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They've got a reason to be worried about importing genetically engineered crops into Zimbabwe, especially if it's seed from Monsanto. There is a story on Guerilla News Network about a Canadian farmer whose crop was infected with Monsanto engineered crop he never wanted and still was made to pay:

" (GNN) In a Kafkaesque ruling sure to send a chill up the spines of farmers around the world, a Canadian farmer has been ordered to pay thousands of dollars to Monsanto for violating their patent on genetically modified canola seed. The twist: the farmer, Percy Schmeiser, says he is accused of stealing something he never wanted in the first place. Schmeiser's fields were contaminated when pollen from genetically engineered seeds blew onto his then GE-free land from neighboring farms. Shortly after, Monsanto's "gene police" invaded his farm, took seed samples without his permission, and then charged him with violating Canadian patent law that says it's illegal for farmers to re-use or to grow Monsanto's GM seed without signing a licensing agreement. Even though it was Schmeiser whose fields were polluted with organisms he never wanted, the court says he must now pay Monsanto $10,000 for licensing fees and up to $75,000 in profits from his 1998 crop."

You can read the rest of the article here. For more in-depth information go to Percy Schmeiser's website.I especially like the part where they fly over farmers' fields and dump chemicals on them without knowledge or permission of the farmer to "prove" the farmers were using their seeds.

They've got a reason to be worried about importing genetically engineered crops into Zimbabwe, especially if it's seed from Monsanto. There is a story on Guerilla News Network about a Canadian farmer whose crop was infected with Monsanto engineered crop he never wanted and still was made to pay:

" (GNN) In a Kafkaesque ruling sure to send a chill up the spines of farmers around the world, a Canadian farmer has been ordered to pay thousands of dollars to Monsanto for violating their patent on genetically modified canola seed. The twist: the farmer, Percy Schmeiser, says he is accused of stealing something he never wanted in the first place. Schmeiser's fields were contaminated when pollen from genetically engineered seeds blew onto his then GE-free land from neighboring farms. Shortly after, Monsanto's "gene police" invaded his farm, took seed samples without his permission, and then charged him with violating Canadian patent law that says it's illegal for farmers to re-use or to grow Monsanto's GM seed without signing a licensing agreement. Even though it was Schmeiser whose fields were polluted with organisms he never wanted, the court says he must now pay Monsanto $10,000 for licensing fees and up to $75,000 in profits from his 1998 crop."

You can read the rest of the article here. For more in-depth information go to Percy Schmeiser's website.I especially like the part where they fly over farmers' fields and dump chemicals on them without knowledge or permission of the farmer to "prove" the farmers were using their seeds.

I don't see why the US is concerned with people's rights only in certain places, and never China.

Sorry, but in my opinion the US is *never* really concerned with people's rights in the first place. An old and somewhat plain perspective would be, that the US is run by large coporations and that the goverment therefore has to play along. Economics come first. The terrible thing is, that with all recent events, who can really argue against this?
Just scan the archive of GNN and you will find stories like this Going through a list of "US human rights interventions", I can not find one single full-scale military US-campaign, where not economical interests were at stake...

Kuweit, Somalia, Afghanistan? Oil.

Yes, *Afghanistan*. Please read this story and this quite balanced one, before down-moderating this reply as trollish...

I don't see why the US is concerned with people's rights only in certain places, and never China.

Sorry, but in my opinion the US is *never* really concerned with people's rights in the first place. An old and somewhat plain perspective would be, that the US is run by large coporations and that the goverment therefore has to play along. Economics come first. The terrible thing is, that with all recent events, who can really argue against this?
Just scan the archive of GNN and you will find stories like this Going through a list of "US human rights interventions", I can not find one single full-scale military US-campaign, where not economical interests were at stake...

Kuweit, Somalia, Afghanistan? Oil.

Yes, *Afghanistan*. Please read this story and this quite balanced one, before down-moderating this reply as trollish...

I don't see why the US is concerned with people's rights only in certain places, and never China.

Sorry, but in my opinion the US is *never* really concerned with people's rights in the first place. An old and somewhat plain perspective would be, that the US is run by large coporations and that the goverment therefore has to play along. Economics come first. The terrible thing is, that with all recent events, who can really argue against this?
Just scan the archive of GNN and you will find stories like this Going through a list of "US human rights interventions", I can not find one single full-scale military US-campaign, where not economical interests were at stake...

Kuweit, Somalia, Afghanistan? Oil.

Yes, *Afghanistan*. Please read this story and this quite balanced one, before down-moderating this reply as trollish...

I don't see why the US is concerned with people's rights only in certain places, and never China.

Sorry, but in my opinion the US is *never* really concerned with people's rights in the first place. An old and somewhat plain perspective would be, that the US is run by large coporations and that the goverment therefore has to play along. Economics come first. The terrible thing is, that with all recent events, who can really argue against this?
Just scan the archive of GNN and you will find stories like this Going through a list of "US human rights interventions", I can not find one single full-scale military US-campaign, where not economical interests were at stake...

Kuweit, Somalia, Afghanistan? Oil.

Yes, *Afghanistan*. Please read this story and this quite balanced one, before down-moderating this reply as trollish...

A couple things:

1) It's Mike Ruppert, not Vreeland. Delmart "Mike" Vreeland is either a former Navy officer with a thing for identify theft and credit card fraud, or a Navy intelligence officer with some scary info, depending who you ask on which day. Ruppert loved the guy at first, but some of his more erratic behaviour and dodging is making him a bit wary.

Ruppert is a former LA cop who was supposedly fired in 1978 while trying to expose CIA involvement in LA drug dealing activities. Journalist Gary Webb saw his career torn to shreds for reporting similar happenings a few years ago in the San Jose Mercury.

2) Corn and Ruppert have an ongoing, somewhat nasty rivalry. The article you link elicited this response from Ruppert.

This is fantastic news, and a huge boon to the Linux community.

After all, the last time IBM and Germany got together, they really set the world on fire.

. The problem with the last election was not a failure in the overall (macro) system, but a detail problem (micro) having to do with counting irregularities in one (or more) of the states. While post-election information indicates that at least one state's counting problems may have resulted in that state voting the wrong way, most of us will never truly know-- given the extremely close nature of the race in that state and the highly inaccurate methods used to tally the votes.

This is a frighteningly uninformed statement.
In the first place, we do *truly* know at this point. Bush lost in Florida, Gore won. This has been proven and certified. It isn't drilled into your head over and over on all the networks, but it has been reported.

The second and far more critical point is that this isn't even the real issue with the election.
The most sickening part of the election scam happened months before the election. Jeb Bush, brother of GW and governor of Florida stripped 10s of thousands of Florida voters of their most basic right as a citizen of a democracy (ignoring the whole "form of government" issue and just using the common parlance). The only reason he had for doing this is that they were largely black and *all* registered democrats. He did this in violation of Florida law and the US Constitution.
Information is available at www.gregpalast.com
among many other places.

Take this together with the fact that since in office Bush has raped the freedom of information act.
The few rights left to we the people under this act he has specifically ordered all government offices to fight to the best of their abilities.

Now I agree that we do not live under a "tyranny" per se, but neither do we live under the government described in the constitution.
When you have a member of a organized crime family who rigged an election and used the supreme court to gain a position where he could cement his power before the truth could come out as president, then it certainly isn't a democracy/republic or anything similar.

When the criminal thug proceeds to use his illegally attained office to strip our rights away in part to protect his father from criminal prosecution for his illegal actions while president, *allow* the single worst terrorist attack in the country's history so he could further strip our rights (patriot act etc.), and bomb the shit out of a stone age country because they wouldn't allow his oil company buddies to build a pipeline through their country, then it is much closer to a tyranny then you have the courage to allow yourself to see.

Thanks for the correction.

I don't think broadcasting a UHF or VHF station needs to be as expensive as all that, though. With a modern transmitter, a tall building, and a volunteer staff, you could run a small station for virtually the cost of electricity. (Okay, slight hyperbole there, but cheap.)

Content doesn't have to be a problem, either. Desktop editing and current high-level consumer cameras are more than acceptable, and there are hundreds of frustrated indie filmmakers who would love a bigger venue for their work (think GNN). This sort of thing is definitely in the public interest.

If nothing else, it would be an interesting experiment. Licenses for noncommercial, nonprofit stations like this should be $100, and distributed in a lottery to applicants every 3 years. Now that would kick cable's ass.

As a taxpayer, you're entitled to this information: If they won't give it up willingly, then surely it can be acquired via an FOIA request (in the states).


Don't be so sure

Read this for an example of corruption in the USA judicial system:

Cocakarma

Let me set aside some core issues.

First off, please save the whole "You're young, so you don't know what you're talking about" thing. Had I snipped out that last paragraph, not much of a difference would be made and no one would say anything along those lines. It's really not relevant, especially since besides getting my information from all over the place (notably Disinformation, Guerilla News, and yes, as Lord Omlette pointed out, Vice), I've been getting my information from adults around me as well.

You guys seem to be justifying the massive amounts of casualities inflicted by the US as either "a mistake" or something that apparently served a greater good.

Sit back for a moment and realize you're justifying the loss of lives.

When did humans become so bleak as to find reasons to justify the loss of fellow humans? Do I think America is the only nation who is responsible for terrors beyond belief? No. I've frequently said that I don't think one non-corrupt nation has ever existed.

But I live in the United States and I'll work my way up if need be. And the United States fuels, in a large part, what I've come to recognize as a disgusting pattern of hatred, as clichéd as it sounds.

Take for example, the Israel-Palestine conflict. First off, despite whatever you may think makes this conflict justifiable, it's really not. The Palestenians are the only people, in this day and age, who are under occupation. Suicide bombers react harshly, with hatred (towards both the United States and Israel) and go kill innocent people. Israel retaliates. In their retaliations, they may kill innocent people. People, shocked by the death of the innocent people, become suicide bombers in moments of hatred.

And it continues.

The reason why the rest of the world hates the US is because the US fuels this. If the US refused to support Israel until it pulled back from Palestine, it would make a big impression on the entire world. And I guarantee you, we'd have a decent decrease in people hating America.

Until then, you flying your American flags and saying things like "Well, that was a mistake" or "The people of this country want it like that" (albeit many Jewish people, in both this country and Israel, are against Israel occupying Palestine, an article of one of these Jewish people can be found here. It's worthy to note that while there are many cases like this, there are none that involve someone from Palestine siding with the Israeli government.) isn't going to stop any kind of terrorism. And this terrorism isn't fueled by globalism or jealousy. And who's going to pay the price? Not the portion of "us" (as you all so fondly say) that makes the decisions, but the portion of "us" that doesn't really influence any of the decisions. That portion includes me, my family, my friends, and most likely all of you, your family and their friends and so on. So next time, rather then luckily not being in the portion of the city that's being attacked, I'll end up along side the other victims and the United States will fuel this cycle even more, and claim they're doing so in the name of victims like me and the others and you'll all justify it just the same.

Let me set aside some core issues.

First off, please save the whole "You're young, so you don't know what you're talking about" thing. Had I snipped out that last paragraph, not much of a difference would be made and no one would say anything along those lines. It's really not relevant, especially since besides getting my information from all over the place (notably Disinformation, Guerilla News, and yes, as Lord Omlette pointed out, Vice), I've been getting my information from adults around me as well.

You guys seem to be justifying the massive amounts of casualities inflicted by the US as either "a mistake" or something that apparently served a greater good.

Sit back for a moment and realize you're justifying the loss of lives.

When did humans become so bleak as to find reasons to justify the loss of fellow humans? Do I think America is the only nation who is responsible for terrors beyond belief? No. I've frequently said that I don't think one non-corrupt nation has ever existed.

But I live in the United States and I'll work my way up if need be. And the United States fuels, in a large part, what I've come to recognize as a disgusting pattern of hatred, as clichéd as it sounds.

Take for example, the Israel-Palestine conflict. First off, despite whatever you may think makes this conflict justifiable, it's really not. The Palestenians are the only people, in this day and age, who are under occupation. Suicide bombers react harshly, with hatred (towards both the United States and Israel) and go kill innocent people. Israel retaliates. In their retaliations, they may kill innocent people. People, shocked by the death of the innocent people, become suicide bombers in moments of hatred.

And it continues.

The reason why the rest of the world hates the US is because the US fuels this. If the US refused to support Israel until it pulled back from Palestine, it would make a big impression on the entire world. And I guarantee you, we'd have a decent decrease in people hating America.

Until then, you flying your American flags and saying things like "Well, that was a mistake" or "The people of this country want it like that" (albeit many Jewish people, in both this country and Israel, are against Israel occupying Palestine, an article of one of these Jewish people can be found here. It's worthy to note that while there are many cases like this, there are none that involve someone from Palestine siding with the Israeli government.) isn't going to stop any kind of terrorism. And this terrorism isn't fueled by globalism or jealousy. And who's going to pay the price? Not the portion of "us" (as you all so fondly say) that makes the decisions, but the portion of "us" that doesn't really influence any of the decisions. That portion includes me, my family, my friends, and most likely all of you, your family and their friends and so on. So next time, rather then luckily not being in the portion of the city that's being attacked, I'll end up along side the other victims and the United States will fuel this cycle even more, and claim they're doing so in the name of victims like me and the others and you'll all justify it just the same.

Judges aren't immune from corruption. See: this story.

So back in the 80's the CIA thought it would be a great idea to help finance their terrorist war against the government of Nicaragua by selling guns to the Iranians and opening up drug trafficking routes from South and Central America to the inner cities of the US. Then they help out the "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan with sales of opium. The US government then declares a War on Drugs.

Back in the 90s, the KLA fought a dirty war against the Serbs with money made from drugs with the help of the CIA.

Now, in 2002, Americans have to pay over $3 million to watch ads linking drugs with terrorism. Well no shit...people have been saying that all along.

Check out a great short film that just won an award at the Sundance Film Festival called "Crack the CIA" produced by the Guerilla News Network. Quite revealing, featuring some footage from the Iran-Contra Congress hearings and a public confrontation between a former LAPD officer and the then Director of the CIA, John Deutch.

I read this story, remembered how I had snorted about the line from the first one, and just felt like being mean. Watergate was an awfully long time ago though... ;-)

You're not the first one to notice that; shit-disturbing journalist Greg Palast lamented the lack of hard journalism in contemporary North American media in an interview with GNN's Anthony Lappe. The man reported shit for the BBC that should have brought down the Bush regime before it even got off the ground, among other spectacular scandals, that are passed off as "conspiracy-theorist lefty crap" on this continent. Journalists have had numerous stories embarrassing for large corporate entities shot and buried before they saw the light of day, or buried under litigation soon afterward.

As someone who has covered two mid-sized demonstrations in Canada, in a small hacked-together broadcast room and on the front line respectively, I can tell you that mainstream media try to avoid disturbing the status quo as much as possible, even if it means burying or exaggerating parts of certain stories to uphold the authorities' story.

Guerrilla news have some interesting things to say about George Bush family's dealings with the bin Laden family and why some banks were excluded from being watched for blood money.

There are also reports of the CIA meeting with Osama in July of this year.

Afghanistan is just the fall guy, and a convenient site for a new oil pipeline. How many Afghanis were on the planes in 9/11?

It's a good thing that the Bush Gang have frozen many "suspect" international bank accounts... but they specifically excluded those with ties directly to Bush or his dodgy family oil company, Harken. That banks in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia are not being investigated, where most of the Al Qaeda funding must have come from, is ludicrous and abdurd and patently dishonest.

When a bomb goes off to blow up munitions or soldiers, it will also kill the janitor who works at the munitions plant to feed his family.

Now, I agree with you here. This sort of thing is unavoidable. However what I do feel IS avaoidable is dropping cluster bombs in farms where no military presence exists. This sort of thing is avoidable, and the decision not to avoid is an evil one.

Well this is quite a conundrum. History shows that democracies almost never go into conflict with each other, yet you seem to be claiming that only people in a democracy can be legitimately held responsible for military attacks.

Well, yes I do actually. I think that all you need to do is take a look at the recent history of afghanistan to see that these people are in serious need of a break. Bombing them will acheive nothing at all. The country is already hammered by decades of war, oppresion and attempted occupations. All the US is doing is grinding them further into the ground.

And there is a bit of a contradiction in your thinking. On the one hand, you claim our attacks are terrorist -- meaning that we are trying to frighten civilians into acting a certain way solely to avoid being hurt. On the other hand, you claim that those civilians have no power, and that those who were in power care nothing for the civilians.

The official miltary definition of terrorism is:

the calculated use of violence against civilians to intimidate, induce fear, often to kill, for some political, religious, or other end.

The US military are using weapons with 50% accuracy, based on intelligence that they admit is not precise. What does this mean? Look at it in human terms, and it means that there is a good chance that at least half the deaths caused by these weapons will be civilian. This information is well known, however the actions are still carried out. I can't see then how this is not deliberately targeting civilians. It is premeditated slaughter of inoccent people. You may like to read this article, it explains things better than I can. These are acts of terror, perpertrated against inocents to send a message that the US is a bad ass muther, what take no shit from no one.

So then what would be the point? We're trying to frighten people on the other side of the planet who can't touch us into doing something they have no power to do? Or we're trying to make the taliban suffer by hurting people that they don't care about?

You are trying to frighten the entire world. Look what happens with you f**k with us. That is the message of terror that is being spread. Of course you won't hear about this on CNN, but be sure that the arab nations are reading it loud and clear.

Is it not possible that in fact we are dropping bombs where we think there is a legitimate target? And that the targetting of those weapons, and the weapons themselves, is simply less than perfect? Doesn't that seem more likely?

Thats the thing, the less than perfect nature of these weapons is well known. That means they are used with the express knowledge that may civilainas will be killed and injured. I can't justify this in any way. Sorry.

Scary, isn't it? The Taliban have won their real war: turning this world closer to a 1984-esque planet.

No, what's scary is that the brainwashed masses don't see that their own governments have already made 1984 a reality. Your belief that the Taliban are doing that is proof of your own ignorance. Don't get me wrong, I'm not flaming you. It's hard for anyone to know the truth when we're surrounded by so many lies. Here's somewhere you may want to start looking if you feel so inclined...

Well, there are two ways this could be handled. First, if they use enough of your bandwidth, you could probably charge them with doing a DOS attack on your site; that's a serious crime in the US now.

Doesn't have to be a DOS attack, just generate real page hits.. it wouldn't take but a few extra thousand page hits a day to take these mom and pop companies down.. just require that every person in your mega-corporation checks the competing web sight or the negative publicity websight three times a day to see if there are any updates.. that will easily create enough hits to drive a small website owner under.. ;).. or you can just create a script that checks for updates to the page every second.. if you get called into court (HIGHLY unlikely) you can say: "Hey, we were just trying to keep updated on changes to the site, we didn't know that monitoring them that heavily would cost them so much bandwith"

Second, many states have laws against SLAPP suits (nuicence suits brought by large corporations against grass-roots organizations). It's not a lawsuit, but if you're being harassed by a large corporation, it's actionable. There are about a billion lawyers who would love to sue a big company and get the "David vs. Goliath" publicity.

Ohh, and this works ohh so well.. mega-corporations never ever ever use their resources to scare people with litigation into submission(/sarcasm)... Mega-corporations always have more resources than the grass-roots effort, and when it becomes a challenge of who can keep it in court longer (as it always does) the corporation almost always wins...

The other completely moronic dumbass statement you made was:

Yeah, it's good for the consumer when inefficient businesses go under and places that can sell the same item for less money move in.

If being a mega-corporation is the only way to make a deal to get decent prices, why don't mom-and-pops set up an organziation to bulk-buy goods (a couple of mom-and-pops in each town, with a few thousand towns)? I've heard of this new Internet thingie that lets people communicate over long distances...

It's obviously not bulk buying that drives mom and pop companies out of buisness (as much as Wal-Mart wants to say it is). It's having enough cash reserves to sell your products at a loss longer than the mom and pop companies can sell at a loss.

Initially this looks good to the consumer, they are getting products at a rate that is so low that the companies are loosing money to get it to them. However, as soon as the competition is all gone (as it will inevitably happen, when playing this type of last man standing game), then suddenly it becomes very bad for the consumer, as companies no longer have to focus on good prices (so prices skyrocket, as they always do when there is a corporate "You either buy it from me or you don't get it" mentality) and they also loose focus on customer service.

Today's lesson: mega-corporations and monopolies are bad for the consumer

BTW: My name is also Jon.. It's always refreshing to find someone else that spells their name jon (as I'm sure you are aware it's a fairly rare spelling). ;)

Thank you thank you thank you for pointing that out.

I have a grudge with Fox, and this article didn't help either. I totally avoid it for any "War on Terror" news.

Recently Fair And Accuracy in Reporting wrote a special report titled:
The Most Biased Name in News: Fox News Channel's extraordinary right-wing tilt (note that's it's written before sep.11).

Now that I am at it, CNN is no saint either, that's for sure. I feel like screaming BIASED! at the TV when I see Lou Dobbs et.al. wearing Stars and Stripes on their suit. All reporting is "WE need to fight this enemy...", "Protect OUR country...". So much for International.

No thank you, I will stick with:
- guerrillanews
- mediachannel
- and for TV, EuroNews or even BBC

Well, that opens the door to places like the guerilla news network, where they are expert at that sort of thing.

but otherwise, no impact whatsoever.

[smile]

What I'm saying is that these extremists want us dead and our society destroyed. And there is absolutely nothing we can peacefully do, politically or otherwise, to change that. There is no reasoning with these extremists because their end goal is the complete and utter destruction of our (re: most average Americans') way of life.

Oh, and as far as military action in the Middle East for centuries goes...don't forget war amongst the tribes, fueding warlords, etc, etc. It ins't just the West that's been fighting there.

If there were effective alternatives to forcefully protecting ourselves, then I'd love to hear them.

And just what is the West trying to accomplish in Afghanistan?

• whatreallyhappened.com
• WAR ON TERROR: THE REAL VICTIMS
• Boom, Bust and Echo: A Dark Theory Behind Black Tuesday (This one is a little over the top, but there is some interesting information)
• Asking "Why?"
• Explaining Arab anger
• They can't see why they are hated
• Who did it? Foreign Report presents an alternative view
• When Will We Learn?
• Why we should reject American propaganda
• emperors-clothes.com
• zmag.org, see especially:
  • The New War Against Terror

But, you can make it clear to other nations that a given government will not be allowed to exist if said government either turns a blind eye to terrorists operating in its borders or, even worse, endorses and supports terrorists.

You are correct in that the media is made up of humans, and prone to make mistakes. But I think you misrepresent the entire situation with this statement, in implying that human error is the most significant factor in misreported news.

If you are not already aware, virtually all major news sources are intimitely tied in with large corporations that have major interests in slanting the media. Bias is a much larger problem than error.

If you check the CNN web page, you most likely see that the anthrax stories overshadow what is happening in Afghanistan. They are taking advantage of the current local scare to distract people from more important events happening elsewhere.

I suggest that you look into independent sources of media as well. They are error prone as well, but at least have a different bias than the conglomerates (unbiased media is a myth):

Independent Media

DMOZ: News -> Alternative Media
ZMag: Left Wing media resources
Indymedia: Non-Corporate news coverage
Guerrilla News Network
Project Censored: Censored news stories
Alternet: Alternative news, opinion, and investigative journalism
MediaChannel: "MediaChannel exists to provide information and diverse perspectives and inspire debate, collaboration, action and citizen engagement"
Common Dreams: "Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community
The Public i: An Investigative Report of the Center for Public Integrity
Pacifica Network News
The Onion: Media Satire

Media Analysis

"Propaganda" at the University of Washington School of Communication
PROMO: Project on Media Ownership
Military school article on Psychological Operations (PSYOPs)
Media Access Project: "A Non-Profit Public Interest Telecommunications Law Firm
Reporters Committee For Freedom of the Press
FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
The Poynter Institute: What journalists read
Columbia Journalism Review
Who Owns What
People for Better TV: "69 percent of Americans say TV is the most trusted source of information"

LS

Though I recognize it has some flaws inherent to its nature (which have been pointed out within the body of this discussion, such as accuracy) I prefer the net' to the medium of television for my news. One of the reasons is as you have mentioned simple perspectives, you can really get a better picture of what's going on by checking an event through foreign news agencies. (I often check Pravad as they have consistently have beat the Western media for updates on what the U.S. is doing in the Mid East.) Also 'alternative' news sites such as Slashdot offer refreshing takes and discussion on stories that the big media for whatever reason doesn't see fit to examine. (I also personally like to check out Guerrillanews for alternative viewpoints and discussion.)

Disinformation will always be a problem with a medium like the internet. It is important people for one thing check up on their sources. When a fact is shown to be untrue look for those sites which print retractions; and more importantly those that don't. Doing this you'll get a better idea of who you can trust.

It is important as well that people have an idea of what is being presented as fact, opinion, or conjecture. Otherwise they become the disseminators of Disinformation...

I agree with the notion that we are dominated by corporate interests. I mean look, our Government is headed by the Major Oil Interests. Rice: Exxon, Bush: Zapata, Cheney: Halliburton.

The top media execs site on the boards of major oil companies.(damn, the link for support of the statement ain't working right now)

In any case, we have not been free for some time now. As pointed out in the book Culture Jam and excerpted on Adbusters American has a secret and untold history of corporate domination. From the article:

"A bitplayer in the official history becomes critically important to the way the unofficial history unfolds. This player turns out to be not only the provocateur of the revolution, but in the end its saboteur. This player lies at the heart of America's defining theme: the difference between a country that pretends to be free and a country that truly is free.

That player is the corporation."

The corporation chews up the human and the planet in favor of production and profit. I know that sounds communist, but.. Look at how the Corporation works. Because of this fact it will be easier for what I feel is the "Current Corporation" in power to continue to whittle away at the rights and the souls of the people in our fine country, because unfortunately the dominance of the media has uncanny abilities to manipulate as if through sorcery the minds and the hearts of a population. Because the Corporation has not the goals of the people in mind, it becomes easier and more useful to do this.

Another interesting link to a interview with Dr. Nancy Snow on the propaganda wing of the US Foreign Policy to sell a Corporate message overseas. Let me tell you, I spent a year over in Asia and the messages coming from us are intensly strong, pervasive, and have an amazing ability to render memories of us bombing a country to smitherreens to nil, as the chants begin: USA is #1!!!

Her book is Propaganda Inc.

Lastly, I saw this here a couple of days ago I think. I found it quite scary:

"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

-- Hermann Goering


trying to build a list of alternative news sources daily:

You might want to check out Guerilla News' reporting on Bob Kolody and how Coke may have lost their rights to the distinctive bottle image ...

-Legion

I take it you grant me my point on police brutality in Los Angeles and NYC.

Hmm, are you suggesting that all these broken windows, destroyed property and burned out cars were provided to us by our "dark corner" police?

Actually, yes, according to many reports from eyewitnesses (and here , and here ) the police were responsible for a great deal of the violence in Genoa. It is undisputed that the vast majority of the protestors in Genoa were non-violent, yet they were especially targeted, while the small number of black-block anarchists were left unopposed to destroy property. Many protestors believe that the police actually infiltrated the black block and took part in some of the worst property destruction. Quite a propaganda coup for the proto-fascist Italian government - do you see the logic behind it?

Personally, I would rather see a few broken windows than have a young women get her face beaten to an unrecognizable pulp, or a young man wielding a fire extinguisher get fatally shot in the head.

Of course, if you only get your information from Fox News and the like, these events were either unreported or trivialized .

The problem is not a lack of "proof". The problem is that the British legal system favors plaintiffs in libel suits. Under the American system, the onus is not on the defendant to prove that a statement is true; the onus is on the plaintiff to prove that the statement is false. Since the government is refusing to investigate the incident in Tanzania, it would be very difficult for Barrick to prove libel.

Even if Palast and the Observer had "proof", truth is not an absolute defence under British law. This is why holocaust deniers are able to sue for libel when people call them "holocaust deniers". (The holocaust-denying plaintiff lost the lawsuit, but only because the judge ruled his "reputation had not been damaged"; not because of the truth of the defendant's statements.)

You can't accuse corporations run by powerful and *well* connected individuals of murder without proof.

During the Clinton presidency, did people refrain from accusing Clinton of complicity in the death of Vincent Foster, for fear of libel lawsuits? No, because in the US, courts tend to heavily favor the defendant in libel suits, and hence these suits are rarely successful. This is why a plaintiff will attempt to move a libel lawsuit to another country on the slightest pretext.

The Very Secret Battle of Bob Kolody vs. Coca-Cola

Perhaps Coke wasn't the best example you could have chosen.

It means they'll buy the cheapest whore they can find (Judge Blanche Manning of the 7th Circuit US Court of Appeals, for instance) to overturn Fair Use.

-Legion

The article this is in reply to needs to be modded up for one simple reason: the link about Coca-Cola.

It takes a while to read but is extremely well written and more than a little interesting. Anyway, to save your mouse a little, you can read it here.

Has this story been summited to /. yet and if so was it approved?

this isn't a warning knell, this is stupidity. Libraries are a basic functioning piece of our country (U.S.), in what few pristine areas of 'original implementation' that exist. Blocking books from library usage is digging into the depths of corporate clout that until recently was only the domain of Coca-Cola schemes


-shpoffo

Who is complaining when coca-cola buys another soft-drink brand ?? No one, but fact is that almost every thing you drink is owned by coca-cola and produced in country's where 14 year old kids are working in factory's and earn a wage of what you and I couldn't live half a day of. But do I hear complains about that ??

No, you don't. Because it's a blatant lie.

Granted, Coca-Cola is no saint (just check out the article entitled "Coca-Karma" on the GNN web site). But Coca Cola is produced and bottled locally. Most major cities have a Coca-Cola bottler that takes care of producing the product for their region. And most of the bottlers aren't even owned by Coca-Cola, they merely license the formula and packaging. Are there Coca-Cola bottling plants in 3rd-world countries that pay 14-year olds to bottle coke? Probably (though the lines are mostly automated so plentiful cheap labor isn't that much of an issue), but they are bottling their own Coke that will be sold in their own country at their own relative prices.

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups.

The Guerrilla News Network has a story up about how far Corporate America is willing to go to buy "justice", and how willing the courts are to sell it to them, even at the expense of their own credibility.

The question is, though. Exactly how can we impose accountability on federal judges who are appointed for life, and who have the power to control access to their own courtrooms, the very place where final arbitration of the law must inevitably occur?

The Guerrilla News Network has a story up about how far Corporate America is willing to go to buy "justice", and how willing the courts are to sell it to them, even at the expense of their own credibility.

The question is, though. Exactly how can we impose accountability on federal judges who are appointed for life, and who have the power to control access to their own courtrooms, the very place where final arbitration of the law must inevitably occur?

When you read stories like this one, you start to realize that "Big Brother" is "The Mob" is "The Big Corporations" is "The Government". All of which maintain large quantities of data about their "undesirables". Beware of the unmarked black helicopters.

Have you read the story of Bob Kolody vs. Coca-Cola?

A very lengthy and detailed account of a currently pending case in the US 7th Circuit Federal Court system. It chronicles the case of one Bob Kolody as he fights Coca-Cola over some marketing intellectual property.

This is news in progress, but its the most disturbing piece I've read the last years. It's a long piece about a man suing coca-cola, and how far Coca-Cola is willing to go in a copyright-case. It's all here: CIA, corrupt judges, and missing documents; and it isn't even cranky.

http://www.guerrillanews.com/cocakarma