Kucinich Introduces Articles of Impeachment

I bet you didn't know this happened last night. I sure didn't until just now, and I barely missed it.

I found nothing about in my daily readings of MSNBC.com, CNN.com, and other news sites. Luckily, I happened to looking at Alternet.org's video page and came across it here.

I then did a Google search on "Kucinich Introduces Articles of Impeachment" and found that CBS news devoted two whole paragraphs to it! Upon going to cbsnews.com, the only place I could find the story was under the category "most viewed stories." It's not under the main news stories and it's not under politics. So where the hell is it? (At least it's under most viewed!).

In any event - do you need more proof that our media corporations are manipulating news? Here is a story that is obviously important to a lot of people if it makes CBS news' most viewed list, yet the story is nowhere to be found on its site, let alone almost anywhere else in the mainstream media. Why? Give this some time and seriously think about this.

Why would the fact that a Congressman introduced Articles of Impeachment on the House floor NOT make headlines?

Wanna know what did make headlines?

Sleeping at work -- more of us are doing it (CNN)

$200 bird poop facial offered by spa (CNN)

Panda killed in China earthquake mourned (CBS)

Trial halted after jurors found playing Sudoku (Fox News)

Retired worker gets catfish named for him (MSNBC)



How is any of this crap news, let alone more important than Impeachment articles being brought upon a sitting president?

Don't just take my word for it. Watch and listen to Bill Moyers' speech at the National Conference for Media Reform.

News in Review

I have nothing of real substance to say this week -aside from my post on the "liberal," pro-war newspaper the New York Times. Television and cable news still frame Clinton and Obama as a horse race - only talking about who's ahead of who; versus talking about the merits and demerits of each candidates health care, domestic or foreign policy platforms. So, here are some news stories I have found thought provoking. May they provoke thoughts in you as well.



The Land of the Almost Free to Speak Up: "Americans, she said, love to trumpet their freedom. But it’s hard to square that with political correctness that straitjackets communication for fear of giving unintended offense, hair-trigger litigiousness that requires major corporations to treat customers (”Caution: Coffee is hot”) like idiots for fear of being sued, zero tolerance policies and mandatory sentencing guidelines that remove human judgment from human encounters for fear of rendering unequal justice."



How Part of the Economy is Rigged Against Us: Leveraged Buyout - Private Equity - what do these terms mean? More to the point, what's going on with the economy and why are we in a recession while some money managers and such are making millions and oil and food companies are raking in record profits every quarter?



Celebrity Gossip = "Bona Fide Newscast": "Hard-hitting journalism is nearing extinction on television, and the Federal Communications Commission just threw another shovel-full of dirt on its grave when it recently ruled that Rupert Murdoch's TMZ and Pat Robertson's 700 Club meet the test for "a bona fide newscast.""



US Consumers Rank Last in World Survey of Green Habits: "Americans were least likely to choose the greener option in three out of four categories - housing, transportation and consumer goods_ according to the assessment. In the fourth category, food, Americans ranked ahead of Japanese consumers, who eat more meat and seafood."



Human Society Says Video Shows Abused Livestock: (Reason # 4,623 why I'm a vegetarian). "The Humane Society of the United States on Wednesday released new video taken at animal auctions in four states that showed sick and injured cows lying on the ground, and called on the U.S. government to prevent further cases of animal abuse at similar facilities." Video here.



EPA Might Not Act to Limit Rocket Fuel in Drinking Water:"An EPA official said Tuesday there’s a “distinct possibility” the agency won’t take action to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that has contaminated public water supplies around the country."

Mr. Toads Wild Ride

I'm not aware if you've heard a lot regarding the sad and quite disgusting lack of journalistic integrity at the most recent debate on ABC between Clinton and Obama; if not read about it here.

It's not just about being wrong on so many levels journalistically, it reeks of how far gone our democracy is and how much control We the People have given up. But I'll go 50/50 in terms of responsibility between the American citizen on the one hand, and how we get informed on the other. (For this post at least). A major part of the problem is our news media.

Let's just take a look at what the top stories are, listed in order, as of right now (12;39 pm EST, 4/26/08) from MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News.


MSNBC

- Democrats fear lasting racial divide
- McCain teams up with Huckabee
- Newsweek: If Clinton wins it's payback time
- Half say presidential campaign too negative
- Beach closed after killer shark attack
- Bell's fiancee: 'They killed Sean all over again'
- Mugabe's rivals win parliament
- Report: 14-year-old girl killed in Gaza clashes
- Heavy security thwarts Japanese torch protests



CNN

- Bell's Fiancee: 'They killed Sean all over again'
- Man gets out of jail with one-word blog
- Truck driver questioned in train station accident
- Zimbabwe recount shows opposition ahead
- Chicago cops out in force to deter shootings
- FBI investigates possible kidnap for ransom
- Atheist soldier claims harassment
- Man survives 500-foot fall into strip mine
- Ticker: Obama plays b-ball with WNBA star



Fox News

- Experts debate cause of rising oil prices
- Dems on road to victory?
- Fla. Official: Buy clothes, not booze
- Turkey confirms mediation between Syria, Israel
- R.I. illegals face crackdown amid state budget crisis
- Boy, 7, faces Grand Theft Auto after SUV joyride
- Fiancee of groom shot by cops: 'It's not over'
- Airlines lure fliers with gourmet menus, star chefs
- NFL draft day: College stars turn pro



Most of these news stories, while I won't say they aren't worth reporting, are, to put it bluntly, crap. Who ranked these as "Top Stories?" I mean, a school board official emailing parents who were complaining about school uniforms to prioritize their spending is a top news story? A man getting out of jail because he text-messaged his friends is a top news story? And what about half of whoever was polled saying the campaign for president is too negative. How is this news? How do these stories contribute in any way to the fact that I've watched gasoline go up almost 35 cents the last week?

Now, some of these stories are very newsworthy, don't get me wrong. Mugabe's rivals win parliament is good and debating rising oil prices is very good. But you really have to read between the lines here, and see the news that is not making it onto these three major news corporations' website. Let's go have a look at news posted today and then yesterday:

- U.S. weighing readiness for military action against Iran (Washington Post)
- Many states appear to be in recession as deficits grow (New York Times)

- Shops rations sales of rice as US buyers panic (The Guardian)
- Experts fear nation's waterways need rescuing - from us (Associated Press / Common Dreams)
- Town in the Andes face crisis as glaciers melt (San Francisco Chronicle)
- WWF warns Arctic ice melting faster than predicted (Agence France Presse / Yahoo News)
- Hundreds of EPA scientists report political interference (Los Angeles Times)





These are very serious issues being reported by mainstream, reputable news sources. Why have not MSNBC, CNN, or FOX News picked any of them up as a top story? Arctic ice melting faster than predicted? Um...isn't this a little more serious than a man trespassing in a mine falling 500 feet? Or how about even more evidence that "during much of the Bush administration, there have been reports of the White House watering down documents on climate change, industry language inserted into EPA power-plant regulations and scientific advisory panels' conclusions about toxic chemicals going unheeded." Surely that has to be more important than who Obama played basketball with?

The most logical conclusion I can come up with is that the corporations who own these major networks must have a very large stake in political and economic policy outcomes. Not only do they own the networks listed above, but they also own newspapers, radio stations, other TV stations, and major corporations like Microsoft, NBC, General Electric, HBO, the Atlanta Braves, DC Comics, Time magazine, People magazine, LA Dodgers, LA Kings, LA Lakers, and HarperCollins Books, just to name a few.

With such a HUGE stake in national, and indeed global, finance, would it not be in these corporations best interest to help sway public opinion in their favor? What is their incentive to do otherwise? In any event, it's a moot point. Just taking my totally unscientific, yet very interesting survey sample of what was reported on major national news networks versus news from other major national and European sources in the last two days, it would seem that there are many very important, very time-sensitive issues out there not being reported on nationally.

Could this be one reason why Americans are apathetic to politics? Could the triviality and absurd reality of major network and cable news turn people off to any type of serious debate about current issues and our future? The President of the United States, right after 9/11 tells Americans to go shopping; with a recession gearing up for full-force in 2008, this same guy gives us a tax rebate so we will go shopping.

Are you picking up what I'm putting down? Could there be a connection here?

These are the days of our lives

According to a top news article here, 2007 has been the deadliest year for U.S. troops.

In light of that; they're old enough now to ask how dad died. I also hope that they're asking (and being told) exactly why their fathers (and mothers) are no longer alive. Here's a hint: it wasn't weapons of mass destruction (like Bush said), or bringing democracy to Iraq (after no WMD's were found), or going after al-Qaeda in Iraq (after democracy didn't work), or - well, al-Qaeda wasn't in Iraq until we invaded that country so - get the pattern?





Just in case you don't get the pattern, retired Army Gen. John Abizaid said that our war in the Middle East could last 50 years. "...but we shouldn't assume for even a minute that in the next 25 to 50 years the American military might be able to come home..." It's all part of a much bigger plan that has been obvious for quite awhile now. From the stated goals of the Project for a New American Century to presidential candidate Mitt Romney when he says, "For me what America should do is strengthen our military, strengthen our economy and strengthen our family structure so that we always remain the most powerful nation on earth. A world without America as the leader is a very frightening place."

How arrogant is that!? What would a German citizen or English, or Indian, or take your pick of other citizenry, think of that? That's like a kid on the playground saying he's not going to let anyone else run things - it's his way or you get pounded. Surely our founding fathers didn't have empire in mind when they created the grandest experiment in democracy saying that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."






A good part of the problem is our media. Not only that it's highly concentrated by mega-corporations, but that the people asking and discussing important questions are incompetent at best. The always on target Eric Alterman discusses that here.

Our newspapers, magazines and television programs do a horrible job of telling us what we need to know about candidates. How does Clinton's health plan differ from Obama's? Moreover, what exactly is Clinton's health plan? Oh, I hear plenty about how the Republicans are against it, how she's the front runner, how she cackles; but what are the ins and outs - the particulars - of her health care plan? Why isn't this discussed? About half-way down this article by Eric Boehlert talking about the press' reaction to a Stephen Colbert presidential run, you come across this:

"Look at the latest research findings from the campaign trail: "Just 12% of stories examined were presented in a way that explained how citizens might be affected by the election," according to Editor & Publisher magazine. "And just one percent of stories examined the candidates' record or past public performance.""

A functioning democracy must have an engaged and informed citizenry. If we're not getting pertinent information from the media, what kind of democracy are we living in?

History the Media Neglects

The drums are getting louder...Bush, Cheney, and their war machine's fear-mongering about the imminent threat from Iran are all over the news. (Why wasn't Iran an imminent threat when Iraq was an imminent threat?).

All of a sudden, Iran is the new Iraq, they want nuclear weapons that Israel, Pakistan, India, North Korea, and the U.S. have, and they're supposedly training Iraqi's - a people who are their religious enemies.

They are enriching uranium which can be used for two things: 1. nuclear power and/or 2. nuclear weapons. The funny thing is that Iran has signed the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which allow it to enrich uranium for nuclear power.

In any event, aside from the very astute Ron Paul, I have yet to hear any politician or major media news outlet bring up the history between Iran and the United States. My presumption is that when one does this, it becomes easy to see that we bear a lot of the fault for the Middle East in Crisis.

Excerpts from the main story (1) in this month's edition of Adbusters tells the tale simply:

1953: After an economic blockade and the presence of British warships in the Persian Gulf failed to break Mohammed Mossadegh's will, the British government persuaded the incoming Eisenhower administration to send in the CIA. (Mossadegh was a liberal democrat who believed fervently in national independence - Time magazine's Man of the Year - and was democratically elected as Prime Minister in 1952). A CIA operative named Kermit Roosevelt helped bring about this cautionary note in an official CIA report: "Possibilities of blowback against the United States should always be in the back of the minds of all CIA officers involved in this type of operation."


1954: Anglo-Iranian (Oil) changes its name to British Petroleum and regains its assets, but must share its monopoly with American oil companies. Mohammed Reza Shah is restored to the throne with help from the American-trained SAVAK secret police who torture and disappear even the most timid of dissidents. (Mossadegh had nationalized Iran's oil industry in 1951).


1971: The Shah throws himself a $100-million party at Persepolis to commemorate the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian Empire...the party must be held behind barbed wire, guarded by men with machine guns as protests erupt at Tehran University.


1979: After enduring a long reign of terror, a broad-based popular revolution overthrows the Shah. Five million Iranians crowd the streets of Tehran to welcome the revolution's symbolic leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, on his return from exile in Paris.


November 1979: Fueled by the belief that the U.S. is about to launch another coup after allowing the Shah to take refuge there, militant students seize the American embassy in Tehran, holding 52 hostages for 444 days. Ayatollah Khomeini, who was not involved in the hostage-taking, nevertheless lends his support and uses the distraction to consolidate power. Students piece together hundreds of pages of secret documents outlining the extent of former American control of Iran and its plans to destabilize the new regime.


1980: President Jimmy Carter orders a hostage rescue operation that goes terribly wrong. With Carter's popularity plummeting, Ronald Reagan wins a landslide victory in the presidential election. The hostages are released six minutes after Reagan is sworn in, contributing to allegations that his emissaries secretly negotiated to extend the hostage-taking until after the elections.


1983: Saddam Hussein, who invaded Iran in 1980 with the quiet encouragement of the U.S., has begun to use poison gas on Iranians on an almost daily basis. According to the Washington Post, "The administration of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague."


1983: Donald Rumsfeld visits Saddam Hussein in Baghdad as special envoy of Ronald Reagan to discuss common interests and Iraqi oil shipments. Rumsfeld was previously involved (along with Dick Cheney) in promoting the development of Iran's nuclear program under the Shah.


2005: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, is elected president of Iran. Within days of his election, the country announces it is proceeding with uranium enrichment.


2007: As Iraq descends into chaos with 700,000 Iraqis dead, the U.S. administration issues a troop "surge" in hope of regaining control, and makes the unusual argument that Tehran is arming anti-US insurgents - most of whom are Sunni and traditional enemies of the Shia Iranians. In January the U.S. raids an Iranian consulate in Kurdish Iraq, capturing low-level Iranian diplomatic staff; Iraqi troops working for the U.S. later capture an Iranian diplomat in Baghdad. Soon after, Iran captures 12 British sailors on an intelligence mission in disputed waters. The sailors are released a day after the Iranian diplomat, who claims to have been tortured by the CIA, is returned to Iran.


2007: U.S. fleet carriers gather in the Persian Gulf; Mohammad ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, announces that a military attack on Iran would be "an act of madness," and stresses that nonproliferation efforts are undermined as long as the "big boys" - such as the U.S. and Israel - are permitted to have nuclear weapons. The U.S. president authorizes the CIA to engage in covert operations to destabilize the Iranian regime.

In the media coverage, comparisons to the 1953 CIA regime change in Iran are nowhere to be found.





1. Campbell, Deborah Iran vs. The United States of Amnesia; Adbusters #73, Volume 15 Number 5; 2007.

We're becoming the Borg

Part of what makes a democracy a democracy is the ability of citizens to be given facts and figures for all sides of an issues. Especially with the war in Iraq, there is all kinds of howling on the Right that the media is unfair to Bush & Co. and that it's a vast wasteland of Liberal thought. Oh, if only it were true.

Here's a study released today that analyzed Syndicated Op-Ed columnists in papers all across the country. And guess what they found:

• Sixty percent of the nation's daily newspapers print more conservative syndicated columnists every week than progressive syndicated columnists. Only 20 percent run more progressives than conservatives, while the remaining 20 percent are evenly balanced.

• In a given week, nationally syndicated progressive columnists are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of 125 million. Conservative columnists, on the other hand, are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of more than 153 million.2

• The top 10 columnists as ranked by the number of papers in which they are carried include five conservatives, two centrists, and only three progressives.

• The top 10 columnists as ranked by the total circulation of the papers in which they are published also include five conservatives, two centrists, and only three progressives.

• In 38 states, the conservative voice is greater than the progressive voice -- in other words, conservative columns reach more readers in total than progressive columns. In only 12 states is the progressive voice greater than the conservative voice.

• In three out of the four broad regions of the country -- the West, the South, and the Midwest -- conservative syndicated columnists reach more readers than progressive syndicated columnists. Only in the Northeast do progressives reach more readers, and only by a margin of 2 percent.

• In eight of the nine divisions into which the U.S. Census Bureau divides the country, conservative syndicated columnists reach more readers than progressive syndicated columnists in any given week. Only in the Middle Atlantic division do progressive columnists reach more readers each week.

There is NO liberal media. 99% of all newspapers and television stations are owned by only 10 HUGE corporations. What's the #1 goal of a corporation? It's bottom line. Not democracy, not hearing all sides of an issue and obviously not letting all sides have equal air & print time.

Democracy and Representation Part II

The White House doesn't care about people who support their views either. (Walter Reed or 15 months in a war-zone anyone?) They care about your vote, that's about all. If they did care about you, why would they hide a potentially VERY dangerous situation from you and your family? Like they did here. And why would they not rush armored vehicles to Iraq?


If they cared about you and "family values" so much, why would they bail out the shady mortgage companies instead of helping the families who are losing their homes?

First, read this and learn what these sub-prime mortgages are all about. There's even a cool video go to with it.

Then read this to see the fallout this is generating.



If the people who run the government are also the people who own huge corporations, including almost every major media outlet - will we ever see all sides to a story?

First - check this out to learn how 10 corporations own all of our newspapers, television stations and internet access points.

Then watch this to see how even ABC news (part of the big 10) manipulate us.

Then watch this and and see what propaganda looks like. Josef Goebbels couldn't be prouder.

Do something.

The time is now.


Nazi Germany didn't just happen. People didn't just wake up one day to find Jews in concentration camps and the SS asking for allegiance to Hitler. It was a slow, gradual, and legal maneuver. The National Socialists actually brought much needed relief at first. But, slowly, things changed. Everything they did was legal - passed into law by the government. And it was all for their safety. Just trust us, they said. There's an evil enemy out there, let us protect you.

Well, here in America we have no-fly lists - that Senator's and 4-year olds are on; a national ID card is in the works; the Pentagon keeps track of you if you support peace; the Patriot Act allows federal agents to track what books you borrow, access your health records, and search your house without you ever knowing it. We had TIPS - which asked neighbors and friends to spy on each other; our elected President has signing statements where he chooses which laws he wants to obey; we have a President who has the power to call anyone, even a U.S. citizen, an "enemy-combatant," thereby stripping them of all rights guaranteed in our Bill of Rights. This is all to keep us safe. There's an evil enemy out there, let them protect us.

Just turn your iPod back on and stop paying attention.

or

DO SOMETHING!