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Project Censored 2003 Underreported Stories
gobbo writes "Project Censored has released its top 25 underreported stories for 2002-3. Everyone needs to find out about these as part of a daily anti-propaganda vitamin, but /.ers should be particularly interested in #6: "Closing Access to Information Technology," in which Arthur Stamoulis reports on how the conglomeration of control over the physical networks threatens access to content. Alternative links suggested for more info: the Center for Digital Democracy, Media Tank, and Free Press. Double plus good I say, who wants all that information anyway!"
#6 on the report is very real. While I still have a choice, I chose DSL - sepcifically so I could host my own servers - over cable. But I paid more, not just in the service, but also due to the fact that phone line charges are separate.
I suspect, however, that the average American household will go with cable because it is cheaper, there are no line charges per say, and it rolls up nicely in one bill from the cable company along with their cable service. And as #6 says, there are fewer and fewer cable companies that control this access, which should worry most.
I chose Speakeasy.net as my DSL provider because they've had a pretty good presence on the west and east coast and they've always maintained that they're a large 'local isp'. For me, I won't have to worry about having access to a site blocked, such as the recent AOL/MSN fiasco.
But for the average American, these things cannot be promised. There have been more than a few reports of cable companies monitoring and logging traffic of their users and honestly, as time rolls on, I see this becoming more and more of an issue for mega-corps like TimeWarner - they'll be encouraged to tap into this 'gold mine'. Most users probably won't care either.
Since I don't think the policies of these companies will change much in regards to this, the only alternative for those that care about such things - besides lobbying and the like - will be to vote with their pocketbooks. This will not only affect (albiet, realistically, probably little) the mega-corps bottom line, but will help to ensure that those 'other' companies will still be able to provide quality and non-censored access to their paying subscribers.
Is it simply that the site is US-centric, or are either of the following true:
(a) US is censoring more important stories than other countries
(b) US is involved in more issues than other countries
?
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
While I would concede that we are into global hegemony and are little to quick to use force to solve our problems, this list a bit ridiculous. Take the following quote:
Excuse me, the US has zero to do with any of the civil wars in Africa. Zero. There are problems that can't be blamed on the US and the war in the Congo is one of them.The author of this article says:
Come on. That is outrageous. Africans are not babies, and we are not their irresponsible parents. I find talk like that extremely insulting to Africans as it suggests they are not as "advanced" as Western civilizations and cannot control themselves when presented with military technology.
While the NYT and WSJ may have lare circulations relative to other papers, they don't have large circulations.
The fact that the NYT and WSJ picked up the stories imply that they (likely) passed the watchful eyes of editors... they're likely legit.
And yet they weren't picked up on by papers, or =gasp!= television stations across the nation. That makes them candidates for big stories that were underreported in my book. YMMV.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Check out: http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmeric asDefenses.pdf
This has been quite disturbing to everyone I've talked to about it... My wife flat out refuses to talk to be about it because it makes so much sense and is so upsetting... This has gotten a lot of press lately. Check out:
911 and the Bush Administration
The Guardian
Those with Weblogs should contribute to the weblog project mentioned on Metafilter about this:
WHO were you?
Unfortunately, it just makes more sense that we provoked these arabic countries to either let us build a pipeline to feed China with Oil, or we would do it by force. "A carpet of Gold, or a carpet of Bombs..."
Uranium consists of u-235 and u-238. U-235 is used in nuclear reactors. Depleted uranium is u-238 that has been "depleted" of its nuclear fuel. u-238 is still 70% as radioactive. (Yes 238 is way less radioactive than 235, since removing 0.3% of the material removes 30% of the radioactivity. But it is still radioactive) Further more, uranium is a heavy metal. Like all heavy metals, it is highly toxic. Symptoms of heavy metal poisioning include: Frequent headaches, nausia, vomiting, cold sweating, and neurological degeneration which is often misdiagnosed as Lou Gehrig's disease. Symptoms of radiation damage to the lungs include: Weakened immune system, chronic fatigue, chronic cancer, difficulty breathing, fluid in the lungs.
The pentagon released an internal report warning about all of this, since DU rounds spray large clouds of uranium-oxide dust into the air, which can then be breathed in. The Pentagon now says "We were wrong, it is harmless" But crews of tanks equipt with DU are still told NOT to get out of the tank anywhere near a target that has been hit. Infantry is told not to go near a target that has been hit or they will get cancer.
And no, DU isn't illegal in the US. But it has been determined by the UN to be an illegal weapon, as it violates the Geneva convention. First, they cause undue suffering (Long lasting heavy metal toxicity). Second, they continue to affect the area after they are used (Millions of years, in fact) Third, they are toxic agents. Toxic, biological, and chemical weapons are all illegal.
On the subject of of the Geneva convention, it is also illegal to attack any building, city, or town that is undefended. (Such as the house of a general) Additionally, civilian targets may not be targeted, such as hospitals, orphenages, churches, and so on, UNLESS they are being used for protection by the enemey in a firefight. This means that even if there is a general directing the battle from inside a hospital, you CANNOT attack unless they start shooting. (This means that if you see an enemy soldier haning out with some civilians, you may not fire unless he is shooting back AND using a civilian for cover. If you take a shot with a sniper rifle and hit a civilian, you are not protected and can be tried for murder. If said soldier was engaged in hostilities, then you are protected as long as you did not intend to hit a civilian)
Additionally, it is illegal to present POW's for "public interest." Which includes photographs and television. Further more, on the prisoners in Cuba. The Bush Administration says that the Geneva convention does not apply to them because they are "illegal combatants" but the Geneva convention specifically INCLUDES illegal combatants in protection of POW's rights. If you are a POW you have the right to send and receive mail. It may be read, but not witheld. If you are not then you have the same rights as any civilian prisoner. Right to your phone call, lawyer, etc.
My source for what the Genvea convention says is the USMC conduct guide, so it includes the Marine Corps' interperitation.
In conclusion, two wrongs does not make a right.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
What you don't realize is that in the current climate (the media being owned by the same people who make the weapons used in war e.g. GE/Westinghouse etc.) the news is right of center. In this case right does not refer to "conservative" and "liberal" but to "Laissez-faire Capitalism" and "new deal."
Also remember that this "liberal media" never grilled the current Bush on his war record, (being put on the "Champagne Flight" the name for the Texas Air National Guard, or that he went AWOL from it when he ran for congress (and lost) in Texas.
Conspiracies are conspiracies and damning the press (or anyone else for that matter) for believing that something wrong was right is silly. e.g. AIDS conspiracies.
Do I damn Bush, Cheny, et al. for lying about Uranium, WMD's, Terrorism is Iraq? Well yes I do but they lie a great deal more than the media.
Did you know that the Bush family was charged under the "Trading with the Enemy Act" and had all of their possessions taken away from them? Why? BECAUSE THEY SOLD WAR BONDS FOR THE NAZIS AFTER WWII. Is that a vast right wing conspiracy? No it's pure greed. I think that it skips a generation in the Walker Bush clan.
Also you use the word CENSORED like it was a guy in a dark suit that ran into the office whacked the author on the head and ran out with THE ONLY FLOPPY! Give me a break. Censorship happens at a level of editor's body language. It happens at authors wondering subconsciously if they should really run a story about PCB's and GE when they work at a NBC affiliate.
And for the record there is something wrong with being liberal. Are you fiscally liberal? Socially Liberal? Give me a break. Paranoid people find the holes, paranoid liberals are the Linux hackers of our social fabric. You make it seem like we should trust vertical social monopolies to find the truth. Do you trust Microsoft to find the truth in your OS? Then why would you insinuate that you can trust NBC/GE or Disney (you know the people who want to restore the power of oligarchy through unlimited copy right extension.
Use you critical skills on the media for 6 months then ask the same questions again.
#1 is just a rewrite of something signed by Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and those other guys. The Project for a New American Century isn't some kind of secret. It's the platform Bush's foreign policy and military policies are based on. Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld wrote letters to both Clinton and Newt Gengrich in '98 demanding that they invade Iraq. So, once they're both in charge of the army, they do it. It's not paranoia, it's just what they did.
The part most people would dismiss as paranoid would be Rebuilding America's Defenses (also available in ridiculously huge pdf from their site) where Wolfie and Rummy outline their plans for taking advantage of "some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor", missile defense, increasing independence from the international community, a more mobile, flexible army, robot exoskeletons, tactics for use of robot exoskeletons culled from that 08th MS Team anime, ultrasonic guns designed to induce the brain to release chemicals to produce intense panic, rage, or anything else, drugs that would allow soldiers to deaden their consiences, and chemical and biological weapons tied to certain gene types that would allow them to carry out undetectable assasinations by spraying around genetically engineered ebola viruses.
* Where did all the UN Food for Oil money disppear to?
/. article is about stuff that hasn't gotten a lot of attention. There's been no followup as far as I know.
Food for oil, I don't see much money in that deal. No money can't disappear.
Well, you don't walk into a grocery store with 10 gallons of unleaded and trade it for food. Oil gets sold, money buys food, food goes to Iraq... or at least that's what was supposed to happen. The UN got a nice "administation" cut off the top, but no one seems to know exactly where those billions went. And as much as people like to point the finger at Haliburton and claim they're a bunch of war profiteers its interesting how no one brings up the TotalFinaElf scandals and their involvement in some very, very shading dealings in Iraq.
* How much business did France and Germany do with Iraq in violation of UN resolutions?
None that I know of. Of course I have seen a lot of this crap on public forums or frog-bashing sites. But no report of those on any remotely reliable source, not even on Fox News (only exception is an op'ed column by William Safire in the NYT, which allegations have been denied by the US administration itself). Given the unusually aggressive stance the Bush administration has taken against those countries, I guess that any credible lead on that subject would have been leaked to the press in no time.
See the TotalElfFina articles above. Plus, the Germans and the French were trading *a lot* with the Iraqi gov't in the late 90s. It would be interesting to see just how "liberal" their interpretations of the sanctions exactly were. I think its been underreported.
* How the "sactions are killing millions of Iraqi babies" stories were bogus.
Economic sanctions are a useful tool to destabilize a regime or prevent it from endangering its neighbours but you have to admit that the population ends up paying the highest price to them. It might eventually be worth the price (South African Apartheid regime) or not (Cuba comes to mind). In the case of Irak, I guess that the food for oil program somehow prevented the most severe famines but I don't know of hard facts. Do you have them?
This assumes that if there was no oil for food program there would have been "severe famines" which also seems to be a pretty unsubstaciated claim. What looks like what happened was Saddam hyped up and played the "starving" baby angle for all it was worth. The "food" he got for his oil didn't make it to the Iraqi people. If you average $5billion a year in aid and spend $13million on healthcare, that's a lot of money unaccounted for.
* How much of the Arab and some European press were getting paid by Saddam
Come on! You're not saying that any media that voiced opinions differing from the official White House point of view were sold to Saddam, are you?
Not at all. What I am saying is that there were reporters/editors in the Arab press who were getting money (commissions, bribes, call it what you want) from the Iraqi gov't to file reports that were sympathetic to Saddam. There was speculation that some European editor/reporters were pocketing cash. That, as far as I know, hasn't been proven, but the point of this entire
And which countries do you target in "some European press". Given your post's general tone, I guess you include France and Germany. But what about Spain, England or Poland. Even thou