

Click to read more ...

Robert Scheer - On to the Next ‘Bubble Fantasy’

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/on_to_the_next_bubble_fantasy_20111222/

Posted on Dec 22, 2011

By Robert Scheer

Few journalists have greater influence on U.S. foreign policy, particularly regarding the Middle East, than New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. But his tortured obit of a column this week on the official end of the neocolonialist disaster that has been the Iraq occupation reminds one that the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner often gets it wrong.

Was the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which he did so much to encourage, a “wise choice”? Friedman hides behind one of his trademark ambiguities: “My answer is twofold: ‘No’ and ‘Maybe, sort of, we’ll see.’ I say ‘no’ because whatever happens in Iraq, even if it becomes Switzerland, we overpaid for it.”

Aside from the stunning amorality of assessing the cost of war from the standpoint of the royal “we,” Friedman seems wildly optimistic about what the invasion has wrought. On a day when Iraq’s prime minister, a Shiite, demanded that the leader of the Kurds arrest the Sunni vice president, Friedman celebrated the unity of the three groups as “the most important product of the Iraq war.” He blamed the failure of the U.S. occupation to accomplish more, in roughly equal measure, on “the incompetence of George W. Bush’s team in prosecuting the war,” “Iran, the Arab dictators and, most of all, Al Qaeda,” which he seems surprised to report “did not want a democracy in the heart of the Arab world.” 

President Bush’s argument for the invasion was not based on democratic nation-building but rather on two specific lies that Friedman has long danced around: that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that threatened U.S. security and that it was somehow linked to the 9/11 attacks. Friedman now insists “Iraq was always a war of choice. As I never bought the argument that Saddam had nukes that had to be taken out, the decision to go to war stemmed for me from a different choice: Could we ... tilt it and the region onto a democratizing track?”

Click to read more ...