SMALLER TOWNS JOINING MEDIA PROTEST DAY MARCH 15

Andi Novick writes about how one small town in upstate New York is getting involved with the Media protest day activities on March 15th If you live in a small town, consider circulating her letter and experience:

”Dear

Media activists have been struggling for years to get others to connect the dots: all those “fog facts” as Larry Beinhart has called them which need to be strung together so the fog of bad journalism stops obscuring our vision.

In our neck of the country, two hours north of New York City, there was no media reform group when we decided to begin organizing. We started by showing Weapons of Mass Deception and inviting Danny Schechter to speak. The theatre sold out–not bad for just starting to organize. Where did all those people come from?

That’s the power not of connecting the dots but of connecting other activists. We all know the government lied us into this war, but we hadn’t all focused on the role media played in making this war possible. WMD laid bare what our government and their handmaiden corporate media tried to obfuscate. People were energized and angry. Peace activists, anti-war activists, regular folks understood that we need to do more than protest the government’s criminal behavior. We need to go after their dutiful servant who under the banner of “free press” has become an instrument furthering their corruption.

United for Peace and Justice has now officially recognized what media activists have been saying and we’re joining together to hold the media accountable for it’s irresponsible lack of investigative, truthful reporting. Across the nation on March 15 anti war activists will become media activists in a unified effort objecting to the media’s complicit coverage of the war and demanding that they stop hurting democracy.

There are many actions your group can take along with anti war activists in your community. As we know from our experience when we started organizing to bring attention to the problems with the media, this is a terrific opportunity for synergism: the interaction or cooperation of two or more agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.

andi novick
Northeast Citizens for Responsible Media
andi@re-media.org

LOU DOBBS TOLD TO “SHUT UP”

Lou Dobbs reported that “Dubai Ports World” officials have tried to silence him and get CNN to suppress his reports.

Mark Dennis, spokesman for Dubai Ports World: “CNN won’t shut up Lou Dobbs.”

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/02/27.html#a7324

Here’s what Dobbs said according to the CNN transcript:

Dubai Ports World tonight is making what I consider to be a rather astonishing new attempt to silence me and our coverage of this ports deal and our reporting of what at least I consider to be legitimate national security concerns about this transaction. Dubai Ports World has actually refused to grant CNN anymore interviews from Washington or London, and it’s refused to allow CNN to videotape its operations in the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong if we were to show you the video on this broadcast.”

NEO-CON IDEOLOGIST WANTS MORE TROOPS

Bradley Laing writes: “Bill Kristol thinks the last three years haven’t been serious war-making Only a war-mongering chickenhawk like Bill Kristol could smirk as he told the Fox News Sunday panel that ““We have not had a serious three-year effort to fight a war in Iraq”. 2/26/06

During the panel discussion of the increased violence in Iraq and the fears of civil war, Kristol repeatedly said that Zarqawi was trying to destroy Iraq, and “we” need to crush Zarqawi., and said that the day after the Shiite mosque was bombed, Bush should have come out and committed 15,000 more troops.

WHAT THE RIGHT IS SAYING

John Singlaub, a notorious hardline anti-communist ex General is indicting the media for undermining respect in our troops. This is the latest ridiculous attack on the so-called “liberal media” circulated by the Media Research Center. Here’s what they say:

If you believe the mainstream liberal media’s reporting on the American military effort in Iraq, you’re almost forced to be ashamed of our troops!

“The liberal media want you to believe that U.S. troops in Iraq are guilty of widespread torture … oppressing civilians … murdering U.S. journalists … opposing the war effort …

And losing the war.

That’s the media’s latest refrain, and they’re singing their defeatist song in harmony day and night, on the TV news and in every major liberal newspaper — the U.S. can’t win!”

This is nonsense because war critics are not attacking “THE TROOPS” but rather their commander in chief.