Thursday, July 26, 2007

Arrest the President ?




"Arrest the President!"

Those were the words once uttered by emcee Intelligent Hoodlum, who has now changed his name to Tragedy Khadaffi which I can't really say I can make any sense of. But that's not the point of this post. While putting President George W. Bush in chains and booking him with mugshots hasn't been floated in mainstream media circles, a rising chorus is speaking out about another fate, one laid in the groundworks of America's experimental democracy to take care of wayward executives--Impeachment.

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Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Michael Vick, Fighting Dogs & White Outrage



First off, to make it plain, I deplore dog-fighting. I'm too much of an animal lover for that. I've given to wild life protection funds. I spend time searching for hygiene products that say "not tested on animals." No, I'm not with PETA. Neither am I a vegetarian. And I have a serious problem with some of the colonialist practices western wildlife preservation groups use in parts of the "developing world;" hiring mercenaries to shoot/kill poor African farmers seems a cruel injustice given that the profits of poaching tend to enrich foreign paymasters. I just think Homo sapiens sapiens could do a much better job in treating the other denizens of the planet, who happen to outnumber us in both population and time of residency. All of that being said, this latest Michael Vick media spectacle has been disturbing on more than one level.

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Sunday, July 22, 2007

Media News Roundup- Sun Jul 15th to Sat Jul 22nd



Keeping an eye on the failing Fourth Estate and looking for some TRUTH in journalism.

Big Media touts administration news on Iran's involvement in Iraq; says little on much larger and substantial Saudi role. Media under reports, or completely misses, White House executive order on property seizure. Near news blackout on Colin Powell's criticism of White House's lack of diplomacy. Bright spot of the week: Media Matters exposes NBC correspondent who received $30K for speech attacking presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards.

Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday the international diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East should find some way to talk to Hamas.

"I don't think you can just cast them into outer darkness and try to find a solution to the problems of the region without taking to account the standing that Hamas has in the Palestinian community," Powell said in a radio interview.

He said Hamas, which controls Gaza, is not going away and enjoys considerable support among the Palestinian people.

"They won an election that we insisted upon having," Powell said. "And so, as unpleasant a group they may be and as distasteful as I find some of their positions, I think through some means, the Middle East Quartet… or through some means Hamas has to be engaged."

If only our news media could at least show that amount of objectivity towards the Palestinian-Israeli situation.


Bright Spot of the Week

Media Matters: NBC Correspondent Received $30K for Speech Attacking Sen. Edwards


Despite the right-wing charge of a "liberal media," the folks at Media Matters once again showed the glaringly anti-progressive, anti-liberal, anti-left and often anti-Democrat stance that is so often found in the mainstream media. In this case, NBC chief Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski, breaking with NBC's own code of ethics, took $30,000 from the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce to address its Business EXPO 2007--during which he attacked a prominent presidential candidate, Sen. John Edwards.

For more:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200707180001

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Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Operation Iraqi Liberation- Ever Changing Iraq "Mission"



Since this colonial misadventure began in Iraq, the Bush White House--and their lock-step GOP Congressional allies--have continually shifted the reasons for the war. What began as a search for now non-existent "Weapons of Mass Destruction" has shifted to nation building, the spreading of democracy, maintaining peace (oddly enough thru war), protecting freedom and endless other goals never mentioned before the war. Maybe we should have read the fine print. It seems the only reason that has not been given is the most obvious one--which Bush, the war supporters or the yet-cowed mainstream corporate media yet dare not name: OIL. But every once in a while there's a slip of truth. This past July 5th the Defense Minister of Australia, a Bush ally, Brendan Nelson, set off a firestorm by stating Iraq is "an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world, and Australians ... need to think what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq." Ooops! Below is an article by ThinkProgress, who has been keeping tabs on the ever changing definition of the 'Mission' in Iraq. Above is video featuring another bit of "rhetorical change wizardry"--the only thing this White House seems adept at. 2 extra pts if you noticed the acronym in the blog title.

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Tuesday, July 17, 2007

SICKO! George Bush Hates Healthy Kids



"heartless and shortsighted."--Sen. John Edwards, Democratic presidential candidate speaking on Bush's veto threat on children's health insurance expansion.


Just when you think the Bush White House can't sink any lower, they make certain to live up to their infamy. In light of a bipartisan effort to expand the health insurance of needy children in the US, the White House has threatened to veto any such legislation. As reported in the New York Times, "The proposal would increase current levels of spending by $35 billion over the next five years, bringing the total to $60 billion." And how would it do so? By increasing our taxes? Not exactly. The money would be raised by a "federal excise tax on tobacco products....cigarettes [tax] would rise to $1 a pack, from the current 39 cents." According to the Congressional Budget Office, the plan “would reduce the number of uninsured children by 4.1 million.” So the Bush White House would rather the tobacco companies continue to cause cancer for cheap, than to take care of children's health. Shameful... On a related note, congrats to Michael Moore. His documentary SICKO, after less than three weeks in national release, has become one of the top five grossing documentaries of all time and is being expanded to 500 new theaters.

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Monday, July 16, 2007

Stop Trying to "SAVE" Africa




This past May I wrote a blog peice called Bono's Lament for Africa- Critiquing the Best of Intentions. My purpose was to point out a disturbing trend I had been noticing for years, among even the most well-meaning individuals. Africa, long neglected except to report bizarre stories of one tragedy or another, has suddenly jumped onto the radar of the West. Turn on television shows, the news, magazines etc. and Africa is prominently featured. Or better put, it is the West's image of Africa--starving, destitute, impoverished, disease-ridden, war-torn...and the list could go on. From ONE bands to celebrities adopting babies, Africa as a dark continent of misery and woe is the cause du jour. Yet, even with such well intentions, this depiction of a diverse and vast continent is as one-sided as it's prior neglect.

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Sunday, July 15, 2007

Media News Roundup- Sunday Jul 8th to Sat Jul 14th




Keeping an eye on the failing Fourth Estate and looking for some TRUTH in journalism.

MSNBC's Tucker Carlson offers his expert journalistic opinion on Barak Obama--by calling him names. Media under reports damage of Bush's AIDS program on Africa. Bright spot of the week: On Democracy Now! Iraq War veterans describe "brutal techniques" used by U.S. military against Iraqi civilians.

There were lots of voices like Were's in Nairobi last week, where the YWCA sponsored a massive international conference on women and HIV. Yet they rarely seem to break through in the United States, where the conventional wisdom holds that the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is a bright spot in an otherwise execrable presidency, one that only the ideologically blinkered refuse to credit. Nick Kristof seems to repeat this notion in The New York Times every other week, and Bono affirmed it when he insisted on putting Bush on one of the 20 different covers that graced Vanity Fair's special Africa issue. "USA TODAY's Susan Page just got off the telephone with Bono. She says President Bush can count the rock star as a fan today," the newspaper's blog reported in late May. "The Grammy winner was singing the praises of the American president for his announcement today that he would propose spending an additional $30 billion over five years to fight AIDS in Africa, doubling the U.S. commitment."


For more, see the full article:

Media Ignores Damage Bush's AIDS Program Inflicts on Africa


Bright Spot of the Week

Democracy Now! Iraq War Veterans Speak of Violence Against Iraqi Civilians

The Nation magazine has published a startling new expose of fifty American combat veterans of the Iraq War who give vivid on-the-record accounts of the US military occupation in Iraq and describe a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts. The investigation marks the first time so many on-the-record, named eyewitnesses from within the US military have been assembled in one place to openly corroborate assertions of indiscriminate killings and other atrocities by the US military in Iraq. We speak with the article’s co-author, journalist Laila Al-Arian, and four Iraq veterans who came forward with their stories of war.

Read/Listen to Interview:

The Other War: Iraq Veterans Speak Out on Shocking Accounts of Attacks on Iraqi Civilians


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Thursday, July 12, 2007

Black Snake Oil- Hot Negro Foolishness



A few years back I received several photos via email depicting black men and women in gaudy outfits and over-the-top hairstyles. I first thought I was the unintended recipient of white co-workers inner pranks. But it turned out instead that I was being invited onto the front lines of an old bit of intra-racial class warfare. In this case, blacks who considered themselves more "cultured" in the mainstream sought to degrade and humiliate blacks who often came from poor, urban or rural backgrounds. Many of the photos in this spectator sport came from a site aptly named "Hot Ghetto Mess" owned by Jamila Donaldson, a 34-year-old black lawyer.

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Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Michael Moore Smacks Up CNN & Blitzer



In this corner we have the bloated corporate news giant CNN, backed by big pharma/health insurace sponsored commericals and represented by Dr. Sanjay Gupta and anchorman Wolf Blitzer. All of this firepwer was put up against Michael Moore and his movie SICKO--and they still lost. Since July 9th, after CNN released a "Reality Check" on Moore's documentary, a war of words has erupted between the network and the director. And in each of these, CNN has gone down in flames. Click above to see for yourself. The second battle is posted below. Beneath that is the original CNN story that set it all off--judge it's fairness for yourself. A search thru Youtube should yield the rest (Moore and Gupta on Larry King). And yes, you can turn off the music on this page by checking pause on the Imeem box to your lower right.

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Sunday, July 8, 2007

Media News Roundup- Sunday July 1st to Sat July 7th



Are You Enslaved by the Corporate Media ?

Keeping an eye on the failing Fourth Estate and looking for some TRUTH in journalism.

Media follows GOP talking point on Libby commutation furor being a partisan issue, failing to make connection to larger factors. Media under reports UN study showing more Afghans killed by NATO forces than Taliban. Bright spot of the week: Keith Olbermann at MSNBC speaks out strongly about Libby commutation and the White House administration.

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Friday, July 6, 2007

The Founding Immigrants



Disdain for what is foreign is, sad to say, as American as apple pie, slavery and lynching.--Keith C. Davis

I'm no big fan of the mainstream media when it comes to sensitive topics. Take the immigration debate. Rather than speaking on the issues that surround the subject, too often the media plays into nativism, thinly veiled racism and scape-goating. So when I read a piece in the New York Times this week that featured frank and honest discussion on America's long history of anti-immigrant hysteria, it was a pleasant surprise. Of course, the article would have to come from none other than Kenneth C. Davis, author of the popular "Don’t Know Much About" series. Insightful, Davis manages to say more on the immigration morass in one brief op-ed than all of the punditocracy in their daily reportings.

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Thursday, July 5, 2007

Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye




There was little doubt that when Transformers hit the big screen that I was going to see it. Giant shape-shifting robots are kind of my “thing.” What’s more, after god-awful failures like Ghostrider, utter-let downs like Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer and the underwhelming Spiderman 3, I needed something to restore my faith in the great-American money-consuming tradition of the summer action-packed blockbuster. Most of all however, Transformers was a piece of my childhood. So when I heard Steven Spielberg would be producing a live-action movie directed by Michael “I –blow-stuff-up” Bay, excitement doesn’t begin to explain my anticipation. So did the film live up to the hype? Was my childhood restored? Below are my scattered thoughts offered as a brief review. WARNING for the squeamish, there be minor SPOILERS ahead…

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Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Patriotism Revisited




Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.

So reads an excerpt from Francis Scott Key's poem, inspired by the British bombardment of Baltimore in 1814, which would be set to song and become known as "The Star Spangled Banner." By the time it was made the national anthem of the United States of America, the poem had undergone numerous revisions and the above lines from the third verse were removed. And no wonder. Those words were an uncomfortable reminder of a troublesome past. Key had been a slave holder. And when British forces during the War of 1812 enticed slaves to fight for their side in exchange for freedom, Key and other slaveholders were outraged--not seeming to understand that those held in bondage were patriotic not to flags, forefathers or nation-states, but to the liberty denied them. This dichotomous existence has been part of what it means to be black in America, and why Frederick Douglas would ask "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?" Back in 2002 I wrote an article exploring these dilemmas. I repost it here today, mostly unedited as I want it to reflect my thinking of that time, for consumption once again.

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