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Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2003-2004
An anonymous reader writes "Project Censored has come out with its list of the most censored media stores of 2003-2004. Some of the gems are "Bush Administration Censors Science", "U.S. Develops Lethal New Viruses", "Media and Government Ignore Dwindling Oil Supplies" and "Reinstating the Draft"."
******* *** *******! That's just shocking! Really, really shocking!
This site does appear to be a bit to the left, though. So take what they chose with a grain of salt, or a few tablespoons.
Stupid junk filter ruins my joke. So I have to keep typing more and more stuff. It's really rather annoying. I mean, really really annoying. How much more do I need to type? I keep going and going and going yet it keeps telling me to use fewer junk characters.
I'm an avid progressive, and I identify with many of the issues presented in this list ... but all of these articles should be taken with a grain of salt. ... these are all good sources of information, but you've got to keep a close eye on what you're reading, and sift through the editorializing to get to the facts.
Many of the articles come from seriously left-leaning rags. BuzzFlash, for example, is hyperliberal, and the editorials are often kind of tin-foil hat. Oneworld.net, "Organic Consumer"
Just my 3.14...
-- m.Operandi
Holy shit Batman!
I am sure during the Clinton years it would be: Baby Killer Lobbying Groups Influence Judicial Appointments!
Well, probably not, since these lists are pretty left in their bias.
Everyone once in awhile, the list does have very interesting info. But this is just like reading something from MoveOn.org.
Anyone who follows the news beyond CNN, would know this and wouldnt be too alarmed by these "censored" stories.
A more appropriate title for this list would have been the 25 most ignored or underreported new stories. I agree that most of the stories mentioned were underreported in the media, they were not censored. Proof being the various references and links shown in each article.
I love how we censor the very things that could swing the election.
It's not that interesting. Power right now rests with the right; stories with a right-wing slant are promoted, left-leaning stories demoted or censored. The time to complain about a left-wing slant in when power rests with the left.
This is where the serious fun begins.
You wrote:
"Not being widely covered is not really the same thing as being censored."
I disagree. It is a FORM of censorship. And certainly it tells us what many CorpGovMedia figures do not want us to know. And so this is important....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think that is unsuprising given that most media outlets are owned and controled by rich conservatives and corporations.
Top 25 US Stories not reported by the US media. Some other nations media may well have covered this stuff.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Yeah. Republicans don't like thinking about things. They'd much prefer their Great Leaders to do all their thinking for them.
God, why is it that we have come to a time when being an intellectual automatically makes you a "left-leaning wacko."
Don't you think that people who think about things are important?
Apparently the definition of "censored" for this site are "stories that match our left-leaning biases".
Now, I personally think the media is liberal, and I've done the studies to prove it (a few nights with Lexis-Nexis is enough), but this kind of thing represents a fringe view of the world. Did the authors of this list ever consider that maybe the reasons these "stories" didn't get reported are because they have no basis in fact?
Take reinstating the draft for example. Did the authors of that list ever consider the facts that the Army has met and exceeding its recruiting goals, that the Secretary of Defense has said he doesn't want a draft and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have said the same thing repeatedly? Did they ever consider that the bill to reintroduce the draft came from a group of anti-war congressman as a way of scaring people and was swiftly killed in committee and had no chance of ever passing?
Look, this kind of stuff irks the hell out of me. Telling us that a story that doesn't even pass the smell test has somehow been "censored" is an insult to our critical thinking skills. It's the same old crap as they people who say that the government is keeping aliens on ice at Area 51 right next to the engine that runs on water and the Ark of the Covenant.
Given that Slashdot's audience is supposed to be people with critical thinking skills, I would hope that tripe like this would be seen for what it is. "Censored" my ass!
On the contrary, take #4 for example, High Levels of Uranium Found in Troops and Civilians, which is ssupported by several publications in the peer-reviewed medical literature.
Why would anyone be so quick to call it propoganda? 10,000 Gulf War vets have already died of diseases with symptoms identical to uranium dust inhalation. Why deny it?
Here are the pertinent excerpts, if you don't believe them then tell me exactly what you don't believe:
A few appear to be missing, notably, "UN nations opposing overthrow of Saddam found to have taken bribes from same".
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I agree.. not Slashdot.
But 'blatantly false leftist propaganda' is a harsh term for stories that just didn't get covered. Who are you, editor-in-chief of the New York Times? How many doctorates in do you hold to be generalizing 25 stories as 'blatantly false leftist propaganda'?
Yeah, a lot of these are less journalistic professionalism than op-ed pieces, but does it seem odd to anybody that instead of hearing arguments any more, it's just "group-you-disagree-with propaganda"? God forbid we should have a great discussion about things we disagree about, because who needs progress!
Because most of the main US media outlets are, at least from what I see in the UK, terribly right wing?
Get your own free personal location tracker
The only U.S. politicians that I've seen advocating reinstating the draft are Democrats, who then turn around and claim that Bush must be defeated to avoid to the draft. The mainstream media usually ignores the bills the Dems sponsor to reinstate the draft, but gives front-page coverage to their claims that Bush wants the draft. Is that double-standard in coverage what you mean by "censorship"?
...is not on the list, so we have a real good idea of the political persuasion of the compilers of the list.
The compilers of the list should consider the possibility that, instead of censorship, the press and the public are just not that interested in the stories and issues that the list makers think are important. Activists often suffer from the delusion that the public would support their cause if they only knew the facts.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Wonder if this story will get covered by the American press. The factual basis seems much more sound than the Swift Boat Liars.
Yes, in all forms of media, in all places.
Which is why where I live in Southwestern Virginia, the 700 Club dominates my television programming, and I can't find anything on the radio that isn't conservative talk shows or Gospel.
Not everyone lives in New York.
It is worth noting several things:
(1) Every branch of the military is meeting or exceeding recruitment and re-enlistment goals (unlike in the 1990s).
(2) The all volunteer military used to be twice the size it is now (prior to cuts at the end of the cold war), so there is every reason to think that the military could double in size without a draft.
(3) The politicians warning of a return of the draft are in fact the sponsors of the bills that would bring back the draft. In other words the *only* people showing an interest in the draft are opponents of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
(4) And (3) is no surprise because most of the opposition to the Vietnam war was really opposition to the draft. The last thing that the Bush administration wants is to bring back the draft.
Opponents of these wars think that if the draft is brought back then opposition to the wars will grow. Which in turn is why the Bush administration has no interest in the draft whatsoever. In fact Donald Rumsfeld resisted an expansion of the military by a mere 30,000 volunteer troops. The idea that he would want to expand the military with hundreds of thousands of conscripts is nonsense.
You know, the bit about the Draft I hadn't heard before, as well as most of those things. And, I like to think I keep on top of current events. They make for great discussions / debates with my friends.
Now, the part about how the Media can legally lie didn't surprise me! Everytime I see FOX News it not only pisses me off, as they are clearly stating OPINION and not FACT, it also makes me ashamed of the fact that I am an American in this day and age... a Native American at that.
And, if Bush is elected in 200X, I am moving to Iceland, damn it! Just like that Mac Switch Spoof Flash Film! MOVE TO ICELAND!
Later,
Anonymous Coward
Someone said we should judge a newspaper by the quality of their stories on some subject we know well.
These are US stories, but one of them touches my own homecountry, Brazil. The story is so ridiculously, childishly, radically leftist - to the point of gross partidarism and distortion of reality, including the promotion of a radical, violent group like MST who wants to overthrow a constitutional, democratically-elected government and estabilish a marxist dictatorship - that it readily discredits the whole list as hate-promoting trash.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Actually there is a lot of 'soft' censoring going on where mass media do not report or downplay facts that might harm political interests. Stuff gets labeled unpatriotic; foxnews estimates several tens of thousands demonstraters hit the streets in new york when other newssources are reporting several hundreds of thousands; CNN literally quoting some defense department monkey (50 terrorists have died, no mention of the dozens of civilians that were in the area). That sort of thing.
Frequently, the facts are picked up by mass media anyway after they've been exposed sufficiently by other media. But very often facts are succesfully hidden/misrepresented. Photos from dead US soldiers are rare. On a few occasions such photos made frontpage news but considering the amount of casualties there have actually been few of these reports. The US government discourages such reports and the media comply.
A disturbing recent trend is to label anything out of line with the republican party's vision as unpatriotic and liberal. The latter used to be a compliment but somehow the reality distortion field that covers the US nowadays has turned this into something evil. It's really amusing to watch the 'land of the free' become scared of 'liberal' opinions. The US is 'at war with terrorism' and anybody who says otherwise is a dangerous leftwing extremist.
Jilles
Wow, this is has to be one of the most biased flamebait articles I have ever seen posted on Slashdot. These so-called "Censored" stories are no better than one organization's personal opinion pieces of what they believe is wrong in the world with little or no evidence of censoring by the media or even evidence of their opinions.
Take "Wealth Inequality in 21st Century Threatens Economy and Democracy". It is filled with zero-sum fallacies and very little hard evidence to back up their facts. Blaming Africa's troubles on other's countries successes makes about as much sense as your mother telling you to eat your veggies because people are starving in China. No mention is made of such factors as the continual warfare that plagues much of the African continent. In addition statements such as "As rich countries, strip poorer countries of their natural resources in an attempt to re-stabilize their own, the people of poor countries become increasingly desperate." are presented with absolutely no supporting evidence.
Going to some others: "#7: Conservative Organization Drives Judicial Appointments" Hmm, as if the ACLU, NOW, and NARAL have no affect on the Democrat's choice of Judicial Appointments.
"The Media Can Legally Lie" This one seems most hypocritical. Seems that Fox editors wanted some reporters to include some statements from the "Monsanto Corporation" in a story that was negative towards them. The reporters refused and were fired. The statements may or may not have been false, but isn't that for the people watching the story to decide? Isn't not including them censorship?
We also have the conflicting "Media and Government Ignore Dwindling Oil Supplies" and "New Nuke Plants: Taxpayers Support, Industry Profits". So if oil supplies are dwindling don't we want the government to encourage new forms of energy? Seems like pretty luddite thinking to me.
Oh well, what can you do.
Brian
PS Glad I got some karma to burn cause I'm probably going to get killed for this post. I would prefer people actually respond rather than mod down, but I know they won't
Well, anyway, one thing that this presidential campaign has shown me is that one of the fundamental difference between Bush supporters and those who oppose him is conformity. With regard to those who accuse others of tinfoilhattism, are they pragmatic spotters of nonsensical troublemakers, or are they conformist sheeple, willing to goosestep for whatever cause the hierarchy tells them to?
Just so we're clear, I had no idea whether you were talking about reps or dems until I read it for the third time. In my opinion anyone who votes for either of the two major GovCorp parties is a "conformist sheeple".
Vote Independent!!!
I am always confused by viewpoints being described as "left" or "right". What do these mean? What exactly are these left or right of? Is there some sort of mapping of viewpoints that puts one to the left of, or to the right of, another on a scale? Please enlighten me.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
"Yes, the AP eventually ran a retraction, but only after the hue and cry reached such a volume that they couldn't ignore it any more"
That part is just stupid spin. They had an incorrect story and they retracted it. Somehow the fact that they caught it relatively rapidly and admitted their mistake still isn't good enough for the ultra-right crazies.
You might be onto something. Why not have six months of compulsory military service upon turning 18 much like some European nations do? It'd certainly give our young (and stupid) a better perspective of what the military does and the shit one has to put up with to serve.
My words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!
On the right, FAIR's counterpart is Accuracy In Media, which is currently running as their top story, "The Big Bad FBI -- The New York Times destroyed the life of Steven Hatfill in the anthrax case." As far as I can tell, AIM is willing to apologize for the justice department, but doesn't even bother to put out any study at all claiming left-wing media bias. Don't you think they would at least try to put out a counter study?
When AIM first started out, they used to do one every month, but then FAIR started posting counterpoints and some AP writer would pick the two up and put the highlights from each on the wires. Those highlights always seemed to favor FAIR's viewpoint, and the AP stories started saying so.
So now AIM doesn't even make any general claims about a pervasive bias. Think about it.
Not reporting something because you don't think it's worth reporting, or you don't think people will care, or even because you're biased and don't want to report it is one thing. Not reporting it because you'll go to jail is another thing. The US government doesn't even "kind of" censor the media like in Russia. This is about media self-censorship. It is a serious problem, yes, but the problem is not tyranny.
English is easier said than done.
The people who actually decide what goes on the air and in print over are overwhelmingly conservative. This has been shown in many studies yet somehow people dredge up that tired old arguement about liberal journalists. Yea journalists tend to be more liberal then not, let's not forget who is really in charge.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
"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
I'm reading through these, and they list the sources where the stories ran..and they did run...in various magazines, journals and newspapers.
So how is this considered censored?
censor
n : a person who is authorized to read publications or correspondence
or to watch theatrical performances and suppress in whole or in part anything
considered obscene or politically unacceptable.
v 1: forbid the public distribution of ( a movie or a newspaper)
[syn: ban]
2: subject to political, religious, or moral censorship; "This
magazine is censored by the government"
Now, if it were listed as "Important News Stories That Are Not Being Followed Through On"...then we got ourselves a list my friend.
But the title alone makes it seem like the US government is pulling these stories and saying they can't be run at all...which isn't the case.
From the Project Censored website their mission statement contains:
From these, Project Censored compiles an annual list of 25 news stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported or self-censored by the country's major national news media.
Overlooked...you betcha. Under-reported...yes, I agree with that. Self-censored? I don't see that any of them were pulled here in the US...but perhaps they were in other countries? Reading through their list (the ones I could get to before it was Slashdotted) I couldn't find where the censorship fell other than just no mainstream media picking up on the stories.
Interesting read though...after the Slashdot crowd leaves I'll be back reading it.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Top-down social control is not the province of the left. Rather, extreme leftism and extreme rightism land on the totalitarian continent. And make haste for tiki parties, book-burnings, etc.
Most Democrats in this country are, on a more cosmopolitan political scale, centrists. The Right in this country, however, is really, truly scarily far afield
Tenemus pyrobolos atqui jacimus cognitiones.
For most of the lunatic fringe and even many moderates, there's a prejudice against the right to automatically assume the worst, and to never, EVER listen to someone telling you different. They're just part of the conspiracy, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!
I treat crap like this with a grain of salt.
And just so's ya know, I think most of you hippies could do with a couple years' stint in the armed forces.
According to many of the observers it was the Spetznaz who were sneaked in the ambulance that went to pick up the dead bodies that caused the shooting spree.
Also how come that the Russian media reported only 345 hostages taken when the real number turned out to be close to 1500? That's quite a bit of an error in estimating... given that all municipalities have very scrupulous records of who's registered for what school it should have been very easy to figure out the actual numbers.
Finally, Kremlin is reporting 340 dead but another 200 are (quietly) reported as "missing"... what in the holy fuck does that mean? Like they ran away from the besieged building and went on a drinking binge? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that those "missing" are almost certainly dead save for a handful few that might have survived and somehow still aren't reunited with their relatives. So why not tell the truth and state that the number of casualties is over 500?
Kremlin is lying again and Russian media is complicit and fully controlled by them, just like they were in the Soviet times. Polish press reported that more than 1000 were held captive on Thursday morning. Friday night, they reported that death toll would exceed 500. Meanwhile Moscow is still in denial and trying to mellow the story as much as they can.
Putin made no mention of Chechnya in his address ot the nation despite everyone knowing full well that the attack was prepared by terrorists under the command of the notorious Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev. Meanwhile Putin is telling us about "international terrorism" as if Beslan had nothing to do with the complete fiasco of his policies in Chechnya.
Their most independent journalist Babicki of Svoboda was seized from an airport as he was about to fly to Beslan on Wednesday and was arrested for five days on charges of "disorderly conduct".
The main editor of Izviestia was forced to quit after he had published an article stating that it was Spetznaz and Osetian police together with some civilian relatives who started the mayhem by shooting at hostage takers.
In short the US media is badly censored but not nearly as controlled as the Russian media and press at the moment.
Sorry, but there's still a leftist slant in the general media...People very far on the left generally don't see it for the same reason people on the right think Fox is "fair and balanced".
I suspect you could easily swap "right-wing" for "leftist" and be just as correct: the media is amorphous and populist; it'll promote certain stories to sell newspapers, even if those stories are not in the interest of the proprietor or shareholders. Likewise other - controversial - stories might be promoted when the proprietor or shareholders might benefit. I certainly agree with your comment that "One [explanation for under-reporting] may be that the stories are ones that are against the interests of large media conglomerates to print."
Another possibility is that these stories are ones that no respectable news organization takes seriously, and the writer of the article is a bit of an extremist nut-job.
Possibly, but many of the stories have been reported in Britain by the mainstream press (I don't read the Guardian, before I get accused of basing mainstream press on the left-most broadsheet!)
The fact that anyone is printing these means it's not "censored" by the government, but, if anything, under-reported.
I thought this was sloppy headline-writing, but I still agree with the basic premise: under-reporting is a form of censorship. On September 11th 2001 an advisor to a British minister suggested that that day would be "a good day to bury bad news". It was disgusting, and she (eventually) resigned, but I'm sure politicians and PR departments do this every day of every year. A slightly more obvious example: is it censorship when a journalist decides not to publish a story because he fears reprisals? I'd suggest yes, but I accept it is debateable.
This is where the serious fun begins.
The AP story contained an error. They ran a retraction.
How many retractions has FOX run for their reports of WMDs being found in Iraq? Fox has run countless misleading or inaccurate stories and has never run any corrections that I have seen.
"Fox is to be applauded for putting their agenda right out there in front so you don't have to guess at it."
Fox has never stated that they have any agenda. They are so incredibly biased that their biases are completely obvious. But they claim to be 'Fair and Balanced', and when various parties have accused them of bias, their management has always and consistently denied any bias.
Hyperbole is the worst thing ever.
Of course all this criticism of Bush is shortsighted, as the Aliens for Bush web site makes clear.
Cheers,
Thad
The Bolachek Journals
I went to projectcensored.org looking for their definition of "censored" and the criteria they use to determine "most censored". I found neither.
In my book, you aren't being censored when an editor turns down your story. You aren't being censored when your story is cut from the final edition to make room for the piece about an explosion in a local church.
If the Ministry of Information orders you not to write that story, that's censorshp. Ditto if the orders come from your corporate headquarters.
Projectcensored says it tracks the news from "independent" sources (not that these sources are listed on their site), but neglects to tell us about the political agendas of any of those sources. (Of course, the word "independent" is usually, and incorrectly, construed to mean "impartial".) An organization might be "independent" of outside financing, but it will lack credibility as an "independent" source if its purpose is to foster a political agenda. In any case, with a personality like Noam Chomsky helping them spot "censorship", claims of "independence" evaporate.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
The response to Rush:
#1. So, you'd rather we didn't invade at all? Is that it? You'd like it if Osama took over the US!
Saddam was a socialist dictator. Osama is on record, repeatedly, as calling Saddam a socialst, infidel, dog. They hated each other. Dictators are generally insecure and fear losing their power. If Saddam were helping out Bin Laden he would be sharing (which means giving up) some of his power. Every weapon Saddam gave him would be a weapon he is no longer in control of. Dictatorship is all about control.
#2. Gay agenda/Gay marriage.
Really, you're gay? I had no idea this affected you. Oh, you aren't gay? So it doesn't affect you? Good, Good, Because it must be a weak marraige if yours and your wifes bonds can be weakened by the new neighbors down the street.
Yes, you patronizing sonofabitch :), we have the "inter-net"; I hear I can order movies with pretty ladies on it. The discussion was about traditional forms of media, which change based on locale.
As for the poster who named all possible television stations: please, feel free to try get reception in the mountains where a majority of the citizens are poor and can't afford cable. It works well.
My point was that if you're not terribly open-minded about this, you could easily suspect that everybody has access to and tunes into national networks. Nope. It doesn't always work that way.
On that subject -- there is cable, and we're familiar. But how liberal do you think the CBS broadcasting to a farming community is going to be?
You guys need to get out more. You're like the people who say, "God, not the command line!" sarcastically to those that have a hard enough time remember where "mail merge" is. There are still places that are free of suburbia and are untouched by businessmen running around with PDAs. And our sunsets are gorgeous. So bite me.
you really think that anybody like saddam could bribe countries in the g7? You think such countries are so poor they have to take money from a old, failing dictator, when they could just sell airbuses to china?
. . . . . . .
may u!sh 2 sm!le at dz!z bad nn.!m!tat!ion
I'm actually all for abandoning the use of DU shells, but claims like this:
"the 800 tons of DU used in Afghanistan is the radioactive equivalent of 83,000 Nagasaki bombs. The amount of DU used in Iraq is equivalent to 250,000 Nagasaki bombs"
effectively undermine any chance of credibility or acceptance. It sounds like nonsense, and for good reason, because it is nonsense. They're comparing raw mass of the uranium used at Nagasaki (given that atomic bombs actually use tiny amounts of uranium) against the collective mass of all DU shells used, completely ignoring the fact that they're of enormously different chemical character.
If you say something like "Politician X rapes babies!" or "NAFTA has caused more deaths than all wars in the twentieth century combined!, you forfeit all consideration of other statements. I realize this is not your claim, only one you're repeating, but it's not helpful. In fact it's extremely harmful, because mindless statements like those only serve to undermine legitimate objection.
Ah yes. The Iraqi Oil Ministry, controlled by Chalabi cronies, released a partial list of names and companies. The partial list is dominated by institutions which opposed the U. S. Surprise, surprise, surprise.
This is like everything else about the occupation of Iraq - cherry picked information dealt out to credulous parties who parrot them without caveats at every available opportunity. The sad thing is that folks like you not only buy it, you help propagate it. Why don't you learn to think and research for yourself?
I actually just slapped my own forehead when I read your response. I didn't just have the urge, I actually did it. Thanks to your unbelievable response I have a red welt on my forehead and will not be able to go out in public for another thirty seconds or so.
*sigh* How can I explain this to someone who didn't already get what should have been a blindingly obvious point?
Comparing the mass was not only misleading but stupid because of their enormously different chemical character. Seriously, just use whatever brain you have. Why does a single DU shell have ever so much more mass than the uranium in just one bomb designed to cause massive destruction? Because they operate in different fashions. The former is relatively stable from a chemical stand-point and does not cause molecular destabilization or the release of catastrophic energies upon detonation, while the latter is extremely unstable and does produce off-the-charts energies when detonated. That's the whole frigging point, that mass has nothing at all to do with the equation because they're of completely different physical character, and therefore mass is irrelevant, and therefore bringing it up not only makes the arguer look less credible but deceitful.
For the record, tack on the handicaps of stupidity to my earlier cautions about misleading statements and irrationality. If you're just plain stupid then obviously people are never going to have a productive discussion with you whether you're attempting honest self-reflection or not. I'm not saying you are stupid, but your response certainly was. If you can't understand how mass is irrelevant and misleading to the issue then you don't have the capacity to add anything positive to the discussion.
France to defy the UN sanctions against Iraq by paying off UN officials and helping a murderous dictator, but removing that murderous dictator from power is a bad thing?
Clear, Dark Skies
The project Censored site it nothing more than a compilation of stories which have been reported as censored by people who haven't a clue about what they are talking about. Let take for example a story about the "Radiation Poisoning" of the Afganastani people, and are that is my studied, both undergraduate and graduate, and professionally certified area of expertise. This story is filled with "Junk science" that every peer reviewed journal has discredited. They claimed the same nonsense in Bosnia due to our use of depleted uranium, and these were all found to be false. Depleted uranium is just that "depleted" it cannot become "non-depleted" and its presence does not cause levels of "non-depleted" uranium in the population. I've seen the studies, the data, and have had close friends sent on missions to take samples, perform laboratory analysis, and draw scientific conclusions. None of which agree with the pseudo science spawned by the activists who do not follow chain of custody sample collection and perform substandard laboratory analysis. These stories are hardly "censored" in fact the study of this data is out in the public forum, its just that the people trying to prove their point of radiation poisoning have been entirely discredited in the scientfic arena. The solution? Claim "censorship" and a coverup to draw media attention because you can't prove your point with science. So revert to inuendo and distortion. So very sad.
If the media were slanted to the left...
Someone would be working harder to investigate why no-bid contracts were let to the Vice-President's former company. IMHO, the "Only Haliburten is big enough to do that kind of stuff," excuse doesn't really wash.
Nobody saw 9/11 coming... Nobody in the government was even looking that direction! No wonder nobody put the pieces together, the pieces weren't on the table. After Inauguration day in 2001, the focus of the US left the Middle East and moved to Missle Defense and the ABM treaty. It was as palpable as seeing the focus of the Eye of Sauron move at the end of Return of the King.
Faulty intelligence - oops. The year before the War in Iraq, it there was reporting that the Administration was shopping for Intelligence that would support it's desire for War. At the time, it was also well-reported that CIA evidence didn't support invasion. Stunning that the CIA ended up taking the fall.
President Bush's National Guard records have 'disappeared', as well as any opportunity to establish whether he really was or was not AWOL that year of Alabama service prior to early discharge.
The Vice President held closed-door sessions to establish a National Energy Policy, with no public records. "Candid opinions" aside, this is part of national policy, it affects all of us, and we have NO visibility into the process, or even the players.
Speaking of the Cloak of Secrecy, when you spread that Cloak around the government, it goes all the way to the bottom. It's not enough to trust the Man at the Top, you have to trust EVERYONE under him - right down to the guards at Abu Graib. The Constitution attempted to create a government where you could trust the process, so that if the people were not trustworthy, there would be checks and balances.
Finally, if it were a "liberal media"....
It wouldn't have hounded Al Gore into oblivion, while giving a giving G.W. Bush a pass on his very limited qualifications. Bush was a 1.5 term governor - less than 6 years on public service.
It wouldn't have hounded Bill Clinton for 7.5 years of his presidency, and said nothing as a 7.5 year "fishing expedition" began over a measly $200,000 real estate *loss*. Lewinsky was inexcusable, but it hadn't even happened when the fishing expedition began, or went through it's first several morphs.
It wouldn't now be giving Kerry short-shrift on getting his message out, while forgiving above Bush administration issues. The ONLY time I've heard Kerry sound interesting or impressive was the acceptance speech on C-SPAN - the one time I've heard more than two sentences out of his own mouth without some form of extraction or editorializing.
And if you don't believe that, look on Slashdot! Others of the European pursuasion have stated that even the American Left is to the Right of Europe's center. We can't see or evaluate slant, because we're all so slanted, ourselves.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I believe the issue is that the media has its own agenda and if a story conflicts with that agenda, it's not likely to be given attention. It's arguable as to whether or not you could call this censorship.
In the realm of this area, there are tons of stories that have a snowball's chance in hell of getting much media attention, because they open up big cans of worms that upset very powerful corporations:
* Mad cow disease has been discovered in the US but isn't acknowledged -- that would upset the beef lobby - very powerful
* In the US there's virtually no dialogue about the concerns of genetically-modified food. Another issue of not pissing off the advertisers.
* The DU armament issue is another hot potato that the American media doesn't want to touch.
* There's a plethora of amazing stories about bills that have been mischaracterized or inaccurately reported on, from the Medicare bill to the various legislation involving the Iraqi invasion that has been bastardized in 30sec soundbytes as a perversion of the truth.
* Lots of stories about dangers of pharmaceuticals that would hurt big pharma.
* The SEC investigations and sanctions against almost every major financial corporation in America for illegal/unethical activity - which are also heavy advertisers and thus, won't be mentioned by name even if a story on the issue is reported.
* Shell's fraud in reporting oil reserves.
* Without a doubt, the administration's outing of a CIA agent, and how docile the media became is another prime example. Had a democrat/liberal done what Novak did, he'd be hanging from a tree.
You can't really say these stories have been "censored" - they've been "selectively dismissed" as a result of being in conflict with the media's agenda.
It's a foolish, idealistic notion these days, that any of the major media really have that much of a "responsibility" to their audience, at least in contrast to their responsibility to their management, shareholders and advertisers.
So anyone can write hysterical nonsense now and if it isn't published they can claim censorship, even if their assertions were completely baseless?
The owners of publications have always hade the ability to edit content, that does not equate to censorship, it is their own filter to eliminate hysterical crap. It's how they work without moderators slashdot.
Exactly how is reporting without question that Iraq had WMDs being a left-wing outlet?
Exactly how is reporting without question that Saddam's troops pulled babies out of incubators prior to Gulf War 1 being a left-wing outlet?
Exactly how is ignoring the number of civilian casualties in Iraq being a left-wing outlet?
Exactly how is under-reporting the number of Palestinian civilian casualties, while never failing to mention a single Palestinian terrorist attack, being a left-wing outlet?
Exactly how is ignoring the Red Cross's reports about Abu Ghraib, a YEAR before the story finally broke loose, being a left-wing outlet?
Exactly how is giving Michael Moore less airtime than Ann Coulter, when they were both promoting their books a couple of years ago, being a left-wing outlet?
In fact, how is it that you can look at that list of under-reported stories, a large number of which are left-wing issues, and say that the media is biased to the left?
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
The thing that strikes me about this list is that most of them just aren't stories.
#1 - Speculation
#2 - Editorial
#3 - Story, maybe
#4 - Story, if verified
#5 - Editorial
#6 - Sounds like an editorial
#7 - Story, if verified
#8 - Title doesn't say anything
#9 - File under "News of the Weird" or some such
#10 - Editorial - or "Old News is No News"
#11 - Editorial
#12 - Could be a story if there are specifics
#13 - Old news, no news
#14 - Editorial
#15 - Story
#16 - Well, duh. If we knew who all the guilty ones were, we wouldn't need spies.
#17 - Could be a story... Though it makes it sound like private enterprise is a bad thing
#18 - Editorial
#19 - Good news, therefore not news at all
#20 - Not a story, not an editorial, not anything. This wasn't censored, it was too boring to print
#21 - Huh?
#22 - Could be a story there somewhere, but it clearly flies in the face of the majority of the evidence
#23 - Editorial
#24 - Definitely a story, and the Democrats should be hung out to dry for trying to re-introduce the draft for political ends. (Yeah, it's the D's behind this one.)
#25 - Story's been done, folks.
Those numbers are totally flawed. A more accurate depiction of the average american can be made by asking questions about issues rather than flat out asking whether one holds a liberal or conservative idealogy. Conservatives have tarnished the word "liberal" and people fear that label. When asked about the issues themselves more people have liberal beliefs than conservative beliefs. The gap between people who call themselves liberal and people who have liberal beliefs is very large. The label someone gives themself does not necessarily hold true. Just look at Zell Miller.
Time makes more converts than reason
Using solar powersats eliminates the storage and most of the distribution problems (did you know you can run jetliners on beamed power? true story), reduces the cost of power and also reduces the enviro footprint from obvious and opaque solar arrays to more flexible and translucent rectenna arrays.
Each piece of serious space infrastructure you build (ISS isn't anything like serious) makes it easier to build other systems. For example, powersat construction provides a market for a space elevator and drives down the materials costs for everything but the ribbon - and transport up via the elevator drops the cost of a powersat considerably. Building a Moon-mine would also lower the cost of both powersats and elevator from a materials and technology, and of course the mine would be cheaper to start with prefab parts coming up an elevator and cheaper to build with powersats having already proven a lot of the technology.
We just need someone to bite the bullet and spend 0.1 Iraq Wars or Desert Storms to produce one piece, and the other pieces will happen. At the moment, the USA faces a dichotomy between a "liberal weiner" and a "right-wing nut-job", neither of whom will seriously back any such project.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Thanks for the partisanship! Great!
Now, what was *informative* in your post? You are a left-leaning partisan that confuses emotion with logic?
P.S. "Every single one of their statements have been proven untrue." is intentionally being dishonest. The facts publically available could show you the difference between black, white, and gray, if you are capable of discerning.
pull your head out of the sand, and look around?
Wal-Mart...to many it is a pariah, a sadist, something to be scorned and looked down upon. For others, it quite simply the place where they buy everything because its cheap. Let's look at the article's points
Wal-Mart opposition overseas has been from unions (over low pay)
Wal-Mart has always been anti-union. There has only been one successful union organization I believe (butchers in one of the stores) and Wal-Mart turned around, fired them all, and started buying beef from a distributor. Wal-Mart doesn't apologize for it and most other grocery stores if they had their druthers would probably do the same. Wal-Mart just ensured that this didn't happen early on and it is not at point in its promience and power that no union can organize it.
Local regulators (over predatory pricing)
Wal-Mart basically puts the clamp on you when your a supplier because they are the toughest customer in the world. In fact, there are many businesses that will not deal with Wal-Mart because they do not want to go through the pain of readying themselves to meet Wal-Mart's demands and becoming beholden to what will become their largest customer if successful in a region trial. You do not have to choose to do so, but people see the number of SKUs you can sell to them and go for it. Wal-Mart, in turn, will demand 180 day payment, return of all unsold items, only pay for those items that have actually been sold to a customer, a set delivery time and quantity (if you miss either one of these your basically thrown out as a supplier, no chance ever again to redeem yourself), and a 5% reduction in cost to Wal-Mart each year. Wal-Mart in turn passes this back to the consumer. When someone would ask Sam Walton to do a coupon or a special offer, he would tell them take the amount we would spend on it and drop the price by that much. In the end its the difference between a consumer spending $120 - $130 versus spending $100 at Wal-Mart.
and small businesses that face financial ruin....In the U.K, Wal-Mart's takeover of Asda has had a devastating effect. Award-wining food journalist Joanna Blythman's new book called "Shopped: The Shocking Power of British Supermarkets" published May 2004 outlines how: "I learned that UK supermarkets now jump to the tune of our second largest chain, Asda. Since 1999 when it was taken over by the biggest retailer in the world, the U.S. chain Wal-Mart, Asda's strategy of 'Every Day Low Pricing', has triggered a supermarket price war in which chains without buying muscle are disadvantaged...Every week in the UK, 50 specialist shops like butchers and bakers are closing and one farmer or farm worker commits suicide. We enter a race to the bottom where everyone loses, especially the consumer.
Wal-Mart never put any small Mom and Pop out-of-business, you and I did. Those butchers and bakers aren't closing because they have customers, they're closing because you and I and the rest of the people you know find the same staples of their lives at Wal-Mart for far cheaper.
Final thought, seven cents of every dollar spent in America is spent at Wal-Mart. Think about that for a moment, scary isn't it. However, when you goto Wal-Mart do you think about the fact your going to a store that makes more money then probably half the nations on the planet. No, you think about cheap prices. Sam Walton found it was more profitable to serve 95% of the population well then to only serve 5% and the in the process made just about every company in America and abroad that deals with Wal-Mart better in the process. While Wal-Mart does put the squeeze on its producers and ends up squeezing the inefficiences out of the supply chain below it because every year you and I will expect prices to fall on a product at Wal-Mart.
It's funny, even on this page it's totally ignored. Everyone's too busy with their ideological cockfighting. The truth vs. the media. Liberals vs. Conservatives. Dogs vs. Cats. Blah blah blah blah blah. Noise, all of it.
Your cares and plans- all rendered meaningless without renewable energy.
Did you know that selling cocaine is a form of free-market capitalism? And that some people, especially addicts, will buy that cocaine, ignoring all logic and reason and the things they really wanted out of life, until they are dead from it?
How is oil currently any different for our country?
Ahhh yes, when the citizens of France and Germany overwhelmingly supported giving the weapons inspectors the time they had actually asked for instead of jumping straight to war (81% in Germany), the corrupt goverment leaders were infact bribed by Saddam to ignore the overwhelming anti-war sentiment of their citizens, and instead not go to war.
Only in [the minds of conservative] America.
I can understand editing out a dull story, or a news item containing offensive content. But when a liberal paper decides to not publish reports of some democratic senators questionable activities, or a conservative news channel decides to not mention how a republican president is trashing Science, your saying this is just an "editorial cut" and not politicaly motivated censorship?
Note: I'm not an American. But I do follow both sides of this overblown, politically-motivated "controversy".
all I've seen is attacks on this group of veterans. I've hardly seen ANY attempt at all to discredit even a single claim of theirs.
Then I strongly suggest you take a moment to read Salon, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, or The Washington Post. And actually read, rather than filtering input according to your own biases. I'll start you off with a quote, from the LA Times: "These charges against John Kerry are false. Or at least there is no good evidence that they are true."
So far almost every attack on the Swift Boat Veterans has been a personal, ad hominem attack on these veterans' character, not on their claims.
False. Here are the facts:
Thurlow and others in the same five-boat Swift flotilla as Kerry on the night in question (when Kerry recued Rassman) also came under fire. Indeed, Thurlow won a Bronze Star for his actions in rescuing a comrade under enemy fire. This is the same Thurlow who has claimed that there was no enemy fire that night. In other words, if what Thurlow says now is correct, he should have refused the Bronze Star citation, or returned it once he started making his claims. He has not done either.
Why won't he (kerry) release all his medical and other service records?
He has. The only records he has not released are his review papers.
Why did Kerry lie about spending Christmas in Cambodia?
There's a difference between "lying" and "being mistaken." For example:
- After 9/11, President Bush claimed repeatedly that he had seen the second plane fly into the WTC live on television. This is obviously incorrect - he was sitting glassy-eyed in a classroom of children leafing through "My Pet Goat" at the time.
- At the RNC convention, Govenor Schwarzenegger claimed that growing up in Austria he had seen Soviet tanks parked in the streets. This is patently flase - the Soviets had retreated from Austria years before he was born.
In other words, people often confuse their own histories. Was Kerry in Cambodia? Almost certainly - Larry Thurlow, one of his chief accusers, was recorded telling Nixon that he (Thurlow) had been in Cambodia. Was it neccessasarily in Christmas? No - and that;s probably where Kerry's recollection is getting mixed up. That doesn't mean that Kerry is lying, any more than Bush or the Govenator are. Memory of emotional situations is simply extremely poor.
Why do so many people that served alongside and above Kerry...
First, you are stretching the term "served with him". You mean "were also in Vietnam during the war". Few of the SBVT's "served" with Kerry (i.e. on the same boat, or the same unit). And they're saying what they're claiming because of Kerry's Congressional testimony, which they felt "slandered" vets. They feel that Kerry lied over that, but can't contradict it (that whole messy My Lai incident, amoung others, kinda gets in the way) - so they feel justified in lying about his record.
Really? Like the officer who had his name added to the SBVT's claims without being asked? Or the officers who claimed, up to two years ago, that Kerry was a fine and outstanding officer? Or the officers who have since recanted adding thier names to the SBVT's list?
When are we going to get answers from Kerry and not ad hominem attacks?
You've had answers. Every single piece of Naval documentation, every crewmember on Kerry's boat (with the exception of that one gunner - who has changed his story several times) and several naval personell who were never part of Kerry's "Band of Brothers" or the SBVT's but who have now voluntarily come forward, have reinforced and confirmed Kerry's record.
Really? Almost everything I've heard has been about how the Swift Boat Veteran's claims contradict the official records & the few eye witnesses who are still living.
I suppose you could consider it an attack on their character when people talk about how these veterans insist that _they_ are right, and the records & the eye-witnesses are wrong (or lying), even though many of these guys weren't directly involved in the incidents they are criticising. And when people point out that many of the same people made similar criticisms about McCain (with about as much credibility).
If these guys were talking about they had heard that the fish that some competitor caught wasn't really all that big (even though the fish had been weighed & recorded by the official fishing organization), then most of the audience would probably call them liars - especially if they were caught being paid lots of money by another fisherman after saying such things, and if they had also said such things about another competitor at the _last_ fishing competition. Since this is politics though, anybody supporting Kerry calls them liars, and anyone supporting Bush says anybody contradicting them is lying.
While you might disagree with the word: "censored." I hope you agree that the media plays an important role in the USA precisely because we have a democracy. We need a properly informed public so that people have the ability to make good decisions about the direction this country takes. I will concede the fact that the USA has not been historically good at an unbiased media (see: Yellow Journalism). However, with the the proliferation of nuclear weapons, along with long-term energy and environmental concerns, decisions that we make today will have a dramatic impact on the world we will live in the future. Probably more so than at any previous time in history.
These stories had merit and were definitely under-reported in the mainstream media. Inspite of the fact that they may be frightfully important. Instead, we end up with stories about two-legged dogs that can walk upright instead of discussing depleted uranium and its possible health implications. Americans should be outraged, but the sad fact is, the majority of people never find out. People don't get angry about things they never know about.
To be fair, the issues are complicated, and many times there is a shock and awe effect with both sides throwing out so many statistics that it is hard to dechiper what the real story is. It is especially difficult when one-side or both is being disingenuous, which is frequently the case in politics.
However, I would encourage you to not paint the entire world in terms of Democratic/Republican Left/Right, because it is an intellectual crutch and discourages you from properly considering the arguments presented. As soon as you paint something in that light, you are already biased. Bias has nothing to do with considering all arguments with equal weight. Some arguments are better than others (better reasoned, have more evidence supporting them, etc.) Even better cases are made by considering the other side of the argument and pointing out fallacies or showing that the evidence actually supports your conclusion. However, considering only one side of the issue, in and of itself is not bias (the article about the draft might be a good case of this). For example, if you are arguing for evolution it is not strictly necessary to consider Christian creationism. Bias is rejecting an argument due to factors outside of the argument itself. Such as, you don't like the conclusion because it means that you should change your lifestyle in some way (shouldn't smoke, use less gas, etc.). Fox News isn't necessarily biased, it just happens to be a very poor news channel. The problem comes from not Fox itself, but rather the viewers, since Fox tends to report things in ways that support their viewer's preconceived notions. For example, talking points are percieved as facts because they are repeated often and by different people. Viewers end up feeling like they are well informed when they actually aren't. These people who believe they are informed tend to be more dangerous than a person that holds a belief but knows that they are underinformed. They also take longer to straighten out.
In conclusion, the USA needs a better news media. I see a lot of similarities between the Yellow Press and the media of today. We are the most powerful country in the world, possibly the most powerful country ever. With that comes a certain responsiblity. There are many different views on the direction this country should take in the future. From watching Bush's nomination speech, he seems to think we are ordained by God to bring democracy and freedom to the rest of the world. I personally don't believe we can deliver democracy to countries by invading them. We might, right now, be in the prelude to WWIII. I think it is important for the people to know exactly what we are doing, what we know, and what we are fighting for. We need the media to properly inform us. Here is a list of 25 stories that didn't make it but are important. The real question is: what can we do about it? But, at least it is a start. Knowing that there is a problem is the first step towards a solution.
Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true! -Homer Simpson
versus every other man in his unit
Every man on his boat *except one* backs up his story. And then there's the fact that naval records back up Kerry's verison of events 100%. And then there's the fact that you need someone else to recommend you for a medal, so you're calling more vets than just Kerry a liar.
but all men who absolutely despise Kerry for the way he behaved in Viet Nam
More bullshit. Aside from the medals, the personal testimonials of those who actually served with Kerry, there's his stellar performance reviews. And the fact that the SBVT guys keep changing their stories and fuding the facts, like one of them claiming that he hadn't been active in politics for 30 years but had received thousands of dollars from Republicans to "assist" him attack Kerry.
Go back under your bridge, troll.