LIKES MEDIA PROTEST DAY MARCH 15

Paul O’Hanlon writes from Glasgow:

”I like the idea of the media protest day against the war on Wednesday March 15th, which of course will be followed by the worldwide demonstrations that weekend. http://www.troopsoutnow.org/m18orgcents.shtml for full list

“BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH” indeed. March is going to be a lively month with all the protest activity, the opening of the Iranian oil bourse and maybe even an attack on Iran.

Looking forward to reading your excellent analyses of the world situation – assuming there is still a world left if the crazies nuke Tehran! I can imagine Bush being informed “It’s Armageddon, sir” To which the great man of action and leader of the free world will reply “Armageddon outahere!”

KOFI ANNAN DISSED AGAIN

Ian Williams writes:

”The irrationality of some people about the United Nations leads one to impertinent questions. Did a UN peacekeeper wearing nothing but a blue UN helmet jump out of the woodpile today and frighten them when they were children?

“The New York Sun led with what has to be one of strangest and stretchiest attacks on Kofi Annan yet. The UN Secretary General had won a half million dollar environmental prize from Dubai and therefore kept silent about the whole ports affair.”

http://deadlinepundit.blogspot.com/2006/02/sun-spots-katrina-dubai-dubya.html for full diatribe.

THE KATRINA KONNECTION

Katrina:

“I am a member of Veterans For Peace (http://www.veteransforpeace.org) and the founder of New Orleans Voices For Peace (http://www.neworleansvfp.org). We have been documenting Katrina and Rita disaster relief efforts since we left Crawford Texas for New Orleans on Sept 1st.

“We appreciate what Mediachannel.org has done to bring light to the sad story that is commercial news today! We will do our best to bring you the truth about war and its true costs by interviewing Iraq war veterans, surviving family members and hurricane victims as they march together to bring attention to the fact that every bomb that drops in Iraq blows up on the Gulf Coast! “

Joe Dunphy writes:

”This comes under the heading of stories not covered. After Hurricane Katrina, buildings of course have to be rebuilt. But I do not see any coverage of the building codes being changed–surely they should be upgrades to withstand greater force. During the early coverage of Katrina, I remember seeing a church that was built to withstand 200 mph winds–and it came through pretty much OK, with only some roof damage.

“By not toughening the building codes, in essence the bowling pins are being reset for another round of the same.

“This brings us to problem one: FEMA’s basic standard operating procedure calls for doing everything possible in the re-construction phase to mitigate damage the next time around. I have seen no stories that mitigation is being designed into construction. In fact, I hear the opposite, that federal funding is not enough for Category 5 construction.

“Problem Two: This then creates an artificial demand for lumber in the next disaster. As conservationists know, forests around the world are already stressed, and scientists are concerned that the by-product loss of flora and fauna when trees are clear-cut results in less drugs available for new pharmaceuticals. If FEMA required tougher building standards, up to Category 5, then the next time around, the buildings would stand, and we wouldn’t have to rip up enough forests to re-house all these people. Estimates I’ve seen are that in the past two hurricane seasons–from Florida to Texas–some Three Million people’s houses have been affected by hurricane damage.

“Problem Three: Who benefits? In Florida, I believe that St. Joe Paper is one of the biggest landowners in the state. I also believe it was or still is connected to extensive Rockefeller family interests. It can be easily checked out in an annual report. Most major media companies know the paper trade cold, because they own magazine empires as well.

“ But if the commercial TV stations were to cover this story about Katrina, building codes, and lumber, it would also highlight the large degree of concentration in the media.

“So, for example, if Viacom/CBS/UPN Cable/King World Productions (Oprah Winfrey Show) were to cover the story properly, it might create problems for Viacom subsidiaries Simon and Schuster, Pocket Books, MTV Books, Nickelodeon Books, some of whose books could be converted into movies for Viacom subsidiary United Cinemas International, to be touted on some 180 radio stations of Viacom/Infinity Broadcasting. Similar parallels are likely in the other big four media companies.

“Thus, Katrina might be an example of the conglomerates not getting too close to the footprints of their own corporations on the lives of those affected by the hurricanes. It appears to be another example of the companies putting their own interests ahead of the public’s. By not covering the building codes angle, we are witnessing a real form of a domino theory being put into place again.

“There is no reason why we have to make the same mistakes twice. If the public lets this happen, then the trees being cut down now may destroy the cure for a disease that could have saved you later on in life. By the law of large numbers, there will be some people that will die as a result of this gross neglect. Seven months after the initial incident, the media is still not holding FEMA accountable for violating its own written standard operating procedures (SOP). This folly will not end until media companies start losing their broadcast licences for failing to broadcast in the public interest.”

BUSH TOUR OF INDIA

Arundhati Roy writes in The Nation:

”On his triumphalist tour of India and Pakistan, where he hopes to wave imperiously at people he considers potential subjects, President Bush has an itinerary that’s getting curiouser and curiouser.

‘For Bush’s March 2 pit stop in New Delhi, the Indian government tried very hard to have him address our parliament. A not inconsequential number of MPs threatened to heckle him, so PlanOne was hastily shelved. Plan Two was to have Bush address the masses from the ramparts of the= magnificent Red Fort, where the Indian prime minister traditionally delivers his Independence Day address. But the Red Fort, surrounded as it is by the predominantly Muslim population of Old Delhi, was considered a security nightmare. So now we’re into Plan Three: President George Bush speaks from Purana Qila, the Old Fort.

“Ironic, isn’t it, that the only safe public space for a man who has recently been so enthusiastic about India’s modernity should be a crumbling medieval fort?”

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/roy

TIPPING POINT?

Wendi Meremark predicts:

”According to the planets, western civilization, or the American consumption and re-mix of it, has peaked. The forward force is oil supply, and the dysfunctional politics all around us is the global-sized scrum for position in it, and the downfall of civilization’s paper-thin house is news that there ain’t any left.

“Oversimplified, yet still true, it goes like this: We invaded the Middle East to seize the oil fields. And they’re empty. All the oil’s been pumped out and burned up. There is not as much underground as the sheiks and CEOs exaggerated to us. We got yer’ pyrrhic victory, rightcher.

The events of sixty years, starting with the invention of the Department of Defense and the Pentagon, has been steering the entire US economy in this direction — oil guzzling — and telling us the whole time we would never arrive, telling us earth’s oil would last hundreds of years and we would never come to the end. Well, we can see the end from the high point of today….

AM I A CIA AGENT WITHOUT KNOWING IT?

E-mail is amazing. With the stroke of a keyboard, I found that someone in South Africa read my recent article about the role the notorious lobbyist Jack Ambramoff played earlier in his career supporting apartheid. Abramoff’s lawyer had already insisted I was reading his tea leaves wrong. Now some lefter than moi (or thou) read it on a South African website and concluded that I must be agent because I left out crucial details as part of a deliberate intent to deceive.

Professor Patrick Bond sent it to me from a debate website at the University of Durban which carries the original report. Now, a certain Dominic Tweedie decided it was worthy of refutation, writing,

”This article is inaccurate in a way that lets the main still-active culprit off the hook. Abramoff did not found IFF. Williamson, Crystal (and quite possibly Tony Leon) did. They followed a South African prototype that was also used by Williamson in Europe. They hired Abramoff as their “point man” in Washington. Therefore Abramoff got his start as a hired agent of a foreign power - basically as a spy for apartheid South Africa. This is the real story.

“The film episode trailed by Williamson is a tatty red herring more than a red scorpion. Most of the people hired did not in fact get paid. Maybe Williamson chowed the money himself, I wouldn’t be surprised, but this was ten years after the crucial period when Williamson and Crystal spotted, bought and groomed Abramoff, starting the whole shitty chain of events.

“Shechter’s account does not mention Crystal and Leon at all, which is strange, considering that they are live political players to this day, whereas Williamson and Abramoff have already been exposed. Altogether, Shechter’s article looks like a classic piece of “limited hang-out”.”

For the uninitiated, “limited hang out” is when intelligence agents leak some information to hide the real story. I found it an irony since my own career as an investigative reporter for Ramparts began with exposes about the CIA in Africa. Now, Mr.Tweedie has divined that I was probably part of the very plot I was unmasking.

I, of course, responded.

”It is one thing to be inaccurate (or, more accurately, incomplete) when you are writing from half a world away, and relying on published sources. It is another to be accused, with no evidence, of “limited hang out,” intelligeneeze for deliberately telling part of the story to obscure the rest or it or deceive people.

“With Abramoff denying all — as usual — we are left with the not always credible reminiscences of (SA apy) Craig Williamson. I noted that Jack’s first trip was in ‘83, his meeting with Savimbi in ‘85, well before the movie Red Scorpion was made. (Interesting to learn that people were not paid on the movie which seems Jack’s way of doing business. (That would not shock Hollywood) Sleaze for him SEEMS to have been a way of life and a sop.

“But this media/cultural/ideological war went on for a while and to judge by Tweedie’s tone, it continues.

“Schechter (misspelled by Mr. Tweedie) was not writing about Tony Leon or South Africa today. He was/is writing for Americans who know or remember little about these events.

“Was there more to the story? There always is.

“Tweedie’s snarky and self-righteous attack feels itself like a classic bit of denouncing someone he doesn’t know for something he wasn’t writing about.

Touche, Mr. Tweedie. Patrick said he agreed with me. It was time to eat breakfast. And then, last night, Tweedie bounced back, across the time zones, further detailing his position and then saying:

”Sorry to Danny Schechter if he felt “denounced”. What I would really want is that he keeps digging. I think this story is bigger than he thinks, and will play in Peoria, to boot. Best wishes, Dominic.”

Best Wishes. As they say, good night and good luck.

Your comments always welcome. Write: Dissector@mediachannel.org