*SAFETY CHECK?*

*CIA AT WAR WITH FBI*

*DEBATING FLORIDA STILL*

I didn’t know if my block was under attack, but I watched a team of cops arrive at around 6 PM to set up a check point on the street in front of my house. Car after car was being stopped and licenses demanded. Traffic slowed to a crawl. I was told it was a†safety check,” to see if drivers were wearing seat belts. In the current climate it was raising more than eyebrows in the neighborhood. For New Yorkers used to their mobility and freedom of access, it was a minor inconvenience, but the implications were not lost on me. In many parts of the world, checkpoints like this are not about personal safety and far more ominous. It seemed like we survived, until later that night when a flyer was slipped under our door advising us of how lucky we were. HBO will be occupying the street tomorrow for a day and nightlong shoot for their series Sex in the City. Hallelujah. Sex in the city is on the way. What a popular location.

THE WILD EAST

Also popular, apparently, is the Wild East of Pakistan, the no-go tribal areas where the Pentagon now believes that Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants have fled, there to prepare new attacks on the US-backed government in Afghanistan. The US seems alarmed by Pakistan’s decision to move troops to the border with Kashmir when they want their army to continue to serve as a surrogate policing force. Who knows, but the US may soon be assigning Russian troops to the task of terminating terror as a result of the deal struck this morning in Rome.

CNN reports “NATO formally recognized the end of the Cold War today by welcoming Russia into a new era of cooperation. “As we reach out to a new Russia, we do so in the spirit of peace and friendship,” President Bush said at today’s NATO meeting outside Rome, Italy. And, in a reference to the September 11 terror attacks, Bush said: “The new dangers of our age threaten all nations, including Russia.”

SPY V SPY

Look for more changes at both the CIA and FBI as warring between the two agencies escalates according to a report in the LA TIMES. Spooks: can’t we just get along? Apparently not: This tension reminds me of Spy V Spy, a popular MAD MAGAZINE comic strip.

“WASHINGTON — The controversy over who knew what in the days and weeks before Sept. 11 has vaulted the rivalry between the FBI and CIA–one of the oldest back-fence feuds in the nation’s capital–outside the bounds of conventional controversy. The question of why the deadliest terror plot in U.S. history went unstopped has exacerbated problems at the nation’s already-troubled intelligence agencies. And disclosures made in the last two weeks indicate that, despite reform efforts at both the FBI and CIA, the interagency sparring is only getting worse. ‘’What we’ve seen in the past two weeks is changing everything,'’ a Bush administration official familiar with CIA and FBI operations said Saturday. ‘’There will be more changes. It has made it apparent that we need to go deeper.'’

FRAMING THE STORY

And what of the role of media in all this. Scott Harris of the Between the Lines radio show spoke with critic Norman Solomon about the impact of recent disclosures. Says Solomon “In a weird kind of way that may not first be readily apparent, the Bush administration wants to raise a very high threshold as to what would indicate culpability on the part of the president and the administration. I believe at this point, the Bush people would like nothing more than to have the question be whether Bush consciously chose to allow something like 9/11 to happen. Because, if they can have that framed as the measure or the benchmark of culpability then I think it’s pretty evident there’s no evidence to support that. And so, the bar is raised so high by what I would say are the undocumentable charges by really fringe people who have been making such charges for many months, that it’s exactly the sort of the thing that the Bush administration would thrive on.

“Between The Lines: Now one of the other things we’ve been hearing is that the United States is currently at war and it’s not the time for public hearings, it’s not the time for questioning of Bush administration policies in dealing with the threat of terrorism, and that any questioning in the end could jeopardize the safety of every man, woman, and child in the United States. Now that raises the bar quite a bit for politicians and reporters who are asking the tough questions. Do you think the media is responding appropriately to this implicit threat from the White House?

“Norman Solomon: The damage control operative out of the White House is trying to use the patriotism argument to basically tell people to “Sit down and shut up and don’t raise any questions.” They want to turn the First Amendment into kind of a one-half amendment, which means that we should listen to the free speech rights of the people in the administration. I think one of the dynamics that has shifted is that a lot of Democrats in Congress, for the first time since Sept. 11, have been willing to raise some important issues around Sept. 11 events that the White House doesn’t want them to raise. ….

“One of the things that concerns me is that the editorials in places like the New York Times and the Washington Post in the last few days since this big story broke, these editorials have been very much inclined to downplay the significance. There’s a lot of vibe coming from the pundits and big editorial writers of major newspapers to the effect of “Hey, you know, don’t get too excited, take a deep breath, let’s keep this in perspective. Frankly it’s beginning to remind me of a lot of what we heard during the early stages of the Iran-Contra scandal, where there was clearly, according to astute observers, strong indications of outright mendacity in high places in the Reagan administration, but we had these pundits in major newspapers telling us, in effect, “We don’t want a failed presidency, we don’t want to get carried away and push too much against this administration.”

WHO KILLED CARLOS?

Re: Mozamique, News World reports: “A leading journalist’s group has called on authorities in Mozambique to step up an inquiry into the killing of investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso.

Cardoso, a reporter with weekly newspaper Metical, was shot dead nearly two years ago in the capital Maputo after exposing corrupt officials. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has presented a detailed report on Cardoso’s murder, written by its African coordinator Yves Sorokobi, to Mozambique’s US ambassador, and wants the government to make an official response.” For the record, Cardoso was a friend of mine, a feisty and fiercely independent journalist who took on his own government and business interests.”

HOW TO HONOR NKOSI

The other day I reported on a call by people living with AIDS in South Africa for a memorial for the late Aids orphan and activist Nkosi Johnson, about whom Carol Devoe and I made a film. Writing on an AIDS List Serv, Faith Mwangi-Powell says more is needed:

“I think the idea of building a monument in remembrance of Nkosi or even naming a street after his name is a very good thing to do, But I think Nkosi would have been much happier (My opinion) if there was place where other children with HIV/AIDS are cared for, in deed you already mention their plight by saying “Some of these children are not famous and as result they spend sleepless nights without food to eat not to mention the basic treatment. Children who are born with HIV are faced with a lot ofdiscrimination, firstly by their youthful parents, who in-turn dump them in the drainages due to lack of information poverty and other socio-economic problems. Some are dumped in the hospitals and left to die. HIV positive children need care, love and support to lead dissent” I totally support this….In view of that, why not suggest to department of local government that they build a small home where such children are cared for and you could name that home ‘Nkosi children’s home of something like that.”

IN THE E-MAIL FLORIDA EXPLAINED

Andrew Christie offers a view on the Forida recount story:

“Per the reference to the “Gore won:” crowd, out there “on there on the political margins” in your May 22 edition: It’s not necessary to posit a conspiracy by the media consortium to hush up the results of their study of the Florida vote. The media spin took care of that, juggling those results to declare that the victory would still have gone to Bush even if the Supreme Court had been so gracious as to allow the votes to be counted (instead of using „its power to act as political partisans, not judges of a court of law, according to 500 law professors — democrats and republicans — in the 1/13/01 NYT). But, in fact, the “strategic” recount scenarios trumpeted by most of the media as certifying Bush‚s legitimacy were only three of the nine scenarios tested. As noted by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, “when the consortium tried to simulate a recount of all uncounted ballots statewide, using six different standards for what constituted a vote, under each scenario they found enough new votes to have narrowly given the Florida election — and by extension the presidency — to Al Gore.”

Add to this Newsweek’s 11/19/01 report that the judge supervising the Florida recount until the Supreme Court canceled it „was actively considering directing the counties to also count…the group of disputed ballots that the consortium has now found that — had they been manually recounted — might have yielded a rich treasure trove of votes for Gore, enough even to put him over the top” and the real picture emerges (without even factoring in the deliberate mass disenfranchisement of black voters by the state of Florida, now under investigation by the Justice Dept.).

“No spin, no conspiracy, no cover-up, and no informed sources necessary. Just the truth.”

PLAYING GAMES

I reported on the military’s use of video games as a recruiting tool. The Durans comment from New Mexico: “Interesting that the Military will use video games as a recruiting tool and yet, for some reason, we cannot link them to violence? Puzzling. Kids, indoctrinated to “just do it”, preprogrammed to shoot at Targets, oblivious to the gratuitous violence. No concern there! Yet perfect for the military. Coupled with the Glow Patriotism creates for then next generation to go charging into battle. We’ve readied another generation to die at our command. Courtesy US Dept. of Defense.”

Francisco Framil writes from San Juan Puerto Rico: “Very interesting article on perception management strategies. It would be useful to train a new generation on these techniques to communicate positive values aimed at change and not on stagnation.”

F4 AND THE “POINT OF TELEVISION”

On the popular culture front, let me close with a story from China from TIME which I liked because it leads up to making a point about the point of television. Writes Bryan Walsh:

“…. jittery authorities canceled two recent mainland concerts by the mega-popular boy band F4, a quartet of very pretty Taiwanese lads. Their bubblegum music notwithstanding, recent F4 appearances in China have resembled early Beatles films, with out-of-control crowds and packs of swooning teenage girls. The final straw came at a planned concert at a Shanghai mall, when 10,000 fans ª10 times the number promoters were expecting ª went crazy with anticipation and blocked exits, spurring fears of a Chinese Altamont, albeit one featuring Hello Kitty instead of Hell’s Angels. The mall show was called off, as was a May 26 concert at Shanghai’s Hongkou Football Stadium, leaving F4’s China fans afraid the band had gone the way of Falun Gong on the mainland. Officials say the band isn’t banned, but the same doesn’t go for their even more popular Taiwanese TV series Meteor Garden, in which the F4 boys play spoiled rich kids who drive BMWs, chase girls and engage in other non-socialist behavior. The Beijing Youth Daily complained that the series gave teen viewers “unrealistic ideas about relations between people and societyª which, one might think, is pretty much the point of television…”Much of the news remains grim — killings in Nepal, missile tests in Pakistan, suicide bombings in Israel followed by an IDF push back into Jenin, a hardliner becoming president in Columbia where a bloody war is sure to escalate, (”He has every right to prosecute war…but he must do so cleanly,” preaches the New York Times) and, lo and behold, water was found on Mars, It is all more than I can write about.

Perhaps you have thoughts to share. That is easy to do: write dissector@mediachannel.org.