The average American really is a coward. I expected more but am a bit disappointed. People just do not have backbones anymore. And the ones who do don’t have brains!

Feel much better now!

On Sunday, BART police officers arrived on the scene at the West Oakland BART station in response to reports of a disturbance. The video below shows officers wrangling with an intoxicated suspect – before smashing 37-year old Michael Joseph Gibson into a solid glass wall.

Today’s major media journalism is biased, irresponsible, sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth. It’s misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to boost circulation, readership, viewers, or listeners, and on vital issues lies about or suppresses uncomfortable truths to provide unqualified support for state and/or corporate interests – to the detriment of the greater good that’s always sacrificed for profits and imperial aims.

As a result, major media sources produce a daily propaganda diet and what Project Censored calls “junk food news,” and get most people to believe it. In their landmark book, Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky explained the “propaganda model” that controls the public message by “filter(ing)” disturbing truths, “leaving (behind) only the cleansed residue fit to print” or air.

Today the media is in crisis and a free and open society at risk at a time fiction substitutes for fact, news is carefully controlled, dissent marginalized, and on-air and print journalists support powerful interests as paid liars, or what famed journalist George Seldes (1890 – 1995) called “prostitutes of the press.”

As a result, imperial wars are called liberating ones. Civil liberties are suppressed for our own good. Major topics go unaddressed or are misrepresented. Government and business interests are endorsed wholeheartedly. America is always called “beautiful.” Beneficial social change is considered heresy. The market works best, we’re told, so let it, and patriotism means supporting lawlessness and corporate outlaws by shopping till we drop.

For many decades, The Times has been the closest thing in America to an official ministry of information and propaganda masquerading as real news, commentary and analysis.

Its unmatched clout once got media critic Norman Solomon to call its front page “the most valuable square inches of media real estate in the USA;” most everywhere, in fact, because its reports are widely circulated and followed globally.

The Paper of Record has a long history of:

• supporting the powerful;
• backing corporate interests;
• endorsing imperial wars;
• supporting CIA efforts to topple elected governments, assassinate independent leaders, prop up friendly dictators, secretly fund and train paramilitary death squads, practice sophisticated forms of torture, and menace democratic freedoms at home and abroad. For decades, in fact, some Times’ foreign correspondents were covert Agency assets. Others today likely are as well as other prominent fourth estate members.

The Times management is also comfortable with:

• Washington and corporate lawlessness;
• an unprecedented and growing wealth gap;
• Wall Street banksters looting the federal treasury;
• a private banking cartel controlling the nation’s money;
• unmet human needs and increasing poverty, hunger, homelessness, and despair for growing millions in a nation run by rogue politicians who don’t give a damn as long as they’re re-elected;
• a de facto one-party state;
• deep corruption at the highest government and corporate levels;
• democracy for the select few alone;
• sham elections; and
• a deepening social decay symptomatic of a declining state, yet The Times management won’t use its clout to expose and help reverse it.

Of course, the same applies throughout the corporate media, the only variance being audience size, the ability to influence it, and the special impact of TV news and talk radio to arouse their faithful. Plus their power of round-the-clock persuasive repetition.

Examples of Journalism, New York Times Style

After a Washington staged February 29, 2004 middle-of-the-night coup ousted democratically elected Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, The Times March 1 editorial lied by:

• stating he resigned;
• saying sending in Marines to abduct him “was the right thing to do;”
• claiming they only came after “Mr. Aristide yielded power;”
• blaming him for “contribut(ing) significantly to his own downfall (because of his) increasingly autocratic and lawless rule….;” and
• accusing him of manipulating the 2000 legislative elections and not “deliver(ing) the democracy he promised.”

In fact, he’s a beloved democrat first elected in 1990 with 67% of the vote, ousted by a US-supported coup months later, returned to Haiti in 1994, then, because he couldn’t succeed himself in 1996, ran in 2000 and was overwhelmingly re-elected with 92% of the vote. Today in exile, the great majority of Haitians want him back but paramilitary occupiers, under orders from Washington, won’t let him.

Following Hugo Chavez’s December 1998 election, The Times Latin American reporter, Larry Roher, wrote:

Regional “presidents and party leaders are looking over their shoulders (concerned about the) specter (they) thought they had safely interred: that of the populist demagogue, the authoritarian man on horseback known as the caudillo (strongman)” taking power.

Ever since, Times writers consistently:

• turned a blind eye to Venezuelan democracy;
• bashed Chavez as “divisive, a ruinous demagogue, provocative (and) the next Fidel Castro;”
• said he “militarized the government, emasculated the country’s courts, intimidated the media, eroded confidence in the economy, and hollowed out Venezuela’s once-democratic institutions:” common conditions during decades of pre-Chavez rule that columnist Roger Lowenstein falsely said exist now in:
  • calling him anti-capitalist for sharing his nation’s oil wealth with the people by providing essential social services, and for lifting the most needy out of poverty; and
  • denouncing his making foreign investors pay their fair share.

Lowenstein backed the aborted April 2002 coup by calling Chavez’s ouster a “resignation,” then saying Venezuela “no longer (would be) threatened by a would-be dictator.”

Post-/911, the Times played the lead role in taking the nation to war by highlighting the “day of terror” and saying the “President Vows to Exact Punishment for ‘Evil.’ ”

In the run-up to the Iraq war, Judith Miller was a weapon of mass deception with her daily front page Pentagon press release columns masquerading as real news, later exposed as manipulative lies, but they worked.

Following the September 15, 2009 Goldstone Commission report, a same day Neil MacFarquhar column suggested that Israel’s “disproportionate attack” followed Hamas provocations, so perhaps it was justified. While The Times gave Judge Goldstone op-ed space, it:

published scathing letters denouncing his “one-sidedness” and a September 18 piece saying “the Obama administration said (today) that a United Nations report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza was unfair to Israel and did not take adequate account of ‘deplorable’ actions by the militant group Hamas in the conflict last winter.”

The paper then imposed a near-blackout on its news and editorial pages to bury the story and kill it through silence – never mind its importance in documenting clear evidence of Israeli war crimes against a civilian population.

Founded in 1970 as an independent, private, non-profit member organization of US public radio stations, NPR promised to be an alternative to commercial broadcasters by “promot(ing) personal growth rather than corporate gain (and) speak with many voices, many dialects.”

Having long ago abandoned its promise, and given its substantial corporate and government funding, NPR is indistinguishable from the rest of the corporate media, just as corrupted, and consider its former head, Kevin Klose.

He was president from December 1998 – September 2008 and CEO from 1998 – January 2009. Earlier he was US propaganda director as head of the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Worldnet Television, and the anti-Castro Radio/TV Marti, so he fit easily into his new role.

On January 5, 2009, Vivian Schiller succeeded him as president and CEO. Her official bio says she was previously with “The New York Times Company where she served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of NYTimes.com.”

She’ll oversee “all NPR operations and initiatives, including the organization’s critical partnerships with our 800+ member stations, and their service to the more than 26 million people who listen to NPR programming every week.” Most don’t know they’re getting the same corporate propaganda and “junk food news” or that
NPR calls itself “public” to conceal its real agenda, and why critics call it “National Pentagon or Petroleum Radio” with good reason.

Created by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) calls itself “a private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress…and is the steward of the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting. It helps support the operations of more than 1,100 locally-owned and-operated public television and radio stations nationwide, and is the largest single source of funding for research, technology, and program development for public radio, television and related online services.”

Like NPR, it’s heavily corporate and government funded and provides similar services for them. Under George Bush, former Voice of America director Kenneth Tomlinson was chairman of CPB’s Board of Governors until an internal 2005 investigation forced him out for repeatedly braking the law.

On September 16, 2009, a CPB press release announced that “The board of directors (of the CPB) today elected Dr. Ernest Wilson III (as) chairman and re-elected….CEO Beth Courtney (as) vice-chair.”

Wilson previously held senior policy positions as Director of International Programs and Resources on the National Security Council. He was also Policy and Planning Unit Director for the US Information Agency and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Beth Courtney is a George Bush appointee, a past chairman of the board of America’s Public Television Stations and present CPB vice chairman. Currently she also serves on the boards of Satellite Educational Resources Consortium, the Organization of State Broadcasting Executives, the National Forum for Public Television Executives, and the National Educational Telecommunications Association along with other appropriate credentials for her re-appointment.

In its May/June 2004 “Extra” report, FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) asked “How Public Is Public Radio? Writers Steve Rendall and Daniel Butterworth quoted past head Kevin Klose saying:

“All of us believe our goal is to serve the entire democracy, the entire country.”

Not according to FAIR on “every on-air source quoted in June 2003 on four of (NPR’s) news shows: All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition Saturday and Weekend Edition Sunday.” Each guest was classified “by occupation, gender, nationality, and partisan affiliation.” Combined, 2,334 sources from 804 stories were quoted.

FAIR found that NPR relies on the same dominant sources as the major media that include government officials, professional experts, and corporate representatives nearly two-thirds of the time.

Spokespeople for public interest groups accounted for 7% of total sources, and ordinary people appeared mostly in “one-sentence soundbites.”

Male guests outnumbered women about 4:1, and those quoted most often came from the same elite categories as men.

Overall, NPR represents the same dominant interests as the major commercial media – conservative, pro-business, pro-war, pro-Israel, and very much against the public interest while pretending to support it.

FAIR analyzed PBS’s flagship NewsHour guest list and drew similar conclusions. Like NPR, it’s ideologically right and usually censors progressive content and public interest programming. In a 1990 NewsHour evaluation, FAIR compared its content to ABC’s Nightline and found that it presented “an even narrower segment of the political spectrum.” It then conducted an October 2005 – March 2006 analysis of all of its programs, got similar results, and determined that NewHour is even more ideologically right than NPR that tilts far in that direction itself.

FAIR concluded that NPR and NewsHour content “overwhelmingly represent those in power rather than the public” they’re obliged to serve. While masquerading as public programming, they betray their listeners and viewers by offering the same propaganda and “junk food news” as the dominant corporate media. Considering their funding sources, what else would they do.

An October 6 NPR story is typical of most others. It charged Hugo Chavez with “Targeting Opponents For Arrest.” Reporter Juan Forero claimed “dozens of university students” went on hunger strike outside OAS headquarters in Caracas on September 28 along with others “across the country….in support of Julio Cesar Rivas, a student who was arrested during an anti-government demonstration in August….”

Rivas is the coordinator and founder of Juventud Activa de Venezuela Unida (United Active Youth of Venezuela – JAVU). Earlier, he was part of a staged, violent street protest against Venezuela’s new Education Law. The government says JAVU acts as “shock troops” in opposition protests and is liberally funded by the National Endowment of Democracy (NED), International Republican Institute (IRI), and US Agency or International Development (USAID) to disrupt internal Venezuelan affairs. It’s a familiar scheme, repeated numerous times in the past, to discredit and disrupt the Chavez government in hopes of eventually ousting it.

JAVU has about 80,000 members in most Venezuelan states, and its blog site calls for bringing down the government and supporting the Honduran military coup.

Rivas was released on September 29, but must appear for trial. He’s a Washington-funded provocateur, charged with resisting arrest, instigating crime, conspiracy, inciting rebellion, damaging public property, and using “generic” weapons.

While in custody, Venezuela Public Defender Gabriela Ramirez assured him in person that his full constitutional rights will be protected. Street protests still continue and have been countered by pro-Chavez ones calling for “peace and tolerance.” According to the Federation of Bolivarian students’ Carlos Sierra:

Opposition “students are being used and manipulated by the top leadership of the irrational opposition, which, via the (dominant) media, send them to generate violence and terrorism in the country” much like on previous occasions.

But according to NPR’s Forero, Rivas was “sent to one of Venezuela’s most infamous prisons” where other government opponents are held as political prisoners. Chavez “has been jailing dozens of key opponents – some of them students, some of them veteran politicians” in citing unnamed “human rights groups and constitutional experts (claiming) Venezuela is increasingly singling out and imprisoning its foes in politically motivated witch hunts.”

Forero didn’t mention that Rivas fomented violence. Others arrested also broke the law. No one is a political prisoner, and all Venezuelans get fair and equitable trials, unlike in America where real political arrests, prosecutions and convictions happen regularly against innocent targeted victims – a topic NPR and PBS won’t touch except to vilify them publicly on-air.

Nor do they report truthfully on Occupied Palestine. On October 12, 2009, on NPR’s Morning Edition, reporter Renee Montagne practically extolled Israeli racism in stating:

“There is a new enemy for some Israelis: romance between Jewish women and Arab men, (so) vigilantes have banded together to fight it.” She means from “Jewish settlements” that “have sprung up (in) traditionally Arab” East Jerusalem, but won’t admit they’re on stolen Palestinian land.

NPR’s Sheera Frankel joined a patrol, implied Arabs are inferior to Jews, and suggested they pose a danger to Jewish women and girls. She described vigilantes on the lookout for “Arab-Jewish couples (to) break up their dates,” suggesting it’s the right thing to do, but never questioning the legitimacy of settlements, vigilante violence in East Jerusalem, its lawless disregard for the law, or great harm to innocent people. Instead she called “mixed couples a growing epidemic” of miscegenation – typical of NPR’s racism and one-sided support for Israel.

The WSJ is Dow Jones & Company’s flagship publication, now a News Corp. one since Rupert Murdoch bought it in August 2007. Stating its ideology up front, it says it supports “free markets and free people” as well as “free trade and sound money; against confiscatory taxation and the ukases (edicts) of kings and other collectivists; and for individual autonomy against dictators, bullies and even the tempers of momentary majorities.”

In October 2007, FAIR bemoaned the Murdock takeover because of his “penchant for using his holdings as vehicles for his personal (views) and business interests.” Earlier FAIR and the Columbia Journalism Review criticized its editorial page for inaccuracy, extreme bias, and dishonesty.

The Journal is unapologetic in saying its philosophy “make(s) no pretense of walking down the middle of the road. Our comments and interpretations are made from a definite point of view….We oppose all infringements on individual rights, whether (from) private monopoly, labor union monopoly or from an overgrowing government.(We’re) not much interested in labels but if we were to choose one, we would say we are radical.”

Radical can be revolutionary and beneficial when it backs fundamental progressive change and reform. Webster defines it as:

“marked by a considerable departure from the usual and traditional: extreme; tending or disposed to make extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions; of, relating to, or constituting a political (or perhaps business) group associated with views, practices, and policies of extreme change; (or) advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs” such the radical right represented by the WSJ’s management and editorial writers.

Critics agree that they’re on the far right extremist fringe, a supporter of voodoo economics, tax cuts for the rich, a staunch defender of executive privilege, and disdainful of anything to the left of their views as witnessed daily by some of the most outlandish, one-sided, pro-business commentaries countenancing no alternatives, with the rarest of rare exceptions showing up to make the paper look fair, which it’s not.

Consider editorial board member Mary O’Grady in her weekly Americas column on “politics, economics and business in Latin America and Canada.” Her extremism is unmatched. Her style is agitprop; her space a truth-free zone; her language hateful and vindictive; her tone malicious and slanderous; her style bare-knuckled thuggishness; and her material calculating, mendacious, and shameless. Yet she’s a WSJ regular and an award-winning op-ed writer, but surely no journalist according to Webster’s definition:

“writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation.”

O’Grady fails on both counts. She’s a kind of print version of Fox News’ Glenn Beck, who promotes himself on glennbeck.com looking arrogant in a uniform reminiscent of the Nazi SS.

Consider O’Grady’s support for the Washington-backed June 28 Honduran coup ousting a democratically elected president. It was followed by months of mass arrests, disappearances, killings, targeting the independent media, suspending the Constitution, declaring martial law, and threatening the Brazilian embassy’s sovereignty where President Manuel Zelaya took refuge after returning.

In one of her many pro-coup articles, O’Grady (on July 13) headlined “Why Honduras Sent Zelaya Away.” In a “perfect world,” according to her, he “would be in jail in his own country right now, awaiting trial. The Honduran attorney general (part of the coup regime) has charged him with deliberately violating Honduran law and the Supreme Court (stacked with pro-coup justices) ordered his arrest in Tegucigalpa on June 28,” the day of the coup.

“But the Honduran military whisked him out of the country, to Costa Rica,” to save itself the embarrassment of jailing a democratically elected leader whose lawful actions were endorsed by the majority of Hondurans wanting progressive constitutional change and a president willing to give it to them.

Yet according to O’Grady, “Mr. Zelaya’s detention was legal, as was his official removal from office by Congress….Besides eagerly trampling the constitution, Mr. Zelaya had demonstrated that he was ready to employ the violent tactics of ‘chavismo’ to hang onto power. The decision to pack him off immediately was taken in the interest of protecting both constitutional order and human life.”

In fact, Zelaya neither espoused or practiced violence, and his call for a public June 28 vote on whether to hold a referendum for a new Constitutional Convention at the same time as the November elections lawfully asked for a “yes” or “no” on one question:

“Do you think that the November 2009 general elections should include a fourth ballot box (the other three were for candidates) in order to make a decision about the creation of a National Constitutional Assembly that would approve a new Constitution?”

According to Article 5 of the 2006 Honduran “Civil Participation Act,” government officials may hold non-binding inquiries (referenda) to determine popular support for proposed measures. Gauging sentiment for a National Constituent Assembly for a new Constitution is legal.

Yet in her June 28 article titled, “Honduras Defends Its Democracy,” O’Grady falsely claimed Zelaya planned “a constitutional rewrite (following) a national referendum” only the Congress can approve. In fact, Zelaya called for a vote to assess public sentiment, pro or con, on whether Hondurans want a Constitutional Convention, an act no different from a public opinion poll that’s perfectly legal or should be anywhere. But according to O’Grady, Zelaya “decided he would run the referendum himself.” It’s typical O’Grady truth reversal that earns her weekly space on the WSJ’s op-ed page.

State-owned and funded, it’s tradition is long, unbroken, and disturbing as the world’s largest and most influential broadcaster reaching global audiences in 32 languages. From inception in 1925, it’s been reliably pro-government and pro-business, or as its founder Lord Reith wrote the establishment: “They know they can trust us not to be really impartial.” Neither he or his successors disappointed on topics mattering most, including war and peace, corporate crimes, US-UK duplicity, labor rights, democratic freedoms, human and civil rights, social justice, and Western imperialism.

They’re consistently distorted, suppressed, marginalized or ignored throughout decades of misreporting despite claiming “honesty (and) integrity (is) what the BBC stands for (because it’s) free from political influence and commercial pressure.”

As a propaganda service, its record is uncompromisingly anti-union, pro-business, and dependably safe for Whitehall and its allies. It moralizes Western aggression, bashes independent democratic leaders, and cheerleads for the powerful at the expense of providing real news and information for millions believing BBC is credible. For over eight decades, it’s record is solid and predictable – betraying the public trust to reliably serve the powerful. The tradition continues.

Among the many, consider a select few. For example, CNN’s Lou Dobbs, “Mr. Independent” he calls himself. Critics use more descriptive terms, yet according to his loudobbs.tv.cnn.com bio:

He’s “anchor and managing editor of CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight (and also anchor of) a nationally syndicated financial news radio report, The Lou Dobbs Financial Report….” In addition, he writes a weekly CNN.com commentary, is an author and award-winning “journalist,” most recently in 2005 when “the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded (him) the Emmy for Lifetime Achievement” for serving the usual special interests nightly on prime time TV.

In June 2004, he also won “the Eugene Katz Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Immigration from the Center for Immigration Studies for his ongoing series ‘Broken Borders,’ which examines US policy towards illegal immigration.” Little wonder in an August 2006 article, this writer called him CNN’s Vice President of Racism. He’s also a paid liar and in America wins awards.

In May 2008, a Media Matters Action Network report titled, “Fear & Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News” highlighted undocumented Latino hatemongering by Dobbs, Bill O’Reilly, and Glenn Beck, each claiming:

• an alleged connection between undocumented Latinos and crime; in fact, clear evidence shows they’re no more likely to break laws than American citizens;
• how they exploit social services and don’t pay taxes; in fact, undocumented immigrants are ineligible, without proof of legal status, for Medicaid, food stamps, State Children’s Health Insurance (SCHIP) and welfare; they do pay income, payroll, property, sales and other taxes and are entitled to public education; according to the National Academy of Sciences, immigrants provide a net annual gain of up to $10 billion to US GDP; according to Rand Corp. economist James P. Smith, the “net present value of the gains from those immigrants who arrived since 1980 would be $333 billion.”
• the “reconquista” myth about a supposed Mexican plot to take over the US Southwest; and
• an epidemic of Latino voter fraud that, according to Dobbs’ incessant drumbeat, puts America’s “democracy absolutely in jeopardy.”

He also propagates the myth that undocumented Latinos caused an increase in US leprosy (or Hansen’s disease). In an on-air April 2005 report (among others), correspondent Christine Romans quoted “medical lawyer” Dr. Madeleine Cosman saying:

“We have some enormous problems with horrendous diseases that are being brought into America by illegal aliens (including) leprosy….” Romans added that, according to Cosman, “there were about 900 (US) cases of leprosy for 40 years. There have been 7,000 in the past three years.”

According to a May 2007 “60 Minutes” report, the National Hansen’s Disease Program (NHDP) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reported that “7,000 is the number of leprosy cases over the last 30 years, not the past three, and nobody knows how many of those cases involve illegal immigrants.” NHDP added that from 2002 – 2005 (the timeline of Cosman’s claim), only 398 cases occurred. To that, Dobbs responded: “If we reported it, it’s a fact.”

Founded in 1971, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is internationally known for its activism against hate groups and scoring legal victories against white supremacists. It says Dobbs regularly features inaccurate racist reports and features anti-immigrant hatemongers like:

• Glenn Spencer, head of the anti-immigration American Patrol, whose web site highlights anti-Mexican vitriol and the idea that Mexico plans a secret takeover of the Southwest;
• Joe McCutchen, head of the anti-immigration Protect Arkansas Now group, that Dobbs calls “a terrific group of concerned, caring Americans;”
• Paul Streitz, co-founder of Connecticut Citizens for Immigration Control, who once denounced Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. for “turning New Haven into a banana republic;”
• Barbara Coe, leader of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform who routinely calls Mexicans “savages;” and
• Chris Simcox, co-founder of the Minuteman Project and a leading anti-immigration figure.

SPLC explains that Dobbs “doggedly explores and supports the anti-immigration movement (and) won’t report salient negative facts about anti-immigration leaders he approves of….”

Instead, he falsely claims that:

• “just about a third of the prison population in this country is estimated to be illegal aliens;”
• states have been “overwhelmed by criminal illegal aliens;” and
• US borders are “unprotected” allowing “criminal illegal aliens (to) murder police officers.”

In 2007 alone, the connection between illegal immigration and crime was discussed on 94 episodes of Lou Dobbs Tonight, and dozens more focused on an “army of invaders,” immigrants not paying taxes, draining social services, and threatening our white Anglo-Saxon culture.

CNN reporters Casey Wian, Bill Tucker, Kitty Pilgrim and others present a steady diet of subtle and overt racism to incite viewers to believe it. Through constant repetition, it propagates the myth, and according to the Media Matters Action Network report:

Dobbs “is hailed by the entire spectrum of immigration opponents, from the reasonable to the unreasonable. And the degree to which extremist elements see (him) as an ally indicates at the very least that they believe he is helping their cause” because they feel he’s a populist crusader.

Yet according to a July 30 New York Observer report, recent Nielsen data showed that after Dobbs began reporting (on July 15) that Barack Obama’s birth certificate was fraudulent (an apparent stunt to increase ratings), his viewership dropped significantly – 15% overall and 27% in the valued 25-54 age category.

When it debuted in 1996, one of its on-air hosts said:

The “Channel was launched (because) something was wrong with news media….somewhere bias found its way into reporting….Fox….is committed to being fair and balanced (covering) stories everybody is reporting – and….stories….you will see only on Fox.”

Later the Columbia Journalism Review said several former Fox employees “complained of ‘management sticking their fingers’ in the writing and editing stories to cook the facts to make a story more palatable to right-of-center tastes.” But it hasn’t hurt ratings.

As of Q 1 2009, FNC was the second highest rated cable channel in prime time total viewers. CNN ranked 17th and MSNBC 24th. The O’Reilly Factor has been #1 rated on cable news for 100 consecutive months and gained 27% more viewers year-over-year. Glenn Beck increased 90% over the previous year. Overall, FNC topped CNN and MSNBC combined in prime time total audience.

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) said “Fox’s signature political news show, Special Report with Brit Hume (now with Bret Baier) was originally created as a daily one-hour update devoted to the 1998 Clinton sex scandal.” In the past year, it gained 39% more viewers.

As for accuracy and being “fair and balanced,” FAIR (in summer 2001) called FNC “The Most Biased Name in News,” yet according to Murdoch in March 2001:

“I challenge anybody to show me an example of bias in Fox News Channel.”

In FAIR’s Seth Ackerman article and later ones, FNC’s blatant manipulation of the news is exposed. For example, Bret Baier’s “Political Grapevine” is a right-wing “hot sheet” featuring a “series of gossipy items culled from other right-wing” sources. It and other reports are blatantly partisan propaganda against “liberal media bias,” progressives, environmentalists, anti-war activists, civil rights groups, and others to the left of their views.

According to FAIR, the commentary on political punditry programs like The O’Reilly Factor, the Sean Hannity Show, and The Beltway Boys is so slanted that it’s like watching “a Harlem Globetrotters game (knowing) which side is supposed to win.”

FNC’s Bill O’Reilly

His official bio calls The O’Reilly Factor “a unique blend of news analysis and hard hitting investigative reporting dropped each weeknight into ‘The No Spin Zone.” He also hosts a syndicated radio show, writes a weekly column carried in over 300 newspapers, and authored several books that according to New York Times writer Janet Maslin were “either (done) with a collaborator or (O’Reilly) was born with a ghostwriter’s gift for filling space with platitudes….” With good reason, Maslin called him “one of the most controversial human beings in the world….”

In an October 2008 report titled “Smearcasting,” FAIR called him an “Islamophobe” for spreading “fear, bigotry and misinformation” along with 11 other popular figures, including Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin (another FNC regular), David Horowitz, and Pat Robertson.

After 9/11, FAIR said O’Reilly proposed attacking a list of Muslim countries “if they did not submit to the US – starting with Afghanistan.”

On air he said:

“The US should bomb the Afghan infrastructure to rubble – the airport, the power plants, their water facilities and the roads….If they don’t rise up against this primitive country, they starve, period.”

Iraq must also be destroyed he said, and “the population made to endure yet another round of intense pain.” As for Libya, “Nothing goes in, nothing goes out….Let them eat sand.”

FAIR called his penchant for attacking Muslim countries “an O’Reilly trademark”, and “his disregard for Muslim civilians is matched by the anti-Muslim sentiments he frequently expresses on both his nationally syndicated radio show, the Radio Factor,” reaching 3.5 million listeners, and his top-rated FNC show.

Some of his hateful comments include saying:

• areas of London are “just packed with just dense Muslim neighborhoods, which breed this kind of contempt for Western society. Why do they let them in;”
• “We’re at war with Muslim fanatics. So all young Muslims should be subject to (special) scrutiny, (saying it’s not racial, just) “criminal profiling;”
• “the most unattractive women in the world are probably in Muslim countries;” and
• in Iraq, he blamed killing on Islam: “They’re all Muslims, and they’re doing what they do. They’re killing each other. And they’re killing Americans.”

O’Reilly is equally racist about Latino immigrants with frequent comments like:

“The extreme elements in this country want open borders, blanket amnesty, and entitlement for foreign nationals who have come here illegally, and generally want to change the demographics in the USA so political power can be assumed by the left. That is the end game.” He also argues that “Low-skilled immigrant labor costs the taxpayers today $19,000 to (subsidize) people who are using the hospitals (and) the education system….These are rock-solid stats,” but O’Reilly won’t say from where.

They’re blatantly false and may be from a May 2007 Robert Rector/Christine Kim (right-wing think tank) Heritage Foundation paper titled, “The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Immigrants to State and Local Taxpayers.”

O’Reilly spreads daily misinformation, innuendo, and hateful demagoguery to millions of his daily faithful. Like the others above, they’re paid liars delivering what passes for today’s major media journalism. It’s why so much of the public is misinformed and the reason more hate groups than ever proliferate.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), they numbered 926 in 2008, up from 602 in 2000 and are “animated by the national immigration debate.” Since Obama took office, they’re also driven by their hatred of a black president, exacerbated by a growing economic crisis that’s easy to blame on the undocumented and a non-white head of state.

These groups are ideologically vicious and extremely dangerous when motivated by racist right-wing media commentators reaching far larger audiences than more saner voices drowned out. It’s more evidence of social decay and the urgent need for change.

Founded in 1970, ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) “is the nation’s largest grassroots community organization of low and moderate income people with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in about 75 cities across the country.”

As the nation’s preeminent community organizing group, it backs a living wage, opposes predatory lending and foreclosures, supports affordable housing, better public schools, welfare reform, voting rights, rebuilding New Orleans, and other social and economic justice issues.

For many months as a result, right-wing extremists have tried to discredit its successes online and through the media. Led by Fox News, Lou Dobbs, and others, it’s accused of financial corruption, massive voter fraud, and other indiscretions, mostly fabricated to destroy the group’s credibility, cut off its funding, and harm other community organizing efforts. However, compared to corporate fraud and abuse scandals, ACORN’s occasional missteps are minor, insignificant, and undeserving of inflammatory media headlines.

Nonetheless recent news stories featured false accusations that ACORN engages in prostitution nationwide. The supposed evidence came from two right-wing filmmakers (Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe) posing as prostitute and pimp, conveniently videotaped for airing. In prime time especially, Fox News, Lou Dobbs and others featured it nightly.

On September 14, Dobbs reported “another pimp and prostitute scandal at the left-wing activist organization ACORN. For the third time, ACORN workers for the left-wing advocacy group (got) caught on hidden camera breaking the law. Now calls from Congress to investigate and cut off public funding are growing.”

According to Fox News Bill O’Reilly, “With more than 30 criminal ‘convictions’ on its resume, the organization cannot be trusted.” Based on no credible evidence, other FNC reports accuse ACORN of “operat(ing) as a criminal enterprise,” including prostitution, running a prostitution ring, filing false documents with taxing and other government authorities, bank fraud, violating immigration laws, transporting women and children to America for immoral purposes, and impairing the welfare of minors.

More evidence of reprehensible innuendo, distortion, deceit, and misinformation from major media paid liars. It’s why web sites like this one gain followers.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

In Russia, pensioners have long been respected for their role in the Soviet Union’s campaign during the second World War.

But the end of Communism also signalled the end of some of their benefits, and now many have fallen on hard times with some surviving on less than $6 a day.

Casey Kauffman reports.

By Prairie Fire

First of all, I will give Moore credit for making certain ideas mainstream (what other remotely progressive or even politically challenging material are you going to see at a multiplex cinema?), and for his interviews with the working people of the United States and coverage of their struggles, which helped to energize me a bit. On the flipside, it must be stated that his new film “Capitalism: A Love Story” is not a condemnation of capitalism.
It is a “middle class” lament.
It is an Obama promotional video.
It is periodic social-democratic indulgence to release latent tensions that threaten to burst the restraining tethers of bourgeois society.

As usual, I don’t care for Mike’s theatrics. In general, I think that “street theatre” is an impotent mode of political agitation, and his clown tactics rarely yield constructive results. On the other hand, I recognize that he has to maintain an element of mass appeal, so he packages his film as a comedic documentary, as opposed to the conventional stuff on PBS.

The show begins, as do most Moore films, with a montage of old media clips and clips from his own childhood home films, showing a flurry of 50’s American nuclear families enjoying themselves in decadence (i.e. waterskiing) and working in industry, representing American capitalism in it’s consumeristic, not-yet-moribund state during the early Cold War.

So, early in the film it becomes clear that by no means is Moore criticizing capitalism. On the contrary, he exalts it to the high heavens, and waxes nostalgic about it during his youth. He shows this montage of clips representing how good capitalism was at one point, all with only the most minimal references to imperialism. How can anyone do a serious documentary about capitalism by focusing on the one country that is the recipient of all of the finished goods, wealth and flow of capital?

He states, without irony, that the US auto-manufacturing sector rose to prominence because of the destruction of the manufacturing sectors of both Germany and Japan (including horrific crimes against humanity like the attacks on civilian population centers at Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki). What Moore is noticeably quieter about is how these defeated countries were then turned into proxies of the United States and markets for their exported goods. He does point out that the United States rewrote the constitutions of the defeated Axis powers, but paints this as a very positive thing rather than imperialism.

So, it is not capitalism that Moore is criticizing; it is the post-Cold War polarization in wealth. It is the decimation of the “middle class,” and their subsequent loss of socio-economic privileges.

Moore then goes on to feature a lot of stuff about “What does Christianity think of capitalism?” This may ruffle the feathers of the more materialist and anti-theist, but I actually don’t criticize Moore for this approach. The United States is a deeply religious country, so he is finding his way to make some ideas acceptable to the existing level of consciousness of the people (I myself began as a Christian Marxist, despite the obvious contradiction). Scoffing at the religious sentiments of millions of American workers negates them, so Moore instead doesn’t directly tell them “abandon all ye Gods!” when he is (supposedly) targeting capitalism.
The only issue with this is, from a materialist point of view, it becomes pure bourgeois metaphysics. Moore literally asks the Catholic priests and Bishops “is capitalism a sin?” By doing this, he takes the root of the problem with capitalism out of the material world of tangibility, and places it onto the no-no list of divine preferences.
So now, the crimes of capitalism are put into the same basket as worshipping idols and unwed intercourse—there are no tangible negative effects from doing these things, but the faith considers them morally repugnant.

Moore could have settled for a compromise that showed Christian attitudes towards socialism, such as Acts 2:42 to 2:45, which state, “42 And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44 And all that believed were together, and had all things in common; 45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.” He could’ve then contrasted these with attitudes towards capitalism: “…I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” –Jesus Christ, Matthew 19:23-19:24. But he did not attribute the ills of capitalism to moralism and the displeasure of a deity. This would have been a preferable stance.

Moore, at one point, looks at the rash of home foreclosures in the states and says, “This is capitalism.” Well yeah, but not in its entirety. That is only one of the symptoms, and it becomes meaningless because Moore doesn’t raise issues with the fact that even during the golden prosperity of the Cold War (built on the backs of rampant military expansion) workers were still confined to exploitive relations. So, ultimately, again it is not capitalism that Moore is raising issue with, but rather the disenfranchisement and polarization of the “middle class” in the face of monopoly capital. At no point does Moore draw the conclusion that capitalism is inherently exploitive, despite all of his “capitalism is evil” rhetoric.

At one point in the film, a couple that is being evicted in Peoria releases a pearl of wisdom. The husband says something along the lines of “there needs to be some kind of uprising of the have-nots against the haves.” If only Moore himself had taken this to its logical conclusion. Throughout the film, Mike endorses “socialism,” but of course by “socialism” he means Sweden, not the USSR. He literally drools over the “socialism” of Germany where Unionized workers have a say in choosing their board of directors (and of course, at the end of the day, they don’t own the factory that they are working in), and gives a cheer for the New Deal policies of FDR.

So here, “socialism = New Deal.” “Socialism = capitalism with concessions.” No worker control, no expropriations from the bourgeoisie, no abolition of private property, no abolition of class. Pension, pseudo-nationalized health care, giving the Unions a say in management… this is called “socialism.”

He points out how historically the National Guard under Roosevelt was used to protect striking workers in Michigan. He ignores all of the other times when the National Guard (or other state forces of the US) was used to put down strikes, which has usually included wholesale murder of strikers and union organizers. He unloads all of the crimes of American capitalism onto Ronald Reagan and George Bush Jr., and absolves Jimmy Carter and FDR in the act. Bless their heart, they were just trying to help (at least he does shy away from Clinton nostalgia though).

And then, in the midst of all of the legitimate human misery portrayed in his film by the American people, a messiah emerges. That’s right—his name was Barrack Obama. The movie starts to wind down on a high note. Obama was elected, and this signaled the dawn of a “New America.” How so? Who knows?
Obama has so far continued the wars of aggression in the Middle East, voiced the same unconditional support for Israeli apartheid, clings to the same founding myths of the United States, still maintains the same capitalist system in place (in fact, he kept them on life support with public funds), and America is hardly “post-racial” as exemplified by the case of Professor Gates among others. So the film winds down as an Obama campaign ad. Things were horrible in the United States, but then Obama came, parted the Red Sea, and lead his people out of bondage in Egypt. Roll credits.

While to his credit, Moore features the fantastic action of the Republic Windows workers, who occupied their factory in lieu of unpaid wages, he ends their story on the high note that they got their wages and the struggle ended peacefully. So, here Moore reinforces the moral of his story: if the workers and oppressed people fight tooth and nail, the capitalists will part with some of their ill-gotten gains. Don’t really challenge capitalism, just take your bribe and go home.
He also portrays some worker -owned and operated industries in the US, like the reclaimed industries in Argentina portrayed in Naomi Klein’s documentary The Take, but he portrays this syndicalism as being a new stage of capitalism—collective capitalism as opposed to the top down pyramid model. Now, of course factory syndicalism in the US becomes meaningless because the overwhelming majority of the American economy is still in privately-owned hands with a division between ownership and labor, the United States ruling class still exists and thrives, and political power rests in their hands.

Essentially, all that Mike is advocating is Argentinean-style syndicalism in the workplace, Swedish-style social programs in society, and Jeffersonian democracy for all! Together, these elements do not equal socialism.

The whole thing ends with, of all songs, the Internationale (Billy Bragg lyrics) sung over the credits. I can’t tell if this was admirable or vulgar. Considering the pace and content of the rest of the film, about shrinking “middle class” privilege where “socialism = concessions from the bourgeois state,” this appropriation of the battle hymn of all humanity striving for emancipation seems like so much tasteless and degrading appropriation of socialist iconography as “revolutionary chic.” At least they didn’t defile the GOOD version of the song.

From start to finish, as usual, Moore plays the loyal opposition to the state wrapped in “radical” rhetoric. While this has succeeded in ruffling the feathers of the overt reactionaries like the National Post in my country, which featured a front-page article where they photoshopped Moore’s trademark glasses and ball cap onto Karl Marx, it boils down to same-old-same-old. Any condemnations of the still-ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Haiti are absent from the film. Why condemn them? Just make sure that the American working class gets their cut of the plunder, because that is what “socialism” is, at least according to Moore.
In the end, it becomes just another band-aid on the growing cracks in a dam that is about to burst. Just as the bourgeois economists of the recession declared “We Are All Socialists Now,” and defiled the legacy of working class emancipation by linking it to their own fascistic self-serving bail out, Michael Moore declares that workers’ need to fight for their right to more concessions.

Over all, Mike’s “middle class” woes become tiresome. The working class doesn’t need concessions, nor should they aspire to a relatively less exploited position as the “middle class” beneath bourgeoisie. If anything useful can be taken from this film, it is the knowledge that no problems have been solved in the United States, and the conditions that give rise to revolution have not been alleviated at all. If anything, the situation is more dire.

About the American Party of Labor – (www.americanpartyoflabor.org)

The American Party of Labor is a revolutionary working class organization. As anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninists, we seek to abolish capitalism, and replace it with a just and fair economic system: socialism. We wholeheartedly agree with Marx’s assertion “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

Each issue featured several different stories intended to inspire citizenship, morality, and patriotism. In the 1961, volume 17 number 2 issue, the story “This Godless Communism” began. It continued in the even numbered issues through number 20.

Outline of “This Godless Communism”:

Chapter 1. In a Communist America
Chapter 2. Marx
Chapter 3. Lenin I & II
Chapter 4. Stalin I (note how he is NOT blamed for the famine, that ‘terror famine’ BS wasn’t even pushed during the height of the Cold War!) II & III
Chapter 5. Khrushchev I & II they claim the Hungarian counter-revolution resulted in 30,000(!) dead
Chapter6. How to Fight Communism

Available for download: http://www.archive.org/details/ThisGodlessCommunism

Here are some clips from the comic book:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

“People might mistakenly assume that the theory of adaptations for murder implies approval or acceptance of killing,” Buss said. “It doesn’t. I would suggest instead that those who create myths of a peaceful human past, who blame killing on the contemporary ills of modern culture, and who cling to single-variable theories that have long outlived their scientific warrant tread on dangerous moral ground. The problem of murder cannot be solved by wishing away those aspects of human nature that we desire not to exist.”

“As an evolutionary psychologist,” he added, “I’ve become accustomed to critics who confuse what is with what ought to be. We can prevent murder, in principle, through a deep understanding of its underlying psychological circuits and designing environments that prevent their activation.” – Michelle Bryant

This reminds me of people who blame things like professional wrestling or gangster rap for murder. They blame the media and outside influences instead of the mind and internal influences. I have noticed a correlation between belief in these bullshit answers to questions and church attendance. It sounds like the original sin doctrine. Man was good, then man eats from the forbidden fruit, then man turns bad. How about just accepting that reality is different from idealism? Humans do not have to “be mislead” in order to behave in ways that counter the ideal; they just have to not care about it. The people who depend on single variable causes and cling to them are the people who want an answer but lack the dedication and desire to really dig for one. They settle for any answer that explains a problem because it may take extra effort to discern the correct answer.

What this also reminded me of, in a political sense, are people who blame the media for the death of Western Civilization. These people blame the media because they do not have what it takes to understand that people have to care about an ideal for it to be maintained.  It’s easier for simplistic people to believe that America is spiritually perfect but ruined by an external influence than it is for them to believe that America is not perfect.  People often keep their beliefs within a comfort zone, but this can prevent them from identifying the true nature of a problem.  Even if people on some level understand that these beliefs are untrue, they do not make a serious effort to eliminate them from their belief system.   These people get a hypothesis but have trouble testing and truly examining it and just accept it.  Until we realize that freedom of choice leaves the door open for appalling decisions and that those bad decision can be made for a million different motivations, we will always have clowns who claim that changing a single cause could have made a difference.  Clowns who claim that if this one variable is changed, then everyone can leave their door unlocked at night.

Unfortunately, Understanding a problem is directly relevant to understanding the solution.  This means arguments are inevitable.  It is important to nitpick what is wrong with society if we are interested in fixing it.  And it is important to point out when people incorrectly identify the cause of problems and promote false solutions.  Stupidity has consequences and I don’t want to experience them.  If we do leave our doors open at night after this one variable is changed, we still open ourselves to potential danger.  People who claim to have the answer to every problem with a single key deserve to be questioned.  The problem is not a single cause, but a culmination of small causes.  A more totalitarian effort is the solution, rather than a simplistic modficiation to society.

Interesting Website. I will add it to the blog roll. It has well constructed political opinion and links to very good material about the global financial crisis.

Inside the mind of Net Nazis
6. Three possible reasons can be hypothesized for the thoughts and behavior of Net Nazis:
Possibility One) Their viewpoints are essentially correct.
Possibility Two) Their viewpoints are incorrect but they believe them to be correct.
Possibility Three) They know their viewpoints are false but have exterior motives (attention, politics etc.)

7. Possibility one is out. The views expressed by these people are obviously flawed. Some of the flaws were highlighted in the “Identifying Net Nazis” section but a much more detailed rebuke is certainly possible but not worth the time. That leaves us with possibilities two and three.

8. I believe possibility two can be eliminated too with logic as follows: In a complete 180 degree turn, Net Nazis have expanded their definition of “Aryan” from what the SS required to include even Russians and Greeks. Some Nazi websites include South Asians and Arabs too (but not Jews). Hitler would be rolling over in his grave, and they know this. Again, we are not merely talking of opposing establishment Jewry, but identifiable Net Nazis based on the characteristics I listed. Indeed, they are not very “good” Nazis in an ideological sense.

Exterior Motives
9. Attention seeking must be considered as an exterior motive..
10. Of course money must be considered as an exterior motive.
11. To quote Guy White

Nazis are an embarrassment to anyone trying to counter the views of the far-left. The Left purposely tries to create the impression that any non-leftist must be a Nazi. The reason this tactic is successful is that most Neo-Nazis embrace this ideology only because they like being the object of other people’s disgust.

Conclusion
12. Liberal establishment supporters have a political interest in making inegalitarian ideology fail. Race realists try desperately to disassociate themselves from Neo-Nazis but Neo-Nazis continue to cause trouble and purposely disrupt the supporters of Race Realism, while liberals use the disruption to associate Race Realism with Nazism.

13. My conclusion is that Net Nazis are actually often members of the liberal establishment and can even be Jewish in some instances. FBI and CIA infiltration is another reality.

”It’s too bad that stupidity isn’t painful. Ignorance is one thing, but our society thrives increasingly on stupidity. It depends on people going along with whatever they are told. The media promotes a cultivated stupidity as a posture that is not only acceptable but laudable.”

Stupidity should hurt. Liberalism should hurt. Putting full trust into the “democratic process” should hurt. Opposing cultural degeneracy but not the society that enables it should hurt. Worshiping free enterprise to the exclusion of all else should hurt. Being religious to the point of denying science should hurt. Denial of national characteristics should hurt and seeing Jews and Communists behind every tree should REALLY hurt. Denying the existence of human biodiversity should REALLY hurt and gerrymandering it into false categories should hurt just as much. Belief in equality between religions, ethnic groups, nationalities, sexes and individuals in general should hurt. Belief that gun control “makes you safe” should hurt.

Stupidity should be painful.

Those who think they are weakening Islamic Fundamentalism made the incorrect move to target Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein is proof that American imperialism can be resisted without excusing Zealot behavior. Arabs and South Asians should view Hussein, not the Taliban or Shias, as their model.

With regards to Saddam Hussein’s theocratic opponents (the Taliban, the Iranian regime etc.), the pragmatic part of my mind still supports the lesser evil against the imperialists, but the idealist part of my mind knows that these regimes are far from Utopia.  Saddam Hussein’s style of rule was much closer to utopia.

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/31/weekinreview/the-world-khomeini-vs-hussein-mideast-s-contenders-for-nasser-s-mantle.html?amp;sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

THE WORLD: Khomeini vs. Hussein; Mideast’s Contenders for Nasser’s Mantle

By YOUSSEF M. IBRAHIM
Published: July 31, 1988

A LITERARY essay published in the Middle East in 1952 created a stir among Arab intellectuals for its description of an empty cloak of leadership waiting to be placed on some hero somewhere in the vast, leaderless world of Islam.

Within months it had been claimed by Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. Over the next 18 years, his revolutionary zeal and strategies provoked the expulsion of the French from Algeria and the British from Egypt and Jordan, and the overthrow of pro-Western monarchies in Yemen and Iraq. His confrontation with the West introduced Soviet influence in the region, and was a major factor in the emergence of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the current of Arab nationalism that continues today.

Eventually, Nasser’s equally colossal failures caught up with him. Egypt’s crushing defeat at the hands of Israel in 1967 placed much Arab land under Israeli occupation and ended Egypt’s role as leader of the Arab world.

Nasser died in 1970, and since then many Middle Eastern leaders have tried in vain to grab the elusive cloak – among them, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran.

It was largely their quests to impose their views on the region that led Iran and Iraq into war. It looked last week as if the war was winding down, with intense peace talks continuing at the United Nations. But after eight years of fighting, neither man has managed to claim that mantle of leadership.

Now 51 years old, Mr. Hussein is a strong advocate of progress under the banner of secularism and a united Arab destiny. Mr. Hussein believes that a dictatorial government that force-feeds modernization is a shortcut to progress. He is convinced that such an approach will catapult the backward Arab world, starting with Iraq, into the next century.

In a conversation a few years ago, Tarik Aziz, who is the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and a friend of President Hussein, explained it this way: ”You must understand – our country is cutting through a lot of time. We can’t afford to go through 200 years or so until we have a ‘natural evolution’ from feudal to industrial to modern age, as Europe did to get to its golden age.

”We must push our people 200 years ahead and away from medieval, reactionary ideas, through education and discipline.” The accent, he said, was on push. Backward and Forward

Ayatollah Khomeini, the other contender for the role of pan-Islamic leader, is, at 88 years of age, a revolutionary who once called democracy the equivalent of prostitution.

His belief that the Middle East is dominated by foreign powers, that it has lost the right to define its own destiny and that it must shake away these chains does not differ much from the views of Mr. Hussein or other so-called progressive Middle Eastern leaders, including those of Algeria, Libya and Syria.

But the Ayatollah’s methods and ideological foundations are diametrically opposed to those of Mr. Hussein, and for that matter those of the whole Arab world he seeks to convert. And as the Iraqi leader is rushing impatiently forward in time, the Ayatollah is rushing backward.

”Khomeini tried the impossible task of rewriting history,” said Ahmad Bahaa-eldine, a columnist for the Egyptian daily Al Ahram who is also published in several other Arab dailies and is a friend of President Hussein.

”He wanted to rebuild the third Islamic state after those of the Prophet Mohammed 1,400 years ago and Imam Ali shortly afterward.”

”We are talking about reconstructing something that existed 14 centuries ago in the world of the 1980’s,” Mr. Bahaa-eldine continued.

”It is as though science, technology, the arts, literature, sociology, never came to add shades and colors to what used to be white and black in our perceptions. For most of us, the attraction of what Nasser did was that he tried to launch a modern revolution.”

In the Middle East, as in much of the third world, the search for dignity, independence, prosperity and freedom is still a search for a magic formula. Many Arab intellectuals argue that the formulas presented thus far -Arab socialism, Arab nationalism and the Ayatollah’s pan-Islamic nationalism – are proven failures.

”Today in our Middle East world the role of ideologies is shrinking,” said a senior Arab ambassador in Washington, D.C. ”This cloak of leadership does not belong to any single man anymore. The Middle East has a much better educated, wealthier, smarter population today.”

If they are looking for anything, he said, it is ”just democracy and a little respect for the individuals.”

That may not be soon in coming, at least not in Iraq or Iran, even if their war is about to end. Ayatollah Khomeini has called for a cease-fire so that the Islamic Government can devote itself to eradicating more internal enemies and consolidating his vision of 14th-century righteous Islamic rule.

Mr. Bahaa-eldine said Mr. Hussein also has strong views on the subjects of democracy and individual rights. He recalled a visit to Baghdad a few years ago in which he spent a spirited evening of talk with the President.

”I had argued that power is best held by persuasion,” Mr. Bahaa-eldine recalled. ”He would kid me that we ‘intellectuals’ know nothing about building nations.” Without the gun to force progress, Mr. Hussein argued, there would be no progress.

Later that night at his hotel, Mr. Bahaa-eldine said, an Iraqi guard appeared at the door with a velvet box. Inside was a revolver on which was engraved the inscription: ”With the compliments of Saddam.”

1. Corruption – politicians receive large sums of money from businesses and other special interests (e.g. unions) in exchange for implementing specific policies. Politicians depend on such contributions for campaign funding.

2. Lack of accountability – because any given politician or party has such limited power for such limited periods of time it is difficult to evaluate their impact. Power often oscillates from one party to the next such that outcomes can easily be attributed to the party currently in power or, similarly easily, to the party previously in power. Power is divided between various branches and levels of government and among numerous politicians such that responsibility and accountability are dispersed and confused.

3. Incoherence – the division of power, both between different levels of government and within each level of government, can lead to an assemblage of policies that are inconsistent in terms of there objectives and implementation.
Example: Division of power requires compromise between those who support the complete ban of a substance and those who favor no restrictions. The compromise reached is to criminalize the production of the substance but not its use, thereby allowing unfettered demand to combine with exclusion of legal production to produce a huge market for organized crime.

4. Gridlock/delay – disagreement within government and so-called “checks and balances” delay the implementation of much needed policy changes. Consultation of “the people” takes time.

5. Fuzziness of the concept – the very meaning of democracy is unclear. Whether a given system of government is more democratic than another is frequently disputed among proponents of democracy.

6. Corporate (etc) media influence – much media is delivered by corporations with their own interests that could influence their reporting. Media depends on advertising for much of its funding and could be compelled to report in ways favorable to current and prospective advertisers. Such reporting heavily influences the voting public.

7. Lack of effective/powerful international/supranational government and impracticality of its formation within a democratic framework – practically precludes comprehensive, substantial, global cooperation and coordination to solve problems.
Example: Two states share a border. One of the states implements a strict ban while the other does not. Consequently, the state with the ban has much greater difficulty enforcing its ban.

8. Instability – governments and policies often change frequently resulting in wastage of resources from starting and undoing programs and lack of sustained long-term policies/projects. Incentives become less effective due to uncertainty.

9. Political myopia – campaigning focuses on short-term goals, accomplishments, and results. Politics becomes overly focused on shot-run outcomes.

10. Superficiality/triviality – voters are unwilling and/or unable to dedicate much time or effort to investigate or analyze political issues. Consequently, politics becomes focused on rhetoric, emotions, trivialities and is overly simplistic. Policies and candidates are selected within the context of the aforementioned state of political discourse.

11. Division/partisanship “democracy fosters division along party lines” people are expected to adopt particular ideological identities (opposition vs government etc) – unity is precluded (granted, Russia may be an exception).

12. Democracy allows good governments to be voted out of office.

13. “Human rights” often promoted as essential components to democracy. Many of these “human rights” interfere with the implementation of good policy.

Readers, I direct you to an interesting discussion taking place on “politics forum” which is a high end political discussion forum.  Feel free to add your opinion if you would like to.

A market structure in which a few firms sell either a standardized or differentiated product, into which entry is difficult, in which the firm has limited control over product price because of mutual interdependence, and in which there is typically nonprice competition.  (McConnell, G-17)

I will compare this definition to the contemporary American Media.

Category 1 – Are there few firms involved in the industry?
Answer : Yes, the television and paper media are controlled by a small amount of powerful corporations, General Electric and Microsoft being examples.

Category 2 – Is entry difficult into the media market?
Answer : Yes, it is difficult to create a media outlet on cable news or print media. Technical, fiscal, competitive, operational and substitution-oriented (the internet) barriers to entry exist.

Category 3 – Do firms have limited control over price due to interdependence?
Answer : Yes, access to all networks is sold in the same cable and satellite packages. A buyer purchases packages from satellite and cable companies instead of individual products from companies or even retailers. There may be more control over price with print media, but other economic forces drive it down.

Category 4 – Is there “non-price” competition instead of price competition?
Answer : Absolutely. Olberman vs. O’Riley. Fox vs Msnbc. This is non-price competition.

Ladies and gentlemen, the American news media is an oligopoly.

Works Cited

McConnell, Campbell R., and Stanley L. Brue. Economics : Principles, Problems, and Policies. 16th ed. New York, New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2005.  G-17.

Free Media Productions News will soon be releasing its audio news service. This new feature will allow listeners to get the latest news and analysis in mp3 audio format. This FMP News audio service will be featured in the regular news section, and available for download as well.

As a preview – check out our first audio sampling on the recent story of the national resistance forces in Iraq:

Iraqi resistance destroys US armored patrol vehicle

May 29 – The proliferation of hawkish propaganda disseminated through the bourgeois media aiming to instill the public on a war-footing towards hostile military action against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has once again demonstrated the subordination of honest, quality journalism to bourgeois jingoist ideology and capitalist ambitions. The latest inflammatory coverage of events the DPRK has been especially concentrated through the 24-hour cable news outlets, such as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, etc.

These so-called “news” organizations have the [dis]honor of serving as the privately-owned spokespersons for the White House and the interests of the ruling class. In reference to the generally bad journalism that takes place on American broadcast news stations – quality information is substituted wholesale for cheap mass-reproduction of government talking points, progressively infused “infotainment” and yellow journalism in its most disgusting form.

Mainstream network television news has traditionally been one of the most popular forms of information dissemination in the United States. But statistics show a downward trend in viewers attributed to the rise and success of the 24-hour cable news channel (CNN, Fox News), which can rapidly respond in a moment’s notice to the modern daily news cycle. If you recall immediately during and after the events of September 11, 2001 – American television news viewers were glued to the screens of their television, and channels like CNN, Fox News and MSNBC reported their highest audience ratings to date.

This phenomenon continued during the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq. The owners, CEOs and boards of directors responsible for the programming, editorial decision-making and directorship of these channels certainly understood that conflict, war and crisis spells exponentially increased viewers – in turn fueling increased advertisement sponsorship in a never-ending quest for the accumulation of higher profits.

Like any commercial institution in bourgeois society, news organizations don’t provide a service or product for its own (or the public’s) sake; there is always a profit motive working behind the scenes that enables that particular organization or industry to sustain itself and grow. Fox News, CNN, MSNBC – unlike their network counterparts such as ABC, CBS and NBC – have huge vested interests in relying on dramatic news to generate increased audiences in hopes of accumulating higher profits. When profits are the primary focus of an organization’s mere existence, then it goes without question that other elements of the operation (integrity) take lesser precedence. Unlike CBS or the other networks, the cable news channels don’t rely on explicitly entertainment content, such as sitcoms, reality TV shows, etc.   And while concentration of the news-media industry has left a monopoly of control over the means of mass communication, in order for these outlets to prove profitable extensions of their parent companies, they require dramatic events that captivate an audience in order to push back on potential advertisers for higher ad rates.

Thus, the profit motive is playing an undeniably crucial role in the drumming for military aggression towards, and the defamation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The privately-owned 24-7 cable news media wants nothing more than for the US and its lackeys in “south” Korea and Japan to initiate war against the peace-loving nation of the DPRK. From the rationale of capitalism, it makes perfect sense.

The drumming up for war against the DPRK has always had its boisterous support among the bourgeois news-media, overly dramatizing events on the Korean peninsula that have an innate ability to increase anxiety and tension in audiences. In short, the build-up to war is an essential part of the psychological manipulation that’s consistently seen in advertising. In short, this is nothing more than attempt to manipulate public thought in anticipation of mobilization and escalation to armed conflict. If, or when, the imperialists take their threats to action, the need for information consumption by the public will then be satiated by the producer all-too happy and willing to satiate.

What’s most disgusting though, is that so-called “progressives” champion these calls by employing the same outlandish rhetoric against the DPRK. Take, for example, the recent editorial by the ©PUSA, which condemned the DPRK in language nearly identical to that used by the official White House mouthpiece Robert Gibbs. These pitiful and pathetic examples of so-called lefists are worse than their chicken hawk counterparts, who at least have the virtue of being explicit in their reactionary beliefs and opinions.

In an extensive article attacking Stalin’s legacy, the New York Times (NYT) was forced to print the following admission, plus printing the photograph below of a “look-alike Stalin living in Georgia.”

“The admiration and the love for Stalin in this small 4.6 million population of Georgia, is seen in the following news item.

Jamil Ziyuadaliev, 64, and a father of two, was asked by the people of Gori to help out in keeping the name of Stalin alive and his deeds to be remembered. Majority of Georgian people respect Stalin because he was a great leader who helped to build the Soviet Union, for defeating the Nazis and saving the world from fascism. He was also the most famous Georgian who ever lived.”

Georgian history books even now – despite the reactionary pro-American leadership – write about Stalin and his love of Georgia.

In Gori, Stalin’s birthplace where there is still a marble statue of Stalin in the central square. Jamil (Stalin) is asked to be an honored guest at weddings, anniversary occasions, history classes in schools and on important holiday occasions by people celebrating the USSR.

There are always toasts on such occasions, such as: “To our great comrade Stalin!”

Jamil Ziyuadaliev personifies in person the love for Stalin by majority of not only the Georgian people, but most Soviet people as well dedicated Marxists-Leninists-Bolsheviks in the world.

Those to try to erase Stalin’s name from history – will themselves be erased and forgotten forever – while the name of J.V. Stalin will live on forever!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C79uRk1Kg0c

While the Zimbabwe journalists and media personnel were unjustly targeted because of Europe’s neo-colonial aims to overthrow the defiant government of President Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF, it raises some interesting questions in the abstract: should individuals from the media be held accountable for inciting violence or alleged “human rights” abuses?

There’s no doubt that what we’re seeing here is an unscrupulous attempt to neutralize Zimbabwe and its independent media through a campaign of international legal provocations. Nobody wants to sanction US media for imposing upon the public the necessary mindset for invading Iraq and Afghanistan.  Nobody is sanctioning the Israeli press and propaganda system for inciting violence against the oppressed and displaced Palestinians.  Cases of human rights abuse – whether applied to top ranking Generals or journalists – have become nothing more than mere weapons in the hands of the imperialist bloc to present their cases in benign, amicable terms.

Propaganda campaigns are nothing new, and in fact have become a staple of modern society since they were modified and perfected in the early/middle Twentieth century.

The manipulation of public opinion in times of open conflict is as important as any other instrument in the conduct of war. It provides two important functions: acquiescence to violent campaigns of aggression and legitimacy to questionable or controversial acts taken by the government.

One such tool used to wage a psychological and disinformation campaign on the collective mind of the public is the so-called “Megaphone desktop tool,” developed by Give Israel Your United Support (GIYUS). The software is distributed broadly by pro-Israel, pro-Zionist organizations with the intent of promoting a psychological campaign of deceit.

The tool works by altering users to particular polls, articles, videos, blogs, websites and other content related to Israel and Zionism in general. Such tools enable supporters and sympathizers to inflate polls and surveys towards positions favorable to the Zionism and Israel, post spam comments on articles and blogs that take a critical stance against Zionism/Israel and enable pro-Israel, pro-Zionist activists to artificially promote their presence.

Officials in the Zionist-Israeli government have praised the tool for its capacity to serve important propaganda objectives sympathetic to the aims of the Zionist state. No doubt the tool has been in exceptional use in creating a strong pro-Zionist, pro-Israel presence on the internet amidst the current genocidal campaign in Gaza. However insidious the attempts at manufacturing the appearance of public support for Zionist terrorism in the Middle-East, the vast majority of international outcry has targeted Israel as a criminal regime, and proclaimed open support for the Palestinian resistance.

The January 10^th LA Times editorial by Jewish-American lawyer and commentator, Alan Dershowitz, is yet another example of a major U.S. daily newspaper allocating its publication space to unabashed pro-Israeli, pro-Zionist propaganda. The piece by Dershowitz, aptly titled “Hamas’ war crimes,” talks of allegations of gross atrocities committed by the Palestinians in Gaza, while praising the Zionist-Israeli terrorists for their desire for peace and coexistence.

One of the major premises of the Dershowitz piece is the charge that Hamas has a history of firing rockets from public areas, such as Mosques and schools. Further, Dershowitz claims that Hamas fighters were reportedly seen in the neighborhood surrounding the school, and leads his readers to believe that Hamas resistance fighters prompted Zionist forces to bomb the U.N. school.

However, contrary to what Mr. Dershowitz and other Zionist-imperialists would like us to believe, the U.N. reported that Israeli military officials have confessed that no fire was coming from in or around the UNRWA school that was bombarded with Israeli tank fire.

In fact, under U.N. briefing, senior officials from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that the UNRWA school was not the origin or the site of the particular rocket attack they meant to target. Yet, Mr. Dershowitz and other imperialist commentators in the bourgeois press have repeatedly reported otherwise, citing it as yet another example of Hamas’ use of Palestinian civilians as “human shields.”

The opinions of Alan Dershowitz are just part of a larger frame trying to redefine Hamas not as a legitimate resistance and political movement, but as bloodthirsty terrorists. Dershowitz et al. are given a platform for their bourgeois-Zionist-imperialist rhetoric by a sycophantic press that is accountable only to shareholders – not the public or responsible, honest journalism.

The attacks carried out on counter-revolutionaries have received wide-spread condemnation from Western imperialists and “human rights” groups. The December 21^st occupation of Himal Media, led by Ramesh Babu Paint – Chairman of the All Nepal Hotel and Restaurant Workers’ Union, shows that the revolutionary spirit is strong in the youth of Nepal.

The bourgeoisie of any country grows nervous when they see the masses “getting out of line,” or “forgetting their place.” The rebellious Maoists set an invaluable precedent for all workers and peasants of the oppressed world, showing that it’s still possible to resist imperialism and the puppet governments that enable it.

Counter-revolutionary critics in the Western world are hiding their insidious attacks on the revolutionary struggle of the CPN (M) behind the typical veil of “rights” – the latest slogan accusing Maoist supporters and activists of undermining “freedom of the press” and “citizens’ right to information.”

However accusations from imperialist apologists have no solid basis in reality. What “freedom of the press” exists in a society where information is bought and sold on the market; where advertising rates take precedence over unbiased reporting, and media outlets are more accountable to shareholders and investors, rather than the public? Private ownership of the means and instruments of mass-communication is 100% diametrically opposed to the very principle of “freedom of the press.” True freedom of the press cannot emerge by simple declaration or promulgation. It must come with a struggle against the parasitic capitalist class who treat information as just another commodity on the market. Socialism represents the only possibility for true “freedom of the press,” and that is exactly the direction the militant activists plan to take.

The original question posed was:

Ok this question is to do with socialism and not communism. How do we ensure fully balanced media under socialism? Obviously at the moment media groups who are owned by people such as Murdoch etc pump out pro-capitalist propaganda and will print anything in order to sell papers. But with a state-owned paper you have the government controlling what information you receive. I can’t quite figure out the answer.

I haven’t posted at Soviet-Empire in years – but occasionally browse the site from time to time. Nonetheless, I found the discussion between Beso and users “Fallenraptor” and “Whitten” of particular interest, considering the media-oriented nature of our site and the Marxist-Leninist line.

…the major instruments and means of mass-communication will and must belong solely to state, and the message, information and content must be guided by the state/Party apparatus. This enables all major forms of mass-media (print, broadcast and online) to serve as important instruments in the cultural enlightenment of the people, political control of the population and provide the public with varying sources of information.

….there is no such thing as an “unbiased” media. It’s non-existent – nor would it be desirable. Every outlet or publication has editorial guidelines (that go well-beyond defining ‘house’ style and fact-checking policies). Rather than unrealistically trying to create a totally objective media; a socialist state should have no choice but exploit the power that comes with total control over the instruments and means of communications technology.

“Wheelchairmaniacal” said:

n a future socialist society, I can’t imagine it would be particularly popular in the west to make all media state-owned. One would hope that socialist governments would however bring the documentary formats back to state-channels like BBC or DR-TV in Denmark.

But I don’t understand the obsession with getting rid of freedom of expression. With the bourgeoisie gone (or well out of power), wouldn’t that mean for the first time you could ‘truly’ have freedom of expression? A freedom of expression in the best interests of society?

Besoshvili:

I didn’t say all media would be state owned – I said the means and instruments of mass-communication. Obviously, with technology, it wouldn’t be feasible or effective to try and control all forms of media. However, state ownership of communications is a basic necessity of socialism. To allow private ownership would not only be a contradiction – it would be ridiculously wasteful to simply discard such opportunity to reach the masses and consolidate a substantial power base.

Allowing trade & labour organizations to print, publish and write their own content would obviously be permissible – but even that has to have some restriction/limitation. Clearly we wouldn’t want another “Solidarity” movement to arise – hence the need for some degree of oversight from Party/State/Security organization(s).

As to the rejection of a completely objective media (as it relates to even the existence) – there are also numerous individuals (also highly educated) who reject the possibility that even basic information can be disseminated objectively. Jacques Ellul wrote that the belief that basic information dissemination can be objective is the biggest fallacy that has made modern day propaganda (whether state or private) so effective. Most people take for granted the way in which messages or information are conveyed. The language, the format, the chronological order, the medium, public bias, cultural norms, inherent prejudice, political climate, changes in material conditions all influence the way in which information is delivered and received by an individual.

The most effective propaganda is often times the most objective in content. Simply changing the structure of a message can have a great impact on how an individual (much less the masses) understand the message. Even changes as trivial as replacing articles, “a” with “the” in a sentence has proven to influence people’s minds to a great extent, and can reaffirm confidence in something that may or may not have happened.

Everything, from what I’m writing here to the messages you get on your TV or Radio, have an influence and attempt to frame your mindset in one way or another. Hence, the effort that would be required to even work towards establishing a *truly* objective form of information/news media would be a waste of time, and even more important, politically and economically inexpedient.

Not to mention – on a practical level the advantages of consolidating the means and instruments of mass communication far outweigh whatever disadvantages might arise. To weaken the dictatorship of the proletariat, in favor of pluralism and liberalism , would be a disservice to the Party and the working class.

“Whitten” said:

WCM is correct. In a stable socialist state media should be mostly uncensored. Free from private ownership information and opinion can be truly independent. This freedom is a pre-requisite of real public development in (socialist) understanding. The enlightenment of the masses cannot be attained by enforcing a regime of selective ignorance.

I would advocate the state/party disseminating crudely selective information that risks credibility. Lenin said on the subject that it was important to be as truthful as possible, and that transparency is not only important as a means of being open and honest with the masses, but also necessary to preserve credibility. After all – propaganda necessarily has to be subtle. If people assume you’re lying, assume you’re trying to influence them, then they simply shut you off or are now selectively biased against what you have to say. Thus, the ideal isn’t to keep the masses selectively ignorant; but rather, consolidate their support, raising them to a higher level of consciousness and framing them for a particular end/objective: communism.

You can’t raise someone’s level of consciousness by filtering their information supply. State ownership isn’t the only form of public ownership. Organisations can be publicly owned yet still completly independent.

Under socialism, the state is at the hands of the Party, which is inextricably linked with the masses of the proletariat. As such, it is the master of the revolutionary theory that guides and instructs the masses and puts them on the path of the victory of socialism, and finally, communism. The problem with independent (yet public) organizations also having a stake in such processes are the opportunity to deviate, distort or outright oppose the direction of socialism. Too great a risk. The sole purpose of the state is entirely entrenched in means, not ends. Thus, Marxist-Leninists should use the state accordingly. Not to sound the alarm for a slippery slope – but pluralism is as dangerous as outright counter-revolution.

The proletariat cannot censor themselves, that’s a logical absurdity. Only with unlimited access to information can they know for themselves what to accept and what to reject and only through this process can people develop true socialist consciousness.

I never said anything to the contrary; in fact, I specifically stated that state-run/Party-run media should be transparent and open.

Nor did I say that state/party organs should completely dominate the media – but rather the major instruments and means of mass-communication. This would mean media companies responsible for the publication of Tier 1 Media Outlets in print and broadcast need to be expropriated by the state. The Tribune Company, CBS, NBC, et al. would cease to exist as privately run corporations with private capital – and in turn would become public property vis-a-vis state ownership.

Again, lying to the masses is politically disadvantageous – nothing is more detrimental than losing your audience on the basis of lack of credibility. But, what does matter and what can be controlled is context, framing and spinning information to promote and reflect values in concert with the construction of socialism.

If the end objective is to increase the general consciousness of the masses – then it’s well known that it’s going to take work and will not be achieved over night. Furthermore, just because the masses are proletarian doesn’t make them communist. Putting the masses on the path to socialism and then communism can be supplemented by other means – in addition to the natural elevation of consciousness resulting from revolutionary changes in their relations to the means of production and material conditions.

The tactics evolved even further in the latter half of the 20^th century, and continue to develop in the 21^st: using humanitarianism to mask pure imperialism. These were the (secondary) excuses used to justify the occupation of Iraq (after the faux intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction failed to materialize). These are the same hair-brained justifications put forth for military interference in Kosovo and the same tired, repetitive rhetoric we hear for advocating military involvement in Sudan and Zimbabwe. Allegations of crises, “genocide,” and human rights abuses, even if they are substantiated by fact, are nonetheless meaningless slogans perpetrated by people with material interests.

Social-Liberals, compelled by guilt and/or idealism, become the champions of such causes and only assist the further super-exploitative global relationship between oppressor countries (US) and the oppressed world.

Take for instance your average idealist, petty-bourgeouis college student who wants to hand out leaflets about the “human rights abuses” in the DPRK (North Korea) or “genocide” in the Darfur region of Sudan. These people, though admittedly they have little influence, espouse a line that is absolutely full of contradictions. Saying you’re against globalization and war – while at the same time spreading neo-colonialist propaganda charging crimes against humanity and calling for intervention to an independent nation is worse than the most open, strictest adherents to imperialist ideology. Such enablers are little more than tools and agents of global capitalism.

The next level of blame needs to be put on the bourgeois media – which broadcasts and publicizes sensational horror stories of atrocities, famines and other crises that play an undeniable role in shaping public opinion in support of war, intervention, imperialism and occupation. Headline after headline portraying “rogue” states and leaders as demons at the helm, abusing and degrading their populations or mishandling their responsibilities to the point of monumental crises, is nothing more than a means of using mass communications to create a public with no misgivings about their governments and private industry using military intervention, occupation, globalization and investment to re-shape defiant states in the image of a modern-day American colony.

The worst case is when such liberally minded reformist elements worm their way into the executive office and become heads of state or heads of government. Take for instance, Barack Obama, the most sophisticated of the imperialist elite, who uses catchy buzzwords (change, progress, humanity, equality) to promote an agenda with a different mask than his predecessors. The difference between Barack Obama and George W. Bush is style, not substance. Barack Obama is worse in that he masks his desire to see a McDonald’s on every corner of the globe with a humanistic idealism.

However – many Americans are duped by these idealistic values because they speak directly to their self-righteousness and guilt complex. However, this can also be attributed to the extremely short-sighted nature of the American electorate – which becomes so disenchanted with one of the mainstream ruling parties that they will just vote for the opposite in the next electoral cycle without ever considering that their might be an alternative, and the system repeats itself like clockwork.

The latest campaign is the destabilization of the African country of Zimbabwe, currently under the administration of President Robert Mugabe and the ZANU-PF. The ruling circles have their reasons for being interested in Zimbabwe – 1) it has extremely fertile land, capable of yielding cheap crops and vast amounts of untapped mineral wealth just waiting to be plucked by British and American investors; and 2) it sets an example of a defiant state that is unwilling to follow American/Western imperialist “democratic” standards for political administration.

The obvious economic returns that would result from re-colonizing Zimbabwe play an insurmountable role in imperialists aims in destabilizing the country, and installing a puppet regime willing and able to bend over backward for Western capital. The second, political basis, for imperialist objectives in Zimbabwe are nothing new – such as been the attitude of the Western imperialist ruling class towards intransigent states such as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and others.

However, the general public – who only shares indirectly from the superexploitation of imperialism – need a more compelling reason to believe in the need to use military interventionist tactics in another nation. When it’s simply too obvious that a “rogue” nation’s government doesn’t constitute a national-security threat; they defer to the “humanitarian” angle – know that the young idealists and aging baby-boomers will take a bite from this bait.

Just take a look at headlines regarding Zimbabwe, or even better, President Mugabe and you will see the same rhetorical rubbish that has been used to slander other leaders like Saddam Hussein, Slobadan Milosevic, Kim Jong Il, Aleksandr Lukaschenko et al. Moreoever, they describe the people under the leadership of the aforementioned individuals as oppressed, abused, lacking freedom and other nonsense. This rhetoric is the modern-day war rhetoric that turns a self-righteous, contradictory population into unapologetic supporters of imperialism and global capitalism.

Not surprisingly the bourgeois media took extreme liberties with the message – ignoring the criticism that Barack Obama is unlikely to bring about any substantial change in American foreign policy, and instead decided to frame the whole video as if it were a racist attack on Barack Obama himself – completely misrepresenting the overall theme of what the video was trying to convey, and framing it as something completely different.

Just reviewing the headlines gives a strong indication of exactly what went wrong with the Western media’s coverage of the message. “Al-Qaeda No. 2 issues racial epitaph against Obama,” “Al-Qaeda video slurs Barack Obama,” “New Al Qaeda video insults Obama with racial slur.”

Any respectable journalist with the slightest bit of integrity would recognize the erroneous distortion going on. If one actually watches the video (a link is available at the end of this artice) then it’s obvious that the focus is not on Obama’s race, but rather, a remark on how he serves the interest of the imperialist ruling class, which is predominantly white. That Dr. Al-Zawahiri referred to Barack Obama as a “house negroe,” should have also been contextualized by his respectful mention of Malcolm X – whom the video represented as a positive influence for African-Americans.

Maybe this sort of sensationalism and poor reporting is what’s to blame for the rising cynical attitude towards the mainstream media – but hey whatever they think helps increase circulation and advertising revenues is good enough.

The instruments of information dissemination have played an important role in the history of communism. From the illegal printing presses that helped spread the powerful word of Bolshevism throughout the Russian empire, to the pamphlets and leaflets that stirred revolutionary sentiments amongst American steelworkers in the 1930’s, the role of the proletarian press has always served as a special tool for communists across the globe.

The principles for which proletarian press ought to distinguish itself from the bourgeois press (mainstream media outlets) is the latter’s dependence on private capital as the ultimate benchmark for truth. Media conglomerates that control print, broadcast, and online news sources decide the content, format, and model of their publications and materials on the basis of what will successfully generate a profit – independent of principle or the truth. When the New York Times sees decreases in subscriptions or advertisement revenue, then they adjust the content of their paper accordingly. This is an expected and necessary maneuver for any business to exist in any market, even one as dominated by so few contenders as the media.

The proletarian press, on the other hand, shares none of its subservience to the interests of investors or shareholders. Its commitment is solely to the interests of the working class. And, it understands its commitment to violently shredding the bold lies of the bourgeoisie, and the system of liberal democracy – the most hostile elements to the working class. With the imbalance of an arsenal of resources at the disposal of the bourgeoisie, the proletarian press is at a significant material disadvantage against its oppressors. Thus, in light of this disadvantage, the proletarian press is justifiable in using extraordinary measures in order to maximize the effectiveness of its message. This includes employing a malleable and flexible definition of truth.

As part of its arsenal in order to properly arm the proletariat with the appropriate degree of class-consciousness in order to foster hostile attitudes towards the oppressor class, the proletarian press must use truth as a means to an end. The means are devised in a way to foster only one end – the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the private-capital system, and the establishment of socialism and the dominance of the Communist Party. The truth, insofar as it exists in and of itself, is irrelevant in matters of politics.

The principled approach to journalism, the press, and political communications in general for the proletariat must be inextricably linked to the interests of the Communist Party; the vanguard of the working class. The manipulation of information to serve the political objectives of the Communist Party, vis-à-vis the proletariat, is the sole objective for proletarian press. These means can be successfully employed through the purposeful manipulation of logic, the use of exaggerated information, concealing sources, focusing on the emotional (rather than rational) responses of the audience, adapting the context of information to the relevant conditions and biases of the audience, taking advantage of preconceived prejudices of your target audience, convey the message in a way most receptive to your targeted audience. The specific methodology for accomplishing this has been elaborated on by political scientists, journalists, political communications specialists, and others so I will only mention them briefly here. Manipulation of raw data can best be conceived through generalities without compromising credibility. For instance, if General Motors lays off 17,000 manufacturing employees it’s perfectly acceptable to round-up to “roughly” 20,000. The language in which one conveys this information can be easily adapted to best suit the author’s political needs, too. For instance, instead of “laying off,” the author could indicate that “in an attempt to cut costs and increase profits, the General Motors corporation is increasing the ranks of the nation’s unemployed by nearly 20,000.” Think pragmatically – the goal is to raise consciousness of the ranks of the working class, and in turn, increase their sympathies with the communist party, for whom the working class is the ultimate source of its strength.

Other techniques that may be utilized include failure to disclose sources, either of the information provided or the publication itself. This is especially useful when dealing with statistics that may be otherwise difficult to verify. For instance, consider the following headline: “local law enforcement infiltrates labor union; attempt to undermine workers’ rights.” This headline is useful on a number of levels. First, its quick to the point and generalized. Secondly, if read by a receptive audience, will have rouse an intentional emotional response to the violation of a labor organization’s ability to organize. Third, if the reader is enthralled enough to continue to read more (as is the intention of any headline), then there is a good chance their rationality will forgive the fact that no real source is indicated in the article itself.

Obviously one must be careful not to destroy credibility, either of the publication and/or the party, but nonetheless such tactics are employed everyday in the mainstream media and can be extremely effective when used by a skilled propagandist.

If the unfortunate happens, and credibility is damaged, the consequences may be extremely harmful to the Party. Therefore, any form of proletarian press ought to exercise extreme caution when deliberately manipulating information in order to politicize the proletariat. When used properly false information, subtle propaganda techniques, and deceitful rhetoric can be an effective tool against the bourgeoisie.