May 3, 2008
Today marks the celebration of International Day of Press Freedom. Like many celebrations that we are called to recognise, rather than feel joy at how wonderful things are, we are reminded of just how much goes haywire. Reporters Without Borders lists those killed in 2007. They write that there has been: 129 journalists, 7 media assistants and 63 cyberdissidents jailed, 8 journalists killed since the beginning of the year, the latest in the list of horrors, Fadel Shanaa.

While all normal people with conscience recognise that it is essential to insist upon obtaining justice for the operators of information who are killed while doing their work in areas where violence is manifest, we notice that there are other ways to prevent the dissemination of information, and this restriction of freedom is nothing less than censorship.
I remember thinking that censorship was something done in the 40s by priests who had to approve the films that the Italian public was allowed to watch. When I was young and naïve, I thought it was something that only totalitarian or ultra-repressed societies would dare to use. I now know much better, and it’s not only the Big Media that simply does not allow content in that they disapprove of, it is far more sinister. It seems as though the journalists are aware of what is expected of them and they produce it without needing to be steered. In 2004, I translated portions of a book by Giulietto Chiesa that I consider to be fundamental reading. An excerpt of it states:

--MORE--

Related
'Children Killed In Gaza' video taken down by Youtube - New copy here!

baltimoresun.com

May 3, 2008

The article "Palestinian mother, kids die" (April 29) describes how an Israeli tank fired into a house in the Gaza Strip, killing a Palestinian mother and her four young children.

Two other children from the same family were badly wounded and hospitalized. Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barack stated, "We see Hamas as responsible for everything that happens there, for all injuries."

In other words, even though Israel continues its deadly siege in Gaza and continues using collective punishment, disproportionate force, targeted assassinations and home demolitions there, all the violence is somehow Hamas' fault.

--MORE--ate

Ben Cohen

Posted May 2, 2008

Like this story? Get Alerts of big news events. Enter your email address

As a supporter of Barack Obama (and donor), it is hard for me to bring up issues that will damage his chances of election this year. But the truth is more important than politics, as Obama's former pastor hinted at in his speech to the National Press Club this week.

"Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls," said Wright. "Preachers say what they say because they are pastors. They have a different person to whom they're accountable."

Wright's comments are certainly ill timed for Obama's election campaign, but he is not wrong.

Obama, although infinitely better than Hillary Clinton and John McCain, has certainly altered some of his core beliefs in order to get himself elected. One of the best example of this is his stance on Israel. Having taken a reasoned and balanced view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict early in his career, Obama quietly saddled up to AIPAC (America's Pro Israel Lobby) and sold out the Palestinians for his White House career. While residents of the Gaza strip are entrapped in virtual prison, routinely shot at by Israeli troops, tanks and planes (all in violation of international law), Obama stated publicly that he supported Israeli actions and would not negotiate with Hamas. When asked whether he would meet with them, Obama stated:

--MORE--

by William H. White

May 2, 2008

Campaign's Overall Design and Objectives

The Bush administration and Israeli government appear to be operating a joint disinformation campaign, whose objective is to establish a media based alternative reality from which to accuse Syria/Iran of developing nuclear weapons with help from North Korea, by using a real event combined with planted stories establishing a defining narrative. This accusation in turn is augmented with stories about Iranian sponsored "Special Groups killing US troops in Iraq" and purported naval incidents the Persian Gulf, creating self-reinforcing, media based crisis.

The immediate purpose of this disinformation campaign is apparently to help justify the planned US attack on a wide range of Iranian industrial and military targets. And, as in the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, the objective is to swiftly inflict substantial damage to the national infrastructure of Iran, followed by an abrupt cessation of attacks and a call for a cease-fire to prevent substantial Iranian retaliation. Again, as in the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, the US likely will resist calls for a cessation of the attacks until a significant portion of the Iranian target set has been addressed, then it will accept calls for a cease-fire and demand Iran do the same.

Any subsequent attacks by Iran would probably be characterized by the US as Iranian aggression, further justifying US follow-up attacks on remaining Iranian assets as defensive measures. The transparent duplicity of such US actions and claims is not a problem because US corporate media is prepared to report repeatedly the administration's claims with little or no criticism or mention of alternative assessments. In other words, subjecting its audience to blatant propaganda masquerading as journalism, which is effective as it is because of US corporate media's quantitative monopoly on information provided the public

--MORE--

Sat, 3 May 2008

Tie in with May 4 Houston Refinery FALSE FLAG? - CIA agent Roland Carnaby Killed by Houston Police

From New World OrderLies

Related
Bush-Cheney Israel Disinformation Campaign to Justify an Attack on Iran

Sat, 3 May 2008

From New World OrderLies

WESH.com

May 2, 2008

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The building manager of a Central Florida condo said he spent time talking to Deborah Jean Palfrey on Monday as she packed to go to her mother's house and she did not seem suicidal.

Deborah Jean Palfrey has many ties to Central Florida. For the past 12 years she's owned a condo at Park Lake Towers in Orlando.

Video: Manager Says D.C. Madam Death Not Suicide

The building manager, who did not want to show his face, talked with Palfrey Monday before she left for her mother's in Tarpon Springs. He strongly believes Palfrey's death was not a suicide.

--MORE--

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

Jonathan Power

Even Jimmy Carter, who single-handedly (without much Jewish appreciation) has done more to make Israel secure than any other living person, can’t change the march of demographics.

Within the boundaries of the state of Israel and the occupied territories, there are 5.4 million Jews and 4.6 million Palestinians. The Palestinian birthrate is almost three times that of the Israelis. If anything, the Jewish population is starting to fall as an increasing number of Jews decides that Israel has no future for them and emigrate in significant numbers.

The far-seeing Richard Nixon, when asked by Patrick Buchanan and his wife how he saw the future of Israel, turned down his thumb “like a Roman emperor at the gladiators’ arena”.

Perhaps we are witnessing the death of Israel by a thousand cuts, the attrition of conflict and the attrition of population. Maybe after all, the rabbis of Vienna who were sent in 1897 on a fact-finding mission to Palestine to investigate whether it was a suitable place for Jewish settlement were right. They reported back that the “bride was beautiful but married to another man”.

--MORE--

Tale of Building 7's collapse suggests official complicity, persistent obstruction

May. 3, 2008 12:00 AM

Regarding "Drinking the 9/11 Kool-Aid" (Editorial, April 24):

After three government investigations and more than six years, we still don't have answers on 9/11.

Why, for example, did Building 7 collapse? It wasn't hit by a plane, as the towers were. The 9/11 Commission Report completely ignores Building 7. The Federal Emergency Management Agency report discounts fire as a cause and concludes that the reasons for the collapse of Building 7 are unknown and require further research. But when FEMA issued this report, it already cleared the site and disposed of the dust and steel (evidence from a crime scene), thus possibly committing a felony and complicating any "further research."

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal agency, which evaluated the collapse of the towers, has yet to issue its report on Building 7. "We've had trouble getting a handle on Building 7," said the acting director of their Building and Fire Research Lab.

--MORE--

April 29th, 2008 April 2008. tadamon

Sign on Statement and Appeal for Solidarity.

April 2008:

We the undersigned organizations congratulate the Canadian Union of Postal workers (CUPW) for joining the international boycott of Israeli apartheid. We call on workers and labour unions worldwide to join CUPW in creating a strong and effective labour movement in solidarity with struggles against Israeli apartheid and violence. At the national convention of CUPW, representing over fifty thousand workers across Canada, a strong majority of delegates voted for a resolution in support of the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israeli apartheid. Marking the first time a country-wide labour union in North America has voted to participate in the global campaign against apartheid in Palestine, CUPW’s resolution represents a critical juncture for the involvement of North American labour in this campaign. International support for CUPW’s resolution - which recognizes the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights, including the right of return - could prove key to shoring up this victory.

 --MORE--

Fri May 2, 2008

Displaced Narratives: Voices of Refugees

Palestinian refugee and Ibdaa Cultural Center Co-Director Ziad Abbas discusses 60 years of dispossession, resistance and the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees. The interview can be found at: http://odeo.com/audio/19142793/view

For more information about the Ibdaa Cultural Center in Palestine you may visit; http://www.dheisheh-ibdaa.net/home.htm

Other interviews about Palestine and the Arab World can be found at:
http://odeo.com/channel/725383/view

"She told Strizack she was taking her property to her mother's home in preparation for prison. Contrary to the U.S. Attorney's Office estimate, she told the condo manager she thought she might spend six or seven years behind bars.

On one trip down the stairs, she lugged a 2-foot-wide box she suggested carried materials related to her infamous court case.

"This is my evidence," she told Strizack before carrying it out the door."

D.C. MADAM'S MYSTERY DEATH

D.C. madam's mystery death: The Orlando connection

Deborah Palfrey went to Tarpon Springs to see her mom, who found her hanging by a nylon rope in a shed.

Willoughby Mariano

Sentinel Staff Writer

May 2, 2008
Click here to find out more!

Four days ago, the woman known as the "D.C. Madam" stood in the lobby of her condominium building near downtown Orlando, musing about the future.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey said she was preparing for federal prison. She hoped she'd get time off her sentence for good behavior. She thought she might buy a place in Germany one day.

On Thursday, Palfrey was found dead, hanging by a nylon rope from a metal beam in a backyard shed near her mother's home in Tarpon Springs, on the coast 100 miles west of Orlando. Police said it was an apparent suicide.

--MORE--

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Prosecutor’s Holy Grail: Another Scalp

By William Fisher

After a four-year legal battle, a Federal judge has dismissed all charges against an avant-garde artist who public officials condemned as a bio-terrorist in a case critics are calling “a persecution, not a prosecution.”

The artist is Dr. Steven Kurtz, a professor of Visual Studies at the University of Buffalo, and a founding member of the award-winning collective Critical Art Ensemble (CAE).

The case started in May of 2004. While Kurtz was preparing for an exhibition of an art installation at MASS MoCA, a museum in North Adams, Massachusetts, his wife of twenty years died in her sleep. When police responded to his 911 call, they noticed a small food-testing lab and petri dishes containing bacteria cultures.

The lab was part of the scheduled installation, which would have allowed museum visitors to see if their store bought food contained genetically modified (GM) organisms. The cultures were part of a multi-media project commissioned by the UK-based art-science initiative, The Arts Catalyst, and produced in consultation with scientists from the Harvard-Sussex Program.

--MORE--

---

"Good News," Iraq & Beyond, Part II

Elite policy and the "Axis of Evil"

By Noam Chomsky

Having brought up Iran [in Part I], we might as well turn briefly to the third member of the famous Axis of Evil, North Korea. The official story right now is that after having been forced to accept an agreement on dismantling its nuclear weapons facilities, North Korea is again trying to evade its commitments in its usual devious way—"good news" for superhawks like John Bolton, who have held all along that the North Koreans understand only the mailed fist and will exploit negotiations only to trick us. A New York Times headline reads: "U.S. Sees Stalling by North Korea on Nuclear Pact" (January 19). The article by Helene Cooper details the charges. In the last paragraph we discover that the U.S. has not fulfilled its pledges. North Korea has received only 15 percent of the fuel that was promised by the U.S. and others and the U.S. has not undertaken steps to improve diplomatic relations, as promised. Several weeks later (February 6), in the McClatchey press Kevin Hall reported that the chief U.S. negotiator with North Korea, Christopher Hill, confirmed in Senate Hearings that "North Korea has slowed the dismantling of its nuclear reactor because it hasn't received the amount of fuel oil it was promised." 

As we learn from the specialist literature, and asides here and there, this is a consistent pattern. North Korea may have the worst government in the world, but they have been pursuing a pragmatic tit-for-tat policy on negotiations with the United States. When the U.S. takes an aggressive and threatening stance, they react accordingly. When the U.S. moves towards some form of accommodation, so do they. 

When Bush came into office, both North Korea and the U.S. were bound by the Framework Agreement of 1994. Neither was fully in accord with its commitments, but the agreement was largely being observed. North Korea had stopped testing long-range missiles. It had perhaps one to two bombs worth of plutonium and was verifiably not making more. After seven Bush years of confrontation, North Korea had eight to ten bombs and long-range missiles, and was developing plutonium. The Clinton administration Korea specialist, Bruce Cumings, reports the Administration "had also worked out a plan to buy out, indirectly, the North's medium and long-range missiles; it was ready to be signed in 2000 but Bush let it fall by the wayside and today the North retains all its formidable missile capability."

---MORE--

The bold claims about Middle East peace from London ring hollow in the empty streets of Gaza

 

• Sami Abdel-Shafi in Gaza City
• The Guardian,
• Saturday May 3 2008

It is a strange feeling: after working as a productive professional in Gaza for five years, I have become a black market junkie. I make several phone calls a day hunting for fuel for my car, diesel for the electricity generator waiting on standby to power the house, even cigarettes and vitamins. The only way to get hold of these things, to buy life-saving medicines, to purchase the essentials for a life of basic dignity, is through the black market, if at all. Today all Gaza suffers severe water shortages, with the fuel needed to pump and transport water (as well as sewage) dangerously scarce. The few cars seen on Gaza's mostly empty streets today almost invariably run on used cooking oil due to the lack of diesel.

That feeling of strangeness continued as I read the statement delivered by the Quartet in London yesterday. The four powers mediating in the Middle East - the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia - spoke of "deep concern" and demanded "concrete steps by both sides". There was no sense, however, that they had properly grasped the depth of Gaza's plight or the realities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. World politics seems to have morphed into a diplomacy of denial - a denial of how much more firm the international community must be towards the cause of an occupied and dying people.

This diplomacy of denial only gives succour to Israel's urge to exercise its will over Palestinians, and over besieged Gazans particularly. Israel's cabinet seeks to play God over Gaza by bluntly controlling every facet of civilian life. Tearing up the West Bank presents a threat of similarly terrible consequences. Israel's separation barrier and hundreds of checkpoints threaten to create numerous smaller Gazas in the West Bank. The villages and cities that are becoming increasingly isolated and economically strangled today could become hotspots of desperation and violence tomorrow.

--MORE--

Related
The Return of Limited Nuclear War?

Photos of Hiroshima from the Robert L. Capp Collection

The Robert L. Capp collection at the Hoover Institution Archives  contains ten never-before-published photographs illustrating the immediate aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing. These photographs, taken by an unknown Japanese photographer, were found in 1945 among rolls of undeveloped film in a cave outside Hiroshima by U.S. serviceman Robert L. Capp, who was attached to the occupation forces. Unlike most photos of the Hiroshima bombing, these dramatically convey the human as well as material destruction unleashed by the atomic bomb. Mr. Capp donated them to the Hoover Archives in 1998 with the provision that they not be reproduced until 2008. Three of these photographs are reproduced in Atomic Tragedy with the permission of the Capp family. The entire set is available below. Please contact Sean L. Malloy (smalloy@ucmerced.edu) if you have any information that might help identify the original photographer.

--MORE--

AFP

Air raid hits Baghdad hospital, US says 14 fighters dead

by Jacques Charmelot Sat May 3, 7:25 AM ET

A US air strike damaged a hospital in the Iraqi capital's violent Shiite stronghold of Sadr City on Saturday, injuring 20 people, as American forces claimed to have killed 14 militiamen.

The US military said it carried out the strike in Sadr City, a bastion of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, where US troops in separate confrontations killed at least 14 militiamen since Friday.

"I can confirm that we conducted a strike in Sadr City this morning," a US military spokesman told AFP. "The targets were known criminal elements. Battle damage assessment is current