Back At #Occupy Wall Street, SPJ Shames Journalism, Difrent Here, Nukespeak Coming,

September 28th, 2011 - by: danny

How Free Is Freedom of Speech in The US of A? RT asked. I responded.

Meanwhile back a the Occupation…

I went back to #Occupy Wall Street yesterday to check on the state of the stalemate with the cops and to see if the crowd was growing. It is, but not that visibly. There was a media strategy meeting underway when I got there while a teach-in on economics was scheduled for later.
The beehive was buzzing.

I did get some praise for my new piece on Al Jazeera English, but I was also criticized by one veteran activist for being too analytical and not positive enough, even though I am enthused by the protest but worry for it.

He gave me an editorial from the Newark Star Ledger which he felt was excellent. It read in part:

“The group cannot be dismissed as twenty something, nothing-better-to-do protesters. Among them are former white-collar workers who, for the first time in productive, tax-paying lives are unemployed with no prospects for a job.

This nation should listen to this small Wall Street encampment which arrives just as the president appears ready to stop coddling the rich.

For one of the few times since the meltdown, there’s a group of Americans speaking on behalf of the other 99 percent.”

Naked Capitalism: “There seems to be a class difference between white collar and blue collar cops. It was a white collar cop that maced the women. OccupyWallStreet claims about 100 blue collar cops failed to show up to work today in protest.”

And who are the soldiers of this revolution? Karen Malpede writes for Portside:

Our New Left devolved into Weatherman fantasies of violent
revolution, yet what remains forty years later are these new
committed pacifists, reminding each other in their General
Assembly to take their vitamins, stay hydrated and recycle.
They are gentle, non-hierarchical, non-doctrinaire,
completely committed to non-violence. There are egos to be
seen, but, so far, so good, there are no internecine fights
for dominance, no purges, no betrayals. They paint signs
with individualistic, often witty, always acute and
encompassing sayings: “if you lost your house, Wall Street
stole it from you,” and they have a bucket collecting money
for their “adopt a puppy fund.” …

Everyone was talking about the arrival of left luminaries like Michael Moore Monday night and Susan Sarandon yesterday morning. In the afternoon, Cornell West showed up and there was a hug fest with admiring activists and supportive words from this most eloquent public intellectual. I also saw the priest, Father Paul Meyer, a clerical comrade of the Berrigans.

I ran into a CNN producer who was looking for students in debt to interview, and saw a TV crew from Japan. David Degraw of AmpedStatus.com worries that the leaderless nature of the occupation may make it hard to attract media attention. He also told me about counterattacks by Anonymous who hacked into the cell phones and websites of the police officers who attacked the marchers with pepper spray Saturday and found porn that is all over the internet.’

Next Stop: Washington DC

Scott Galindez writes on RSN: “‘A press release from the October2011 coalition announced that “…the People’s Uprisings seen around the world and in the United States will come to Washington, DC beginning on Thursday, October 6 when thousands will converge to begin a prolonged people’s occupation of Freedom Plaza.’ The release claimed they were building on Arab Spring, European Summer, Madison and the Occupation of Wall Street.”

Yahoo reported pushback from some activists to unresponsive media outlets:

“Does NPR think this is unimportant?” one NPR listener, Daniel Clay, wrote. “Are you going to wait for someone to die or commit serious violence before you give it the attention it deserves?”

Fair or not, it appears that violence did inspire at least some deeper coverage of the protests.
A YouTube video that appears to show a New York City police officer using pepper-spray on women during the Wall Street protests has been picked up by national outlets, including the “Today” show. As The Cutline’s colleague Zachary Roth notes on The Lookout, the officer, Anthony Bologna, is also being sued in connection with an incident during demonstrations at the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Journalist Charles M Young who I once interviewed at 20/29 wrote:

1) I had brunch on Sunday in Chinatown with a friend who works in local television news. He complained that the Occupy Wall Street people had sent over video that they said showed demonstrators getting maced. It didn’t show any such thing, my friend insisted. After brunch I walked over to occupied Zuccotti Park (two blocks north of Wall Street) and told somebody at the Media table that they had to be careful about claiming more for their video than it actually showed. Then I went home and looked at the video, and it clearly showed several young women, who presented no physical threat, getting wrapped up by police in a plastic net and pepper sprayed in the face.

2) My friend’s other complaint about Occupy Wall Street was that they didn’t have a list of demands. Nobody knows what they want, said my friend. It is true that they don’t have a policy statement yet, nothing to spoonfeed the corporate press. But they are trying. On Saturday night, I sat through their General Assembly meeting in the park and heard the report of the One Demand Working Group. Basically, they wanted to demand that other autonomous groups in other cities join them. Most of the General Assembly pointed their hands down and wiggled their fingers, meaning disapproval (in a supportive way). Several people said that you can’t demand solidarity from an autonomous group, you can only encourage it. And everyone seemed to think the language wasn’t “provocative” or “funny,” which meant it had way too much Process jargon and not enough Anglo Saxon monosyllables. It was suggested (not decided) that the One Demand Working Group try another draft and perhaps combine their efforts with the Principles of Solidarity Working Group.”

While the media is still not doing the job it should in covering this brave undertaking, a journalists organization showed the high degree of caution, complicity and conservatism we have come to expect in the lamestream media.

When veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas was fired for speaking out against Israel, the Society for Professional Journalists ended a media award given in her name. Here’s a report by a journalism student in Va.

A group of journalists in the society tried to get them to reverse their decision at the annual SPJ convention. One report I read said many who defended the SPJ’s stance didn’t know the facts.
But it didn’t matter. They opted, as many unconscious journalists do, to support the status quo, The vote failed by 85-71 vote.

Paul LaRoque wrote: “Terrible. I’m ashamed of SPJ. The delegates had a chance to undo an unethical SPJ action and failed. Thanks to the 71 who voted for restoration. Shame on the others.”

Peter Sussman wrote: “I too am deeply disturbed by the discussion and outcome. It was a coordinated “old guard circling the wagons” debate”

Former SPJ President Christine Tatum, added: “I’m truly ashamed of SPJ.

I heard some of the debate. The mischaracterizations of Helen’s remarks were just that — mischaracterizations. Intentional ones at that.”

Lets give the final word to Helen Thomas:

“”I am unafraid to criticize anyone who is against freedom and the rights people have to fight for their freedom. I am unafraid to criticize anyone who cannot stand up in defense of those who are oppressed.”

“Look at what is happening on the world stage. Millions of people are standing up for Palestine’s freedom. Their opinions are valid and reasonable, and they are finally saying enough to the bullying of Israel and its lobbyists. We (journalists) should celebrate that this debate is finally happening among nations more openly and directly — and we of all people should be able to respect differences in opinion.”

“I have taken hard stands in my life — and plenty of them. I’m not stopping now.”

“I love you, (Christine Tatum) and all of the men and women who have stood in my defense. You have risked so much to defend free speech — my free speech — in the ways you have. It’s not the award that matters to me. I have a bunch of wood and glass around here (in my home). It’s knowing that people who don’t even agree with me value the principle of free speech so much.”

Economy:

Financial Times: Split opens over Greek bail-out terms

A split has opened in the eurozone over the terms of Greece’s second €109bn bail-out with as many as seven of the bloc’s 17 members arguing for private creditors to swallow a bigger writedown on their Greek bond holdings, according to senior European officials.

The divisions have emerged amid mounting concerns that Athens’ funding needs are much bigger than estimated just two months ago. They threaten to unpick a painfully negotiated deal reached with private sector bond holders in July.

WilliamBowles (William Bowles Info) adds some perspective from London:

“In case you hadn’t noticed, especially if you get your news from the MSM, there is the mother of all capitalist crises unfolding around us. A crisis that appears to be far deeper even than the Crash of ’29 and given the global nature of corporate capitalism, nobody (except the rich) can escape its awful destructive power, short of revolution of course.

So deep in fact, that the imperial elites are incapable of resolving it and appear to be frozen to the spot like a deer caught in the headlights, attempting to apply ‘solutions’ that only compound the contradictions. It points once and again to the chaotic nature of capitalism that hides its ignorance behind glib phrases that mean nothing.

The Independent’s headline (24/9/11) summed up the elite’s dilemma succinctly, if somewhat archaically but then that’s what you would expect from an obsolete elite used to bamboozling the public by obscuring the facts and praying that no one will notice:

“The World prays for an economic miracle”

NYT: As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe

Protesters around the world have something in common: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over.

The Daily Bell writes “Depression Leaves Investors Feeling Like a Dog Without a Bone”

Don’t Let Volatile Markets Get You Off Your Game … With the 4-day slump in stocks momentarily taking a breather, investors are tentatively coming out of their bunkers to assess the damage. The 7% storm that battered the markets this week destroyed more than $1 trillion of wealth held in the New York Stock Exchange Composite Index (NYA), according to Factset data. – Yahoo Finance

Dominant Social Theme: Look. Depressions happen.

PBS: Survey: Health Care Premiums Soar for Many Employees

Haaretz: US Condemns Israel AgainIsrael

The U.S. condemned Tuesday Israel’s plan to build 1,100 new housing units in Jerusalem’s contested Gilo neighborhood, which lies beyond the Green Line.

Gareth Porter, Afghanistan Killing Squads

ANNOUNCEMENTS

CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED NUKESPEAK
UPDATED TO INCLUDE EVENTS THROUGH
THE STILL UNFOLDING FUKUSHIMA DISASTER

On October 4, 2011, Sierra Club Books will publish the 30th anniversary edition of Nukespeak: The Selling of Nuclear Technology from the Manhattan Project to Fukushima exclusively in e-book format. First published in 1982 in the wake of the first great nuclear plant accident at Three Mile Island, the original edition, written by Stephen Hilgartner, Richard C. Bell, and Rory O’Connor, examined the turbulent history of the nuclear industry, documenting the extraordinary public relations campaign that developers undertook to sell nuclear technology.

This new edition, updated by original authors Richard C. Bell and Rory O’Connor, brings the book fully up-to-date, exploring the critical events of the last three decades—including the disaster at Chernobyl, the campaign to re-brand nuclear energy as a “clean, green” solution to global warming, and the still unfolding disaster at Japan’s Fukushima power plant. In addition, the authors argue persuasively that a language of euphemism and distraction continues to dominate public debate about nuclear weapons and nuclear power around the world. Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune adds an insightful foreword to the new edition.

In Nukespeak: The Selling of Nuclear Technology from the Manhattan Project to Fukushima, you will find:

• The full text of the 1982 edition, which explored the history of nuclear development up to and just beyond the Three Mile Island accident, as well as four new chapters covering the continuing proliferation of nuclear weapons and the catastrophic accidents at Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011.

• An analysis of the language used to shape and distort political discourse and thinking on nuclear issues, supported by an index of “Nukespeak” words, and a look at how public relations campaigns have influenced the debate.

• Fresh perspectives on the failed economics of nuclear power and the continuing plans for a “nuclear renaissance” in the United States.

New Album of Note

STEPHAN SAID, ACCLAIMED ARAB-AMERICAN ARTIST-ACTIVIST, RELEASES ANTICIPATED ALBUM, DIFRENT, PRODUCED BY HAL WILLNER

With New Album and Upcoming Shows, Said Continues to Contribute to the Global Movement for Freedom

Nearly ten years after his dedicated to building an international movement for a more equal society. His new album, difrent, anticipated the Arab Spring: It was recorded well before the uprisings, yet it contains a version of the

Egyptian civil rights anthem “Aheb Aisht Al Huriya,” (“I Love The Life of Freedom”), which Said released as a free mp3 and video, making one of the first musical contributions to the nascent freedom movement in the region. Indeed, much of the music on the album—produced by Hal Willner (Allen Ginsberg, Leonard Cohen and the forthcoming Lou Reed & Metallica album)—is an apt soundtrack for the movement, which Said sees as global, rather than confined to the Middle East.

AP: Atomic worker advocates aghast at names in manual

CINCINNATI (AP) — Advocates for U.S. atomic workers sickened by radiation exposure say they’re stunned that a federal claims training manual uses fictional characters’ names, including an apparent reference to the disfigured villain of the “Nightmare on Elm Street” horror movies.

Deborah Jerison of Yellow Springs, Ohio, said she recently received the Labor Department manual in response to a Freedom of Information request made months earlier. Her late father worked at a now-defunct nuclear weapons plant in Miamisburg, Ohio. She heads a group that helps former atomic workers and their families pursue federal occupational illness compensation claims.

The manual she says she received uses case names derived from TV and movies, such as claimant “Freddie Krueger,” spelled slightly different than the Freddy in the “Nightmare” series. The Krueger in the manual is reported as dying on Oct. 31 — Halloween. The example suffered from “depression, dementia and skin cancer.”

Andy Rooney, 92, To Leave 60 Minutes After Final Appearance on Sunday

Hijacker caught After 40 Years

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — A fugitive task force that spent nine years pursuing the case of a 1970s militant who carried out one of the most brazen hijackings in U.S. history got a break this week: police matched his fingerprint to a resident ID card in Portugal.

That match led to the arrest Monday of George Wright, 68, who had been on the run for more than 40 years…

The FBI said Wright became affiliated with an underground militant group, the Black Liberation Army, and lived in a “communal family” with several of its members in Detroit.

In 1972, Wright — dressed as a priest and using an alias — hijacked a Delta flight from Detroit to Miami. With him were several members of his communal group, including Wright’s companion and their 2-year-old daughter.

Obama Advisor David Axelrod: Obama Faces “Titanic Struggle”

What a choice of words. Isn’t that the unsinkable ship that sank? And what was Axelrod’s role in all this?

Shana Tova from me to thee.

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