As investigative journalist Keith Harmon Snow points out.
Dear Friend: If you are reading the New York Times, you are contributing to your own mental illness. (Ditto The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Boston Globe {owned by the NYT}, & etc.) I'm sorry this is a hard fact, or suggestion, or information, to swallow, but it's true. For example, just look at who the advertisers are. These are not news delivery mechanisms they are advertising delivery mechanisms. The content is highly superfluous in many cases, and total bullshit in o...
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As the Iraq War made so very clear, never trust THE NEW YORK TIMES.
Just last week, Glen Ford (BLACK AGENDA REPORT) reminded, "The New York Times editorial board, a champion of charters, bemoaned that DeVos’ “appointment squanders an opportunity to advance public education research, experimentation and standards, to objectively compare traditional public school, charter school and voucher models in search of better options for public school students” – a devious way of saying that the Senate hearings exposed the slimy underbelly of the charter privatization project and the billionaires of both parties that have guided and sustained it."
Yep, that's our friendly paper on the 'left.'
It's corporate, don't take it personally.
They never take you personally, after all.
You're just another Rachel Corrie standing in their way, one they will mow down in mere minutes.
When they do, don't count on our human rights organizations to defend you.
As Rick Sterling (DISSIDENT VOICE) explains:
However, less well recognized, Amnesty International has also carried out faulty investigations contributing to bloody and disastrous actions. One prominent example is in Iraq, where AI “corroborated” the false story that Iraqi soldiers were stealing incubators from Kuwait, leaving babies to die on the cold floor. The deception was planned and carried out in Washington DC to influence the public and Congress. A more recent example is from 2011 where false accusations were being made about Libya and its leader as Western and Gulf powers sought to overthrow the Gaddafi government. AI leaders joined the campaign claiming that Gaddafi was using “mercenaries” to threaten and kill peacefully protesting civilians. The propaganda was successful in muting criticism. Going far beyond a UN Security Council resolution to “protect civilians”, NATO launched sustained air attacks and toppled the Libyan government leading to chaos, violence and a flood of refugees. AI later refuted the “mercenary” accusations but the damage was done.
On 7 February Amnesty International released a new report titled “Human Slaughterhouse: Mass Hangings and Extermination at Saydnaya Prison”. It has received huge uncritical review in mainstream and liberal media.
Like the Iraq/Kuwait incubator story and the Libyan ‘mercenary’ story, the “Human Slaughterhouse” report is coming at a critical time. The consequences of the AI report are to accuse and convict the Syrian government of horrible atrocities against civilians. AI explicitly calls for the international community to take “action”.
MOON IN ALABAMA adds:
The claims in the Amnesty report are based on spurious and biased opposition accounts from outside of the country. The headline numbers of 5,000 to 13,000 are calculated on the base of unfounded hypotheticals. The report itself states that only 36 names of allegedly executed persons are known to Amnesty, less than the number of "witnesses" Amnesty claims to have interviewed. The high number of claimed execution together with the very low number of names is not plausible.
The report does not even meet the lowest mark of scientific or legal veracity. It is pure biased propaganda.
And forget Human Rights Watch which allowed Kenneth Roth to openly campaign for Hillary Clinton at his Twitter feed thereby exposing him as just another corporatist whore.
Maybe US Senator Bernie Sanders can save us?
Guess again. As Kate Randall (WSWS) observes:
The hope is that popular illusions in Sanders that remain from his challenge to Hillary Clinton can be utilized to restore credibility to the Democrats following their electoral debacle. Sanders, who used his campaign to channel mass discontent behind Clinton, is himself fully onboard and highly conscious of his role.
There was nothing genuinely progressive in what Sanders had to propose for reforming the health care system or confronting the health insurance crisis faced by a majority of Americans. As for Cruz, he in turn insulted and patronized questioners from the audience, while dancing around issues as he spouted his pro-corporate, free-market agenda.
Sanders’ job was to allude to the excesses of the for-profit health care industry while offering only the vaguest palliatives as an alternative. After saying that if Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) is repealed, people with cancer, diabetes and other conditions will be charged more or denied coverage, he added, “That’s the function of private insurance.”
He failed to mention that Obamacare is based on and tailored to the interests of the private insurance companies. Its so-called “individual mandate” requires uninsured people to purchase coverage from for-profit insurers or pay a penalty. Sanders never questioned the ACA’s reliance on the private market during the debate.
Who can you trust?
Trust yourself and get the word out.
As Elaine pointed out:
It's all a step.
A footrace really.
Each year, more people wake up.
Each year, some of those people pass away.
Will we have enough people awake in time to make a difference?
It's a footrace.
But Izzy Stone mattered, Ida B. Wells, Ida Tarbell, George Seldes, etc.
They influenced people and the work of John Stauber has as well.