By Ted Morgan Paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sendinag them off to distant lands to die…. Justice Hugo Black, in the Pentagon Papers case. In their 1988/2002 classic, Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of Mass Media, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky presented a … [Read more...] about Ukrainians vs. Iraqis: Worthy and Unworthy Victims
propaganda
Kent State and Divided America: 50 Years Later
by Ted Morgan The past is never dead. It’s not even past.William Faulkner For some of us, the killing of four students at Kent State on Monday, May 4, 1970 is a moment we will never forget. It was certainly one of the iconic moments of 1960s-era protests, immortalized in Neil Young’s “Ohio,” with its refrain, “four dead in Ohio.” Students on campuses across the nation … [Read more...] about Kent State and Divided America: 50 Years Later
Orwell’s Doublethink, Alive and Well in Trump’s America
Anthony DiMaggio George Orwell’s 1984 is a dystopian novel about authoritarianism, and is widely understood as a critique of Stalinism and centralized communist states. But Orwell believed that propaganda functioned in both communist and capitalist states alike. His insights about the uses and abuses of propaganda are remarkably relevant when studying American and … [Read more...] about Orwell’s Doublethink, Alive and Well in Trump’s America
Peter’s blog: Freedom under attack — CitizenFour
CitizenFour, the acclaimed documentary about Edward Snowden, is widely available. Maybe we need to remind ourselves that the Snowden's disclosures may have faded into the background, but the U.S. government’s all-out assault on democracy & freedom continues today, and the ongoing prosecution and intimidation of whistle-blowers is shameful. Despite the lies and protestations … [Read more...] about Peter’s blog: Freedom under attack — CitizenFour
One More in the Long History of Lies by U.S. Leaders
On Sunday, the London Review of Books published a new account of the killing of Osama Bin Laden by Seymour Hersh. His article shows that the story told by the Obama Administration is total fiction. Hersh says it was nothing but “a blatant lie” and rebuts the official narrative point by point. See 'The Killing of Osama bin Laden', by Seymour M. Hersh … [Read more...] about One More in the Long History of Lies by U.S. Leaders
Why All the Fuss About Cutting Spending is Nonsense!
One of the videos in Tom Ulrich's email the other day shows former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich giving a clear, easy-to-understand explanation of what happened to the economy and why—in only 2 minutes! Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTzMqm2TwgE In later posts to his blog, Reich covers two related concerns: Why Medicare Is the Solution, Not the Problem The … [Read more...] about Why All the Fuss About Cutting Spending is Nonsense!
Killing bin Laden leads to questions…
By Gary Olson — It may be too early to draw absolute lessons from the U.S. military's assassination of Osama bin Laden, but here are a few observations and questions. First, why have 7,000 Americans died in Iraq and Afghanistan and hundreds of thousands of civilians been killed, only to have bin Laden executed by Navy SEALs in a location only 35 miles north of Islamabad, … [Read more...] about Killing bin Laden leads to questions…
What’s all the Fuss About Wikileaks?
Why is there so much fuss about this Wikileaks release? The latest round of leaks doesn't reveal much that's new or even shocking, unless you believe that what governments and government officials say is usually true. The reaction reveals a lot though: Most of the outcry seems to be from the right wing, which suggests that these people are upset by the simple act of people … [Read more...] about What’s all the Fuss About Wikileaks?