According to Stars & Stripes, United States Air Force Captain William Dubois—30 years old—was killed when the F-16 he was piloting on a mission against the Islamic State crashed. Marine Lance Cpl. Sean Neal, 19, of Riverside, California died in Iraq from a noncombat related injury. Marine Cpl. Jordan Spears, 21, of Memphis, Ind., was lost at sea while conducting flight operations in the North Arabian Gulf. Continue reading
A week has passed since President Obama surprised everyone with a strong statement in support of Net neutrality, declaring that the Internet should be available to everyone—reclassified under Title II of the Telecommunications Act as a common carrier—a public utility like telephone service or electricity without special privileges to companies willing to pay a premium for faster, more exclusive access. Continue reading
As I was finalizing my research for this article, I found myself browsing through a heap of hilarious videos by mostly Egyptian TV show hosts Tawfiq Okasha and Amr Adeeb. Continue reading
On Monday, the White House released a statement from President Obama in support of Net neutrality, his strongest and most direct since the 2008 election campaign. “An open Internet is essential to the American economy, and increasingly to our very way of life,” he began. “By lowering the cost of launching a new idea, igniting new political movements, and bringing communities closer together, it has been one of the most significant democratizing influences the world has ever known. Continue reading
New York Times editors do it numerous ways. At times in their “Room for Debate” series. Featuring mostly one-sided views. Continue reading
A few months ago, not many Americans, in fact Europeans as well, knew that a Yazidi sect in fact existed in northwest Iraq. Even in the Middle East itself, the Yazidis and their way of life have been an enigma, shrouded by mystery and mostly grasped through stereotypes and fictitious evidence. Yet in no time, the fate of the Yazidis became a rally cry for another US-led Iraq military campaign. Continue reading
The increasing tendency of the Central Intelligence Agency and other U.S. intelligence agencies to disregard previous prohibitions against the use of journalists as agents puts every legitimate reporter around the world in jeopardy. Continue reading
(WMR)—National news media operations based in Boston are almost like musicals that run “off Broadway.” Continue reading
At the end of the classic “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” Jimmy Stewart, as Senator Jefferson Smith, is in the midst of his filibuster against the corruption of the political machine that sent him to Capitol Hill as their lackey. Now he knows the truth and he’s taken over the floor of the Senate to tell it. Continue reading
During Cold War One those of us in the American radical left were often placed in the position where we had to defend the Soviet Union because the US government was using that country as a battering ram against us. Now we sometimes have to defend Russia because it may be the last best hope of stopping TETATW (The Empire That Ate The World). Yes, during Cold War One we knew enough about Stalin, the show trials, and the gulags. But we also knew about US foreign policy. Continue reading
Let us get one thing crystal clear: We in the the United States of America, do not live in an informed genuine people’s ‘democracy’ nor do we have a government or mass media that is honest and transparent that serves the needs, interests, and aspirations of everyday ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people. Continue reading
As more and more people are speaking out about Israel’s genocidal attacks against the Palestinian population in Gaza, mainstream media executives are trying to put a lid on it. How else can you explain NBC’s action to remove, from Gaza, Ayman Mohyeldin, an experienced, well respected reporter after he described the arbitrary killing of four young Palestinian boys playing soccer on a beach by members of the Israeli Defense Force. Continue reading
According to the latest reports, the separatists in Donetsk have handed over to Malaysian authorities the black boxes from the downed Malaysian airliner, which indicates that those who have been blamed by Washington and the Western presstitute media have nothing to fear from the facts. Continue reading
I got the news from my last Time-Warner bill, which is for a 42-inch flat screen and a second set, 23- x 36-inch flat screen. It seems they are changing all the numbers of the stations, introducing content previously shown over a period of years and still changing. I took notes when I talked to the representative about a monthly bill from TW for $142.25. RT-Today, my favorite news station at Channel 135 hadn’t been there for weeks. Continue reading
Irrespective of how one feels about the direction taken by various Arab revolutions in the last three years, a few facts remain incontestable. Arab revolts began in the streets of poor, despairing Arab cities, and Arabs had every right to rebel considering the dismal state of affairs in which they live. Continue reading
Anyone who has seen the 1976 film Network can only imagine how CLAIRVOYANT the film’s writer, Paddy Chayefsky, turned out to be. The film, a dark satire, showed a future society where the media became the message and celebrity was greater than reality. Ratings were the only thing that mattered- as they apparently still are on today’s Nutworks! Continue reading
“In Yemen today, the US embassy is closed to the public. Officials telling CNN there is credible information of a threat against Western interests there,” a CNN news anchor read from the news bulletin on May 8. Continue reading
The vote was taken at the Federal Communications Commission Thursday morning, as drums pounded and hundreds of demonstrators supporting Net neutrality chanted outside FCC headquarters. Continue reading
I think a description of the political space in which we live as a kind of twilight reality is not an exaggeration. Not only is a great deal of the news about the world we read and hear manipulated and even manufactured, but a great deal of genuine news is simply missing. People often do not know what is happening in the world, although they generally believe they do know after reading their newspapers or listening to news broadcasts. People receive the lulling sounds or words of most of this kind of news almost unconsciously just as they do to the strains of piped-in “elevator music” in stores and offices. Continue reading
Let me preface these thoughts by stating that what another billionaire says or does because he feels above the rest of we serfs is never surprising to me. What Don Sterling, owner of the Clippers basketball team, said and implied is murmured to this writer many times by many people . . . always in either whispers or in secure settings. Racism is alive and well in Amerika, as it always has been since our founding. Continue reading
Western media scoundrels mock legitimacy. They march in lockstep with lawless US policy. Continue reading
(WMR)—Vice Magazine, the online “news” site founded in 1994 in Montreal as the “Voice of Montreal,” has become a major influential media outlet. But the online magazine also appears to be doing the bidding of Western governments in aiming its fury at Russia, North Korea, and other countries with which are receiving full barrages from the neoconservative propaganda industry. Continue reading
In support of the dying nuclear power industry, the New York Times Editorial Board has penned an inadvertent epitaph. Continue reading
Barack Obama told us there would be no compromise on Net neutrality. We heard him say it back in 2007, when he first was running for president. Continue reading
In 2005, Chicago’s famed City News Bureau closed. The New York Times correspondents, contributors and editors ignore its notable principle. Continue reading
My favorite new TV comedy is “Growing Up Fisher.” Continue reading
There was a time when journalistic standards meant reporting facts and not taking sides, but nowadays the news is editorialised; sometimes by presenting one facet of a story; on other occasions by omission. Continue reading
As the US Senate holds its first hearing on the proposed Comcast-Time Warner deal—a $45 billion transaction that will affect millions of consumers and further pad some already well-lined pockets—it’s useful to get a look at how our elected officials have benefitted from the largesse of the two companies with an urge to merge. Continue reading
CNN is the 24/7 media trumpet for news about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that is presumed to have crashed in the Southern Indian Ocean, southwest of Australia. On that flight were 227 passengers and 12 crew members. Continue reading
(WMR)—Roger Shuler, the Alabama blogger and former Birmingham newspaper reporter, was released from an Alabama jail on March 26. Continue reading
As usual, the mainstream media are a day late and a dollar short. Continue reading
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The lie machine
Corporations, trade pacts and the media
Posted on October 15, 2014 by Paul Craig Roberts
I have come to the conclusion that the West is a vast lie machine for the secret agendas of vested interests. Consider, for example, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Transpacific Trade and Investment Partnership. Continue reading →