Media 3

American journalism has devoted massive attention to reporting on business in recent years. Overall news outlets are enthralled with efforts in our society to maximize corporate profits and personal wealth. Top executives and shrewd investors are good bets to emerge as media heroes, unless or until they appear to be headed for prison. Insatiable avarice -- always pushing for more, more, more -- is unlikely to cause bad press. In fact, journalists are apt to cite enthusiasm for boosting "net worth" as evidence of sturdy character.

Half a century ago, sociologist C. Wright Mills warned of "a creeping indifference and a silent hollowing out." In the United States, he observed, "money is the one unambiguous criterion of success," and behind the obvious fact that people "want money" lurked the more unsettling reality that "their very standards are pecuniary." A few years later, author Vance Packard asked a key question: "By encouraging people constantly to pursue the emblems of success, and by causing them to equate possessions with status, what are we doing to their emotions and their sense of values?"

Today that question echoes more ominously than ever. While advertising and other commercial messages keep extending their reach, news coverage routinely gives fuel to society's preoccupation with financial assets. Fixated on money and what it might bring, the media fascination with purchasing power never stops. Mainstream news organizations have steadily shifted resources and priorities to the business of business. When PBS launched "Wall Street Week" with Louis Rukeyser in 1970, the program was conspicuous. By the time Rukeyser departed earlier this year, it was just one of dozens of national TV shows -- most of them daily -- devoted to the quest for high returns. After "Moneyline" premiered on CNN in 1980, cable television news grew while embracing the world of investment. In 1989, General Electric opted to dedicate much of its startup news channel CNBC to coverage of and commentary about the stock market.

A decade later, when host Lou Dobbs left "Moneyline" in spring 1999 at the start of his two-year absence from CNN, it was the leading cable network's most profitable show. By then, broadcast networks were fervently targeting the same lucrative demographics, and not only with expressly financial programs. Between the mid-1980s and the late 1990s, the main TV networks doubled the amount of airtime devoted to the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. Regular news shows got accustomed to lavishing attention on minor business developments not because of significant economic implications for the general public, but because of decisions being made by management executives with oversight of news departments.

Some viewers, the ones with plenty of disposable income, became far more equal than others. When CNN revamped its daytime schedule in mid-1999 to make room for three and a half hours of programs about commerce and investment, the cable giant's president Richard Kaplan explained: "We look at business and finance as something we have to cover on a general interest news network. It's like the Cold War in the '50s. You just have to do it." And the unstated goal was not simply to attract a higher number of viewers. As the Associated Press reported last year, noting intense competition between "Moneyline" and CNBC's "Business Center" program: "The audiences are small, but affluent, so advertisers pay a premium to run commercials."

Many news stories now amount to little more than human interest narratives about the glories and tribulations of entrepreneurs, financiers and CEOs. At networks owned by multibillion-dollar conglomerates like General Electric, Viacom and Disney, the news divisions solemnly report every uptick or downturn of the markets. In contrast, when was the last time you heard Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, or Peter Jennings report the latest rates of on-the-job injuries or the average wait times at hospital emergency rooms? While many viewers assume that coverage reflects the considered judgment of journalistic pros, those journalists are enmeshed in a media industry dominated by corporate institutions with enough financial sway to redefine the meaning of functional professionalism.

In theory, noncommercial TV and radio outlets are insulated from the inordinate power of money. But across the country, each year, "public broadcasting" relies on hundreds of millions of dollars from corporations that are pleased to provide underwriting to burnish their images among upscale viewers and listeners. Whatever other benefits accrue, those firms buy some valuable PR with their de facto commercials, known euphemistically in the trade as "enhanced underwriter credits."

Along with the politically appointed board of the nonprofit Corporation for Public Broadcasting, corporate donors exert hefty influence on programs by "underwriting" -- and, in some cases, literally making possible -- specific shows. Private money is a big determinant of what's on "public" broadcasting. Without corporate funding for specific programs, many current shows would not exist. Public television airs the "Nightly Business Report," but viewers can search in vain for a regular show devoted to assessing the fortunes of working people. At PBS, no less than at avowedly commercial networks, the operative assumption seems to be that wealth creates all labor, not the other way around. Back in the 1770s, Adam Smith articulated a more progressive outlook, writing: "It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased."

"As the 1980s rocketed along, our 'readers' became 'consumers.'"

Years ago, National Public Radio initiated "NPR business updates" to supplement newscasts many times each day on stations nationwide. Listeners will be disappointed if they wait for an "NPR labor update." Various public radio stations feature "Marketplace," a national daily program, and the weekly "Sound Money" show, but there is no broadcast such as "Workplace" or "Sound Labor."

Meanwhile, print outlets are loaded with money-related obsessions. TIME and Newsweek have often done cover stories on the race to amass wealth which were upbeat or even ecstatic in bullish times, and somber when the news is hard for investors to bear. In the quarter century since The New York Times founded its "Business Day" section, daily papers have turned more and more newsprint over to targeting the affluent readers most coveted by business advertisers. The Washington Post's daily business section went from two to 12 pages. Around the country, the pattern has been similar, with dailies vastly enlarging their financial coverage -- at the expense of other news. The "general circulation" press has become transfixed with the investor.

Along the way, these trends have transformed basic concepts of what it really means to be a journalist. "As the 1980s rocketed along, our 'readers' became 'consumers,'" recalls New York Times reporter Diana B. Henriques. "As the 1990s unfolded, those 'consumers' morphed into 'investors.' And today, some of us are speaking only to investors who also own computer modems." The quality of mainstream journalism has always suffered due to the power of big money in the form of ownership and advertising, but flawed bygone eras are apt to evoke fond nostalgia in the present day. "As our intended audience has gotten narrower, so have we," Henriques lamented in Columbia Journalism Review's last issue of 2000. "Business news today rarely sounds the sonorous chords or heart-lifting themes of great journalism. Most of it simply buzzes and squeaks, a reedy clarinet against a rhythm section of cash registers and ticker tape."

Back in 1989, business reporter David Cay Johnston, then at the Philadelphia Inquirer, told me: "The financial pages of the newspapers of this country see the world through the eyes of bankers as opposed to through the eyes of bank customers." These days, his words also apply to many other pages of newspapers -- as well as to other types of media outlets. With business stories migrating so extensively across the media board, the accompanying sensibilities and priorities have drastically shifted mindsets about "news." Idolatry of high-tech magnates, from Bill Gates on down, harmonizes with a prevalent tone that presents dollar assets as tacit measures of human value. In sharp contrast, across the mass-media landscape, average workers hardly qualify as noble. Often, their very human needs come across as clunky impediments to economic progress.

Contemporary journalists are accustomed to depicting the "cost" of the work force as a barrier to wealth creation. In the midst of the last decade's great boom, on April 30, 1997, a cheery article about the latest economic news appeared under this headline on the front page of The New York Times: "Markets Surge as Labor Costs Stay in Check." (For non-affluent readers, the headline might as well have read, "Great News: Your Wages Aren't Going Up.") "The stock market rocketed yesterday to its greatest gain in more than five years," the Times reported. Why? Because important people were happy that wages had barely increased in the United States, and employers had not shelled out more for "benefits like health insurance and pensions." The story spotlighted the jubilant comment of a senior economist at Goldman Sachs: "There is no question this is a better labor cost report than we had anticipated." Indeed, the conditions were "better" for employers. How about employees? Well, they didn't merit any ink. The 18-paragraph article quoted a few current and former government economists without a word from workers, their representatives or labor advocates.

Much of journalism now routinely wields monetary yardsticks.

Monologues of mass media keep confronting viewers, listeners and readers with a demand that is frequently implicit: "How much are you worth?" The usual response provided to us: "Not enough."

At the same time, big money tilts reporting and punditry. On major networks, we rarely hear a strong voice speaking against the outsized power of large corporations. Yet there are a few cracks in the media walls. In recent years, TIME Magazine has featured several muckraking cover stories about corporate influence and power that could hardly have pleased their targets. But the essence of propaganda, as any ad exec knows, is repetition. When certain stories and themes are repeated endlessly, the odds are stacked heavily against occasional muckraking journalism reverberating inside the national media's echo chamber.

Much of journalism now routinely wields monetary yardsticks. Even the most esteemed daily newspapers often cover cultural offerings by using dollar figures as overarching benchmarks, highlighting the financial earnings of various films, plays, books, paintings, CDs and music videos. The internalization of dollars as markers for human worth and artistic achievement has insidiously skewed how we view the meaning of culture and creativity. And the deep concern that Packard voiced many years ago is rendered silent, in part by the unwillingness of most American journalists to keep his question in mind. Yet it is a question that, if asked, would surely alter the steady drumbeat of today's reporting. "By encouraging people constantly to pursue the emblems of success, and by causing them to equate possessions with status, what are we doing to their emotions and their sense of values?"

Published: Jun 10 2002

Who finances Murdoch?

Bolshevik "Faux News Network" News Group International 4th April 1999

NGl's assets include the lion's share of BSkyB; Twentieth Century Fox, and major British newspapers such as The Sun, News of the World; The Times; The Sunday Times, and the Times Literary and Educational Supplements. Its Chief Executive, Rupert Murdoch, is usually regarded as a "Gentile", although he has been described as a "mamzer Jew". His father, Keith, although only a lowpaid reporter, made a fortuitous marriage to the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family, Elisabeth Joy Greene. The family fortune enabled Murdoch Senior to buy himself a knighthood, a radio station and two Adelaide newspapers, as well as to educate his son at the fashionable Geelong private school and then to send him to Oxford.

When his father died and the young Murdoch returned to Australia to take over the two newspapers. Over the next three years Murdoch plonked down millions to buy newpapers and radio and TV stations all over Australia. By 1968 Murdoch's media empire was worth 46 million. His buying spree continued throughout the 1970s, as he set up in Britain and then the United States. With his move into satellite TV and film studios, the last few years have seen Murdoch establish his influence on a truly global scale, with assets of $14.3 billion.

This remorseless rise owes something to Murdoch's undoubted knack of identifying and pandering to the lowest tastes of the public, but far more important has been the backing of four multi-national mega-money moguls. Murdoch first started to move in these circles when his father asked Lord Beaverbrook to train young Rupert in the newspaper business. Beaverbrook introduced Murdoch to Harry Oppenheimer, head of the massive Anglo-American Corporation and the deBeers diamond and gold cartel, and Edgar Bronfman. Impressed by the young Murdoch, they told him to call on them if he ever needed help.

Harry Oppenheimer. One of Murdoch's fantastically rich financial backers

Within a few years Murdoch was acting as the front-man for media buy- ups financed by Oppenheimer and Bronfman, as well as being helped by the conman Armand Hammer and the Rothschild empire. This almost limitless financial backing is the real force behind Murdoch's mercurial rise to control, among his other media interests, a yearly newspaper circulation of 3.5 billion copies.

Nor is Murdoch shy of using this enormous power to further his, and his backers' own political agenda. As far back as 1972, after Australian Labour Party leader Whitlam had agreed to pursue a 100 per-cent pro-Israeli policy and to protect Murdoch's media monopoly, the power of that monopoly was used to run a block-busting campaign which steamrollered Whitlam into power. When Whitlam promptly reneged on the deal Murdoch's media turned on him as part of the successful campaign to have Whitlam removed from office and replaced by the fervently pro-Zionist Bob Hawke.

More recently, American media mogul Ted Turner was forced to apologise to the Anti-Defamation League after likening his rival to the "late Fuehrer", alleging that, like Hitler, Murdoch uses the media outlets over which he has control to further his political agenda. Included on that agenda are attacks on Murdoch's enemies, among which he includes the Germans, the Irish, the Arabs and anti-Zionists, "the supreme traitors".

In addition to his shadowy backers, a number of the key positions around the "Dirty Digger" are held by Jews. These include Peter Chernin, who heads Murdoch's film studio and oversees his TV production, and David Elstein, Head of Programming at BSkyB until his recent promotion to the still more powerful post of Chief Executive of C 5. Chief Executive of BSkyB is Sam Chisholm, while Raymond Jaffe is the Director of Publicity and Promotion at Sky TV.

The Managing Director of The Sun and News of the World scandal sheets is A. A. Fischer, while their Managing Editors are William Newman and Stuart Kuttner respectively. Since becoming Editor of the News of the World, Wendy Henry has presided over a further degeneration of her paper, which has to be acknowledged as a remarkable achievement. Her boss Kuttner has spoken at meetings of the Board of Deputies of British Jews on the question of sensitisity in the portrayal of Jews and Israel in the media. The City Editor of the Times is Melvyn Marckus.

In October 1996 seventy Israeli tax inspectors raided the Jerusalem offices of Murdoch's News Datacom computer software subsidiary. The operation took place after the issue of a warrant alleging "tax transgressions, tax evasion and helping others to evade taxes between the years 1989 and 1996 of an amount of about $150 million. Also raided were a factory in Haifa and New Datacom's lawyers, the eminent firm of Herzog, Fox and Neeman, whose founder was the former Israeli president, Chaim Herzog. Murdoch's company protested its innocence and blamed "defamatory" comments in the Israeli media on "a continuing campaign against the company by former employees who have been sued in the UK... for defrauding (us) of millions of dollars." Whatever the truth of this affair, it provides a tantalising glimpse of the behind-the-scenes connections of the Murdoch empire.

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Parliament/3975/newshist.htm

Peter Phillips <peter.phillips@SONOMA.EDU >

Press Release Most Censored News Stories of 2001-2002

August 28, 2002 Sonoma State University Project Censored http://www.projectcensored.org/ Contact: Peter Phillips or Trish Boreta 707-664-2500

The media research group Project Censored at Sonoma State University announced today its list of the most under-covered "censored" news stories of 2001-2002. The censored news stories are published in the annual book Censored 2003 from Seven Stories Press. The Sonoma State University research group is composed of nearly 200 faculty, students, and community experts who reviewed over 900 nominations for the 2003 awards. The top 25 stories were ranked by the Project's national judges including: Michael Parenti, Robert McChesney, Robin Andersen, Norman Solomon, Carl Jensen, Lenore Foerstel and some 20 other national journalists, scholars, and writers.

"We define censorship as any interference with the free flow of information in American Society," stated Peter Phillips Director of the Project, "Corporate media in the United States is interested primarily in entertainment news to feed their bottom-line priorities. Very important news stories that should reach the American public often fall on the cutting room floor to be replaced by sex-scandals and celebrity updates." Project Censored has moved to a new cycle for the release of their annual censored stories. The Censored 2003 book will be released in September to bookstores nationwide.

The annual Project Censored awards ceremony will be held at Sonoma State University September 28 in Evert Person Theater at 7:00 PM. ($20 regular $10 students and seniors) Political Analyst/author Michael Parenti and cartoonist Dan Perkins aka Tom Tomorrow will be the keynotes speakers for the event. Davey D of KPFA's Hardknock radio will be MC for the evening. Authors of the years' most censored stories will speak and receive their awards.

Press review copies of Censored 2003 are available by calling Seven Stories Press at 212-226-8760 or e-mail greg@sevenstories.com . To purchase a personal copy of Censored 2003 call 707-664-2500 or visit www.projectcensored.org. MC and VISA accepted.

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Top Most Censored News Stories 2001-2002

# 1 FCC Moves To Privatize Airwaves

Sources: London Guardian, April 28, 20001 and Media File Autumn 2001 volume 20, #4 Title: "Global Media Giants Lobby to Privatize Entire Broadcast System" Author: Jeremy Rifkin

Mother Jones, Sept/October 2001 Title: "Losing Signal" Author: Brendan l. Koerner - bkoerner@villagevoice.com

Media File, May/June 2001 Title: "Legal Project to Challenge Media Monopoly" Author: Dorothy Kidd - kiddd@usfca.edu

For almost 70 years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has administered and regulated the broadcast spectrum as an electronic "commons" on behalf of the American people. The FCC issues licenses to broadcasters that allow them, for a fee, to use, but not own, one or more specific radio or TV frequencies. Thus, the public has retained the ability to regulate, as well as influence, access to broadcast communications. Several years ago, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, in their report "The Telecom Revolution: An American Opportunity," recommended a complete privatization of the radio frequencies, whereby broadcasters with existing licenses would eventually gain complete ownership of their respective frequencies. They could thereafter develop them in markets of their choosing, or sell and trade them to other companies. The few non-allocated bands of the radio frequency spectrum would be sold off, as electronic real estate, to the highest bidders. With nothing then to regulate, the FCC would eventually be abolished. The reasoning behind this radical plan was that government control of the airwaves has led to inefficiencies. In private hands, the frequencies would be exchanged in the marketplace, and the forces of free-market supply and demand would foster the most creative (and, of course, most profitable) use of these electronic "properties." This privatization proposal was considered too ambitious by the Clinton administration. However, in February 2001, within months after a more "pro-business" president took office, 37 leading US economists requested, in a joint letter, that the FCC allow broadcasters to lease, in secondary markets, the frequencies they currently use under their FCC license. Their thinking was that with this groundwork laid, full national privatization would follow, and eventually nations would be encouraged to sell off their frequencies to global media enterprises. Michael K. Powell, FCC Chairman, and son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a recent speech compared the FCC to the Grinch, a kind of regulatory spoilsport that could impede what he termed a historic transformation akin to the opening of the West. "The oppressor here is regulation," he declared. In April 2001, Powell dismissed the FCC's historic mandate to evaluate corporate actions based on the public interest. That standard, he said, "is about as empty a vessel as you can accord a regulatory agency." In other comments, Powell has signaled what kind of philosophy he prefers to the outdated concept of public interest. During his first visit to Capitol Hill as chairman, Powell referred to corporations simply as "our clients." Challenges to this proposed privatization of airways have emerged from a number of sources. One group, the Democratic Media Legal Project (DMLP) in San Francisco, argues that even the existing commercial media system, aided by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, is unconstitutional because it limits diversity of viewpoints, omits or misrepresents most social, political, and cultural segments, and is unaccountable to the public. Therefore, explains DMLP, advertising-based media and the 1996 Act, which encourages mergers and cross-ownership of media outlets to the exclusion of the vast majority of people, have deprived the people of their right to self-governance- as self governance can occur only when we have the unimpeded and uncensored flow of opinion and reporting that are requisite for an informed democracy. The course of wireless broadcasting is approaching an unprecedented and critical crossroad. The path taken by the United States, and by the other industrialized nations that may follow our lead, will profoundly influence the ability of the citizenry of each country to democratically control the media. Faculty evaluator: Scott Gordon, Student Researcher: Laura Huntington

# 2 New Trade Treaty Seeks to Privatize Global Social Services

Source: The Ecologist, February, 2001 Title: The Last Frontier Author: Maude Barlow - pperdue@canadians.org

A global trade agreement now being negotiated will seek to privatize nearly every government-provided public service and allow transnational corporations to run them for profit. The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is a proposed free-trade agreement that will attempt to liberalize/dismantle barriers that protect government provided social services. These are social services bestowed by the government in the name of public welfare. The GATS was established in 1994, at the conclusion of the "Uruguay Round" of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). In 1995, the GATS agreement was adopted by the newly created World Trade Organization (WTO). Corporations plan to use the GATS agreement to profit from the privatization of educational systems, health care systems, child care, energy and municipal water services, postal services, libraries, museums, and public transportation. If the GATS agreement is finalized, it will lock in a privatized, for-profit model for the global economy. GATS/WTO would make it illegal for a government with privatized services to ever return to a publicly owned, non-profit model. Any government that disobeys these WTO rulings will face sanctions. What used to be areas of common heritage like seed banks, air and water supplies, health care and education will be commodified, privatized, and sold to the highest bidder on the open market. People who cannot afford these privatized services will be left out. Services are the fastest growing sector of international trade. If GATS is implemented, corporations will reap windfall profits. Health care, education, and water services are the most potentially lucrative. Global expenditures on water services exceed $1 trillion each year, on education they exceed $2 trillion, and on health care they're over $3.5 trillion. The WTO has hired a private company called the Global Division for Transnational Education. This company plans to document policies that "discriminate against foreign education providers." The results of this 'study' will be used to pressure countries with public education systems to relinquish them to the global privatized marketplace. The futures of accountability for public services, and of sovereign law are at stake with the GATS decision. Foreign corporations will have the right to establish themselves in any GATS/WTO-controlled country and compete against non-profit or government institutions, such as schools and hospitals, for public funds. The current round of GATS negotiations has identified three main priorities for future free-trade principles. First, GATS officials are pushing for "National Treatment" to be applied across the board. "National Treatment" would forbid governments from favoring their domestic companies over foreign-based companies. This idea already applies to certain services, but GATS will enforce it to all services. This will create an expansion of mega-corporate access to domestic markets and further diminish democratic accountability. The economically dominant western countries would like to make it illegal for "developing" countries to reverse this exclusive access to their markets. Second, GATS officials are seeking to place restrictions on domestic regulations. This would limit a government's ability to enact environmental, health, and other regulations and laws that hinder "free-trade." The government would be required to demonstrate that its laws and regulations were necessary to achieve a WTO-sanctioned objective, and that no other commercially friendly alternative was available. Third, negotiators are attempting to develop the expansion of "Commercial Presence" rules. These rules allow an investor in one GATS-controlled country to establish a presence in any other GATS country. The investor will not only be allowed to compete against private suppliers for business, but will also be allowed to compete against publicly funded institutions and services for public funds. This potential expansion of GATS/WTO authority into the day-to-day business of governments will make it nearly impossible for citizens to exercise democratic control over the future of traditionally public services. One American trade official summed up the GATS/WTO process by saying, "Basically it won't stop until foreigners finally start to think like Americans, act like Americans, and most of all shop like Americans." Faculty evaluator: John Kramer, Student researchers: Chris Salvano, Adria Cooper International media coverage: Toronto Star, 3/3/02, The Herald (Glasgow) 2/27/02, The Hindu, 11/17,01 The Weekend Australian, 8/25/01, The Gazette (Montreal) 6/15/01 The Financial Times (London)

# 3 United States' Policies in Colombia Support Mass Murder

Sources: Counter Punch. July 1-15, 2001 Title: "Blueprints for the Colombian War" Author: Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair - counterpunch@erols.com

Asheville Global Report, October 4, 2001 Title: "Colombian Army and Police Still Working With Paramilitaries" Author: Jim Lobe

Steelabor, May/June 2001 Title: "Colombian Trade Unionists Need U.S. Help" Authors: Dan Kovalik and Gerald Dickey - dkovalik@uswa.org

Rachel's Environment & Health News, December 7, 2000 Title: "Echoes of Vietnam" Author: Rachel Massey - Rachel.Massey@tufts.edu

Over the past two years, Colombia has been Washington's third largest recipient of foreign aid, behind only Israel and Egypt. In July of 2000, the U.S. Congress approved a $1.3 billion war package for Colombia to support President Pastrana's "Plan Colombia." Plan Colombia is a $7.5 billion counter-narcotics initiative. In addition to this financial support, the US also trains the Colombian military. Colombia's annual murder rate is 30,000. It is reported that around 19,000 of these murders are linked to illegal right-wing paramilitary forces. Many leaders of these paramilitary groups were once officers in the Colombian military, trained at the U.S. Military run School of the Americas. According to the Human Rights Watch Report, a 120-page report titled "The 'Sixth Division': Military-Paramilitary Ties and US Policy in Colombia," Colombian armed forces and police continue to work closely with right-wing paramilitary groups. The government of President Pastrana and the US administration have played down evidence of this cooperation. Jim Lobe says that Human Rights Watch holds the Pastrana administration responsible for the current, violent situation because of its dramatic and costly failure to take prompt, effective control of security forces, break their persistent ties to paramilitary groups, and ensure respect for human rights. Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair contend that the war in Colombia isn't about drugs. It's about the annihilation of popular uprisings by Indian peasants fending off the ravages of oil companies, cattle barons and mining firms. It is a counter-insurgency war, designed to clear the way for American corporations to set up shop in Colombia. Cockburn and St. Clair examined two Defense Department commissioned reports, the RAND Report and a paper written by Gabriel Marcella, titled "Plan Colombia: the Strategic and Operational Imperatives." Both reports recommend that the US step up its military involvement in Colombia. In addition, the reports make several admissions about the paramilitaries and their links to the drug trade, regarding human rights abuses by the US-trained Colombian military, and about the irrationality of crop fumigation. Throughout these past two years, Colombian citizens have been the victims of human rights atrocities committed by the US-trained Colombian military and linked paramilitaries. Trade unionists and human rights activists face murder, torture, and harassment. It is reported that Latin America remains the most dangerous place in the world for trade unionists. Since 1986, some 4,000 trade unionists have been murdered in Colombia. In 2000 alone, more trade unionists were killed in Colombia than in the whole world in 1999. Another problem resulting from the Colombian "drug war" has been the health consequences of the US-sponsored aerial fumigation. Since January 2001, Colombian aircraft have been spraying toxic herbicides over Colombian fields in order to kill opium poppy and coca plants. These sprayings are killing food crops that indigenous Colombians depend on for survival, as well as harming their health. The sprayings have killed fish, livestock, and have contaminated water supplies. The US provides slightly over 1 billion dollars of military aid for what is known as "Plan Colombia," yet it is more a war against citizens and those who are fighting for social justice. US aid is not improving conditions for the people of Colombia, but rather supporting the government and right-wing paramilitary groups. According to an American member of the international steelworker delegation, Jesse Isbell, who recently visited Columbia, "The US says one thing to the American public when in reality it is [doing] something totally different. Our government portrays this as a drug war against cocaine but all we are doing is keeping an ineffective government in power." Faculty Evaluators: Jorge Porras, Fred Fletcher, , Student Researchers: Lauren Renison, Adam Cimino, Erik Wagle, Gabrielle Mitchell

#4 Bush Administration Hampered FBI Investigation into Bin Laden Family Before 9/11

Sources: Pulse, 1/16/02 Title: "French book indicts Bush Administration" Author: Amanda Luker - amandaonx@riseup.net

Times Of India, November 8, 2001 Title: "Bush took FBI agents off Bin Laden family trail" Author: Rashmee Z. Ahmed

The Guardian (London) In cooperation with BBC television News Night November 7, 2001 Title: "FBI and US spy agents say Bush spiked bin Laden probes before 11 September" Author: Greg Palast and David Pallister - Greg@gregPalast.com and david.pallister@guardian.co.uk

A French book Bin Laden, la verite interdite (Bin Laden, the forbidden truth) claims that the Bush Administration halted investigations into terrorist activities related to the bin Laden family and began planning for a war against Afghanistan before 9-11. The authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, are French intelligence analysts. Dasquie, an investigative reporter, publishes Intelligence Online, which is a respected newsletter on economics and diplomacy. Brisard worked for French secret services and in 1997 wrote a report on the Al Qaeda network. In 1996, high-placed intelligence sources in Washington told the Guardian, "There were always constraints on investigating the Saudis." The authors allege that under the influence of US oil companies, George W. Bush and his administration initially halted investigations into terrorism, while bargaining with the Taliban to deliver Osama bin Laden in exchange for economic aid and political recognition. The book goes on to reveal that former FBI deputy director John O'Neill resigned in July of 2001 in protest over the obstruction of terrorist investigations. According to O'Neill, "The main obstacles to investigating Islamic terrorism were US oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it." The restrictions were said to have worsened after the Bush administration took over. Intelligence agencies were told to "back off" from investigations involving other members of the bin Laden family, the Saudi royals, and possible Saudi links to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Pakistan. John O'Neil died on 9/11 in the World Trade Center. An FBI file coded 199, which means a case involving national security, records that Abdullah bin Laden, who lived in Washington, originally had a file opened on him "because of his relationship with the Saudi-funded World Assembly of Muslim Youth - a suspected terrorist organization." The BBC reiterated a well-known claim, made by one of George W. Bush's former business partners, that Bush made his first million dollars 20 years ago from a company financed by Osama's elder brother, Salem. It has also been revealed that both the Bushs and the bin Ladens had lucrative stakes in the Carlyle Group, a private investment firm that has grown to be one of the largest investors in US defense and communications contracts. Brisard and Dasquie contend that the government's main objective in Afghanistan was to unite the Taliban regime in order to gain access to the oil and gas reserves in Central Asia. Brisard and Dasquie report that the Bush government began negotiations with the Taliban directly after coming into power and representatives met several times in Washington, Islamabad, and Berlin. There were also claims that the last meeting between the United States and Taliban representatives took place only five weeks before the attacks in New York and Washington. Long before the September 11th attacks, the United States had decided to invade Afghanistan in the interest of oil. In February of 1998, at the hearing before a sub-group of the Committee on International Relations, Congress discussed ways to deal with Afghanistan to make way for an oil pipeline. Jane's Defense News reported in March 2001 that an invasion of Afghanistan was being planned. Times of India reported that in June of 2001, the US Government told India that there would be an invasion of Afghanistan in October of that year. By July of 2001 George Arney, with the BBC, also reported the planned invasion. Faculty evaluator: Catherine Nelson, Student researchers: Donald Yoon, David Immel Corporate media coverage: L.A. Times, 1/13/02 Part A-1, page 11

# 5 U.S. Intentionally Destroyed Iraq's Water System

Sources: The Progressive, September 2001 Title: "The Secret Behind the Sanctions: How the U.S. Intentionally Destroyed Iraq's Water Supply" Author: Thomas J. Nagy - nagy@gwu.edu www.progressive.org

During the Gulf War the United States deliberately bombed Iraq's water system. After the war, the U.S. pushed sanctions to prevent importation of necessary supplies for water purification. These actions resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians many of whom were young children. Documents have been obtained from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which prove that the Pentagon was fully aware of the mortal impacts on civilians in Iraq and was actually monitoring the degradation of Iraq's water supply. The destruction of civilian infrastructures necessary for health and welfare is a direct violation of the Geneva Convention. After the Gulf War, the United Nations applied sanctions against Iraq, which denied the importation of specialized equipment and chemicals, such as chlorine for purification of water. There are six documents that have been partially declassified and can be found on the Pentagon's web site at www.gulflink.osd.mil. These documents include information that prove that the United States was fully aware of the costs to civilians, especially children, by upholding the sanctions against purification of Iraq's water supply. The primary document is dated January 22, 1991 and is titled, "Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities." This document predicts what will take place when Iraq can no longer import the vital commodities to cleanse their water supply. It states that epidemics and disease outbreaks may occur because of pollutants and bacteria that exist in unpurified water. The document acknowledges the fact that without purified drinking water, the manufacturing of food and medicine will also be affected. The possibilities of Iraqis obtaining clean water, despite sanctions, along with a timetable describing the degradation of Iraq's water supply was also addressed. The remaining five documents from the DIA confirm the Pentagon's monitoring of the situation in Iraq. In more than one document, discussion of the likely outbreaks of diseases and how they affect "particularly children" is discussed in great detail. The final document titled, "Iraq: Assessment of Current Health Threats and Capabilities," is dated, November 15, 1991, and discusses the development of a counter-propaganda strategy that would blame Saddam Hussein for the lack of safe water in Iraq. The United States' insistence on using this type of sanction against Iraq is in direct violation of the Geneva Convention. The Geneva Convention was created in 1979 to protect the victims of international armed conflict. It states, "It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless, objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population such as foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installation and supplies, and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive." The United States, for nearly a decade, has "destroyed, removed, or rendered useless" Iraq's "drinking water installations and supplies." Although two Democratic Representatives, Cynthia McKinney from Georgia and Tony Hall from Ohio, have spoken out about the degradation of Iraq's water supply and its civilian targets, no acknowledgment of violations has been made. The U.S. policy of destroying the water treatment system of Iraq and preventing its re-establishment has been pursued for more than a decade. The United Nations estimates that more than 500,000 Iraqi children have died as a result of sanctions and that unclean water is a major contributor to these deaths. Faculty evaluator: Rick Luttmann, Student researchers: Adria Cooper, Erik Wagle, Adam Cimino, Chris Salvano

# 6 U.S. Government Pushing Nuclear Revival

Sources: Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists, July/August 2001 Title: "The New-Nuke Chorus Tunes Up" Author: Stephen I. Schwartz - sschwartz@thebulletin.org

The US Government is blazing a trail of nuclear weapon revival leading to global nuclear dominance. A nuke-revival group, supported by people like Stephen Younger, Associate Director for Nuclear Weapons at Los Alamos, proposes a "mini-nuke" capable of burrowing into underground weapon supplies and unleashing a small, but contained nuclear explosion. This weapons advocacy group is comprised of nuclear scientists, Department of Energy (DoE) officials, right wing analysts, former government officials, and a congressionally appointed over-sight panel. The group wants to ensure that the U.S. continues to develop nuclear capacity into the next half century. Achieving this goal of nuclear dominance will take far more than just refurbishing existing weapons and developing new ones. A decade long effort, that would cost in the $8 billion range, would be needed just to bring old production sites up to standard. Billions more would be needed to produce and maintain a new generation of nuclear weapons. This plan has not been presented to the public for their consideration or approval. Part of the plan includes the building of "mini-nukes," which would have a highly accurate ability to penetrate underground stockpiles of weapons and command centers. The recent interest in such weapons is based on two premises. First, the belief that only nuclear weapons can destroy these underground networks, so the "mini-nuke" would deter other countries from using these underground systems. Second, these new bombs would give government the option to launch a nuclear strike to take out a small target while delivering minimal civilian casualties. It is believed that these bombs could specifically target underground headquarters or weapon stockpiles in Korea, Iraq, or Iran. Princeton theoretical physicist Robert W. Nelson has studied the question for the Federation of American Scientists. Nelson concluded, "No earth-burrowing missile can penetrate deep enough into the earth to contain an explosion with a nuclear yield even as small as 1 percent of the 15-kiloton Hiroshima weapon. The explosion simply blows out a massive crater of radioactive dirt, which rains down on the local region with an especially intense and deadly fallout." Nelson used data from the Plowshares program of the 1960s and from the 828 underground nuclear tests conducted in Nevada. The two sources show that full containment of a 5-kiloton explosion is only possible at 650 feet or more, while a 1-kiloton explosion must take place at least 450 feet into the earth. These figures are taken at optimum conditions, where weapons are placed in a specially sealed shaft in a well understood geological environment. The "mini-nukes" will be expected to penetrate into deeply hardened targets in unyielding conditions. Nelson also concludes that a 10-foot missile could only be expected to penetrate 100 feet into concrete and steel, a depth far too shallow to contain even a very small explosion. The Panel to Assess the Reliability, Safety, and Security of the United States Nuclear Stockpile has recommended spending $4 billion to $6 billion over the next decade to restore the production capabilities of plutonium pit plants in the U.S. The DoE is currently spending $147 million on pit production at Los Alamos this year and is requesting $218 million for 2002. A renovated Los Alamos will be capable of producing up to 20 pits a year by 2007. Last year the DoE received $2 million to design a new pit plant capable of producing 450 cores of plutonium a year. This would generate approximately half the amount of plutonium produced during the latter period of the Cold War. The facilities at some of these nuclear production plants are in drastic states of disrepair. Only 26 percent of the weapons complex buildings are in excellent or good condition. One laboratory building at Los Alamos wraps pipes carrying radioactive waste in plastic bags to prevent leakage. The roofs at other facilities are allowing rainwater to seep into the rooms where nuclear weapons are inspected and repaired. Faculty Evaluator: Sasha Von Meier, Student Researcher: Erik Wagle Corporate News Coverage: Los Angeles Times, March 17, 2002. USA Today, March 18, 2002.

# 7 Corporations Promote HMO Model for School Districts

Sources: Multi-National Monitor, January/February 2002 Title: "Business Goes to School: The For-Profit Corporate Drive to Run Public Schools" Author: Barbara Miner - barbaraminer@ameritech.net

The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2000 Title: "Dunces of Public Education Reform" Author: Frosty Troy - ftroy@keytech.com

North Coast Xpress, Winter 2000 Title: "Corporate-Sponsored Tests Aim to Standardize Our Kids" Author: Dennis Fox - df@dennisfox.net

In These Times, June 2001 Title: "Testing, Testing: The Miseducation of George W. Bush" Author: Linda Lutton

For decades, public schools have purchased innumerable products and services from private companies-from text books to bus transportation. Within the last decade, however, privatization has taken on a whole new meaning. Proponents of privatized education are now interested in taking over entire school districts. "Education today, like healthcare 30 years ago, is a vast, highly localized industry ripe for change," says Mary Tanner, managing director of Lehman Brothers, "The emergence of HMOs and hospital management companies created enormous opportunities for investors. We believe the same pattern will occur in education." So while the aptly named Educational Management Organizations (EMO's) are being promoted as the new answer to impoverished school districts and dilapidated classrooms, the real emphasis is on investment returns rather than student welfare and educational development. According to some analysts, Bush's proposal for national standardized testing is helping to pave the way for these EMO's. Bush wants yearly standardized testing in reading and math for every student in the country between the third and eighth grades. "School districts and states that do well will be rewarded," Bush states in his education agenda, No Child Left Behind, "Failure will be sanctioned." The effect of Bush's testing plan will be nothing less than a total reconstruction of curriculum and instruction across the country. Perversely, schools with already limited resources, serving poor and minority communities, will be those under the greatest pressure to boost scores or face loss of funding. Additionally, standardized testing funnels public dollars directly to non-public schools, including religious schools, through taxpayer-supported vouchers. School vouchers, proposed by Bush in his education plan to increase federal education spending, will reward schools that do well on annual standardized tests. Vouchers shunt kids out of the public schools system and into private for-profit institutions. Since only public school students take the standardized tests, kids whose parents can afford private schools don't have to agonize year after year about potential failure. Standardized testing hits immigrant students especially hard. Bush wants to freeze funding in 2002, despite surging enrollment of students speaking limited English. Angelo Amador, a national policy analyst for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, says, "With the pulling of bilingual education funding, states with high-stakes testing are pushing low-performing Latino students into special education classes or out of school altogether in an effort to keep their test scores high." Critics charge that standardization's real goal is not to improve public education but to disparage it while building support for privatized, union-free alternatives. Proponents of corporate-run education claim that, by cutting the "fat" out of the system, they can improve student achievement with the same amount of money, and still turn a profit (Ignoring the fact that the U.S. is ranked ninth globally in terms of money spent on education). The reality is that, though most EMO's have yet to show investors a profit, they generally cut teacher salaries, eliminate remedial, special, and bilingual education programs (mandated for public schools), and consistently perform at or below the level of surrounding schools in test scores. Privatization opponents say that public education should serve and be run by the public, especially teachers and parents, as opposed to shareholders who run the for-profit companies. Faculty Evaluators: Perry Marker, Tom Ormond, and Elaine Sundberg Student Researchers: Lauren Fox, Derek Fieldsoe, Joshua Travers

# 8 NAFTA Destroys Farming Communities in U.S. and Abroad

Sources: Fellowship of Reconciliation, Dec. 2000/Jan. 2001 Title: NAFTA's devastating effects are clear in Mexico, Haiti Author: Anita Martin

The Hightower Lowdown, September 2001 Title: NAFTA gives the shafta to North America's farmers Author: Jim Hightower - info@jimhightower.com

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are responsible for the impoverishment of and loss of many small farms in Mexico and Haiti. NAFTA is also causing the economic destruction of rural farming communities in the United States and Canada. The resulting loss of rural employment has created a landslide of socio-economic and environmental consequences that are worsening with the continued dismantling and deregulation of trade barriers. When NAFTA came before Congress in 1993, US farmers were told that the agreement would open the borders of Mexico and Canada, enabling them to sell their superior products and achieve previously unknown prosperity. Corporations who operate throughout the Americas, such as Tyson and Cargill, have since used the farming surplus to drive down costs, pitting farmers against each other and prohibiting countries from taking protective actions. These same corporations have entered into massive farming ventures outside the U.S. and use NAFTA to import cheaper agricultural products back into this country, further undermining the small farmers in the U.S. Since the enactment of NAFTA, 80% of foodstuffs coming into the U.S. are products that displace crops raised here at home. NAFTA has allowed multinational mega-corporations to increase production in Mexico, where they can profit from much cheaper labor, as well as freely use chemicals and pesticides banned in the U.S. In both Mexico and Haiti, NAFTA policies have caused an exodus from rural areas forcing people to live in urban slums and accept low paid sweatshop labor. Farmers in Mexico, unable to compete with the large-scale importation and chemical-intensive mass production of U.S. agricultural corporations, are swimming in a corn surplus that has swelled approximately 450% since NAFTA's implementation. Haiti's deregulation of trade with the U.S. has destroyed the island's rice industry in a similar manner. Urban slums, engorged with rural economic refugees, are contributing to the breakdown of cultural traditions and public authority, making the growing masses increasingly ungovernable. The Mexican government clashes violently with any organized protest of NAFTA. Dissent in Chiapas and in Central Mexico has lead to the reported arrests, injuries, and deaths of dozens of activists. Community leaders like Minister Lucius Walker, executive of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization, state that, "The biggest challenge facing all of us in this new millennium is to build a citizens' movement to counter the corporate captivity of the Americas." The1993 NAFTA agreement desolated small farming communities in the U.S. and in Mexico and Haiti. With the scheduled 2009 lift on tariffs and import restrictions, as well as Bush's proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) adding 31 more countries to the NAFTA agreement, many additional farming communities are in danger. Faculty Evaluators: Tony White, Al Wahrhaftig Student researchers: Adam Cimino, Erik Wagle, Alessandra Diana

#9 U.S. Faces National Housing Crisis

Source: In These Times, November 2000 Title: "There's No Place Like Home" Author: Randy Shaw - randy@thclinic.org

The national housing crisis affects nearly 6 million American families and is growing worse. Over 1.5 million low-cost housing units have recently been lost, and millions of children are growing up in housing that is substandard, unaffordable and dangerous. A new crisis in affordable housing is spreading across America. What was once a problem relegated to low income families along the east and west coasts, is now affecting the middle-class all across the country. Middle-class working Americans are having just as much trouble finding affordable housing as low-income families did ten years ago. In San Francisco, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) subsidizing housing for public school teachers. California business groups complain that the State's housing shortage hinders their ability to attract skilled workers, and chambers of commerce link lack of affordable housing to a resultant slowdown in economic growth. Julie Daniels earns $28,000 a year working full time as a certified nursing assistant for Stamford, Connecticut. A member of local 1199, Daniels and her three children have been unable to obtain affordable housing within traveling distance of her job. The family's only available housing option has been a homeless shelter, and the prospects that Daniels will obtain safe and affordable housing are unlikely. Still, politicians refuse to add federal funded housing to the U.S. budget. Low-cost housing programs are slowly being drained of funding. More than 100,000 federally subsidized units have been converted to market-rate housing in the past three years. While the $5 billion Federal Housing Administration surplus is tied up in Washington, neither major political party seems responsive to the current housing crisis. Neither party is addressing issues of living wage, adequate health care, or affordable housing. Homelessness has become the result for many families across the nation. The economic slowdown, the welfare reform of 1996, and the events of September 11 are pushing hard working Americans into the street. In New York alone it is estimated that 30,000 people are living in shelters, and many thousands more live on the street. In Chicago, over 20,000 units of public housing units have been removed from service and some 50,000 people now reside in the streets. In an era when there is only one apartment for every six potential renters in this country, Congress has taken no action to address this problem. Corporate media has only covered this issue locally and few corporate media reports have recognized this as a national crisis. Faculty Evaluator: Susan Garfin, Student Researcher: Eduardo Barragan, Catherine Jensen Corporate media coverage: U.S. Newswire, 1/18/02 Other corporate coverage mostly limited to local and regional housing issues

#10 CIA Double Deals In Macedonia

Sources: www.globalresearch.ca , June 14, 2001 Title: "America at War in Macedonia" Author: Michel Chossudovsky - chossudovsky@videotron.ca

www.globalresearch.ca , July 26, 2001 Title: "NATO Invades Macedonia" Author: Michel Chossudovsky

The CIA destabilized the political balance in Macedonia to allow easier access for a US-British owned oil pipeline, and to prevent Macedonia from entering the European Union (EU), thereby strengthening the US dollar in a German deutschmark dominated region. Without Macedonia in the EU, British and US oil companies have an advantage over European counterparts in building oil pipelines. Actions toward destabilization intend to impose economic control over national currencies, and protect British-US oil companies such as BP-Amoco-ARCO, Chevron, and Texaco against Europe's Total-Fina-Elf. The British-US consortium controls the AMBO Trans-Balkin pipeline project linking the Bulgarian port of Burgas to Vlore on the Albanian Adriatic coastline. The power game is designed to increase British-US domination in the region by distancing Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Albania from the influence of EU countries such as Germany, Italy, France and Belgium. It's an effort supported by Wall Street's financial establishment, to destabilize and discredit the deutschmark and the Euro, with hopes of imposing the US dollar as the sole currency for the region. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and the National Liberation Army (NLA) were trained in Macedonia by British Special Forces and equipped by the CIA. British military sources confirm that Gezim Ostremi, NLA Commander, was sponsored by the UN and trained by British Special Forces to head the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC). When Ostremi left his job as a United Nations Officer to join the NLA, the commander remained on the UN payroll. Attacks within Macedonia by the NLA/KLA last year, coincided chronologically with the process of EU enlargement and the signing of the historic Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) between the EU and Macedonia. These attacks paved the way for further US military and political presence in the region. In a strange twist the CIA, NATO, and British Special Forces provided weapons and training to the NLA/KLA terrorists, while at the same time, Germany provided Macedonia's security forces with all-terrain vehicles, advanced weapons, and equipment to protect themselves from NLA/KLA attacks. US military advisers, on assignment to the KLA/NLA through private mercenary companies, remained in contact with NATO and US military and intelligence planners. It was Washington and London who decided on the broad direction of KLA-NLA military operations in Macedonia. Following the August, 2001 Framework Peace Agreement, 3,500 armed NATO troops entered Macedonia with the intent of disarming Albanian rebels. Washington's humanitarian efforts for the NLA/KLA suggested its intent to protect the terrorists rather then disarm them. Vice President Dick Cheney's former firm, Halliburton Energy, is directly linked to the AMBO's Trans-Balkans Oil Pipeline. Last year's conflict in Macedonia is a small part of a growing rift between the Anglo-American and European interests in the Balkans. In the wake of the war in Yugoslavia, Britain has allied itself with the US and severed many of its ties with Germany, France, and Italy. Washington's design is to ensure the dominance of the US military-industrial complex, in alliance with Britain's major defense contractors, and British-US oil. These developments establish significant control over strategic pipelines, transportation, and communication corridors in the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union. Faculty evaluators: Elizabeth Burch, Phil Beard, John Lund Student researchers: Alessandra Diana, David V. Immel

#11 Bush Appoints Former Criminals to Key Government Roles

The Nation, May 7th 2001 Title: "Bush's Contra Buddies" Author: Peter Kornbluh

In These Times, 06 August 2001 Title: "Public Serpent; Iran-Contra Villain Elliott Abrams is Back in Action" Author: Terry Allen - tallen@aiusa.org and tallen@igc.org

Extra, September/October 2001 Title: "Scandal? What Scandal?" Author: Terry Allen

The Guardian, February 8, 2002 Title: "Friends of Terrorism" Duncan Campbell - Duncan.Campbell@guardian.co.uk

18 February 2002 "No More Mr. Scrupulous Guy" Author: John Sutherland

Washingtonian, April 2002 Title: "True or False: Iran-Contra's John Poindexter is Back at the Pentagon" Author: Michael Zuckerman

Since becoming President, George Bush has brought back into government service several men who were discredited by criminal involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, lying to Congress, and other felonies while working for his father George Bush senior and Ronald Reagan

#12 NAFTA's Chapter 11 Overrides Public Protection Laws of Countries

The Nation, October 15, 2001 Title: The Right and US Trade Law: Invalidating the 20th Century" Author: William Greider - wgreider@att.net

Terrain, Fall 2001 Title: Seven Years of NAFTA Author: David Huffman - huffman@econ.berkeley.edu

Certain investor protections in NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) are giving business investors new power over sovereign nations and providing an expansive new definition of property rights.

# 13 Henry Kissinger and Gerald Ford Lied to the American Public about East Timor

Asheville Global Report, 12/13/2001 Title: Documents Show US Sanctioned Invasion of East Timor Author: Jim Lobe, (IPS) - jlobe@starpower.net

The release of previously classified documents makes it clear that former President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in a face-to-face meeting in Jakarta, gave then President Suharto a green light for the 1975 invasion of East Timor.

# 14 New Laws Restrict Access to Abortions in US

Mother Jones, September/ October 2001 Title: "The Quiet War on Abortion" Author: Barry Yeoman - byeoman@duke.edu

A quiet war against abortion rights is being conducted by many local governments in the United States. Cities and counties are placing repressive legal restrictions on abortion providers under the guise of women's health laws. These restrictions can include: width of hallways, jet and angle type of drinking fountains, the heights of ceilings, and how long one must wait between initially seeing the doctor and when the procedure can be performed.

#15 Bush's Energy Plan Threatens Environment and Public Health

www.TomPaine.com , Alternet, www.alternet.org , February 15,2002 Title: The Loyal Opposition: Bush's Global-warming Smog Author: David Corn - Dacor@aol.com

Environment News Service, July, 2001 Title: Bush Energy Plan Could Increase Pollution Author: Cat Lazaroff - cat@ens-news.com

The Progressive Populist, March 15, 2002 Title: Smog Screen Author: David Corn

The Bush administration's energy plan will actually increase air pollution in the United States. The plan calls for increased fossil fuel consumption, and for decreased funding for research into renewable, clean energy development.

# 16 CIA Kidnaps Suspects for Overseas Torture and Execution

Weekend Australian, February, 23, 2003, p. 1 Title: Love Letter Tracks Terrorist's Footsteps Author: Don Greenlees - austjak@attglobal.net

World Socialist Website: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/mar2002/cia-m20_prn.shtml March 20, 2002 Title: U.S. Oversees Abduction, Torture, Execution of Alleged Terrorists Author: Barry Grey

Original U.S. Source: *

The Washington Post March 11, 2002, pg. A01 Title; U.S. Behind Secret Transfer of Terror Suspects" Authors: Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Peter Finn, W.P. Foreign Service, March 11, 2002, pg. A01

U.S. agents are involved in abducting people they suspect of terrorist activities and sending them to countries where torture during interrogation is legal.

# 17 Corporate Media Ignores Key Issues of the Anti-Globalization Protests

Columbia Journalism Review JR, September/October 2001 Title: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: The Globalization Protests and the Befuddled Press Author: John Giuffo - jjg151@columbia.edu

The U.S. press failed to inform the public of the core underlying issues of the major anti-globalization protests of recent years.

#18 World's Coral Reefs Dying

Harpers, January 2001 Title: Shoals Of Time: Are We Witnessing The Extinction of the World's Coral Reefs? Author: Julia Whitty - julwhitty@aol.com

One-quarter of all coral reefs have been destroyed by pollution, sedimentation, over-fishing, and rapid global climate change

# 19 American Companies Exploit the Congo

Dollars and Sense, July/August 2001 Title: The Business of War in the Democratic Republic Of Congo: Who benefits? Authors: Dena Montague, Frieda Berrigan - MontD033@newschool.edu

Voice (Pioneer Valley, MA), March/April, 2001 Title: Depopulation and Perception Management (Part 2: Central Africa) Author: keith harmon snow - lilyfairies@hotmail.com

Western multinational corporations' attempts to cash in on the wealth of Congo's resources have resulted in what many have called "Africa's first world war," claiming the lives of over 3 million people.

# 20 Novartis' Gene Research Endangers Global Plant Life

The London Observer, October 8, 2000 Title: Gene Scientists Disable Plants' Immune Systems Author: Antony Barnett - a.barnettt@worc.ac.uk

Scientists working for Swiss food giant Novartis have developed and patented a method for 'switching off' the immune systems of plants, to the outrage of environmentalists and Third World charities who believe the new technology to be the most dangerous use so far of gene modification.

# 21 Large U.S Temp Company Undermines Union Jobs and Mistreats Workers

The Progressive Populist, June 1, 2001 Title: Temps are Ready for Organizing If AFL-CIO Provides the Muscle Author: Harry Kelber - Hkelber@igc.org

Labor Ready Inc. is a national temporary employment agency that employed over 700,000 people in 2000. Labor Ready has 839 offices in 49 states and in Canada, and stands ready to place temporary workers as strikebreakers in union labor disputes.

# 22 Fish Farms Threaten Health of Consumers and Aquatic Habitats

Mother Jones Magazine, November / December 2001 Title: Aquaculture's Troubled Harvest Author: Bruce Barcott - westisbest@worldnet.att.net

PEW Oceans Commission Report on Marine Aquaculture, 2001 www.pewoceans.org Title: Marine Aquaculture in the United States: Environmental Impacts and Policy Options Authors: Rebecca J. Goldburg, Matthew S. Elliott, Rosamond L. Naylor

Farmed fish provide one-third of the seafood consumed by people worldwide. In the US, aquaculture supplies almost all of the catfish and trout as well as half of the shrimp and salmon. Unfortunately, aquaculture's harm to people and surrounding environments may be greater than its highly anticipated benefits.

#23 Horses Face Lives of Unnecessary Abuse for Drug Company Profits The Animals' Agenda March/April 2001 Title: Pissing their Lives Away Author: Susan Wagner - equineadvocates@mindspring.com

Faculty Evaluator: Wendy Ostroff Student Researchers: Kelly Hand, Adam Cimino, Haley Mueller

Pregnant horses are four legged drug machines-being repeatedly impregnated and confined to narrow stalls as their urine is collected to produce Permarin a drug used by millions of menopausal women.

#24 Wal-Mart Takes Union Busting to the State Level

Madison Capital Times, August, 2001 Title: Wal-Mart Ravages Workers' Rights By John Nichols - jnichols@madison.com Reprinted In Asheville Global Report 9/6/01

Wal-Mart has been pouring a considerable amount of money into a state level political campaigns supporting right to works law that reduce the wages and benefits for workers.

#25 Federal Government Bails Out Failing Private Prisons

The American Prospect , September 10, 2001 Title: Bailing Out Private Jails Author: Judith Greene - greenej1@mindspring.com

Private prisons have been rife with more abuse and lawsuits than state run prisons, leading to a decline in state level support, but the federal government is stepping in to bail them out.

PROJECT CENSORED 2003 NATIONAL JUDGES

Prof. Robin Andersen, Fordham University , media studies Richard Barnet, author Liane Clorfene-Casten, journalist, president, Chicago Media Watch Dr. George Gerbner, School of Communications, Univ. of Pennsylvania. Lenore Foerstel, Progressive International Media Exchange Prof. Robert Hackett, School of Communications, Simon Fraser University; director of News Watch Canada Dr. Carl Jensen, author, founder and former director of Project Censored Prof. Sut Jhally, Media Education Foundation, University of Massachusetts Prof. Nicholas Johnson, University of Iowa law school; FCC Commissioner, 1966-1973. Norman Solomon, author Rhoda H. Karpatkin, president, Consumers Union Charles I. Klotzer, editor, publisher emeritus, St. Louis Journalism Review Nancy Kranich, dean, NY University Libraries, past president of American Library Association. Judity Krug, director, Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association. Prof. Robert McChesney, author, member of Institute of Communications Research and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prof. William Lutz, Rutgers University English department Julianne Malveaux, Ph.D., economist, columnist, King Features, Pacifica radio. Prof. Jack Nelson, Rutgers University, education. Michael Parenti, author Dan Perkins, political cartoonist, creator of Tom Tomorrow Barbara Seaman, author Prof. Erna Smith, San Francisco State, journalism Norman Solomon, Columnist and Author Sheila Rabb Weidenfeld, president, D.C. Productions, Ltd.; former press secretary to Betty Ford

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''The propaganda war: common myths held by the American public''

Printed on Friday, September 13, 2002 @ 12:01:46 EDT ( )

By Raff Ellis YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)

(YellowTimes.org) – Nearly every Internet user has received a mailing describing an "Only in America" outrageous litigation and award. One such is the man who won $74,000 after his hand was run over while he was stealing hubcaps from his neighbor's car. These false tales take on a life of their own that is incredible and are commonly known as urban legends. That thousands believe such tales is somewhat surprising but illustrates how gullible the general public is and how susceptible to disinformation they are.

No area is more rife with false information than the Middle East. Our government has certainly been guilty of such practices and is cranking up the big lie machine in its drive to dignify war with Iraq. The staunch supporters of the state of Israel in the media and government assault the public stories that don't stand the light of day. But once out there, they also take on a life of their own and the "man in the street" repeats them without fail. Let's look at some of the most common of these myths.

1. Israel has been attacked time and again by its enemies and is only defending itself.

In actuality, the vast majority of the time Israel has been the attacker. Certainly they claim provocation for these attacks but they have lied and spread disinformation in many cases. In 1956, Israel attacked Egypt, capturing the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip and was forced to withdraw by President Eisenhower.

In 1967 Israel launched its six-day war against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, announcing it had been attacked. It used Egypt's military maneuvers in the Sinai and the intent to blockade the Strait of Tiran as its cover for the incursion and only after the war was over did it admit it had launched a preemptive strike. If it was in the right, why did it feel it had to lie? If Egypt was indeed attacking Israel, no one bothered to ask why Egypt's entire air force was destroyed on the ground. It has been documented (see former NSA operative James Bamford's Body of Secrets, pp 139-239), that Israel had planned this war for a long time.

When Egypt went to war in the Sinai in 1973, attempting to regain the territory taken from it in 1967, it was in essence attacking its own land, not Israel's.

In 1978 Israel invaded and occupied South Lebanon, which they held for 22 years. In 1982, they drove all the way to Beirut creating some 30,000 casualties in the process.

So, independent of all the "drive them into the sea" and "death to the Arabs" rhetoric, who is the principal aggressor here? Israel has been the attacker in almost all Middle East wars; at times has bombed Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia and even the United States via its attack on the USS Liberty in June 1967. They tried to sink the Liberty with all hands because they feared that the spy ship had monitored communications wherein they lured Jordan and Syria into the 1967 war, and seen the war crimes they were committing in the Sinai. None of the above countries has bombed Israel, save several Scud missiles launched from Iraq during the Gulf War for which there were virtually no casualties.

2. Israel wants peace with the Palestinians and its generous offers have been rebuffed at every turn.

It is the Israelis who have successfully scuttled every so-called "peace accord." The original Camp David Accords, under the Carter administration, which returned the Sinai to Egypt, was supposed to halt settlement activity in the West Bank. The Israelis have added thousands more settlers since then.

The so-called "generous offer" by Ehud Barak two years ago, has taken on a life of its own as standard by which Palestinian folly is to be judged. The truth of this generous offer, which was never set forth in writing, can be summarized as follows:

a. It denied Palestinians control over their own borders, airspace and water resources while legitimizing and expanding the illegal Israeli colonies.

b. It re-packaged the military occupation by keeping military outposts for an "indefinite period" to protect their settlements

c. It required the annexation of nearly 9 percent of the Occupied Territories in exchange for only 1 percent of Israel's current territory and an additional 10 percent of the Occupied Territories in the form of a "long-term lease."

d. It divided Palestine into four separate, surrounded cantons: the Northern West Bank, the Central West Bank, the Southern West Bank and Gaza subjecting movement of people and goods within their own country to Israeli control.

This was Israel's generous offer, which no Palestinian leader of sound mind could accept.

3. The Palestinians don't recognize Israel's right to exist.

Palestinians recognized Israel's right to exist in 1988 and re-iterated this recognition on several occasions including Madrid in 1991 and Oslo in 1993. Israel has yet to recognize Palestine's right to exist.

4. It is unreasonable for the Palestinians to insist on the right of return because this would endanger Israel's security.

It is interesting that Jews from all over the world have inherited "the right of return" to a place to which they have no geographical or ancestral lien and yet, Palestinians, whose forbears may have lived there for a thousand years or more, have no such rights. The Palestinian refugees were never seriously discussed at the last Camp David because Barak declared that Israel bore no responsibility for the refugee problem or its solution, international law and UN Resolutions notwithstanding.

5. The Palestinians really don't want peace with Israel.

The Palestinians are on record as willing to accept a settlement based on UN Resolutions 242 and 338. Israel will not.

6. The Israeli government wants peace.

The Likud Party, of which Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is the leader, stands on its platform: There will be no Palestinian State; they will strengthen settlements in the Occupied Territories; the eastern border of Israel will be the Jordan River; Israel will maintain control of the water resources in the West Bank; and Jerusalem will be the undivided capital of Israel. That doesn't leave a whole lot for the Palestinians does it?

7. The Palestinians are just a bunch of terrorists.

The Palestinians certainly didn't introduce terrorism to the Middle East. In Menachem Begin's writings, he tells how successful the newly founded Israeli state was in driving out the Palestinians by terrorizing them with barrel bombs (which he claims to have invented), slaughtering a whole village (Deir Yassin was publicized to encourage flight), allowing Israel to grab over 40 percent more land than they were given in the UN mandate.

Israel would have us believe that state sponsored activities such as assassinations, home demolitions, confiscation of property, mass deportations and myriad other humiliating human rights violations are legal and justified as self defense. Resistance to these crimes is, of course, terrorism.

8. The characterization that Jews control the media is but another manifestation of anti-Semitism.

It seems that certain members of the Jewish community are trying to perpetuate the media myth. Last year, media giant CanWest Global Communications Corp., owned by Israel (Izzy) Asper and family, announced that beginning Dec. 12, 2001, not one but eventually three editorials a week would be written at corporate headquarters in Winnipeg and imposed on 14 dailies, which include the Vancouver Sun and Province, the Calgary Herald and the Montreal Gazette. CanWest also owns 50 percent of the nationally distributed National Post, which will be subject to the new directives as well.

Furthermore, in addition to the imposed editorials themselves, all locally produced editorial column pieces will be forced to reflect the viewpoints of the CanWest Global Corporation. CanWest last year became Canada's dominant newspaper chain when it purchased Southam News Inc. resulting in ownership of the 14 metropolitan dailies and 128 local newspapers across the country.

The story came to light on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's As It Happens radio program. Bill Marsden, an investigative reporter with the Montreal Gazette, contended his editor had said CanWest was "very sensitive" to editorial content. Marsden explained, paraphrasing the directives, "That is to say they do not want to see any criticism of Israel. We do not run in our newspaper Op-Ed pieces that express criticism of Israel and what it is doing in the Middle East. We do not have the free-wheeling debate there should be about these issues."

Add to this Ariel Sharon's declaration in a heated Knesset debate over American concerns: "We own the banks and the media. Without us they are a stupid people." It seems this stereotype might have some strong Jewish sponsors.

9. The responsibility for the Palestinians rests with their Arab brothers.

This is a popular theme of the Israeli "hard-liners," intending to foist the problem they created on their neighbors. The "Arabs" and the Palestinians are not one entity, as these right-wingers like to argue. Common language or religion does not define ethnic or national groups. It is but another attempt to portray the Israelis as the underdog, a beleaguered people under threat of being overrun by the Muslim Arab hordes. When Israel took over in 1948, it was estimated that up to 40 percent of Palestinian population were Christian. Most have left or been driven out.

Even now, if the polls are to believed, Israelis approve the "transfer" (a euphemism for ethnic cleansing) of Palestinians out of the Occupied Territories. The lust for territory is at fever pitch among the Likud and its followers as the current offensive against the indigenous population can attest. Why else would the Israelis bulldoze homes, uproot orchards, shoot and terrorize innocent civilians, deprive the sick and wounded of medical services, destroy the Palestinian Authority's infrastructure, roll their tanks over every automobile and produce stand in sight, fire on and destroy ambulances, if not to force the people into leaving their land?

10. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.

Israeli apologists love to trumpet the notion that Israel is awash in a sea of repressive regimes while it is a pristine example of democracy in action. The true test of a democracy rests on the treatment of all its citizens equally. In fact, a million Israeli-Palestinian citizens constitute a vast underclass of second-class citizenry in this supposed democracy. They are not treated equally with their Jewish counterparts in many ways; denial of construction permits; special identification papers and license plates; discrimination in employment and travel, etc. Free elections do not make a democracy, for if that were the measure, Lebanon and Turkey also qualify as democracies. At best, Israel is a theocracy, a country based on religion that insists on maintaining its "Jewishness," a notion that flies in the face of democratic principles.

This is the case against the Israeli propagandists and their unsuspecting cohorts. It is neither complicated nor complex. Israel has painted a canvas of fear and hatred in the Middle East while picturing itself as the victim and the Palestinians as terrorists instead of a dispossessed people. From the newspapers and TV op-ed accounts, which parrot variations of the above, one can see that the big lie is alive and well in the United States of America.

[Raff Ellis lives in the United States and is a retired former strategic planner and computer industry executive. He has had an abiding and active interest in the Middle East since early adulthood and has traveled to the region many times over the last 30 years.]

Raff Ellis encourages your comments: rellis@YellowTimes.org

YellowTimes.org is an international publication. YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided that any such reproduction must identify the original source, http://www.YellowTimes.org . Internet web links to http://www.YellowTimes.org are appreciated.

Media Control Close-up

by Jack Killey

> The following article by Jack Killey recounts what happened to
> Ohio's independent newsweekly, _The Gateway Press_, after the
> newspaper had the audacity to question President Clinton's 2000%
> disproportionate appointment of Jews to government positions,
> after Clinton promised that his appointments would be "a
> reflection of the diversity of America." The newspaper was
> viciously smeared and boycotted by Cleveland area Jews and forced
> out of business. The article demonstrates that Jewish boycott
> can be as powerful a means of media control as Jewish media
> ownership.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Media Control Close-up
>
> by Jack Killey
>
> Question: Do you really believe the Jews own the media?
>
> Answer: Most of it, yes. But they don't have to own it to control
> it.
>
> An object lesson in this distinction was the downfall of
> northeastern Ohio's The Gateway Press, a general interest
> newsweekly to which I devoted seven years of part-time work. A
> fierce smear campaign and unremitting advertising boycott by
> Cleveland-area Jews -- many not even in our circulation region --
> caused the forced sale of a newspaper that many readers trusted
> to deliver at least an approximation of the truth about events in
> their communities.
>
> Until I wrote and my editor published a commentary casting a
> gimlet eye on President Clinton's many Jewish appointees, I
> suppose most Jews in the area, like our general readership,
> slotted us somewhere between the kitty litter box and the
> refrigerator door. We had our admirers and detractors, but no one
> accused The Gateway of being docile or tepid in its coverage of
> local elections, proposed tax or school levy issues, or other
> events that hit our readers where they lived.
>
> People bought our competitor, the daily flagship of a much larger
> chain (who, ironically enough, later bought us out), to see who
> died and whose kid made Little League player of the week. They
> read Gateway, however, to see why cabals of doctors were fighting
> over the location of a new medical center, or who was behind the
> push for pro-homosexual curricula in their kids' schools, or
> which city council had violated the "sunshine law" in a secret
> meeting last week and why. If we had a news philosophy it was
> probably on the order of a thorough libertarianism, and we tried
> as often as possible to deliver both sides of any given story.
>
> But only 850 words on Clinton's appointments reduced our county,
> after twelve years of an alternative, to its former bland diet of
> one-newspaper pabulum. A barely measurable percentage of our
> readership, none of whom ever refuted the commentary on its
> particulars, managed to deprive some 48,000 readers of a reliable
> news source in their communities. The Jews' "persecuted minority"
> mantle is, I suppose, apropos for a race that showed a gift for
> the theatrical long before they created Broadway and Hollywood.
>
> "You know, I never considered myself an anti-Semite until now,"
> mused one staffer, after another day of being cursed at by local
> shopkeepers suddenly outraged by their advertising vehicle's
> callous treatment of the Chosen Ones. "But I think they've made
> me one."
>
> I did not harbor any particular dislike of the Jews, racially or
> religiously, when I composed the piece in question. I don't care
> much for the ACLU-style leftist politics of most secular Jews in
> the United States, and haven't since my turn towards social
> conservatism about 12 years ago. Strangely enough, I cut my teeth
> on the sort of activist liberalism found in Jewish intellectual
> organs like The New Republic and The Nation (and was even
> published in the latter), and spent more of my college days than
> I care to remember trotting off to antiwar rallies. I steeped
> myself in liberal ideas and methodology and, for a variety of
> reasons, found them wanting. But I can't say that I began to
> examine the woof and warp of liberalism's ideological crazy quilt
> for specifically Jewish threads until I witnessed firsthand the
> rabid response to a little article in a little paper.
>
> The commentary in question was published, as all my many
> commentaries were, as my personal opinion, not as the editorial
> position of the newspaper. The piece can be easily synopsized. I
> pointed out the high percentage of Jews among Clinton's
> appointees, hardly representative of his stated goal to have an
> administration that "looks like America." I wondered how this
> might affect American foreign policy towards Israel, and (this
> was the part that brought in the big guns against us) ventured
> the opinion that this facet of the Clinton administration was
> being deliberately obscured by a Jewish-dominated American media
> establishment.
>
> You'd think I'd written a glowing reconsideration of Mein Kampf.
> My editor's phone started jumping off her desk. Sales reps were
> screamed at and thrown from premises by red-faced merchants who
> had previously described us as an asset to the community. One of
> the more prominent Jewish businessmen in the area wrote the
> editor a venomous letter (specifying, of course, that it was not
> for publication) telling her, "You can't say whether or not
> you're an anti-Semite. Only we can decide that."
>
> Do you think the surrounding media establishment came to the
> defense of one of their own embattled members as the pot began to
> boil beyond the boundaries of Portage County, Ohio? Do you
> suppose that perhaps they'd defend the First Amendment right of a
> 12-year-old mainstream newspaper to publish controversial opinion
> articles? Think again.
>
> It took the Newhouse-owned Cleveland Plain Dealer about ten
> working days to run a lead editorial titled "One For the Fish,"
> written by Plain Dealer staffer Carolyn Davis, a Jewess who in a
> personal whine piece once stated her wish that every gun be wiped
> off the face of the Earth (no liberal bias here).
>
> Carolyn was mad, and maybe a little jealous that I could write
> circles around her. She at least quoted the commentary's best
> sentence, which was that Clinton "seated enough white European
> males to ensure that America will be ruined in a competent,
> intelligent, and well-organized fashion." Otherwise it was the
> stock denunciation of "anti-Semitic . . . crap," seething with
> horrified disbelief that anyone could suggest that Jews control
> America's media. Let's see, a Jewess writer for Ohio's largest --
> and Jew-owned --newspaper attacks a rural Gentile-owned weekly in
> a lead editorial . . . doesn't sound like control to me.
>
> The Cleveland Jewish News was even more generous, allotting a
> full page to editor Cynthia Dettelbach herself rather than an
> underling. An equally unexceptional attack it was, bristling with
> weasel words and broad smears, but contradicting none of the
> commentary's content with opposing facts regarding Clinton's
> appointees. I imagine the Jewish News, like most of the other
> Jewish organs in the country, ran bannered praise of Clinton's
> favoritism towards Jews in his administration. I guess it's only
> impolitic for Gentile publications to notice it, another point I
> made in the commentary.
>
> This sort of notice by large media organs goes beyond "coverage"
> of a hot topic. Neither publication took any interest in the
> community served by The Gateway and probably cared even less who
> we, the paper covering it, were.
>
> The Newhouse-owned Akron Beacon Journal ran no editorial hate
> pieces, but they stayed on top of the unfolding events around
> that "anti-Semitic" newspaper in Streetsboro. The Plain Dealer
> nominally covered our county, but we beat them regularly in an
> area they usually assigned to worn-out hacks in their Summit
> County bureau. The point is, the sudden interest and overbearing
> coverage of a heretofore unnoticed region of their circulation
> area was looking mighty selective. We had touched on a topic that
> was . . . unpermitted. A Jewish topic. And they were going to
> make sure that the publication impertinent enough to raise the
> thorny issue of Jewish power in the American oval office and the
> American media wouldn't publish for long.
>
> The point man in the effort -- the visible one, anyway -- was
> Jerry Brodsky, a Jewish principal in the largest and most
> affluent public school district in our county. His most recent
> claim to fame had been his opposition to the display of a
> Christmas tree at the predominantly Gentile school he governed.
>
> Also an attorney and a resident of Beachwood, a heavily-Jewish
> and affluent Cleveland bedroom suburb, "Jerry the Jew," as he
> became less-than-affectionately known in the Gateway office,
> mounted a secondary advertising boycott against us, sending high-
> minded letters to many of our advertisers warning them of the
> business to be lost if they continued to advertise with us. He
> wrote the letters under his legal letterhead, though he took care
> to remind recipients this wasn't official business (although he
> did remind them of his important position in the school
> district).
>
> I don't think Jerry the Jew really scared anyone off, but he kept
> up the momentum; the big advertisers who dropped us did so on
> their own hoof. Jewish Rite Aid CEO Alex Grass suddenly took a
> personal interest in the ad account of his rundown shop fifteen
> miles from us and pulled their ads, declaring his offense at the
> article in a letter to us; Jew Albert Klaben of Klaben Auto
> Stores, one of the region's biggest-volume auto-supply chains,
> was equally miffed and yanked his ads. Both were important
> accounts. Several smaller but regular advertisers pulled one by
> one, and a large Cleveland-area grocery chain, Gentile-owned but
> with stores in heavily Jewish Cleveland suburbs, began shuffling
> their feet and "reconsidering" their account in phone calls and
> letters to my editor. Nervous local Gentile bankers and realtors
> called with weak offers of continuing support, but whined about
> all the "bad publicity" we were getting.
>
> We kept the boycott on the front page and started asking
> questions about the fine line between Jerry Brodsky's personal
> tastes in reading and his duties as a public administrator. Was
> he using his position in the community to bolster the get-the-
> Gateway pogrom? Was he tapping out these letters on school time,
> or on school equipment? Word had it the school board and
> superintendent weren't too crazy about Jerry's crusade, and
> eventually he faded into the background.
>
> But apparently he had replacements lined up. Dan Dyer, an English
> teacher at Brodsky's school, and Dyer's wife began firing off
> similarly outraged letters to our advertisers. It seemed a bit
> clubby at the very least that the next person in the community to
> pick up the torch happened to work for Jerry (who had also done
> some legal work for Dyer's wife).
>
> Anyway, why some of Dan's and the Mrs.'s letters were in Jerry's
> house still flummoxes me. (How do I know they were? Call it
> intuition.) I don't route my correspondence through my boss's
> house. Maybe it's a Jewish thing. Mrs. Dyer didn't know why
> either when I called to ask her, stammering, "Uh, uh, you'd, uh,
> better ask Dan that." I tried, but Dan never called back. At
> least Jerry called me once, but I don't say anything of substance
> into speaker phones when I don't know who else -- maybe a better
> lawyer than Jerry -- is in the room. (He said it was the only way
> the phone worked.)
>
> I can't give Brodsky and company full credit for sinking The
> Gateway Press, much as they'd probably enjoy it. We were used to
> a rather anemic income and the usual weekly calamities that await
> any small enterprise, especially one competing for ads and
> readership in what is probably called in the trade a "minor media
> market." But as we found out, no market is too minor to
> manipulate when Jewish sensibilities are involved. The persistent
> strain of the boycott and attendant pressures on an already
> precarious balance-sheet took their toll. We cycled through ad
> reps and other personnel even faster than usual as commissions
> and morale sagged.
>
> My editor/publisher, a woman with 25 years in the business and a
> well-deserved reputation for personal tenacity and a take-no-
> prisoners journalism style, did what she could to hold things
> together. But even the tough get tired. While not fully in
> agreement with me on the topic of Jewish media control, she
> refused my offer of resignation early on and continued to
> publicly defend her publication of my piece citing her long-
> standing commitment to print cogently argued, if unpopular
> opinions of every stripe. But I don't think even she, experienced
> in the business as she was expected the virulent response my
> article generated.
>
> When she called us into her office for the news of the sale to
> our competitor I thought back to a mysterious anonymous caller, a
> not-unfriendly and apparently Gentile woman with a patrician
> accent who contacted me early in the fray. She calmly told me the
> history of "the boycott," meaning not the current one against us
> but the historical prototype of it, and said, "Your paper will be
> out of business in eighteen months." It took, I think, fourteen.
>
> What I found significant throughout this process was the outsized
> influence wielded by a small clique, and a clique who would
> normally have had no special interest in our paper or in our
> region, which is largely rural and probably 99 percent Gentile.
> Even had a genuine boycott been carried out its effect would have
> been negligible. Bad publicity seems to have been the boycott's
> purpose; since the largest advertisers who pulled were Jews, a
> phone call to them from Brodsky or the Jewish News or the
> Cleveland ADL probably would have sufficed.
>
> Another feature of the boycott that struck me was the
> powerlessness of our Gentile readers, many of whom were outraged
> by the attack on us. We weren't lacking in support from our
> readership, some of whom were courageous enough to register their
> agreement with the commentary in our letters column. I found
> encouraging the number of readers who told me privately their
> feelings on Jewish power in U.S. politics. Unfortunately, they
> didn't wield the power the Jews do among U.S. merchandisers,
> bankers, car dealers, and realtors, the people whose ad dollars
> support small (and large) newspapers. It shouldn't have surprised
> me.
>
> I had to laugh at Carloyn Davis's description of "Jewish media
> power" in the Plain Dealer editorial as a "bigoted buzz phrase
> that goes back decades." One doesn't have to sample overtly
> "racist" writings to encounter references to Jewish media
> control, and they date back much farther than decades. When I see
> past allusions to Jewish press power from the pens of such august
> and "establishment" figures as historian W.E.H. Lecky, Winston
> Churchill, Hillaire Belloc, or Sir Richard Burton (among many
> others), two things cross my mind.
>
> One is the casual manner of its mention, as though these writers
> are noting that the sky is blue. Lecky, for example, in his late
> nineteenth-century masterpiece "Democracy and Liberty," devotes a
> paragraph or two to Jewish domination of the Russian press under
> the Czars (he attributes at least some of the resentment the
> average Russian felt for the Jews during the pogroms to this
> influence). No earnest attempt is made to convince the reader of
> a doubtful precept, no long lists of proofs are proffered: not
> because they couldn't be produced, one senses, but because it
> simply isn't necessary to document what appears to have been a
> commonly-known fact among the less-numerous, but better-informed,
> literate members of earlier generations.
>
> A more troubling thought that strikes me about this situation is
> that contemporary authors of comparative standing could not
> publish similar observations, or at least not without sudden
> relegation to vanity presses and maybe community college jobs.
> Probably only the eminence and the solid corpus of work produced
> by earlier authors, and perhaps less fear among Gentile
> publishers, allowed them to make such references without
> destroying their careers.
>
> At any rate, Jewish press control is hardly a malicious myth
> that's been propagated for decades (centuries?) by anti-Semites;
> it is rather a truth that has been relentlessly obscured by
> increasingly powerful Jewish interests within and outside the
> press. No one who has closely studied the pertinent history at
> any length can convincingly argue otherwise, even if the student
> limits himself to "permitted" books and authors rather than
> documents some find inherently questionable (i.e., the Protocols.
> ) The extent to which an offending author is pushed to the
> margins or isolated from the public by a self-interested Jewish
> minority probably depends on a variety of factors, but one thing
> is certain: he won't emerge from the process quite intact.
>
> So what has this to do with the experiences of a small-time
> writer for a little newspaper in Streetsboro, Ohio? Only that I
> saw firsthand what happens and has happened to many writers who
> dare to write and publish on the fact of Jewish media and
> political influence. It was in one sense a privilege to be in
> courageous company living and dead: to be allocated the ire
> bestowed on people like Hillaire Belloc, G. K. Chesterton,
> William Pierce, Douglas Reed, and Wilmot Robertson was a badge of
> honor of sorts.
>
> In other senses, not least the sacrifice of a good newspaper on
> the altar of Jewish sensibilities, it was a tragedy. But not for
> me. Although it's virtually certain that despite fifteen years of
> some pretty good journalism on my part, I'll never work again for
> a "respectable" journal, given the litmus tests and the rules
> imposed by such publications, who would want to? If anything my
> experience in fifteen years in the field has been one of
> progressive distaste for the media, and in that sentiment at
> least I join a growing number of Americans.
>
> Unfortunately, most readers and television viewers will probably
> continue to be guided by a thirst for entertainment and
> stimulation despite their stated disgust for the mainstream
> media. But there's no doubt that awareness of the true nature and
> agenda of America's "mainstream," i.e., Jewish, media is growing,
> and perhaps we can take a page from the Chosen Ones themselves
> when it comes to the retribution a committed and aligned minority
> can impose

Is The Global Media a demonic beast? You decide!

http://bankindex.com/read.asp?ID=1366

The Global Media by David Peterson An interview with Edward S. Herman & Robert W. McChesney, June 1997 Contributed by: ThirdWorldTraveler.com

Edward S. Herman and Robert W. McChesney are two of the most important critics of the global media scene. A Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a contributor to Z Magazine since its founding in 1988, Edward Herman is the author of numerous books, including a number of corporate and media studies. These include Corporate Control, Corporate Power (1981), the two volume Political Economy of Human Rights (1979) and Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), both of which he co-authored with Noam Chomsky, as well as The "Terrorism" Industry: The Experts and Institutions That Shape Our View of Terror (1989), which he co-authored with Gerry O'Sullivan. Robert McChesney is an Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. McChesney is the author of Telecommunications, Mass Media and Democracy: The Battle for the Control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928-1935 (1993), and more recently Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy (1997). Last summer, Cassell published their recent collaboration, a study called The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Corporate Capitalism.

PETERSON: You argue in The Global Media that before we'll ever be able to understand what's new about the "global media," we'll need to understand the "institutions of global capitalism." Well, what are the major institutions?

HERMAN: The major institutions of global capitalism are the transnational corporations (TNCs), the international organizations formed to serve global capital or adapted to that service over time, and the national governments that also work in the interest of global capital. The most important of the international organizations are the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World Trade Organization (WTO), although there are many others. As global capital has strengthened, more and more institutions are bent to serve its interests, and an organization like the WTO, formed under the GATT agreement in the late stages of this evolution, is explicitly designed to serve the needs of global capital. Global capital wants international trade and investment rights to prevail over the desires of local populations. It also wants to minimize welfare state expenditures, business tax burdens, threats of inflation, union organization, and environmental constraints; and the IMF, World Bank, and WTO strive to carry out these aims. These organizations have a common set of goals, reflecting the power of TNCs, transmitted to them by the national governments serving the same interests.

Both in terms of the depth of the changes that have taken place, and their rapidity, the past two decades have seen major transformations in the nature of corporate capitalism. But which changes have been the most important? EH: The most important changes over the past several decades have been corporate capitalism's increasingly global perspective and reach, its increasing intolerance of welfare state commitments and labor organization and the social contract, and its willingness to attack these in various modes of intensified class warfare. But the list continues. An increase in the centralization of economic power, both within states and globally, at the same time has been matched by an increasing competition between the media giants, and by their willingness to attack rivals by crossing product lines, vertically integrating, and invading one another's territories.

And whether national or transnational, corporate capital has a certain ideology, a veil that surrounds it that helps it to justify its consequences to its victims. EH: That's right. The main element in corporate ideology is the belief in the sublimity of the market and its unique capacity to serve as the efficient allocator of resources. So important is the market in this ideology that "freedom" has come to mean the absence of constraints on market participants, with political and social democracy pushed into the background as supposed derivatives of market freedom. This may help explain the tolerance by market-freedom lovers of market-friendly totalitarians-Pinochet or Marcos. A second and closely related constituent of corporate ideology is the danger of government intervention and regulation, which allegedly tends to proliferate, imposes unreasonable burdens on business, and therefore hampers growth. A third element in the ideology is that growth is the proper national objective, as opposed to equity, participation, social justice, or cultural advance and integrity. Growth should be sustainable, which means that the inflation threat should be a high priority and unemployment kept at the level to assure the inflation threat is kept at bay. The resultant increasingly unequal income distribution is also an acceptable price to pay. Privatization is also viewed as highly desirable in corporate ideology, following naturally from the first two elements-market sublimity and the threat of government. It also tends to weaken government by depriving it of its direct control over assets, and therefore has the further merit of reducing the ability of government to serve the general population through democratic processes. It is of course a coincidence that privatization yields enormous payoffs to the bankers and purchasers participating in the sale of public assets.

The Global Media characterizes the United States as "the country in which market domination of the media has been most extensive and complete." Tell me what, exactly, it means for the "market" to "dominate" the media? McCHESNEY: It means that capitalists control the media and they do so to maximize profits, often through selling advertising to other large corporations. In most other nations there has been a long tradition of having a large segment of the media-especially broadcasting-removed from commercial control and operated by some sort of nonprofit, noncommercial agency. But it was not exclusively broadcasting. In Scandinavia there has been the practice of subsidizing newspapers and magazines to keep alive diverse points of view. Left to the market, the media system tends to produce a narrow range of viewpoints that comports to those of the upper class, and commercial pressures also downplay public affairs and journalism. In the current era of neoliberalism all of these subsidies for diverse print media and for nonprofit broadcasting are under attack. Around the world the trend is toward predominately commercial systems. In Germany and Sweden, for example, the public broadcasters have seen their audience shares cut in half in the l990s, as they face new competition from the proliferation of commercial channels on cable and satellite systems. The British Broadcasting Corporation, arguably the most successful public broadcaster in the world, has effectively become a full blown commercial enterprise in its global operations. It is a partner with the U.S. cable company TCI and some of TCI's subsidiaries. The BBC recognizes that it will eventually see its public subsidy cut so it hopes that by becoming profitable outside of Britain it can continue to be a noncommercial venture in the UK. The jury is out on that strategy, but on the surface it seems like the logic of commercialism should soon permeate every aspect of the BBC's being.

Your book also characterizes the U.S. media model as an "outlier"-one that goes beyond any other country's in institutionalizing private ownership of the means of communications in profit-seeking corporations whose major source of revenue, and therefore survival, derives from the advertising dollars of other corporations. How did the U.S. model come about? RM: Well, the one thing we know for sure is that the current U.S. system is a 20th century development. But it is nothing like the media system we had during the first few generations of the republic. The press system of the early republic was highly partisan and not especially profitable. Many of the major newspapers were subsidized by political parties or by the government through printing contracts. The current system evolved gradually as a commercial entity. By the early part of this century it had become dominated by large firms operating in oligopolistic markets, and advertising had emerged as an important source of revenues. This all followed the logic of capitalism: firms get bigger and eliminate competition to enhance their profitability and reduce risk. In the past generation the two crucial developments for U. S. media firms is that they have conglomerated and globalized. By conglomeration I mean that the largest media firms all have major holdings in several different media sectors, like film and TV show production, cable TV channels, music production, book publishing, magazine publishing, retail stores, etc. Firms found they had to be conglomerates or they could not compete with their rivals. Globalization refers to the fact that the media industry may be at the forefront of the process of globalization. Firms like Disney and Time Warner did just over 10 percent of their business abroad in 1990 and will do around one-third of their business abroad in 1997. Sometime in the next decade they expect to do a majority of their business outside of the United States. It is worth noting that the American people did not accept the development of the corporate media system without opposition. There were significant pro tests. Partially as a result of this came the professionalization of journalism, that is, the notion that the news would be provided by trained objective professionals who could not be influenced by media owners or advertisers. In addition, in the 1930s there was a fairly widespread movement to establish a nonprofit and noncommercial radio broadcasting system. It collapsed following the passage of the 1934 Communications Act, which was pushed through with minimal publicity by the powerful radio lobby.

Hand-in-hand with the U. 5. media model goes an ideology that states that thanks to First Amendment guarantees of 'freedom of speech or of the press," neither the government nor the public have any more than a very weak, if any, right to interfere with the free speech of the corporations that own the media. Has this belief always been as widely held as it seems to be today? RM: No. Not at all. This is a recent development, one that has much more to do with the power of corporations than it does with the First Amendment or democratic theory. In the early 1940s, when the U.S. Supreme Court first considered whether advertising should be exempt from any government regulation on the grounds that advertising was protected by the First Amendment, the Court voted 9-0 that advertising was not covered by the First Amendment. This was a court that had several right-wingers who detested the New Deal and government regulation. It was seen as absurd that selling something for a profit should be equated with political speech and democracy. Over the past 50 years the matter has shifted and now the Supreme Court has extended the First Amendment to cover advertising in significant ways. This reflects the power of corporations in our society . The irony of course is that advocates of this "extension" of the First Amendment argue that the more that is protected from the government. the more freedom there will be and the more likely democracy will prosper. But these proponents have an idiotic, untenable, and myopic view of where power lies in our society. Extending the First Amendment to advertising removes it, as well as corporate power, as legitimate political topics and shrinks the range of political debate to an ever-narrower scope. The ACLU is the most egregious in this regard. It might as well set up its headquarters on Wall Street because its silly view that there is no reason for public concern about private control over media plays directly into the hands of the largest media firms. In the 1930s Morris Ernst, Roger Baldwin, and Norman Thomas pushed the ACLU in a far more enlightened direction. They argued that corporate commercial control over broadcasting significantly prevented the coverage of public affairs and discriminated against pro-labor and anti-business perspectives. They argued that establishing a viable democratic nonprofit, noncommercial broadcasting system was a First Amendment issue for the ACLU. The ACLU even had a radio committee that lobbied Congress to take control of broadcasting away from capitalists and advertisers. But when the movement failed, the ACLU gradually moved toward its present position of accepting the corporate system as the appropriate model for democracy. But the ACLU did not adopt this modern position because of principled debate; rather, it was adopted due to the admitted inability to defeat the corporate media giants on Capitol Hill. But I doubt anyone at the ACLU today knows this history. To them it seems that protecting corporate power to make money and dominate society is the purpose of the First Amendment and the cornerstone of a democratic society.

Your book calls the U.S. Telecommunication Act of 1996 the "single most important law" affecting not only U.S. telecommunications, but global telecommunications as well. How so? RM: The 1996 U.S. Telecommunications Act specifically is a global law because, by providing for the deregulation of U.S. markets, it permits the dominant firms to get considerably larger through mergers and acquisitions. And the dominant U.S. firms provide a majority of the dominant global firms. So other countries are now facing a larger and more powerful set of firms, like the merged Nynex-Bell Atlantic, and the proposed merger of AT&T and SBC Communications. All of the media firms have gotten bigger in the past year too. It is worth noting that the 1996 Telecom Act was rushed through Congress with almost no debate. There was virtually no press coverage outside of the business press and almost no public participation. The only debate concerned which sector-long distance telephone, local telephone, computer firms, broadcasters, or cable companies-would get the best deals in the legislation. That a handful of corporations were being granted the right to rule the entire range of our communication system to maximize profit with almost no strings attached was simply not subject to debate. That's because all the interested parties agreed on that as a given and the public was not invited to the debate. This was an incredibly corrupt law. The Internet was never discussed at all, but this is the law that provides for the commercial development of cyberspace. The broadcasters, for example, snuck a clause into the law requiring the FCC to give them free spectrum for digital broadcasting. This was outrageous. Even the other communication firms have to pay for the use of their spectrum for the most part. It is incumbent on us to get another telecom bill passed, one that reflects the public interest.

Another major theme of your book is that, much as the rest of the world is moving towards or being pushed towards a socio-economic model similar to that in the United States, so, too, the rest of the world's media are being pushed towards a model similar to that found in the United States. EH: Yes, and the two processes are closely linked. The socio-economic model is one of market hegemony, minimal state provision, the supplanting of the citizen by the consumer, and a commercial media providing the entertainment-cum-advertising culture appropriate to the socio-economic model. In much of the rest of the world public broadcasting has been important, so that one of the crucial global struggles in recent years has been over the status of public broadcasting. Public broadcasting has been under steady attack by the dominant forces of global capitalism and is being weakened and displaced by commercial, advertising-based media. The spread of the U.S. media model to the rest of the world is weakening their public broadcasting systems in countries where these are important, and strengthening the commercial media and the domination of advertisers in shaping media performance and standards. What it means for the rest of the world is more light entertainment, sex and violence on TV, and a lightening up of other media forms, with a parallel weakening of the public sphere-hard news, investigative reporting and documentaries, debates on public and community issues, enlightening children's programs, and the like. The rest of the world can look forward to a growing culture of entertainment and perhaps, in Neil Postman's phrase, "amusing themselves to death."

The U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky cheered last February's signing of the telecommunications agreement at the World Trade Organization as "one of the most important trade agreements of the 21st Century." Then she added: "U.S. companies are the most competitive telecommunications providers in the world. They are in the best position to compete and win under this agreement." Might Barshefsky's elation tell us something else about the nature of the agreement? EH: Yes. The telecommunications agreement of last February is a coup for powerful global providers of telecom services. It is essentially a market opening agreement, with clear benefits to the big boys who can participate, less clear benefits to the consumers and societies in the countries opening their doors. There may be efficiency gains, but there may be reduced universality of service, greater unregulated monopoly power, and a loss of national autonomy. In Latin America a similar process was crucial in bringing about the domination of commercial broadcasting and assuring that the European model of strong public broadcasting did not prevail. From the earliest years U.S. equipment manufacturers, advertisers, broadcasters, and publishers pushed the governments of the region toward commercial systems, so that public broadcasting was marginalized or never came into existence at all, preempted by a commercial system, as in Brazil. The experience of Brazil was a telling one. In our book we characterize it as a case of "media neo- and sub-imperialism." As just noted, a commercial system was installed from the beginning, with U.S. help and under U.S. pressure. By the early 1960s, U.S. transnationals already had a major presence in the Brazilian economy, Brazil's media included. In the years prior to the 1964 coup, Brazil's media had been heavily penetrated by U.S. economic and political agents. The O Globo newspaper, Brazil's largest, was receiving infusions of cash from Time-Life, and may have been CIA-controlled. Time-Life justified its invasion of the Brazilian media by the need to combat what it referred to as "Castroism." Following the 1964 coup, the Globo media empire was born and grew to virtual monopoly status. The junta supported Globo financially and in regulatory practice, and the media giant served the military and Brazilian elite well. During the dozen years following the coup, Brazil's commercial media system was consolidated and integrated into the global system. Ad based and concentrated, this system is a servant of the Brazilian elite and is destined to inculcate the individualist, consumerist ideology of the neoliberal order. India provides an important contrasting ex ample. There, the British model was imported and a public broadcasting system was imposed and became a heritage of the colonial system after the British exit. Admittedly, its performance has not been inspiring, but it is regrettable to see it being commercialized rapidly without having realized the potential of a more autonomous public broadcasting system such as developed in the imperial country.

A little earlier, Ed Herman mentioned the "public sphere, " a concept that you use widely in your book, and that you draw from the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas. You write that by the "public sphere, " you mean "all the places and forums where issues of importance to a political community are discussed and debated, and where information is presented that is essential to citizen participation in community life. But your analysis is anything but sanguine about the fate of the public sphere in the United States. EH: We are definitely not optimistic at this juncture. The U.S. model entails a displacement of the public sphere with entertainment. Advertisers don't like public sphere programs, which do not provide a good selling environment and do not draw as heavily as mayhem and sex. We have a 70-year record in this country of the gradual abandonment of "public service" programming under the pressure of market interest. Contrary to the claims of the market beneficiaries of this transformation, it has not been catering to "what consumers want," because a very substantial minority want public service programs, and many others believe that such programs ought to be available. It's what proprietors and advertisers want. The corporate system prefers a culture of entertainment and light news mixed with serviceable propaganda to a public sphere that would address serious issues.

So, in your eyes, corporate control and manipulalion pose a serious anti-democratic threat? EH: Yes. But the real problem isn't "manipulation." The real problem lies in the normal operations and effects that corporate media have on the public sphere, and with the structural changes now going on, which are putting in place profoundly undemocratic arrangements. The Enlightenment project is one of people moving into control of their lives, winning their emancipation through knowledge and action, whereas transnational media corporations want the conditions that have prevailed in the United States for decades to extend everywhere, with people treated strictly as audiences to be sold to advertisers. The contradiction between the project of the Enlightenment and the project of transnational media corporations is immense. The global media are carrying out what we might call an "entertainment revolution" which is implemented strictly from above. They are surely not agents of a democratic "information revolution. "

And therefore contrary to Nicholas Negroponte, Alvin Toffler, Newt Gingrich, and a host of other luminaries who praise the democratic miracles awaiting us on the Information Superhighway. The two of you would argue that, given the current political climate in the United States (not to mention the rest of the world), the "egalitarian potential" of the "media revolution" isn't likely to be realized. RM: That' s correct. Although some technologies-like digital communication, say-have immense influence over societies, they do not have magical powers. Unless there is explicit social policy to develop cyberspace as a noncommercial, nonprofit entity, it is going to be taken over by the most powerful elements in our society. That is exactly what is happening. The largest computer, telecom, and media firms are doing everything in their considerable powers to see the Internet brought within their empires. A telling sign was Microsoft's purchase of WebTV and its billion dollar investment in Comcast, the cable TV company. Right now the smart money seems to be betting that the Internet can be used as a commercial entertainment medium like television, in addition to being a business tool and a place for commerce. All that stuff from a few years ago about how the Internet was going to create some democratic Valhalla and eliminate the corporate communication giants might as well as have been written in the 15th century. That is just nonsense. The Internet is be coming a hierarchical commercial entity. Some people will have full service, others lower-grade service, and still others none at all. Yet, at the same time, the Internet is a remarkable and revolutionary tool for activists. It will continue to be just that. But we can not extrapolate from the activist experience to the society as a whole. Not unless we get policies to enforce that as a goal.

"The ultimate goal [of media activists]," The Global Media concludes, "must be the establishment of a global, nonprofit public sphere to replace, or at least complement, the global commercial media market." But that sounds far more utopian than practical. Doesn't it? RM: To the contrary, I think that the most utopian notion is that the market system can ever provide the basis for a democratic society. Everywhere across the world democratic left parties and movements are battling neoliberal "free market" policies. In almost all cases these democratic forces have highlighted taking control of the media from corporations and advertisers as central to the project of building a democratic society. In Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, India, Brazil-the list goes on and on-there are viable left parties and movements that are talking about ways to build and develop nonprofit, noncommercial, and democratically accountable media systems. They are finding considerable popular support for these positions. In view of the global trend toward a commercial media system there is every reason to believe this will be an area of democratic political activity. Can they succeed? Who knows, but what other choice is there? When you see the scope of these activities, you become decidedly optimistic. The United States is the laggard in media activism. So, based here in the most depoliticized society on earth-with the possible exception of Russia-it is easy to think social change is impossible. But even here there has been tremendous growth in media activism and political activism in the 1990s . Perhaps the period we are in now is like the civil rights movement in the early 1950s, when it appeared to be quiescent but in fact we now know it was laying the foundation for the great victories to follow. At any rate, I think the best has yet to come.

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