Independent Journalism (I): Jeremy Scahill

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New World Notes News

Volume 2, Number 14 -- April 14, 2009

This week in New World Notes, #58 -- April 14 &17:

At every opportunity, we have given the corporate-controlled media all the brickbats and spitballs we had available. But in keeping with the show's new Corporate Motto--Always Look On the Bright Side of Life (see last issue)--this week we let a smile be our umbrella. As my auto mechanic keeps advising, Positive to positive, and negative to ground! Cheerful chap, wot?

Some fine print-journalism and fine photojournalism are being done today, especially by "independent journalists." The term is hard to define. As a very rough definition, consider the category to include all journalists who don't receive a regular paycheck from a mainstream, corporate-owned "news-gathering organization."

Jeremy Scahill at work: abroad and at home.

New York Times reporters are Out. Veteran correspondents Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn are In (Britain's Independent being owned by a nonprofit foundation). Seymour Hersh is In (works for Conde' Nast). Anyone on network TV is decidedly OUT.

Needless to say, In are many talented young journalists who are freelancers or practically so. Notable among these many talented people are three award-winners who have done some fine reporting on (and in) the Middle East: Dahr Jamail, Mohammed Omer, and--our focus this week--Jeremy Scahill.

Scahill--author of the recent book, Blackwater--is a very good reporter and a perceptive and often funny storyteller. I'll read aloud his fine story about a police riot in Miami that the mainstream media pretended not to notice.

L to R: Print journalist Dahr Jamail (U.S.), documentary
filmmaker John Pilger (Australia), print journalist and
photojournalist Mohammed Omer (Palestine)--in London,
June 2008, where Jamail and Omer shared the year's
prestigious Martha Gellhorn Award. On his way home to
Rafah (Gaza Strip), Omer was detained, beaten and seriously
injured by Israeli security forces in the Occupied West Bank.

Then Scahill will talk about how he stumbled into the "Alternative" press, about what happened when he appeared on cable news shows and began condemning the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and--less amusingly--about the U.S.'s decade-long unreported war against the people if Iraq (throughout the 1990s).

Yes, Clinton killed nearly as many Iraqi civilians as both Bushes combined. Scahill and Kathy Kelly (NWN #39, December 2, 2008) were both reporting from the scene, trying to get Americans to see what was happening.

Alas, a black former football player was charged with killing a pretty white woman.

Amateurs like Scahill and Kelly can waste their time however they like. Serious, professional corporate journalists know the real Story of the Decade when it comes down the pike in a white SUV!

Top: Seymour Hersh (U.S.). Bottom: Robert Fisk (Lebanon & U.K.)

So you might have missed the story about the million Iraqi civilian deaths. our "leaders" caused. Deaths from malnutrition. Deaths from diseases that should have been prevented and could have been treated, but for the US-UN "embargo." Deaths from the bombing that never stopped between the two official Gulf wars. Deaths ordered by Clinton--whom we eventually impeached for ejaculating without a license.

Song played: David Rovics, Miami

Soon to Come -- Date of first scheduled broadcast [on WWUH] listed:

• April 21 -- Men and War
• April 28 -- The Things They Don't Tell You! (Lies, distortions, and propaganda in your American History courses and textbooks. No wonder you hated History class!)

The late, great I. F. Stone (right).

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern) . . .

• Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) & http://wwuh.org/
• Fridays, 7:30 to 8:00 AM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) & http://www.whus.org/
• Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) & http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/
• Any time: Listen to or download any installment ... or subscribe to a podcast ... at A-Infos Radio Project: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New+World+Notes

Top illustration: The antithesis (and possibly Antichrist): corporate hack Roland Hedley.

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land -- Part 2

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New World Notes News
Volume 2, Number 8 -- February 24, 2009

This week in New World Notes, #53 -- February 24 & 27:

"The best, least biased presentation we have of all the
issues involved. A must-see documentary."
-- Chalmers Johnson

"Painstakingly stripping away the myths and inaccuracies
regularly passed off as truth by the U.S. media, this
film not only reveals the motivations and methods of
those responsible for skewing the picture, but also
manages to present the most concise and accurate account
of the history and implications of the Israeli/
Palestinian conflict and the role that the U.S. has played
in the continuation of that conflict that I have seen.

"This is a very important piece of work that challenges the
viewer to think twice before accepting a version of the
world that owes more to the special interests of a
powerful elite than to any notion of freedom of the press."
-- Donna Baillie, filmmaker

New World Notes continues its radio adaptation of this fine documentary film. Although made in 2003, the film is--unfortunately--still timely and relevant 6 years later. (They missed the "Separation Wall"--of which more, below.)

If you missed Part 1 and wish to hear it now, you'll find a link at the top of this page. For a general introduction to the documentary, page back to the blog entry for Part 1.

Not auspicious: militant Zionist Rahm Emanuel--now White House Chief of Staff

Here's a handy outline of the whole shebang. (I was hoping that shebang was an Arabic word, but no such luck.) Original section titles are in boldface.

Part 1 (3 weeks ago):

1. Introduction to the Israel-Palestine conflict (since 1968)

2. American Media: Occupied Territory. The U.S. media's pro-militant-Zionist bias--it's not fair to the Israeli people to call it a pro-Israel bias--has several causes, including the economic interests of the U.S. media owners and the business elite they serve. Another cause is the very effective public-relations machine set up by the Israeli government in the 1980s.

3. P.R. Strategy #1: Hidden Occupation. U.S. news coverage routinely refuses to acknowledge that since 1968, Palestine (Gaza and the West Bank) has been under a harsh and illegal military occupation by Israel. Events in Palestine ought to be seen in that context.

Dalia says: "I drew my house, a tree, a Palestinian flag, Israelis, jeeps, two people,
a martyr and a sun." She wrote: "The sweetest flag is the Palestine flag, we hope
the situation is fixed soon, inshallah" (note by photographer Moomin13,
flickr.com; photo taken June 2006).

Part 2 (this week):

1. P.R. Strategy #2: Invisible Colonization. For decades, the government of Israrel has been illegally settling its own citizens in the Occupied Territories. The "settlements" it builds--modern suburban housing developments--claim an inordinate share of Palestine's scarce water and disrupt Palestinians' lives. A huge network of Jews-only roads, connecting the setttlements, destroys farmland, truncates property, and makes life even more difficult for Palestinians. All this is almost never reported in America.

CNN instructed its reporters to cease using the term "settlements" and to use the term "neighborhoods" instead (as in, “a neighborhood near Jerusalem”). When Secretary of State, Colin Powell instructed U.S. diplomats to say “Disputed Territories” instead of “Occupied Territories.” In the West Bank, the occupying authorities (with massive funding from your tax dollars) are imprisoning whole communities of Palestinians behind a huge Berlin-wall replica--later called a "security barrier" and now a "fence" (see photo, below).

2. P.R. Strategy #3: Violence In a Vacuum. A small percentage of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories see violence against Israelis as their only option in fighting oppression. While rightly condemning violent attacks against the innocent, the U.S. media never consider the causes of such behavior. So far as we're ever told, suicide-bombers (for instance) are motivated only by inexplicable neurotic hate laced with “anti-semitism.” (In quotes because Palestinians too are semites.)

Furthermore, the occupying military's frequent gratuitous violence against innocent Palestinians--for instance, killing people in urgent need of medical care by preventing ambulances from reaching hospitals--is never reported in U.S. mass-media. When an occupying soldier shoots--or calls in a rocket-attack upon--a citizen of the territory he is occupying, the event is commonly described as Israeli "self-defense" against Palestinian "aggression." (Noam Chomsky says, "Call it what you will, it's not 'self-defense.'")

Two views of Ramallah. Top: A woman protests. The building in the background
appears to be part of an Israeli settlement. Bottom: A Palestinian neighborhood,
January 2008 (photo by Moomin13). The North-Pole-y cap makes me wonder if
the snowman celebrates Christmas. Americans often express surprise when
informed that a sizable minority of Palestinians are Christians. I don't know where
the hell they imagine Bethlehem is located. Fifty miles east of Rome, maybe.
Maybe we should encourage TV news to report the religious preferences of
casualties. "Israeli warplanes attacked Palestinian targets, killing seven Moslems
and four Christians including a nun." Imagine! One hates to think that the average
U.S. TV viewer values Christian lives more than Muslim. One hates to think of all
sorts of things that are obviously true.

3. P.R. Strategy #4: Defining Who Is Newsworthy. When an Israeli occupying soldier is killed in Palestine, U.S. news often shows his picture; tells his name, age, and home town; shows his funeral; interviews his grieving family; etc. Nothing wrong with that, in itself. Meanwhile, "Israeli warplanes attacked Palestinian targets, killing 11 people" [real U.S. TV news report, from this week's installment]. The weather up next. . . .

At least they said 11 "people"! You gotta admire the astute word-choice, though. “Palestinian targets” sounds much more appropriate than “Palestinian homes, soccer fields, and houses of worship.” And “attacked”--perhaps conjuring images of the charge of the light brigade or of freedom-loving Yanks attacking the beaches of Normandy--sounds much more heroic than “dropped high-explosive bombs upon defenseless . . . ."

Note to “anti-semitism” hunters: The device on the dictionary’s cover represents the
national flag that represents the U.N. member-state of Israel. The balding figure
is a good likeness of that nation-state's former head of government, Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert (resigned September 2008). Next time I criticize Norway's
whaling policies, somebody remind me to patiently explain that--contrary to
appearances--I don't hate either Lutheran Christianity or the Nordic people!

Coming up in Part 3 (3 weeks from now):
1. P.R. Strategy #5: Myth of U.S. Neutrality
2. P.R. Strategy #6: Myth of the Generous Offer
3. P.R. Strategy #7: Marginalized Voices
4. Is Peace Possible?

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern) . . .

• Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) & http://wwuh.org/
• Fridays, 7:30 to 8:00 AM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) & http://www.whus.org/
• Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) & http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/
• Any time: Listen to or download any installment ... or subscribe to a podcast ... at A-Infos Radio Project: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New%20World%20Notes

Up in the sky! It’s a wall! . . . It’s a separation barrier! . . .
No! . . . it's . . . Superfence! (Poster by Eric Drooker)

The Media, Jenin, & the Bloodbath in Gaza

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New World Notes News
Volume 2, Number 2 -- January 13, 2009

This week in New World Notes, #47 -- January 13 & 16, 2009:

Here's the show in a nutshell:

American news media demonize those who oppose various vicious state policies. At the same time, they whitewash and sanitize gruesome wars the state wages to preserve those policies. Especially wars the State of Israel wages.

Two young Palestinian men. Top: Mahmoud, from Jenin. (Top photo by moomin13, Flickr.com)

A photograph of a young Palestinian man inspires such reflections on the media plus reflections on Israeli operations in Jenin (2002) and now Gaza. Three news reports from Al-Jazeera offer a different--but still inadequate--view of the horrors of our war against the people of Palestine.

Life in Gaza: 3 views.

This week's music:

• David Rovics, Jenin
• Tom Smith, from Waterboardin'
• David Rovics, Occupation

Two civilian casualties

Sometimes it's the little things that really liquid waste you off!

The United States Government--which objected little or not at all to the events in Jenin--compels me to censor one of the words singer David Rovics uses in narrating same . . . at least in the radio broadcast. Smearing excrement on walls before killing the inhabitants is acceptable. Using the word "shit" to identify what's smeared on the walls is offensive.

Hamas rocket lands near kibbutz.

Soldier prays.

Catch New World Notes . . .

• Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford) & http://wwuh.org/
• Fridays, 7:30 to 8:00 AM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs) & http://www.whus.org/
• Any time: Listen to or download any installment ... or subscribe to a podcast ... at A-Infos Radio Project:
  http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New%20World%20Notes

Two mosques

On Gaza and Israel

For January 6 edition of New World Notes News--on George Carlin--
scroll down to December 28, 2008

New World Notes Supplement

Number 2 -- January 2, 2009

Foreword by KD:

I am an American friend of Israel. I'm told that friends don't let friends drive drunk.

The militarists that have wrested control of our country away from the American people--this happened well before 2000--may be great pals with their Likudnik ultra-Zionist counterparts in the Middle East. That doesn't make any of the lot of them friends of Israel--let alone friends of the people of Israel.

We, the people of the United States, are not to blame for the ongoing bloodbath in Gaza, any more than we are to blame for My Lai or Abu Ghraib. Unless we connive in it or condone it. Unless we refuse to see what is happening in front of us. Unless we refuse to affix a suitable name to what we see.

Theologian and distinguished journalist Chris Hedges has been heard on New World Notes two or three times over the past year. Here he suggests a few useful names. And a few that simply won't do.

A way of naming something implies a way of acting in response to it.

Party to Murder

by Chris Hedges

Condensed by Kenneth Dowst

Originally published on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 by TruthDig.com

Can anyone who is following the Israeli air attacks on Gaza wonder why we Americans are hated? Our self-righteous celebration of ourselves and our supposed virtue is as false as that of Israel. We have become heartless and savage. We are a party to human slaughter, a flagrant war crime, and do nothing.

Over 350 Palestinians* have been killed, many of them civilians, and over 1,000 have been wounded since the air attacks began on Saturday. Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister, said Israel is engaged in a "war to the bitter end" against Hamas in Gaza.

Killed Palestinian policemen

A war? Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely crowded refugee camps and slums, to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command and control, no army, and calls it a war. It is not a war. It is murder.

The U.N. special rapporteur for human rights, Richard Falk, has labeled what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza "a crime against humanity." Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as "a flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention."

The foreign press has been barred by Israel from entering Gaza to report on the destruction.

December 27, 2008

Israel's stated aim of halting homemade rockets fired from Gaza into Israel remains unfulfilled. Gaza militants have fired more than 100 rockets and mortars into Israel, killing four people and wounding nearly two dozen more, since Israel unleashed its air assault. Israel has threatened to launch a ground assault and has called up 6,500 army reservists. It has massed tanks on the Gaza border.

As Falk points out, the rocket attacks by Hamas are also criminal violations of international law. But as Falk notes, "such Palestinian behavior does not legalize Israel's imposition of a [severe] collective punishment . . . on the people of Gaza."

According to Falk, "A recent study reports that 46 percent of all Gazan children suffer from acute anemia. There are reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Gazan children need thousands of hearing aids. Malnutrition is extremely high in a number of different dimensions and affects 75 percent of Gazans. About 18 percent of Gaza's children have stunted growth. There are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people. Over 50 percent of Gazan children under the age of 12 have been found to have no will to live."

Most of Gaza is now without power, which can be a death sentence to the severely ill in hospitals. There is little medicine, and no cancer or cystic fibrosis medication. And Israel has revoked most exit visas, meaning some of those who need specialized care, including cancer patients and those in need of kidney dialysis, have died.

"It is macabre," Falk said of the blockade. "People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times."

President Abbas' office

The point of the Israeli attack, ostensibly, is to break Hamas, the radical Islamic group that was elected to power in 2007. But Hamas has repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and offered to negotiate a permanent truce. It was Israel that, on Nov. 4, initiated an armed attack that violated the truce and killed six Palestinians. It was only then that Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel.

The use of terror and hunger to break a hostile population is one of the oldest forms of warfare. I watched the Bosnian Serbs employ the same tactic in Sarajevo. Those who orchestrate such sieges do not grasp the terrible rage born of long humiliation, indiscriminate violence and abuse. A father or a mother whose child dies because of a lack of vaccines or proper medical care does not forget. All who endure humiliation, abuse and the murder of family members do not forget. This rage becomes a virus within those who survive. Is it any wonder that 71 percent of children interviewed at a school in Gaza recently said they wanted to be a "martyr"?

The Israelis in Gaza, like the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, are foolishly breeding the next generation of militants and Islamic radicals. The violence unleashed on Palestinian children will, one day, be the violence unleashed on Israeli children. This is the tragedy of Gaza. This is the tragedy of Israel.

© 2008 TruthDig.com

*At 3 PM on Friday, January 2, NPR News gave the death toll as "more than 400" --KD

Addendum: "More than 900," according to other sources, on January 12. That should put us comfortably over 1,000 by Martin Luther King Day. --KD