Media & Propaganda |
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Orwell Rolls Over In His Grave - Robert Kane Pappas (Nov 2006)
Highly recommended documentary that answers the question: "Could a media system, controlled by a few global corporations with the ability to overwhelm all competing voices, be able to turn lies into truth?..." |
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The Death of the Internet - Steve Anderson COA News (May 2006)
Today, the internet seems to be one of the last bastions of free speech. But all that will change as media giants have push through laws is allowing them to control and censor the websites you have access to. |
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PBS' Carrier: Why Didn't They Film the Rape-Stops?
Suki Falconberg—05/2008 |
| PBS is renowned for highlighting issues other media channels censor out. But when it comes to the rape of prostitutes by 'our boys' in the Navy, PBS joins the media conspiracy of silence. Falconberg asks why. [more >>] |
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Expelled Expired: The Creationists Are Not Winning
Gregory Paul—05/2008 |
| The box office failure of Expelled, the 2008 pro-creationist documentary, is an indication, according to researcher Gregory Paul, of the erosion of creationism in the US by spreading Western secularism. [more >>] |
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Project Censored 2008 Report
Project Censored is a project run by Sonoma State University in California that compiles a list of all the most important news items that never made it into the US mainstream media. The top 25 censored stories for 2007 include:
1. No Habeas Corpus for "Any Person": The Military Commissions Act, signed by Bush, means that the military can now bypass all normal legal procedures and detain individuals, even Americans, without trial or regard to human rights.
2. Bush Moves towards Martial Law: The John Warner Defense Aurthorization Act of 2007, signed by Bush, gives the green light for military troops to "suppress public disorder".
3. US Military Control of Africa's Resources: The White House announced the formation of the US African Command — a Pentagon command centre in Africa by September 2008
…You can read all 25 censored news items here. |
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Veterans' Day: Flags Of Our Raped Mothers
Suki Falconberg—11/2007 |
| Last year, Clint Eastwood's Flag of Our Fathers hit the movie theaters around Veterans' Day. The advent of yet another war movie prompted Falconberg to write the following. [more >>] |
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New Bin Laden Video Fake - Sept 2007
To many in the West, they may "all look the same" with their beards and bishts, but this latest video of "Osama Bin Laden" clearly isn't him. Not only is his beard darker, but his nose is wider and the shape of his face is different. The video has been faked to stir up fear of terrorism in the West, and to save Arab face in the East. To find who is really behind this we need to ask who gains most from upping terrorist fear levels? |
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The Alarming Erosion of Press Freedom - Nov 06
Reporters Without Borders (rsf.org) who publish an index for freedom of the press in each country around the world have recently compiled their 2006 data. You can see the graph of global press freedom indexes here. Alarmingly, it reveals that freedom of the press has eroded alarmingly in 2006, especially in the countries United States, France and Japan. The federal court's refusal to allow the media to keep its sources private is blamed for the US drop in freedom, which now places that country 53rd in press freedom world rankings. The top 4 countries which share the freest world press are Finland, Iceland, Ireland and the Netherlands. Bottom of the list, with the most restrictive press in the world, are countries such as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (bit of a misnomer then), China, Cuba, Iran and Soudi Arabia. |
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Reflections On Our Inner Bush
Phil Rockstroh—09/2006 |
| Bush is not the problem, but merely a symptom of a society that has sold out to corporate capitalism. The President is now just a commodity, substantiated merely by PR campaigns. [more >>] |
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Mr. Rove's Opus of Deception
Phil Rockstroh—09/2006 |
| False narratives, peddled by the US mass media, have become the staple diet of a terrified and daunted American people. But lies have an annoying habit of coming home to roost. [more >>] |
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Muhammad Cartoons: Free Speech in the 21st Century
Andrew Paterson—02/2006 |
| Muslims everywhere are incensed by the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons deriding Islam. Should freedom of speech be curtailed to avoid racial and religious hatred? [more >>] |
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Goodbye Terry Gross, We Niver Knew Ye
Joe Bageant—01/2006 |
| US liberal media is dying because it has started to play by the same rules as mainstream media — primary being not to annoy your corporate sponsors by presenting anything too radical. [more >>] |
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Project Censored is Sonoma State University's annual top 25 news stories that were most underreported (censored) by the US corporate media. Here are the top five for 2006:
1. Bush Administration Moves to Eliminate Open Government - the Bush government is actively passing laws that reduce its assess and accountability, and increasingly shows contempt for The Freedom of Information Act.
2. Media Coverage Fails on Iraq: Fallujah and the Civilian Death Toll - the US slaughtered 6000 Iraqi citizens in Fallujah and hid its activities by preventing media access.
3. Another Year of Distorted Election Coverage - We all know that there were election "irregularities" the first time Bush won the Presidency, but few realize that this was repeated in his second election "victory". In fact, the discrepancy between exit polls and the "counted" vote was so large (eight million votes!) that it is a statistical impossibility that this happened by chance.
4. Surveillance Society Quietly Moves In - Bush signed into law the Intelligence Authorization Act giving the government the FBI the right to acquire citizen's private records without any judicial review.
5. United States Uses Tsunami for Military Advantage - the US's Tsunami relief campaign (which was one of the weakest per GNP of any developed nation) was used as a means to bolster military alliances with regional powers, in an effort to control the area around China. |
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Admission of world's most influential decision maker:
"I don't watch the nightly newscasts on TV…. I don't read the editorial pages; I don't read the columnists…. I can scan a front page, and if there is a particular story of interest, I'll skim it…. What's in the newspapers worth worrying about? I glance at the headlines just to kind of [get] a flavor of what's moving…. I rarely read the stories." George W. Bush, Fox TV Oct 2003 |
The typical bollocks he talks because of his ignorance:
"The relations with, uh, Europe are important relations, and they've, uh… because, we do share values. And, they're universal values. They're not American values or, you know, European values, they're universal values. And those values… uh… being universal, ought to be applied everywhere." George W. Bush, Washington press conference to Europeans in June 05 |
And his use of Nazi methods to spread his propaganda:
"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." George W. Bush, New York, May 05 |
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Manipulation of The People
Andrew Paterson—09/2003 |
| Despite living in "the free world", there are very few free men and women walking around in our democracies. This is because we are all being manipulated in some way to do the bidding of others. [more >>] |
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Letter by Thorne Anderson on the Invasion of Iraq
Thorne Anderson—02/2003 |
| Journalism professor and photojournalist, Thorne Anderson, writes about his concerns regarding the US imminent invasion of Iraq. [more >>] |
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