Media

To WaPo:

Who knew rats were new to DC? I could have sworn I'd seen them around for years.  I could have sworn the piles of trash following inaugurations, fourths of july, and tastes of dc left swarms of rats behind.  I could have sworn that every time I've been in Freedom Plaza since October 6th it's been cleaner than 15th Street.  Do you have any serious reason to believe your new found awareness of rats, like some people's new found awareness of the homeless people who have been there for decades, doesn't come more from the observing than from what is being observed?  Did you know that the occupation of Freedom Plaza is campaigning for the investment in public services that would begin at long last to address this longstanding problem?  Did you know that detailed reports, proposals, analyses, and yes demands can be found at http://occupywashingtondc.org ?  Were you aware of the rat explosion and disease explosion in cities our military has bombed - which I'm sure the Post will be getting around to covering very very soon?  Can you prove the DC rat population isn't expanding city-wide because so many people have found it appropriate to discard their copies of the Washington Post, thus providing lots of nesting material?

Sincerely,

David Swanson

To Charlottesville Daily Progress:

On New Year's Eve the President signed a bill giving himself and future presidents the power to imprison anyone, including US citizens, forever with no trial, whether through the military or otherwise.  President Obama stretched these outrageous powers even further in an unconstitutional law-altering signing statement. Congressman Robert Hurt voted against the Defense Authorization Act because it tosses out our Constitutional rights.

While this issue had been a major controversy for months, and the Daily Progress has never yet mentioned it in a news story, you addressed it in an editorial on January 9th, but your editorial simply argued for the flexibility of not always using the military because the legitimate justice system can reduce terrorism.

Nowhere do you mention that the final version of the bill gave the president that flexibility and more, that he now claims the power to imprison anyone forever without any formal process whatsoever.  Nowhere do you mention that a week after the President signed the bill, Afghan President Karzai demanded that all Afghan prisoners be turned over within a month.  And nowhere do you even touch on the question of the right to habeas corpus, the right not to be punished for treason unless convicted in open court on the testimony of two witnesses, the right to be secure in your person, or the right to a speedy and public trial and a jury trial. 

Are all civil rights of simply negligible importance in comparison with fear of terrorism?  Among the many many things that kill more of us than terrorism are dogs, and they're our "best friend."  Take a deep breath please.

Sincerely,

David Swanson

Note to Self:

Knock it off.  They can't hear you.

I was on the Marc Steiner Show today talking Iran War with Reza Marashi, Research Director for the National Iranian American Council, who was excellent, and Charles "Sam" Faddis, who was a pro-war propagandist. LISTEN.

I stopped by a corporate chain bookstore this week and checked out the "Current Affairs" section. I was a little surprised to discover that according to a dozen or more books dominating the display we are all under a vicious life-and-death assault from a raving, drooling mob of communist devils led by that well-known pinko guerrilla Barack Obama.

When a group of us citizens visited Rep. Hurt's Charlottesville office on Thursday, his staff said there was a press release on his website already explaining his vote against the National Defense Authorization Act. There wasn't.

I thanked Hurt on his FaceBook page, and he deleted the thank you.

It is likely no press release was sent to the press because there has been no story printed or reported anywhere, to my knowledge, outside of my commentary on Coy Barefoot's radio show.

Sure, for the first time in modern memory, a Fifth District Congress Member has voted against a "Defense" bill, and he's done so because it savages the Bill of Rights. But those facts do not override the supreme Commandment of Journalism, namely: Thou Shalt Not Report on Government Until Goverment Tells You What to Report in a Handy Press Release.

On the other hand, Hurt's DC office told me on the phone, and his staff in Charlottesville told me in person, that he voted No because of his opposition to the measure allowing eternal imprisonment without trial. And now he has said the same in a letter I just received:

"After studying the controversial provisions and after hearing from many in the Fifth District, I concluded that the detainee provisions in the bill did not provide clear and unambiguous protection of the constitutional rights of American citizens. For this reason, I opposed the bill on final passage."

The bill easily passed. It is unlikely Hurt received much flak from the Republican Party for this vote. But he would if he were to publicly demand a veto. He would if he were to introduce legislation similar to Senator Feinstein's excluding US legal residents from the newly codified abuses. And he certainly would if he were to expand that remedy to protect the rights of the other 95% of humanity.

But why would Hurt take any further steps when nobody even knows he took this one?

In a hastily thrown together press conference Sunday afternoon, several months in the planning, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said his efforts to spread freedom beyond New York City had included the deployment of 1,000 NYPD officers to Schenectady, where they have just apprehended a young man inspired by Al Qaeda and Occupy Wall Street propaganda provided to him by the NYPD on a regular basis since September.

Yesterday, NPR's PR flack was haranguing me on the phone about how NPR had nothing to do with getting Lisa Simeone fired from an independent program called Soundprint.  This was despite NPR having gone public with its concerns over Simeone's "unethical" participation in democracy, and Soundprint's referencing of NPR's "ethics" rules in firing Simeone.  It was also despite NPR's clear intention to get Simeone removed from our airwaves.

UPDATES HERE

[in short, NPR claims Soundprint acted on its own to fire Simeone

but NPR was publicly pushing the issue -- see that blog post I linked to

and the Soundprint exec producer referred to NPR's ethics policy when firing Simeone

NPR also pushed WDAV to take action (presumably by firing Simeone, no other actions having been discussed) and WDAV refused, resulting in the announcement by both WDAV and NPR that WDAV would not fire her

Simeone has been fired by Soundprint but not by WDAV]

From Press TV

AUDIO HERE

The West's mainstream media outlets easily ignore serious government issues and only magnify diversionary stories and celebrity scandals, says David Swanson, an author and co-founder of Warisacrime.org.

“When it comes to investigating the claims of national governments and the arguments for wars based on blatant lies, these same media outlets act as dutiful stenographers," David Swanson told Press TV's U.S. Desk in a Sunday interview.

“So it really is giving a quite distorted picture of an aggressive reportorial organization that when it comes to matter of importance...it really isn't," the author of "War Is A Lie" added.

Swanson made a reference to the recent phone hacking scandal by a subsidiary newspaper of media magnate Rupert Murdoch and said that such issues receive media coverage in certain areas such as when a celebrity's phone is for instance also hacked in the scandal.

However, he said, "I just would much prefer that they (Murdoch) were prosecuted for the crimes of selling illegal wars, something that he openly confesses to and doesn't result in the same sort of scandal."

RG/KA/DB

Nailing Rupert Murdoch for his employees' phone tapping or bribery would be a little like bringing down Al Capone for tax fraud, or George W. Bush for torture. I'd be glad to see it happen but there'd still be something perverse about it.

I remember how outraged Americans were in 2005 learning about our government's warrantless spying, or for that matter how furious some of my compatriots become when a census form expects them to reveal how many bathrooms are in their home.

I'm entirely supportive of outrage. I just have larger crimes in mind. Specifically this:

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:
"Article 20
"1. Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law."