POLITICAL NEWS —

• VA GOV KAINE NAMED NEW DNC CHAIRMAN
• BILL RICHARDSON STEPS DOWN: UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR A CORPORATE TIE
• AL FRANKEN LEADS IN MINNESOTA SENATE RACE
• BURRIS TO TRY TO GET SEATED AS ILLINOIS SENATOR
• OBAMA STILL SILENT ON GAZA

YOUR LETTERS

A VIEW FROM BRITAIN — Shebar Windstone:

I’d like to see the results of a survey that measures & compares class-consciousness & -loyalty of U.S. citizens & Brits!

Public wants taxes that hurt the rich; Credit crunch provokes backlash against bankers

Two-thirds of Britons want the rich to face punitive tax rates not seen since the 1980s, according to a new poll which suggests that the recession has hardened attitudes towards the wealthy.

Bankers are now seen second only to footballers as being overpaid, while seven in 10 think that ordinary workers should sit on remuneration committees setting executives’ pay to ensure that high salaries are deserved.’

SARAH MEYER –The Latest Comprehensive Timeline on Afghanistan:

PORTUGUAL — Dania Rodrigues corresponds pertaining to one of my films:

I’m a Portuguese archeology student, in Universidade de Lisboa. I had the pleasure of seeing your documentary, ‘Weapons of Mass Deception,’ last night, and I really enjoyed it. I think it’s an amazing and pretty accurate and lucid vision about the distortion made by the media. Even though I often think how the media shapes our ideas and ideals, I never had thought that it might have such a deep impact (since I live on a country where, fortunately, there isn’t such an aggressive bombing of information. Back in Europe, we often think: “How can they do that? How can they support war?,” Your documentary answers pretty well to this question.

Americans are also victims, victims of a different war, the media war you focused. I really loved the idea of using media to oppose the system, because until now I had only met examples of subservience (with the exception of The Daily Show, which arrives here I don’t know how). It really interested me, since I did a thesis illustrating the subversive power of archeology (it was quite provocative, here archeology only serves the interests of the powerful).

So, besides complimenting you, I would like to say to you that I’ve recently formed an association, and after seeing your documentary, I had the idea of promoting some activities in our city, in partnership with other groups, by occasion of the 6th anniversary of the Iraqi war. I was wondering [if there are ]some conferences, and film exhibitions, so I would like to know if we have your permission to show your documentary on this context. But since I would like to do things a little more original, I wonder if you could give some ideas, or recommend [to] me some websites where I can search for some information.

Daniel Spak wrote:

I often post your “Weapons of Mass Deception” video on my blog. Everything I see that you’ve done, I like and agree with. THEN…I was on this site and your on it…BRAVO!!! THEN…I checked out your blog and saw Beatles videos and posts about Gaza…BRAVO!!! I linked to you for quite a while, even before I knew these last few things recently. I linked to you, because anyone who could make “Weapons of Mass Deception“…well I just don’t have to check out too much more about someone like that!

Stop by my blog, I’m a nobody, I have a very small following. I’m trying to post what I think is news the networks aren’t telling us. I get some awesome comments under my posts from my “regulars.” I see you banned commenting. That’s too bad. I get into arguments with commenter’s, too. I just argue back and I never ban anyone. Argue back with them!!!

Keep doing what you’re doing. Great stuff you do, Danny!!! I’m going to buy my son one of your books. He’s in his last year at Northeastern University in Boston…put the comments back on and give ‘em hell!!!!! Tell ‘em to go pound sand!!! I’d get charge if you really posted a comment saying “this is Danny Schecter”…no one famous ever did that. I don’t have a blog for money, it’s just something I do for fun… Thanks.

JEWISH VOICES FOR PEACE

Jewish Voice for Peace joins millions around the world, including the 1,000 Israelis who protested in the streets of Tel Aviv this weekend, in condemning ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza. We call for an immediate end to attacks on all civilians, whether Palestinian or Israeli.

Israel’s slow strangulation of Gaza through blockade has caused widespread suffering to the 1.5 million people of Gaza due to lack of food, electricity, water treatment supplies and medical equipment. It is a violation of humanitarian law and has been widely condemned around the world.

Noeny Sanchez writes

It could well be the end times. Having watched the ill management of the US for the past 8 years, the only conclusion I can come up with is either the country is being run by idiots who are always making the wrong decisions, an ill-informed people due to right wing control of most news outlets, or a collective DEATH WISH!

CNN even admitted that the fed is now just printing worthless paper. With the impossible to pay back debt that the Bush administration has plagued the people with and the greed of the republican party, and the deluded born again Christians who only want to be first in line at the trough to feed on the last of the flesh of America with no concern what so ever for the country OR the people in it the end times seem not that far away now.”

David Ashton, childhood friend of John Lennon in Liverpool: What it is like to be bombed?.

Many thanks indeed for your thoughtful and helpful writing about the Palestinian issues and the tragic conflict we are at present witness to which seems to me to dismiss our own sense of worth as human beings the sense of being powerless to stop the slaughter in Gaza. I went to school with many Jewish children whose parents had escaped the gas ovens of Nazi-occupied Europe. Liverpool welcomed them and made them feel at home in time. I am not sure that we lads knew about it or understood it as we mixed freely and happily with boys and girls of all races, religions and creeds. I think it was true that most of us boys had some Welsh in our language - usually some very bad ‘non-chapel’ words but Welsh words of greeting which were in common use or we could at least say:

the longest word in the Welsh language which means ‘the church of St Mary by the Hollow of white aspen, over the whirlpool, and St Tysilio’s church close to the red cave’.

So, it was with our accepting attitude towards race that we absorbed the cultures of the world without anyone using, or trying to use, culture to frighten us or use it as a social control mechanism. I think it is true to say that Liverpool and Woolton (the much older civic centre) was, is and hopefully always will be a multi-faith, multi- cultural city which stands as a beacon of optimism and hope in a pessimistic world. It was such a place that inspired my childhood mate John Lennon and why the world finds and will hopefully always find hope, love, joy and optimism in all Johns and the Beatles’ songs. Though we cannot speak for John I am certain in view of the childhood memories we both had of being bombed during the 2nd World War, which the children of Gaza experience as I write.

MY OWN FIRST recollections of my mother were on the night of a late bombing raid during the 1939-45 war. My sister, Pauline, and I had gone into our Anderson Bomb Shelter, at the back of our Liverpool home. I was hugging my Golliwog, called Golly, who got me through the worst of the blitz krieg, lying on my bunk bed.

The adults: Mother, (our Dad was on fire watch duty in Liverpool) and our neighbours called Meakin from next door and Miss Newman, stood outside looking up at the sky, watching the searchlights pinpointing the German bombers. The Polish Air force Hurricane Squadron based at Speke Airport defended Liverpool and saved us from the worst of the Nazi onslaught. John and I suffered terribly from the war; we saw dead bodies piled up in the street. My mother put a coat in front of my eyes and for years she denied that it had happened.

John told me that he’d had similar experiences. It really was the basis of John’s search for peace. John, like me, was very much committed to peace because we had that trauma of war. But when the men came home there was no time to listen to our childhood traumas. As kids we were afraid that if our houses got bombed we wouldn’t be able to get out. Every 20th house saved up and bought a fire mans ladder. When I was five John and I drew pictures of us jumping out of our houses onto the ladder some of these pictures turned up just two years ago, after my Mum died.

The tragedy for me as a child who witnessed this horror of being bombed and still have the nightmares more than 60 years, latter I cannot help wondering what the parents of the Liverpool Jewish children we had known as children who also had the nightmare’s of escape from the death camps and our horror of being bombed in Liverpool would say to their children about the genocide being committed by Israel and the west politicians who are not demanding they stop. John wrote, “ All we are saying is give peace a chance .“ I only wish we could get they message across but then I am certain we will and we must.”

ENGLAND: Ken Keable observes:

Here is an interesting interview on YouTube from RUSSIA TODAY with the daughter of Raul Castro, mainly about her perspective on the revolution’s anniversary and specialty which is sexual politics in Cuba. Great archival footage.

Mary E. O’Reilly

I hardly ever agree with either of these guys, but I think, on this, that what they have to say should be considered. Almost nothing is all good or all bad, I’m sure you’d agree:

Charles Krauthammer — Moral Clarity in Gaza

Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not.

Michael Gerson — Defining Victory for Israel

The objectives are an end to rocket and mortar attacks on Israel and an end of large-scale arms smuggling to Hamas.

MEDIA PREDICTIONS FROM RACHEL SKLAR Via John McCartney

That’s it for now. Thanks to you for reading the News Dissector blog. Please forward it to friends and ask them to subscribe. Thanks to Al Jazeera for including me in a documentary that aired yesterday on the financial crisis. I am still working on my own “crash-u-mentary” based on my book, ‘Plunder.’ I will be speaking in West Hartford, CT, Tuesday night. You are welcome and invited.

FYI, I am available to do other speaking gigs on campuses and communities. Will need travel, hospitality, and an honorarium fee[s].

I know this blog is too long, offers too much news, too many perspective but I was stuck at home this past weekend and just got carried away (and only scratched the surface of all the great reports readers sent me.) I write quickly and I am sure you scroll as just as fast. I don’t think I would feel as pressed to offer so much if most of our news outlets were doing their jobs.

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