Dr. J.’s Commentary: Tom Friedman: Wrong. Again.

We have said it before: If hot air could be used as a viable energy source, Tom Friedman alone could solve the world crisis. The billionaire pundit’s arrogance often matches his ignorance—and is there any point in asking why the NYTimes poo-bahs keep him under contract?

By Steve Jonas / Dateline: Tue, 10/16/2007 -

Tom Friedman has been wrong before about the major issues of our time. He supported “globalization” and apparently still does, even though this is finally being revealed to be not at all about “free trade” (e.g., U.S. sugar), as some observers have known for quite some time. Rather it is about the free export of capital to places where it can make a lot more profit for its owners than it could in the U.S. Tom Friedman originally supported the War on Iraq, even though he wasn’t sure about WMD. And now Tom Friedman is wrong on Gore (for the most part) and on Bush. Read the rest of this entry »

Freedom Rider: Ahmadinejad Sane, Bush Crazy

The poisoner in chief, for an already repugnantly poisoned nation.
By Black Agenda report (BAR) editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Dateline: Wednesday, 03 October 2007

A famous old English song is titled, “The World Turned Upside Down.” Such appears to be the insane vantage point through which the Bush regime, and many ordinary citizens, view reality: in reverse. U.S. media and politicians behave as if they are already at war with Iran, a nation that has been brutalized over generations by Americans, but whose president spoke of world peace and an end to “dark plots” during his visit to this country. Deafened and blinded by arrogant, ignorant, unthinking hatred, Americans responded with venom in quantities toxic to all rational thought. The Poisoner-in-Chief, George Bush, has made great strides in turning much of the nation into a Cuckoo’s Nest. Read the rest of this entry »

Jon Stewart Dismantles Chris Matthews

Considering what a repugnantly amoral opportunist Chris Matthews is, he got off easy with Jon Stewart, who remains a voice for serious morality camouflaged in comedy. Stewart is to be commended for not being afraid to tackle these systemic topics. But being, after all, a corporate media figure, his is indeed a highwire act and the men behind the curtain, the top corporadoes, could easily tire of his jabs at the system and suddenly pull the rug from under him.

BY GREG MITCHELL

If you have ever bemoaned the turn Matthews — a former newspaperman — has taken in recent years, you have to check out what happened on “The Daily Show” on Tuesday night. Matthews called it “the worst interview ever.”

(October 03, 2007) — You may find this hard to believe, but there was a time when TV gasbag Chris Matthews was a respectable hard news reporter. He worked in Washington, D.C. for the San Francisco Examiner from 1987 to around 2000, and also wrote columns for the San Francisco Chronicle and others. But if you have ever bemoaned the turn his career took as an interviewer/talk show host – or if you just hate the inside-the-beltway mentality of many of our leading press and TV pundits – then you would have loved Jon Stewart’s dismantling of Matthews on “The Daily Show” last night (Oct. 2, 2007). Read the rest of this entry »

“Capitalism and Freedom” Unmasked

Milton Friedman, best known for his free-market fundamentalism, and accordingly eulogized when not downright canonized by establishment apologists, was a shameless enemy of the people. Blessed with the kind of obscenely long life that apparently befits all scoundrels (dead at 94; Reagan at 84; Ed Bernays, 104) this contemptible mystifier of social science and intellectual prostitute for the plutocracy lived long enough to preside over criminal applications of his fraudulent “economic science”, most notably in Chile, where his vulturish “Chicago Boys” created a model of capitalist “development” with the usual lopsided traits of a nation deeply divided in terms of wealth distribution and political power, with the poor, of course, bearing the brunt of Friedman’s “free society.”

BY STEVEN LENDMAN
Dateline: Thursday, October 04, 2007

AN ERA ENDED on November 16, 2006 when economist Milton Friedman died. A torrent of eulogies followed. The Wall Street Journal mourned his loss with the same tribute it credulously used when Ronald Reagan died saying “few people in human history have contributed more to the achievement of human freedom.” Economist and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers called him a hero and “The Great Liberator” in a New York Times op-ed; the UK Financial Times called him “the last of the great economists;” Terence Corcoran, editor of Canada’s National Post, mourned the “free markets” loss of “their last lion;” and Business Week magazine noted the “Death of a Giant” and praised his doctrine that “the best thing government can do is supply the economy with the money it needs and stand aside.” Read the rest of this entry »

Our Captive Media

The unsinkable Bill Moyers.
In a 2003 interview with BuzzFlash.com,[13] Moyers said, “The corporate right and the political right declared class warfare on working people a quarter of a century ago and they’ve won.” He noted that “The rich are getting richer, which arguably wouldn’t matter if the rising tide lifted all boats.” Instead, however, “The inequality gap is the widest it’s been since 1929; the middle class is besieged and the working poor are barely keeping their heads above water.” He added that as “the corporate and governing elites are helping themselves to the spoils of victory,” access to political power has become “who gets what and who pays for it.” Read the rest of this entry »

Op-Ed: Who is a journalist?

BY ANTHONY SANCHEZ Dateline: April 26, 2007

IMPORTANT RELATED MATERIAL: Joshua Wolf (born June 8, 1982) is an American video blogger, freelance journalist and filmmaker[1] who was jailed by a Federal district court on August 1, 2006 for refusing to turn over a collection of videotapes he recorded during a July 2005 demonstration in San Francisco, California. Wolf, a video activist who reported on numerous protest and progressive events, videotaped an anti-G8 anarchist protest in San Francisco on July 8, 2005 in which the protesters wore masks to hide their identities. Later that same night, and over the next few days, Wolf posted edited clips of his video to a local activist news website, Bay Area Indymedia (Indybay)…Wolf’s videotape is the only known source material from the protest to have been sought by subpoena after refusal to turn it over. [7] Read the rest of this entry »

Prosecute US Corporate Media For War Crimes

BY DAVID WALSH

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, would have seen no difference between his methods and objectives and those of the neocon cabal in power.

CLASSIC ARTICLES | Originally published April 22, 2003
The presentation of an illegal invasion of a foreign country as a “preventative” or pre-emptive war did not originate with Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld.

The ongoing US aggression in the Middle East raises the most serious questions about the role of the mass media in modern society. In the period leading up to the invasion, the American [corporate] media uncritically advanced the Bush Administration’s arguments, rooted in lies, distortions and half-truths, for an attack on Iraq. It virtually excluded all critical viewpoints, to the point of blacking out news of mass anti-war demonstrations and any other facts that contradicted the propaganda from the White House and Pentagon. Read the rest of this entry »

THE TRUTH NETWORK

BY PETER CHAMBERLIN

We the People have “freedom of the press,” but we do not have a free press.

We have a right to speak out and to assemble, but we don’t know what to say, or where to say it. The Internet is opening a path for us to change these deficiencies.

The Internet will replace the mainstream media, if the First Amendment survives the ceaseless assault being waged upon the Constitution in the name of facilitating the “war on terror.” The overlooked ideology of the Internet is an extremely patriotic American nationalism, driving a free market of truth, mixed-in with freely expressed opinions and ideas. The Internet is the only source of actual “news,” in our land of the corporate media. Read the rest of this entry »

Indy Takes on MSM as Media Courtesans Take a Bow, give themselves a standing ovation…

Dateline: 11 Jul 2007
At a distance, with their military-style helmets and flak jackets, many journalists now look like the combatants they are supposedly covering.

World Press Freedom in the Eyes & Ears of the Beholder
by Trish Schuh May 26, 2007

UNITED NATIONS- On the 14th Anniversary of World Press Freedom Day celebrated in May, UNESCO hosted an event for journalists called “Press Freedom, Safety of Journalists and Impunity.” Under Article 1 of its Constitution, UNESCO is the only United Nations agency with a mandate to defend freedom of expression and press freedom. Read the rest of this entry »

The attacks on SiCKO make me sick

Disbelieving Michael Moore interviews British physician.

BY PATRICE GREANVILLE
COMMENT AND OPINION BY THE EDITOR

Well, judging from what we are beginning to see, it didn’t take too long for the mainstream media to regain its footing, atone for its earlier honest hoorays for Moore’s film, and figure an angle from which it might preserve the remnants of its tattered honor while still fulfilling the dirty job its corporate masters demanded it to do, which was to badmouth Michael Moore’s brave documentary, SiCKO, into complete ineffectiveness. The spectacle makes me sick.

Just a few days ago CNN’s Anderson Cooper offered on his program 360 a glimpse of the subtle and not so subtle maneuvers being frantically worked out by the elites as they scramble to repair the huge breach on their disinformation wall created by Moore’s near irrefutable expose of the American healthcare system, an industry whose cynicism and callousness should have been exposed by the “professional media” in the same manner eons ago. Read the rest of this entry »