"Free" To STF-Up: Canada's New Media Fund

Canada’s Liberal government steps up internet censorship with creation of new media fund

by Penny Smith and Roger Jordan  - WSWS

18 July 2019

In a further step aimed at strengthening state control over the internet and digital content, Canada’s Liberal government has announced a multi-million dollar media fund to be distributed to outlets deemed to be producing “authoritative content.” The $600 million fund, to be launched this fall, will be dispensed by an eight-member government-appointed committee.

The fund, made up of tax credits and incentives to be handed out over the next five years, was first announced last November, under the guise of protecting “the vital role that independent news media play in our democracy and in our communities.”

Behind all of the bogus talk about defending “independent media” outlets and “Canadian journalism,” the new funding structures are explicitly aimed at censoring the internet in the lead up to and following this fall’s federal election.

They are part of a global assault on democratic rights and freedom of speech by ruling elites in every country, which has found its most graphic illustration in the persecution of publisher and journalist Julian Assange and courageous whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

Underlining the international character of the censorship efforts, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland co-hosted the Global Media Freedom Conference earlier this month with British Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt, who has repeatedly vowed to hand Assange over to the Trump administration.

(See: UK government holds Media Freedom Conference while imprisoning Assange) 

The Manning Sanction: Waging Economic Warfare Abroad and At Home

The vindictive campaign against Chelsea Manning, America’s political prisoner

by Niles Niemuth - WSWS 

18 July 2019

Whistleblower and political prisoner Chelsea Manning has now been confined to a federal detention center in Alexandria, Virginia for more than four months and is being subjected to punitive fines which could ruin her financially. 

Manning is not being punished for any crime, nor has she been charged with a crime. Rather, she is being held in contempt of court for refusing—on principle and courageously—to testify before a star chamber grand jury impaneled to railroad journalist and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange into a US prison, or worse.

Daily fines placed on Manning by Federal District Judge Anthony Trenga for refusing to testify doubled from $500 to $1,000 on Tuesday, with the total now standing at $18,000. The unprecedented financial penalties against Manning threaten her with personal bankruptcy and have already resulted in her losing her apartment in June.

                   Chelsea Manning

Penis Tales and Other Stalin Obsessions

STEPHEN KOTKIN’S HISTORY OF STALIN IS THE CLINICAL CASE BOOK OF AN AMERICAN OBSESSION

by John Helmer - Dances with Bears

July 19, 2019

What can Foreign Affairs, bimonthly tribune of the Council of Foreign Affairs in New York, be referring to when it reported on the government for which,

“in worldview and practice, it was a conspiracy that perceived conspiracy everywhere and in everything, constantly gaslighting itself. In administration, it constituted a crusade for planning and control that ended up generating a proliferation of improvised illegalities, a perverse drive for order, and a system in which propaganda and myths about ‘the system’ were the most systematized part.”

Need a clue? On the head of government’s left foot, two of his toes were webbed. Still stumped?

Restaurant at the End of the World: Israel, Christian Zionism, American Politics, and Jesus' Second Helping

The Untold Story of Christian Zionism’s Rise to Power in the United States

by Whitney Webb - MintPress News

July 12, 2019

Well before Theodore Herzl founded political Zionism and published The Jewish State, Christian Zionists in the United States and England were already seeking to direct and influence the foreign policy of both nations in service to a religious obsession end times prophecy.

The largest pro-Israel organization in the United States is not composed of Jews, but of Christian evangelicals, with a total membership of 7 million, more than 2 million more members than the entirety of the American Jewish community.

Members of this organization, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), met in Washington on Monday, attracting thousands of attendees and featuring speeches from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Secretary of State and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence, and National Security Advisor John Bolton. CUFI’s leader, controversial evangelical preacher John Hagee, has met with President Donald Trump several times and was recently part of an exclusive White House meeting in March on the administration’s upcoming “peace plan” for Israel and Palestine.

CUFI is but one of many organizations throughout American history that have promoted the state of Israel and Zionism on the grounds that a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine is a requirement for the fulfillment of end-times prophecy and necessary for Jesus Christ to return to Earth — an event Christians often refer to as “the Second Coming.”

Twits and Idiots Behind the Drive for World War

Idiots Driving the World to War

by Finian Cunningham - Sputnik

July 14, 2019

Like a person going up in an escalator while asserting they are going down, the British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has a bizarre way of trying to assure Iran that war is not on the cards.

Hunt, who is vying to become Britain’s new prime minister, stated on camera that “he wants to de-escalate” the danger of a military confrontation with Iran over mounting tensions in the Persian Gulf.

That was only days after he vowed to dramatically increase Britain’s military spending and in particular, boost the country’s naval firepower – citing Iran as the main threat to British commercial shipping interests. It also follows news that London has ordered a second warship to patrol the Persian Gulf.

Earlier this week a British Royal Navy frigate reportedly challenged Iranian military vessels (three small boats) after they allegedly tried to impede a British oil tanker entering the narrow Strait of Hormuz.

Iran vehemently denied any such interference by its boats and claimed that Britain and the US were engaging in a provocation.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Caitlin Manning, Christopher Black, Janine Bandcroft July 18, 2019

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

July 18, 2019

It was all going to be so good. The new man promised he had a plan: No more would they bow to outsiders; no more allow nature be subsumed by industry; and no more would they be left to watch as the best of everything was taken. It would be a shining new day. Thus Mexicans received Andrés Manuel López Obrador, (or "AMLO" as he's colloquially known) into the presidency. But that was last year.

Caitlin Manning is an American filmmaker and active participant in the movements against patriarchy, racism and capitalism. She's currently working on Resistant Mexico, a series of films documenting resistance to neoliberal economic expansion, and retention of cultural modes, methods, and memory in Mexico.

Listen. Hear.

Caitlin's articles, and links to her films appear at CaitlinManningfilms.com, and at ROAR Magazine, where I found her article, 'AMLO in office: from megaprojects to militarization'.

Caitlin Manning in the first half.

And; last week Britain dispatched its navy to take into custody, at its still contentious Gibraltar sinecure on the Iberian peninsula, the Panamanian-flagged Iranian oil tanker Grace I. The Grace was, allegedly, Syria-bound when intercepted, something the UK says violates European Union sanctions. Iran denies it, but the bigger question bearing begging is, "Does the EU, America, or Britannia have the right to rule the waves?"

Christopher Black is a Toronto-based criminal lawyer specializing in international war crimes cases. He's also an executive member of the Canadian Peace Congress. Black's articles on international law, politics and World events appear at New Eastern Outlook among other places, where his latest, 'A League of Perpetual Peace: An Impossible Dream?' reveals the West's relentless chicanery that would, in its audacity, risk another global war.

Christopher Black and pyrates again off Barbary's Coast in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time CFUV Radio contributor, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to be gotten up to in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Caitlin Manning and the AMLO change Mexico did not hope for.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

The BiBi See Blues: Beeb Insider Dishes on State Broadcaster's Biases

Why The BBC acts as a Propaganda Outlet for Israel– An Insider View

by Gilad Atzmon

July 14, 2019

“The BBC is institutionally pro-Zionist and institutionally spineless” says former BBC senior editor.

The BBC’s Panorama channel ‘investigation’ into Labour’s ‘anti-Semitism’ was so blatantly one sided its broadcast as ‘news’ demanded an explanation. In an attempt to grasp why the British national broadcaster fails to fulfil its core mission to report the news in as unbiased a manner as possible, I interviewed a former senior editor for the BBC. The editor, a 35 year veteran of the BBC, reveals the culture that has steered the BBC into its present position as a Zionist mouthpiece.

In acting as a whistle blower, the former editor risks severe consequences. In Britain leading journalists have been locked behind bars and put under threat of extradition for reporting information whose truthfulness has not even been challenged.

https://youtu.be/F7eEQMyzLeo

Israel Takes Exception to International Criminal Court

Israel Cannot Escape International Criminal Court Jurisdiction

by Ramzy Baroud - PalestineChronicle.com

June 03, 2019

The Chief Military Advocate General of the Israeli army, Sharon Afek, and the US Department of Defense General Counsel, Paul Ney, shared a platform at the International Conference on the Law of Armed Conflict, which took place in Herzliya, Israel, last week.

Their panel witnessed some of the most misconstrued interpretations of international law ever recorded.

It was as if Afek and Ney were literally making up their own laws on warfare and armed conflict, with no regard to what international law actually stipulates.



The Chief Military Advocate General of the
Israeli army, Sharon Afek Photo: Israel Defense Force

Unsurprisingly, both Afek and Ney agreed on many things, including that Israel and the US are blameless in all of their military conflicts and that they will always be united against any attempt to hold them to account for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Academic Freedom in Question: New Brunswick School's Sacking of Wildlife Instructor Draws Teacher's Union Censure

CAUT condemns dismissals at Maritime College of Forest Technology 

by Canadian Association of University Teachers

July 5, 2019

Ottawa - The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) is raising concerns about academic freedom at the Maritime College of Forest Technology in New Brunswick following the recent dismissal of two teachers.

5 Years After: Film Challenges MH17 Narrative

Documentary Preview: ‘MH17 – 5 Years On’

by 21wire

July 10, 2019

Nearly five years ago, on 17 July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 left from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur before it was shot down while flying over eastern Ukraine, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board. NATO member states immediately claimed Russia was responsible. Russia vehemently denies this.

Bonanza Media’s investigative team of independent journalists have put together the first real documentary challenge to the Dutch-NATO version of events with exclusive interviews and insights, including eye-opening testimony from witnesses and irrefutable evidence from experts, as well as exclusive footage shot in Malaysia, The Netherlands and at the crash area in eastern Ukraine.

Watch their preview here:

The full-length film is due to be released by July 17, 2019. 

Stay tuned to 21WIRE for more details.

 

No Room for Malthus: The Curious Tenacity of the "Population Bomb"

Too Many Africans? 

by Stephen Corry - CounterPunch

July 11, 2019 
  

David Attenborough has blamed famine in Ethiopia on overpopulation, and said: “When you talk about world population, the areas we’re talking about are Africa and Asia.” 

Photo: ©John Cairns/Creative Commons

“What are all these famines in Ethiopia? What are they about? They’re about too many people for too little land. That’s what it’s about.”

– Sir David Attenborough[1]

The cry that the world is overpopulated is more than two hundred years old, from a period when perhaps a billion people stood on the planet. There are now nearly eight times as many and it’s become normal to blame them – us – for the ills which beset “nature.” There are just too many of us, and we’re using up too many of the world’s resources. But how true is this really? And, what should be done about it?