Katrinaland Says: “Don’t Forget Us.”
November 30th, 2005 - by: danny
KATRINA VICTIMS SEETHE
WHAT IS AN INSURGENT?
JAZEERA STORY DISSED ON CNN
The New Orleans newspaper, The Times Picayune leads today with: “COSTLIEST MISTAKE IN HISTORY.”
Team of experts say levee destined to fail
Investigators wonder how so many engineers could get it wrong
Race was a big dividing line at a meeting of the Urban Land Institute yesterday which proposes demolishing much of an African American neighborhood rather than bebuild it. 60 Minutes ran a positive story about this two weeks ago featuring interviews with Urban planners including one who advocated just abandoning large parts of the city. Here’s the gist of the latest from Nola.com:
“Some of the most biting criticism came from Cynthia Willard Lewis and Cynthia Hedge Morrell, City Council members who represent huge swaths of devastated terrain in eastern New Orleans, the Lower 9th Ward and Gentilly.
“Willard Lewis spoke with particular disdain for ULI’s “color-coded maps” which divide the city into three “investment zones:” areas to be rehabilitated immediately, areas to be developed partially, or areas to be re-evaluated as potential sites for mass buyouts and future green space.
“Those maps, she said, are “causing people to lose hope,” and others to stay away.“Willard Lewis, who is black, said many of her African-American constituents believe their neighborhoods have been unfairly “stratified to the last category” slated for redevelopment. Those who once fought for equal access to education and public facilities may be forced to fight for equal access to “relief and restoration,” she said.
Noting that she was wearing a pink blouse, Morrell, a Gentilly resident, said sarcastically that she should have worn purple, the map color used by ULI for sections of the city that suffered the worst flood damage.
IN NEW ORLEANS: THE PEOPLE TALK BACK
Here’s how that was translated by CNN in a report which captured the anger but not the underlying emotion. Both stores agreed: people there are pissed:
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) — Frustrated New Orleans residents appeared before Mayor Ray Nagin Tuesday with complaints about the response to Hurricane Katrina, with two speakers asking why a nation fighting to stabilize Iraq can’t resolve a crisis at home.
One woman suggested that New Orleans residents board buses and travel to Washington to complain to Congress, which has approved billions of dollars for relief efforts.
“If they can destroy a country and build it up again, why can’t they fix this state?” the woman asked.
THE OTHER CASUALTY
Katrina may have destroyed the region but it also may be responsible for the downfall of the Bush Administration, argues the Strategic intelligence firm Strafor:
“The real inflection point of this presidency was not Iraq; rather, it was Hurricane Katrina. Rightly or wrongly, Bush was perceived not just as unprepared for a major hurricane strike, but also as oblivious to the seriousness of the humanitarian disaster in New Orleans. This perception solidified the opposition of the U.S. left, denied the president any help from the American center and cracked the heretofore unified American right. The result was a president in danger of losing his core supporters, without whom no president can effectively rule. Similar circumstances condemned past statesmen such as Wilson, Truman, Johnson and Nixon into the unenviable company of failed presidents.
Since Katrina, the Bush administration’s fortunes have only slid further….
Strafor.com
PRAISE THE LAWD AND PASS…
Seymour Hersh has a chilling report in the current New Yorker:
” Seymour Hersh tells the tale of a former senior administration official who visited Iraq after the 2004 presidential election and returned to inform Bush that the war wasn’t going well. “I said to the president, ‘We’re not winning the war,’” the officia l told Hersh. “And he asked, ‘Are we losing?’ I said, ‘Not yet.’” Bush was “displeased” with the answer, the official told Hersh. “I tried to tell him. And he couldn’t hear it.”
“Hersh paints the picture of a president who believes that he was chosen by God to lead the United States after 9/11, a man whose faith blots out any concern over setbacks in Iraq. “The president is more determined than ever to stay the course,” a former defense official tells Hersh. “Bush is a believer in the adage ‘People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.’”
http://www.saloncom/politics/war_room/
WHEN IS AN INSURGENT NOT AN INSURGENT?
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld did some verbal noodling at a Pentagon press briefing yesterday and decided that word “insurgent” needs to be earned and that many of those claiming that title are not legit and don’t deserve it. Duh?
The Iraqis don’t call themselves Insurgents. That’s a label stuck on them after the term “terrorist” began to lose all meaning by inappropriate overuse. By the way, those fighting the Americans call themselves the resistance.
BUSH GOAL REMAINS: “VICTORY!”
Last night BBC was reporting
“The US says it expects conditions in Iraq will allow a reduction in American troops numbers there next year.”
Here’s how this came out on CNN today with an advance story on what the White House calls Bush a “major address” on Iraq this morning at Anapolis. CNN previews it for us in a way that suggests it is more like a recycling of an old address. That used to be called a broken record.
“The White House is holding out the prospect that U.S. troop levels in Iraq could soon be reduced, but President Bush insists he will not withdraw U.S. forces “without having achieved victory.” Bush is scheduled to make an address that will launch a new series of speeches aimed at bolstering public support for the increasingly unpopular conflict.”
I am sure he knows what kind of response he would get in Harlem which is why these speeches are given to controlled military audiences… This time the Peace Movement wil be responding with press conferences and media feeds. United for Peace and Justice advises:
New York, NY – As opposition to the war on Iraq grows, United for Peace andJustice (UPFJ), the nation’s largest anti-war coalition, will provide a counterpoint to President Bush’s upcoming speech about the war. In wha tthe Administration is billing as a “major” address, Bush is set to speak about Iraq on Wednesday, November 30, in Annapolis, MD.
Lets what kind of coverage they get – and if they get covered at all.
STAND UP OR STAND DOWN?
TomDispatch.com offers another view:
< blockquote>“During his embattled summer vacation in Crawford, Texas, George Bush managed to launch a new promotional ditty for his war in Iraq: “As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.” Since then there has been much commentary from the administration, from military officials, and from the media on the question of how successfully the Iraqi military is actually “standing up.” (Not especially successfully is the usual answer.) There has, however, been scarcely any serious discussion about what that new Iraqi army, heavily infiltrated by Shiite and Kurdish militiamen from the ruling parties in the Iraqi government, is actually going to stand up for.
There’s analysis—and there’s emotion. There are experts and there are people living this nightmare. Which gets closest to the truth? Here’s the violence in Iraq through the eyes of an Iraqi who is one fine writer. Riverbend of the Baghdad’s Burning Blog is back:
“In war, you think the unthinkable. You imagine the unimaginable. When you can’t get to sleep at night, your mind wanders to cover various possibilities. Trying to guess and determine the future of a war-torn nation is nearly impossible, so your mind focuses on the more tangible- friends… Near and distant relations. I think that during these last two and a half years, every single Iraqi inside of Iraq has considered the possibility of losing one or more people in the family. I try to imagine losing the people I love most in the world- whether it’s the possibility of having them buried under the rubble… or the possibility of having them brutally murdered by extremists… or blown to bits by a car bomb… or abducted for ransom… or brutally shot at a checkpoint. All disturbing possibilities.
“I try to imagine what would happen to me, personally, should this occur. How long would it take for the need for revenge to settle in? How long would it take to be recruited by someone who looks for people who have nothing to lose? People who lost it all to one blow. What I think the world doesn’t understand is that people don’t become suicide bombers because- like the world is told- they get seventy or however many virgins in paradise. People become suicide bombers because it is a vengeful end to a life no longer worth living- a life probably violently stripped of its humanity by a local terrorist- or a foreign soldier.
“I hate suicide bombers. I hate the way my heart beats chaotically every time I pass by a suspicious-looking car- and every car looks suspicious these days….”
Here are three more stories from that front of the global disaster we all live in:
l. A war supporter disillusioned in Iraq:
He believed in the fight, his family said, until he entered the war zone.
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/13266919.htm
2. Hospitals Come Under Siege:
Hospital personnel are reporting regular raids and interference by the U.S. military as fighting continues in the volatile Al-Anbar province of Iraq. The U.S. raids come as the hospitals face increasing lack of vital supplies and equipment.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31222
3. US conjures up Iraqi cataclysms to delay retreat:
Talk of a jihadist takeover if American troops withdraw is an absurd ploy
http://tinyurl.com/77ljv
BLOW TO 911 TRUTH SEEKING BY SUPREMES
Supreme Court denies FBI translator’s case
WASHINGTON (AP)– A former FBI translator failed Monday to persuade the Supreme Court to revive her lawsuit alleging she was fired for reporting possible wrongdoing by other linguists involved in counterterrorism investigations.
The high court also rebuffed a request by Sibel Edmonds and media groups to rule on whether an appellate court improperly held arguments in the case in secret without being asked to do so by either side.
“When courts are sealed, the public may suspect the worst and lose faith in their government simply because they are prohibited access,” wrote lawyers for media groups, including The Associated Press.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1154AP_FBI_Translator.htm
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Weep: This is Your Media.
November 30th, 2005 - by: danny
US EXPORTS SUBSIDIZED “JOURNALISM” TO IRAQ
U.S. Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-infowar30nov30,0,5638790.story
BRAD’S BLOG REPORTS ON MR. BILL
“Bill O’Reilly has finally posted his promised Enemies List on his website which he catagorizes as a list of “Media Operations that traffic in defamation.” At this time, his list includes just three media outlets and no supporting information for why they are listed. Though we have a guess or two…
BILL O’REILLY’S LIST!
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002091.htm
U.S. MAINSTREAM MEDIA DISMISSES AL JAZEERA STORY
Howard Kurtz, America’s official media critic devoted about 20 seconds to the story reported in England about the threat to bomb Al Jazeera. Here’s the trivialization as performed by Kurtz and former CBC correspondent turned CNN correspondent Bruce Morton on CNN’s Reliabe Sources program:
KURTZ: Bruce, this British tabloid report in “The Mirror” relying on one unnamed source that said that the Bush — that President Bush considered bombing Al-Jazeera’s offices but Tony Blair talked him out of it. The White House says us that ludicrous.
Should CNN and lots of newspapers and other news organizes have reported that?
MORTON: I don’t know that there is any evidence of that. “The Mirror” — the British tabloids are famous — and “The Mirror,” to be fair, is not known for reliability. It ain’t “The New York Times.” You know.
KURTZ: Yet just about everybody picked it up, with the White House denials, of course.
MORTON: I think we could have laid off that probably.
KURTZ: All right.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0511/27/rs.01.html
That was it. Pathetic. I will have an update on the Al Jazeera story on TomPaine.com later today.
HOW SOON WE FORGET
Free press carries this piece from Mark Lloyd of the Center for American Progress
“The “news” in America does not represent what is important for citizens to know — quite the opposite. In fact, commercial television news keeps us from putting the pieces together and holding our public servants accountable.
http://www.freepress.net/news/12567
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Daily Forum and Announcements
November 30th, 2005 - by: danny
Ron Corvus writes:
” Murtha says over 90% of the so-called “insurgents” are actually Iraqis.
This is a very important point, for several reasons:
* Bush & the neocons have INSISTED the insurgency is comprised of mainly “foreign terrorists.”
* Bush & the neocons NEED Americans to believe the so-called “insurgency” is comprised of foreign terrorists, because it would be untidy and questionable for our government to be killing Iraqis opposed to the BushOccupation of Iraq. It would be a much tougher road to hoe, if Bush & the neocons admitted they had to kill Iraqis in order to establish “democracy” by force in Iraq.
Remember, no analysis of this situation would be complete without fully realizing George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the neocons believe they can create democracy by force, at will. Nor would it be complete without mentioning the FACT our U.S. law and constitution does NOT provide for creating democracys, period – much less creating a “democracy” by force. The authority simply is not there – never has been.”
WALMART AT WAR
Tim Michel reminds me to support the campaign against Walmart:
“This story seems to have been missed during the Bush, Al Jazeera and Woodward revelations that have come to light recently. But a battle is raging in the United States against Wal-Mart the world’s largest retailer. It seems that the practices of Wal-Mart have angered enough people that they are forming activist groups with the sole purpose of preventing Wal-Mart from building any more stores in the U.S. Already several proposed new Wal-Marts have been successfully opposed by citizen lobbies in the communities in which Wal-Mart proposed to build new super-stores.”
http://walmartwatch.com/
WORLD AIDS DAY FORUM DEC 1
Join Mediachannel and members of the South Asian Journalists Association for a panel discussion on AIDS in India to mark World Aids Day,. I will be moderating one of the Himalayan Hotspot discussions with serious experts and informative specialists at the beautiful Rubin Museum of Art in Chelsea and 17th Street. It will start around 6:45.
I am off this weekend to Dubai for t345jnm he Arab Thought Foundations’ fourth annual conference discussing Arab and World Media Issues., More on that to come. Among the other American speakers: Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes.
http://www.ameinfo.com/67114.html
Thanks to all who have written inviting me to speak about my new books. We did a mass blast about the books to our Mediachannel lists yesterday.
More information at: http://www.newsdissector.org/store.htm,
Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org
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About Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is an Emmy award winning journalist, television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes, blogs and speaks about media issues.
His latest film is PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time.
Mr. Schechter is NOT the Godfather of Soul.
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