Greece Is On Fire, Spain In Revolt, And There’s A Lot You Need To Know
May 31st, 2011 - by: danny
GIL SCOTT-HERON (R.I.P.) ON MEDIA
Media does not make a revolution, each one of us do. So don’t expect others to do it, it’s all our responsibility.
The Revolution will not be Televised.
The Revolution will not be a Rerun.
The Revolution will be LIVE!
As Mladic Heads (Eventually) to The Hague, An American Accused of War Crimes Faces Protests Today on The Upper East Side
Protests at 92nd Street Y to Oppose Presence of Henry Kissinger.
The Global FInancial Crisis Claims New Victims: Greece In Despair
Panic Capital Flight in Greece Depositors Yank 1.5 Billion Euros in 2 Days;EU Wants Severe Bail-Out Conditions Including International Tax Collection
A COMMENT FROM ATHENS FROM A FRIEND WHO WORKS AT THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE
You can’t imagine what we passed! We face serious and dramatic problems! The Greek people, the government, everybody is disappointed with the situation. Strikes and gathering of young people in the center of Athens is a daily phenomenon. I feel the same with the crowd, but what are we suppose to do?
Press has no clue about what might happen, only the Prime Minister knows the real facts.
Please, cross your fingers and wish us good luck!
SPAIN IN REVOLT
Dick Nichols: Barcelona eyewitness: The Indignant beat back authorities
Barcelona, resist police attacks on their protest camp.
“The central plazas of dozens of cities and towns across Spain bear an uncanny resemblance to Tahrir Square in Cairo. They have been taken over by thousands of demonstrators demanding a “new system”. As of May 29, dozens of other central plazas in Spanish cities and towns look the same — taken over by thousands of ordinary people demanding “a new system”.
“The movement, known as “#spanishrevolution” after the Twitter hashtag used to spread news, pictures and footage of the revolt, began with an internet call for a May 15 protest to demand “Real Democracy Now!”.
“Across Spain, more than 100,000 people turned out. In Madrid, protesters decided to establish a permanent camp in the central plaza, the Puerta del Sol.
A MEMORIAL DAY MEMORY FROM THE USA
Dick Meister, Truthout/Chicago IndyMedia: Yes, We Had A Memorial Day Massacre
“It’s a dramatic, shocking and violent film. Some 200 uniformed policemen armed with billy clubs, revolvers and tear gas angrily charge an unarmed crowd of several hundred striking steelworkers and their wives and children, who are desperately running away. The police
club those they can reach, shoving them to the ground and ignoring their pleas as they batter them with further blows. They stand above the fallen to fire at the backs of those who’ve outraced them.
“Police drag the injured along the ground and into patrol wagons, where they are jammed in with dozens of others who were also arrested. Four are already dead from police bullets, six others are to die shortly. Eighty are wounded, two dozen others so badly beaten that they, too, must be hospitalized.
“The close-ups are particularly brutal. As one newspaper reviewer noted, “In several instances from two to four policemen are seen beating one man. One strikes him horizontally across the face, using his club as he
would a baseball bat. Another crashes it down on top of his head and still another is whipping him across the back.”
“The film ends with a sweaty, fatigued policeman looking into the camera, grinning and motioning as if dusting off his hands.
“The film was made in 1937. It was not, however, one of those popular cops and robbers features of the thirties. It was not fictional. It was an on-the-scene report of what historians call “The Memorial Day
Massacre,” a newsreel segment filmed by Paramount Pictures as it was happening on the south side of Chicago on May 30, 1937.
SOUTH AFRICA IN LIBYA
MAIL & GUARDIAN: Preaching peace, Zuma heads to Libya
The ANC has slammed the bombing of Libya, in a statement on the eve of a visit by President Jacob Zuma to Tripoli for talks with Muammar Gaddafi.
CLG: Al-Jazeera footage captures ‘western troops on the ground’ in Libya
“Armed westerners have been filmed on the front line with ‘rebels’ near Misrata in the first apparent confirmation that foreign special forces are playing an active role in the Libyan conflict. A group of six westerners are clearly visible in a report by al-Jazeera from Dafniya, described as the westernmost point of the rebel lines west of the town of Misrata. Five of them were armed and wearing sand-coloured clothes, peaked caps, and cotton Arab scarves. The sixth, apparently the most senior of the group, may be an intelligence officer.
‘US dropped cluster bombs on Misratah
A Human rights investigation in Libya has found that it was the US and its Western allies who cluster bombed the troubled city of Misratah back in April. The HRI said it has convincing evidence that the cluster bombing blamed on pro-Gaddafi forces was actually carried out by the US navy. The report says at the time of the attack, Human Rights Watch and a ‘reporter’ working for US media immediately blamed forces loyal to Libya’s embattled leader Muammar Gaddafi for the cluster bombing that threatened civilian lives.
Meet Our New General of Generals: (WP)
“President Obama nominated Gen. Martin E. Dempsey as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Memorial Day, the holiday that honors the nation’s war dead. Dempsey, who was sworn in as Army chief of staff just last month, replaces Adm. Mike Mullen, who is retiring when his term ends.
Middle East
Gershon Baskin, Jerusalem Post: Next Steps in “peace”process
“It is now quite evident that there can be no end to our conflict with the Palestinians, and no peace without a negotiated agreement. Yet without a fundamental change in relations between the parties, the option of a two-state solution will soon be off the table.
“That is my assessment with regard to the Palestinian side. Once the current Palestinian leaders in Palestine come to believe that they can no longer advance the cause of peace and end the occupation, they will resign and turn the issue over to the next generation.
“Having spent the past weeks meeting grassroots activists all over the West Bank and speaking to friends and contacts in Gaza, I can categorically affirm that increasing numbers of Palestinians are saying the two-state solution is not viable. They say that (I am paraphrasing) “the Palestinians offered Israel the best deal, the most generous deal it could ever expect. We offered them their state on 78 percent of the land between the river and the sea, but they wanted more. So now we say to them, we don’t want a mini-state on 22% of the land any more. Give us one thing and one thing only: the right to vote. One person, one vote — that’s all we want.”
“If this scenario comes to pass, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be transformed from a territorial squabble resolvable through partition to an intractable identity conflict. Bosnia was essentially an identity conflict — everyone against everyone for everything. In Bosnia, 150,000 were killed in four years. As long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a territorial conflict, we can figure out how to resolve it. If we fail to end the occupation and allow the Palestinians to achieve statehood on 22% of the land, with Palestinian control of their borders (with agreed security arrangements with Israel), a formula for two capitals in Jerusalem with Palestinian control over the Muslim holy places and an agreed formula for dealing with refugees, then in about one year we will face an entirely new situation — one that even the greatest speeches in the US Congress will not be able to resolve.
Uri Avnery, Israeli Peace Movement Leader on “Bibi and The Yo Yos”
“It was all rather disgusting.
“There they were, the members of the highest legislative bodies of the world’s only superpower, flying up and down like so many yo-yos, applauding wildly, every few minutes or seconds, the most outrageous lies and distortions of Binyamin Netanyahu.
“It was worse than the Syrian parliament during a speech by Bashar Assad, where anyone not applauding could find himself in prison. Or Stalin’s Supreme Soviet, when showing less than sufficient respect could have meant death.
“What the American Senators and Congressmen feared was a fate worse than death. Anyone remaining seated or not applauding wildly enough could have been caught on camera — and that amounts to political suicide. It was enough for one single congressman to rise and applaud, and all the others had to follow suit. Who would dare not to?
“The sight of these hundreds of parliamentarians jumping up and clapping their hands, again and again and again and again, with the Leader graciously acknowledging with a movement of his hand, was reminiscent of other regimes. Only this time it was not the local dictator who compelled this adulation, but a foreign one.
“The most depressing part of it was that there was not a single lawmaker — Republican or Democrat — who dared to resist. When I was a 9 year old boy in Germany, I dared to leave my right arm hanging by my side when all my schoolmates raised theirs in the Nazi salute and sang Hitler’s anthem. Is there no one in Washington DC who has that simple courage? Is it really Washington IOT — Israel Occupied Territory — as the anti-Semites assert?
“Many years ago I visited the Senate hall and was introduced to the leading Senators of the time. I was profoundly shocked. After being brought up in deep respect for the Senate of the United States, the country of Jefferson and Lincoln, I was faced with a bunch of pompous asses, many of them nincompoops who had not the slightest idea what they were talking about. I was told that it was their assistants who really understood matters….
MEDIA
T/H Geo Geller: Study Finds: Fragmentation of Audience Attention Leads to Decline in Perceived Value of Entertainment
European Journalism Center Reports: Mubarak fined for cutting internet and phones
“An Egyptian court has fined ousted president Hosni Mubarak and former officials more than USD 90m for cutting off access to internet and mobile phone services during the country’s massive protests in January. A court source told the Reuters news agency on Saturday that Mubarak’s fine is USD 34m, former interior minister Habib al-Adly will owe USD 53m, and former prime minister Ahmed Nazif has a fine of USD 7m. The amounts relate to compensation for lost revenue as a result of the decision to cut off access for five days starting on January 28, said the source. The fine is to be paid from personal assets, and the state has the right to increase the amount over the year if damages continue to rise. This was the first court ruling against Mubarak since he was ousted on February 11. Mubarak faces far more serious charges, including ordering the killing of protesters, a charge which could carry the death penalty. (Al Jazeera )
Iran vows to unplug Internet
“Iran is taking steps toward an aggressive new form of censorship: a so-called national Internet that could, in effect, disconnect Iranian cyberspace from the rest of the world. The leadership in Iran sees the project as a way to end the fight for control of the Internet, according to observers of Iranian policy inside and outside the country. Iran, already among the most sophisticated nations in online censoring, also promotes its national Internet as a cost-saving measure for consumers and as a way to uphold Islamic moral codes. In February, as pro-democracy protests spread rapidly across the Middle East and North Africa, Reza Bagheri Asl, director of the telecommunication ministry’s research institute, told an Iranian news agency that soon 60 percent of the nation’s homes and businesses would be on the new, internal network. Within two years it would extend to the entire country, he said. On Friday, new reports emerged in the local press that Iran also intends to roll out its own computer operating system in coming months to replace Microsoft Corp.’s Windows. The development, which couldn’t be independently confirmed, was attributed to Reza Taghipour, Iran’s communication minister. Ali Aghamohammadi, Iran’s head of economic affairs, said the new network would at first operate in parallel to the normal Internet – banks, government ministries and large companies would continue to have access to the regular Internet. Eventually, he said, the national network could replace the global Internet in Iran, as well as in other Muslim countries. (Wall Street Journal)
LBN: STRAUSS-KAHN HIRES ‘CRISIS TEAM’:
“Dominique Strauss-Kahn has hired a crack “crisis team,” which includes former CIA spies, New York criminal investigators, and PR specialists. In Washington, he is hiring TD International, a “strategic advisory” run by former CIA officers and diplomats who offer both PR and investigatory services. He is also hiring a private-investigations firm, Guidepost Solutions, in New York, and Euro RSCG, one of France’s top PR firms.
Comments on The Capture of Ratko Mladic
Glenn Greenwald, Salon: “By all accounts, Serbian authorities could have arrested Mladic long ago but finally did so because of the extreme pressure brought to bear by EU leaders.
“Why is it legitimate to demand that Serbians Look Backward and risk extreme domestic divisiveness in order to punish their accused war criminals, while the U.S. refuses to do so? Conversely, why is it legitimate to shield accused American war criminals of all accountability on the ground that investigating and prosecuting them would distract from The Future and trigger political conflict, but not allow Serbians the same luxury? I have no doubt that there are hordes of Americans happy about Mladic’s arrest while simultaneously supportive of Obama’s Look Forward decree for American war criminals, all without bothering to resolve — or even recognize — the glaring, self-serving inconsistency at the heart of that mentality.
Glenn Ruga: “I would like to forward one response to this email exchange from a Bosnian who stayed. Farida Musanovic, her husband Mirza, and two daughters Alma and Aida, lived in Sarajevo when war broke out. Both Alma and Aida eventually left in a convoy and went on to create successful lives in a new country in the United States. Farida, a music teacher, and her husband, a doctor, struggled throughout the war and after. Their home was home to many journalists and aid workers during and after the war (myself included). Farida was featured in a New York Times article during the war for her tenacity to continue to teach piano lessons in the unheated music academy. Both during and after the war she worked with Women for Women in Bosnia, and in 2005 won the Dayton Peacemaker Prize. I know that many people on this list know Farida and her family and would appreciate reading this response from someone who lived through it all and is still living through the legacy of war and genocide in her country.
Farida’s comment: Thank you for your emotional response to the news about Ratko Mladic. There are no celebration in Bosnia because we have been waiting too long and we know that Serbia is trading Mladic for the application for EU. You know that we were not happy with the Dayton Agreement because it divided Bosnia and awarded Republika Srpska for the genocide. The war is still going on but in other means and Bosnia is more divided now than it was 15 years ago! So we still need to explain what we went through.
While i am writing this message, there are many protests in Republika Srpska as they are celebrating Mladic as their national hero. We have to face it and try to do our best for reconciliation and it is very difficult. I know there are so many people in the US who know what was going on here during the war but maybe their voices are not heard. I know how much you supported Bosnia and fought for justice and we all appreciate it very much. Keep going and I wish you the very best. If you come to Bosnia, please let me know as I would like to meet you very much. Best regards, F
“DEFICIT” FACTS THAT SOMEHOW NEVER MAKE THE NEWS
Abby Zimet, Common Dreams: “The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
has updated a widely cited chart to show that Bush-era tax cuts to the rich
and two ill-advised wars – not the economic downturn – are primarily
responsible for the massive debt now driving Republicans to cut health,
education, social services and every other remotely useful program.”
Sam Smith, Undernews: Facts to Make Your Head Spin
We interrupt this deficit cutting for a few facts
Those “non-combat” troops we’re leaving in Iraq will cost about $50 billion, which — writes Joshua Holland of Alternet — could also pay for
24.3 million children receiving low-income health care for one year, OR
726,044 elementary school teachers for one year, OR
829,946 firefighters for one year, OR
6.2 million Head Start slots for children for one year, OR
10.7 million households with renewable electricity — solar photovoltaic for one year, OR
28.6 million households with renewable electricity-wind power for one year, OR
6.1 million military veterans receiving VA medical care for one year, OR
9.8 million people receiving low-income health care for one year, OR
718,208 police or sheriff’s patrol officers for one year, OR
6.0 million scholarships for university students for one year, OR
8.5 million students receiving Pell grants of $5,550
Final Memorial Day Comment by Rudyard Kipling, courtesy of Bradley Laing
We have fed our sea for a thousand years
And she calls us, still unfed,
Though there’s never a wave of all her waves
But marks our English dead:
We have strawed our best to the weed’s unrest,
To the shark and the sheering gull.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha’ paid in full!
Greg Writes About Plunder
Just watched – very eye opening (though I have read much of this before). What can we do to make it stop? Can it be stopped (short of taking part in a revolution)? I feel completely powerless and would love to know what I can do to fight back. I am a lawyer and a teacher – what can I do to help get our country back?”
Gisela Sommer writes:
I always love reading your challenging and insightful commentaries.
I agree with you on
‘Too Big To Fail’ Should Have Been ‘Too Big to Jail’
Marcus Georges writes:
just wanted to write you today and say thank you for opening my eyes to some of the issues going on in America. I just recently watch your film Plunder. I have also watched the movie Casino Jack and the United States of Money. If you take knowledge from both films it really makes you wonder how much money is invested by corporation in getting the right guys into office on capital hill. I think that politicians’ have let the American people down by allowing the stock market to run its self ungoverned. If we could get more reporters and film makes to do their jobs like you have, I think that America could really wake up and change our ways before it’s too late. These films really show what America has become about the greed and wealth that one man can make off another mans sorrow. Once again thank you and keep up the great work.
Paul O’Hanlon writes from Scotland:
Parliament Square Peace Campaign reaches 10 years
The peace campaign in London’s Parliament Square reaches 10 years on Thursday June 2nd 2011. The campaign was initiated by Brian Haw on June 2nd 2001 — before the events of September 11th and before the US led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
He was initially demonstrating against the economic embargo against Iraq which according to UNICEF killed over 500,000 children. He has continued to protest 24/7 opposite the British Houses of Parliament in opposition to the on-going occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the continuing siege of Gaza.
Unfortunately in September 2010 Brian was diagnosed with cancer and had to go in to hospital. However the campaign has continued with Australian born Barbara Tucker maintaining a 24 hour presence opposite the Houses of Parliament.”
A new week is Here with a new month around the corner.
Please share your comments by writing dissector@mediachannel.org
We are seeking new interns here at Globalvision and Mediachannel. Send a letter of interest to the email above. We prefer people here in New York.
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Some Sunday News: Ratko Busted: Will There Be Justice? Will We Remember The Crimes And Complicity In Bosnia
May 28th, 2011 - by: danny
In Memorium on Memorial Day: Gil Scott-Heron, Godfather of Hip-Hop Dead at 62 (Urban Nation)
Celebrated and controversial poet, author and musician, Gil Scott-Heron passed away in New York City today, he was 62. Heron’s death was confirmed by Jamie Byng via his twitter post, “Just heard the very sad news that my dear friend and one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met, the great Gill Scott-Heron, died today.”
Highly revered in the hip hop community as the Godfather of Hip-Hop, Heron’s classic offering, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” served as a wake-up call to the world.
Heron’s last release, I’m New Here, was released in 2010 to critical acclaim.
At the time of this posting, no funeral arrangements have been made.
Gil was a friend of mine, and performed on Sun City: Artists United Against Apartheid.
T/h to Jeff Cohen, An inspiring troubadour/social critic. RIP, no longer in pain. CommonDreams offers 5 songs to click on: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, I’m New Here, Johannesberg, We Almost Lost Detroit, Winter in America:
A Friend remembers Gil Scott Heron ‘
SUNDAY NEWS
REPUBLICANS SEEKING TO LOWER VOTER TURNOUT WITH NEW DISCRIMINATORY LAWS
NYT: MIAMI – Less than 18 months before the next presidential election, Republican-controlled statehouses around the country are rewriting voting laws to require photo identification at the polls, reduce the number of days of early voting or tighten registration rules.
Facebook Scamming; Are All Your Friends Really Friends
Lockheed Martin: Latest Target For Hackers
Lockheed Martin, the US government’s top IT provider, said on Saturday it had thwarted “a significant and tenacious attack” on its systems.
RSN:Murdering Libya
Obama Subtly Shifts War Aims in Libya
“The goal is to make sure that the Libyan people can make a determination about how they want to proceed, and that they’ll be finally free of 40 years of tyranny and they can start creating the institutions required for self-determination.” That is quite parallel to the objective the United States set in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.
BOSNIAN SERB GENERAL RATKO MLADIC IS FINALLY IN CUSTODY
Will we remember the crimes and complicity in the war in Bosnia?
By Danny Schechter
Editor, Mediachannel.org
In the TV business we speak of a ‘getting a get’ as in booking a big name for a highly rated TV appearance. It took nearly ten years to ‘get’ Osama bin Laden, although in his case his views were not wanted; he made more news, and generated more popular satisfaction, as a target of a possibly illegal liquidation.
He won’t be giving any more interviews, that’s for sure.
The world waited sixteen years for the next big ‘get’: Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic has been taken into custody.
It seems clear that the Serbian authorities knew where he was, but didn’t want to upset the volatile and violent extreme nationalists still in their midst who backed the wars he led, and excused the massacres he carried out against the country’s Muslims and all citizens who believed in multi-ethnic states.
Mladic will now face overdue War Crimes charges in The Hague. (BBC reports: Ratko Mladic denies Srebrenica massacre role – son. Former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic has said he did not order the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, according to his son. Darko Mladic made the statement a day before his father is due to lodge an appeal against being trasferred to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.)
In the week of his arrest, Serbian State television finally apologized for its role in inciting the barbaric war though misinformation, deception and propaganda disguised as news.
AP reported, “Radio Television of Serbia, or RTS, said in a statement posted on its website yesterday that the station’s program was “almost constantly and heavily abused” by Milosevic’s regime with the aim of discrediting his political and ethnic opponents and spreading official propaganda.
Liberal politician Marko Karadzic described the apology as a “positive step”, but said the television’s managing board did not distance itself clearly enough from the past.
“RTS’s program was an organized campaign of support to the policies of extinction and violence which we cannot view as insult or slander,” said Karadzic.”
It’s time for Croatian TV to make a similar statement.
This statement clearly defines the often complicit relationship between war and media showing how TV networks promote wars in the guise of covering them. Too many media organizations took their cues from state propagandists.
Many American TV news executive later issued more tempered apologies for their one-sided coverage of the Iraq war.
As someone who spent years reporting on, and writing about wars and the carnage in the Balkans, it is emotionally satisfying to see a military mobster of Mladic’s status finally in custody, even if his expected conviction will not bring back the tens of thousands hurt, maimed, or killed in the slaughters he directed.
I was honored to be one of those thanked by people who spent years of their lives trying to arouse public opinion and government action.
I was mentioned in an email exchange that Bruce Rosen initiated which also praised journalists and activists who tried as hard as we could to publicize and condemn the crimes the world was witnessing while they were underway. I feel comfortable quoting from these letters because they show how many of us felt, then – and now.
Stephen Walker wrote, “Thanks, Bruce – David, Roy, Danny, and many others helped shine the light on the horrors.
“For those of you who don’t see the FT, there is an interesting op-ed that reminds us of the complicity of Western governments and the UN during the genocide. I would have added to it the over 3 years of US complicity, which grassroots and congressional pressure, along with the collapse of the UN “safe areas” charade at Srebrenica, helped bring to an end.
He praised activists and journalists alike, writing:
“We all owe a huge debt to courageous journalists, like David Rohde, who risked their lives to bring us the stories of the victims, their families, and the perpetrators of the genocide. But one of the important stories, largely untold, of the Bosnia Genocide is the impact grassroots activists, like yourself and many of the other recipients of your email, had during and after the genocide.
“‘Average’ Americans sacrificed their time, energy, and money to raise awareness, lobby their government, solicit and deliver humanitarian aid, counsel rape victims, and do many other things that helped stop the genocide, enable the healing, and hold people in power responsible for bringing justice to the victims and their families. You, Glenn, and your fellow citizen activists have never received the attention or thanks you deserve, but you should take great pride in what you did over the years that led to yesterday’s belated but welcome news.”
There was this response from prize-winning journalist Roy Gutman, then with Newsday, now posted in Baghdad for McClatchey, who pursued the story with a rare tenacity.
“As one of the journalists who worked on the story — David Rieff, John Burns, Ed Vulliamy, Christiane Amanpour, David Rohde, the late Kurt Schork Emma Dailey, Jeremy Bowen, Samantha Power, Roger Cohen, Stacy Sullivan being among the others — I’d like to say something to Steve, John and others who were at State and quit, or stayed and kept fighting, or set up NGO’s to bring this before the public and keep it there.
“Yesterday was a great day for mankind, and it wouldn’t have happened without you. Your encouragement certainly helped keep us going in our profession, and I’m sure it helped create the impetus that eventually forced the administration to act.
” … hope you’ll understand if I use the platform of this e-mail exchange to draw your attention to a truly disturbing situation, this time in U.S-allied Bahrain. Here is a story we ran yesterday, the latest of about 10. There are echoes of BH, just not the death toll, and one echo is the complete lack of reaction in DC. It is an alarming situation, and it is deteriorating.
“Salute to all, Roy Gutman, Baghdad Bureau Chief, McClatchy Newspapers.”
I wrote to Roy congratulating him for his role. He had cooperated with our company Globalvision on one of the many programs we did on the crisis.
He responded this way, “Danny, Great to hear from you. Listen: Get thee to Bahrain. You’re needed there. We all are. It’s a disaster zone, desperately in need of real journalists. It was the first stop on my new assignment, covering the Mideast from a base in Baghdad. A very interesting time to be around these parts. As ever, Roy …”
Eileen Weiss, adds, “I, too, was thrilled to hear the news of Mladic’s arrest. However, I am deeply sad — many of us have been working tirelessly on behalf of Darfur and others in Sudan. Despite all the initial press attention, the situation on the ground has grown worse and worse, with houses in Abyei currently burning due to the actions of ICC war criminal Al-Bashir. Many words, failed diplomacy and reluctance to act have shown me that our leaders have basically learned nothing from the Bosnian situation.
“I hope it’s not another 15 years before justice is seen in Sudan.”
And so, the fight against injustice globally, and for truth goes on.
The former Bosnian Ambassador to the UN, Mo Sacirby, who was later victimized for his outspoken role, gets the last word here.
“Thanks for making the point, especially regarding great contributions made by so many….It is amazing how much has been forgotten, or more accurately redesigned to fit the history written by those who were acquiescent or complicit.
“It is a time for congratulation, but also opportunity to counter efforts that continue like indefinite tides to erase the footprints of what actually happened.”
Robert Reich, Reader Supported News: “So now it’s official. The 2012 campaign will be about the future of Medicare. (Yes, it will also be about jobs, but the Republicans haven’t come up with any credible ideas on that front, and the Democrats seem incapable of doing what needs to be done.) This spells trouble for the GOP. Polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans – even a majority of Republican voters – want to preserve Medicare.”
RSN: “Senate Republicans will prevent the Senate from recessing next week in order to halt President Obama’s ability to make temporary recess appointments: … including Elizabeth Warren, Obama’s pick to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”
Police Fire Blanks and Rubber Bullets At Protesters in Barcelona
Mail & Guardian: The Libyan regime has rejected calls from the G8 world powers for strongman Muammar Gaddafi to step down and will only deal with the African Union.
R.W. Johnson on South Africa’s recent elections: “Unable to effect any change in the incompetence and venality of their national leaders, South Africa’s voters have instead focused far more on service delivery at a local level – something of immediate importance in people’s daily lives and something they can actually hope to influence. This has been noticeable both in the literally thousands of riots and protests against poor service delivery in towsnships and squatter camps and in the DA’s strong emphasis on their own superior performance in local government.
NYT: Crime on Wall Street, Update
Two Insider Trading Guilty Pleas: The dark side of Wall Street’s expert-network industry was on full display in Federal District Court in Manhattan on Friday. A former executive at Nvidia admitted to leaking information about the semiconductor company’s financial results as part of an insider-trading ring involving Primary Global Research, an expert-network firm whose consultants connect money managers with public company employees.
Sonny Nguyen, 39 years old, told a judge that he participated in an illegal scheme to supply Winifred Jiau, a Primary Global consultant, and another individual with secret information about Nvidia’s quarterly earnings between 2007 and 2008.
A few hours later, Samir Barai, who ran the hedge fund Barai Capital Management, pleaded guilty to trading on secret corporate information provided to him by Ms. Jiau about stocks including Nvidia.
Ms. Jiau, who has pleaded not guilty to insider trading crimes, is scheduled to go on trial on June 1. Mr. Nguyen is expected to testify in the case.
This is a truncated special blog.
News Dissector Danny Schechter co-produced the film Sarajevo Ground Zero with the filmmakers of Sarajevo, and wrote widely about flawed media coverage and western complicity in human right abuses that were central to the war. Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org
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TGIF: LABOR’S WAR WITH CORPORATE POWER, MLADIC NABBED AT LAST
May 27th, 2011 - by: danny
News Dissector Radio Today at 1-2 PM on Progressive Radio Network.com… Guest: Bill Zimmerman, author of TroubleMaker: A Memoir From The Front Lines of The Sixties (Doubleday) and Remembering the Freedom Rides.
Listen up and Call in.
SOLIDARITY FOREVER?
We have all been reading about the resurgence of class warfare in America, especially in Wisconsin, where unions are fighting for their lives. The focus is on public employees and the battle has been a fierce one, with Republican Governor Scott Walker citing financial pressures as a cover to impose the political final solution on labor, the backbone of the Democratic Party, by stripping them of their right to bargain collectively.
Yesterday, the Gov and his backers, including the billionaire Koch brothers, suffered a setback in their war on workers— AP reported “Wisconsin’s law taking away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most public workers was struck down Thursday by a circuit court judge but the ruling will not be the final say in the union fight that brought tens of thousands of protesters to the Capitol earlier this year.”
Zealot Scotty, the Gov of all cheeseheads, had no comment.
Related: Questionable Highway Projects Escape Budget Scrutiny in Wisconsin
A $125 million “road to nowhere.” Another $100+ million for a bypass around a town of 2,711. Welcome to the era of “fiscal austerity” in Gov. Scott Walker’s Wisconsin.
And then there’s this: State to phase out Wisconsin Covenant aid program
The state’s highest bipartisan budget committee approved a plan from the governor to begin phasing out a program aimed at encouraging students from low-income backgrounds to begin planning for college before entering high school.
Members of the Joint Finance Committee voted to support Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to end the Wisconsin Covenant program, despite objections from Democratic representatives.
The program, which enrolls eighth graders from across the state, ensures that students that follow the covenant’s guidelines and maintain a B average in high school will be able to attend a University of Wisconsin System, private or technical college campus in the state.
Labor’s Challenge
This issue is hardly all that labor has to worry about, as its membership declines amidst sustained unemployment. The AFL-CIO has been reduced to talking tough but not doing much to lead a serious fight back. This week they are suggesting that the Democrats not take their money for granted but as the election approaches, that tune is, judging by the past, likely to change.
On Thursday, I had an expected lunch with Chris Townsend, the political director of the United Electrical Workers (UE), the union that I was part of and served as a shop steward for when I worked at WBCN in Boston. Thanks to our UE membership and the solidarity in the ranks, we were able to fight back against the company that bought the station and fired most of us. A three week strike back in 1979 showed them we would not be bullied and we won the strike and all our people were reinstated. Support from listeners and advertisers help us save the station that meant so much to so many.
Since then, the UE and most of the old-line industrial unions have taken major hits but are holding on. The union earned its spurs battling red-baiting by the likes of Ronald Reagan at General Electric but now confronts a different environment with outsourcing claiming so many good jobs and a structured corporate reality. GE and the UE, and other unions like IUE and the UAW are locked into negotiations here in New York, with the company led by Jeffrey R. Immelt, known as an outsourcer extraordinaire, but who is also the head of President Obama’s Jobs and Competitive Council at the White House. His annual salary is a mere $15.2 million. Being competitive seems to be a term only applied to workers, who are being told to reduce wages and benefits.
GE is a tough company to go up against. Their lawyers trot out Power Point presentations to show how much they pay in taxes, not the $68 billion they were holding onto in cash or their plans to buy back $11 billion in stock and raise dividends and change the health care plan so that workers will have to pay more for less in the name of “choice,” or lower pensions etc. etc.
On the pension front, the companies start by seeking to “freeze” current employees, then cut off new hires, freeze everyone else, and ultimately terminate the plan.
Alas, very few people — including those in progressive and partisan media — pay attention to the dirty details that are destroying what’s left of the middle class.
Few credit the unions who are fighting back. Michael Moore’s film on Capitalism, which I liked, covered a UE sit-in and strike in Chicago, but didn’t even mention the union by name.
Funny isn’t it, how these negotiations are not really being covered in the press either, perhaps because the economic conditions for most workers are so desperate that a strike would be a disaster. If you want more info on what the UE is up against and how its fighting back check out their website. http://www.ueunion.org/unity2011.html
Richard Wolff, Portside, The Crisis Enters Year Five
The current capitalist global crisis began with the severe
contraction in the housing markets in mid-2007. Therefore
welcome to Year Five. This inventory of where things stand
may begin with the good news: the major banks, the stock
market, and corporate profits have largely or completely
“recovered” from the lows they reached early in 2009. The US
dollar has fallen sharply against many currencies of
countries with which the US trades and that has enabled US
exports to rebound from their crisis lows.
However, the bad news is what prevails notwithstanding the
political and media hypes about “recovery.” The most widely
cited unemployment rate remains at 9 % for workers without
jobs but looking. If instead we use the more indicative U-6
unemployment statistic of the US Labor Department’s Bureau
of Labor Statistics, then the rate is 15%.
NYT: Illegal Workers: Court Upholds Faulting Hirers
A 5-to-3 ruling appeared to endorse vigorous state efforts to punish employers who intentionally hire illegal workers.
Secret 2008 Fed Loans Uncovered … So should we come down on the Fed, too?
NakedCapitalism.com reports on McClatchey Report on a Wikileaks Disclosure: Speculators Drove Oil Prices
Kevin Hall of McClatchy wrote about Wikileaks releases showing that the Saudis were concerned about oil market speculation leading to unduly high prices in 2007 and 2008. In 2008, we wrote that the Saudis said they did not see tightness in the market, and they also warned that prices were excessive. The Wikileaks thus confirm that these statements were not just PR, to shift blame from them as the historical swing producer, but were consistent with their private communications.
Newt Gingrich and Tiffanys
OTHER NEWS OF NOTE
AlJazeera reports: Ratko Mladic, Europe’s most wanted man and the former head of the Bosnian Serb army during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, was arrested in Serbia on charges of genocide and other crimes against humanity.
Mladic was indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal in 1995 and charged with the killing, deportation and forcible transfer of non-Serbs as part of a wider ethnic cleansing campaign in Bosnia in 1992-3. The indictment against him charges that he was the mastermind behind Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II. In the Srebrenica massacre, more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered.
He was one of two remaining fugitives still wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The other is Goran Hadzic, a former leader of ethnic Serbs in Croatia, believed to be hiding in Serbia.
CIA GOING BACK IN
WP: CIA to search bin Laden compound
The arrangement would allow the CIA for the first time to enter a complex that it had previously scrutinized only from a distance.
Query: Will they also be able to clean up a crime scene?
House Passes Bill Authorizing Worldwide War As Momentum Builds Against It
Sherwood Ross: Prison Overcrowding is Not Just A California Problem
“Monday’s Supreme Court decision ordering California to reduce its overcrowded prisons by 30,000 inmates is as welcome as a ray of sunlight streaming through prison bars. State officials have known for decades of the horrific, if not criminal, neglect of prisoners. Five years ago, then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called their plight an “emergency.” Some “emergency!” Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority in a 5-to-4 ruling, may have been swayed by photographs of inmates jammed into “telephone booth-sized cages without toilets”—conditions so dreadful that a lower court that earlier heard the case found it to be “an uncontested fact” that “an inmate in one of California’s prisons needlessly dies every six or seven days due to constitutional deficiencies.” This, according to The New York Times, which supported the court’s ruling in an editorial.
“It’s just another day in the Incarceration Society. In California alone, 33 adult jails warehouse 143,000 inmates. The U.S. has the dubious distinction of ranking first in prison population, ahead of all other nations with 2.3-million convicts behind bars. USA has more mentally ill in its jails where they are not getting proper treatment than in its asylums, where they might be restored to health. As in California, everywhere one sees States slashing funds for the rehabilitation of prisoners—whether it’s for their education, mental health, retraining, drug counseling, job search, or eventual readmission into society. Prisons make inmates worse by tossing ever more of them into isolation cells where, if they were not mentally distressed before incarceration, they almost surely will be driven mad during it. It was in this way that President Obama allowed Bradley Manning to be abused for nearly a year in solitary over the findings and advice of Army psychiatrists.
SEX SCANDAL DOMINATES NEWS
The Strauss-Kahn Affair is still going hot and heavy in the press as he moved into a luxury town house New York’s Tribeca and NY added more heavyweight prosecutors to the team that will try to incarcerate him. Feminists are organizing a petition to support the alleged victim in his case, and another French politician is being accused of sexual crimes.
MEDIA TENOR CALLS IT THE “PERFECT SCANDAL”
Zurich, May 24, 2011. The prosecution of Dominique Strauss-Kahn has brought extraordinary awareness to an issue which, until now, has played out primarily only on the domestic media stage. According to international TV analysis by Media Tenor International, in the first four weeks of May coverage of rape and sexual harassment reached a new peak, surpassing coverage of other aspects of sexual violence by a wide margin.
Strauss-Kahn’s arrest fascinated TV journalists all over the world. Commentators and politicians declared themselves to be shocked at the successful head of the International Monetary Fund and front-runner for the French presidency in 2012 being accused of such a lack of self-control. Strauss-Kahn, of course, has escaped media scrutiny in the past, particularly in regard to an “improper relationship” with an IMF staffer in 2008; this may have contributed to a feeling of invincibility on the part of Strauss-Kahn.
The combination of celebrity and political implications made this topic much more salient than revelations of mass rape in war zones in the Congo. “In general, crime news looks more at domestic cases,” says Dr. Christian Kolmer, head of political research at Media Tenor International. Between January 2010 and May 2011 only 28.9% of all news on rape and sexual harassment looked beyond domestic borders in international TV news.
“The sexual abuse of children in Catholic institutions was covered much more intensively in Germany and the UK than in US news, although the impact on the Catholic Church has been even more marked in the States,” explains Dr. Kolmer. Italian news devoted the highest share of reporting towards sexual crimes, but here again 94% of this Italian TV news about rape dealt with instances within the nation’s borders.
As the trial of Jörg Kachelmann in Germany shows, Strauss-Kahn will be making headlines for a long time to come. Kachelmann, a Swiss weatherman, was arrested on rape charges in March 2010, although the final verdict has not yet come in from the German court. However, a whole arsenal of unflattering details has been made public over the last 14 months. The alleged victim and the defendant have suffered severe damage to their reputations, which bodes ill for the former head of the IMF.
Related: ‘N.Y. Official to Ex-IMF Chief: Welcome – Now Pay Up’
AS THE G8 CONVENES IN FRANCE
FT: Arab democracies win G8 aid pledge … The world’s richest countries have agreed a multibillion-dollar aid package for Tunisia and Egypt, the two countries at the forefront of toppling autocratic regimes in the Arab spring. Members of the Group of Eight economic powers, led by the US, pledged at their summit in Deauville, France, to provide a combination of debt relief, aid and assistance…
FT: Internet entrepreneurs confronted their would-be regulators in Deauville on Thursday as the leaders of Facebook, Google, and other technology companies warned the G8 leaders to tread carefully in attempting to police the web.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, and Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, said that mooted rules on copyright or privacy could stymie innovation and inhibit the free expression that fueled the recent Arab uprisings.
Usually fierce competitors, the two groups joined forces to resist proposed new rules to “civilise” the internet, championed by French president Nicolas Sarkozy, the meeting’s host.
In response, Mr Sarkozy told the executives to support greater rule of law on the web in such a way that innovation would not be harmed.
Earlier in the week he warned of the “anarchy” of the internet in its current form, telling the e-G8 Forum in Paris on Tuesday: “You cannot escape a minimum set of rules.”
The discussion – the first time the technology sector has been represented at the meeting of the G8 group of leading nations – comes as governments in the US and UK consider new schemes to force internet companies to block websites that facilitate online piracy.
Mr Zuckerberg sought to explain to national leaders that measures to combat perceived pitfalls of the online world, such as illegal downloading of copyrighted material, could have unintended consequences.
“On the one hand you have the internet which is this really powerful force for giving people a voice,” he said. “Now it’s tempting to say that on security or privacy you can go towards the most extreme [regulatory] option and maintain all the value that we currently recognise. I’m worried personally that’s not true,” said the 27-year-old entrepreneur.
“The industry as a whole is concerned that premature regulation … can shut off whole new industries, whole new opportunities, whole new innovations,” Mr Schmidt said.
The proposals put to the G8 were based on discussions in Paris earlier this week at the e-G8, a gathering of internet entrepreneurs and policymakers convened by Mr Sarkozy.
Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA): G8, European Austerity and Protests
Campaign For America’s Future, TERRANCE HEATH: Too Big To Tell: An Epic Without Heroes
I won’t watch a movie if I’ve missed the beginning, and I hate missing endings so much that I won’t start watching a movie I can’t see through to the end. As a writer, the beginning and end are two of the most important parts of the story to me. They answer two important important questions in any story: “How did we get into this?” and “How do we get out of this?” Monday night, I watched Too Big To Fail – HBO’s eponymous adaptation of Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book – from start to finish. Yet, I still ended up feeling like I’d missed the two most important parts of the story: the beginning and the end. Thus, I never got answers to those important questions: How did we get into this mess? How do we get out of this mess?
Comments: Bernie Sanders on Extension of Patriot Act
“I voted against extending the Patriot Act today for the same reason I voted against enacting it in 2001: it gives the government far too much power to spy on innocent United States citizens and provides for very little oversight or disclosure. While we must aggressively pursue international terrorists and all of those who would do us harm, we must do it in a way that protects the Constitution and the civil liberties which make us proud to be Americans.”
“As a result of a partisan impasse, no amendments to improve the bill were allowed. Sanders intended to offer an amendment supported by the American Library Association, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Booksellers which would have protected the rights of Americans who use libraries and bookstores. The amendment would have prevented the government from gaining access to Americans’ reading records in libraries and bookstores without a traditional search warrant.”
David Rovics sends along the lyrics of a new song, “Israeli Geography 101″
Israeli Geography 101
Netanyahu is in a tizzy, his eyes are filled with hate
He said the problem with those Arabs is they won’t recognize a Jewish state
He said those Palestinians just won’t come around
To accepting Jewish rule on their holy ground
He said the Arabs don’t accept their new neighbors in the ‘hood
Those ungrateful regimes don’t respect us as they should
Well I don’t want to upset anyone or to unduly take to task
But if a state wants recognition it seems reasonable to ask
Where are your borders drawn in black and white?
Do they include the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights?
I heard him speaking to the Congress, getting his 29th standing o
He said we need our security from those terrorists, don’t you know
If you want security, I wonder if you’d say it’s true
That the Palestinians should have security too
‘Cause if you want security it seems only fair
That you should also grant it to the people over there
And maybe you could answer, though the question is a sin
Just where your country ends and your neighbors’ lands begin
Tell me, where are your borders drawn in black and white?
Do they include the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights?
Media
EJC: Huffington Post launches Canadian edition
The Huffington Post launched a Canadian edition of the popular news and opinion website on Thursday in its first international expansion. Huffington said HuffPost Canada, which is located at huffingtonpost.ca, will feature Canadian politics and business, Canadian issues and perspectives and bloggers “sharing their opinions on all things Canadian.” The Huffington Post attracts more than 25 million unique visitors a month and received 1.5 million Canadian visitors in March. The Huffington Post offers a lively mix of news, entertainment, opinion and blogs submitted by academics, entertainment figures, politicians and others. The Huffington Post, which was purchased by AOL in February for $315 million, plans to launch a British edition, HuffPost United Kingdom, on July 7. (AFP)
Letter
Michael Oakland writes:
Daniel,
…thank you thank you for this great article and for keeping the heat up on these master thieves, who will only do it again and again, teaching their offspring the same. They need be jailed and counseled as “Greeeedaholics”. The latest rampant social disease.
I remember you from the early Boston days.
Your comments welcome: write 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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