< Archives: 2008 April

SAIGON “FELL” TODAY; WHEN WILL BAGHDAD FOLLOW ?

April 29th, 2008 - by: danny

SAIGON “FELL” TODAY; WHEN WILL BAGHDAD FOLLOW ?

BREAKING NEWS

Press Release: “I thought you would be interested to know that Carrie Underwood has been named the 2008 “Female Celebrity Smile of the Year” by Dear Doctor, the nation’s leading consumer dentistry magazine.”

US ESCALATING CAMPAIGN AGAINST IRAN
CONSUMER CONFIDENCE FALLS AGAIN
PENTAGON MEDIA MEDDLING IS ILLEGAL

Join me in a media watch. Today, April 30 is the anniversary of the “fall” of Saigon, the military takeover that finally and decisively ended our Vietnam War which went back to US support for the French in the late forties. It was a military victory for the people then considered by our government and media to be the insurgents, the guerillas, the terrorists, the communists, the bad, bad guys. (Now we recognize and basically have good relations with these people in a flourishing Vietnam.)

Let’s see how this anniversary is marked in our media, and whether any connection is drawn to the war in Iraq in which the Green Zone is now being bombarded by the people we now see as a faceless force of the uncivilized. (Notice how the progressive term “Green” was appropriated to name the area expropriated for the headquarters of our occupation.) When the US Embassy was attacked in Saigon, it was the beginning of the end.

The “Liberation”, as the North Vietnamese military and the Southern based NLF called it then was not pain-free or injustice-free. It was part of a brutal war that seemed to go on forever. Many people suffered in the repression that followed. No question. Many more suffered in the war itself. Need I remind us about napalm, torture in tiger cages, assasinaton by the Phoenix program, agent orange, massive bombing etc etc. How many more would have suffered if the war went on is never asked. 50 thousand Americans died and uncounted millions of South East Asians.

I had been in Vietnam months earlier and was relieved when that murderous ordeal came to an end, but it has taken decades for that country and ours to move beyond it if we ever will.

With John McCain running for President, that war is likely to stay with us. To his admirers, he was a noble POW hero. To some of his detractors, he is still the pilot of a plane that bombed civilians in the city of Hanoi. That is considered a war crime in most countries, just not our own.

No one thought we would “lose’ the war the way we did. Many don’t believe we are losing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or the so-called Global War on Terror (GWOT) the way we are. Will history repeat itself? Given the balance of forces, probably not exactly, but when we look back as we will, we will see it all as big a mistake, if not a crime, as the Vietnam war that proceeded it.

And no surge can or will change that.

SAM GARDINER: IRAN MAY BE NEXT

Presentation on Iranian involvement in Iraq is supposed to be made in Baghdad this week. After that an ultimatum will be issued. According to CBS News this evening the State Department is working on the wording of the message to Iran.

STEVE WEISSMAN ON TRUTH OUT: “when Senator John McCain serenaded reporters last April with his ‘Bomb Bomb Iran,’ I had to wonder. Was this a taste of his aging flyboy humor? Or was he telling us what to expect should he ever become president? We may never find out. If Vice President Dick Cheney has his way, he will beat McCain to the punch, possibly as soon as late May, after President George W. Bush returns from celebrating the 60th anniversary of Israel’s creation.”

BRAIN INJURIES MULTIPLY FOR IRAQ VETS

NOW BUSH IS CONCERNED: NYT: Saying Times Are Difficult, Bush Presses Congress to Act

The president admits the economy will not be easy to “fix,” and calls on Congress to expand energy production, stem the mortgage crisis and reduce subsidies to farmers. Of course he blames the Democrats as you would expect.

BUSH’S ENEMIES LIST

RELEASE: In the May/June issue on newsstands today, Radar magazine exposes that for decades the federal government has been developing a highly classified plan that would override the Constitution in the event of a terrorist attack. It’s also compiling a secret list of citizens who could face detention under martial law.

Everyday invasive government surveillance networks are giving each of us an electronic full cavity search. Every time you make a call, surf the web or purchase something with a credit card, information maybe harvested and socked away in a variety of massive databases, allegedly including a highly classified one called Main Core, designed to flag potential trouble makers in case of an emergency.

I will have more on this storytomorrow.
.

UN sets up food crisis task force

Secretary General Ban said the world faced “widespread hunger, malnutrition and social unrest on an unprecedented scale” because of soaring food prices. …

Pentagon Pundit Scandal Broke the Law Reports Sheldon Rampton

The Pentagon military analyst program unveiled in last week’s exposé by David Barstow in the New York Times was not just unethical but illegal. It violates, for starters, specific restrictions that Congress has been placing in its annual appropriation bills every year since 1951. According to those restrictions, “No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress.”

CONGRATS TO PR WATCH’S JOHN STAUBER

Debate on Pentagon Media Program finally making it on air.Watch Stauber debate on the Jim Lehrer News Hour.

One big irony, Retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner was one of the News Hour’s leading military commentators, and also one of the first to blow the whistle on the way the Pentagon used the media and the way the media allowed itself to be used. You can see him critiquing this program of information dominance in my film WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception. (Http://www.wmdthefilm.com) But in all the time he was with the “show” , he was never asked about, or allowed to report on, the subject he was researching and had the goods on. It took years for PBS – which was unfortunately contributing to the fear machine to discuss this issue on the New Hour, without of course, any discussion of the NewsHOur’s own role.

Jeff Cohen | Military Propaganda Pushed Me off TV

Truthout contributor Jeff Cohen writes: “In the fall of 2002, week after week in debates televised on MSNBC, I argued vigorously against invading Iraq. I used every possible argument that might sway mainstream viewers – no real threat, cost, instability. But as the war neared, my debates were terminated.”

DIRELAND: RIGHT WING TRIUMPHS IN ROME

The Italian right, headed by corrupt billionaire Silvio Berlusconi, which scored a stunning victory in parliamentary elections at the beginning of April, has also just won the municipal election on Sunday and Monday in Rome. In a special dispatch, DIRELAND’s Rome correspondent, veteran ex-pat journalist Judy Harris, explains the reasons for these dual conservative victories.

WORLD ACTIVISTS AND INTELLECTUALS FEAR FOR BOLIVIA
“The Conspiracy to Divide Bolivia Must Be Denounced”
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Rigoberta Menchú, Noam Chomsky…

Forwarded by MICHEL COLLON – 30 of April 08

The situation in Bolivia is each day more serious. It is now our duty to support the President Evo Morales, by signing and forwarding this petition. You can give your support to cabohorquez@gmail.com or to yamp@min.cult.cu

The process of changes in favor of the Bolivian majority is at risk of being brutally restrained. The rise to power of an Indigenous president with unprecedented support in that country and his programs of popular benefits and recovery of the natural resources have had to face the conspiracies of the oligarchy and United States interference from the very beginning.

In recent days the increase in conspiracy has reached its climax. The subversive and unconstitutional actions of the oligarchic groups to try to divide the Bolivian nation reflect the racist and elitist minds of these sectors and constitute a very dangerous precedent not only for the country’s integrity, but for other countries in our region.

Faced with this situation the signers below would like to express their support for the government of Evo Morales Ayma, for his policies for change and for the sovereign constituent process of the Bolivian people. At the same time we reject the so-called Santa Cruz Autonomy Statute due to its unconstitutionality and the attempt against the unity of a nation of our America.


GUARDIAN: CAMBODIA INVADED BY CAPITALISTS

Almost half of Cambodia has been sold to foreign speculators in the past 18 months – and hundreds of thousands who fled the Khmer Rouge are homeless once more…

Shortly after Hun Sen, Cambodia’s prime minister, came to power in 1985, frenzied landgrabbing began: influential political allies and wealthy business associates raced to claim land that the Khmer Rouge had seized, gobbling up such large chunks of the cities, forests and paddy fields that Cambodians used to say the rich were eating the country. By 2006, the World Bank estimated that 40,000 had been made homeless in Phnom Penh alone….

In July 2007, Hun Sen, gambling on his people’s tenuous connection with the land, changed the designation of the southern islands so they could be sold. The forests, lakes, beaches and reefs – and the lives of the thousands of residents – were quietly transferred into the hands of private western developers. Arguing that Cambodia could become a tourist magnet to challenge Thailand, the prime minister began a fire sale of mainland beaches. By March this year, virtually all Cambodia’s accessible and sandy coast was in private hands, either Cambodian or foreign. Those who lived or worked there were turfed out – some jailed, others beaten, virtually all denied meaningful compensation.

Eric Gemmell: ERITREANS MARCH AGAINST THEIR WAR

CRAWFORD – Some are calling the potential for a senseless war, but Eritrean-Americans want the U.S. government to step in to stop any bloodshed.

While President Bush was not in town this weekend in Crawford, that didn’t stop nearly a hundred Eritrean-Americans to take to the streets demonstrating for peace in the small East African country that borders the Red Sea.

Several years ago, neighboring Ethiopia took control of a small part of Eritrea starting a three year war. Now tensions have been mounting in that area of the two nations and they want the President Bush to step in and curtail its funding from Ethiopia.

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CREDIT COMPANIES SQUEEZE CONSUMERS AS FTC WHINES AT ITS FAILURE

April 29th, 2008 - by: danny

CREDIT COMPANIES SQUEEZE CONSUMERS AS FTC WHINES AT ITS FAILURE

CONSUMER CONFIDENCE: DOWN AGAIN

NEW YORK – Soaring gas prices and weaker job prospects made Americans gloomier about the economy in April, sending a widely watched measure of consumer sentiment to a five-year low, a private research group said Tuesday.

The New York-based Conference Board said that its Consumer Confidence Index, which had plummeted in March, fell again to 62.3 in April, down from the revised 65.9 last month and 76.4 in February. The number was in line with the consensus estimate of 62 from Wall Street economists surveyed by Thomson/IFR, but the index remains at its weakest point since March 2003, when it registered 61.4, ahead of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Truth to Power: LOOK WHO’S PROFITING ON WALL ST WHEN NO ONE ELSE IS: MASTERCARD’S EARNINGS DOUBLE AND SHARES SURGE

CREDIT CARD COMPANIES JACK UP FEES

FTC: WE HAVE BEEN “QUESTIONING OURSELVES”

As well they should. I have been raising the question of all the deceptive advertising by credit card companies and mortgage lenders on TV. Why didn’t th FTC step in.

FTC Responds to Sub-Prime Mortgage Marketing Concerns; Staff Being Shifted to Give More Financial Focus
By Ira Teinowitz

WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) — A top official of the Federal Trade Commission said today the agency is stepping up its oversight of marketing of sub-prime mortgages and related transactions, responding to concerns that the government isn’t doing enough to stop misleading marketing.

“For the past several months we have been questioning ourselves on whether we could have done more,” Lydia B. Parnes, the FTC’s director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection told a panel of the Senate Commerce Committee today. She said staff is being shifted to help the agency devote more attention to the financial area.

The FTC doesn’t regulate federally chartered banks that make mortgage loans, but it does regulate advertising and marketing by mortgage brokers and companies that advertise aid to borrowers.

WHO IS GETTING HELP ON MORTGAGES?

Only 2000 homeowners reports The New York Times.

FT: FDIC HEAD ADVOCATES LOANS: US watchdog presses for mortgage rescues

The US should fight the housing crisis by using low-cost government loans to help borrowers pay down unaffordable mortgages, Sheila Bair, one of the country’s top banking regulators, proposes.Writing in the Financial Times on Wednesday, Ms Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, says the new government loans should cover up to 20 per cent of the value of the existing mortgages.

These loans, which would be interest-free for the first five years, would be used to pay down part of the existing mortgage. In return for the cash, lenders would reduce payments on the remaining part of the mortgage to affordable levels, defined as a proportion of income. They would also pay a fee to cover the government’s funding costs over the initial five-year period

Fears over Russian plan for ‘gas Opec’

Representatives of the world’s leading gas producers are discussing Russian proposals for greater cooperation, according to the Iranian Oil Ministry. Ministers from the Gas Exporting Countries Forum are meeting amid speculation that members are considering an Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec)-style club for gas producers.

AS CHINESE WORKERS WANT MORE MONEY, MORE US COMPANIES LEAVE

BEIJING (AFP) – China is loosing some of its attractiveness to foreign investors as rising costs are forcing some US manufacturing firms to leave the country, the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) said Monday.

More than two-thirds of AmCham’s member companies surveyed in an annual white paper agreed that China was losing some of its competitive advantage in global markets due to rising costs.

Factors with the biggest financial impact last year included price pressures from competition and major customers, rising salaries and wages, changes in raw material prices, tax expenses and real estate cost inflation, the survey said.

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Obama Finally Nixes Reverend Wright: Seeks to Recapture Momentum

April 29th, 2008 - by: danny

Obama Finally Nixes Reverend Wright: Seeks to Recapture Momentum

DON’T MISS SEEING THIS: MARK FIORE–AMERICA DECIDES NETWORK

OBAMA BREAKS WITH REVEREND WRONG

Hell has no fury like a pastor scorned. How else to explain Reverend Wright’s making himself the center of attention when it was so clear that all this attention was never about him. It was about finding a chink in Obama’s armor/personna and driving the wedge in as deeply as possible. But once the glare of big media attention makes you its focus, its easy to get seduced, to let egomania and prophetmania take over.

The Clinton and McCain campaign love it. Ratings soar and the distraction circus goes spinning on out of control. For Barack Obama, this became something akin to stepping in something gooey that he couldn’t scrape off his shoe.

The issue went on its merry divisive way until yesterday when he tried to call a halt. Of course, the media that thrives on this sort of food fight will not let go. With three billion in political advertising in the wings, they will continine to beat the drum.

TIME: A few weeks ago, after his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, first drew headlines for his fiery sermons, Barack Obama responded with a graceful speech on race in America. But Rev. Wright has decided he isn’t about to shut up and launched a series of provocative remarks over the weekend and on Monday. On Tuesday afternoon, Obama denounced Wright, saying “His comments were not only divisive… but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate.”

David Sirota: Clinton Criticizing Closure of Indiana Factory That Clinton Helped Close

In my upcoming book, The Uprising, one of the threads tying together the disparate forms of populism on both the Right and Left is a sense of confused frustration at a political system whose politicians employ disinformation and propaganda to make basic economic issues indecipherable. This has been no more obvious than on the issue of trade and globalization in the presidential race – and Hillary Clinton’s latest television ad (which is also a standard part of her stump speech) shows exactly what I’m talking about.

Clinton is airing this advertisement in Indiana, bemoaning the closure of a defense contractor Magnequench’s manufacturing plant in Valparaiso (she is also echoing this line in her stump speeches). Looking at the camera, she tells us she’s upset that the 200 jobs that were sent to China, and that “now America’s defense relies on Chinese spare parts.” And then comes the kicker: She tells viewers that “George Bush could have stopped it, but he didn’t.”

Clinton is certainly right that it is a tragedy that 200 American jobs were killed in a corporate deal that also exported sensitive military technology to China. But she forgets to mention that it wasn’t George Bush who was in the key position to stop it – it was Bill Clinton.

Back in 1995, a Chinese consortium, which included two Chinese state-owned companies, made a bid to take over Magnequench. Because the company makes key parts for smart bombs, the takeover had to be approved by the Clinton administration’s Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States. Despite the national security and economic problems with selling off such critical manufacturing capacity to the Chinese – and despite the knowledge that such a deal would likely end in a domestic mass layoff – the Clinton administration approved the deal. This same deal – not surprisingly – paved the way for those 200 Indiana jobs and that sensitive military technology to be shipped to China.


WASHINGTON POST “FACT CHECKER” COLUMN ON GAS TAX DEBATE

Both Sen. John McCain and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton have called for a “gas tax holiday” this summer to offer commuters and vacationers some relief from spiraling gasoline prices. They have urged Congress to suspend the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal tax and 24.4-cent diesel tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day, a step that could cost the government about $10 billion that would be used for transportation projects. The only major candidate to oppose the idea is Sen. Barack Obama, who voted for a similar measure in Illinois eight years ago. Obama now says that consumers would derive little benefit from such a moratorium. So, who is right?

Miriam Rafter reports: SAN DIEGO GOP CHAIR’S SECRET PIRACY PAST REVEALED:

San Diego GOP Chairman Co-Founded International Piracy Ring

RAW STORY (4/29/08) — Any job applicant knows that background checks are routine — especially for jobs involving authority or oversight of money. So why didn’t the San Diego Republican Party do a simple Google search before naming Tony Krvaric as its chairman?

Online research reveals that Krvaric is the co-founder of Fairlight, a band of software crackers which later evolved into an international video and software piracy group that law enforcement authorities say is among the world’s largest such crime rings. After co-founding Fairlight in Sweden, Krvaric established U.S. operations for the organization, including an arm headquartered in Southern California – a major center for the computer and video game industry.

Krvaric has also been appointed by California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring to head up the state party’s budget committee. RAW STORY’s investigation reveals the California GOP has put an alleged pirate in charge of its treasure trove.

An e-mail sent anonymously this week to a conservative listserv operator in San Diego County revealed an attached document titled “The Secret Life of Tony Krvaric.” The attachment alleged that Krvaric, using the alias “Strider,” founded Fairlight “to illegally crack and distribute copyrighted software.” Fairlight evolved from “an adolescent obsession into a full fledged multinational criminal enterprise,” the e-mail claimed.


KILLING TV SOFTLY: PUBLIC ACCESS FIGHTS FOR SURVIVAL


NBC NEWS QUESTIONED ON PRIORITIES

Miley Cyrus Trumps Voter ID Ruling on NBC Nightly News; On Same Day, NBC Anchor Slammed NYT’s Fluff

Last night, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams allotted eighty seconds to yesterday’s momentous Supreme Court ruling that there’s nothing unconstitutional with Indiana’s law requiring a photo ID to vote. Meanwhile, during the same broadcast, it spent over two minutes on the concern caused by photos of teen star Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair.

That would be embarrassing enough for a news organization purporting to be credible.

But earlier in the day on the Nightly News blog The Daily Nightly, anchor and managing editor Brian Williams (in a post titled “What Times Is It?”) actually took The New York Times to task for publishing puff pieces. Now, Williams won’t get an argument from me on The Times’ penchant for such reporting in between serious news items, which can bump a crucial story to the back pages (that’s why “NYT Front|Back” is an ongoing series here). But Williams is either in bunker-mentality denial or gallingly disingenuous to suggest he and his newscast – not to mention his network news colleagues and the mainstream media at large – don’t regularly focus attention on the same kind of tripe at the expense of substantive news.

Talk about your glass houses.

Barbara Sockey writes ON 60 MINUTES COMMERCIAL FOR ISRAELI AIR FORCE

Hi Danny:

I just wrote a letter to CBS regarding this travesty of a news story. I’m sending along the address and phone number if anyone else wants to share their thoughts:

CBS News
555 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019

Main Number:
(212) 975-4114

Thanks for your great work.

GOING TOO FAR?

BBC: When does kinky porn become illegal?

A bill outlawing the possession of “extreme pornography” is set to become law next week. But many fear it has been rushed through and will criminalize innocent people with a harmless taste for unconventional sex.

‘Extreme porn’ law could criminalize millions

LETTER FROM SYRACUSE NEW YORK

Marlin “Mike” Kisselstein writes

I believe there is a story here and that based on your previous work, Destiny might be a good fit for you to show the world how a “perfect economic storm” can expose “patently stupid” and put good people at unnecessary risk.

Here’s the deal in Syracuse, NY.

* The developer got government tax concessions which were to be offset by increased sales taxes, but if consumer spending declines and the retail sector declines those increases may not be recognized.
* A full build out will no doubt cost north of $4 billion with less than 10% of that currently financed and commodities going through the roof
* Phase 1 currently under construction and financed by municipal bonds insured by a Bermuda based bond insurer which has been downgraded to slightly above junk bond status would build 800,000 square feet of retail space thus doubling the size of the Carousel Mall in Syracuse, NY at a time when retail is in decline.
* Phase II would include a 1300 room 40 story hotel in Syracuse, NY??????
* Phase III would make Destiny the largest mall in America and include entertainment/recreational components similar to Xanadu in Jersey http://www.northjersey.com/multimedia/video/17069706.html and make the project a major tourist attraction although the price of gas may hurt tourism.

Here’s the rub

* The municipal bond market has tightened considerably and the value of bond insurance questionable at best and therefore future bonding may be questionable
* The financial sector is under extreme duress from sub prime, leveraged buy outs, escalating non-mortgage delinquencies and a looming slow down in the world and therefore bank financing of this high risk project is doubtful.
* The US dollar is reaching new lows as crude prices skyrocket to compensate and bio-fuels come under pressure due to food shortages
* Many non-crude commodities are reaching record levels.
* The consumer discretionary sector is under extreme duress as consumer confidence hits historic lows while inflation shrinks wallets.
* The retail sector is in a contracting mode and highly unlikely to be looking to the Syracuse market for growth.
* The housing sector is under extreme duress as prices are declining at an accelerating rate and foreclosure skyrocket

No one in the local media wants to talk about a “perfect economic storm” that may be Syracuse’s Destiny, making Syracuse the poster child for American excesses and the potential costs to communities like ours for “patently stupid”.

THE NEWS WE MISSED-FROM HARPERS.ORG

Turkmenistan returned to its old calendar, meaningn that months will no longer be named for the late dictator Saparmurat Niyazov, a.k.a. Turkmenbashi, his mother, a book he wrote, and the concept of neutrality; nor will the days be named for qualities such as youth, justice, nspirit, and Turkmenness….

Tony Zirkle, a candidate for Congress in Indiana who previously proposed segregating races into different states, spoke before a neo-Nazi group at an event to commemorate the birth of Adolf Hitler. “I’ll speak before any group that invites me,” said Zirkle. “I’ve spoken on an African-American radio station in Atlanta.”

Thanks for Tuning in. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

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