How the Enemies of Free Speech Operate

How the Enemies of Free Speech Operate
Kurt Nimmo

As pointed out by a member of this list, the hate campaign directed against me -- or the "Joe Job" aspect of this scurrilous and hateful campaign (posting nasty articles, primarily on IndyMedia's open and unmoderated forums, using my name and that of my wife) -- can likely, in part, be traced back to an article I wrote early last year about one Dr. David Bukay, who teaches at the School of Political Science at the University of Haifa, Israel. It was posted on an IndyMedia site in the Netherlands:

Zionistische professor zaait haat
Kurt Nimmo - 03.02.2005 17:29

Volgens een Israelische professor moeten arabieren per definitie in het hoofd worden geschoten, wordt beweerd door zijn studenten.

"I received an interesting email this afternoon from an American Jewish woman. She claims that David Bukay of the Political Science department at Haifa University in Israel is using his post to advocate “racist expressions” directed against Arabs and Muslims. According to a student in the Philosophy Department at the university, Bukay supports “the killing Arabs only for being Arabs, claiming that they are criminals by their nature and recommending to humiliate Palestinians in front of cameras, spreading those pictures—and all this in a seminar, which is being classified by the University as a duty [compulsory] in their studies toward fulfillment of bachelor’s degree in the Department of Political Science.”

Bukay is not only a university professor, but also an author, editor, public speaker, and “his fields of specialization are,” according to the Ariel Center for Policy Research (ACPR), “the Arab-Israeli conflict; inter-Arab relations and the Palestinian question; international terrorism and fundamental Islam; theoretical issues and political applications in the Middle-East; Asad’s foreign policy towards Israel and Lebanon; the culture approach to understanding the Middle-East.” It should be noted that the ACPR counts as “Israel's Friends” several Congress critters, including Jim Saxon, Bill McCollum, and Tom DeLay. “Contributing Experts” include the Strausscons Frank J. Gaffney and Meyrav Wurmser, wife of David Wurmser, who is Principal Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs in the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Burkay, who teaches his students that Arabs must be “shot in their heads by a gun,” according to student mentioned above, hosted a round table discussion at the latest Jerusalem Summit, where Rep. Bob Beauprez (R-CO) and the Islamophobe Daniel Pipes also gave speeches. “Over 150 leading thinkers and statesmen from the US, Europe, Asia and Israel have convened at the 3-day Jerusalem Summit, (Nov 27-30th, 2004), at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel,” notes the Michael Cherney Foundation, a “humanitarian” organization founded after “the night of the heinous terrorist bombing outside the Dolphinarium Disco in Tel Aviv,” on June 1, 2001 (no mention here of the “heinous” terrorist bombings of Gaza by the IDF, killing far more than died outside of the Dolphinarium Disco).

Ironically—and appropriately, considering the agenda and philosophy of the people attending the Jerusalem Summit—the King David Hotel was the site of another terrorist bombing. On July 22, 1946, Irgun Tsvai-Leumi, a Zionist terrorist group, bombed the hotel, killing 92 Britons, Arabs, and Jews.

Irgun adopted the revisionist views of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the philosophical godfather of the Likud Party. Sort of a Zionist version of Hamas, Irgun bombed the British embassy in Rome, bombed a police station in Haifa, tossed grenades into a cafe in Jerusalem, killing dozens of people. Apparently unsatisfied with random terror attacks, Irgun joined up with another Zionist terror organization, the Stern gang, and attacked the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, killing at least 107 civilians. “Neither Jewish morality nor Jewish tradition can negate the use of terror as a means of battle,” was the operating motto of the Stern gang—an assertion Osama bin Laden would likely agree with, if he were alive."

I was careful to attribute the accusation to an unnamed "American Jewish woman" and a "student in the Philosophy Department at the university" and then, as was my habit on the ADE blog, added commentary. The article also appeared on the Israeli IndyMedia site with the following prefatory comment I did not write: "If you listen to Zionists repeatedly putting their feet in their mouths, you gain a truly horrifying view of just how hateful the racist ideology called ZIONISM truly is."

Obviously, the accusation (and the incendiary prefatory comment) upset Mr. Bukay (or Bukai) and he accused me of libel. In his "The Image of Evil: On the Hideous Slander of Arab Students, Anti-Zionist Jews and the Scoop-Chasing Media," posted on the NATIV Online site, Bukay wrote the following:

[Bukay believes the "attack" against him] began with an article on the “Nana” website whose headline was: “Lecturer in Haifa University: Shoot All of the Arabs in the Head”, and continued with the same quotes, more or less, from the article in KolBo, continued a week later in a similar article on the Netvision website, which was translated into English several times on various websites, under the same headline, including two “investigative reports” by a known left-wing person, residing in the United States, named Kurt Nimmo, who characterizes Israel, “the outlaw state of Israel”. He is the cooperative friend of David Merhav, the same student who passed on the information and perhaps translated it into English. In addition, he published articles on various Internet sites: For example, , in which he analyzes phenomena of visions of colonialism and publicized a special investigative report about: Arabs “Must Be Shot in their Heads”, and recycles the slander again.

In fact, this is an issue Bukay should take up with Mr. Merhav, who wrote in a message following my article (an article I did not post) on the Dutch IndyMedia site:

"According to students, Bukay told, "The Arabs must be caught and shot in their heads by a gun. A building in which there are Arabs and Palestinians, must be exterminated".

Bukay wrote a research of the "threats" of the radical Islam and recommended to the Israeli Army soldiers to "humiliate the wanted [Arabs], to photo and humiliate them and afterwards to show the photos to their families who`ll see that their sons are cowards".

A student who tried to discuss this racist incitement during his classes by claiming that history knew Arab mathematics and intellectuals, was answered, "You don't know what are you talking about. The Arabs did not invent anything! They are stupid and did not contribute anything to the humanity. The calculations you claimed that were invented by them, were copied [from others]. The Arabs are big liars and you should not believe to their history!""

en

"The University was asked to deal with this shameful affair. Dr. Asad Ganem, a senior lecturer in the Department, asked Bukay to respond the accusations of the students. "Bukay broke the University`s regulations and the Education Law, and committed a criminal act. If he will not respond properly, we will take severe steps against him", he told Nana News. An appeal was also made to the Head of the Department, Dr. Gabriel Ben Dor.

The University`s spokesperson reported that the University's authorities are handling the case and a clear response will be delivered within two weeks. Dr. Bukay refused to respond.

Many academics sent letters of protest to the University`s officials, and Roman Bronfman MK, from the liberal Democratic Choice party, asked the University`s rector to investigate the case and judge severely the racist lecturer."

In fact, making an "appeal" to Dr. Gabriel Ben Dor would have been less than useless. "Dr. David Bukay is a person of some standing at the University of Haifa. He teaches in the Department of Political Science in the Social Sciences Faculty and is considered close to the department head, Prof. Gabriel Ben Dor. My meeting with Bukay was held in Prof. Ben Dor's office; Ben Dor and Bukay share the same secretary," Ha'aretz reported in April, 2005.

In response to my story -- taken from my blog and posted on the IndyMedia site without my knowledge -- it appears Bukay elicited (or inspired) the vicious behavior of one Dr. Steven Plaut, a former American, now Israeli settler and also an academic at the University of Haifa. "My own home university, the University of Haifa, has been the scene in recent days of a saga of leftist campus McCarthyism. It all began when a professor of Middle East political science, David Bukay, was accused by an Arab student activist, who was not even formally registered in Bukay's class, a student active in a student communist organization, of making derogatory comments in class about Arabs," Plaut wrote, and then made a reference me, making sure to include a lethal dose of slander that is typical of his modus operandi:

The allegations were then planted in a local newspaper, and reported in the Arab press. Then one of the Cockburn Cockroaches, a regular columnist on Counterpunch with views about Jews resembling those of neonazis, started spreading the allegations about the internet. Kurt Nimmo is an unemployed New Mexico photographer-wannabe who writes crackpot articles for Counterpunch and also for the neonazi web site Rense.com. Nimmo routinely refers to all Jews as "Zionists", such as the new director of the World Bank, and Nimmo makes it clear all "Zionists" need to be shipped
off in cattle cars to nice camps.

I wrote the good professor and asked him to document where I have claimed "all 'Zionists' need to be shipped off in cattle cars to nice camps," but naturally he did not respond. I consider this libel -- but as we know, the laws are sketchy at best when it comes to the internet.

Juan Cole commented on this sort of libelous smear campaign last March: "Recently Steven Plaut, an Israeli defender, at the University of Haifa, of the terrorist groups around the late extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, was commissioned by [David] Horowitz (and probably others of that circle) to do yet another hatchet job on me, the second in just a few months.... Plaut cited the earlier smears and rightwing bloggers as authorities. (One smear now becomes a "citation" for the next one!).... The GoogleSmear references a body of falsehoods. It creates a nexus of links that increase the chance that the smear will come to the top of a google search."

Plaut also posted a "false allegation to a bulletin board under an assumed name" about Cole, behavior he has engaged in previously. "Writing under assumed names," notes an entry in the UCC Palestine Solidarity Campaign database, "Plaut has a long history of attacking, labeling, and targeting left-wing scholars in Israel. One anonymous article appeared under the name of Socrates in the Middle East Review of 2001."

Moreover, Plaut was accused in 2004 of "spoofing and spamming activities" in order to slander his enemies:

Messages posted on 13 April 2004 to the ALEF electronic discussion forum (which is based at the University of Haifa) seem to indicate something about Plaut's mentality. These messages, which were posted to ALEF by somebody else and which seem to report on an email conversation that Plaut had with someone who was banned from the ALEF forum for excessive spamming, seem to indicate that Plaut boasted about stealing the ALEF membership list so that messages could be sent to ALEF members without being passed through the ALEF system. Specifically, Plaut seems to have written the following. The typographical errors appeared in the original:

I stoll their membership list. If you want to sen dthings to the whole list,
use any email and send to: (via BCC so they do not know what you are doing):
...

Put the alef address in the header and write (alef) before
subject and they will think it is coming thru their list!

He also seemed to be connected with somebody called Rocky who, pretending to be a pro-Zionism Palestinian living in the West Bank, used the pseudonym "Yusuf" to plague the ALEF list with racist emails until he was excluded from the forum.

Paul de Rooij comments on the Counterpunch site:

"Rocky" proceeded to send hateful emails to the forum posing as someone called Yusuf, a "Zionist Palestinian", who also was "your token Arab who adores Israel". "Rocky" then made the mistake of using CC instead of BCC to forward one of his diatribes. The ensuing email exchange between "Rocky" and Plaut discussing the faux pas was revealed when "Rocky" repeated the mistake by sending it to the entire distribution list! It would make amusing reading were it not for such a sordid attempt at deception, the smearing of others, and interfering in a discussion of Israeli academics on how to obtain a modicum of justice for the Palestinians.

Here is a sampling of Mr. Plaut's libelous tirades. In addition, he posted numerous slanders on the Moonbat Central weblog, however the neocon David Horowitz took the site down about a month ago and the posts are unavailable.

Cockburns's Cockroaches
Walmart Cockroach
The Neonazi Ties of the Leftist Lunabrits
Another Scholarly Associate of Prof. Cole

However, the real culprit in this ceaseless campaign seems to be 1st Lt. Kevin Mumaw, 33, of the 101st Airborne Division, "camped at one of Saddam's lesser palaces in Mosul," as of 2003, according to Stars and Stripes. Mumaw "is the online troll harassing Kurt Nimmo," reports several IndyMedia sites. Although I have no direct evidence of this, I believe Mumaw is Plaut's latest "Rocky." I also believe he is responsible for hijacking my wife's name and using it to post slanderous posts and also responsible for posting my address and telephone numbers. Here is Mumaw's blog, charmingly entitled "Mumaw Quadaffi.".

Finally, Plaut has posted a gloating piece on Rocco DiPippo's blog (a former Moonbat blog regular):

http://antiprotester.blogspot.com/2006/01/neonazi-poet-of-posterior-kurt-nimmo.html

Gorilla Radio for Monday, January 16th, 2006

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - This Week on Gorilla Radio: Author, Mike Palecek and Looking for Bigfoot.

Jack Etkin on Canadian media in the run-up to the federal election.

And; Janine Bandcroft bringing us up to speed with all that's good to do in and around Victoria this week.


Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, 104.3 cable, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca He also serves as a contributing editor at the progressive web news site: http://www.pej.org.

You can check out the GR blog at: http://GorillaRadioBlog.blogspot.com

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As the bombs burst over village markets, as bodies writhe on dusty, chemical strewn streets, burning, melting from the inside out, as tortured screams echo down the chambers of hidden prisons, America goes about its daily business. The good citizens shop for automobiles and groceries, chatting in line about the exploits of movie stars and more minor celebrities. While forests fall and a million fires scorch the planet, the good citizens of America make dental appointments, and try to decide what colour to paint the kitchen.

This is the waking nightmare of Jack Robert King’s America. Broadcasting his internet radio program, ‘Bigfoot Radio’ from the heart of America, not a dark heart, but the open country of Iowa, where big skies throw few shadows.

Mike Palecek is an America novelist whose seventh book, ‘Looking for Bigfoot’ examines the maddening banality of evil that is his creation, Jack Robert King’s America. Mike Palecek and hunting for the mythical in America in the first half.

And; The mainstream, corporate news has had a free ride for far too long in this country. Canada is already home to one of the world’s most highly concentrated media, and the trend is quickening. But how to break the strangle-hold?

Victoria-based media critic and activist, Jack Etkin on a people’s media in the second half.

And; Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with all the good things to do in and around Victoria this week.

But first, Mike Palecek and getting to Yeti.



G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the mainstream media.

Some past guests include: M. Junaid Alam, Joel Bakan, Maude Barlow, David Barsamian, William Blum, Luciana Bohne, Vincent Bugliosi, Helen Caldicott, Noam Chomsky, Michel Chossudovsky, Diane Christian, Juan Cole, David Cromwell, Murray Dobbin, Jon Elmer, Reese Erlich, Anthony Fenton, Jim Fetzer, Laura Flanders, Chris Floyd, Susan George, Stan Goff, Robert Greenwald, Denis Halliday, Chris Hedges, Sander Hicks, Julia Butterfly Hill, Robert Jensen, Dahr Jamail, Diana Johnstone, Kathy Kelly, Naomi Klein, Anthony Lappe, Frances Moore Lappe, Dave Lindorff, Jim Lobe, Jennifer Loewenstein, Wayne Madsen, Stephen Marshall, Linda McQuaig, George Monbiot, Loretta Napoleoni, John Nichols, Kurt Nimmo, Greg Palast, Michael Parenti, William Rivers Pitt, Sheldon Rampton, Paul Craig Roberts, Paul de Rooij, John Ross, Danny Schechter, Vandana Shiva, Norman Solomon, Starhawk, Grant Wakefield, Paul Watson, Bernard Weiner, Mickey Z., Dave Zirin, and many others.




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Disappearing Jack Abramoff: Why This Scandal Will Fizzle

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Disappearing Jack Abramoff:
Why This Scandal Will Fizzle

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Having missed my chance to play New Year's prognosticator, I'll throw my hat in here: My animal entrails tell me, Jack Abramoff, the man at the centre of the Scandale du Jour swirling in Washington will neither spell the end of George W. Bush's corruption plagued administration, nor signal a political sea-change in the way lobbyists ply their trade.

www.PEJ.org

Disappearing Jack Abramoff:
Why This Scandal Will Fizzle
C. L. Cook

PEJ News
January 7, 2006


Further gruesome readings of the guts reveal: This time next week,
a Google of Abramoff's name will return few new entries.



The blogs have been abuzz over Jack Abramoff's plea bargain last week. The erstwhile Washington high-flyer's promise to "co-operate" with investigations into what some have described as the biggest Congressional scandal in more than a century is, for those wishing to see the Republican political apparatus collapse, a beacon pointing the way to George W. Bush's impeachment. As much as I'd like to agree, Abramoff is not the silver bullet so many have hoped for.

Though the Affair d'Abramoff may deserve the epithet of "Congressional Scandal of the Century," the very scope of the case of the man who is to the D.C. lobby industry what Wayne Gretzky was to hockey ensures it will be consigned to the media memory pit; there are simply too many, on both sides of the aisle, implicated.

Besides, when considered in the context of recent scandal: the 2000 election fix; the 9/11 fiasco; Afghanistan; Iraq; Valerie Plame; Guantanamo; Abu Ghraib; and of course the ongoing Katrina; it will take more than a bit of bribery gone too far to scuttle the Bush ship of State.

Expect next week to read of the Justice Department's decision to slow the prosecution of Abramoff, just as has been done in the case of disgraced former media mogul, Conrad Black. The media, adept as it is in celebrating courtroom cases, doesn't well handle the cumbersome complexities of jurisprudence and its often glacial pace. Abramoff will sink from the public's view and consciousness, disappeared in a legal labyrinth too tedious to merit media attention.

And a collective sigh in Washington will go up. None are eager to muddy the waters more; none willing to be the one to kill the goose whose eggs succor all.

The mutual venality and corruption in Washington is the crux of the matter; it's the answer to the continued momentum of the Bush administration, an administration that thunders along, pressing its radical agenda despite myriad transgressions of both law and decency. Moving on, despite being the least supported government in living memory, the woes of Abramoff, and fellow transgressor, Representative Tom DeLay, will do little to slow Team Bush. Today, George Bush would happily take his hero, Richard Nixon's approval ratings at his pre-impeachment nadir, but unlike the benighted Nixon, Bush still has the levers of power firmly in hand.

But the beat goes on...

Matthew Continetti, writing for Murdoch News Corp. British organ, The Weekly Standard, illustrates the rabid scurrying of Democrats, eager to distance themselves from the largesse many of their campaigns enjoyed, courtesy of Mr. Abramoff. In his article, 'The Friends of Jack Abramoff' Continetti quotes Democrat Senate leader, Harry Reid in an interview with News Corp. colleague, Chris Matthews of Fox News, saying; "Abramoff gave me no money. So don't lump me in with Jack Abramoff." Of course, Reid's campaign had received money from Abramoff, though through an arm's length conduit. That's how these things are done.

Jack Abramoff will, in all likelihood come to inhabit a cell somewhere. Facing mail fraud, tax evasion, wire fraud, and the ubiquitous, "conspiracy" charges, he's already looking at a possible 11 years, on condition his "co-operation" is deemed sufficient by Justice. And doubtless, he will not go down alone. But, by the time this case winds its weary way through the judicial system, George W. Bush will be well past his "mandate."

And the democrats will dutiful let this story fall through the cracks. In an election year, the last thing apparatchiks of either party wants is a spotlight shone on the craven criminality endemic to their profession, highlighting the situation in Washington the editors of The New Republic flatly observed, saying; "rule-bending and corruption under this Congress has become pedestrian."

So, the bloody mess of intestines tell me: Business as usual for 2006. Next week: The Disappearing of Tom DeLay.



C. L. Cook serves as a contributing editor to PEJ News. He also hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.

Stay informed. Subscribe and get the best of PEJ News by email. Free.

Shut Up, Joe! Killing the Soldier's Voice

U.S. military 'shuts down' soldiers' blogs
Troops are detailing their experiences in online journals, but military says some are revealing too much

BY JOSEPH MALLIA
STAFF WRITER
Newsday

January 2, 2006

Letters home filled with tales of death and danger, bravery and boredom are a wartime certainty.

And now, as hundreds of soldiers overseas have started keeping Internet journals about the heat, the homesickness, the bloodshed, word speeds from the battlefront faster than ever.

More and more, though, U.S. military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan are clamping down on these military Web logs, known as milblogs.

After all, digital photos of blown-up tanks and gritty comments on urban warfare don't just interest mom and dad.

The enemy, too, has a laptop and satellite link.

Nowadays, milbloggers "get shut down almost as fast as they're set up," said New York Army National Guard Spc. Jason Christopher Hartley, 31, of upstate New Paltz, who believes something is lost as the grunt's-eye take on Tikrit or Kabul is silenced or sanitized.

Hartley last January was among the first active-duty combat troops demoted and fined for security violations on his blog, justanothersoldier.com.

Throughout last year, the Army, Marines, Air Force and Navy tightened control on bloggers by requiring them to register through the chain of command and by creating special security squads to monitor milblogs.

"The ones that stay up are completely patriotic and innocuous, and they're fine if you want to read the flag-waving and how everything's peachy keen in Iraq," said Hartley, who is back in New Paltz after two years stationed in Iraq.

The new emphasis on security, however, is welcome to some.

"When you put your blog out there, you cannot forget that not only the good guys, but the bad guys are accessing it, especially for TTPs," said Marine Capt. Don Caetano, of Mineola, referring to techniques, tactics and procedures. Now a recruiter in Garden City, Caetano was stationed in Fallujah, where he ran the embedded journalist program.

"The limitations on blogging basically mean, 'Don't make it easy for them. Don't readily give up information,' " that would endanger U.S. troops, Caetano said.

Revealing a minor aspect of strategy or tactics may seem insignificant, Caetano said, but, "If the bad guys take a piece from me, and a piece from you, and a piece from another guy, pretty soon they can gather some pretty good intel."

The military, at first unaware of the milblogging trend, last year began targeting bloggers with warnings, punctuated by high-profile disciplinary action.

The Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, in August sent a videotaped admonition to overseas troops warning them of the dangers of carelessness on blogs.

And, echoing the World War II censorship slogan, "Loose lips sink ships," the Pentagon in November sent out an advisory titled "Loose blogs may blow up BCTs." A BCT is a brigade combat team.

Hartley was fined $1,000 and demoted from sergeant. Others also have been disciplined, including Pfc. Leonard Clark, an Arizona national guardsman serving in Iraq who was demoted from specialist and fined $1,640 in August for putting classified information on his blog.

'That's sorta the point'

Among security breaches in postings on soldiers' Web sites, the Army pointed to photos of an Abrams tank pierced by a rocket-propelled grenade, which could show Iraqi insurgents where to aim.

In Hartley's case, the Army said he should not have described his unit's flight route into Iraq because that could help the enemy shoot down U.S. aircraft. And, the Army said, Hartley should not have disclosed that the last three bullets he loaded into his weapon's magazine were always tracers, because that could tip an enemy to time an attack just as an American soldier is reloading.

Despite those charges, Hartley asserts he did not put any American troops at risk. He believes the Army's real concern was his satiric tone.

"Photos of the week of cute Iraqi kids who I want to shoot," he captioned one set of snapshots on his blog in 2004.

"Something I cannot reiterate often enough is how monumentally misbehaved Iraqi street kids are," Hartley's blog continued. "But some of them are just so darn cute, you can't help but want to squeeze their little faces - until they suffocate."

The Army took him literally, even though Hartley said he was aiming his satire at those who believe Iraqi civilians' lives have little value.

Some of Hartley's readers got the point. Others did not.

One of Hartley's Web entries on April 24, 2004, carried a photograph of an Iraqi man's partially burned corpse clothed in a bloodied white tunic. Hartley's photo caption was a take on the "I [heart] New York City" slogan. His version: "I [heart] Dead Civilians."

In response, a visitor wrote: "Is this a joke or what? This whole blogg gives a bad taste in the mouth."

Hartley replied, "It leaves a bad taste in your mouth? That's sorta the point."

Another blog reader, with the moniker Alberto, defended the shock-blog: "The point of being so graphic it's to see what a war really is. Good blog, keep it up!"

In general, observers say, soldiers' online musings are less and less compelling.

There's less of the informal, often coarse language - one soldier speaking to another - that gave a feeling of authenticity and attracted thousands of readers both in and out of the military, said Jon Peede, director of Operation Homecoming, a National Endowment for the Arts program that gives writing instruction to U.S. troops and is creating a collection of their blogs, letters and essays.

Yet one drawback to vivid, uncensored descriptions of combat on blogs was that the family of a wounded or killed soldier might get the news impersonally, or worry unnecessarily, Peede said.

"A blogger might say, 'We were in a firefight in a particular city, and a fellow Marine was wounded,' " Peede said, "and then 50 families might read that and think it's their son or brother."

Content concerns

Besides, wayward milblogs give the world a skewed view of U.S. troops, said Capt. Dan Rice, of Manhattan, who served in Tikrit for 18 months with the U.S. Army National Guard's 42nd Infantry Division. A West Point graduate, Rice served as a finance officer and is now back working as a vice president at the U.S. Trust Co. of New York.

Most bloggers are atypical soldiers, said Rice, who wrote a pro-military blog favored by his superior officers. "It will mostly be the risk-takers, the mavericks, and the one percent that's bitter, who will blog."

Readers also have taken up the debate.

"my only concern is the posting of troopers pics and info ... the jihadist moniter [sic] these blogs too," a visitor to adayiniraq.com wrote.

"these troops may have been compromised by these blogs," the visitor wrote. "i for one would rather have no blogs about our troopers if it needlessly endanger's 1 of thier [sic] lives."

Marine Cpl. Al Maldonado, 28, of West Hempstead, who saw combat in Iraq, said milblogs help maintain a connection between the troops and their friends, family and community back home. During weeks of supplying tons of ammunition to Marines in Fallujah in November, his family was cheered to find a humorous photo of him on a blog, Maldonado said.

Blogs also allow soldiers to simply describe their combat experiences, without feeling they are bragging, Maldonado said.

"Sometimes they want to tell everyone what they went through because they're afraid that when they go back, they won't be appreciated for what they've done," he said.

Maldonado, an ammo chief, criticized Hartley for blogging about the reloading technique. "To describe your method for loading tracers in a blog, that's pretty stupid. Now I know when three tracers go by me that's when he's reloading," he said.

A waste of time?

Seymour Hersh, the reporter who broke stories on the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War and torture at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, said military commanders can't control the flow of information by shutting down soldiers' blogs.

"There's a tremendous communication underground. [Soldiers] talk, they send e-mails, photos," Hersh said from his Washington, D.C., office. "The Army is wasting its time."

Milblogs remain popular. mudvillegazette.com claimed more than 700,000 page views in 2005, with blackfive.net not far behind. And michaelyon.blogspot is ranked in the top 100 (No. 81) of the 8 million blogs tracked by Technorati.com.

But with stricter controls now in place, the milblogosphere's freewheeling days likely are limited.

Some critics of the censorship say it could be harder for American soldiers to publicly raise questions about the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the success or failure of the war effort, and the "stop-loss" policy that forces soldiers to remain after enlistment contracts expire.

But a complete milblog blackout may never succeed.

"Is it over? No way, as long as there are soldiers and the Internet. People will always be starting blogs and get shut down, and then someone else starts one," Hartley said. "In my generation, or younger, everyone's all about spilling their guts on the Internet."
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.

Gorilla Radio for Monday January 2, 2006

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - On today's program: NYT-based author, activist, Kung Fu poet and Cool Observor, Mickey Z. and life in an age of lost astonishment.

And; Janine Bandcroft with all the good things you can get up to in and around Victoria in the coming New Year.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, 104.3 cable, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca He also serves as a contributing editor at the progressive web news site: http://www.pej.org.

You can check out the GR blog at: http://GorillaRadioBlog.blogspot.com

Gorilla Radio for Monday,
January 2, 2006
C. L. Cook

PEJ News
January 2, 2006


Welcome to the first GR of this new beginning, The Year of the Dog.
The ancient Chinese curse says, “May you live in interesting times.”

To look at the times, and the curse we’ve endured these past several years in the form of George W. Bush and his co-defendants to be, one might think there's something lost in the translation. “Interesting” doesn’t begin to describe the brutishness and venality at the acme of American power today.

It is truly astonishing.

Daily, we bear collective witness to crimes of the most heinous sort which, though committed in broad daylight, are allowed to go unpunished. What’s worse it seems, with each new depravity exposed, the shock and outrage accompanying its revelation diminishes: what rightly should be received with red-faced indignation and fists shaking, expressed in numbers and in the streets, is instead greeted with gape-mouthed astonishment and cynical mutterings around the water-cooler of, “What did you expect?”

But, fear not good listener, for just beneath the surface smoulders the ember of America’s conscience; burning still beneath the layers of outrage and perfidy heaped upon it, ready to ignite a fire under the feet of those that would destroy the promise of freedom and liberty for all; a fire ready to immolate the pretenders and usurpers of the nation.

Mickey Z. is a New York City-based activist and author whose books include: The Seven Deadly Spins, A Giant Mistake: Articles and Essays for Your Intellectual Self-Defence, and The Murdering of My Years. His latest, 50 American Revolutions You’re Not Supposed to Know: Reclaiming American Patriotism is now at a bookstore near you. Mickey Z. and tending the fragile flame of the American Revolution in the first half.

And; Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with all that’s good to do in and around Victoria in this year made new, and music and a chance to tell your Christmas and New Year’s tales in the second half.

But first, Mickey Z. and reclaiming America.

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the mainstream media.

Some past guests include: M. Junaid Alam, Joel Bakan, Maude Barlow, David Barsamian, William Blum, Luciana Bohne, Vincent Bugliosi, Helen Caldicott, Noam Chomsky, Michel Chossudovsky, Diane Christian, Juan Cole, David Cromwell, Jon Elmer, Reese Erlich, Anthony Fenton, Jim Fetzer, Laura Flanders, Chris Floyd, Susan George, Stan Goff, Robert Greenwald, Denis Halliday, Chris Hedges, Sander Hicks, Julia Butterfly Hill, Robert Jensen, Dahr Jamail, Diana Johnstone, Kathy Kelly, Naomi Klein, Anthony Lappe, Frances Moore Lappe, Dave Lindorff, Jim Lobe, Jennifer Loewenstein, Wayne Madsen, Stephen Marshall, Linda McQuaig, George Monbiot, Loretta Napoleoni, John Nichols, Kurt Nimmo, Greg Palast, Michael Parenti, William Rivers Pitt, Sheldon Rampton, Paul Craig Roberts, Paul de Rooij, John Ross, Danny Schechter, Vandana Shiva, Norman Solomon, Starhawk, Grant Wakefield, Paul Watson, Bernard Weiner, Mickey Z., Dave Zirin, and many others.

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Will Canada Bomb Iran?

Will Canada Bomb Iran?
C. L. Cook

PEJ News
January 1, 2006

With the holidays past, perhaps it's time to address the future of Canada. In the midst of a mid-winter federal election, what questions are being posed to the Prime Minister? Canadians largely don't care about gay marriages, and what to call Christmas. They do, however, harbour concerns about the fate of the nation, and what it means for us when both of the country's contenders for the Number 1 post are happy to march in lock-step with America into what promises to be a century of military adventurism.

Who is asking the BIG question?

While the Canadian media monolithe contents itself to echo its U.S. counterparts, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper are free to banter on about issues guaranteed to lull the population into complacent inattention; left unattended is Canada's new role, as elucidated by "Defence" Minister, Bill Graham, in an ever-expanding American military campaign across the planet. A campaign now, according to Der Spiegel, plans to include NATO in plans to bomb Iran's nascent nuclear infrastructure. That the justifications proferred by the U.S. are as flimsy as those flown prior to the Iraq disaster, and in some instances are eerily similar, is too left uncommented on by mainstream information sources.

Is it truth of fiction?

True to Donald Rumsfeld's intent, it is impossible to know if the United States is serious about the rumoured bombings, or if this is another example of American disinformation. Both the U.S. and Israel have rattled sabres against Iran and its nuclear program for years, an approach that ensured the election of hard-line leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a leader now conveniently demonized for his recent statements on Israel's right to existence and what he claims to be the "myth" of the Nazi holocaust against the Jewish people.

Adding fuel to speculation, Bush loyalist and CIA director, Porter Goss during a recent visit to Turkey reportedly informed Ankara to be prepared for an air-strike against Iran. In return for Turkish assistance, Der Spiegel suggests the U.S. sanctioned an attack against the Kurdish Workers Party (KPP), the leaders of Kurdish independence and long-time Turkish bane, who have enjoyed American protection since the first Gulf War. How this factum, should it prove true, will fly with the Kurds and their Israeli allies in Iraq is an intriguing curiosity.

Apparently informed too of America's intent were regional players, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman and Pakistan. The Berlin daily, Der Tagesspiegal also reports, Western allies have also been alerted. Though both the German and Turkish governments are playing down the possibility of an attack, a steady procession of U.S. leaders, most lately Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice and NATO's defence minister has many wondering what the sudden interest in Turkey means.

So, will NATO partner Canada join a bombing campaign in Iran as it did in Yugoslavia? It’s a question that may need answering before the country’s January 23^rd election.

C. L. Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News and host of Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.

Through the Glass Lightly

Through a looking glass
David Shariatmadari
20 - 12 - 2005


An eighty-year-old newspaper and a superstitious moment give David Shariatmadari fresh perspective on his anxious modern condition.



Ever felt worn down by the modern world? Find yourself fantasising about other lives you could have lived – as a courtier at Versailles, a geisha, perhaps a pipe-smoking Edwardian gentleman? A vision of the world as a simple place, without bio-terrorism, frankenstein foods, melting ice-caps. Life in serene freedom from latter-day horrors.

Except that some people still speak of the bad old days. My father, who grew up in Iran, used to say the second world war had been the most difficult time of his life, despite the fact that the country didn’t see any fighting. “We spent hours queueing for bread, and when we got it, it was the worst kind, and all burnt,” he recalled. My grandfather could have talked to you about the Depression, his own father about the shock of the Great War.

Every generation has its earth-shattering moments. So why do we tend to believe we’ve never had it so bad? It’s easy to see a ‘meant to be’ quality in the past that makes it seem less frightening although, at the time, it might have felt like the old certainties were unravelling. And of course, it’s hardly in the news media’s interests to reveal that there’s nothing new under the sun.

So indulge me for a moment in a detour into my personal life. A few weeks ago I broke a full length mirror. Not only had it been my sole means of judging how well my top half matched my bottom half (faux pas have since been witnessed), like most outwardly rational people, I secretly retain one or two superstitions, among them a belief that smashing mirrors is serious bad luck. I began to worry that I had just brought seven years of misery on myself. Perhaps I should have found comfort in the fact that this would surely mean I could expect to live another seven years, and might as well stop worrying about plane crashes and terminal diseases for that period of time. Already a bad omen, it then became a source of guilt as my housemates rightly decided it was up to me to dispose of it. I wasn’t sure how. In the end, I went at it with a hacksaw and a hammer, breaking it into manageable pieces and no doubt compounding the bad luck in the process.

Between the mirror and the hardboard backing were the brittle yellowed pages of a newspaper. Checking the date, I was surprised to find that it was a British Daily Mail from 11 July 1925. Back then, John Logie Baird was tinkering with the first TV set and F. Scott Fitzgerald had just published The Great Gatsby. ‘Ah,’ I thought wistfully, falling into the trap, ‘another world’. Not quite.

Among the adverts for liver salts, nerve tonics and baby carriages was an article titled ‘Tragi-comedy of Monkeyville’. Monkeyville, it emerged, was Dayton, Tennessee, where John T. Scopes, a high school teacher, had been arraigned on charges of teaching evolution. Very odd. Less than a week before, I’d been listening to a woman on the news. “The last time this happened, it was in the old world and people got burnt at the stake” she protested, from the epicentre of another crisis over whether to allow the teaching of creationism in American schools. I was ready to believe her line about this being something new and alien. Countless reports give the impression the Christian lobby in the US has never been stronger. But as my paper showed, the debate about the role of biblical teaching is far from new, even on her side of the Atlantic.

Perhaps stranger was that British shock at the anachronism of the debate was as tangible in 1925 as it is in 2005. John Blunt writes “one suddenly perceives that Tennessee is a much more incredible place than New Guinea, and that America contains mysteries of outlook that make China appear simple”. He articulates an uneasiness, not alien to modern-day UK citizens, at being closely identified with the United States but uncomfortable with some of its mores. Blunt warms to his theme: “the strange prejudices of, let us say, a Kalmuk do not astonish one, because everything about him is completely different from oneself; but the stranger prejudices of a Tennessee farmer do astonish one, just because he appears, in so many ways, to be very much like oneself”.

Equally disconcerting is the American love of spectacle, the desire to turn the proceedings of a courtroom into a piece of entertainment (O.J. Simpson springs to mind). The paper’s special correspondent notes sniffily that on arrival the presiding judge stopped to allow photographs to be taken. Clearly enjoying his few moments of fame he posed again, his gavel raised, before calling the case. Blunt wonders that “the most modern business instincts appear to be mixed up with a mentality that flourished hundreds of years ago, and the dark intolerance of the Middle Ages to be mingled with a strong desire to “boost” the occasion”. That desire to “boost” the occasion is now so much in evidence that it passes without comment. This is one aspect of the article, at least, that would seem quaint to the modern reader.

Monkeyville wasn’t the only story with eerie parallels to the present. I found British hooligans making nuisances of themselves on the continent, and the enormous cost to the taxpayer of the mass-slaughter of diseased cattle (tuberculosis, not foot and mouth or bird flu, was the animal affliction of the moment). Some unlucky hack had been sent across London to see how long it would take to get from Marble Arch to Liverpool Street at 11.30 in the morning. He spent fifty-two minutes behind the wheel, including the twelve minutes it took to cross Tottenham Court Road – a time that would raise few eyebrows today. Though there was the occasional grocery barrow to contend with on his nightmare drive, at least he didn’t have to risk encountering one of Mayor Ken Livingstone’s unlovable new ‘bendy buses’.

In the parliamentary section I read that Conservative MP Sir Robert Gower intends to ask a question about the British Broadcasting Company. At the time solely a radio broadcaster, then as now it was funded by a licence fee. Gower wanted to ask the minister responsible whether, in view of the profits made by the BBC over the past year, a reduction in the fee would be in order. The BBC’s funding is still hotly debated today – so when was the golden age of consensus on our public service broadcaster? It never existed.

Among the letters, a Major Bagley holds forth on the lamentable record of Great Britain’s sporting representatives before attempting to explain “why foreigners win”. The reason, he claims, is the lack of “organised games” in all but the best schools and universities in the UK. To anyone who follows the British press today, hand-wringing about our international sporting performance and the ‘crisis’ of physical education in schools is familiar background noise, though the Ashes victory and successful Olympic bid may have produced a brief lull.

On the back pages, America reappears, but this time the mind of the tourist, not the Tennessee farmer, is dissected. To understand the annual influx of visitors from the US, Europeans need look no further than the tedious uniformity of American culture: it doesn’t matter where you are in the States, “buildings, furniture and clothes are everywhere identical, and language is too”. It is the variety of the old world that attracts them, though with prohibition in full swing, the chance to sink a few can’t have been far from their minds. But something odd is afoot; parts of London, Paris and Rome are beginning to look the same as well, the same as everywhere else, that is. “The imposing new Regent Street, for example, that has arisen in the last few years might just as well be a piece of Winnipeg or Sydney as of London”. Anxiety about globalisation, a favourite twenty-first century preoccupation, was already in full swing in 1925. Many now see the classical canyon of Regent’s Street as the epitome of Grand Old England and instead deride the proliferation of Norman Foster’s glass blobs. The objects are different, but the sentiment is the same.

Browsing my old newspaper I wonder at the egotism in assuming we are the first to experience anything. It seems bizarre that the surprise is fresh every time we are reminded that people in the past were just like us. Here is reason not to take the media’s frequent predictions of doom, disaster and cultural decline too seriously. There are some things, you could argue, that genuinely are new: modern weapons, AIDS or global warming. But on examination, how similar even these problems are to the challenges faced by earlier generations: no small comfort – they survived them, after all. The man on the street in 1925 was as beset by uncertainties as we are. The prospect of another, much more frightening war loomed large, and everyday tribulations, the traffic, the economy, the loss of old ways of life, were stories beloved of editors then as now.

My advice, the next time you’re anxious about the rise of creationism, cloned coffee shops or the state of the world in general, is to go to the library and ask to see a copy of a daily paper from 1930, 1910 or even 1860. The longer view may be the more realistic.

Letting Sleeping Watch Dogs Lay

The Sound of Silence: As in Dogs Not Barking
by Ian Williams
www.dissidentvoice.org
December 31, 2005



It was like hearing the first cuckoo of spring. MSNBC called this week to see if I would be interested in discussing the UN's waste, mismanagement and corruption in handling the Tsunami funds twelve months ago. It was, they suggested, “The biggest financial scandal since Oil for Food.”

It was, in fact, deja vu all over again. Twelve months ago, in the immediate aftermath of the Tsunami, I was being ferried around the studios to discuss the shock and horror of UN Humanitarian Affairs chief Jan Egeland calling the US "mean".

Mere technical details like the fact that he had said no such thing did not dam the tidal wave of indignation bouncing off the walls of the conservative echo-chamber.

Egeland had actually said that the developed countries had almost all failed to meet their own targets of 0.7% of GDP going to Overseas Development Assistance, which is indisputably true. He did not specify that of all of them, the US was the meanest, but I had no compunction about reminding viewers.

In fact, the US had offered an initial $30 million at the time of the Tsunami, which the talking heads all considered as the height of generosity. As the scale of the tragedy broke, the administration added several zeroes to its initial offer. However the purpose of the show was not to congratulate me on my prescience, it was to find another excuse to attack the UN.

In fact, I am somewhat surprised that no one has yet found a way to link the Hurricane Katrina debacle to the UN. But somehow the right does not want to remind people about the New Orleans debacle.

I doubt that we have heard the last of this newly launched Tsunami canard, not least since Bill Clinton's position as UN Special Envoy makes it a double whammy for the right. The UN is always wrong, it is simply a question of pinning its inherent wrongness to a topical peg.

However we can draw some comfort. Could it be that that "Oil for Food" as a subject has lost its appeal even for the rabid right?

On one level, this is probably no bad thing, since the voluminous but vapid Volcker Report finally said all there was to say, and probably a lot more than was worth saying, about the alleged scandal.

De minimis Lex non curat, says the old legal saw, "The law does not concern itself with trifles." If only we could say the same of much of the media, which of course concerns itself with little else.

For a year every minute item about the Oil For Food Program has been bellowed breathlessly from the conservative media.

And suddenly, there is silence. Last month Kojo Annan, son of Kofi, was awarded large damages against the Murdoch-owned London Sunday Times, which had to admit that its story connecting him to Oil For Food contracts had no substance. You did not see the story on Fox, MSNBC, or any of the usual cabal.

In December, the US charged two colonels who had worked for the "Coalition Provisional Authority" with accepting bribes of $200,000 a month for steering contracts to companies that were seemingly just shells. They worked with someone whom the Coalition Provisional Authority hired as comptroller with a budget of $82 million -- despite a previous felony conviction for fraud.

It did not make the headlines. Senator Norm Coleman and Congressman Henry Hyde did not call for the resignation of the chief executive of the organization involved, one George W. Bush.

And no one mentioned that much of the money involved presumably came from the $10 billion surplus that the UN Oil For Food Fund had handed over to the Development Fund for Iraq, controlled by the CPA. During its blessedly short life span, the American dominated CPA spent nearly $20 billion of the $23.34 billion of Iraqi funds it had under its control for just over a year. It spent just $300 million of the US taxpayer funding pledges of $18.4 billion for Iraq's reconstruction.

At a press conference at the UN on Wednesday 28 December the members of the International Accounting and Monitoring Board set up by the Security Council to monitor CPI spending of DFI funds, reinforced the impression that the Pentagon's efforts to freeze them out were a waste of effort. The body bared its gums and refused to bark at the clear evidence of gross waste, mismanagement and corruption by the CPA.

The board simply examined 24 sole sourced contracts that the CPA awarded worth more than five million dollars. In fact, we discovered during the press conference, they had paid KPMG to "audit" 23 of them, representing some $600 million, which it was suggested was mostly a process of examining American government audits.

The Pentagon had heavily censored what they provided to the IAMB until Congressman Henry Waxman posted their devastating reports on his website.

The biggest sole-sourced contract was Kellogg Brown Root, the Halliburton subsidiary which walked off with $1.6 billion. KPMG recused itself from this, so the IAMB relied on the work of the Special Inspector General for Iraq as well as the Pentagon audits.

Just consider. The US gave a sole sourced contract to a subsidiary of the company that had had Vice President Dick Cheney CEO from which he is still rolling up deferred compensation. The audit was carried out by Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General, appointed by President George W. Bush, whose lawyer he had been in various forms way back to his time as Governor of Texas.

Through almost complete media silence about this ultimate in potential whitewashes, one cannot help but hear echoes, of the febrile demands for transparency from the UN, on the need for external checks. If Kofi Annan had appointed his own lawyer to conduct the Inquiry that Volcker actually headed, can you imagine the frothy indignation?

It also emerges that the IAMB did not examine the other contracts at all, not even to check the open-ness and fairness of the bidding, let alone to see if the money from the Development Fund was in fact spent on behalf of the Iraqi people as mandated.

In fact, even Bowen's report managed more indignation than the IAMB has so far mustered. Almost the only admonition from the Board has been to suggest mildly that the US reimburse the $200 million plus that KBR overcharged for fuel supplies to Iraq. Bowen found a massive $8.8 billion of Development Fund for Iraq money could not be accounted for

That was the result of Defense Department Audits that the Pentagon tried to conceal from the IAMB, and which were only revealed by Waxman who has managed far more indignation about it than the IAMB's public statements display. One cannot help suspecting that some of the board's five members have had words with US administration officials. Even Bowen complained about this one.

As Waxman said back in June, "there has been a stark and telling contrast between Congress' approach to the Oil For Food Program and the DFI. Five separate congressional committees have been investigating U.N. mismanagement of the Oil for Food Program, and more than a dozen hearings have been held. But before today there was not a single hearing in Congress on U.S. mismanagement of the Development Fund for Iraq," which, as he points out, is the successor to the Oil For Food program. (click here)

Waxman reported that the CPA withdrew no less than $12 billion in cash from the New York Federal Reserve Bank DFI and flew it to Iraq, comments -- no less than 363 tons of $100 bills, the largest cash withdrawal in history. In its final feeding frenzy, in the last month the CPA took out $4 billion from the mother of all ATM's in New York including the largest cash withdrawal in history, $2.4 billion.

In a partial audit of $120 million of the $600 million handed out to US military officials for local reconstruction, more 80% could not be accounted for, and $7 million was simply missing.

When I raised the fate of these funds at Kofi Annan's press conference just before Christmas, I was later berated by John Bolton's press officer as an "apologist for the UN," as he questioned my journalistic integrity and accused me of "blurring the line" between the Oil for Food kickbacks and what he characterized the CPA's accounting irregularities. I told him that I was not blurring the line. I was drawing a straight line between them.

If Benon Sevan's $160,000, alleged by the Volcker Inquiry, is headline news for the best part of the year, then I think it is a legitimate question to ask why the CPA's attested multi billion scandal scarcely merits a paragraph in the back pages.

Or is the profession saying that this is a dog bites man/man bites dog scenario? That if the UN is corrupt it is unusual, but massive corruption is too commonplace in this Bush administration to merit mention?

I suspect that this is not what the news editors and producers are saying. But it would be interesting to hear an explanation about what news values mandate that the mote in the UN's eye deserves minute attention but that the beam in the White House's can be overlooked.

Ian Williams has written for newspapers and magazines around the world, ranging from the Australian, to The Independent, from the New York Observer and Village Voice to the Financial Times and the Guardian. His blog is the Deadline Pundit.

Other Articles by Ian Williams

* Christmas Spirit and Governor Scrooge

Adieu Enfant Terrible: Bye, Bye, Georgie

Adieu Enfant Terrible: Bye, Bye, Georgie

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Partings are always difficult; especially so with intimates. We’ve known you now five years El Presidente, and none will deny, the years they’ve been eventful. But it’s time, past time, we said goodbye.

www.pej.org

Adieu Enfant Terrible:
Bye, Bye, Georgie
C. L. Cook

PEJ News
December 27, 2005

There’s no shortage of pretexts for your immediate removal from the office of the President of the United States of America. Incompetence and outrageous perfidy are not, of themselves impeachable, but the number and frequency of your constitutional liberties taken is sufficient to send you down the road, or up the river.

But bye byes cannot be bidden without tenderness, or remembrance of the good times had, and noble deeds done: None are only bad, after all. So, before you go, whether frog-marched, or waved triumphantly into a waiting helicopter from the White House lawn, I’d like to thank you George for what you’ve done during your tenure, interrupted though it may be.

I thank you, George W. Bush for:

Laying bare for the world to witness the venality of American capitalism.

Exposing the myths of American freedom and democracy.

Putting to the torch the lie of American liberty and equality.

Immolating too the concept of America’s good intent (if benign incompetence) in world affairs.

The ruination of the fantasy of your great democracy and the “two” party system.


And your many other contirbutions to our collective enlightenment.

Without your supreme arrogance and determined menace, we others (those with the terrorists, I suppose you’d say) may have suffered further years of a kinder, gentler American empire, watching silent from the sidelines as the mercenaries of commerce plunder and pillage the globe, quieted by the lie of America’s ultimate beneficence.

We, the others, might have fallen, had you done in 2004, for the balm of a contrite Democrat, while his, or her corporate masters, the self-same intimates you knew too well, continued their rapine rampage across the world.

But no longer.

Thank you, Mr. Bush for opening the eyes of the dimmest bulbs among us, who now see with crystal clarity the calamity you represent is more than the failings your character embodies, but the greater evil of your [sic] country’s evolution.

Never again will America’s [sic] leaders, be they blue or red, fool the rest of us. We have all seen, thorugh your ministration, the systemic ugliness and for that alone I bid you fondest adieu and bon voyage on your journey into the history you righteously proclaim dead.

Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News. He also hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.

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Suicide by Suggestion, or Summary Execution?

Portland Indymedia - Anon. - William C. (Bill) Rodgers, aged 40, of Prescott, Arizona, was found dead in a jail cell in Flagstaff early on December 22nd. The Coconino County sheriff's office and medical examiner said that he had committed suicide by placing a plastic bag over his head while he was in his one-person cell.

http://portland.indymedia.org

Suicide by Suggestion, or Summary Execution?
Accused "Eco-terrorist" Dead in Custody

Eco-Defense Arrestee Bill Rodgers
Found Dead in Cell in Arizona
author: anon

Portland Indymedia
December 22, 2005

SHERIFF SAYS THAT BILL RODGERS KILLED HIMSELF IN CELL

Bill Rodgers was one of six people arrested this month in connection with eco-defense actions in Oregon and Washington in recent years. He was charged in the firebombing of a government wildlife lab outside Olympia, Wash. In an affidavit that was filed in federal court last week, an FBI agent said that Rodgers attended a meeting of Earth Liberation Front members in western Colorado where the arson of a Vail, Colorado ski resort was planned.

Community members are mourning the passing of a tireless activist who had worked for social justice and environmental responsibility. He was a co-founder of the Catalyst Infoshop and Bookstore. One of his loved ones said about the case, "We need to show Prescott and the U.S. that we are not ashamed of who Bill—or The Catalyst—is, but proud of how they have served to bring people together."

I got this off indybay and there's more info in google news, just search for bill rodgers.



DemocracyNow!

Jailed Environmental Activist Bill Rodgers Dead of Apparent Suicide
In other news, Bill Rodgers, an Arizona environmentalist and bookstore owner has died in his prison cell just two weeks after his arrest. Rodgers was one of six activists picked up by the FBI on December 7. They were all accused of setting a series of arsons in the Pacific Northwest that had been linked to the Earth Liberation Front. Prison officials are calling Rodger's death a suicide. A medical examiner say Rodgers died of asphyxiation after he placed a plastic bag over his head. Rodgers was 40 years old. He was best known in Prescott, Arizona for running the Catalyst infoshop.

Guerrilla News Network



Google Search:

single feature archives : AZ IMC
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Wildcats to ANWR

PEJ New - C. L. Cook - Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the controversial oil exploration provision, in the form of a rider attached to a massive 453 billion dollar defence appropriations bill for the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

www.pej.org

Wildcats to ANWR

http://www.althippo.com/images/anwr.jpg

Senate to Vote on Drilling in Wildlife Refuge
C. L. Cook

PEJ News
December 20, 2005

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin released a statement on the U.S. House of Representative's decision to honour a 1987 agreement with Canada to protect Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the essential habitat of the Porcupine Caribou, the last of North America's great migrating herds and sustenance for the Gwich'in peoples of Yukon and Alaska:

"I am very encouraged that the House of Representatives yesterday decided to drop the Arctic Refuge drilling provision from their budget bill. This is an important step forward in the protection of the Refuge, the Gwich'in people and the Porcupine Caribou Herd. I am proud of the persistent efforts of Environment Minister Stéphane Dion, environmentalists David Suzuki and Elizabeth May and so many others."

"However, a number of hurdles still remain and Canada cannot relax until the final votes are cast. We will continue to work with our U.S. allies to ensure the Refuge and the Porcupine Caribou Herd remain protected."

That was in November, and barely a month later, Martin's caution has proven prophetic. Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the controversial oil exploration provision, in the form of a rider attached to a massive 453 billion dollar defence appropriations bill for the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Canadian reactions was swift; a spokesperson for Canadian Ambassador, Frank McKenna said Canada is: "active on this." He hopes to find support in the U.S. Senate in a final effort to kill the bill. The defence appropriations bill sailed through the House of Representatives 308-106, though previous attempts to push it through have all been shot down.

Republican Representative Mark Kennedy, who says he's consistently opposed the move explained his pro-vote, saying: "[I]t would be the height of irresponsibility to vote against a bill that funds our troops and our military while our nation is at war."

A spokesperson for Alaskan Senator Ted Steven, chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee who had vowed to make drilling in the ANWR, his long-time hobby horse, a reality before Christmas, dismissed Canadian objections, saying: "He understands and appreciates Canada's concern but believes there are enough environmental precautions."

The ANWR consists of a 600,000-hectare refuge. Proponents of drilling say the estimated oil reserves would help make America less dependent on imported oil.



Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News. He also hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.

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The Crisis of Democracia!

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PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Already faced with Castro and Chavez, the landslide electoral victory of Evo Morales in Bolivia signals a new front for the Bush administration's War on Democracy in Latin America.

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The Crisis of Democracia!
C. L. Cook

PEJ News
December 22, 2005

The Associated Press (AP) reports today, Bolivia's newly minted President-elect, Evo Morales promises he will nationalize his country's oil and gas sector, promising he will render null and void contracts with foreign companies he accuses of "looting" the nation's wealth.

The former coca farmer, and first indigenous leader of Bolivia also vows to strike down laws criminalizing the cultivation of the plant known best as the source of cocaine. Neither measure reassuring to Washington's plan for the Andean region.

Committing to a program of nationalization of natural resources, Morales says he won't expel foreign corporations, or confiscate refineries, but instead will renegotiate deals as a "partner" in the development of those resources, while retaining full ownership for Bolivia.

Speaking in the capital, La Paz, the apparent president-elect explained his position, saying: "Many of these contracts signed by various governments are illegal and unconstitutional. It is not possible that our natural resources continue to be looted, exploited illegally, and as the lawyers say, these contracts are legally void and must be adjusted."

This is being seen as a stunning reversal of fortune for the Bush administration and its friends in the oil business; Bolivia's reserves are believed second only to Venezuela, and the prospect of a second Hugo Chavez is not sitting well Washington. In 2002, the U.S. threatened to cut off 90 million dollars in aid transfers to the country should Morales win the election.

The Bush administration has also accused Chavez of "interfering" with the political process in Bolivia.

Morales has already expressed an interest in forming an alliance with Venezuela and join its president's efforts to redefine the role of multinational oil corporations in their respective countries.

Preliminary election results give Morales more than 54 percent of the vote, with less than eight percent of the general vote to be tallied. He needs only 50 percent plus one to be acclaimed without the imprimatur of the congress.

Morales' first step on what he hopes to be the road to full state control the country's oil and gas was to demand Brazilian oil giant, Petrobras return two refineries purchased from Bolivia's state-owned oil company in 1999. It's a move that will challenge the nominally left-wing "populist" Brazilian president, Luiz "Lula" da Silva.

While keeping the details of his program vague, Morales has said, contracts with companies found to have secretly exported oil and gas, avoiding state royalties, will be voided outright. Energy multinationals currently invested in Bolivia include: Petrobras, Spain's Repsol, Total SA of France, and British Gas, and BP PL:C.

Should the results prove true, Morales will be sworn into office January 22, 2006. And should he be true to his word, other multinationals who feasted on Bolivia in an orgy of privatization following International Monetary Fund (IMF) economic Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP) implemented in the 1990's, could too find their holdings less secure.



Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News and host of the weekly public affairs program, Gorilla Radio, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.

Stay informed. Subscribe and get the best of PEJ News by email. Free.

Gorilla Radio for Monday, December 19th

Gorilla Radio for Monday, December 19th

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - This week: Vancouver-based author, John Vaillant and The Golden Spruce, a tale of myth, madness, and greed in B.C.'s woods.

And, Sheldon Rampton of the Center for Media and Democracy and the PR spinning of the benefits of toxic sludge and other damn lies.

And, Janine Bandcroft bringing us up to speed with all the good things to do in and around Victoria in the coming week.


Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, 104.3 cable, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca He also serves as a contributing editor at the progressive web news site: http://www.pej.org.

You can check out the GR blog at: http://GorillaRadioBlog.blogspot.com

Can good come from an evil act done with right intent? Means and ends: A question at heart of so much human misery paving, as the saying goes: “…the road to hell with good intentions.”


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In 1997, Grant Hadwin, a timber scout and outdoorsman disappeared in British Columbia’s rugged coastal north. Hadwin’s life had recently taken a turn; after years of working in logging, he had come to despise the wanton destruction of his beloved wild, becoming an environmental advocate and blistering critic of the industry.

His final days and his ultimate fate is an enduring mystery and frontier legend. John Vaillant is a Vancouver-based writer who has written for, among other publications, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and National Geographic Adventure. His first book, The Golden Spruce chronicles the strange tale of Grant Hadwin.

John Vaillant in the first half.

And; whether you call it “perception management,” “spin,” “PR,” or just “flackery,” it amounts to the same thing: You are being fed B.S. designed to protect someone from public outrage.

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The Public Relations industry has grown to massive proportions; thanks in no small part to the rampant corruption and general perfidy ruling both politics and business today.

Sheldon Rampton is a journalist and author whose titles, co-authored with John Stauber, include: Toxic Sludge is Good for You! Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry, Mad Cow U.S.A., Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq, and his latest, Banana Republic: How the Right Wing is Turning America into a One-Party State. He’s also the Research Director for the Center for Media & Democracy, where he produces its “encyclopaedia of propaganda” Disinfopedia.

Sheldon Rampton and the damnable lies of the PR industry in the second half.

And; Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with all that’s good to do in and around Victoria this week. But first, John Vaillant and The Golden Spruce: a true tale of myth, madness, and greed.

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the mainstream media.

Some past guests include: M. Junaid Alam, Joel Bakan, Maude Barlow, David Barsamian, William Blum, Luciana Bohne, Vincent Bugliosi, Helen Caldicott, Noam Chomsky, Michel Chossudovsky, Diane Christian, Juan Cole, David Cromwell, Jon Elmer, Reese Erlich, Anthony Fenton, Jim Fetzer, Laura Flanders, Chris Floyd, Susan George, Stan Goff, Robert Greenwald, Denis Halliday, Chris Hedges, Sander Hicks, Julia Butterfly Hill, Robert Jensen, Dahr Jamail, Diana Johnstone, Kathy Kelly, Naomi Klein, Anthony Lappe, Frances Moore Lappe, Dave Lindorff, Jim Lobe, Jennifer Loewenstein, Wayne Madsen, Stephen Marshall, Linda McQuaig, George Monbiot, Loretta Napoleoni, John Nichols, Kurt Nimmo, Greg Palast, Michael Parenti, William Rivers Pitt, Sheldon Rampton, Paul Craig Roberts, Paul de Rooij, John Ross, Danny Schechter, Vandana Shiva, Norman Solomon, Starhawk, Grant Wakefield, Paul Watson, Bernard Weiner, Mickey Z., Dave Zirin, and many others.

Stay informed. Subscribe and get the best of PEJ News by email. Free.

Anti-WTO Clashes Close Hong Kong

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Water cannons and chemical deterents deployed and mass opposition demonstrations economic summit.

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Anti-WTO Clashes Close Hong Kong
C. L. Cook

PEJ News
December 17, 2005

Nearly a thousand protesters are under arrest following pitched battles with riot police
as World Trade Organization meetings wind down in Hong Kong, The Scotsman reports.


As in Seattle and Quebec City, thousands have come out to express their dissatisfaction with the economic direction being promoted by the WTO and its enforcer, the International Monetary Fund (IMF). And, as in Seattle and Quebec City, their protests have been met with massive "security" obstacles and police violence.

More than 900 are incarcerated at this hour, and scores have been hospitalized after protesters breached police lines in what is being described as the worst street violence in the communist city's short history. Hong Kong police commissioner, Dick Lee says 41are in hospital, including five police officers. Speaking of those in police custody, Lee says: "If necessary we will make arrests. We will not let them go easily."

Protests have become increasingly violent.

From the beginning of the WTO event, police reacted to protests by South Korean farmers and activists from Europe and North America forcefully, deploying tear gas, and skin irritants, fired as a foam-like substance. Protesters have responded with bamboo Lhati sticks, and on Saturday charged a police line using one of the thousands of metal barriers erected to seperate the economic representatives of the world economy from the crowds.

Describing police response, Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee went on television, warning police would, "[T]ake robust action to dispel these illegal and violent actions."

The protesters believe proposed trade deals will unfairly harm the economies of the world's poorest countries and people, while further favouring the rich.



C. L. Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News and host of the weekly public affairs program, Gorilla Radio, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.

Stay informed. Subscribe and get the best of PEJ News by email. Free.

Not Your Average Scandal: Bush Domestic Spying Impeachable?

GNN.TV - Anthony Lappe - The New York Times ran revelations George W. Bush signed off on an Executive Order empowering the National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on American peace activists, and any others deemed a "domestic threat" to national security. This runs counter to the law, and the little scandal among the myriad White House and Republican party scandals is causing a bigger than may be expected stir in Washington. -lex www.gnn.tv http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/ asia-pacific/4454738.stm Watch the Video! Leaks: Maximum damage to the White House Anthony Lappe The Bunker Guerrilla News Network 16 Dec 2005 Today’s Times blockbuster that Bush signed a secret executive order in 2002 to allow the NSA to spy on American citizens without a court order couldn’t have come at a worse time for the White House. The Senate just happened to be voting today on whether or not to renew parts of the USA Patriot Act set to expire. The nays had it, in a striking blow to the administration. The timing of the story is raising eyebrows. The Times noted the administration told them to not print the story, and the paper apparently capitulated, holding the report for a year. The paper claims it wanted to do “additional reporting.” The editors have refused to allow the authors, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, to talk to the press. Drudge claims the story is timed to the imminent publication of a new book by Risen entitled “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.” Is it book marketing, or is something deeper going on? Risen’s title raises the question of whether the highly damaging scoop is part of a larger effort to hurt the White House. Are intel officers looking for payback from a White House that leaks its operatives names and cherrypicks its intel to create a pre-text for a war that has become al Qaeda’s greatest recruiting tool? Take last week: Just as the White House’s discussions with Sen. John McCain over his proposed “torture” amendment to the defense appropriations bill were reaching a critical stage, the Times’ Douglas Jehl reported that an alleged high-ranking al Qaeda operative who was tortured while in custody in Egypt (after being captured in Pakistan) provided unreliable intelligence about an Iraq-al Qaeda link to make the pain stop. Then, back to this week, as the USA Patriot Act vote came to a head, NBC News reported they had obtained a 400-page Defense Department document [PDF with excerpts] that lists the activities of various antiwar groups, and ranks their “threat” level. NBC reports it’s the “first inside look at how the U.S. military has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country since 9/11, which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups.” NBC military analyst Bill Arkin said, “It means that they’re actually collecting information about who’s at those protests, the descriptions of vehicles at those protests. On the domestic level, this is unprecedented. I think it’s the beginning of enormous problems and enormous mischief for the military.” The program is known as “Talon,” and is supposed to compile unconfirmed reports of threats to defense facilities. The Washington Post reports that the program is “part of a broader effort by the Pentagon to gather counterterrorism intelligence within the United States.” See peace groups reax here on Democracy Now! As the activists attest, the story isn’t new. The Pentagon has been actively trying to expand its domestic spying powers since 2002. Last summer, it lobbied Congress to allow more leeway in spying on Americans, just as reports of domestic military intelligence operations began to surface. Other documents obtained by the ACLU and other groups in the past two years under the Freedom of Information Act have showed that the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force has been recording the names and license plate numbers of peaceful antiwar protesters. But what seems new, and interesting, is these leaks appear to be strategically timed to inflict maximum political damage to the White House. Coincidence, or “state of war”? UPDATE: Does Bush’s possibly illegal executive order constitute a call for impeachment? The Washington Monthly’s blogger Hilzoy thinks so. Vote: Avg: 5.00 Votes: 9 Comments: 16 [Add] RELATED ITEMS Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts Posted by Ecommunist on Thursday, December 15th 2005 BREAKING: Patriot Act renewal blocked in Senate Posted by anthony on Friday, December 16th 2005 Al Qaeda's Golden Opportunity Posted by ShiftShapers on Tuesday, October 11th 2005 Stay informed. Subscribe and get the best of PEJ News by email. Free.

Gorilla Radio for Monday, December 12

Tooker on Bike

Gorilla Radio for Monday, December 12

This week on GR: Angela Bischoff on the perils of pharmaceuticals and the legacy of activist legend, Tooker Gomberg.

And; Coming to a farm and forest near you: Delores Broten on the B.C.'s Liberal's liberal spread of toxic "fertilizer."

And: Janine Bandcroft will bring us up to speed with all that's good going in and around Victoria this week.


Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, 104.3 cable, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca He also serves as a contributing editor at the progressive web news site: http://www.pej.org.

You can check out the GR blog at: http://GorillaRadioBlog.blogspot.com

www.pej.org

Gorilla Radio for Monday, December 12
C. L. Cook

PEJ News
December 11, 2005

Who doesn’t want to change the world? Curious creatures that we are, humanity exists in two parallel realities, our internal and external worlds. Who wouldn’t wish a peaceful, sustainable existence for oneself and all the planet’s people and creatures?

But, which world do we address? Surmounting the impediments to change in the outer world seem impossible, yet millions dedicate themselves to trying, if only in their own small ways, to create a better, saner world. It’s a difficult undertaking not easily borne, where the grinding inertia of the status quo seldom gives ground to progress, and victories, when they do come, are miniscule.

On the other hand, the pharmaceuticals industry promises an easy way to see a rosier world: Just take a pill and the pain will go away. But at what cost this promise?

Angela Bischoff has worked toward justice and environmental sustainable for nearly twenty years. Living in four different Canadian cities, she and partner, Tooker Gomberg organized dozens of education and advocacy campaigns, half a dozen election bids, and created the activist website, Greenspiration.org.

Since the untimely death of her partner, she’s been on a speaking tour to bring awareness of the downside and dangers of anti-depressants. Angela Bischoff in the first half.

And; toxic sludge is good for you! Good enough to eat in fact.

Or, so the government of British Columbia would have you believe. The newest scheme dreamt up by the brain trust on Belleville Street would allow pulp mills, the generators of some of the vilest industrial waste known to humanity, to package their slag by-products as “biosolids” to be then spread on the farms and wild lands of B.C.

Delores Broten is the Senior Policy Analyst for Reached for Unbleached, a B.C.-based environmental watchdog and activist organization. Delores Broten and stemming the tide of British Columbia’s pollution spreading policies in the second half.

And; Janine Bandcroft will be join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with all that’s good to do in and around Victoria this week. But first, Angela Bischoff and the perils of the pharmaceuticals.

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G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the mainstream media.

Some past guests include: M. Junaid Alam, Joel Bakan, Maude Barlow, David Barsamian, William Blum, Luciana Bohne, Vincent Bugliosi, Helen Caldicott, Noam Chomsky, Michel Chossudovsky, Diane Christian, Juan Cole, David Cromwell, Jon Elmer, Reese Erlich, Anthony Fenton, Jim Fetzer, Laura Flanders, Chris Floyd, Susan George, Stan Goff, Robert Greenwald, Denis Halliday, Chris Hedges, Sander Hicks, Julia Butterfly Hill, Robert Jensen, Dahr Jamail, Diana Johnstone, Kathy Kelly, Naomi Klein, Anthony Lappe, Frances Moore Lappe, Dave Lindorff, Jim Lobe, Jennifer Loewenstein, Wayne Madsen, Stephen Marshall, Linda McQuaig, George Monbiot, Loretta Napoleoni, John Nichols, Kurt Nimmo, Greg Palast, Michael Parenti, William Rivers Pitt, Sheldon Rampton, Paul Craig Roberts, Paul de Rooij, John Ross, Danny Schechter, Vandana Shiva, Norman Solomon, Starhawk, Grant Wakefield, Paul Watson, Bernard Weiner, Mickey Z., Dave Zirin, and many others.

On Intimacy

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Whether how the toaster really works, or the portent of geopolitics for your life, we are, in the "Age of Communication," babes in a wood, our endemic ignorance of human society mirrored perfectly with our general disconnect with the natural world and the species currently suffering humanity’s ministration.

www.pej.org

On Intimacy
C. L. Cook

PEJ News
December 10, 2005

Never have so many known so little about so much of what makes their world work. Pause a moment and look around you: Whether at home, surrounded by the wires and widgets making the modern world run, or satellite downlinked in some technological backwater, if you're to be honest you'll own your near absolute ignorance of how it all works, or even what's going on.

Never have so many known so little about the inherent knowledge of their ancestors. Who were they? How did they live without iPods?

Whether natural by-product, or by nefarious design, the European ascension destroyed local custom and rite across the world, the resulting cultural erasure bringing chaos and dislocation, the opposite of understanding, the annihilator of knowing.

For the greater part of the world’s population to be sleep-walking through their environments has no precedent: A cave-dweller wouldn't understand your toaster either, but she'd know how to make and keep a fire. She’d know the roots and berries and the habits of the beasts about her. She could survive because she has an intimate relationship with her environment.

And you can thank God she did.

The intimacy that connected us to the world, the knowledge of our environs and how its systems worked, has now bled from the common "library," no less tragic for the remote tribes, their lost language and culture and remaining "wild" places they called home than for those sophisticate city-dwellers and their loss. The current disaster we call progress is effectively eating the heart out of human existence. Within those cities, despite their gleaming towers and mechanical marvels, the people suffer too the psychic separation from the natural world, an unbearable schism that cannot be spanned by the material. In this world, instead of knowing, dreams and fantasy masquerade as reality, clouding perception and leaving us to stumble about in uncertainty.

But that we could pause a moment before all is lost ... but that we could remember, it is more than nature we've fallen away from, too the intimate knowledge of ourselves and what it means to exist. The devil’s deal we’ve struck is the surrender of the wild and open heart for the cold comfort of a walled security.

This is the victory of distance; remote souls, shorn of the threads that connect, beckoned instead to attend the siren’s song of La Media and its shallow sensibilities, so further forbidding true discourse and the path to that inmost knowledge of our selves and our world essential to our survival.

Chris Cook is a contributing editor for PEJ.org. He also hosts the weekly public affairs program, Gorilla Radio, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.

Stay informed. Subscribe and get the best of PEJ News by email. Free.