Unanswered Questions of 9/11: 911 Prewarnings, Building 7 Collapse, Flight 77 and the Pentagon, Israeli Involvement, United Airlines Put-options, War games, Atta and the $100,000, 9/11 Terrorists Still Alive

By Peter Phillips, Ambrosia Pardue, Jessica Froiland, Brooke Finley, Chris Kyle, Rebekah Cohen, and Bridget Thornton with Project Censored and Guest Writer Jack Massen

For many Americans, there is a deep psychological desire for the 9/11 tragedy to be over. The shock of the day is well remembered and terrorist alerts from Homeland Security serve to maintain lasting tensions and fears. The 9/11 Commission report gave many a sense of partial healing and completion — especially given the corporate media’s high praise of the report. There is a natural resistance to naysayers who continue to question the US government’s version of what happened on September 11, 2001. This resistance is rooted in our tendency toward the inability to conceive of people we know as evil; instead evil ones must be others, very unlike ourselves.

We all remember, as young children, scary locations that created deep fears. We might imagine monsters in the closet, dangers in a nighttime backyard, and creepy people in some abandoned house down the street. As we get older we build up the courage to open the closet, or walk out into the backyard to smell the night air. As adults there are still dark closets in our socio-cultural consciousness that make it difficult to even consider the possibility of certain ideas. These fearful ideas might be described as threshold concepts, in that they may be on the borders of discoverability, yet we deny even the potentiality of implied veracity — something is so evil it is completely unimaginable.

A threshold concept facing Americans is the possibility that the 9/11 Commission Report was on many levels a cover-up for the failure of the US government to prevent the tragedy. Deeper past the threshold is the idea that the report failed to address sources of assistance to the terrorists. Investigations into this area might have led to a conclusion that elements of various governments — including our own — not only knew about the attacks in advance, but may have helped facilitate their implementation. The idea that someone in the Government of the United States may have contributed support to such a horrific attack is inconceivable to many. It is a threshold concept that is so frightening that it brings up a state of mind akin to complete unbelievably.

Philosophy/Religion professor David Ray Griffin has recently published his findings on the omissions and distortions of the 9/11 Commission report. Griffin notes that the 9/11 Commission failed to discuss most of the evidence that seems to contradict the official story about 9/11— for example, the report by Attorney David Schippers that states that some FBI agents who contracted him had information about attacks several weeks prior to 9/11, along with evidence that several of the alleged hijackers are still alive.  Griffin’s book brings into question the completeness and authenticity of the 9/11 Commission’s work. Griffin questions why extensive advanced warnings from several countries were not acted upon by the administration, how a major institutional investor knew to buy put-options on American and United Airlines before the attack, and how an inexperienced terrorist pilot could have conducted a complicated decent into an unoccupied section of the Pentagon.

Additionally, Griffin notes questions remain on why the 9/11 Commission failed to address the reports that $100,000 was wired to Mohamed Atta from Saeed Sheikh, an agent for Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), under the direction of the head of ISI General Mahmud Ahmed. General Ahmed resigned his position less than one month later. The Times of India reported that Indian intelligence had given US officials evidence of the money transfer ordered by Ahmad and that he was dismissed after the “US authorities sought his removal.”

Also, the 9/11 Commission report failed to address the reasons for the collapse of World Trade Center (WTC) building 7 more than six hours after the attack. WTC-7 was a 47-story, steel frame building that had only small fires on a few floors. WTC buildings 5 & 6 had much larger fires and did not collapse. This has led a number of critics to speculate that WTC 7 was a planned demolition.

Overall concerns with the official version of 9/11 have been published and discussed by scholars and politicians around the world including: Jim Marrs, Nafeez Ahmed, Michael Ruppert, Cynthia McKinney, Barrie Zwicker, Webster Tarpley, Michel Chossudovsky, Paul Thompson, Eric Hufschmid and many others (see: http://www.911forthetruth.com). The response to most has been to label these discussions as “conspiracy theories” unworthy of media coverage or further review. Pursuit of a critical analysis of these questions is undermined by the psychological barrier about 9/11 issues as threshold concepts — too awful to even consider.

We may be on the borders of discovery regarding the possibility of a great evil within our own government, and perhaps others outside as well. We must step past the threshold and have the courage to ask the questions, demand answers, and support research into all aspects of this American tragedy. Perhaps the closet isn’t as dark and as fearful as we envision. If we don’t courageously look and search into the deepest regions of our fears how can we assure our children and ourselves a safe and honest future?

In Censored 2003, Project Censored lists the most important unanswered questions about 9/11. Most of those questions remain unanswered today. Since 2001, researchers have expanded the depth of concerns and the reliability of information that continue to encourage the questioning of the official government version of the 9/11 tragedy. The following is Project Censored’s effort to cross the threshold and address the questions that are so difficult to imagine.

911 Pre-Warnings

By Jessica Froiland

Paul Thompson’s Terror Timeline, as well as his updated version of the 9/11 timeline located at www.cooperativeresearch.org, was the key reference material used. For further information regarding the information presented, see original articles used in Thompson’s research, mentioned throughout.

In a press conference on April 13, 2004, President Bush stated, “We knew he [Osama bin Laden] had designs on us, we knew he hated us. But there was nobody in our government, and I don’t think [in] the prior government, that could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale.” [Guardian, 4/15/04] He also said, “Had I any inkling whatsoever that the people were going to fly airplanes into buildings, we would have moved heaven and earth to save the country.” [White House, 4/13/04; New York Times, 4/18/04 (C)] This statement is in direct conflict with a May 15, 2002, statement wherein the White House admitted that Bush was warned about bin Laden’s desire to attack the U.S. by hijacking aircraft in August 2001. [New York Times, 5/16/02, Washington Post, 5/16/02, Guardian, 5/19/02]. There is a massive and growing body of evidence that asserts that the United States government was not only aware of the possibility of the specific scenario of a terrorist air strike/suicide attack, but that it had also received dozens of credible warnings from both international and domestic sources.

Many countries warned the US of imminent terrorist attacks: Afghanistan, Argentina, Britain, Cayman Islands, Egypt, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, and Russia. Warnings also came from within the United States. Information from our own communications intercepts regarding particular individuals with foreknowledge, previous similarly attempted attacks, and from our own intelligence agents in charge of the investigations of al-Qaeda.

While many of these warning have been covered in the world media a collective analysis and summary context has been avoided by the US corporate media.

The Actual 9/11 Pre-Warnings

1993: An expert panel commissioned by the Pentagon raised the possibility that an airplane could be used to bomb national landmarks. [Washington Post, 10/2/01]

1994: Two attacks took place that involved using hijacked planes to crash into buildings, including one by an Islamic militant group. In a third attack, a lone pilot crashed a plane at the White House. [New York Times, 10/3/01]

1996-1999: The CIA officer in charge of operations against Al Qaeda from Washington writes, “I speak with firsthand experience (and for several score of CIA officers) when I state categorically that during this time senior White House officials repeatedly refused to act on sound intelligence that provided multiple chances to eliminate Osama bin Laden.” [Los Angeles Times, 12/5/04]

1996-2001: Federal authorities had known that suspected terrorists with ties to bin Laden were receiving flight training at schools in the US and abroad. An Oklahoma City FBI agent sent a memo warning that “large numbers of Middle Eastern males” were getting flight training and could have been planning terrorist attacks. [CBS, 5/30/02] One convicted terrorist confessed that his planned role in a terror attack was to crash a plane into CIA headquarters. [Washington Post, 9/23/01]

Dec 1998: A Time magazine cover story entitled “The Hunt for Osama,” reported that bin Laden may be planning his boldest move yet—a strike on Washington or possibly New York City. [Time, 12/21/98]

February 7, 2001: CIA Director Tenet warned Congress in open testimony that “the threat from terrorism is real, it is immediate, and it is evolving.” He said bin Laden and his global network remained “the most immediate and serious threat” to US interests. “Since 1998 bin Laden has declared that all US citizens are legitimate targets,” he said, adding that bin Laden “is capable of planning multiple attacks with little or no warning.” [Associated Press, 2/7/01; Sunday Herald, 9/23/01]

In June of 2001, German intelligence warned the CIA, Britain’s intelligence agency, and Israel’s Mossad that Middle Eastern terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft and use them as weapons to attack “American and Israeli symbols which stand out.” A later article quoted unnamed German intelligence sources, stating that the information was coming from Echelon surveillance technology, and that British intelligence had access to the same warnings. However, there were other informational sources, including specific information and hints given to, but not reported by, Western and Near Eastern news media six months before 9/11. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 9/11/01; Washington Post, 9/14/01; Fox News, 5/17/02]

June 28, 2001: George Tenet wrote an intelligence summary to Condeleezza Rice stating: “It is highly likely that a significant al-Qaeda attack is in the near future, within several weeks” [Washington Post, 2/17/02]. This warning was shared with “senior Bush administration officials” in early July. [9/11 Congressional Inquiry, 9/18/02]

July 5, 2001: Richard Clark gave a direct warning to the FAA, to increase their security measures. The FAA refused to take such action. [New Yorker, 1/14/02; www.cooperativeresearch.org].

June-July 2001: President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and national security aides were given briefs with headlines such as “Bin Laden Threats Are Real” and “Bin Laden Planning High Profile Attacks.” The exact contents of these briefings remain classified, but according to the 9/11 Commission, they consistently predicted upcoming attacks that would occur “on a catastrophic level, indicating that they would cause the world to be in turmoil, consisting of possible multiple—but not necessarily simultaneous—attacks.” CIA Director Tenet later recalled that by late July, he felt that President Bush and other officials grasped the urgency of what they were being told. [9/11 Commission Report, 4/13/04 (B)] But Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin, later stated that he felt a great tension, peaking within these months, between the Bush administration’s apparent misunderstanding of terrorism issues and his sense of great urgency. McLaughlin and others were frustrated when inexperienced Bush officials questioned the validity of certain intelligence findings. Two unnamed, veteran Counter Terrorism Center officers deeply involved in bin Laden issues, were so worried about an impending disaster, that they considered resigning and going public with their concerns. [9/11 Commission Report, 3/24/04 (C)] Dale Watson, head of counter terrorism at the FBI, wished he had “500 analysts looking at Osama bin Laden threat information instead of two.” [9/11 Commission Report, 4/13/04 (B)]

July 5, 2001: At issue is a July 5, 2001 meeting between Ashcroft and acting FBI Director Tom Pickard. That month, the threat of an al-Qaida attack was so high; the White House summoned the FBI and domestic agencies and warned them to be on alert. Yet, Pickard testified to the 9/11 commission that when he tried to brief Ashcroft just a week later, on July 12, about the terror threat inside the United States, he got the “brush-off. “[MSNBC, 6/22/04]

July 10, 2001: A Phoenix FBI agent sent a memorandum warning of Middle Eastern men taking flight lessons. He suspected bin Laden’s followers and recommended a national program to check visas of suspicious flight-school students. The memo was sent to two FBI counter-terrorism offices, but no action was taken. [9/11 Congressional Inquiry, 7/24/03]   Vice President Cheney said in May 2002, that he was opposed to releasing this memo to congressional leaders or to the media and public. [CNN, 5/20/02]

July 16, 2001: British spy agencies sent a report to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other top officials warning that al-Qaeda was in “the final stages” of preparing a terrorist attack in the West. The prediction was “based on intelligence gleaned not just from [British intelligence] but also from US agencies, including the CIA and the National Security Agency”. The report stated that there was “an acute awareness” that an attack was “a very serious threat.” [Times of London, 6/14/02]

In July of 2001: President Bush took the unusual step of sleeping on board an aircraft carrier off the coast of Italy after receiving a warning from the Egyptian government that the summit of world leaders in the city of Genoa would be targeted by al Qaeda. [New York Times, 9/26/01] The Italians meanwhile highly publicized their heightened security measures of increased police presence, antiaircraft batteries, and flying fighter jets. Apparently the press coverage of defenses caused al-Qaeda to cancel the attack. [BBC, 7/18/01, CNN, 7/18/01, Los Angeles Times, 9/27/01]

On July 26, 2001: Attorney General Ashcroft stopped flying commercial airlines due to a threat assessment. [CBS, 7/26/01] The report of this warning was omitted from the 9/11 Commission Report [Griffin 5/22/05].

Late July 2001: CBS reported, “Just days after [Mohamed] Atta return[s] to the U.S. from Spain, Egyptian intelligence in Cairo says it received a report from one of its operatives in Afghanistan that 20 al-Qaeda members had slipped into the US and four of them had received flight training on Cessnas.” Egypt passed on the message to the CIA but never received a request for further information. [CBS News, 10/9/02]

Late July 2001: Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil was given information regarding a large attack on targets inside America, from the leader of the rebel Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), Tahir Yildash. Muttawakil relayed this information to the U.S. consul general, yet wasn’t taken seriously. One source blamed this on the administration’s “warning fatigue.” [Independent, 9/7/02; Reuters, 9/7/02]

Aug 6, 2001: President Bush received a classified intelligence briefing at his Crawford, Texas ranch, warning that bin Laden might be planning to hijack commercial airliners. The memo was titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US”. The entire memo focused on the possibility of terrorist attacks inside the US and specifically mentioned the World Trade Center. Yet Bush later stated that the briefing “said nothing about an attack on America.” [Newsweek, 5/27/02; New York Times, 5/15/02, Washington Post, 4/11/04, White House, 4/11/04, Intelligence Briefing, 8/6/01] .

Early August 2001: Britain gave the US another warning about an al-Qaeda attack. The previous British warning on July 16, 2001, was vague as to method, but this warning specified multiple airplane hijackings. This warning was said to have reached President Bush. [Sunday Herald, 5/19/02]

August, 2001: Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the US that suicide pilots were training for attacks on US targets. [Fox News, 5/17/02] The head of Russian intelligence also later stated, “We had clearly warned them” on several occasions, but they “did not pay the necessary attention.” [Agence France-Presse, 9/16/01]

Late Summer, 2001: Jordanian intelligence (the GID) made a communications intercept and relayed it to Washington. The message stated that a major attack, code-named “The Big Wedding,” had been planned inside the US and that aircraft would be used. “When it became clear that the information was embarrassing to Bush administration officials and congressmen who at first denied that there had been any such warnings before September 11, senior Jordanian officials backed away from their earlier confirmations.” [International Herald Tribune, 5/21/02; Christian Science Monitor, 5/23/02]

On September 10, 2001, a group of top Pentagon officials received an urgent warning which prompted them to cancel their flight plans for the following morning. [Newsweek, 9/17/01]  The 9/11 Commission Report omitted this report. [Griffin, 5/22/05]

Given all the pre-warnings and information available before 9/11 it seems unconscionable that on May 16, 2002, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice could still claim to the press: “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile.” She added that “even in retrospect” there was “nothing” to suggest that. [White House, 5/16/02] On June 7, 2002, President Bush stated, “Based on everything I’ve seen, I do not believe anyone could have prevented the horror of September the 11^th.” [Sydney Morning Herald, 6/8/02]

With so many warnings, it is difficult to explain inaction as mere incompetence. The existence of all of these warnings suggests, at least, that people within the US government knew the attacks were coming and deliberately allowed them to happen.   This evidence would, however, be consistent with an even more frightening scenario— that the attacks were orchestrated by, or with the help of, people within our government.

Additional Sources:

Paul Thompson, “The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute: A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Road to 9/11—and America’s Response,” Regan Books, September 1, 2004.

Jim Marrs, “Inside Job: Unmasking the Conspiracies of 9/11,” Origin Press, June 2004.

The 9/11 Commissioners, “The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorists Attacks Upon the United States,” W.W Norton & Company, Inc.

Griffin, David Ray, “The 9/11 Commission Report: A 571-page lie,” www.911truth.org/index.php?topic=911commission, May 22, 2005

The Building 7 Collapse Mystery

By Josh Parrish

The collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 is one of the more mysterious events that occurred on September 11, 2001. It was not struck by an aircraft as the Twin Towers were and video of the collapse appears to resemble those of buildings brought down by a controlled demolition. These facts have led to speculation that the building was brought down deliberately. Deficient investigations that followed only served to fuel this speculation.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) conducted the first official inquiry into the collapse the World Trade Center buildings. The report is merely a collection of supposition and hypotheses arrived at through the examination of photographic evidence and eyewitness interviews.[i] FEMA’s reasoning behind the collapse of Building 7 is as follows: Debris from the collapse of the Twin Towers caused structural damage to Building 7 and ignited fires on several different floors; including floors 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, and 19.[ii] There were diesel generators located throughout the building to supply electricity in the event of a power outage. These generators were fed by pressurized fuel lines from large tanks on the lower floors. The falling debris also damaged these pressurized lines and provided a continuous source of fuel for the fires. According to FEMA, neither fire nor structural damage alone would have been sufficient to cause the building’s collapse. It was the combination of the structural damage, which diminished the load bearing ability of the structure, and the fire, which weakened the steel, that brought the building down.[iii]

While this explanation may sound plausible, it is not based on an examination of any physical evidence. Specifically, the investigators were unable to confirm how much, if any, diesel fueled the fires. “There is no physical, photographic, or other evidence to substantiate or refute the discharge of fuel oil from the piping system. The following is, therefore, a hypothesis based on potential rather than demonstrated fact.”[iv] The investigators seem to have little faith in their own theories, “Although the total diesel fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence.”[v] When subjected to critical analysis, the investigation by FEMA appears to be nothing more than an attempt to formulate theories that conform to the official version of the events of September 11^th, rather than a rigorous scientific study.

One of the ways in which the FEMA investigation was hampered was by the destruction of evidence. Almost immediately following the disaster, the structural steel was removed from the site and placed on ships headed for Asia to be recycled.[vi]

The New York Times reported on 12/25, 2001 that, “In calling for a new investigation, some structural engineers have said that one serious mistake has already been made in the chaotic aftermath of the collapses: the decision to rapidly recycle the steel columns, beams and trusses that held up the buildings. That may have cost investigators some of their most direct physical evidence with which to try to piece together an answer…. Dr. Frederick W. Mowrer, an associate professor in the fire protection engineering department at the University of Maryland, said he believed the decision could ultimately compromise any investigation of the collapses. ‘I find the speed with which potentially important evidence has been removed and recycled to be appalling,’ Dr. Mowrer said…. Interviews with a handful of members of the [FEMA funded] team, which includes some of the nation’s most respected engineers, also uncovered complaints that they had at various times been shackled with bureaucratic restrictions that prevented them from interviewing witnesses, examining the disaster site and requesting crucial information, like recorded distress calls to the police and fire departments.”[vii]

Even if one accepts the Bush administration’s official version of the events of that day, there were still compelling reasons to study the evidence. The engineering and construction community could have greatly benefited from a thorough examination of the structural steel. Prior to September 11^th, there had never been a fire-induced collapse of a steel framed building. If Building 7 did actually collapse due to fire and falling debris, then a careful examination of the evidence would certainly be warranted; if for no other reason than to learn some valuable lessons about the safety of high-rise buildings in general. Destroying evidence of a disaster of this magnitude is unprecedented.[viii] The fact that it occurred raises questions about the motives of those involved in making the decision.

As incomplete and inadequate as FEMA’s investigation was, theirs was not the only one conducted. The World Trade Center was heavily insured, and the companies that were due to pay those claims commissioned their own private investigation. The difference between the insurance investigation and FEMA’s study is quite remarkable. The insurance companies had unfettered access to the site of the collapse beginning on the very afternoon of September 11^th. They were also granted access to powerful computer programs used by the Pentagon for classified research; the FEMA investigators were not. The insurance companies have produced thousands of pages of analysis and an equally staggering number of diagrams and photographs. However, the results of these investigations have remained private.[ix] It is interesting to note that a shareholder in Allianz Group proposed denying payment due to evidence of insurance fraud. Allianz Group carried a significant portion of the insurance policy on the World Trade Center. In response to the shareholders’ claim, the company made the following statement: “When the company makes insurance payments it does so on the basis of careful scrutiny – especially with payments in the order of magnitude referred to here. Two official commissions in the USA have examined the incidents of 11 September 2001 in detail. Their findings provided no indication that the allegations submitted by the proposer are correct.”[x]

The mission of Project Censored is not to draw conclusions in the field of structural engineering; it is to examine mainstream media coverage of newsworthy events. In the case of World Trade Center Building 7, there has been very little coverage of the surrounding issues. The collapse of Building 7 had the appearance of a perfectly executed controlled demolition; it fell straight down into its own footprint, at virtually free-fall speed, yet this issue has hardly been raised in the mainstream media, and was completely ignored by the 9/11 Commission.

The lack of news coverage coupled with the destruction of key evidence and the lack of a credible investigation has given rise to numerous questions and accusations of government complicity in the attacks of that day. The list of tenants that occupied the building lends itself to these theories. Occupants of the building included: The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), The FBI, CIA, Secret Service, Department of Defense, IRS, and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s Office of Emergency Management.[xi] Some detractors claim that the building was brought down to destroy evidence against Enron and Ken Lay that was contained in the SEC offices. Others claim that the CIA offices housed the evidence of government involvement in the attacks and thus needed to be destroyed.

Investigations into the destruction of Building 7 have been performed and conclusions have been reached. Those who are not inclined to trust the current administration will inevitably find fault with the investigation, but the fact that the administration directed the evidence to be destroyed leaves them open to this criticism. The facts surrounding the destruction of Building 7 will likely remain a mystery, unless there is a full and truly independent investigation, using subpoena power.

Endnotes:

[1] World Trade center Performance Study, May 2002, pg. 5-1

2 World trade Center Building Performance Study, May 2002, pg. 5-20

3 Chertoff, Benjamin, et al. “9/11: Debunking the Myths”, Popular Mechanics, March 2005. 8 April 2005, http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html?page=&c=y

4 Wor[1] World Trade center Performance Study, May 2002, pg. 5-1

ld Trade Center Building Performance Study, May 2002, pg. 5-28

5 World Trade Center Building Performance Study, May 2002, pg. 5-31

6 Manning, Bill, “$elling Out the Investigation”, Fire Engineering, Jan. 2002 8 Apr. 2005, http://fe.pennet.com/Artilces/Article_Display.cfm?Section=ARCHI&ARTICLE_ID=133237&VERSION_NUM=1

7 New York Times, 12/25/01

8 Manning, Bill, “$elling Out the Investigation”, Fire Engineering, Jan. 2002 8 Apr. 2005, http://fe.pennet.com/Artilces/Article_Display.cfm?Section=ARCHI&ARTICLE_ID=133237&VERSION_NUM=1

9 Glanz, James, and Eric Lipton, “Vast Detail on Towers’ Collapse May Be Sealed in Court Filings”, New York Times, 30 Sept. 2002 8 Apr. 2005

10 Allianz Group – Shareholder Proposals, 20 Apr. 2005 13 May 2005, http://www.allianzgroup.com/Az_Cnt/az/_any/cma/contents/750000/saObj_750776_05_04_20_Gegenantr_ge_ENGLISH.pdf

11World Trade Center Performance Study, May 2002, pg. 5-2

For information on the Collapse of Building 7 see:

http://rememberbuilding7.org/10/

Concerns About Flight 77 and the Pentagon

By Bridget Thornton

At 8:20 a.m. on September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 77 left Dulles Airport en route to Los Angeles.  Between 8:51 and 8:54, four men hijacked the plane. At 9:38, Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. Minutes before impact, the 757, headed for the White House, made a 330 degree turn, while descending 2200 feet, flew over a highway packed with rush hour cars and crashed into the least populated area of the Pentagon which was under construction at the time. This, at least, is the official report as stated in the 9/11 Commission Report.

In the days and months that followed the Pentagon attack, questions arose about the veracity of the investigation and the amount of information available to the public. How could the alleged pilot, with no commercial plane experience, and complaints from his flight school about poor performance, maneuver the airplane with such precision? Why did the White House oppose an independent investigation? Why did mainstream media fail to provide investigative coverage of the attack? Could the government be complicit?

The main question is whether the government knew about or assisted in the attacks. In fact, a Zogby International Poll in August 2004 revealed that 66% of New Yorkers want a new probe of unanswered questions by Congress or New York’s Attorney General.¹ Many people believe the official investigation lacked public scrutiny and suffered from uncooperative behavior by the White House. The media also failed to provide the American public with significant investigative journalism. Here lie some of the questions concerning the attack on the Pentagon.

Where were our air defenses?

The 9/11 Commission Report states that American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into an area of the Pentagon that was under construction, and therefore the least populated area of the complex. This crash occurred at 9:38.² The report explains that North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) never heard about Flight 77 and Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) concentrated instead on American Airlines Flight 11, which was mistakenly still thought to be aloft.³ The report goes on to say that the Indianapolis air traffic controller reported the missing flight to Langley Air Force Base at 9:08 and that a C-130 cargo plane followed, identified, and witnessed the crash.⁴ This same cargo plane happened upon the smoking wreckage of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.⁵ The report concludes that Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, likely flown by Hani Hanjour and that fighter jets were called to assistance only four minutes before the impact.

Within this confused document, inconsistencies exist. An audio recording reveals that Langley jets did not follow explicit instructions given to them by their mission crew commander. Based on audio reports, the mission crew commander discovered at 9:34 that the jets headed east, not north as instructed by their crew commander. The reason places blame on lack of information about the position of Flight 77, incorrect assumptions, and generic flight plans that allowed the pilots to follow a due east path.⁶ However, the mission commander immediately orders the planes to “crank it up” and goes on to say, “I don’t care how many windows you break.” Could this mean the commander ordered the planes to fly at top speed? If so, did they follow the command? The report does not address this.

How did an inexperienced pilot perform an intricate crash landing?

How did the pilot maneuver the plane with such skill that experienced military aviation experts noted skills similar to a ‘crack’ military pilot?⁷ How did Hani Hanjour, the alleged hijacker who flew Flight 77, make a 330 degree turn, away from the White House and south towards the Pentagon, while descending 2200 feet, advance to full throttle and perform a crash landing with exact precision into the Pentagon? CBSNews reported, “And the complex maneuver suggests the hijackers had better flying skills than many investigators first believed.”⁸ There is serious doubt that Hani Hanjour possessed the ability to maneuver a commercial plane in such an experienced fashion. According to another CBSNews report, managers at the flight school placed five complaints with the FAA expressing serious concern about his ability to fly safely.⁹ The Commission Report acknowledges his performance but does not acknowledge a possible problem with this information. The question remains unanswered by the United States government and invisible on mainstream media.

Where are the media?

The media could have played an important role in the investigation of the Pentagon attack. In the months following the attack, few reports surfaced that questioned the validity of the independent investigation.¹⁰ Investigative reports emerged that addressed the skills of the alleged pilot and why Langley jets did not respond to the crisis. Rena Golden, executive vice-president and general manager of CNN International says, “Anyone who claims the U.S. media didn’t censor itself is kidding you.”¹¹

Mainstream media reported the official theory, that four Muslim fundamentalists controlled the plane that hit the Pentagon. The media portrays most deviating explanations as conspiracy theories. A recent article in the March 2005 edition of Popular Mechanics featured an article in which they “debunked the 9/11 myths.” CNN interviewed Jim Meigs; editor-in-chief of the magazine, on the Anderson Cooper show and the exchange that followed proves there are biases and an unwillingness to investigate the attacks. Mr. Meigs told Anderson Cooper, “Well, you know, one thing that conspiracy theorists do is they ignore mounts of evidence that support the ordinary view, then they seize on one or two little inconsistencies and they say, see, how do you explain this?” Mr. Meigs states further, “What we did at Popular Mechanics was to actually take those claims by the conspiracy theorist, and subject them to ordinary journalistic fact checking. None of them add [sic] up”. ¹² Mr. Meigs and CNN exemplify the type of news Americans receive. Questions that search beyond the common theory suffer ridicule and therefore, lack credibility with the public.

Is our government capable of this?

Michael Ruppert includes a document in his book Crossing the Rubicon called the Northwoods Project. This was a report to the Kennedy administration from his National Security Advisors that outlined a similar attack in which the government would shoot down commercial aircraft, blame it on Cuba and use it as a pretext to war.¹³ Ruppert does not claim that this document is inspiration to the current administration but that we have in our possession historical evidence that proves our government considers covert and complicit attacks.

David Griffin mentions a document by the Project for the New American Century released in September 2000 entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses.” The document states that “…the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a New Pearl Harbor”.¹⁴ Professor Griffin asserts that 9/11 gave the Bush administration a pretext to war and the unquestioned authority to change fundamental institutions in this country. In Crossing the Rubicon, Michael Ruppert offers compelling historical analysis as to why our government has interests in a Middle East war.

The government refuses to examine valid questions and denies information to the American public under the guise of national security. The attack on the Pentagon contains too many unanswered questions about the pilot, the forensics evidence, and the lack of defense for America’s military headquarters.

There is an overwhelming amount of information about the Pentagon attack and the 9/11 Commission did not provide it to the public. For this reason, the Pentagon attack deserves thoughtful media attention and open investigation by our government.

ENDNOTES:

¹ SCOPE: The poll covered five areas of related interest: 1) Iraq— do New Yorkers think that our leaders “deliberately misled” us before the war (51.2% do); 2) the 9/11 Commission—did it answer all the “important questions” ( 36% said yes); 3) the inexplicable and largely unreported collapse of the third WTC skyscraper on 9/11— what was its number (28% of NYC area residents knew); 4) the question on complicity; and 5) how many wanted a new 9/11 probe. All inquiries about questions, responses and demographics should be directed to Zogby International. SPONSOR: 911truth.org is a coalition of researchers, journalists and victim family members working to expose and resolve the hundreds of critical questions still swirling around 9/11, especially the nearly 400 questions that the Family Steering Committee filed with the 9/11Commission which they fought to create. http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=855 (Accessed May 8, 2005).

² 9/11 Commission Report, 1^st ed. W.W. Norton: New York, 26.

³ 9/11 Commission Report, 26.

⁴ 9/11 Commission Report, 26.

⁵ 9/11 Commission Report, 30.

⁶ 9/11 Commission Report, 27

⁷ Ruppert, Michael C. Crossing the Rubicon. New Society Publishers, British Columbia, 2004.

⁸ http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/11/national/main310721.shtml

⁹ Griffin, David. The New Pearl Harbor. Olive Branch Press: Massachusetts, 41.

¹⁰ This is based on a Lexis-Nexis search of 9/11 Pentagon coverage in U.S. news sources from September 2001 to February 2005.

¹¹ Griffin, xiv.

¹² CNN ANDERSON COOPER 360 DEGREES 7:00 PM EST, February 21, 2005.

¹³ Northwoods document located at http://aztlan.net/lavoz_northwoods/northwoods2.htm . (Accessed 29 April 2005).

¹⁴“Rebuilding America’s Defenses: A report of The Project for the New American Century”, September 2000, www.newamericancentury.org.

Rumors of Israeli Involvement in 9/11

By Brooke Finley

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, many stories circulated about Israeli involvement. There was the story of the five Israelis filming the burning of the World Trade Center and the “art student” spy ring that warned of the attacks. While most of this information has been glossed over by mainstream media, the reports remain extremely important to understanding the overall picture of what happened on September 11, 2001. As the writer, I attempt to cover the facts without any bias and hope to be able to present them as clearly as possible to the reader. I used Paul Thompson’s book The Terror Timeline, as a guide for the dates and incidents reported and then used his reference articles and any others that I could find, as research.

In January 2000, a Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) document was leaked to the press suggesting that a large Israeli spy ring had congregated in the United States. [DEA Report, 6/01] In April of that same year, USA Today reported that certain DEA documents revealed that the Israeli spy ring, now commonly called the Israeli “art student” spy ring, “has been linked to several ongoing [Ecstasy] investigations in Florida, California, Texas and New York.” [Insight, 3/11/02] Members of the “art student spy ring” would go door-to-door, claiming that they were selling artwork. Many of their areas of interest were offices and homes of DEA officials.

Between December 2000 and April 2001, Germany reported that Israeli counter-terror investigators were posing as art students and following terrorist cells within the United States. These “art students” identified Atta and Marwan Alshehhi as possible terrorists, while living within several feet of them in the town of Hollywood, Florida. The “art students” were discovered in April and were immediately deported, supposedly terminating the investigation of Atta and Alshehhi. [Der Spiegel, 10/01/02] It was later reported by Fox News that an additional 80 agents were taken into custody between the months of June and December 2001. [Fox News, 12/12/01]

In related foreign press reports, the Mossad learned of four terrorists, living in the U.S., who appeared to be planning an attack in the near future, on the U.S., through information gathered by its “art student” spy ring. [Die Zeit, 10/01/02; Der Spiegel, 10/01/02; BBC, 10/02/02; Ha’aretz, 10/03/02] By June 2001, close to 120 Israeli “art students” were apprehended. [le Monde, 3/05/02; Salon, 5/07/02] A leaked DEA document titled “Suspicious Activities Involving Israeli Art Students at DEA Facilities,” described dozens of reports of the “apparent attempts by Israeli nationals to learn about government personnel and office layouts.” [DEA Report, 6/01] “The report connects the spies to efforts to foil investigations into Israeli organized crime activity involving the importation of the drug Ecstasy. The spies also appear to be snooping on top secret military bases.” [www.cooperativeresearch.org]

At some point, between August 8-15, 2001, two high ranking agents from the Mossad came to Washington and warned the FBI and the CIA that an al-Qaeda attack on the United States was imminent. [Fox News, 5/17/02] On September 20, 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported that Mossad officials stated that indications point to a “large scale target” and that Americans would be “very vulnerable.” [Telegraph, 9/16/01; Los Angeles Times, 9/20/01; Ottawa Citizen, 9/17/01] The Los Angeles Times retracted this story on September 21, 2001, because a CIA spokesman stated, “there was no such warning” and that the allegations were “complete and utter nonsense.” [Los Angeles Times, 9/21/01] Israel denied that there was ever a meeting between agents of the Mossad and the CIA. [Ha’aretz, 10/03/02] The United States has denied knowing about Mohamed Atta prior to the 9/11 attacks. [www.cooperativeresearch.org]

Between December 12-15, 2001, the FBI, the DEA and the INS informed Fox News that there were no connections between the “art students” and the incidents of 9/11. They told Fox News that to continue pursuing this topic would be a form of “career suicide.” On December 16, 2001, Fox News pulled any information regarding the “art student spy ring” from its website. Fox never made a formal correction. [www.cooperativeresearch.org]

The mainstream media continued to deny any information about the Israeli spy ring, which turned the original stories into “conspiracy theories” and myths. Jane’s Intelligence Digest blatantly stated on March 13, 2002, “It is rather strange that the US media seems to be ignoring what may well be the most explosive story since the 11 September attacks—the alleged breakup of a major Israeli espionage operation in the USA.” [Jane’s Intelligence Digest, 3/13/02]

On March 11, 2002, the Palm Beach Post mentioned the DEA report about the Israeli “art students.” The newspaper stated that the DEA determined that all of the students had “recently served in the Israeli military, the majority in intelligence, electronic signal intercept or explosive ordnance units.” [Palm Beach Post, 3/11/02]

On March 15, 2002, Forward published the claim that “the incidents in question appear to represent a case of Israelis in the United States spying on a common enemy, radical Islamic networks suspected of links to Middle East terrorism.” [Forward, 3/15/02]

May 7, 2002, Salon carried a story on the “art student” spy ring, mentioning that a government source suggested that the majority of the “art students” were a “smoke screen.” The source suggested that while most were getting caught up in the DEA’s Escasty case, others could complete other missions, such as the monitoring of potential terrorists, without being noticed. [Salon, 5/07/02]

There are other Israeli incidents revolving around September 11, 2001 that should be mentioned. On September 4, 2001, an Israeli-owned shipping company entitled Zim-American Israeli Shipping Co., moved their North American headquarters from inside the World Trade Center, to Norfolk, Virginia— one week before the 9/11 attacks. [Virginian-Pilot, 9/04/01] Zim had announced its move 6 months before the attacks, [Virginian-Pilot, 4/03/01] yet 10 employees were still in the building on Sept. 11, taking care of the final moving arrangements. They were able to escape, unharmed. [Jerusalem Post, 9/13/01; Journal of Commerce, 10/18/01] A year later, a Zim-American ship was caught attempting to ship Israeli military equipment into Iran. [AFP, 8/29/02]

About 2 hours before the first plane hit the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2002, Odigo, one of the world’s largest instant messaging firms, received warnings of “an imminent attack in New York City.” Odigo’s headquarters are located two blocks from the World Trade Center but the warnings were received in their Israel location. The FBI was notified immediately after the attacks began. [Ha’aretz, 9/26/01; Washington Post, 9/27/01] The internet address of the instant message was given to the FBI by Odigo in an attempt to find the name of the sender. [Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 9/26/01] Two months after the attacks, the FBI reported that they were still in the process of investigating the instant message and reports have been nonexistent ever since. [Courier Mail, 11/20/01]

A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) memo written on Sept 11 explained a situation where a passenger on Flight 11 was shot and killed by a gun prior to the plane crashing into the World Trade Center. The passenger who was killed was Daniel Lewin. On September 17, the Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz, identified Lewin as a former member of the Israeli special-operations unit, the Israeli Defense Force Sayeret Matkal. [UPI, 3/06/02] The gun story has been denied by officials, claiming that Lewin was most likely, stabbed to death. [UPI, 3/06/02; Washington Post, 3/02/02]

On June 21, 2002, ABC News reported that five Israelis were arrested on Sept 11, 2001 after being caught filming the burning of the World Trade Center from the roof of the “Urban Moving Systems” building, shouting cries of joy. The police found them driving in the company van. [Bergen Record, 9/12/01] Investigators said that there were maps of the city with certain places highlighted, found in the van. The FBI confirmed that two of the five men were Mossad agents and that all five were on a Mossad assignment. [Forward, 3/15/02] They were held on immigration violations, questioned excessively and then released after 71 days in custody. [ABC News, 6/21/02] The owner of Urban Moving System, fled the United States to Israel on Sept 14, 2001. The FBI later told ABC News that the company “may have been providing cover for an Israeli intelligence operation.” [Forward, 3/15/02; New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety, 12/13/01; ABC News, 6/21/01]

While little has been mentioned in the mainstream press about the “art student” spy ring, the questions still remain as to their involvement with the events of 9/11. Were they helping the U.S. government track information regarding the possibilities of an attack within the United States, or were there deeper connections of which the public is unaware? Mainstream media began this story as an investigation, but immediately stopped when officials claimed that it was a farce.

Additional Sources:

Paul Thompson, “The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute”, Regan Books, September 1, 2004.

For the online version of Paul Thompson’s 9/11 Timeline: The Center for Cooperative Research, “Complete 9/11 Timeline: Israeli spy ring, Israeli foreknowledge”,

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&theme=israel

DEA Report, “Suspicious Activities Involving Israeli Art Students of DEA Facilities”, http://cryptome.org/dea-il-spy.htm, No date available.

Transcript of Fox News four part Israeli spy ring series, http://cryptome.org/fox-il-spy.htm, no date available.

Michael C. Ruppert, “Crossing the Rubicon: The decline of the American empire at the end of the age of oil”, New Society Publishers, 2004.

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed & The Institute for Policy Research & Development, “The War On Freedom: How and Why America Was Attacked September 11, 2001”, Tree of Life Publications, 2002.

Intelligence Online, “Israeli Spy Operation Confirmed”, http://www.911truth.org/readingroom/whole_document.php?article_id=136, March 14, 2002.

Unanswered Questions about the Put-options and 9/11

By Ambrosia Pardue

It was widely reported immediately after 9/11 that insider trading occurred in which trading skyrocketed on put-options that bet on a drop in UAL Corp. and AMR Corp. (parent company to American Airlines) stock in the days before the attacks. According to Bloomberg data, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. and Merrill Lynch & Co. also experienced pre-attack trading twelve, to more than twenty-five times the usual volume of put-options. Morgan Stanley put-options jumped to 2,157 contracts between September 6 and September 10—almost twenty-seven times a previous daily average of twenty-seven contracts. Merrill Lynch’s daily activities previous to September 11^th were 252.  12,215 contracts were traded from September 5 to September 10^th. Citigroup Inc. had a jump in trading of about 45 percent. One day before the American Airlines planes were hijacked and crashed, 1,535 contracts were traded on options that let investors profit from the American Airlines stock falls. ¹ All companies were linked to the hijacked airplanes or to the World Trade Center. Morgan Stanley occupied twenty-two stories of the WTC and Merrill Lynch had offices nearby.² Christian Berthelsen and Scott Winokur of The San Francisco Chronicle wrote on September 29, 2001 that as of that date investors had yet to collect more than $2.5 million in profits made in these put stock options of United Airlines, and “the uncollected money raises suspicions that the investors—whose identities and nationalities have not been made public—had advanced knowledge of the strikes.”³

A put option is a contract that gives the holder the right to sell a specified number of shares in a particular stock, usually at a predetermined price, called the strike price, on or before the option’s expiration date—these are the stock index or dollar face value of bonds. The buyer (holder) pays the seller (writer) a premium and the buyer profits from the contract if the stock price drops. If the buyer decides to exercise the option, as opposed to selling it, the seller must buy the security. The seller profits when the underlying security’s price remains the same, rises or drops by less than the premium received.⁴ A short sale is where an investor borrows stock from a broker and sells it, hoping to buy it back at a lower price.⁵ A put option bets that a stock will fall, and a call option bets that stock will rise; there were far more put options than call options in the days proceeding September 11^th.⁶ Cooperative Research states that “assuming 4,000 of the options were bought by people with advance knowledge of the imminent attacks, these ‘insiders’ would have profited by almost $5 million.”

Of interesting note is that the firm that handled the purchase of many of the put options on United Airlines, the Bank of Alex Brown, was headed by ‘Buzzy’ Krongard until 1998. Krongard was the deputy director of the CIA during G.W.Bush’s first four years. Tom Flocco reported on July 16, 2002 that European reporters found most of the suspicious pre-September 11^th trading “passed through Deutsche bank and Alex Brown investment division by means of a procedure called portage, which assures the anonymity of individuals making the transactions.”⁷

Cooperative Research reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission published a list that included some thirty-eight companies whose stocks may have been traded prior to September 11^th by people who had “advanced knowledge” of the attacks. From the Wilderness reported that the CIA, the Israeli Mossad, and many other intelligence agencies monitor stock trading in real time using highly advanced programs. Stock trading irregularities could be used to alert national intelligence services of possible terrorist attacks.

CIA spokesman Tom Crispell denied that the CIA was monitoring U.S. equity markets trading activity prior to September 11^th. Tom Flocco has found growing evidence that the FBI and other government intelligence agencies were more closely linked to the pre-September 11^th insider trading.⁸ The San Diego Union-Tribune January 5, 2005 article stated that “a former FBI agent admitted that he gave online stock traders confidential details of federal investigations, including a probe of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.”⁹

The New York Times, on September 28, 2001, reported that the “short positions and volume of put options rose sharply across the travel industry— which has been cited repeatedly in news reports as possible evidence of illegal trading.” The London Telegraph quoted Ernst Weltek, president of Bundesbank, on September 23, 2001 as saying that “there are ever clearer signs that there were activities on international financial markets that must have been carried out with the necessary expert knowledge.”¹⁰ Dylan Ratigan of Bloomberg Business News said that “this could very well be insider trading at the worst, more horrific, most evil use you’ve ever seen in your entire life. This would be one of the most extraordinary coincidences in the history of mankind if it was a coincidence.”¹¹ CBSNews.com quoted McLucas, former Securities and Exchange Commission Enforcement Director, as saying that “the options trading in particular suggests to me that somebody, somewhere, may have had an inkling that something bad was going to happen to certainly those airlines stocks.”¹²

The 9/11 Commission report scantly covers the stock options issue. On page 499, footnote #130, the 9/11 Commission reports that, “some unusual trading did in fact occur, but such trade proved to have an innocuous explanation….A single U.S. based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95% of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10.” This explanation only addresses the UAL and American put-options, ignores trades in other companies, and fails to identify the purchaser, thereby leaving even more unanswered questions.

This issue cannot be discounted, overlooked, or debunked as a conspiracy theory. The questions remain: who put in the calls for these options, and are the calls tied to Krongard, the CIA, the alleged terrorists, or others?

End Notes:

¹ www.themodernreligion.com/terror/wtc-unusualtrading.html

2 www.themodernreligion.com/terror/wtc-unusualtrading.html

³ www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/29/MN186128

⁴ www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/29/MN186128

⁵ http://66.159.17.51/cooperativeresearch/www/wot/sept11/suspicioustradingact.html

⁶ www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/29/MN186128

⁷ www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/19/eveningnews/printable311834.shtml

⁸ scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0207/S00119.htm

⁹ scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0207/S00119.htm

¹⁰ www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050105/news_1b5elgindy.html.

¹¹ http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main/jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/23/widen23.xml

¹² http://fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/051602_liewontstand.html

¹³ www.cbs.news.com/stories/2001/09/26/archive/printable 312663.shtml

The 9/11 War Games

By Rebekah Cohen

Among the many mysteries surrounding 9/11 is the emerging information that several government/military war games were taking place on the morning of 9/11/2001. The military war games on that day could have been a particularly interesting coincidence, or served the much greater purpose of confusing, distracting, and potentially even facilitating the September 11^th terrorist attacks.

In May of 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney was nominated to oversee Domestic Counter terrorism Efforts. According to Michael Ruppert’s book, Crossing the Rubicon this position put domestic military control in the hands of Cheney, giving him the power to issue a scramble or a direct stand-down order in the unlikely case of a terrorist attack. Without Cheney’s consent the military would not act. (Ruppert 2004).

Interestingly enough, several “live-fly” (as opposed to simulated) war games were taking place the week of 9/11. “I have an on-the-record statement from someone in NORAD that on the day of 9/11, the Joint Chief of Staff (Richard B. Myers) and NORAD were conducting a joint, live-fly, hijacked Field Training Exercised (FTX) which involved at least one (and almost certainly more) aircraft under US control that was posing as a hijacked airliner,” said Mike Ruppert (Kane 6/8/2004).

The confirmed war game taking place on 9/11 was ‘Vigilant Guardian.’ An annual drill in its second day, Vigilant Guardian was allegedly an exercise focusing on old Cold War threats and was conducted by NORAD. This “live-fly” war game was actually being used to test national air response systems – involving hijacking scenarios (Kane 6/8/2004).

Another drill taking place on 9/11 was titled ‘Northern Vigilance.’ This exercise was also conducted by NORAD once a year and involved deploying fighter jets to locations in Alaska and Northern Canada (Ruppert 2004). This drill succeeded in pulling military personnel and equipment north, away from the East Coast and away from the pending terrorist attacks. There is also evidence suggesting a war game, titled ‘Vigilant Warrior,’ was also being played on 9/11. This is a drill from the 1996 Persian Gulf. The name ‘Vigilant’ in both ‘Vigilant Guardian’ and ‘Vigilant Warrior’ suggests a possible connection between the two drills. The common first name suggests the possibility of the two games playing opposing forces (Ruppert 2004).

Another potential drill going on was hosted by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). They have claimed to have been “running a drill for the scenario of an errant aircraft crashing into its NRO headquarters (coincidentally, located only four blocks from Dulles airport in Washington D.C.)” (Kane 6/8/2004).

As early as 8:30 A.M., on the morning of September 11th, air force Major General Larry Arnold, involved with the Vigilant Guardian war game, questioned the validity of the calls in regards to possible terrorist activity. Upon hearing of the hijackings, he wondered if it was all apart of the exercise or the real thing. It was apparently around this time that the FAA, NORAD, and other agencies (FBI and CIA) were on an open line discussing the possibility of a hijacked plane. When the whereabouts of the taped conversation between these various agencies was questioned, it was revealed that FAA manager Kevin Delaney, destroyed the air traffic control tapes just months after 9/11. No reason was stated and the issue has gone un-pressed (Haupt, 5/30/2004).

Also taking place around 8:30 A.M., Colonel Deskins, Head of Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) and mission crew chief for ongoing exercise Vigilant Guardian, was quoted as saying “uh, we have a hijacked aircraft and I need you to get some sort of fighters out here to help us out.” Although, contrary to Colonel Deskins, Major General Eric Findley, who was in charge of NORAD on 9/11 in Colorado, claimed that no calls for help took place until 10:01 A.M. Another conflicting statement made by General Rick Findley claims that he commanded fighters into the air as early as 8:46 A.M (Haupt, 5/30/2004).

The controversial 2003 9/11 hearing revealed that their logs indicated 8:40 to be the first time the FAA reported a possible hijacking. Although, the “tower logs” were not physically present at the hearing and the fact was based on recollection only. Other reports claimed that NEADS was most likely aware of a potential hijacking as early as 8:20 A.M (Haupt, 5/30/2004).

There was never a direct mention of war games on 9/11 in the 9/11 Commission hearings. So the names of the possible war games and the people in charge of them on September 11^th were not overtly specified or further subjected to mainstream criticism. However, when General Eberhart was questioned about the authority heads behind the war games, he replied with, “No comment.” His unwillingness to divulge names of the people in charge is highly suspicious and warrants further explanation (Kane 1/18/2005).

Representative Cynthia McKinney (D-Altanta) attempted to bring some attention to the 9/11 war games during the House Hearing on FY06 Department of Defense Budget, on March 11^th, 2005. She questioned Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, Richard Myers about the four war games that took place on September 11^th. Myers responded to the question with very ambiguous explanations. He claimed that war gaming was being held by several different departments and it was not NORADs overall responsibility to respond to the attacks, but the FAA’s. Nonetheless, he felt the gaming actually provided “an easy transition from an exercise into a real world situation” and contributed to a quick response. Myers failed to comment on McKinney’s question of who was actually in charge of managing the war games on 9/11 (Kane 3/1/2005).

SOURCES:

Michael Kane, “Mr. Chairman, I have a Question: Representative Cynthia McKinney

Rocks Rumsfeld on War Games”, http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/030105_mckinney_question.shtml , March 1, 2005

Michael Kane, “Crossing the Rubicon simplifying the case against Dick Cheney”, http://fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/011805_simplify_case.shtml, Jan. 18, 2005

Michael Kane, “9/11 War Games – No Coincidence”, http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/print.php?storyid=387, June 8, 2004

Nico Haupt, “The lost war drill? (Chapter 9)”, http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/print.php?storyid=325, May 30, 2004

Michael Ruppert, “Crossing the Rubicon: The decline of the American empire at the end of the age of oil”, New Society Publishers, 2004.

Atta and the $100,000

By Rebekah Cohen and Ambrosia Pardue

General Mahmoud Ahmad, Chief of Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), secret service, is said to have had connections to the alleged terrorist “ring leader” and hijacker Mohamed Atta, as reported by the Times of India (October 9, 2001).¹ Times of India also reported that the $100 thousand wired to Atta six months prior to 9/11 from Pakistan by Ahmad Uhmar Sheikh was at the instance of General Ahmad.²

Michel Chossudovsky reported that General Mahmoud Ahmad was in the United States from September 4^th until several days after 9/11. He had meetings at the State Department and with CIA and Pentagon officials during the week prior to September 11th. The nature of his visit has not been disclosed. There has been no evidence confirming his pre-September 11^th consultations were routine, or if they were in any way related to his subsequent post-September 11^th consultations pertaining to Pakistan’s decision to cooperate with the White House.³

According to the Indian government intelligence report, the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks had links to Pakistan’s ISI, which in turn has links to US government agencies. This suggests that key individuals within the US military intelligence establishment may well have known about the ISI contacts with the September 11 terrorist “ring-leader” Mohamed Atta and failed to act.4 The Times of India further reported the possibility of other ISI official’s contacts with terrorists, suggesting that the attacks were not an act of “individual terrorism,” but rather were part of a coordinated military intelligence operation stemming from the ISI.

Nicholas Levis of 911Truth.org raises the question about the reports that the ISI wired $100k to Mohamed Atta. Saying that the “ISI has often been credited as the creator of the Taliban, and its operatives have been linked to the bin Ladin networks. ISI is also linked to CIA as a historically close ally”.⁵

The 9/11 Commission report claims that “between $400,000 and $500,000 to plan and conduct the attack….was funded by alQaeda…” (pg.172). There is no mention of the Times of India report.

Early October 2001, General Ahmad was dismissed from his position of Chief of ISI at the request of the FBI.⁶

Though one would think that this topic would cause a stir among journalists, it has barely been touched and has remained stagnate. The links are there, but unexamined. One can only speculate as to the connections between General Mahmoud Ahmad, Mohamed Atta, the $100k, and the United States government.

Endnotes

¹ http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CH0111A.html#c

² www.globalresearch.ca

³ http://www.fromthewilderness.com/cgi-bin/MasterPFP.cgi?doc=http://www.fromthewilderness.co…

⁴ http://www.fromthewilderness.com/cgi-bin/MasterPFP.cgi?doc=http://www.fromthewilderness.co…

⁵ http://www.fromthewilderness.com/cgi-bin/MasterPFP.cgi?doc=http://www.fromthewilderness.co…

⁶ http://www.fromthewilderness.com/cgi-bin/MasterPFP.cgi?doc=http://www.fromthewilderness.co…

Some 9/11 Terrorists Still Alive? And Other Troubling Inaccuracies

By Chris Kyle

In the 9/11 Commission Report, the original list of hijackers is repeated, and their pictures are presented. However, at least six of the named hijackers are confirmed to be alive. Waleed al-Shehri is reported to have been on American Airlines Flight 11, which hit the North Tower. Yet he was interviewed by a London based Arab-language daily, Al-Quds al Arabi, after September 11, 2001.

Among the named hijackers are Salem al-Hazmi, Saeed al-Ghamdi, Ahmed al-Nami, and Waleed al-Shehri. Al-Hazmi lives in Saudi Arabia and works for a petroleum/chemical plant in Yanbu. At the time of the events of 9/11, he had not left Saudi Arabia for two years. Al-Ghamdi is alive in Tunisia and had not left the country for ten months prior. He is learning to fly an air bus. Al-Nami, meanwhile, is an administrative supervisor for Saudi Arabian Airlines and lives in Riyadh. Both al-Ghamdi and al-Nami told David Harrison of the Telegraph (London 9/23/01) that they were quite shocked to hear that they had died in Pennsylvania, a place they had not heard of. Al-Shehri lives in Casablanca, Morocco, and was there during the attack. He is a pilot for Royal Air Marco.

Then there is the case of Mohamed Atta, the supposed ringleader of the attack. The Commission describes him as a devout Muslim. However, various accounts prove this not to be the case. Atta gambled, drank alcohol, and paid for lap dances. According to reporter Daniel Hopsicker, Atta at one time lived with a prostitute in Florida. While there, he drank heavily, used cocaine, and ate pork chops. None of these acts are those of a devout Muslim. (Griffin, 2005)

There is also the matter of Atta’s bags. Two bags supposedly belonging to Mohamed Atta failed to get on Flight 11. In these bags were a copy of the Koran, Boeing flight sim manuals, a religious cassette, a note to other hijackers regarding mental preparation, his personal will, passport, and international driver’s license. The rest aside, who tries to bring their Will aboard a plane they know, is going to explode? This is a question the Commission could have looked into, but instead ignored. (Griffin, 2005)

Of course, this is not the only matter which the Commission ignored. There is also the matter of the flight manifests for the hijacked planes. The manifests that have been released have no Arab names listed. Efforts have been made by independent researchers to get the final flight manifests from these planes, but all such requests have been refused. (Griffin, 2005)

Work Cited:

David Ray Griffin, “The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions”, Olive Branch Press, 2005

The Democratic Party, Like The Republican Party and The Media, Covered Up The Deep Complicity In The 9/11/01 Attack By Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Myers

By John B. Massen, Guest Writer — Summary Analysis

On March 11, 2003, Congressman John Conyers, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, called an emergency meeting of 40+ top advisors, mostly lawyers, to discuss immediately initiating impeachment against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft, to head off the impending war against Iraq, which began eight days later. Also invited were Francis A. Boyle, professor of law at University of Illinois School of Law, and Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General, both of whom had drafted Bills of Impeachment, to argue the case for impeachment. The meeting ended with a second revised draft Bill of Impeachment, because eminent lawyers believed that Bush et al deserved impeachment for multiple violations of international treaties and laws. However, influential Democrats opposed impeachment on the ground that the effort would hurt their party’s interest in gaining control of the federal government in the 2004 election.

On 9-13-01, the Senate Armed Services Committee, with a Democratic Chairman and majority membership, heard General Richard Myers testify that fighter aircraft responded to an apparently hijacked plane inbound to the U.S. and forced it to land in a remote base in Canada. Standard operating procedures were clearly in effect outside, but not inside, the U.S. on 9-11-01. If there had been no advance warning of the attack, fighter planes responding under standard operating procedures would have prevented all attacks inside the U.S. The Bush regime must have decided to permit the attack to succeed.

A comprehensive report was written, by myself, which cited Myers’ testimony, the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks, Bush’s behavior at the Florida school, and evidence of planning, long before 9/11/01, aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq. The report was sent, by myself, to Conyers on 11/17/03, to Rep. Barbara Lee on 1/3/04, and to all 257 Democrats in the House and Senate plus DNC Chairman McAuliffe on 1/26/04. The transmittal letters all strongly appealed for impeachment of the Bush regime for complicity in permitting the 9/11 attack to occur, and stressed that Democrats might receive, and should request, effective political support by a comprehensive political-educational campaign by MoveOn.Org and United For Peace and Justice that would assure a majority vote in the House and a 2/3 vote in the Senate. The Report was sent to MoveOn.Org and UFPJ, for use as they wished to inform and motivate their members.

David Ray Griffin’s vital book, The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11, was released in April 2004. It presented comprehensive evidence indicating deep complicity by the Bush regime in the 9/11 attack. The simplest “snapshot” of that evidence is this: (a) the North Tower (WTC-1) was struck at 8:46 AM, and collapsed 102 minutes later at 10:28 AM; (b) the South Tower (WTC-2) was struck at 9:03 AM and, with a much smaller fire, collapsed 56 minutes later (55% of WTC-1 time) at 9:59 AM; and (c) the 47-story WTC-7, which was two blocks away and not struck by a plane and had smaller interior fires, collapsed at 5:20 PM. (p.12)  The collapse of WTC-2 before WTC-1 indicates the cause was not fires, but controlled demolition. (p.17)

Copies of Griffin’s book were sent by myself to these Democrats: Dennis Kucinich on 3/27/04 with an impassioned plea; DNC Chair McAuliffe, Congresswomen Nancy Pelosi, and Senators Daschle, Feinstein and Boxer on 3/31/04; Congress members John Conyers, Elijah Cummings (Black Caucus Chair), Ciro Rodriquez (Hispanic Caucus Chair), Barbara Lee, Louise Slaughter (Co-chair of Women’s Issues Caucus), and Tom Udall, between 4/05 and 4/28/04. All transmittal letters urged impeachment action, contending that such action and injecting the “complicity issue” into the 2004 presidential campaign was the only way to assure Bush’s defeat; and repeated that Congressional Democrats might receive, and should request, effective political support from a comprehensive political-educational campaign waged by MoveOn.Org and UFPJ.

Of course, many Congressional Democrats received, from other persons, much information about the Bush regime complicity in addition to that reported above.

All Congressional Democrats and especially its leaders, and DNC Chair MCAuliffe, were adequately informed of the Bush regime complicity and had staff and other resources to investigate further. Congressional Democrats had sworn to protect and uphold the constitution. They utterly failed in their obligations to the constitution and to their constituents to be an effective opposition party. The title of this essay is fully justified: the Democratic Party, like the Republican Party and the Media, covered up the deep complicity in the 9/11/01 attack by Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Myers.

Why does the principal opposition party join the ruling party in covering up what are probably the worst presidential crimes in U.S. history? In response to my request for his evaluation of my report (cited above), Michael C. Ruppert, on 1/1/2004, provided an astute evaluation of how Congress operates:

“The flaw in your work is not in the legal foundation or in the way the evidence is presented, [but] in your basic assumption that the system functions and operates as you think it should or the way it is described in textbooks. History is replete with instances of impeachable or prosecutable conduct which are much better documented, more easily proven, and more glaring than what you have described.”

“In Watergate, there was an abundance of evidence that Richard Nixon had committed offenses far greater than the one which brought him to the brink of impeachment—obstruction of justice. The issue was not what offense would be used to remove him, but (as far as Congress was concerned) finding an offense which could remove a sitting president without destroying the entire American system of government. The same question governs Congressional response to 9/11,” Ruppert wrote.

Ruppert went on to write, “The entire system is corrupt. Those who participate in it rationalize— in order to protect their seat at a crap table— that when one player gets out of line the primary objective is to protect the crap game. (I thank Peter Dale Scott for this analogy). I can guarantee you that many members of Congress are aware of every detail you have documented, and much, much more. . . To impeach Bush et al on the grounds you have delineated would open a can of worms that would call into question the legitimacy of the entire government. That will never be permitted.

“In the late 1990s I secured hard documents (much better evidence than you have presented from a legal standpoint) showing an active conspiracy to protect drug traffickers by the CIA that was sanctioned by the White House. An impeachment trial would have been open and shut. It never came about for the reasons I have stated above.

“In the case of the Clinton impeachment, while there were perhaps ten (or more) offenses upon which that president could have been removed and jailed, none of them were ever pursued. Why? Because they involved the simultaneous exposure of Republican corruption and/or demonstrated that the entire government was complicit in one degree or another. So what did they go after Clinton on? Extramarital sex and lying about it. It was the only charge available that did not bring down the whole system.

“I believe that (as it was with Watergate) Bush will likely be impeached after winning the 2004 election. On what charge? The forged Niger documents about alleged attempts by Saddam Hussein to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program and the malicious exposure of Valerie Plame (wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson who was critical in exposing that lie) as a CIA case officer. That offense does not expose the whole crap game.

“There is no legal argument you can make that will make a broken system function the way that you want it to function.”

Another valuable insight about the Democratic Party was provided on 2/20/05 by Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. Gagnon writes:

“Hillary Clinton, who hopes to become president, is on the Sunday morning talk shows saying that our troops might be in Iraq for some time to come. ‘We’ve been in Korea for 50 years,’ she said. ‘We are still in Okinawa,’ she told the TV cameras.

“That is it. Pack up your bags, peace movement, and just go home. Hillary has made the pronouncement. She is in sync with George W. Bush, the neo-con crowd, Haliburton, Bechtel….she wants to be president and she knows that the road to the White House has to pass through the gates of the military industrial complex….and the oil corporations….and the globalization crowd that intends to create a ‘market economy’ in Iraq (read privatization of everything there.) Hillary has totally sold out.

“The war in Iraq, and the very long presence of U.S. troops there, will bleed America to the bone. The Democratic party, with few very noble exceptions, is on their knees in loyal complicity with the war machine. How can any self-respecting peace activist contemplate for a moment supporting such a party in the next election?”

Obviously, our nation is in very deep trouble. All citizens must unite and take back our nation from the corporate oligarchs!

John B. Massen finally retired at 90 in San Francisco this year. Massen’s peace activism was principally in the United Nations Association of the USA, climaxed by his creation in 1980 and wide distribution of his highly acclaimed 16-poster exhibit on the Effects and Dangers of Nuclear War, co-sponsored by seven national organizations.  E-mail: JackMassen@aol.com

¹ www.themodernreligion.com/terror/wtc-unusualtrading.html

² www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/29/MN186128

³ www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/29/MN186128

⁴ http://66.159.17.51/cooperativeresearch/www/wot/sept11/suspicioustradingact.html

⁵ www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/29/MN186128

⁶ www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/19/eveningnews/printable311834.shtml

⁷ scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0207/S00119.htm

⁸ scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0207/S00119.htm

⁹ www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050105/news_1b5elgindy.html.

¹⁰ http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main/jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/23/widen23.xml

¹¹ http://fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/051602_liewontstand.html

¹² www.cbs.news.com/stories/2001/09/26/archive/printable 312663.shtml

¹³ http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CH0111A.html#c

¹⁴ www.globalresearch.ca

¹⁵ http://www.fromthewilderness.com/cgi-bin/MasterPFP.cgi?doc=http://www.fromthewilderness.co…

¹⁶ http://www.fromthewilderness.com/cgi-bin/MasterPFP.cgi?doc=http://www.fromthewilderness.co…

¹⁷ http://www.fromthewilderness.com/cgi-bin/MasterPFP.cgi?doc=http://www.fromthewilderness.co…

¹⁸ http://www.fromthewilderness.com/cgi-bin/MasterPFP.cgi?doc=http://www.fromthewilderness.co…

Recommended 9/11 Resources:

Global Research- Michel Chossudovsky’s site:

http://www.globalresearch.ca

Center for Cooperative Research- Paul Thompson’s Timeline

www.cooperativeresearch.org

9-11 Review- Jim Hoffman’s Site

http://www.911review.com

RICO- Rodriguez Versus Bush

http://www.911forthetruth.com

International Citizen’s Inquiry into 9-11

http://www.911inquiry.org

From the Wilderness- Michael Ruppert’s Site

http://www.fromthewilderness.com

Questioning the War on Terrorism- Carol Brouillet’s Site

http://www.communitycurrency.org/9-11.html

9-11 Truth Alliance

http://www.911truth.org/

Crimes Against Humanity- Dave Ratcliffe’s Site

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH

Online Journal-

http://www.onlinejournal.com

Justice for 9-11- Spitzer Complaint

http://www.justicefor911.org

The Great Conspiracy- Barrie Zwicker’s site

http://www.greatconspiracy.ca

Global Outlook

http://www.globaloutlook.ca

Guerrilla News Network

http://www.gnn.tv/

Citizen’s for Legitimate Government-

http://legitgov.org/

Oil Empire

http://www.oilempire.us/

New York 9-11 Truth

http://www.ny911truth.org/

The Northern California 9-11 Truth Alliance-

http://www.sf911truth.org

What Really Happened?

http://whatreallyhappened.com

9-11 Visibility Project

An activist oriented site…

http://www.septembereleventh.org

MUJCA-NET: Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth

A new Interfaith group, based in Milwaukee

http://mujca.com

9-11 Citizen’s Watch

http://www.911citizenswatch.org/

Propaganda Matrix

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/archiveprior_knowledge.html

by Concha Mateos

The history of the media is saturated with communicational kidnappings. –Edgar Borges¹

This essay discusses profound tensions created by corporate media systems within modern democracies and how these relations may differ among Europe, Latin America and the United States. We will see that media systems are a central part of the democratic, or undemocratic, character of any society.

Democracy may be defined most simply as rule by the people; from the Greek, demos or the people; cracy or power
– power by the people. A society is democratic when each individual within it has an equal capacity to influence the decisions that govern collective life. Power is in everyone’s hands.

The media system of a society and its characteristics (i.e., the numbers and types of media players, ownership structures and audiences, content distribution, and so on) produces the public discourse, a discourse that circulates among people, a discourse that is consumed by the public. Public opinion is constructed through the consumption of a media-produced discourse. And based on public opinion constructed in this way, women and men make political
decisions governing collective life.

These decisions are political and are about power, whether the person who makes them knows it or not. Throughout the day, we all make a number of political decisions: we pay rent for an apartment; we buy (or do not buy) products from factories that exploit children; we ask another customer to not smoke in a café; we enroll in a Spanish course; and so on. These are examples of the demos making decisions and governing society. These are actions that are regulated politically, that become possible, or not, due to the adoption of particular policies. And they are actions that spring from the opinions that we hold about these and myriads of other things.

Therefore, the manufacture of public opinion has always been an objective of those who rule, those in power. If one dominates the creation of public opinion, one dominates the bases upon which decisions are made by citizens in a democratic society.

Of course, the conduct of others can be dominated or determined byforce. But the history of humanity represents a continuous demonstration that domination by force and physical repression generates more complicated problems for ruling powers than does domination through a more symbolic violence – the shaping of minds by the organized management of public opinion.

And where does the domination of the public opinion occur? It occurs, above all, in media communication processes. Manuel Castell (2008) points out indisputably that power relations are increasingly established within communication processes, and these are made according to the possibilities allowed by the media system in each society. Thus the media system becomes a central part of the democratic, or undemocratic, character of a society. And for that reason, we want to address it.

Castell reminds us that the same tool used for power is and can be a tool used to counter power, though of course, not without costs: “Torturing bodies is less effective than shaping minds. If most people are against the values and norms institutionalized and established by the state, through laws and regulations, ultimately the system will change, but not necessarily to fulfill the hopes of the agents of social change. But change will come. It will just take a while and will be at the expense of suffering, much suffering.”

So yes, the domain of communication is power. And it can generate counter-power. But this power creates strong tensions: few have it; others want it. Yet, in a democracy, everyone should be able to exercise power, and for this it is necessary to establish some ground rules to ensure that “the demos is governing.”

If there are places where that power is not distributed equally, things shall be transformed – and probably painfully so. The media space in this first decade of the twenty-first century is a contested terrain. Some struggle to distribute power more equally and others work to keep power more concentrated among the few. Some feel that their rights are at stake and others feel that their businesses are at stake.

It is unlikely that those with power will give it up without resistance: “[The process of] social change, [as] we know it, is always violent. Nobody will give up peacefully what he or she already has and considers his or her property. No injustice disappears by itself; it involves fighting. Like it or not, violence defines all of these processes. Peace is not the human reality.”²

Citizens in Darkness, Democracy in the Dustbin: The Business of Confusing People, And of Creating Immunity by Noise

A man without knowledge, a world without light, as Baltasar Gracián said in the 17^th century in The Art of Worldly Wisdom.

If information about what you are deciding contains confusion, your decision will not be able to serve and defend your interests nor respond to your desires with guarantees. The more confusion, the more your decisions become alien, and less yours. That is, the more confusion, the less you.

Forcing people to decide with high levels of confusion is tantamount to denying any future possibility of complaint: If they choose or make a decision (even if they do so in the dark), they will be made fully responsible for the outcome. But, by having chosen in the dark, in fact what has happened is that the outcome has been left to chance, even if it is a chance disguised as free choice. To what extent can we call that decision, or election, made without knowing, a real
choice?

The more confusion, the more invisible will be those responsible for the outcome. This idea is summarized in Castilian popular culture in the saying “In troubled waters, fishermen gain.” Yes, troubled waters do not let the hooks be seen. Therefore, the propaganda of domination through the public opinion has always invested much effort and resources in spreading the idea that choice is good, that being able to choose is important, that choice is what makes the difference between oppression and freedom. As if choosing in the dark was some kind of freedom. As if ignorance could lead to a
destination other than dependence, madness, or slavery without conscience and without resistance.

And what about those responsible for the confusion? Do they exist? Can we see them? Do we know them?

The system of domination through the public opinion also seeks to maintain the idea that the confusion is simply confusion, and that it is not created by anyone. The confusion is a natural part of the system says the propaganda of domination.

But the confusion is not a natural part of the system; the confusion is allowed, permitted, and even generated and encouraged. This has been one of the great uses, and misuses, that media power in the service of domination has given to the legal tool called ‘free speech,’ it has been used as a key to open the road to the ‘freedom of noise.’

The upper classes have always sought to live in areas far from noise, protected from noise, and when they have not been able to avoid the noise, they have forbidden it, i.e. they have transformed it into a crime.³ This is about physical noise. But what has happened to the ‘informative noise’ created by the manufacture of confusion? The ruling elite have not opposed it with the same firmness as they have physical noise. Why? Because not to pursue it creates a useful confusion– it makes social, economic, military and political responsibilities, among others, invisible.

Noise works. Noise confuses. And further, confusion reduces complaints. It is particularly effective when the confused people never realize that they are confused.

When people ignore their own confusion is difficult for them to know the person responsible for it, given that, by not seeing the confusion, it becomes unthinkable that someone is responsible for it. The logic makes it non-existent. And those who do not exist, cannot be judged. The trick is called “immunity by noise.”

Democratic Conditions of the Media System

For those who advocate a democratic society, it is unacceptable to maintain a non-democratic media system. The democratic condition of a society requires a dynamic of opinion formation that is also democratic. Opinion guides the individual and collective decisions and also makes those decisions seem acceptable. Public opinion requires collective deliberation with the participation of all viewpoints existing in society. This, according to Miguel de Bustos, is pluralism (de Bustos, 2004).

How does such pluralism help to construct public opinion, and to decentralize power, in democratic societies?

Marcial Murciano synthesized concisely the features of media systems that define a democratic state:⁴

1. Right to freely express, comment and publish

2. Political pluralism

3. Participation

4. Diversity

5. Quality

If we also consider the sector of telecommunications, Murciano adds other values that are economic in nature: economic growth, employment, competition and innovation.

When asked about the political elements that are necessary for the democratization of communications, Armand Mattelart replied in a more generic way:

“Ithink that the only way to democratize is to restructure and rethink public service, an idea of public service applied to the public and private arenas. The second thing is that I believe that now is a historical moment in which we cannot ignore the so-called receptors.”⁵

It is, therefore, necessary that we add to these five requirements, consideration of public service and the participation of its service recipients (receptors). We can take this map of features as a reference to test the democratic quality of a media system. Who has been in charge of governing our media systems by these principles?

Communication:
A Right or a Commodity?

We might think that access to information should be open to all in society, should be seen as a right. Yet, increasingly processes of communication have been left in the hands of the privatized market making them commodities controlled by corporations. In Europe it was less so at first, while in the US, privatization has become the rule. As pointed out by Juan Carlos Miguel de Bustos: whatever they want to call it, “one of the fundamental characteristics of contemporary capitalism is the increasing commodification of all human fields, including information and communication, as it has
already been [observed] by McChesney and Mosco.”⁶

The media system regulated by the market is based on the fact that there are companies that use communication to produce economic benefits for their owners. How? Selling and buying groups of people. Which people? Those who perform a particular activity. What activity? Paying attention to something. The larger the group, the higher price the
advertiser must pay to buy the attention of this group of people who are potential customers of their products. These dynamics create social perversions in several ways.

In our developed world slavery is forbidden; one may not sell and buy people. Yet this is true only if you sell a person in their entirely, as a whole individual. But, if you sell a portion or a characteristic of a person, no problem; the business is allowed. The attention of a person is something that belongs to them intrinsically, is something that is part of their birthright. The media market, especially advertising, is the market of attention: it sells aggregate attention, called ‘audiences.’ This market operates through a massive expropriation of the private assets of thousands of spectators. In our developed world there are businesspeople who enrich themselves by selling the product of this expropriation: they take people’s attention, sell it, earn profits and pay nothing to the owners of the commodity. Fantastic! For them.

But just as we get our attention expropriated for free, our attentions are also neglected. Another failure of the market as a basic framework for social communication is the neglect of certain people and certain messages. For example: Who wants to buy the attention of those who are unwilling or unable to buy things? Nobody. The market-driven media system works with only recipients-consumers. Communication is made for people who are expected to consume, that
is, people who may feel they lack things, things that may be obtained in exchange for money. Following this logic of departure, the media talks to these people, not to help them achieve or do things themselves, but to make them come to the market of products and services. It seeks to distract them away from what they may want to do, and to distract them toward what marketers want them to do. The media will talk to them to convince them to pay for others to do
things for them…the media wants people who can buy, not people who invent solutions to solve the shortcomings of the system, of the market. Here, distraction is key.

Any progress in people’s capacity to achieve self-satisfaction outside the market represents a serious threat to the maintenance of market mechanisms. It is unlikely that a market-based media system will put much effort into getting people to learn to live without the market.

Democracy, however, needs precisely the opposite: that people make, invent, seek and find by themselves, people who produce solutions and take the initiative. Democracy tires people out, and it should tire them out, because it requires sustained action.

Action Against Distraction

There are many democracies, but not all work with the same dose of people’s participation in their collective government. Some have legal frameworks that invite people to take a real part in power; others less so. And there are
powers that, above all, give men and women many entertainment options. They claim to have democratic equality because they offer many, many entertainment options. And the more options, the more likely democracy is assumed. This leaves us with a paradox: to be very distracted (i.e., not attentive to the decisions that others make for us) is proposed as equivalent to living democratically. The collective acceptance of this paradigm (that choosing from many distractions equals democracy) manages to hide the fact that many people miss out on democracy. Are those left out distracted as well? Yes, but they remain outside the process and remain outside of power, whatever the means of distraction used to achieve and maintain their disempowerment.

This problem has traditionally been perceived differently by the citizens on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Let’s look at these differences. The Mythological Conditions of the Capitalist Media System

In several works, media scholar Robert W. McChesney has addressed an ideological armor that has protected the US corporate media system from criticism.⁷ These ideologies promote public beliefs that discourage and deactivate any attempt to transform the corporate controlled media toward a more democratic, decentralized system.

McChesney summarizes eight myths that protect the ideological apparatus: 1) the media does not really matter because they only reflect reality, they do not shape it; 2) the commercial business formula is the natural system, is stipulated by the founding fathers, and is a logical and coherent consequence of the democratic system; 3) the debate over media policy has reflected what the public thinks and cares about; 4) the commercial media are the ones that ensure quality professional journalism; 5) US journalism still remains largely progressive and left-wing; 6) the commercial formula, more than any other formula, guarantees that audiences receive what they want; 7) technology determines the nature of the media; and 8) there are no alternatives that can improve the situation.

These are the values and norms that the capitalist system has institutionalized through laws, educational agendas, cultural products, and so on.

Now let’s go back to Manuel Castell’s idea that we have highlighted previously: if a majority of the people is against…
these mythological, institutional ideologies, then with suffering and other consequences, they will transform and the system will fall.

How does the media system of domination protect itself to prevent such a thing from happening? With the concept of Walter Lippman’s bewildered herd, as Noam Chomsky has analyzed it.⁸ And by securing the intellectual solitude of each individual. It is easier to fool those who have no friends, those who are alone.

So the media prefers the bewildered herd of people, controllable with propaganda, those who live (vegetate, intellectually at least) entertained and incommunicado with other people. In distracted, entertained isolation, the corporate media protects itself from the majority who may wish to transform the system. Without these protective dynamics, people begin to think, confirm evidence, support alternative ideas and, ultimately, awaken their complaints. Again, distraction is key.

It is easier to abuse people if they do not talk with one another, do not share their findings! The more warned people are, the harder it is to mislead them. And the more people communicate and relate with one another, the more likely concerted actions will occur (Mills, 1993), the only actions that can counteract power.

The Organization of Silence and Noise

Power organizes silence around issues that should not be known by citizens. And to prevent the operation of organizing silence from becoming obvious, power also organizes noise. The media system of our societies is the central machine of organized silence and noise. The media system is the mechanism used to establish who will dominate the apparatuses that make noise or make real information.

The Conditions of Domination

Following Mattelart and Murciano then, what are the general conditions and features of democratic media systems, e.g., a decentralized, pluralistic, participatory system…a system that does not let communicative power be managed by a minority?

A democratic media system is simply a system in which power is diluted, or where power, as such, does not exist. That is the defining feature: power is contained in all the elements but none of the elements alone has the power. We all fully self-govern ourselves, no one governs us. Therefore we all have a real power; while no one has collective power, we all contribute to it.

In 1995 Michael Sénécal characterized three types of logics or approaches with which one can articulate the relationship between democracy and communication in a media system:⁹

1. The commercial logic: the state governs the distribution of
leadership in the system. State intervention is not necessary.

2. Thestate logic: the state institutionalizes the role of the media
transforming it into a public service that must be provided to
citizens to achieve social, not commercial, goals.

3.The social movements logic: communication is an element of change.

Based on these three approaches we can distinguish three types of media that can configure the system: private (privately owned and profit-focused), public (managed by the government and focused on general interest), and community (social and private management and focused on general interest). According to the principle of non-domination required in a democratic society, these three sectors would have to handle and share the media power fairly and equally.

However, in the US the situation has always been characterized by the hegemony of the private sector. In Europe, until the 1980s, the state logic prevailed as part of a welfare state that had the regular intervention of the government to ensure social objectives. In Latin America, public institutions have always existed in an irregular manner, sometimes strengthened under dictatorships (an exemplary case is Argentina) but these systems are almost always in crisis. The
community sector, even when lacking proper legal protection and fighting all sorts of materials limitations, has been in fact a living, constant and active element since the 1970s. This was the period in which ideas such as the right to communication and the social-based demands of access to the public voice gained impetus.

But what is the use of media power? What can be done when you have it? Those who hold this power can decide what and who appears in the discourse and who and what will not be named; and can also manage the distribution of leadership, noise, silence, censorship and the foci of attention. In a social group in which all members are alert about the same thing, look at the same side, and pay attention to the same issues; highlighting something and forgetting about something else is quite simple. On the other hand, in a social group where each member looks at a different side, pays attention to different issues, and bases its interest, attention and credibility on different sources, it is more complicated to get them all to consider the same subject as remarkable.

So, when you have power, what you actually have is the attention of a large number of people focused on the same thing and, therefore, a greater chance of getting them to think about the same issues, and even of leading them to think in the same ways.

The communicative power operates in the space of the symbolic, creating the intelligence that, in turn, creates people’s opinions. Opinions are always the product of the information that each person has received, understood, appreciated and has finally assimilated. That is the information that each person owns.

Based on such understanding, media power is, therefore, the power to regulate people by regulating the information they receive. This power controls what the Democratic Federal Communication (FCC) commissioner, Michael J. Copps called the “civil dialogue” that a society maintains to make decisions and to self-govern. In the debate just before the FCC made the decision in June 2003 to deregulate the US media market, Copps said: “The decisions we make today,” he said, “will recast our entire media landscape for years to come. At issue is whether a few corporations will be ceded enhanced gatekeeper control over the civil dialogue of our country; more content control over our music, entertainment and information; and veto power over the majority of what our families watch, hear and read.”¹⁰

Who is Interested in a Democratic Media System?

The media system, which we consider here as a basic tool for coexistence in a radically democratic society, was transformed by capitalist development. The capitalists saw clearly that the media system was an extremely useful tool for its own expansion.

The creation of demand has been central to the goals of capitalism. Demand must be sufficient, growing, and as far as possible, predictable and consistent, in order to maximize the productivity and investment and to prevent and reduce production without sales (stocks).

Toward these ends, capitalists became infatuated with the toy called media. The toy had social purposes to fulfill, but capitalists had other purposes. So early on, clear tensions emerged between social and capitalist conceptions of the media.

Further, tensions grew between those in political power– those who wanted to regulate political coexistence, and those with economic power– those who wanted to create a homogenized and secure demand for production.

And what about the men and women, the viewers, readers, and citizens who support the system? To assess the degree of democracy in a media system it is necessary to know what role is given to the people in the design of that system and its operation.

The control of national and global media are now highly concentrated within fewer and fewer mega-corporations. This allows massive use of people’s attention and involves commensurate domination: Who wants this to change?

Can we now expect those who have built the systems for concentrating the media power to decide to change and pave the way for changes that will dilute that power? Can we expect those who have sought and aggregated power for decades to suddenly one day begin to distribute it more equally? We might expect it, but it is highly unlikely that
what we hope for will happen. Action is needed.

Our Media, our Policy

Over time, the media power has been concentrated in the hands of a few corporations, and this has not occurred by ignorance, mistake or by chance. And this concentration has not been achieved as a natural and spontaneous consequence of ‘market drifting’’ or market forces (Zallo, 2010; McChesney, 2002). The concentration of power has been assisted by a collection of political decisions often taken without democratic supervision.

In the summer of 2002, when the US media landscape began to stir, McChesney and Nichols reviewed the work they had published in 2000, entitled It’s the Media, Stupid. With new texts and contributions, including those of Noam Chomsky, they published Our Media, Not Theirs: The Democrat Struggle Against Corporate Media. The work examined who owned the media and found that corporate conglomerates had secured an oligopolistic control of the media system. These structures of concentrated power mock the concept of freedom of press, “where anyone can launch a medium and participate in the marketplace of ideas.”

It was political decisions have allowed the concentration of media power decisions that took the media away from the people. Yet the problem is not that they have taken control of our media. The problem is that they have taken the problem away from us almost completely.

The laws governing the media systems are being developed without taking into consideration the citizenry, a people left aside—but very distracted by a multitude of media entertainment. Not considered, among many examples, are the cultural needs of men, women, young people, the demands of professionals, and the conclusions of academic researchers. Democracy needs to be informed by all these pluralistic views, but they are not.

They are our media. It is our attention. It is our problem and we have the capacity to produce our own solutions. Action against distraction is our agenda.

_________________________________

CONCHA MATEOS holds a Ph.D. in Media Studies from the University of La
Laguna (Islas Canarias, Spain), and postgraduate studies specializing
in Political Communication at the Complutense University (Madrid).
She is a faculty in the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Madrid) and has
worked as journalist for radio, television, and political
organizations in Spain and Latin America.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chomsky, Noam (1997): Media
Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda.
New York: Seven Stories Press, 1997.

Gracian,Baltasar (2004): Oráculo
manual y arte de prudencia
(The
Art of Worldly Wisdom).
Madrid: Nuevas Ediciones de Bolsillo.

McChesney Robert W. (2004): The
Problem of the Media.
New York: Monthly Review Press.

McChesney Robert W. (2002): Our
Media Not Theirs. The Democratic Struggle Against Media Corporate.
New York: Seven Stories Press.

McChesney, Robert W. (1997): Corporate
Media and the Threat to Democracy.
New York: Seven Stories Press.

Miguel de Bustos, Juan Carlos (1996): Cultura,
comunicación y desarrollo, algunos elementos para su análisis
(Culture, communication and development, some elements for their
analysis). Bilbao: Hegoa. Retrieved on May 20, 2010 from:
http://pdf2.biblioteca.hegoa.efaber.net/ebook/5274/Cuaderno_de_trabajo_n___16.pdf

Mills, C. Wright (1993): La
elite del poder
(The Power Elite, originally published in 1956). Mexico: Fondo de
Cultura Economica.

Murciano, Marcial (2006): “Las
políticas de comunicación y la construcción del
estado democrático” (Communication
policies and the construction of the democratic state), in Sala
de Prensa,
N.
92, June 2006, year VIII, vol. 3. Retrieved on March 13, 2010 from:
http://www.saladeprensa.org/art670.htm

Sénécal, Michel (1995): L’espace
mediatique.
Montreal: Liber.

Zallo, Ramón (2010): “The Audiovisual Communication Policy of
the Socialist Government (2004-2009): A neo-liberal turn” in
Revista
Latina de Comunicación Social,
65, pp. 14-29. La Laguna (Tenerife): University of La Laguna,
retrieved on March 12, 2010, from:
http://www.revistalatinacs.org/10/art/880_UPV/02_Zallo.html.

By Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” –Frederick Douglass

One continuing criticism of Project Censored is that we are a left leaning organization. Which is an interesting claim in that over 200 faculty and students from multiple disciplines and political orientations work with Project Censored each year.  Over 1,500 students have been trained in media research techniques since we began in 1976, and it would be hard to find a more mainstream, mostly Californian college student body.
Critical thinking and fact finding are not left leaning, they are the basis of democracy, and we proudly stand for the maximization of informed participatory democracy at the lowest possible level in society.  To this end, Project Censored supports social justice and media democracy in action.
The most common complaint about Project Censored is that we are more critical of powerful Republicans and conservatives than Democrats and liberals.  The second most often announced complaint that that we cover news stories that are really not “censored” or are part of some crazy conspiracy theory.
In regards to censorship our definition has been quite clear all along. Any interference with the free flow of information is censorship. Even if the interference is structural or not deliberate, it has the same impact by creating a lack of public awareness on critical issues. This means that when The New York Times chooses to cover the updates on celebrity deaths, marriages, or divorces, and ignores the ACLU’s release of military autopsy reports proving that the US was torturing prisoners to death in Iraq and Afghanistan (Censored Story #7, 2007), that is censorship.  It is censorship even if most of The New York Times journalist didn’t know about the ACLU report, they certainly should have—It was an AP release!  The ACLU report was only covered in a dozen or so newspapers (not the NYT) and went widely unnoticed.  For a story this important to go virtually unreported implies a degree of overt censorship.
Further, if journalists ignore topics related to 9/11, election fraud, electromagnetic weapons, contrail irregularities, because they might be labeled “conspiracy theorists,” that is censorship as well. Any decision to cover up, ignore, avoid, steer away from, or simply fail to investigate—even if the investigation is not fruitful— is censorship because it implies a willful choice to not cover a particular story.  Ignoring important news stories for whatever reasons is not commensurate with principles of a free press.

Conspiracy Theories

Conspiracies tend to be actions by small groups of individuals instead of massive collective plots by governments and corporations. However, small groups can be dangerous, especially when the individuals have significant power in huge public and private bureaucracies. However it is very unlikely that conspiracies can be interlinked in a macro way bridging the gaps between dozens of corporations and government bureaucracies. There are just too many connections for possible leaks and exposures.
Nonetheless, corporate boards of directors meet in closed rooms to plan to how best to maximize profit. If they knowingly make plans that hurt others, violate laws, undermine ethics, or show favoritism to friends, they are involved in a conspiracy. Conspiracies exit everywhere, and, yes, people do sit in rooms and conspire all the time. They may not congregate at the end of dark piers in abandoned warehouses under lights with no shades smoking cigars in trench coats mumbling and looking askance.  But conspirators do exist.  Micro-plots may well be the answer to some of the famous conspiracies theories floating in our circles of cynicism on the Internet. However, without accurate thorough investigations, we can only stew in our distrust. Critical thinking and accurate, transparent investigative research are needed to counter the emotional fraud and propaganda of speculative ideas, fear mongering, and groupthink.
The first thing that critics of investigations on 9/11, elections fraud, and any other issues do is to link all the questions—including some of the most hair-brain ideas— together in a crazy hodgepodge of irrationally that undermines legitimate investigations.  There is often a series of logical fallacies used by critics of controversial issues, which include ad hominem attacks, red herring and straw person distractions, and false dilemmas. Because many people are taken in by these irrationalities, some journalists are fearful of being labeled conspiracy theorists. To protect their careers many—especially those in corporate media— will steer their inquiries to “safer” stories.
For example, in 2007, Project Censored covered research into the events of September the 11th by Brigham Young University physics professor, Steven E. Jones. Dr. Jones concluded that the official explanation for the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) buildings was implausible according to laws of physics. Jones called for an independent, international scientific investigation “guided not by politicized notions and constraints but rather by observations and calculations.” Jones specifically investigated the collapse of WTC 7; a forty-seven-story building that was not hit by planes, yet dropped in its own “footprint,” in the same manner as a controlled demolition late in the afternoon on September 11, 2001. WTC 7 collapsed in 6.6 seconds, just .6 of a second longer than it would take an object dropped from the roof to hit the ground. “Where is the delay that must be expected due to conservation of momentum, one of the foundational laws of physics?” Jones asked. “That is, as upper-falling floors strike lower floors—and intact steel support columns—the fall must be significantly impeded by the impacted mass,” he explained.  “How do the upper floors fall so quickly, then, and still conserve momentum in the collapsing buildings?” The paradox, he says, “is easily resolved by the explosive demolition hypothesis, whereby explosives quickly removed lower-floor material, including steel support columns, and allow near free-fall-speed collapses.”
To support his theory, Jones and eight other scientists conducted chemical research on the dust from the World Trade centers. Their research results were published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The Open Chemical Physics Journal, Volume 2, 2009 included their research article, “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe.” In the abstract the authors write, “We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in all the samples. These red/gray chips show marked similarities in all four samples. The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC).The red portion of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic.” Thermite is a pyrotechnic composition of a metal powder and a metal oxide, which produces an aluminothermic reaction known as a thermite reaction and is used in controlled demolitions of buildings.
Additionally, architect Richard Gage, AIA, founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, has to date amassed nearly 700 scientific professionals in the fields of architecture, engineering, and physics who have signed a petition calling for a new investigation of the events of 9/11 in New York.  Gage’s and Jones’ empirical research suggesting the possibility of controlled demolition have moved thousands of others to question the events of 9/11, but most in the media have either ignored their hard data, marginalized their significance, or outright attacked them.  Again, this is not the role of a free press.  If bias is unacceptable, these views should be heard and vetted fairly in an open society regardless of their ultimate outcomes and without contingency upon their popularity.
In the case of Gage and Jones, there are scientific, factual arguments that establish the clear possibility of controlled demolition of the World Trade Center buildings on September 11, 2001, and there is zero coverage in the corporate media in the US. This is top down corporate censorship pure and simple. Even if other scientists can be found to disagree with the study, the totality of ignoring the topic inside the corporate media is absolute. It seems unlikely that corporate journalists are unaware of the research as it is listed on hundreds of websites worldwide. Yet for some reason coverage is lacking inside the corporate media.  Perhaps the mainstream science journalists leave their critical thinking skills at home and give the scientific method the day off.  Or, the real conspiracy exists within the boardrooms of the corporate mainstream media.
We asked a faculty physicist at Sonoma State University what she thought about the new research from Dr. Jones in the Open Chemical Physics Journal. She had been one of our primary critics when Jones originally spoke on our campus in 2006. At that time she said she didn’t need to read Jones’ research because she had read Popular Mechanics on the issue, a nonacademic report that has been debunked in scholarly circles. She went on to imply that she “just knew” Jones was wrong. So when presented with a peer reviewed release in an academic chemical journal, her response was that it was not one of the most prestigious journals, without going into any detail. In other words, if one doesn’t like what a scientific journal says, one can dismiss it a priori.  No debate, no open discussion required.  These are hardly principles of the academy and they are not tenets of a free press.  In fact, these tactics and practices of attack and avoidance are enemies of free thought in any democratic society.

Project Censored as Left Leaning

According to the editor of the Pasadena Weekly, Project Censored suffers from a “perceived extreme left-leaning bent that editors (us) . . . have assumed over the years in selecting, writing, and publishing its stories . . . more than anything it has been the Project’s perceived long leftward lean that has done the most damage to its overall credibility. Although the group never explicitly takes a political stance, a majority of the stories Project Censored highlights have a leftist political slant, criticizing big business, economic inequality, damage to the environment, and the Pentagon, and misdeeds of conservative politicians, among other progressive issues.”
Why covering stories about the powerful in government and big business, or environmental and inequality issues are left leaning is beyond our understanding.  It seems that this is just good journalism—the journalism that is missing in the corporate media—and could just as well be middle-leaning-journalism, right-leaning-journalism or crazy California journalism. Maybe it’s just holding those in powerful positions in society accountable for their decisions and actions, which we believe is what a free press is supposed to do. Nonetheless, we decided to examine the key stories Project Censored covered that past sixteen years during both the George W. Bush and the William Jefferson Clinton administrations. Perhaps we can detect some bias from our records.
We have examined censored news stories from both Bush and Clinton from our records. Amazingly, the similarities are very evident. Both administrations lied to support military aggression, supported policies that resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, spied on Americans, undermined civil liberties and violated international treaties, supported global arm sales/distribution and private mercenaries, ignored environmental issues, lobbied for unsafe industrial practices, allowed big banks and Wall Street unregulated freedoms, encouraged media consolidation and repression of open journalism.
Here are some of the stories Project Censored covered under the Clinton and Bush Presidencies. All stories are archived online at http://projectcensored.org under the archives link catalogued by year.

Arms Sales/Support and Consequences

Under Clinton

Turkey Destroys Kurdish Villages with U.S. Weapons
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2000, Story #5

Source: Kevin McKiernan, “Turkey’s War on the Kurds,” The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, March/April, 1999.

In 1995, the Clinton Administration recognized that the Turkish government used American arms in domestic military operations where human rights abuses occurred. In fact, Turkey has forcibly evacuated, leveled and burned more than 3,000 Kurdish villages in the past decade. Most of the atrocities, which have cost over 40,000 lives, took place during Clinton’s first term in office. As an ally of the U.S. through NATO, Turkey receives U.S. weapons, from dozens of companies, including Hughes, Boeing, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. Despite a horrifying report of violent abuse by Amnesty International, the State Department passed arms deals with Turkey. The war in Turkey represents the greatest use of U.S. weapons in combat anywhere in the world today.

Under Bush

U.S. Aid to Israel Fuels Repressive Occupation in Palestine
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2004, Story #24

Sources: John Steinbach, “Palestine in the Crosshairs: U.S. Policy and the struggle for Nationhood,” Covert Action Quarterly, Spring 2002, No. 72; Matt Bowles, “U.S. Aid Lifeblood of the Occupation,” Left Turn, March 4, 2002; Bob Wing, “Israel Erecting ‘Great Wall’ Around Palestine,” Wartimes, April 2003.

U.S. aid to Israel over the course of its fifty-four years of nationhood has fueled the illegal occupation of Palestinian land superceding Palestinian rights to self-government.    During the last 25 years US aid to Israel has been about 60% military aid and 40% economic aid. There is a new plan to phase out all economic aid by 2008 in order to have all the aid going to military. Israel receives about $3 billion a year in direct aid and $3 billion a year in indirect aid in the form of special loans and grants. Under the Arms Export Control Act the US can only supply weapons that are used “for legitimate self defense”. The US Foreign Assistance Act prohibits military assistance to any country “which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights”. The Proxmire Amendment bans military assistance to any government that refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to allow inspections of its nuclear facilities. All three of these laws are currently being broken with aid to Israel.

Pre-War Intelligence Used to Justify Military Aggression

Under Clinton

Evidence Indicates No Pre-war Genocide in Kosovo
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2000, Story #12

Sources: Mark Cook, “William Walker: `Man With a Mission,’” Covert Action Quarterly, Spring/Summer 1999;  The Progressive Review, “My Multinational Entity, Right or Wrong,” June 1999;  Pablo Ordaz , “Spanish Police and Forensic Experts have not Found Proof of Genocide in the North of Kosovo,” El Pais, September 23, 1999.

According to the New York Times, the “turning point” to NATO’s decision to go to war against Yugoslavia occurred on January 20, 1999 when U.S. diplomat William Walker led a group of news reporters to discover a so-called Serb massacre of some 45 Albanians in Racak, Kosovo. This story made international headlines and was later used to justify the NATO bombings.
The day before the “massacre,” Serb police had a firefight with KLA rebels that was covered by an Associated Press (AP) film crew. At the end of day, the village was deserted. Then, the next day the village had been reoccupied by the KLA, and it was the KLA who initially led foreign visitors to the alleged massacre site. William Walker arrived at noon with additional journalists, and expressed his outrage at a “genocidal massacre” to the world press.
Walker’s story remains shrouded with doubt. “What is disturbing,” remarks war correspondent Renaud Girard, “is that the pictures filmed by the AP journalists radically contradict Walker’s accusations.” Challenges to Walker’s massacre story were published in Le Monde and Le Figaro: “During the night, could the UCK (KLA) have gathered the bodies, in fact killed by Serb bullets, to set up a scene of cold-blooded massacre?” (Le Figaro). Belarussian and Finnish forensic experts were later unable to verify that a massacre had actually occurred at Racak.

Under Bush

US Illegally Removes Pages from Iraq UN Report
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2004, Story #3

Source: Michael I. Niman, “What Bush didn’t want you to know about Iraq,” The Humanist and ArtVoice, March/April 2003.

Throughout the winter of 2002, the Bush administration publicly accused Iraqi weapons declarations of being incomplete. The almost unbelievable reality of this situation is that it was the United States itself that had removed over 8,000 pages of the 11,800 page original report given by Iraq to the UN. This came as no surprise to Europeans however, as Iraq had made extra copies of the complete weapons declaration report and unofficially distributed them to journalists throughout Europe. The Berlin newspaper Die Tageszetung broke the story on December 19, 2002 in an article by Andreas Zumach.
According to Niman, “The missing pages implicated twenty-four U.S.-based corporations and the successive Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. administration in connection with the illegal supplying of Saddam Hussein government with myriad weapons of mass destruction and the training to use them.” Groups documented in the original report that were supporting Iraq’s weapons programs prior to Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait included:  Eastman Kodak, Dupont, Honeywell, Rockwell, Sperry, Hewlett-Packard, and Bechtel; U.S. government agencies such as the Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture and Department of Defense; and nuclear weapons labs such as Lawrence-Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia.
Beginning in 1983, the U.S. was involved in eighty shipments of biological and chemical components, including strains of botulism toxin, anthrax, gangrene bacteria, West Nile fever virus, and Dengue fever virus. These shipments continued even after Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran in 1984.

Civilian Deaths in Iraq

Under Clinton

U. S. Weapons mass Destruction Linked to the Deaths of a Half-Million Children
Bookmark and Share
Top 25 Censored Stories for 1999, Story #5

Sources: Dennis Bernstein, “Made in America,” San Francisco Bay Guardian, February 25, 1998; Bill Blum, “Punishing Saddam or the Iraqis,” I.F. Magazine, March/April 1998; Most Rev. Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF (Ret.), “Our Continuing War Against Iraq,” Space and Security News, May 1998.

For the past seven years, the United States has supported sanctions against Iraq that have taken the lives of more Iraqi citizens than did the war itself. The sanctions imposed on Iraq are causing shortages of food, medical supplies, and medicines. Since the war ended, more than half a million children under the age of five have died. UNICEF reports that 150 children are dying every day.
The Iraqi people are being punished for their leader’s reticence to comply fully with U.S.-supported U.N. demands “to search every structure in Iraq for weapons of mass destruction.” Ironically, 1994 U.S. Senate findings uncovered evidence that U.S. firms supplied at least some of the very biological material that the U.N. inspection teams are now seeking
A 1994 U.S. Senate panel report indicated that between 1985 and 1989, U.S. firms supplied microorganisms needed for the production of Iraq’s chemical and biological warfare. The Senate panel wrote: “It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and removed from the Iraqi biological warfare program.

Under Bush

Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009, Story #1

Sources: Michael Schwartz, “Is the United States Killing 10,000 Iraqis Every Month? Or Is It More?” After Downing Street, July 6, 2007; Joshua Holland, “Iraq death toll rivals Rwanda genocide, Cambodian killing fields,” AlterNet, September 17, 2007; Luke Baker, “Iraq conflict has killed a million, says survey,” Reuters (via AlterNet), January 7, 2008; Maki al-Nazzal and Dahr Jamail, “Iraq: Not our country to Return to,” Inter Press Service, March 3, 2008.

Over one million Iraqis have met violent deaths as a result of the 2003 invasion, according to a study conducted by the prestigious British polling group, Opinion Research Business (ORB). ORB’s research covered fifteen of Iraq’s eighteen provinces. Those not covered include two of Iraq’s more volatile regions—Kerbala and Anbar—and the northern province of Arbil, where local authorities refused them a permit to work. In face-to-face interviews with 2,414 adults, the poll found that more than one in five respondents had had at least one death in their household as a result of the conflict, as opposed to natural cause.
Authors Joshua Holland and Michael Schwartz point out that the dominant narrative on Iraq—that most of the violence against Iraqis is being perpetrated by Iraqis themselves and is not our responsibility—is ill conceived. Interviewers from the Lancet report of October 2006 (Censored 2006, #2) asked Iraqi respondents how their loved ones died. Of deaths for which families were certain of the perpetrator, 56 percent were attributable to US forces or their allies. Schwartz suggests that if a low pro rata share of half the unattributed deaths were caused by US forces, a total of approximately 80 percent of Iraqi deaths are directly US perpetrated.

Administrative Support for Big Banks And Stock Brokers

Under Clinton

New Mega-Merged Banking Behemoths = Big Risk
Top 25 Censored Stories for 1997, Story #6

Source: Jake Lewis, “The Making of the Banking Behemoths,” Multinational Monitor, June 1996.

Nineteen ninety-five was a record year of bank mergers. Chase Manhattan and Chemical bank combined to create the nation’s largest bank, with $300 billion in assets—while on the West coast, the merger of First Interstate and Wells Fargo created a new giant with over $100 billion in assets. The massive consolidation of the nation’s banking resources has resulted in 71.5 percent of U.S. banking assets being controlled by the 100 largest banking organizations, representing less than 1 percent of the total banks in the nation.
The trend toward bigger banks is creating a system whereby giant banking institutions are taking on “too big to fail” status. Indeed, a failure of any one of these new giants would have a devastating effect on the nation’s financial health. And with the Federal Reserve capping the amount that financial institutions have to pay into the government’s bank insurance fund at $25 billion, just 1.25 percent of deposits are now insured. Consequently, any bailout of one of these new megabanks would come directly from the pockets of taxpayers.
Studies have also found that banks in concentrated markets tend to charge higher rates for certain types of loans, and tend to offer lower interest rates on certain types of deposits than do banks in less concentrated markets. A 1995 study by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group and the Center for Study of Responsive Law showed that fees on checking and savings accounts increased at twice the rate of inflation from 1993 to 1995 as bank mergers moved forward.

Under Bush

Little Known Stock Fraud Could Weaken U.S. Economy
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2006, Story #18

Sources: David Hendricks, “Naked Short Selling Is A Plague For Businesses And Investors,” San Antonio Express News, March 2, 2005;  Karl Thiel, “Who’s Behind Naked Shorting?” TheMotleyFool.com, March 30, 2005; Financial Wire, Stockgate Today Series, “SEC’s Donaldson Addresses Liquidity Fraud,” September 20, 2004; and Dave Patch, “Dateline NBC Cancelled and Attorney Accuses DTCC of Cheap Thuggery,” April 7, 2005.

While the balance of supply and demand is a fairly well known principle of economic health, a related and similar relationship exists between liquidity-the availability of liquid, spendable assets such as cash, stocks and bonds-and security-the stability, endurance and trustworthiness of more long-term financial mechanisms.
The scandal coined “Stockgate” by the Financial Wire involves the abuse of a practice called “short selling.” As opposed to a traditional approach to investing in which stocks are researched and bought on the hope they will rise over the “long” term, going “short” involves a bet that a stock is about to go down in value. In a short sale, an investor sells stock that he or she technically doesn’t own. The investor borrows these shares of stock from their broker, who in turn may likely borrow the shares himself from a financial clearinghouse like a brokerage firm or hedge fund. Hoping that the price of the stock will drop, the investor is obligated to eventually “close” the short by buying back the sold shares at a hopefully lower price, thus making a profit from the fall of the stock. When the time runs out for “covering” the short and the price hasn’t dropped, the investor is forced to buy back the shares at a loss and take a financial hit. The short sale of stocks is a risky bet, usually not recommended except for speculation or hedging-to protect long-term financial positions with short-term offsets. As short-selling is a sale of stocks not owned, but loaned, it is an example of buying on margin-a category of practices whose abuses stand out clearly in many people’s minds as a significant factor in the Stock Market Crash of 1929 which ushered in the Great Depression.
Naked shorting is an illegal abuse of short selling in which investors short-sell stock that they have no intention or ability to ever cover. When allowed to occur, naked shorting drives the stock value of a company down by creating more stock shares flowing around the market than actual shares of stock that the company can back with their current earnings. Companies, their shareholders, and indeed the entire economy are hurt financially by naked shorting, as it reduces the money available to support economic growth.

Additional References:

David Sedore, “Hedge Fund Assets Frozen,” March 4, 2005, and “Hedge Fund Virtually Bare,” March 12, 2005, The Palm Beach Post-KL Financial fraud series; PrimeZone Media Network, “First American Scientific Corp. Takes Counter Measures to Stop ‘Naked Shorting’ of its Stock,” December 17, 2004.

National Security/Government Secrecy

Under Clinton

Little Known Federal Law Paves The Way for National Identification Card
Top 25 Censored Stories for 1998, Story #8

Sources:  Cyndee Parker, “National ID Card is Now Federal Law and Georgia Wants to Help Lead the Way,” Witwigo, May/June 1997; Mainstream media coverage: The New York Times, September 8, 1996, section 6; page 58, column 1; related article in The San Francisco Chronicle, September 19, 1996, page A1.
In September 1996, President Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act of 1996. Buried on approximately page 650 was a section that creates a framework for establishing a national ID card for the American public. This legislation was slipped through without fanfare or publicity.
This law has various aspects: It establishes a “Machine Readable Document Pilot Program” requiring employers to swipe a prospective employee’s driver’s license through a special reader linked to the federal government’s Social Security Administration. The federal government would have the discretion to approve or disapprove the applicant for employment. In this case, the driver’s license becomes a “national ID card.”
The author of the national ID law, Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), stated in a Capitol Hill magazine that it was her intention to see Congress immediately implement a national ID system whereby every American would be required to carry a card with a “magnetic strip on it on which the bearer’s unique voice, retina pattern, or fingerprint is digitally encoded.” Congressman Dick Armey (R-TX), among others, has strongly denounced the new law, calling it “an abomination, and wholly at odds with the American tradition of individual freedom.”

Under Bush

Bush Administration Moves to Eliminate Open Government
Top 25 Censored Stories of 2006, Story #1

Source: Karen Lightfoot, “New Report Details Bush Administration Secrecy,” Committee on Government Reform, September 14, 2004, online at http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/newsprint.cgi?file=/news2004/0914-05.htm.

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) gives citizens the ability to file a request for specific information from a government agency and provides recourse in federal court if that agency fails to comply with FOIA requirements. Over the last two decades, beginning with Reagan, this law has become increasingly diluted and circumvented by each succeeding administration.
Under the Bush Administration, agencies make extensive and arbitrary use of FOIA exemptions (such as those for classified information, privileged attorney-client documents and certain information compiled for law enforcement purposes) often inappropriately or with inadequate justification. Recent evidence shows agencies making frivolous (and sometimes ludicrous) exemption claims, abusing the deliberative process privilege, abusing the law enforcement exemption, and withholding data on telephone service outages.
The Bush Administration also engages in an aggressive policy of questioning, challenging and denying FOIA requesters’ eligibility for fee waivers, using a variety of tactics. Measures include narrowing the definition of “representative of news media,” claiming information would not contribute to public understanding.
The Bush Administration has also obtained unprecedented authority to conduct government operations in secret, with little or no judicial oversight. Under expanded law enforcement authority in the Patriot Act, the Justice Department can more easily use secret orders to obtain library and other private records, obtain “sneak-and-peek” warrants to conduct secret searches, and conduct secret wiretaps.

Homeland Security And Government Spying

Under Clinton

Exposing the Global Surveillance System
Top 25 Censored Stories for 1998, Story #4

Source: Nicky Hager, “Secret Power. Exposing the Global Surveillance System,” Covert Action Quarterly (CAQ), Winter 1996/1997.

For over 40 years, New Zealand’s largest intelligence agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), has been helping its Western allies to spy on countries throughout the Pacific region. Neither the public nor the majority of New Zealand’s top elected officials had knowledge of these activities. These procedures have operated since 1948 under a secret, Cold War-era intelligence alliance between the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand-the UKUSA agreement. But in the late 1980s, the U.S. prompted New Zealand to join a new and highly secret global intelligence system. U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) is one of the world’s biggest, most closely held intelligence projects. Unlike many of the Cold War electronic spy systems, ECHELON is designed primarily to gather electronic transmissions from nonmilitary targets: governments, organizations, businesses, and individuals in virtually every country.
The system works by indiscriminately intercepting very large quantities of communications and using computers to identify and extract messages of interest from the mass of unwanted ones. Computers at each secret station in the ECHELON network automatically search millions of messages for pre-programmed key words. For each message containing one of those key words, the computer automatically notes time and place of origin and interception, and gives the message a four-digit code for future reference.

Under Bush

Homeland Security Threatens Civil Liberty
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2004, Story #2

Sources: Alex Jones, “Secret Patriot II Destroys Remaining US Liberty,” Global Outlook, Volume 4; Frank Morales, “Homeland Defense: Pentagon Declares War on America,” Global Outlook, Winter 2003; Charles Lewis and Adam Mayle, “Justice Department Drafts Sweeping Expansion of Terrorism Act,” Center for Public Integrity online at http://publicintegrity.org.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) represents the most extensive restructuring of the U.S. government since 1947 – the year the Department of War was combined with the Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and Air Force, to create the Department of Defense. The new Department of Homeland Security combines over one hundred separate entities of the executive branch, including the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, and the Border Patrol, among others. The DHS employs over 170,000 federal workers and commands a total annual budget of $37 billion.
One DHS mandate largely ignored by the press requires the FBI, CIA, state, and local governments to share intelligence reports with the department upon command, without explanation. Civil rights activists claim that this endangers the rights and freedoms of law-abiding Americans by blurring the lines between foreign and domestic spying (as occurred during the COINTELPRO plan of the 1960s and ‘70s). According to the ACLU, the Department of Homeland Security will be “100% secret and 0% accountable
As part of Homeland Security, the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 allows the government increased and unprecedented access to the lives of American citizens and represents an unrestrained imposition on our civil liberties. Wiretaps, previously confined to one phone, can now follow a person from place to place at the behest of government agents and people can now be detained on the vague suspicion that they might be a  terrorist – or assisting one. Detainees can also be denied the right to legal representation (or the right of private counsel when they are allowed to meet with their attorneys).

Private Mercenary Companies Used Around the World

Under Clinton

Mercenary Armies in Service to Global Corporations
Top 25 Censored Stories for 1999, Story #16

Sources: Pratap Chatterjee, “Mercenary Armies & Mineral Wealth,” Covert Action Quarterly, Fall 1997, No. 62; Pratap Chatterjee, “Guarding the Multinationals,” Multinational Monitor, March 1998.

In many countries, multinational corporations have paid directly for private policing services from the local army; or have hired outside security companies to harass nationals who protest against the environmental impact of their operations. The firms involved represent a growing number of new corporate security operations around the world, linking former intelligence officers, standing armies, and local death squads.
One of these security companies is Defense Systems Limited (DSL). DSL is run by two ex-Special Air Service commandos out of London offices, across the street from Buckingham Palace. Their clients include petrochemical companies, multinational banks, embassies, nongovernmental organizations, and national and international organizations. One of DSL’s biggest contracts is with Mark Heathcote, a former M16 (British equivalent of the CIA) officer who ran operations in Argentina during the Falklands War. Heathcote is now the chief of security for British Petroleum (BP). In 1996, DSL sent a group of British personnel to train Colombian Police on BP-owned rigs. Training included lethal-weapons handling, sniper fire, and close quarter combat.
Another firm, Executive Outcomes, also offers mercenary armies to multinationals. Executive Outcomes fielded a private mercenary army in Angola in 1993, and offers high-tech security forces to corporations all over the world. In Nigeria, the Anglo-Dutch multinational Shell Corporation has been accused of causing major pollution in the Niger Delta for the last 38 years. Shell directly employs an elite detachment of Nigerian police to protect its own interests. Numerous demonstrators have been beaten and executed because of Shell operations in Nigeria.

Under Bush

Behind Blackwater Inc.
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2008, Story #7
Source: Jeremy Scahill, “Our Mercenaries in Iraq: Blackwater Inc and Bush’s Undeclared Surge,” Democracy Now! January 26, 2007, online at http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/26/1559232.

The company that most embodies the privatization of the military industrial complex—a primary part of the Project for a New American Century and the neoconservative revolution is the private security firm Blackwater (now called Xe). Blackwater is the most powerful mercenary firm in the world, with 20,000 soldiers, the world’s largest private military base, a fleet of twenty aircraft, including helicopter gunships, and a private intelligence division. The firm is also manufacturing its own surveillance blimps and target systems.
Blackwater is headed by a right-wing Christian-supremist and ex-Navy Seal named Erik Prince, whose family has had deep neo-conservative connections. Bush’s latest call for voluntary civilian military corps to accommodate the “surge” will add to over half a billion dollars in federal contracts with Blackwater, allowing Prince to create a private army to defend Christendom around the world against Muslims and others.
One of the last things Dick Cheney did before leaving office as Defense Secretary under George H. W. Bush was to commission a Halliburton study on how to privatize the military bureaucracy. That study effectively created the groundwork for a continuing war profiteer bonanza.

Administration Support for the Chemical Industry

Under Clinton

Clinton Administration Lobbied for Retention of Toxic Chemicals in Children’s Toys
Top 25 Censored Stories for 1999, Story #9

Source: Charlie Gray, “Out of the Mouths of Babes,” Multinational Monitor, June 1998.

The Clinton Administration and the Commerce Department have lobbied on behalf of U.S. toy and chemical manufacturers against proposed new European Union (EU) restrictions, which would prevent children’s exposure to toxic chemicals released by polyvinyl chloride (PVC) toys such as teething rings. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), suggesting that the U.S. government lobbied at the behest of toymaker Mattel and chemical manufacturer Exxon, may help explain the European Commission’s rejection of the proposed emergency ban. A cable from Vernon Weaver, the U.S. Representative to the EU in Brussels, sent “heartfelt thanks” to Washington and U.S. missions in Europe for “making contact” with member state representatives of the EU Product Safety Emergencies Committee. “We are told by Exxon Chemical Europe Inc. that the input was very effective and the weigh-in was invaluable.”
Health authorities in several European countries, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, have recommended a ban on PVC toys, such as teething rings and bath toys. The Spanish government requested action by the EU in March 1998. PVC, or polyvinyl chloride (also known as vinyl), is a common plastic that frequently contains toxic additives. The Front reports that no major U.S. retailers have taken precautionary action, chiefly because the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), which is responsible for toy safety regulations, has yet to take action.

Under Bush

Chemical Industry is EPA’s Primary Research Partner
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2007, Story #15

Sources: Jeff Ruch, “Chemical Industry Is Now EPA’s Main Research Partner,” Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, October 5, 2005; Jeff Ruch, “EPA Becoming Arm of Corporate R&D,” Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, October 6, 2005.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) research program is increasingly relying on corporate joint ventures, according to agency documents obtained by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The American Chemical Council (ACC) is now EPA’s leading research partner and the EPA is diverting funds from basic health and environmental research towards research that addresses regulatory concerns of corporate funders.
Since the beginning of Bush’s first term in office, there has been a significant increase in cooperative research and development agreements (CRADAs) with individual corporations or industry associations. During Bush’s first four years EPA entered into fifty-seven corporate CRADAs, compared to thirty-four such agreements during Clinton’s second term.
EPA scientists claim that corporations are influencing the agency’s research agenda through financial inducements. One EPA scientist wrote, “Many of us in the labs feel like we work for contracts.” In April 2005, EPA’s Science Advisory Board warned that the agency was no longer funding credible public health research. It noted, for example, that the EPA was falling behind on issues such as intercontinental pollution transport and nanotechnology.

Attacks on Journalists

Under Clinton

Did the U.S. Deliberately Bomb the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade?
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2001, Story #4

Sources: Joel Bleifuss, “A Tragic Mistake?” In These Times, December 12, 1999; Seth Ackerman, “Mission Implausible,” June 26, 2000, online at http://inthesetimes.com; Yoichi Shimatsu, “Reports Showing U.S. Deliberately Bombed Chinese Embassy Deliberately Ignored by U.S. Media,” Pacific News, October 20, 1999; Action Report, “NY Times on Chinese Embassy Bombing: Nothing to Report,” Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, February 9, 2000, online at http://www.fair.org/activism/china-response2.html.

Elements within the CIA may have deliberately targeted the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, without NATO approval, because it was serving as a rebroadcast station for the Yugoslavian army.
The London Observer and Copenhagen’s Politiken reported that, according to senior U.S. and European military sources, NATO knew very well where the Chinese embassy was located and listed it as a “strictly prohibited target” at the beginning of the war. The Observer stated that the CIA and its British equivalent, M16, had been listening to communications from the Chinese embassy routinely since it moved to its new site in 1996. The Chinese embassy was taken off the prohibited target list after NATO detected it sending Yugoslavian army signals to forces in the field. “Nearly everyone involved in NATO air operations (radio) signals command knows that the bombing was deliberate,” said Jens Holsoe of Politiken, lead investigative reporter on the news team reporting on the story.
President Clinton called the bombing a “tragic mistake” and said it was the result of a mix-up. NATO claimed that they were using old maps and got the address wrong. However, Observer reporters quoted a Naples-based flight controller who said the NATO maps that were used during the campaign had correctly identified the Chinese embassy.
A French Ministry of Defense report stated that the flight that targeted the Chinese embassy was not under NATO command, but rather an independent U.S. bombing raid. In July 1999, CIA director George Tenet testified before Congress that of the 900 sites struck by NATO during the bombing campaign, the only one targeted by the CIA was the Chinese embassy.

Under Bush

Journalists Face Unprecedented Dangers to Life and Livelihood
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2006, Story #7

Sources: Steve Weissman, “Dead Messengers: How the U.S. Military Threatens Journalists,” Truthout, February 28, 2005; online at http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/022405A.shtml; Dahr Jamail, “Media Repression in ‘Liberated’ Land,” Inter Press Service, November 18, 2004, online at  http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26333.

According to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)1, 2004 was the deadliest year for reporters since 1980, when records began to be kept. Over a 12-month span, 129 media workers were killed and 49 of those deaths occurred in the Iraqi conflict. According to independent journalist Dahr Jamail, journalists are increasingly being detained and threatened by the U.S.-installed interim government in Iraq. When the only safety for a reporter is being embedded with the U.S. military, the reported stories tend to have a positive spin. Non-embedded reporters suffer the great risk of being identified as enemy targets by the military.
The most blatant attack on journalists occurred the morning of April 8, 2004, when the Third Infantry fired on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad killing cameramen Jose Couso and Taras Protsyuk and injuring three others. The hotel served as headquarters for some 100 reporters and other media workers. The Pentagon officials knew that the Palestine Hotel was full of journalists and had assured the Associated Press that the U.S. would not target the building

Environmental Issues

Under Clinton

Clinton Administration Retreats on Ozone Crisis
Top 25 Censored Stories for 1995

Source: David Moberg, “Full of holes: Clinton’s retreat on the ozone crisis,” In These Times, January 24, 1994.

The ozone hole over Antarctica has continued to grow every year since its discovery in 1985 and damage to the ozone layer over heavily populated areas of the Northern Hemisphere also has been increasing rapidly. Scientists recorded all-time low levels of ozone over the United States in 1993.
The ultraviolet rays that penetrate a weakened ozone layer have been linked to increased cataracts, skin cancer, genetic damage and infectious diseases among humans — as well as reduced plant growth. Meanwhile, the Clinton administration has been moving backward on protecting the stratospheric ozone layer. This ominous precedent will encourage other industrial countries to stall on their own CFC phase-outs and puts the administration in a far weaker position to argue for an accelerated phase-out of CFCs in the developing countries where CFC production is soaring.
DuPont, the giant chemical firm that developed the first industrial CFC, had planned to halt CFC production at the end of 1994. Yet, in late 1993, EPA asked DuPont to keep making CFCs until 1996. The EPA defended its decision as a “consumer protection” measure that will make it easier for car owners to recharge their old air conditioners, which use CFCs as a cooling agent.

Under Bush
Bush Administration Manipulates Science and Censors Scientists
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2005, Story #3

Sources: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “The Junk Science of George W. Bush,” The Nation, March 8, 2004; “Censoring Scientific Information,” Censorship News: The National Coalition Against Censorship Newsletter, Fall 2003, #91; Sunny Lewis, “Ranking Scientists Warn Bush Science Policy Lacks Integrity,” Environment News Service and Oneworld.net, February 20, 2004; Committee on Government Reform – Minority Staff, “Politics And Science In The Bush Administration,” Office of U.S. Representative Henry A. Waxman, August 2003, updated November 13, 2003.

Critics charge that the Bush Administration is purging, censoring, and manipulating scientific information in order to push forward its pro-business, anti-environmental agenda. In Washington, D.C. more than 60 of the nation’s top scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, leading medical experts, and former federal agency directors, issued a statement on February 18, 2004 accusing the Bush Administration of deliberately distorting scientific results for political ends and calling for regulatory and legislative action to restore scientific integrity to federal policymaking.
Under the current administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has blacklisted qualified scientists who pose a threat to its pro-business ideology. When a team of biologists working for the EPA indicated that there had been a violation of the “Endangered Species Act” by the Army Corps of Engineers, the group was replaced with a “corporate-friendly” panel.

Media Deregulation

Under Clinton

Telecommunications Deregulation: Closing Up America’s “Marketplace of Ideas”
Top 25 Censored Stories for 1996, Story #1

Source: Ralph Nader, James Love, and Andrew Saindon, “Federal Telecommunications Legislation,” Consumer Project on Technology, July 14, 1995.

The Telecommunications Deregulation Bill, eliminates virtually all regulation of the United States communication industry. As tends to be the case with most anti-consumer legislation, the bill stealthily moved under the guise of “encouraging competition”—but will, in reality, have the opposite effect of creating huge new concentrations of media power.
The most troubling aspect of the bill allows easing-and outright elimination-of current anti-trust regulations. In what the New York Times described as “a dazzling display of political influence,” the nation’s broadcast networks scored big in the House version of the bill by successfully getting the limits on ownership eased so that any individual company can control television stations serving up to 50 percent of the country. The Senate version of the bill provides for a more modest 35 percent coverage.
The legislation also dismantles current regulations, which limit the number of radio stations that can be owned by a single company. Currently no one single company can own more than 40 stations. It also would lift the current FCC ban on joint ownership of a broadcast radio or TV license and a newspaper in the same market—allowing a single company to have 100 percent control over the three primary sources of news in a community.

Under Bush

FCC Moves to Privatize Airwaves
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2003, Story #1

Sources: Jeremy Rifkin, “Global Media Giants Lobby to Privatize Entire Broadcast System,” London Guardian, April 28, 2001 and in Media File, Autumn 2001 volume 20, #4; Brendan l. Koerner, “Losing Signal,” Mother Jones, Sept/October 2001; Dorothy Kidd, “Legal Project to Challenge Media Monopoly,” Media File, May/June 2001.

For almost 70 years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has administered and regulated the broadcast spectrum as an electronic “commons” on behalf of the American people. The FCC issues licenses to broadcasters that allow them, for a fee, to use, but not own, one or more specific radio or TV frequencies. Thus, the public has retained the ability to regulate, as well as influence, access to broadcast communications.
Several years ago, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, in their report “The Telecom Revolution: An American Opportunity,” recommended a complete privatization of the radio frequencies, whereby broadcasters with existing licenses would eventually gain complete ownership of their respective frequencies. They could thereafter develop them in markets of their choosing, or sell and trade them to other companies. The few non-allocated bands of the radio frequency spectrum would be sold off, as electronic real estate, to the highest bidders. With nothing then to regulate, the FCC would eventually be abolished. The reasoning behind this radical plan was that government control of the airwaves has led to inefficiencies. In private hands, the frequencies would be exchanged in the marketplace, and the forces of free-market supply and demand would foster the most creative (and, of course, most profitable) use of these electronic “properties.”
This privatization proposal was considered too ambitious by the Clinton administration. However, in February 2001, within months after a more “pro-business” president took office, 37 leading US economists requested, in a joint letter, that the FCC allow broadcasters to lease, in secondary markets, the frequencies they currently use under their FCC license. Their thinking was that with this groundwork laid, full national privatization would follow, and eventually nations would be encouraged to sell off their frequencies to global media enterprises.

Violations of International Treaties

Under Clinton

Planned Weapons in Space Violate International Treaty
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2000, Story #8

Sources: Karl Grossman, “US Violates World Law to Militarize Space,” Earth Island Journal, Winter/Spring 1999; Bruce K. Gagnon, “Pyramids to The Heavens Space,” Toward Freedom, September/ October 1999.

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 bans the deployment of space weapons of mass destruction. Recently the U.S. Congress ignored further need of such a treaty, and approved the development of the U.S. Military’s Space Command Weapons program. This sudden shift of viewpoint coincides with the complete absence of any foreign government competition, and with the increase in the ability of the US to effectively use satellite surveillance in military campaigns. The proposed system is designed to extend control of space far beyond the outer boundaries of the Earths atmosphere. To prevent deployment of any adversarial country’s satellites, the Pentagon is well along in its research and development of an anti-satellite weapons program. The reemergence of a “Star Wars” weapon system is echoed in the words of General Joseph Ashly, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Space Command: “It’s politically sensitive but its going to happen…we are going to fight from space and we are going to fight into space.” Concerned with the possibility of nuclear contamination of the atmosphere from satellite breakup, the European Space Agency has urged the US to utilize solar power to fuel space-military command modules.

Under Bush

Treaty Busting By the United States
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2004, Story #7

Sources: Marylia Kelly and Nicole Deller, “Rule of power or rule of law?” Connections, June 2002; John B. Anderson, “Unsigning the ICC,” The Nation, April 2002; Eamon Martin, “U.S. Invasion Proposal Shocks the Netherlands,” Ashville Global Report, June 20-26, 2002; John Valleau, “Nuclear Nightmare,” Global Outlook, Summer 2002.

The United States is a signatory to nine multilateral treaties that it has either blatantly violated or gradually subverted. The Bush Administration is now outright rejecting a number of those treaties, and in doing so places global security in jeopardy as other nations feel entitled to do the same. The rejected treaties include: The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Treaty Banning Antipersonnel Mines, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a protocol to create a compliance regime for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM). The U.S. is also not complying with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Chemical Weapons Commission (CWC), the BWC, and the UN framework Convention on Climate Change.
The ABM Treaty alone is a crucial factor in national security; letting Bush get away with facilitating its demise will destroy the balance of powers carefully crafted in our Constitution. The Bush Administration has no legitimate excuse for nullifying the ABM Treaty since the events that have threatened the security of the United States have not involved ballistic missiles, and none of them are in any way related to the subject matter of the ABM Treaty. Bush’s withdrawal violates the U.S. Constitution, international law, and Article XV of the ABM Treaty itself. The Bush Administration says it needs to get rid of the ABM Treaty so it can test the SPY radar on the Aegis cruisers against Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) and so that it can build a new test facility at Fort Greely, Alaska. In addition, some conservatives have willingly dismissed the ABM Treaty because it stands as the major obstacle towards development of a “Star Wars” missile defense system. Discarding treaty constraints and putting weapons in space is nothing short of pursuing absolute military superiority.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is crucial to global security because it bars the spread of nuclear weapons. The U.S. is currently in noncompliance with the NPT requirements, as demonstrated in the January 2002 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review. Moreover, critics charge that the National Ignition Facility (NIF) under construction at Livermore lab violates the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which the U.S. signed in 1996 but has not ratified. The CTBT bans nuclear explosions, and its language does not contain any “exceptions allowing laboratory thermonuclear explosions.”

Some Things Never Change: Power of Elites Inside the Trilateral Commission

Under President Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter and the Trilateral Commission
Top 25 Censored Stories for 1977, Story #1

Sources: Michael Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington, Joji Watanuki, The Crisis of Democracy: Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission, New York University Press, 1975; The Review of the News, August 18, 1976; Gar Smith, The Berkeley Barb, July 30, 1976; Gary Allen, “Carter Brings Forth a Cabinet,” American Opinion, February 1977; W.E. Barnes, Political Analyst, San Francisco Examiner, December 12, 1976; In These Times, February 2, 1977; Noam Chomsky, “Trilateral’s RX for Crisis: Governability Yes, Democracy No,” Seven Days, February 14, 1977.

In the election year of 1976, Jimmy Carter ran a successful campaign for the presidency based on his image as an anti-establishment, peanut-farming, ex-governor of the state of Georgia. Yet, since the fall of 1973, Carter had been associated with David Rockefeller and other members of an international power elite through his association with the Trilateral Commission, one of Rockefeller’s many policy-making organizations. According to the Italian publication Europa, as cited in The Review of The News, Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski, a founding director of the Trilateral Commission (TLC), had agreed on Carter’s potential as our next president as far back as 1970. Supportive of Carter’s close relationship with this little-known power elite is the fact that many members of his administration have been drawn from the membership rolls of the TLC. These include: Cyrus Vance, Secretary of State; Brzezinski, National Security Adviser; W. Michael Blumenthal, Secretary of Treasury; Harold Brown, Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; Warren Christopher, Deputy Secretary of State; Richard N. Cooper, Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs; Andrew Young, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; and C. Fred Bergsten, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Economic Affairs. Carter’s personal choice for vice president, Walter Mondale, is also a member of the TLC.

Under President Barack Obama

Obama’s Trilateral Commission Team
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2010, Story # 22

Source:  Patrick Wood, “Obama: Trilateral Commission Endgame,” The August Review, January 30, 2009, online at http://www.augustreview.com/news_commentary/trilateral_commission/obama%3a_trilateral_commission_endgame_20090127110/.

Barack Obama has appointed no less than eleven members of the Trilateral Commission to top-level and key positions in his Administration. During Obama’s presidential campaign Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller in 1973, was Obama’s principal foreign policy advisor.
According to official Trilateral Commission membership lists, there are only 87 members from the United States (the other 337 members are from other regions). Thus, in less than two weeks since his inauguration, Obama’s appointments encompass more than 12% of Commission’s entire U.S. membership.

Conclusion

“No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all avenues of the truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press.  It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.” –Thomas Jefferson, 1804

Media scholar and FreePress.net founder Robert McChesney in his work, Rich Media, Poor Democracy, wrote, “A media system set up to serve the needs of Wall Street and Madison Avenue cannot and does not serve the needs of the preponderance of the population . . .What types of important stories get almost no coverage in the commercial news media? The historical standard is that there is no coverage when the political and economic elites are in agreement.”
Reflecting upon the aforementioned examples of censored topics and stories, the bias of Project Censored seems to be quite simple: we promote protection of First Amendment rights in support of a truly free press, one that holds those in power, elected by the people or appointed, accountable. Investigating controversial and difficult subjects that impact society should not earn journalists and scholars the label “conspiracy theorist.” Labeling is a tactic of suppression and censorship.
Furthermore, supporting the US Constitution should not be distorted as an ideological bias of Left or Right. It is merely patriotic duty to enforce the rule of law, in so far as the law is based upon the true notions of liberty and justice for all.  Without media freedom, not only can democracy not thrive, it simply cannot exist.

Peter Phillips is professor of sociology at Sonoma State University, director of Project Censored, and President of the Media Freedom Foundation.

Mickey Huff is associate professor of history at Diablo Valley College, associate director of Project Censored and the Media Freedom Foundation, and the Project Censored College and University Affiliates Coordinator for Media Freedom International (http://mediafreedominternational.org).

Elliot van Patten and Frances A. Capell provided research and editing assistance for this article.

References

[1] The Open Chemical Physics Journal, Volume 2, ISSN: 1874-4125, Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe

pp.7-31, Authors: Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley, Bradley R. Larsen,

http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM. For more detailed, scientific discussion on these issues, including possibilities of controlled demolition, see Richard Gage andArchitects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth online at http://AE911Truth.org.

Then-President George W. Bush said to the UN in November, 2001, “Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th; malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty.”  Apparently, even though the eventual official story of the 9/11 Commission itself was a conspiracy theory, the press seemed to follow Bush’s lead by not looking closely at the many problems associated with the events of 9/11 (which can be viewed herehttp://www.projectcensored.org/articles/story/unanswered-questions-of-9-11-july-2005/).  Even most “left-leaning” journalists refuse to honestly and openly investigate the events of 9/11 as was noted by Peter Phillips in the study “Left Progressive Media Inside the Propaganda Model,” online at http://www.projectcensored.org/articles/story/left-progressive-media-inside-the-propaganda-model/.  For more fact-based information regarding the many research problems associated with the official government theories on 9/11, see http://911truth.org.

We in a free society should be entitled to robust debate in the press.  As Thomas Jefferson stated in his 1801 inaugural address, “If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change it’s republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it.”  This is a crucial component of media democracy.

[1] Uhrich, Kevin, Pasadena Weekly, “Uncovering Project Censored,” May 18, 2006.

[1] All the stories in this chapter were published by Project Censored as part of the Top 25 Censored Stories for each year between 1976 and 2009. Included here are only brief summaries of each story example.  For more details on each, please see the Project Censored website.  The stories are accessible online athttp://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/publications/.  There, the stories are catalogued by year in their top 25 rankings.  A subject archive is available online as well at http://ringnebula.com/. All other sources not in endnotes here are in the actual text of this article with more available online in the Project archives.

[1] Thomas Jefferson quote from The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia, p. 637.  Robert McChesney, Rich Media, Poor Democracy:  Communication Politics in Dubious Times, (New York:  The New Press, 1999, p. xiii, xviii).

In the 1950s and 60s the CIA began work to find means for influencing human cognition, emotion and behavior. Through the use of the psychological understanding of the human being as a social animal and the ability to manipulate a subject’s environment through isolation, drugs and hypnosis, US funded scientists have long searched for better means of controlling human behavior. This research has included the use of wireless directed electromagnetic energy under the heading of “Information Warfare” and “Non Lethal Weapons.” New technological capabilities have been developed in black budget projects[1] over the last few decades— including the ability to influence human emotion, disrupt thought, and present excruciating pain through the manipulation of magnetic fields. The US military and intelligence agencies have at their disposal frightful new weapons, weapons that have likely already been covertly used and/or tested on humans, both here and abroad, and which could be directed against the public in the event of mass protests or civil disturbance. Read the entire report here.

“When it comes to the news, the corporate view is ‘objective,’ all else is ‘propaganda.’”

—Studs Terkel

Among the most important Project Censored news stories of the past decade, one is the fact that over one million people have died because of the United States military invasion and occupation of Iraq. This, of course, does not include the number of deaths from the first Gulf War, nor the ensuing sanctions placed upon the country of Iraq that, combined, caused close to an additional two million Iraqi deaths. In the current Iraq War, beginning in March of 2003, over a million people died violently primarily from US bombings and neighborhood patrols. These were deaths in excess of the normal civilian death rate under the prior government. Among US military leaders and policy elites, the issue of counting the dead was dismissed before the Iraqi invasion even began. In an interview with reporters in late March of 2002 when the War on Terror was in its infancy, US General Tommy Franks stated, “You know we don’t do body counts.”(i) Fortunately, for those concerned about humanitarian costs of war and empire, others do.

In a January 2008 report, the British polling group Opinion Research Business (ORB) reported that “survey work confirms our earlier estimate that over 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have died as a result of the conflict which started in 2003. We now estimate that the death toll between March 2003 and August 2007 is likely to have been of the order of 1,033,000. If one takes into account the margin of error associated with survey data of this nature then the estimated range is between 946,000 and 1,120,000.”(ii)

The ORB report comes on the heels of two earlier studies conducted by Johns Hopkins University published in the Lancet medical journal that confirmed the continuing numbers of mass deaths in Iraq. A study done by Dr. Les Roberts from January 1, 2002 to March 18, 2003 put the civilian deaths at that time at over 100,000. A second study published in the Lancet in October 2006 documented over 650,000 civilian deaths in Iraq since the start of the US invasion. The 2006 study confirms that US aerial bombing in civilian neighborhoods caused over a third of these deaths and that over half the deaths are directly attributable to US forces.

The magnitude of these million-plus deaths and creation of such a vast refugee crisis is undeniable. The continuing occupation by US forces has guaranteed a monthly mass death rate of thousands of people—a carnage so severe and so concentrated as to equate it with the most heinous mass killings in world history. Further, more tons of bombs have been dropped in Iraq than all of World War II.[iii]

The American people are faced with a serious moral dilemma. Murder and war crimes have been conducted in America’s name. Yet most Americans have no idea of the magnitude of the deaths and tend to believe that the deaths are only in the thousands and are primarily Iraqis killing Iraqis. Corporate mainstream media is in large part to blame.

The question then becomes, how can this mass ignorance and corporate media deception exist in the United States of America, and what impact does this have on peace and social justice movements in the country?[iv]

Truth Emergency and Media Reform

In the United States today, the rift between reality and reporting has reached its end. There is no longer a mere credibility gap, but rather a literal Truth Emergency. Americans cannot access the truth about the issues that most impact their lives by relying on the mainstream corporate media. A Truth Emergency is a culmination of the failures of the fourth estate to act as a truly free press. This truth emergency exists not only as a result of fraudulent elections, pseudo 9/11 investigations, illegal preemptive wars, torture camps, and doctored intelligence, but also around issues that intimately impact everyday Americans. Yet these issues are rarely reported in corporate media outlets, where a vast majority of the American people continue to turn to for news and information.

Consider that most US workers have been faced with a thirty-five year decline in real wages while the top few percent enjoy unparalleled wealth with strikingly low tax burdens, creating a vastly disparate and widening wealth distribution gap. Furthermore, the US has the highest infant mortality rate among industrialized nations, is falling behind Europe and Asia in scientific research and education, faces closing factories and schools, laid off teachers, an actual 15 percent unemployment rate, multi-trillion dollar stratospheric national debt, a crumbling infrastructure, and is seriously lacking in healthcare quality and delivery. In fact, over 50 million Americans now lack healthcare coverage resulting in the deaths of 18,000 people a year. America has entered another Gilded Age. Someone should alert the media.[v]

This Truth Emergency Movement held its first national strategy summit in Santa Cruz, California from January 25- to 27, 2008. Organizers gathered key media constituencies to devise coherent decentralized models for distribution of suppressed news, synergistic truth-telling, and collaborative strategies to disclose, legitimize, and popularize deeper historical narratives on power and inequality in the US. In sum, this truth movement is seeking to discover in this moment of Constitutional crisis, ecological peril, and widening war, ways in which top investigative journalists, whistleblowers, and independent media activists can transform the way Americans perceive and defend their world.

There is another growing national movement to address mainstream media failures and policies in government, the Free Press or Media Reform Movement. However, this movement fails to address many issues of the actual Truth Emergency. During the 2008 National Conference for Media Reform (NCMR) in Minneapolis, MN, Project Censored interns and faculty conducted a sociological survey designed to gauge conference participant thoughts on the status quo of the news media as well as the truthfulness of corporate media news and effectiveness of the media reform movement. The survey also sought to determine the level of belief and support in a Truth Emergency in the US and the varying degrees of support for key truth issues regardless of their coverage at the NCMR conference.

The completed survey yielded 376 randomly selected NCMR attendees out of the 3,500 people registered for the conference. The survey has a statistical accuracy of plus or minus 5 percent at a 95 percent confidence interval, in that all the people at the NCMR hold the same beliefs.

Strong support was shown for the premise of a Truth Emergency in the US. The survey asked, Has corporate media failed to keep the American people informed on important issues facing the nation? Does a Truth Emergency exist in the United States?

The response was staggering. Ninety-nine percent strongly agreed, or agreed with

the first question, and only seven percent of responders disagreed with the characterization of current events as a Truth Emergency in the US. Yet few of the events, panels, or talks at the conference reflected these concerns.

Discovering the most effective ways to chisel at the bulwark of corrupt corporate

media will require continuing thought and effort. It is clear from our survey that media democracy activists strongly support the continuing development of independent media combined with aggressive reform efforts and policy changes as part of an overall media democracy movement. Activists also believe that both reform and grassroots independent media efforts will fit within an ongoing truth emergency theme that conducts deep investigative research into critical social justice issues. One activist said, “we cannot be afraid, democracy is in the balance.”

While recognizing that this survey was done at an independent media activist “reform” conference, fully expecting a great deal of agreement on the questions, it was still amazing that there was almost total agreement for grassroots media efforts in addition to reform work (especially given that most of the emphasis of the conference was on reform of existing mainstream media rather than direct action and grassroots movement approach with an independent and public focused journalistic endeavor). In other words, it was reassuring to see support for a media movement of the people, by the people, and for the people.[vi]

One statement on the survey, that a military-industrial-media complex exists in the US for the promotion of the US military domination of the world, received an 87 percent approval rating among the sample. This result showed that research done by Project Censored about the continuing powerful global dominance group inside the US government, the US media, and the national policy structure is widely believed by participants at the NCMR. [vii]

NCMR participants also overwhelmingly believe the leadership class in the US is now dominated by a neo-conservative group of some several hundred people who share goal of asserting US military power worldwide. This Global Dominance Group, in cooperation with major military contractors, the corporate media, and conservative foundations has become a powerful long-term force in military unilateralism and US political processes.

The Global Dominance Group and Information Control

A long thread of sociological research documents the existence of a dominant ruling class in the US, which sets policy and determines national political priorities. C. Wright Mills, in his 1956 book on the power elite, documented how World War II solidified a trinity of power in the US that comprised corporate, military, and government elites in a centralized power structure working in unison through “higher circles” of contact and agreement.[viii] This power has grown through the Cold War, and, after 9/11, the Global War on Terror.

The military expansionists from within the Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, and G. W. Bush administrations put into place solid support for increased military spending. Clinton’s model of supporting the US military industrial complex held steady defense spending and increased foreign weapons sales from 16 percent of global orders to over 63 pecent by the end of his administration. After 9/11, during the presidency of George W. Bush, defense spending and the national deficit climbed dramatically and federal authority became more concentrated. The US now spends over half of its discretionary budget on military related issues.

The Barack Obama administration is continuing the neo-conservative agenda of US military domination of the world—albeit with perhaps a kinder, gentler face. While overt torture is now forbidden for the CIA and Pentagon, and symbolic gestures like the closing of the Guantanamo prison are in evidence, a unilateral military dominance policy, expanding military budget, and wars of occupation and aggression will likely continue unabated. That has been the historical pattern.

Obama’s election brought a moment of hope for many. However, the new administration is not calling for decreased military spending, or a reversal of US military global dominance. Instead, Obama retained Robert Gates, thus making Obama the first president from an opposing party in US history to keep in place the outgoing administrations’ Secretary of Defense/War. Additionally, Obama is calling for an expanded war in Afghanistan and only minimal long-range reductions in Iraq.

Major defense contractors were seriously involved in the 2008 elections. Lockheed Martin gave $2,612,219 in total political campaign donations, with 49 percent to Democrats ($1,285,493) and 51 percent to Republicans ($1,325,159). Boeing gave $2,225,947 in 2008, with 58 percent going to Democrats, and General Dynamics provided $1,682,595 to both parties. Northrop Grumman spent over $20 million in 2008 hiring lobbyists to influence Congress, and Raytheon spent $6 million on lobbyists in the same period. In a revolving door appointment, Obama nominated William Lynn, Raytheon’s senior vice president for government operations and strategy, for the number two position in the Pentagon. Lynn was formally the Defense Department’s comptroller during the Clinton administration and was reputed to have been unable to account for over three trillion dollars in defense department spending during his administration.[ix]

The US now spends as much for defense as the rest of the world combined. At the beginning of 2009 the Global Dominance Group’s agenda is well established within higher circle policy councils and cunningly operationalized inside the US Government. They work hand in hand with defense contractors promoting deployment of US forces in over 1,000 bases worldwide.

The corporate media in the US like to think of themselves as the most accurate news reporting source of the day. The New York Times motto of “all the news that’s fit to print” is a clear example of this perspective, as is CNN’s “most trusted name in news” and Fox News Channel’s “We Report, You Decide” or “Fair and Balanced.” However, with corporate media coverage that increasingly focuses on a narrow range of celebrity updates, news from “official” government sources, and sensationalized crimes and disasters, the self-justification of being the most fit is no longer valid in the US. In fact, several studies done by Diane Farsetta at the Center for Media Democracy showed Pentagon propaganda penetration on mainstream corporate news in the guise of retired Generals as “experts” or pundits who turned out to be nothing more than paid shills for government war policy. While the Pentagon claimed this was legal, the Pentagon Inspector General’s office rescinded a report of the most recent propaganda investigation and even removed the report from its website because the office concluded the study “did not meet accepted quality standards for an Inspector General work product.”[x]

A global dominance agenda also includes penetration into the boardrooms of the

corporate media in the US. In 2006 only 118 people comprise the membership on the boards of director of the ten big media giants. These 118 individuals in turn sit on the corporate boards of 288 national and international corporations. Four of the top ten media corporations in the major defense contractors on their boards of directors, including:

William Kennard: New York Times, Carlyle Group
Douglas Warner III, GE (NBC), Bechtel

John Bryson: Disney (ABC), Boeing

Alwyn Lewis: Disney (ABC), Halliburton

Douglas McCorkindale: Gannett, Lockheed-Martin.

Given an interlocked media network, it is safe to say that big media in the United

States effectively represent the interests of corporate America. The media elite, a key

component of the Higher Circle Policy Elite in the US, are the watchdogs of acceptable ideological messages, the controllers of news and information content, and the decision makers regarding media resources.

An important case of Pentagon influence over the corporate media is CNN’s

retraction of the story about US Military use of sarin (a nerve gas) in 1970 in Laos during

the Vietnam War. CNN producers April Oliver and Jack Smith, after an eight-month

investigation, reported on CNN June 7, 1998, and later in Time magazine that sarin gas

was used in Operation Tailwind in Laos, and that American defectors were targeted. The

story was based on eyewitness accounts and high military command collaboration. Under

tremendous pressure from the Pentagon, Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, and Richard

Helms, CNN and Time retracted the story by saying, “The allegations about the use of

nerve gas and the killing of defectors are not supported by the evidence.” Oliver and

Smith were both fired by CNN later that summer. They have steadfastly stood by their

original story as accurate and substantiated. CNN and Time, under intense Pentagon

pressure, quickly reversed their position after having fully approved the release of the

story only weeks earlier. April Oliver feels that CNN and Time capitulated to the

Pentagon’s threat to lock them out of future military stories.

Even ten years later, CNN has a difficult time reporting on their own complicity with the Pentagon in creating propaganda, this time with the retired Pentagon Generals pundit scandal. The Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, which was announced in April of 2009, went to The New York Times’ David Barstow for his reporting on this very subject, yet CNN, while covering the list of Pulitzer winners, made no mention of his award or his reporting on the CNN/Pentagon connection (which was also reported by Diane Farsetta at PR Watch).[xi]

Not only is the corporate media deeply interlocked with the military industrial complex and global dominance policy elites in the US, but the media is increasingly dependent on various governmental and corporate sources of news. Maintenance of continuous news shows requires a constant feed and an ever-entertaining supply of stimulating events and breaking news bites. The twenty-four-hour news shows on MSNBC, Fox and CNN maintain constant contact with the White House, Pentagon, and public relations companies representing both government and private corporations.

Symbiotic global news distribution is a conscious and deliberate attempt by the powerful to control news and information in society. The Homeland Security Act Title II Section 201(d)(5) specifically asks the directorate to “develop a comprehensive plan for securing the key resources and critical infrastructure of the United States including information technology and telecommunications systems (including satellites) emergency preparedness communications systems.”

Media critic and historian Norman Solomon wrote in 2005, “One way or another, a military-industrial complex now extends to much of corporate media. In the process, firms with military ties routinely advertise in news outlets. Often, media magnates and people on the boards of large media-related corporations enjoy close links—financial and social—with the military industry and Washington’s foreign-policy establishment.”[xii]

By the time of the 1991 Gulf War, retired colonels, generals and admirals had become mainstays in network TV studios during wartime. Language such as “collateral damage” flowed effortlessly between journalists and military men, who shared perspectives on the occasionally mentioned and even more rarely seen civilians killed by US firepower.[xiii]

In the early 1990s, Chris Hedges covered the Gulf War for the New York Times. Ten years later, he wrote, “The notion that the press was used in the war is incorrect. The press wanted to be used. It saw itself as part of the war effort. Truth-seeking independence was far from the media agenda. The press was as eager to be of service to the state during the war as most everyone else. Such docility on the part of the press made it easier to do what governments do in wartime, indeed what governments do much of the time, and that is lie.”[xiv] Of course, this critique is not new. I.F. Stone, the iconoclastic investigative journalist once wrote, “All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.”[xv]

The problem then becomes more complex. What happens to a society that begins to believe such lies as truth? What happens to leaders that begin to believe, too? And what becomes of those in the society that do not believe the lies because they find facts are more of a guiding light? The run-up to the current war in Iraq concerning so-called weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) is a grand example. It illustrates the power of propaganda in creating not only public support for an ill begotten war, but it promotes a languishing, if not outright impotent, peace movement even when fueled by truth to stop a war based on false pretences. The current war in Iraq was the most globally protested war in recorded history even before it began, and this did nothing to stop it and has done little to end it even under a now Democratic president that promised such on the campaign trail. The candidate of hope and change, with many progressive and peace groups in tow, has proven to be much of the same caliber of a leader in foreign policy that got the US into war in the first place.[xvi]

Understanding Modern Media Censorship

In order to understand modern media censorship in the US, there is a growing need to broaden its definition. The dictionary definition of direct government control of news as censorship is no longer adequate. The private corporate media in the US significantly under covers and/or deliberately censors numerous important news stories every year. A broader definition of censorship in America today needs to include any interference, deliberate or not, with the free flow of vital news information to the American people. Modern censorship can be seen as the subtle yet persistent and sophisticated manipulation of reality in our mass media outlets. On a daily basis, censorship refers to the intentional non-inclusion of a news story—or piece of a news story—based on anything other than a desire to tell the truth. Such manipulation can take the form of political pressure (from government officials and powerful individuals), economic pressure (from advertisers, funders, and underwriters), and legal pressure (the threat of lawsuits from deep-pocket individuals, corporations, and institutions).

The common theme of the most censored stories over the past few years has been the systemic erosion of human rights and civil liberties in both the US and the world at large. The corporate media ignored the fact that habeas corpus can now be suspended for anyone by order of the President. With the approval of Congress, the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006, signed by Bush on October 17, 2006, allows for the suspension of habeas corpus for US citizens and non-citizens alike. While the mainstream corporate media, including the New York Times with it’s lead editorial piece published on October 19, 2006, have given false comfort that American citizens will not be the victims of the measures legalized by this Act, the law is quite clear that ‘any person’ can be targeted.[xvii]

Additionally, under the code-name Operation FALCON (Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally), federally coordinated mass arrests occurring since April 2005 netted over 54,000 arrests, a majority of which were actually not violent criminals, the opposite of what was initially suggested. This unprecedented move of arresting tens of thousands of “fugitives” is the largest dragnet style operation in the nation’s history. The raids, coordinated by the Justice Department and Homeland Security, directly involved over 960 agencies (state, local and federal) and mark the first time in US history that all domestic police agencies have been put under the direct control of the federal government.[xviii]

All these events are significant in a democratic society that alleges to cherish individual rights and due process of law. To have them occur is a tragedy and farce. To have a free press not report them or pretend they do not matter is the foundation of censorship today.

Are Americans Unfeeling Towards War?

The failure of the corporate media to cover moral issue raising questions like one million deaths of Iraqis is a contributing factor to a very limited public response to the war on terror being conducted around the world by the US. Even when activists do mobilize, the corporate media coverage of anti-war demonstrations has been negligible and denigrating from the start.

Linda Milazzo writes about the major anti-war march in Washington, DC on September 15, 2007: “I, along with 100,000 kindred activists, marched through the nation’s capitol where we were pretty much ignored. The minimal media we did get was distorted and untrue. When a small, sadistic band of war-hawks showed up to oppose us, the press slanted their numbers as if they equaled our own. The truth is, their numbers were one-hundreth the size of ours, although one would never know that from this deceptive headline in The Washington Post, “Dueling Demonstrations.”[xix] It’s a travesty to democracy that mainstream journalists of the so-called free press ignore the anti-war movement and serve the interests of their corporate masters in the military media industrial complex to the detriment of the nation and perhaps the world.[xx]

Not only does the corporate media disregard the anti-war movement in the US, the human costs of the war are ignored as well. An investigative research study done at Project Censored at Sonoma State University focused on news photographs appearing on the front pages of the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle during two periods, from March to December 2003 and from January 2006 to March 2007. Examining these data, the researchers asked, how frequently do front-page news photographs depict war in Afghanistan or Iraq? And, to what extent do these photos portray the human cost of those wars?

Based on content analysis of over 6,000 front-page news photos, spanning 1,389 days of coverage, researchers found that only 12.8 percent of the photos analyzed relate in some way to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. A mere 3.3 percent of those front page news photos represent war’s most fundamental human cost, by depicting dead, injured, or missing humans. This research documents the enormous gap between the number of actual deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq during this time span, which numbers hundreds of thousands, and the number of deaths depicted visually, through front page photographs—just forty-eight images of human death. Researchers concluded that the human cost of war is permitted only a small marginal position on the front pages of US newspapers.[xxi]

Visuals, including news photographs, play a crucial role in how readers experience newspapers and engage the stories that they contain. For example, the Poynter Institute’s ongoing “Eyes on the News” study demonstrates that 90 percent of readers enter pages through large photographs or other visual images; running a visual element increases by three times the likelihood that the reader will read at least some of the accompanying text; and readers’ comprehension and recall increase when photographs or other visuals accompany stories.

The one-two combination of the negation of human suffering and a neglected anti-war movement contributes to an underlying belief that the 9/11 wars and occupations are justified. A Gallup poll conducted in March of 2009 indicated, “Forty-two percent of Americans now say the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Afghanistan, up from 30% earlier this year and establishing a new high. Meanwhile, the 53% who say the Iraq war is a mistake is down slightly from 56% in January, and 60% last summer.” While over 50 percent of the public still believes it was a mistake to invade Iraq, 58 percent still thinks invading Afghanistan was the right thing to do.[xxii]

Further, the corporate mainstream press continues to ignore the human cost of the US war in Iraq with America’s own veterans. Veteran care, wounded rates, mental disabilities, denied or delayed VA claims, first hand accounts of soldier experiences, and more are avoided like the plague in corporate mainstream media. Short of the Walter Reed VA hospital care scandal, little has been covered. One of the most important stories missed by the corporate press was about the Winter Soldier Congressional hearings in Washington, DC. The hearings, with eyewitness testimony of US soldiers relating their experiences on the battlefield and beyond, were only covered by a scant number of major media outlets including the Boston Globe and NPR, but only in passing mention. In contrast to the virtual corporate media blackout even about American soldiers’ views of the war, the independent, listener sponsored, community Pacifica radio network covered the hearings at length.[xxiii]

Americans do care about human suffering and external wars when they are informed about what the powerful are doing. Millions of Americans voted for Barack Obama as a peace candidate. Barack Obama’s election to the US presidency in November of 2008 added to the view that something is being done to end the 9/11 wars as there were many promises on the campaign trial hoping for change of Bush administration policies. This belief that change will come belies what Obama administration actions have actually shown about war policies, especially in Afghanistan, where US troop presence is actually growing, and this belief further contributes to a lackluster anti-war movement in the US despite what the facts show.[xxiv]

The Left Progressive Press

Where the left progressive press may have covered some of the Winter Soldier issues, most did not cover the major story of Iraqi deaths. Even the left progressive media has shown limited coverage of the human costs of the 9/11 wars. In Manufacturing Consent, Wharton School of Business Professor of Political Economy Edward Herman and MIT Institute Professor of Linguistics Noam Chomsky claim that because media is firmly embedded in the market system, it reflects the class values and concerns of its owners and advertisers. According to Herman and Chomsky, the media maintains a corporate class bias through five systemic filters: concentrated private ownership; a strict bottom-line profit orientation; over-reliance on governmental and corporate sources for news; a primary tendency to avoid offending the powerful; and an almost religious worship of the market economy, strongly opposing alternative beliefs. These filters limit what will become news in society and set parameters on acceptable coverage of daily events.[xxv]

The danger of these filters is that they make subtle and indirect censorship all the more difficult to combat. Owners and managers share class identity with the powerful and are motivated economically to please advertisers and viewers. Social backgrounds influence their conceptions of what is “newsworthy,” and their views and values seem only “common sense.” Journalists and editors are not immune to the influence of owners and managers. Journalists want to see their stories approved for print or broadcast, and editors come to know the limits of their freedom to diverge from the “common sense” worldview of owners and managers. The self-discipline that this structure induces in journalists and editors comes to seem only “common sense” to them as well. Self-discipline becomes self-censorship—independence is restricted, the filtering process hidden, denied, or rationalized away.

Project Censored conducted an analysis on the top ten left progressive publications and websites coverage of key post-9/11 issues and found considerable limitations on coverage of specific stories. Based on the evidence presented it can be concluded Chomsky and Herman’s understandings may well contribute to the news story selection process inside the left liberal media as well.[xxvi]

In the case of the one millions dead Iraqis the left progressive press has shown late and limited coverage at best. The million dead number emerged in the summer of 2007 on several websites including after Downing Street, Huffington Post, Counter Punch, and Alternet. Progressive journalist stalwart Amy Goodman at Democracy Now! didn’t cover the story until February of 2008 after Reuters had it a few days before. The Nation magazine didn’t acknowledge the story until February 16, 2009 in an article by John Tirman at MIT. This underplaying and lack of reporting such a critical story on the humanitarian crisis of the US occupation by the left press in America does not bode well for a strong, public, peace movement. The US is in dire need of a media democracy movement to address Truth Emergency concerns. There are examples that could be instrumental in adopting such strategies available from the international community.

International Models of Media Democracy in Action: Venezuela

Democracy from the bottom is evolving as a ten-year social revolution in Venezuela. Led by President Hugo Chavez, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela ((PSUV) gained over 1½ million voters in the most recent elections November 23, 2008. “It was a wonderful victory,” said Professor Carmen Carrero with the communications studies department of the Bolivarian University in Caracas. “We won 81 percent of the city mayor positions and seventeen of twenty-three of the state governors,” Carrero reported.

The Bolivarian University is housed in the former oil ministry building and now serves 8,000 students throughout Venezuela. The University (Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela) is symbolic of the democratic socialist changes occurring throughout the country. Before the election of Hugo Chavez as president in 1998, college attendance was primarily for the rich in Venezuela. Today over one million, eight hundred thousand students attend college, three times the rate ten years ago. “Our university was established to resist domination and imperialism,” reported Principal (president) Marlene Yadira Cordova in an interview November 10, 2008, “We are a university where we have a vision of life that the oppressed people have a place on this planet.” The enthusiasm for learning and serious-thoughtful questions asked by students was certainly representative of a belief in the potential of positive social change for human betterment. The University offers a fully-staffed free healthcare clinic, zero tuition, and basic no-cost food for students in the cafeteria, all paid for by the oil revenues now being democratically shared by the people.

Bottom up democracy in Venezuela starts with the 25,000 community councils elected in every neighborhood in the country. “We establish the priority needs of our area,” reported community council spokesperson Carmon Aponte, with the neighborhood council in the barrio Bombilla area of western Caracas. Community radio, TV and newspapers are the voice of the people, where they describe the viewers/listeners as the “users” of media instead of the passive audiences.[xxvii]

Democratic socialism means healthcare, jobs, food, and security, in neighborhoods where in many cases nothing but absolute poverty existed ten years ago. With unemployment down to a US level, sharing the wealth has taken real meaning in Venezuela. Despite a 50 percent increase in the price of food last year, local Mercals offer government subsidized cooking oil, corn meal, meat, and powdered milk at 30-50 percent off market price. Additionally, there are now 3,500 local communal banks with a $1.6 billion dollar budget offering neighborhood-based micro-financing loans for home improvements, small businesses, and personal emergencies.

“We have moved from a time of disdain [pre-revolution—when the upper classes saw working people as less than human] to a time of adjustment,” proclaimed Ecuador’s minister of Culture, Gallo Mora Witt at the opening ceremonies of the Fourth International Book Fair in Caracas November 7. Venezuela’s Minister of Culture, Hector Soto added, “We try not to leave anyone out . . . before the revolution the elites published only 60-80 books a year, we will publish 1,200 Venezuelan authors this year . . . the book will never stop being the important tool for cultural feelings.” In fact, some twenty-five million books—classics by Victor Hugo and Miguel de Cervantes, along with Cindy Sheehan’s Letter to George Bush—were published in 2008 and are being distributed to the community councils nationwide. The theme of the International Book Fair was books as cultural support to the construction of the Bolivarian revolution and building socialism for the twenty-first century.

In Venezuela the corporate media are still owned by the elites. The five major TV networks, and nine of ten of the major newspapers maintain a continuing media effort to undermine Chavez and the socialist revolution. But despite the corporate media and continuing US taxpayer financial support to the anti-Chavez opposition institutions from USAID and National Endowment for Democracy ($20 million annually), two-thirds of the people in Venezuela continue to support President Hugo Chavez and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. The democracies of South America are realizing that the neo-liberal formulas for capitalism are not working for the people and that new forms of resource allocation are necessary for human betterment. It is a learning process for all involved and certainly a democratic effort from the bottom up.

International Models of Media Democracy in Action: Cuba

“You cannot kill truth by murdering journalists,” said Tubal Páez, president of the Journalist Union of Cuba. In May of 2008, One hundred and fifty Cuban and South American journalists, ambassadors, politicians, and foreign guests gathered at the Jose Marti International Journalist Institute to honor the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Carlos Bastidas Arguello —the last journalist killed in Cuba. Carlos Bastidas was only twenty-three years of age when he was assassinated by Fulgencia Batista’s secret police after having visited Fidel Castro’s forces in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. Edmundo Bastidas, Carlos’ brother, told about how a river of change flowed from the Maestra (teacher) mountains, symbolized by his brother’s efforts to help secure a new future for Cuba.

The celebration in Havana was held in honor of World Press Freedom Day, which is observed every year in May. The UN first declared this day in 1993 to honor journalists who lost their lives reporting the news and to defend media freedom worldwide.

Cuban journalists share a common sense of a continuing counter-revolutionary threat by US financed Cuban-Americans living in Miami. This is not an entirely unwarranted feeling in that many hundreds of terrorist actions against Cuba have occurred with US backing over the past fifty years. In addition to the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, these attacks include the blowing up of a Cuban airlines plane in 1976 resulting in the deaths of seventy-three people, the starting in 1981 of an epidemic of dengue fever that killed 158 people, and several hotel bombings in the 1990s, one of which resulted in the death of an Italian tourist.

In the context of this external threat, Cuban journalists quietly acknowledge that some self-censorship will undoubtedly occur regarding news stories that could be used by the “enemy” against the Cuban people. Nonetheless, Cuban journalists strongly value freedom of the press and there was no evidence of overt restriction or government control.

Cuban journalists complain that the US corporate media is biased and refuses to cover the positive aspects of socialism in Cuba. Unknown to most Americans are the facts that Cuba is the number one organic country in the world, has an impressive health care system with a lower infant mortality rate than the US, trains doctors from all over the world, and has enjoyed a 43 percent increase in GDP over the past three years.

Ricardo Alarcon, President of the National Assembly, discussed bias in the US media, “how often do you see Gore Vidal interviewed on the US media?” he asked. Vidal has recently said that the US is in its ‘worst phase in history.’ Perhaps Cuba uses corporate news to excess,” he said. “Cuban journalists need to link more to independent news sources in the US.” Alarcon went on to say that Cuba allows CNN, AP and Chicago Tribune to maintain offices in Cuba, but that the US refuses to allow Cuban journalists to work in the United States.

As the Cuban socialist system improves, the US does everything it can to artificially force cold war conditions by funding terrorist attacks, maintaining an economic boycott, launching a new anti-terrorism Caribbean naval fleet, and increasingly limiting US citizen travel to Cuba. It is time to reverse this cold war isolationist position, honor the Cuban people’s choice of a socialist system, and build a positive working relationship between journalists in support of media democracy in both countries.[xxviii]

Grassroots Antidotes to Corporate Media Propaganda

George Seldes once said, “Journalism’s job is not impartial ‘balanced’ reporting. Journalism’s job is to tell the people what is really going on.” Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore’s top-grossing movie Sicko is one example of telling the people what is really going on. Health care activists know that US health insurance is an extremely large and obscenely lucrative industry with the top nine companies “earning” $93 billion in profits in 2006 alone. The health-care industry represents the country’s third-largest economic sector, trailing only energy and retail among the 1,000 largest US firms. Despite Moore’s film, and despite the fact that an overwhelming number of doctors and a majority of Americans want a single payer healthcare system for all Americans, the Obama administration, Congress, and the corporate media have been deaf to the wishes of health-care practitioners and the public will in their debate to “reform” the system. Single payer, the public is told, like impeachment before it, is not on the table no matter what the facts, no matter what the percentages of public support. This is a characteristic of a failing republic, a dysfunctional democracy.

Tens of thousands of Americans engaged in various social justice issues constantly witness how corporate media marginalize, denigrate, or simply ignore their concerns. Activist groups working on issues like 9/11 truth, election fraud, impeachment, war propaganda, civil liberties/torture, the Wall Street bailouts, healthcare reform, and many corporate-caused environmental crises have been systematically excluded from mainstream news and the national conversation leading to a genuine Truth Emergency in the country as a whole.

Now, however, a growing number of activists are finally saying “enough!” and joining forces to address this truth emergency by developing new journalistic systems and practices of their own. They are working to reveal the common corporate denominators behind the diverse crises we face and to develop networks of trustworthy news sources that tell the people what is really going on. These activists know there is need for journalism that moves beyond forensic inquiries into particular crimes and atrocities, and exposes wider patterns of corruption, propaganda, and illicit political control to rouse the nation to reject a malignant corporate status quo.

Recent efforts at national media reform through micro-power community radio—similar to the 400 people’s radio stations in Venezuela—and campaign finance changes, which would mandate access for all candidates on national media, have been strongly resisted by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). NAB, considered one of the most powerful corporate lobby groups in Washington, works hard to protect over $200 billion dollars of annual advertising and the several hundred million dollars political candidates spend in each election cycle.

The Truth Emergency movement now recognizes that corporate media’s political power and its failure to meet its First Amendment obligation to keep the public informed leaves a huge task to be done. Citizens must mobilize resources to redevelop news and information systems from the bottom up. Citizen journalists can expand distribution of news via small independent newspapers, local magazines, independent radio, and cable access TV. Using the Internet, the public can interconnect with like-minded grassroots news organizations to share important stories. These changes are already in progress with more to come.

Becoming the Media: Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored International

In response to Truth Emergency conference outcomes, the Media Freedom Foundation and Project Censored launched an effort to both become a repository of independent news and information as well as a producer of content in what are called Validated Independent News stories vetted by college and university professors and students around the world. As corporate media continues their entertainment agenda and the PR industry—working for governments and corporations—increasingly dominates the content, we have the socio-cultural opening to transform how the public receives their news.

Project Censored believes that corporate media is increasingly irrelevant to democracy and working people in the world, and that we need to tell our own news stories from the bottom up. What better project in support of media democracy than for universities and colleges worldwide to support truth telling and validate news stories and independent news sources?

Only 5 percent of college students under thirty read a daily newspaper. Most get all their news from corporate television and increasingly from the Internet. One of the biggest problems with independent media sources on the Internet is a perception of inconsistent reliability. The public is often suspicious of the truthfulness and accuracy of news postings from non-corporate media sources. Over the past ten years, in hundreds of presentations all over the US, Project Censored staff has frequently been asked, “what are the best sources for news and whom do we trust?”

The goal of this effort is to encourage young people to use independent media as their primary sources of news and information and to learn about trustworthy news sources through the Project Censored International News Research Affiliate Program. There are currently thirty affiliate colleges and there are plans to expand college and university participation tenfold this next year. Through these institutions of higher learning, validated independent news stories can be researched by students and scholars, then written, produced and disseminated via the web. In addition to the production of validated independent news content, on any given day at the Media Freedom Foundation website, one can view enough independent news stories from RSS feeds to fill nearly fifty written pages, more than even the largest US newspapers.[xxix]

The Hope for Real Information Change

Recently, the US Senate Judiciary Committee began considering a truth and reconciliation commission as has been done in countries with troubled pasts to seek knowledge and healing over controversial or even illegal and catastrophic issues. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy “wants Congress to convene an independent, blue-ribbon commission to poke into some of the dark secrets and possible government wrongdoing of the Bush years: the alleged torture of prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, controversial warrantless wiretapping, and the politicization of the hiring and firing of federal prosecutors.” According to a recent Gallup Poll, six in ten Americans agree.[xxx] Despite such public outcry and even high-ranking mention in the Senate, it is doubtful there is political will to follow through in light of the continuing economic meltdown emanating from Wall Street echoing through Main Street. Further, President Obama has already remarked that he wants to look forward and not backward while tackling the country’s problems, insinuating that he is not interested in pursuing Bush administration crimes. Only a massive public groundswell can possibly change this, which requires an even more informed and empowered populace. After all, the facts are on their side.[xxxi]

It is up to the people to unite and oppose the common oppressors manifested in a militarist and unresponsive government along with their corporate media lapdogs and PR propagandists. Only then, when the public forms and controls its own information resources, will it become armed with the power that knowledge gives to move forward, not under reformist mindsets, but to create a new and truly vibrant democratic society that promises as well as delivers liberty, peace, and prosperity to all.

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of the Media Freedom Foundation and Project Censored.

Mickey Huff is an Associate Professor of History and Social Science at Diablo Valley College and Associate Director of the Media Freedom Foundation and Project Censored.

Notes

US General Tommy Franks, quoted in The San Francisco Chronicle, March 23, 2002, online athttp://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2002/020323-attack01.htm.
[ii] Peter Phillips and Andrew Roth, Censored 2009, (New York: Seven Stories, Press, 2008), pp. 19-25. This story is the number one censored story of the year at Project Censored for this year, archived online athttp://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/1-over-one-million-iraqi-deaths-caused-by-us-occupation/ and for the earlier casualty numbers see http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-polya070207.htm.

[iii] Mass killings from Rwanda to Darfur, from Cambodia to Viet Nam, have ranged from the hundreds of thousands to several millions, with Iraq now an easy rival in between. Watch AlterNet.org columnist Joshua Holland’s speak at Project Censored’s “Modern Media Censorship Lecture Series” from September 25, 2008, athttp://www.projectcensored.org/lectures/lecture092508/ . His article about the over one million dead in Iraq can be seen at http://www.alternet.org/images/home/splash/6words_splash.php. For more on the refugees see Dahr Jamail’s “Iraq: Not Our Country to Return To” at http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41430.

[iv] Various theories exist on the problem of the subject, from historian Rick Shenkman’s Just How Stupid Are We to historian and cultural critic Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas, but few examine its affects on the peace community. For more on the issue of American historical amnesia, see Gore Vidal on Democracy Now! Athttp://www.democracynow.org/2004/5/21/gore_vidal_on_the_united_states. See also, In These Times,http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3099/the_united_states_of_amnesia/ and for a broader academic look at the issue of how Americans have become arguably the least informed, most entertained people in the modern world, reference the now classic work from the late New York University media scholar Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, (New York: Viking Adult, 1985). This article hopes to shine more light on the impact of all of the aforementioned on the peace movement in general and what can be done about it. For another view of this written earlier, at the outset of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, see Felix Kolb and Alicia Swords, “Do Peace Movements Matter?” Commondreams.org, May 12, 2003, online athttp://www.commondreams.org/views03/0512-08.htm.

[v] For the Institute of Medicine study on lack of healthcare related deaths see http://www.iom.edu/?id=19175; also see the study done by Peter Phillips at Sonoma State University athttp://www.projectcensored.org/articles/story/practices-in-health-care/ and cited in Michael Moore’s 2007 film, Sicko. For a broader look at the Truth Emergency movement and its many facets from election fraud to 9/11, from torture to the fiscal crisis, see http://truthemergency.us/ as well as the essay on Truth Emergency by Peter Phillips and David Kubiak at http://www.projectcensored.org/articles/story/truth-emergency-us/.

[vi] For more on the NCMR study, see Peter Phillips and Andy Roth, eds., Censored 2009, (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2008), chapter 11, “Truth Emergency Meets Media Reform” pp. 281-295. For more on the NCMR, seehttp://freepress.net.

[vii] In addition to the Media Reform study in chapter 11 of Censored 2009 cited above, see Peter Phillips, Censored 2007, (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2006), pp. 307-341. “The Global Dominance Group and US Corporate Media” by Peter Phillips, Bridget Thornton, and Lew Brown, is online at http://www.projectcensored.org/articles/story/the-global-dominance-group/.

[viii] C. Wright Mills. The Power Elite, Oxford, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, reissue).

[ix] Peter Phillips, “Barack Obama Administration Continues US Military Dominance,”http://www.projectcensored.org/articles/story/http-wwwprojectcensoredorg-articles-story-barack-obama-administration-c/.

[x] Diane Farsetta, Center for Media Democracy, studies on Pentagon propaganda online athttp://www.prwatch.org/pentagonpundits and http://www.prwatch.org/node/8180. Zachary Roth, Lawmaker On Withdrawn IG Report: “The American People Have Been Misled” May 6, 2009,http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/05/lawmaker_on_withdrawn_ig_report_the_american_peopl.php.

[xi] Peter Phillips, Censored 1999, (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1999). For Operation Tailwind and CNN, see chapter 5, pp. 158-163, and http://www.putnampit.com/ppeditorialjuly18-1998.html. Glenn Greenwald, “The Pulitzer-winning investigation that dare not be uttered on TV,” April 21, 2009, online athttp://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/21/pulitzer/. See previous endnote for the link to Diane Farsetta’s piece.

[xii] Norman Soloman, “The Military-Industrial-Media Complex: Why war is covered from the warriors’ perspective,” Extra! July/August 2005, published by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2627.

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv] Quoted by Norman Soloman at http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/media/2005/07militarymedia.html. Originally published in Chris Hedges, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, (Cambridge: Public Affairs, Perseus Group, 2002). This phenomenon goes back to journalist Louis O’Sullivan coining the phrase “Manifest Destiny’ in 1845 in the New York papers on the eve of the Mexican American War. The Hearst newspapers in New York on the run up to the Spanish American War also willingly spread false claims of the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine. Edward Bernays and George Creel further used a compliant press to rouse support for US entrance in WWI and the same happened after Pearl Harbor in WWII. Each time, each source, was not interested in independent, factual reporting, rather, they were interested in being useful tools of the powerful to fulfill establishment policies. For an overview of propaganda history and US war policy as well as a deeper look at media myth making through the events of 9/11, see Mickey Huff and Paul Rea, chapter 14 in Censored 2009, “Deconstructing Deceit: 9/11, the Media, and Myth Information,” pp. 341-364, or the expanded version online athttp://www.projectcensored.org/articles/story/deconstructing-deceit/.

[xv] I.F. Stone, In a Time of Torment: 1961-1967, (New York: Random House, 1967), p. 317.

[xvi] For an overview study of Iraq War propaganda, see John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq (New York, Tarcher Penguin, 2003), and their follow up Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies, and the Mess in Iraq, (New York: Penguin, 2006). For reports on the continuation of war policy under President Barack Obama, see Center for Media Democracy’s John Stauber, “How Obama Took Over the Peace Movement,” http://www.prwatch.org/node/8297, and Peter Phillips, “Barack Obama Administration Continues US Military Dominance,” http://www.projectcensored.org/articles/story/http-wwwprojectcensoredorg-articles-story-barack-obama-administration-c/.

[xvii] Peter Phillips, Censored 2008, (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2007), pp. 35-44. Online athttp://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/1-no-habeas-corpus-for-any-person/ andhttp://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/2-bush-moves-toward-martial-law/.

[xviii] See Censored 2008, chapter 1, story 6, pp. 55-59. Also online at http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/6-operation-falcon-raids/. The stories mentioned here are only a few examples. For a complete up to date list of current censored stories, see Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff, eds., Censored 2010 , chapter 1 of this volume for the latest list of Project Censored’s most important stories missed or distorted by corporate mainstream news for 2008 and 2009. Also see the Media Freedom Foundation PNN website for year round validated independent news stories online at http://mediafreedom.pnn.com/5174-independent-news-sources.

[xix] Online at http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/2473-corporate-media-turned-out-for-jena-but-not-for-anti-war-heres-why.html.

[xx] Linda Milazzo, “Corporate Media Turned Out for Jena, but Not for Anti-War. Here’s Why.” Atlantic Free Press, September 23, 2007, online at http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/2473-corporate-media-turned-out-for-jena-but-not-for-anti-war-heres-why.html.

[xxi] Andrew L. Roth, Zoe Huffman, Jeff Huling, Kevin Stolle, and Jocelyn Thomas, “Covering War’s Victims: A Content Analysis of Iraq and Afghanistan War Photographs in the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle,” in Censored 2008 (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2007), pp. 253-271.

[xxii] Jeffrey M. Jones, “In U.S., More Optimism About Iraq, Less About Afghanistan:

New high of 42% say war in Afghanistan a mistake,” March 18, 2009.

See the Gallup Poll results online at http://www.gallup.com/poll/116920/Optimism-Iraq-Less-Afghanistan.aspx.

[xxiii] For more on the Winter Soldiers, see Censored 2009, chapter 1, story 9, pp. 58-62 and online athttp://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/9-iraq-and-afghanistan-vets-testify/; see also chapter 12, pp. 297-319. See the KPFA radio and Corp Watch website for the coverage athttp://www.warcomeshome.org/wintersoldier2008.

[xxiv] Peter Phillips, “Barack Obama Administration Continues US Military Dominance,”http://www.projectcensored.org/articles/story/http-wwwprojectcensoredorg-articles-story-barack-obama-administration-c/.

[xxv] Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988, 2002). For an introduction of the Propaganda Model, see chapter 1 of the work, or see a retrospective by Edward Herman online at http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/20031209.htm.

[xxvi] Peter Phillips, Censored 2008, see chapter 7, “Left Progressive Media Inside the Propaganda Model,” pp 233-251, http://www.projectcensored.org/articles/story/left-progressive-media-inside-the-propaganda-model/.

[xxvii] Co-author, Peter Phillips, interviewed Carmon Aponte while visiting the Patare Community TV and radio station in a trip to Venezuela for a book fair in 2008. The station was one of thirty-four locally controlled community television stations and four hundred radio stations now in the barrios throughout Venezuela.

[xxviii] Co-author, Peter Phillips, attended the major journalism conference in Cuba in 2008. About his experiences there, Phillips remarked, “During my five days in Havana, I met with dozens of journalists, communication studies faculty and students, union representatives and politicians. The underlying theme of my visit was to determine the state of media freedom in Cuba and to build a better understanding between media democracy activists in the US and those in Cuba.

I toured the two main radio stations in Havana, Radio Rebelde and Radio Havana. Both have Internet access to multiple global news sources including CNN, Reuters, Associated Press and BBC with several newscasters pulling stories for public broadcast. Over ninety municipalities in Cuba have their own locally run radio stations, and journalists report local news from every province.

During the course of several hours in each station I was interviewed on the air about media consolidation and censorship in the US and was able to ask journalists about censorship in Cuba as well. Of the dozens I interviewed all said that they have complete freedom to write or broadcast any stories they choose. This was a far cry from the Stalinist media system so often depicted by US interests.”

[xxix] For more details see the Project Censored website at http://projectcensored.org/; for independent media feeds see Media Freedom Foundation at http://mediafreedom.pnn.com/5174-independent-news-sources; and for more on the Project Censored International Affiliates Program, see http://projectcensored.org/project-censored-international-affilates-program. For more on how to become the media, see David Mathison’s work at http://bethemedia.com.

[xxx] Alex Kingsbury, “Why Sen. Patrick Leahy Wants a “Truth Commission,” U.S. News and World Report, March 4, 2009, http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/politics/2009/03/04/why-sen-patrick-leahy-wants-a-truth-commission.html.

[xxxi] Naomi Wolf, “Do the Secret Bush Memos Amount to Treason? Top Constitutional Scholar Says Yes,” Alternet.org, March 25, 2009,http://www.alternet.org/rights/133273/do_the_secret_bush_memos_amount_to_treason_top_constitutional_scholar_says_yes/.

Note: All online sources were accessed and viewed between March 25 and 31, 2009 and then reviewed and revised between May 13 and 15, 2009.

Hyperreality is the inability to distinguish between what is real and what is not. Corporate media, Fox in particular, offers news that creates a hyperreality of real world problems and issues.  Consumers of corporate television news—especially those whose understandings are framed primarily from that medium alone—are embedded in a state of excited delirium and knowinglessness.

Corporate Media hasn’t acted as a cohesive, protective “fourth estate” in several decades, instead gilding lilies such as the Iraq war, torture and the true extent of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation. Contemporary corporate news is best seen in a post-modern context of hyperreality. The news from US networks is based on the presentations of partially factual stories framed inside socio-emotional story lines that juxtapose “evil” with patriotism and Christian fervor. There are multiple examples of this, but we will examine two distinct cases.

The bias towards hyperreality inherent in modern media is so rampant, consumers only need turn on the TV to be exposed to the spin. Two notorious, controversial modern figures will be examined here to explain what we mean by a hyperreality of knowinglessness.  News coverage of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and right-wing radio personality Rush Limbaugh are unique examples, primarily because of their perceived opposing views and their unapparent similarities.  But they are similar in that both should have little operable relevance to American policy, at least domestically, as one is an entertainer and the other is the leader of another country. They both are media personalities as well: Limbaugh claims an audience of 20 million a week,1 while Chavez hosts a telecast every Sunday through which he speaks to millions of people of Venezuela. Further, they are both strongly ideological in their pursuit of their beliefs, which seem diametrically opposed to each other.

Unfortunately, they both have ill-gotten relevance, ironically at least partially gleaned from the massive amount of attention turned to them by their press adversaries. Thisallows an opportunity for analysis: what is the public consequence of attention, be it positive or negative?

The Evilness of Hugo Chavez

Big business would be foolish to ignore the threat posed to their supply side paradigm in Venezuela, since the longer reaches of Chavez’s influence may well extend to far wealthier economies. Should the people’s revolution in Venezuela gain footholds elsewhere, it will be difficult for those same economic models to be argued against here in the US.  If a country with resources like Venezuela’s is able to offer programs and facilities of a certain quality, why can’t the US, with it’s greater resource pool, repeat the success here? Since Chavez’s social advances for the people in Venezuela run so drastically contrary to those avowed to the captains of industry in the US, any action Chavez takes is systematically vilified by the US corporate media.

Fox News has been the epicenter for demonizing Chavez. Fox is one of the largest media outlets in the US. The station features such luminaries as Glen Beck, who once called Cindy Sheehan a “tragedy slut” and discussed murdering Michael Moore2 on his program. Fox attack pieces on Chavez are uniform and systematic to the point of redundancy. In examining transcripts from Fox news regarding Chavez, we find a continued use of emotionally negative descriptive terms like authoritarian, strongman, socialist, cruel, sinister, radical, militant, and dictator.  Chavez has repeatedly over the past decade been democratically elected by a vast majority of the people in Venezuela. However, the US corporate slant on Chavez is always the same predictable negative opposition filled with emotional slanders.

After Chavez used licensing laws to shut down RCTV in Caracas, possibly because the RCTV directors were heavily involved in the conspiracy to overthrow Chavez during the coup of 2002, Fox covered the incident as if censorship had been his motivation, pushing headlines such as “Protests in Venezuela Turn Ugly.”3 The first sections of Fox’s coverage were full of rubber bullets and tear gas; as the story dwindled, Fox continued to report unsubstantiated estimates of mass protesters and increasing authoritarianism. This is the essential structure to most any news on Chavez found in the US corporate media.

Unfortunately, Fox’s coverage never really examines the origins of the protests—as in, who are the people participating?  Are they the same individuals who so violently opposed Chavez a few years prior? A poll in Venezuela conducted after the closing of RCTV actually indicated a broad ambivalence towards the closing, with some 70 percent of those polled opposed to shutting down the station; however, most people indicated it was because their favorite soap operas and other programming were being cancelled.4

Fox News and Glen Beck seem adamant about tying Obama’s administration to socialism. Chavez provides a convenient straw man through which to beat up on progressivism, socialism, and President Obama as well. In a February, 2009 in a TV piece entitled “Would You Vote for Hugo Chavez?,”5 Beck claimed that the US is “on a highway to socialism” as a result of our move to “nationali[ze] our banks.” He then proposed that, with one more bank bailout, America could be ready for a Chavez presidency. Chavez has become, for Fox, a symbol of evil. The resulting emotional knowinglessness is being used to undermine the Obama presidency.  Fox completely ignores the facts of the enormous bailouts—which had been supported by the previous Bush administration—such as those for Bear Stearns and AIG. It uses hyperreal slander to describe Chavez, linking these feelings to Obama in a purely emotional manner without using logic or facts.

Led by President Hugo Chavez, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) gained over one and half million voters in the most recent elections November 23, 2008.  Before the election of Hugo Chavez as president in 1998, college attendance was primarily for the rich in Venezuela. Today, over 1,800,000 students attend college, three times the rate ten years ago.

For the lowest-income two thirds of people in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez means health care, jobs, food, and security in neighborhoods where in many cases nothing but absolute poverty existed ten years ago. With unemployment below a US level, sharing the wealth has taken real meaning in Venezuela. Despite a 50 percent increase in the prices of food last year, local Mercals offer government subsidized cooking oil, corn meal, meat, and powered milk at 30 to 50 percent discount. Additionally, there are now 3,500 local communal banks with a $1.6 billion dollar budget offering neighborhood-based micro-financing loans for home improvements, small businesses, and personal emergencies.

In Venezuela, the corporate media are still owned by the elites. The five major TV networks, and nine of ten of the major newspapers, maintain an effort to undermine Chavez and the socialist revolution. Despite the corporate media bias and the continuing financial support to anti-Chavez opposition institutions from USAID and National Endowment for Democracy ($20 million annually, paid for by US taxpayers), two-thirds of the people in Venezuela continue to support President Hugo Chavez and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

Fox has no bounds to it’s obsession with Chavez. They have run stories about his rocky divorce and child custody struggles as well as his vocal contribution to an album by artists “engaged in the Bolivarian Revolution.” Barack Obama’s greeting of Chavez at the Organization of American States meeting, and its potential diplomatic consequences, warranted Fox commentary from Karl Rove, John Bolton, Former US Ambassador to the UN, and Beck.6

There is an abundant source of negative Chavez news found on the Associated Press (AP) wires as well. AP’s stories are often close to Fox’s assertion that Venezuela is a socialist petro-fiefdom.

Chavez isn’’t without political moves;, as any leader democratically elected multiple times would have to be heavy-handed to some degree. Unfortunately, only half the story is reported in the US.  The best example of partial reporting is the coverage of Chavez’s not renewing the broadcast license of RCTV in 2006, by exercising the Law on the Social Responsibility of Radio and Television. US reporting on this was completely myopic in nature.7 Had producers and executives of an American media outlet conspired against the US Government, they most certainly would have been dealt with in far stricter terms than those applied at RCTV.  RCTV was allowed to broadcast for the remainde[??1]r of their licensing period.

After the Constitutional Reforms of 2007, US corporate media outlets began claiming Chavez had inserted language into the constitution that could make him “President for life.” Again, this was a case of the truth being stretched. The changes had only included a reform that would have allowed a possible third term for Chavez. Other nations that do not have term limits at all include Germany, the UK, and Australia, yet none of these are labeled in the US media as “dictatorships.” That 2007 reform was ironically defeated, but a newer bill, removing term limits altogether, was passed in February of 2009.

The US corporate media doesn’t likely pose much difficulty to Chavez and his democratically elected agenda—he’s been winning elections since 1998. Moreover, what Chavez does in Venezuela has very little impact on policies and circumstances in the US. But the ongoing demonization of Chavez allows for the perpetuation of a deeply embedded emotional hyperreality inside American public consciousness. A hyperreal Chavez is continually available for comparison with other contemporary issues.

US corporate media ignores many contemporary dictators. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who sits on the throne of an autocratic dictatorship under which women have essentially no rights, holds a perennial place on the “Parade’s World’s Worst Dictator” list,8 as does Hu Jintao, China’s President. Searches for each leader on Fox’s website returns a total of 806 and 888 results, respectively, from their entire database. The same search for Chavez—the democratically elected leader of a country with just three million more people than Saudi Arabia, but a fraction of China’s population—yields 2,743 pages. Saudi Arabia, home of Osama Bin Laden and fifteen of the alleged nineteen 9/11 hijackers, is portrayed as an ally to the US.

The Glory of Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh has found himself in a position of far more influence than anybody except himself could ever believe. Anointed “boss” by both the press and the right-wing lawmakers who apologize to him after contradicting his ideology, Limbaugh has taken his continued popularity as mandate and continues to push his agenda.

Limbaugh has sharpened his attack since the 2008 election, as seen during a June 4, 2009 interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity.9 Hannity treated Limbaugh as something of a moral and constitutional authority, allowing him to conduct himself in an almost pastoral way, delivering dogmatic sermons an Americanism. Limbaugh maintained the position that Barack Obama’s efforts to restore the bruised economy are tantamount to socialism and fascism. Limbaugh joked, “Fidel Castro and I (Hugo Chavez), If we’re not careful, are going to end up to the right of Obama” in reference (though the context was not related) to General Motors becoming “Government Motors.” Limbaugh went on to say, “You can keep a chart here of who’s nationalizing more, Obama or Chavez . . . it’s probably neck and neck.”

Rush Limbaugh was in the middle of a storm of exchanges between the Democrat and Republican leadership during the early spring of 2009. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel10 claimed that the radio host is “the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says he has reached out to Rush Limbaugh to tell him he meant no offense when he referred to the popular conservative radio host as an “entertainer” whose show can be “incendiary.” “My intent was not to go after Rush—I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. . . . There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”

Crooner Pat Boone11 waxes poetic in a tribute piece: “Rush Limbaugh is a patriot. Pure and simple, a patriot. I see him in the select company of other patriots like Paul Revere, Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin. Thankfully, he hasn’’t been asked to make a dying proclamation like Nathan Hale—“‘I regret that I have but one life to give for my country’—but I suspect he would, if it came to that.”

Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly12 further holds Rush to be a model citizen: “One secret to Limbaugh’’s success is that he is not intimidated into appeasing the organized pressure groups that frighten so many others into platitudinous mush. He takes them all on: the radical feminists, the wacky environmentalists, the open-borders crowd, and even President George W. Bush’’s deviation from conservatism.”

Rush Limbaugh is a man of Christian values—although which congregation he attends remains a question—and believes that America is nation founded upon Christian principals.

Born in 1951 to a prominent Missouri family, young Rush was a Boy Scout but never earned a single merit badge. Perhaps to placate his parents, Limbaugh enrolled for two semesters and a summer at Southern Missouri State University; His mother told biographer Paul Colford that he had “flunked everything,”13 unable to pass even a modern ballroom dancing class. His career during the 1970’s was primarily spent as a music station DJ, moving from station to station before taking a stint as director of promotions for the Kansas City Royals in 1979. Returning to the airwaves in 1984, it wasn’t until the Reagan administration repealed the fairness doctrine that Rush was able to hit his full stride.

How and when was it that he has gained this fluency, which he purports to possess, and how does it display itself? Consider Limbaugh’s May 14, 2008 commentary from his radio program concerning the Great Depression and his choice of adversaries to defame.14 The Straw Man, a favorite tactic of Rush’s, is deployed. He Google searches some terms trying to uncover popular hits explaining the Great Depression; his search yields, predictably, an academic paper titled “The Main Causes of the Great Depression” published in 1996. Rush systematically disassembles the paper like an angry professor, not so much refuting it as ridiculing it, finally concluding that it should be checked for plagiarism against the works of Karl Marx. He goes on to claim the author, Paul Gusmorino, is “exactly wrong” after saying, “I didn’’t end up in college and have my mind polluted and brainwashed by a bunch of Marxist professors.” Unfortunately for Rush, neither had the piece’s author Gusmorino. Gusmorino, who is currently a Program Manager for Microsoft, was in tenth grade when he wrote the piece in 1996—hardly a Marxist political economy professor.

Rush Limbaugh inside the corporate media is a caricature of patriotism and Christian values. That he lacks factual understandings of socio-political circumstances doesn’t matter in a hyperreal corporate media system. Just the fact that he is openly discussed by both political parties sets forth a emotionally-based parody of specific issues and creates an excited delirium of knowinglessness.

What’s the Score Here?

Michael Savage found himself banned from the UK15 after his tone was “allegedly fostering extremism or hatred,” citing his claim that the “Qur’an . . . is a ‘book of hate.’” Yet in the US there are no such challenges of hate speakers like Limbaugh in the corporate media. The US as a society has seen an undeniable upswing in domestic extremism since the change of administrations.  Individuals associated with right-wing groups or following traditionally right-leaning causes, such as gun control or abortion, have emerged in patterns of hate-based excited deliriums.

On the night of Obama’s inauguration, “self-proclaimed white supremacist” Keith Luke was arrested following an apparent multiple rape-homicide, which left two dead and a third severely injured and raped; all his victims were black. He had been planning to end the spree with a massacre at a local synagogue’s “Bingo Night.”

Three Pittsburgh Police officers paid with their lives for Richard Poplawski’s paranoid fear that the Obama administration was going to take his guns.

Dr. George Tiller, survivor of multiple attempts on his life already, was gunned down in his own church, serving as an usher for the Sunday, May 31, 2009 service.

Just ten days later, eighty-eight-year old white supremacist, James von Brunn, took the life of a security guard and injured others after he opened fire at the US Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. These are but the outliers that reflect a disturbing trend. Already, some are questioning the role the media may be playing.16 Perhaps it is not fair to blame corporate media for right-wing extremism, but an expanding knowinglessness is undoubtedly a contributing factor.

Without a context of factual understanding, Glenn Beck is able to say on national Fox television news that the shooting at the Holocaust Museum was openly supported by 9/11 truth people. Beck claimed17 that 9/11 truth proponents see James von Brunn as a “hero.” Beck’s statement is completely without factual merit and represents a hyperreal emotional slamming of a group already slanderously pre-labeled by the corporate media as conspiracy theorists. Beck continued his diatribe by further equating 9/11 truth with white supremacy and Al Qaeda, claiming that they all want to “destroy the country” (See Chapter Ten for an update on 9/11 issues).

Our cultural decline will continue as long as the spin that incites it is present.  The consumer body itself will eventually decide that these messages are meaningless. The ongoing decline of confidence in US corporate media is already evidence of such a reversal of belief. This becomes apparent when news—as entertainment media—follows the same paradigm as any media, which is highly cyclical and repetitious in nature: it loses appeal and the carrier eventually fails.

Meanwhile, many Americans are deeply imbedded in a state of excited delirium of knowinglessness.  Reversing this tendency is a vital part of building media democracy. Only a vibrant independent news media based in rational factually-researched news can alleviate our crisis of hyperreality.

Andrew Hobbs is a Philosophy major at Sonoma State University. Research assistance on this chapter was provided by SSU students Ian Marlowe and Kevin Gonzalez.

Notes

1 “Limbaugh’s Audience Size? It’s Largely Up in the Air,” The Washington Post, March 7, 2009.

2 The Glenn Beck Program, August 15, 2005 and May 17, 2005, respectively.

3 See http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,275912,00.html

4 “Venezuela replaces opposition TV with state network,” Reuters, May 28, 2007.

5 See http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,494065,00.html

6 Fox News Contributors, “By Greeting Hugo Chavez, Is President Obama slighting US allies?” April 21, 2009.

7 “Coup Co-Conspirators as Free-Speech Martyrs,” FAIR, May 25, 2007.

8 See http://www.parade.com/dictators/2009/

9 Fox News, “Rush Limbaugh on Hannity,” June 4, 2009.

10 “Steele to Rush: I’m Sorry,” Politico, March 2, 2009.

11 See http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=70559.

12 See http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=71100.

13 Paul D. Colford, The Rush Limbaugh Story: Talent On Loan From God: An Unauthorized Biography (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993).

14 See http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_051408/content/01125111.guest.html

15 See http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/05/05/britain-banned-list050.html

16 Errol Louis, “Connect the dots of hatred . . .” New York Daily News, June 14, 2009.

17 See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUTATYaIZYI&feature=related.

And You Lose Your Vote! And You Lose Your Vote! And You Lose Your Vote! It’s one thing when millions of voiceless Americans are disenfranchised in one form or another—as we saw in the Presidential elections of both 2000 and 2004—but it’s another matter altogether whenOprah’s vote gets “lost.” Now that’s a real problem. That’s what happened in November of 2008, when one of the country’s most well-known celebrities attempted to cast her vote for the Democratic Party phenomenon, whom she’d famously endorsed, and who would eventually become President—with or without Oprah’s vote.

Who knows if Oprah Winfrey’s vote was actually counted for Barack Obama? She doesn’t. She can’t. Nobody can. Oprah cast her vote, during the early voting period, presumably for Obama, on a 100 percent unverifiable Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touchscreen) voting machine.

“When I voted yesterday electronically, the first vote that you vote for on the ballot is the presidential candidate,” she explained on TV,(i)breathlessly detailing her personal freakout upon discovering her selection for Obama had disappeared by the time she arrived at the e-ballot’s final “review screen.” Naturally, as most voters do, she blamed herself.

“It was my first time doing electronic, so I didn’t mark the X strong enough, or I held down too long,” she explained over audience gasps and screams. “Because then when I went back to check it, it had not recorded my presidential vote.”

Unfortunately, Oprah not alone in 2008.  An untold number of legal American voters saw their votes simply disappear into the ether on electronic voting systems. Others didn’t see it disappear. Millions of them, whether they saw the selection properly registered on the “review screen” or not, have no idea whether their vote was actually counted accurately, or even at all.

It’s 100 percent physically and scientifically impossible to know if any vote, for any candidate or initiative on any ballot, cast during any actual election, has ever been recorded accurately by a DRE voting machine. That’s just one of the “voting industry’s” dirtiest little anti-democratic secrets.  Until the human eye is capable of seeing electrons inside a computer, there remains no way to verify that the data was recorded accurately, much less recorded at all.

Incredibly enough, jurisdictions across the country continued to use these machines in 2008 anyway. Even more incredibly, the corporate media barely bothered to notice.

In Oprah’s case, while the report of her alarming tale gained enough interest to knock out my web server at BradBlog.com for several hours, and was noteworthy enough to merit a momentary blip on the crawl of the nation’s cable news outlets, it otherwise quickly disappeared. Just like her vote. The nation’s corporate media did little to find out how many other voters faced similar fates, even though the same model of voting machine that failed for her was used to cast and record millions of votes across the country.  In Chicago (Cook County, IL), the machine Oprah would have used(ii) was a Sequoia AVC Edge, the same system used in eleven states, including the swing states of Nevada, Missouri and Virginia.

Even Oprah didn’t bother to revisit the topic.  Had she done so, her starpower might have helped reform the nation’s entire, dangerously imperiled, now-almost-wholly corporatized and privatized system of “public” elections.

Sequoia was not the only private e-voting company whose mission-critical systems failed during the critical moment of their mission in 2008. All four of the major e-voting vendors—ES&S, Diebold (now calling themselves Premier), Sequoia, and Hart Intercivic—saw similar failures, similarly under- or mis-reported, on their DRE systems in state after state. And it wasn’t just touchscreen/DREs that failed either. Optical-scan systems, which allow voters to ink their selections on paper ballots, also failed to tabulate votes accurately, and sometimes not at all.

How many other legal American votes were lost and/or changed without the voters’ knowledge in 2008? Because none of them were Oprah’s, nobody actually knows.

First Worst in the Nation

In 2008 the country saw a record voter turnout throughoutone of the longest and most riveting Democratic Party primary contests in US history.

Long declared by the punditry to be the party favorite, Sen. Hillary Clinton was knocked for a loop when she faced an upset defeat from Illinois’ upstart freshman Senator Barack Obama in Iowa’s fully transparent—if often confusing, to those of us from outside the Hawkeye State—caucuses on Thursday, January 3.

The turnout in Iowa was unprecedented. Caucus-goer Kathy Barger told CNN that the room she was in was packed to the brim with a line out the door at her caucus site in Walnut, Iowa. “I don’t know how they are going to be able to fit everybody in the room, much less count the votes,” she said. [iii]

Yet within hours, the results, transparently recorded as citizens stood to cast their votes and bear witness to the counting first-hand across the state, were in. Clinton was soundly defeated, coming in third behind Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.

The same pundits who had pronounced her the Democratic Party’s de facto nominee months, if not years before—including those on the Right who, oddly enough, seemed to be rooting for Hillary—quickly declared her bid for the Presidency was all but over, unless, just five days later on Tuesday, January 8 in New Hampshire’s “First in the Nation” Primary, she was able to become the new “comeback kid.”

Buoyed by his Iowa win, Obama surged in the pre-election New Hampshire polls.[iv] Rasmussen had him 8 points ahead of Clinton. CNN and Marist each favored Obama by 7 in their post-Iowa, pre-New Hampshire samplings. CBS predicted Obama by 5, and Zogby showed him up by an astounding 13 points. In all, the final average of dozens of independent pre-election polls predicted a +8.3 spread in Obama’s favor just prior to Election Day.

When New Hampshire voters headed to the polls on Tuesday to cast their votes on paper ballots, Hillary was on the ropes. Yet when the unofficial results of the election were tabulated—80 percent of them by Diebold’s AccuVote optical-scan system—Hillary Clinton would be declared the winner of the contest by 2.6 points over Obama, who quickly announced his concession before 11pm ET, before even a single Diebold-tabulated ballot had been checked for accuracy by any human being.

NBC’s Tim Russert quickly announced the results as “the most stunning upset in the history of politics.” Pundits and pollsters from across the corporate media and, disappointingly, even in the progressive blogosphere, turned tortured backflips trying to determine how they had “gone wrong” in their pre-election predictions.

Was it Clinton’s widely-reported, tearful moment at a town hall event over the weekend? Notoriously independent Granite State voters loathe to allow ‘hicks’ from Iowa to make up their minds for them? Mischievous Republicans voting for Hillary, believing her either more “conservative” than Obama, or otherwise easier to defeat in November? Could racism and the so-called “Bradley Effect[v]“”—where poll respondents answer one way to appear “politically correct,” only to vote another way when in the privacy of the voting booth—have played a part?

There were plenty of reverse-engineered explanations for the apparent remarkable come-from-behind victory for New York’s junior Senator. The trouble is, none of the explanations were actually verifiable; all were just best-guesses from the same “experts” who’d presumably gotten it so wrong in the first place (twice, if you count their wrong calls in Iowa, as well.)

All the while, as pollsters and pundits naval-gazed and second-guessed to determine how their polls and predictions could have been so terribly wrong, not one of them stopped to wonder if the reported election results were actually right. Not one.

Eighty percent of New Hampshire’s ballots were tabulated on Diebold AccuVote optical-scan systems. The other 20 percent are counted by hand, at the precincts, on Election Night, in one of the very few states where a tradition of citizen-overseen hand-counting still takes place.

Adding to the anomaly of New Hampshire’s reported results was the fact that where ballots were hand-counted, mostly in rural areas, Obama had won. In the more populated areas, where Diebold counted the votes, Clinton was reported the victor. A comparison of the hand-counted results versus the Diebold-counted results revealed they were virtually flipped, almost exactly opposite percentages of votes for Clinton and Obama. Overall, Clinton received an approximate 7 point bump (+4.5 for her, -2.5 for Obama) where machines tabulated instead of humans.

Blogger Ben Moseley analyzed the data from each town in New Hampshire in the days following the election. He noted that “the results were somewhat surprising:

[M]ore statistics from the data shows that Obama in non-Diebold towns garnering 38.7% of the vote to Clinton’s 36.2%. The results in Diebold towns show the exact opposite: Clinton with 40.7% of the vote and Obama with 36.2%. Not only are the positions swapped but the informal statistics have the second place candidate holding 36.2% in both cases, which could easily be a pure coincidence. . . . All the other numbers [are] almost exact for every candidate, even Edwards who received 17% of the vote in Diebold towns compared to 17.6% in non-Diebold towns. That still doesn’t make up for the extra 2% vote Clinton is receiving when she leads in certain towns compared to when Obama has the lead.”

There could be perfectly legitimate reasons for Obama’s popularity in the more rural areas where they hand-counted, and Clinton’s winning in the more metropolitan areas where Diebold counted the vote. I just don’t know what they are. Neither did the Wednesday morning quarterback pundits when they tried to explain them. They were, frankly, just guessing, rather than bothering to make sure the results were truly accurate.

In towns where machines were used to count, the Diebold AccuVote systems used were the very same make and model (down to the firmware) seen used to flip the results of a mock election in Leon County, Florida, in HBO’s Emmy-nominated 2006 documentary Hacking Democracy.[vi] The climax of the landmark film features a first-of-its-kind, “live” video-taped experiment, in which a computer expert exploits the flaws of the machines’ sensitive memory cards which are inserted into op-scan systems to store scanned ballot results.

In the experiment,[vii] eight paper ballots were cast in a mock election. Voters answered one simple YES or NO question: “Can the votes on this Diebold system be hacked using the memory card?”

On camera, all eight ballots are seen as they are run through the Diebold optical-scan machine. Six voters voted “NO”; two voters voted “YES”.

Yet, when the results of the tabulation were printed by the Diebold AccuVote, they were reported as a horrifying seven “YES”; one “NO.”

The results of the mock election—held on the very same make and model of electronic tabulating system used in New Hampshire’s 2008 Primary—had been entirely flipped. Only a manual hand-count would have revealed that fact. The computer expert had hacked the memory card used in the AccuVote system and exploited a programming flaw in Diebold’s operating system to “invisibly” reverse the results of the election.

Back in New Hampshire, where the announced results of the primary had produced another sea change in the 2008 Presidential race, not a single paper ballot from among the 80 percent tallied by Diebold had been checked to assure the machines had accurately counted them. That happened even though the results of the[viii] in December of 2005, as documented in the 2006 film, had caused reverberations across the nation at the time—at least among election officials, election vendors, and those in the election integrity community. The shocking discovery that a race could be flipped with little possibility of detection vis-a-vis a simple memory card exploit led Leon County, Florida to immediately dump their Diebold op-scan system. However, no changes were made in New Hampshire, nor in most other states that also used them. This same vulnerable system would be used in the “First in the Nation” primary in January of 2008.

To make matters worse, LHS Associates, the company that exclusively sold the machines and maintained and programmed the Diebold voting systems and their memory cards in New Hampshire (and most of New England), had a disturbing, and even criminal, history.

Its Director of Sales and Marketing, Ken Hajjar, the company owner’s childhood friend, had previously been sentenced to twelve months in prison after pleading guilty to a narcotics felony. Hajjar had also come by The Brad Blog some years ago to post a profane rant in comments, resulting in Connecticut’s Secretary of State banning him from working on their voting systems. He was angry that we’d posted photos after our visit to Diebold headquarters in Allen, TX showing voting machines sitting out in the open on their loading dock, unguarded and easily tampered with, before shipment to customers.

Moreover, Hajjar had previously admitted, on air, that he and other employees frequently swapped out Diebold memory cards—the same type used by to hack the mock-election in Leon County—in the middle of elections in Connecticut, where that is illegal. He told the stunned host of “Talk Nation Radio”: “I don’t pay attention to every little law.” This was the outfit running the crucial New Hampshire election on Diebold’s hackable voting machines.

Not only pre-election polls predicted a tidy Obama win over Clinton. Same-day exit polls had predicted similarly. Pollster John Zogby, who predicted a 13-point Obama rout in the days before the race, told me via email later that week, “The actual exit poll had Obama up by 3—41 percent to 38 percent.” He characterized many of the reverse-engineered explanations for Clinton’s upset as “preposterous,” noting in particular there was “no evidence that race was an issue.”

MSNBC’s Chris Matthew was also flummoxed[ix] about the full ten-point swing from independent pre-election polls to the final, mostly Diebold-reported results, and also reported on same day exit polls he’d been looking at on Tuesday afternoon indicating a “significant victory” for Obama.

On Thursday’s Hardball, following Tuesday’s primary, Matthews peppered his pollster guests to explain why “even our own exit polls, taken as people came out of voting, showed [Obama] ahead.”

“What’s going on here?” he wondered aloud.  Raw data from NBC’s exit polls, commissioned and shared by a consortium of corporate news outlets, has never been released to the public (it never is, even data from 2004, despite demands from statisticians and citizens across the nation who noted the infamous discrepancies indicating a John Kerry win over George W. Bush in state after state).

Virtually alone in the mainstream media, willing to note the disparity he’d seen with his own eyes in his company’s own internal exit data, Matthews asked questions during one show and promised viewers he would not revisit the topic after that day. He kept his promise. The exit polls were not discussed again and concerns about the results themselves almost as little. Obama never said a public word questioning any of it.

“It’s ludicrous,” Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s senior campaign representative, David Bright told me. “New Hampshire has the privilege of being the first in the nation. This election brings in 3 billion dollars to the economy, so you’d think a measly 70k would be part of the cost of doing business,” he told me the week following the election.

Bright was complaining about the $69,900 that New Hampshire was billing Kucinich for a complete hand-count of paper ballots in the Democratic race. As a candidate in the contest, the Ohio Congressman had standing to request such a count. “If Obama had done it, it would have been $2,000,” Bright noted, referring to state law allowing a candidate, in a close election, as Obama was, to pay just $2,000 total for a complete hand-count. The amount would have been a pittance, at the time, to the Illinois Senator. Instead, with a campaign war chest low on funds, Kucinich paid $27,000 for a partial count.

Hailing from the Buckeye State, home of 2004’s infamous election failures, Kucinich was particularly sensitive to voting machine concerns. “Ever since the 2000 election—and even before—the American people have been losing faith in the belief that their votes were actually counted,” he said when announcing his demand for a hand-count. “This recount isn’t about who won 39 percent or 36 percent or even 1 percent . It’s about establishing whether 100 percent of the voters had 100 percent of their votes counted exactly the way they cast them. . . . It is about the integrity of the election process.”

On the Republican side, where John McCain was reported to have won handily, an obscure candidate, Albert Howard, a Michigan chauffer, also demanded a hand-count after noting that he’d seen as many as 187 votes reported for himself on C-SPAN on election night, but only forty-four votes in the final reported tally.

“My real concern is the controversial Diebold Electronic Scanning machines . . . used for 81 percent of the vote counting in New Hampshire,” he echoed Kucinich when announcing his own call for a hand-count. “I believe it is better to take action now in the first primary than later.”

Howard’s recount was largely funded by supporters of Republican candidate Ron Paul. They had long been suspicious of electronic voting systems after watching the collapse of Diebold optical-scanners used in the 2007 summer GOP Iowa straw poll. That first contest of the 2008 Presidential Election ended up requiring a hand-count of thousands of ballots.

Paul supporters were further outraged when they witnessed, on video tape, Mitt Romney supporters literally “stuffing” the Sequoia touchscreen voting systems, voting again and again and again in the December 2007 GOP straw poll in Tampa, Florida.

Romney would “win” that contest, tallying 893 votes to Paul’s 534 (his supporters vowed to only once each). The documented multiple voting by Romney supporters resulted in the local GOP chairman threatening “bodily harm” to Paul supporters if they didn’t cease their public complaints.

Albert Howard paid just less than $60,000 to see all ballots on the Republican side hand-counted.

“I’m very concerned that this is not a fully transparent process that is happening there,” said voting rights attorney John Bonifaz, legal director ofVoterAction.org, a non-partisan organization that had successfully challenged the use of electronic voting systems in many states. He had traveled to Concord to witness the “recount” after becoming concerned about the Diebold tabulation in New Hampshire.

The sensitive memory cards containing the programming and tabulation from the Diebold op-scanners, he’d learned after speaking with the NH Secretary of State and Asst. Secretary of State and their Deputy Attorney General, were “missing in action” just one week after the contested race. He was told by Secretary of State William Gardner that his office doesn’t get involved in tracking what happens to memory cards, but he believed some had already been returned to LHS Associates, and may have already been erased.

“When you have a private company counting 80 percent of the votes, and you later learn that the memory cards are unaccounted for, you have a serious question about the transparency and accountability in that process,” Bonifaz told me.

Federal law requires the retention of all election-related materials for twenty-two months following federal elections. But whether memory cards are used in DRE or optical-scan systems, anywhere in the country, those cards are routinely erased for re-use shortly after elections, making any later forensic investigation—in order to determine if a Leon County-style attack, or mere failure, may have occurred—completely impossible. Lawsuits, Bonifaz noted, are likely needed to enforce the retention of those materials.

Partisan and non-partisan election integrity advocates from around the country descended on New Hampshire’s capitol to oversee, and document on video, every step of both the Democratic and Republican hand-counts—at least those parts they were allowed to tape. Howard, in filing for his hand-count, had demanded to examine the memory cards from the voting systems and other related materials, such as voting machine poll-tapes, poll books and unvoted ballots. He was told, however, that he would not be allowed to do so. Only the hand-counting of voted paper ballots would be included in the state’s “recount.”

This became a major issue for the assembled election integrity advocates.  Examination of the memory cards and end-of-day poll tapes might offer clues to whether the precinct-based scanners showed anomalies or different numbers than those reported by state tallies.  Unvoted ballots needed counting to make certain they were accounted for, and not somehow used to stuff ballot boxes or replace legitimate votes.  The chain of custody for ballots as they were transported to the state capitol to be hand-counted needed to be secure and verified.

Videos and photographs made their way onto the Internet—though rarely into mainstream press accounts—revealing the shoddy condition of cardboard boxes of ballots which election integrity advocates were able to reach directly into, even with so-called “security seals” still intact. The “security seals” themselves were, as seen on video, easily peeled off and restored without leaving a trace of tampering behind. The boxes of ballots were transported from towns across the state back to Concord by two state employees who called themselves Butch and Hoppy. There was virtually no oversight during that transport, and boxes were sometimes left in the open in the counting room at night during the several weeks of hand-counting.

New Hampshire’s Secretary of State Gardner is officially a Democrat, though by the 2008 Primary he’d been in office for sixteen terms, approved time and again by the Republican-majority legislature for most of those years. Despite his experience, he seemed wholly unprepared to handle the new generation of election integrity advocates who—wizened since the days of 2004—came armed with video cameras and demanding both answers and transparency in every step of the process. His consistent deer-in-the-headlights expression caught on camera by citizen activists only heightened concern about what quickly revealed itself as an horrifically sloppy process—at least to those bothering to pay attention. Stories in the mainstream press, however, painted a very different picture.

“We requested that unvoted ballots be counted, but they’re not being counted,” Manny Krasner, Kucinich’s local attorney overseeing the counting complained in frustration when I spoke with him following a front page story in the Concord Monitor[x] quoting some of The Brad Blog’s critical coverage of the hand-count. The paper described Krasner, however, as saying only that he “hadn’t seen anything suspicious.”

The paper quoted Gardner in response to advocates on the ground, complaining about a lack of transparency. They wrote: “‘If this isn’t transparent . . .’ Gardner said, raising his eyebrows and gesturing to the tables of counters and observers. ‘What could we do to make it more transparent!’”

The Union Leader editorialized[xi] on New Hampshire’s behalf with rosiest-of-scenarios: “Whatever the recount’s results, Gardner has opened the process to observers so there can be no question about the integrity of the count. Doubters on both sides should let this settle the issue. If they question Gardner’s integrity, then we’ll know for sure not to trust anything else they have to say.”

Problems of all sorts were discovered during Kucinich’s partial count. In addition to hundreds of ballots discovered miscounted by the Diebold machines, public records requests for trouble reports from Election Day indicated problems such as “Printout indicated 550 ‘blank voted’ ballots which indicated that bad pens were used” in the town of Stratham; “Corrupt Count” in the town of Lebanon; “P/U [pickup] 3rd Bad Machine per John S.” (likely a reference to LHS’ John Silvestro) in Manchester.

“If it wasn’t 550 ballots, but just 55 or so in some places, would they even have seen it and known to recount ALL of the ballots” on Election Night? BlackBoxVoting.org’s Bev Harris wondered after reviewing the trouble reports.

In the actual hand-count, in ward after ward, the Diebold op-scans had been found to have miscounted enormous numbers of ballots for almost all candidates. In Nashua’s Ward 5, for example, Hillary Clinton had received 1,030 votes according to Diebold, but according to the hand-tally, she received just 959, an error rate of 7.4 percent. John Edwards had also been over-tallied by Diebold at the same precinct. His actual results were 7.42 percent lower upon manual-examination, while Barack Obama gained just 5 votes at that ward (a .73 percent error rate).

Secretary of State Gardner and the friendly local papers downplayed the problems. They had good reason (billions of them, in fact) to paint that rosy scenario in hopes of retaining their “First in the Nation” status. Where Clinton might have lost thirty votes in one precinct, but gained twenty-nine votes in another, Gardner and the newspaper would report: “Minor discrepancies in recount, Clinton’s tally off by just 1 vote.”

The Eagle-Tribune opined,[xii] on Martin Luther King Day of all days, “It doesn’t matter” that machines failed to count every vote. The Democratic Party hand-count was part of a “conspiracy theory” and “destructive to Americans’ confidence in the democratic process.” They said Kucinich had “abused” the state’s recount law and “corroded public confidence in the electoral process . . . without a care for the damage he is doing to the country.”

The Eagle-Tribune didn’t mention Republican Albert Howard’s similar demand, which also found tally problems across the board for all candidates. But by the time he received his full count, following Kucinich’s partial count, the media had moved on to the next contests between the revitalized Clinton and the upstart sensation Obama.

As Kucinich’s counting funds ran out, he lodged a letter of complaint with Secretary of State Gardner, charging “significant percentage variances in four voting districts” in one county alone, and detailed miscounts of 10.6 percent here, 4.9 percent there, 7.5 percent over there. And that was just in the few areas he could afford to have counted. He requested Gardner use his “constitutional authority to order a complete and accurate recount of all ballots in the New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Primary election.”

Instead, the next day, the Nashua Telegraph reported[xiii] Gardner as saying Kucinich was “satisfied at the integrity of the recount, and it has concluded. . . . The recount revealed no evidence of irregularities in cities and towns that used electronic voting machines.”

The federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002, passed in the wake of the Florida 2000 election debacle, allocated nearly $4 billion for states to “upgrade” their voting equipment to electronic systems. The legislation also specified a maximum allowable error rate of 0.0002 percent for those systems. That the results tallied by Diebold’s AccuVote systems in New Hampshire—the same model that was set to be used in upcoming elections in the days and months ahead in dozens of states across the country in the landmark 2008 Presidential election—far exceeded that maximum allowable rate by magnitude simply didn’t matter. The state’s local media didn’t want to report it, for fear of making “First in the Nation” New Hampshire look bad; the national media were more interested in making all-new predictions, based on all-new pre-election polls, whether or not they would be right or wrong again, for the unprecedented horse race galloping full speed ahead towards November.

When The Brad Blog and a handful of other independent, alternative media outlets and election integrity-focused sites covered the goings-on in the Granite State, we were derided, not just by the expected sources, but even from supposedly progressive outlets typically more sympathetic to issues of transparency and questions of election integrity.
Concerns about what had happened in New Hampshire needed to be painted as little more than stuff and nonsense by some, whether in pre-emptive defensiveness of Hillary Clinton, or the Democratic Party in general, or the state of New Hampshire, or out of the oft-heard, if wholly unsubstantiated, concern that voters might withdraw from the process should their confidence in its legitimacy be questioned in any way. Scrutinization of the process, in the wake of Tim Russert’s “most stunning upset in the history of politics,” was denounced as “conspiracy theory” bunk; “fringe elements were marginalized for allegedly suggesting “Hillary Clinton had stolen the New Hampshire Primary.” Never mind there were no such suggestions from serious critics of the New Hampshire process. Had the election in fact been “stolen” there were any number of potential “suspects”—including known election gamers, such as Karl Rove—who would have had a keen interest in seeing Clinton revive her bid for the Democratic nomination.

Even on Daily Kos, one of the most popular progressive-leaning websites, someone writing pseudonymously under the name of “DHinMI” the day after the election posted a front page article[xiv] headlined, “Enough with the ‘Diebold Hacked the NH Primary’ Lunacy.” The writer misdirected readers in attempting to “debunk” concerns by stating “New Hampshire has no touchscreen voting.  None.” Since paper ballots are used in New Hampshire, the pseudonymous writer argued, nobody would be foolish enough to hack the tabulators. “The incentive for hacking them is not very great,” the writer argued, because the culprit would be discovered if they did. “If Tuesday’s results really were the likely result of malfeasance, the Obama and Edwards campaigns would be raising holy hell.  They would be seeking a recount, and investigation of the voting, and they would be doing it because they saw the irregularities in the vote results.”

“DHinMI” had a short memory, already having forgotten the 2004 “irregularities in the vote results” in Ohio (and elsewhere) when John Kerry (and his running mate John Edwards) failed to either “seek a recount” or “raise holy hell” of any sort.

Other usually progressive sights deferred to the Daily Kos’ “debunking”[xv] of concerns about New Hampshire results before a single Diebold-counted ballot had been examined to assure any of them had been tabulated accurately. “There aren’t any serious irregularities in the results of Tuesday’s Democratic primary,” the Daily Kos writer pronounced in no uncertain terms. “New Hampshire has an excellent reputation for running clean elections.”

What “DHinMI” didn’t announce to readers is that he was Dana Houle, until only recently the Chief of Staff for New Hampshire’s Democratic US Congressman Paul Hodes.

As the dust settled and the Primary cycle moved on to other states, New Hampshire’s reputation as “First in the Nation” would remain largely intact. The Granite State could look forward to doing it all over again in four years, and seeing “billions of dollars” (as Kucinich’s representative had complained) once again pour into the state’s coffers in support of the kickoff of the 2012 Presidential Primary campaign.

Whether “paper or plastic,” it doesn’t matter. Without full transparency and citizen oversight of every aspect of elections, legitimate questions will persist, and democracy will remain in peril.

America Flips Out, Media Barely Notices, Parties Barely Care

While concerns about electronically tabulating paper ballots on oft-failing, insecure optical-scan systems would go underappreciated and underinvestigated by the mainstream media, electronic touchscreen voting systems (DREs) would be of moderately passing notice to the nation’s news outlets in the weeks and months following New Hampshire.

Failure after failure in primary after primary and state after state plagued the 2008 election. Where Oprah Winfrey’s problem received a modest moment of coverage, similar occurrences across the country on virtually every make and model of machinery from every vendor would receive little more than a blip of coverage, quickly downplayed as nothing but a “calibration issue” that could be handled with a quick maintenance procedure by election officials or employees of voting machine vendors.

Never mind that study after study by states such as Ohio, California, Colorado and others, and academic institutions such as Princeton and the University of California, had found virtually every electronic system highly vulnerable to error and/or manipulation, particularly if sensitive memory cartridges were accessed while in election-ready mode.  Yet the solution to touchscreen “vote-flipping” across the nation would be a quick, hands-on technical adjustment—or so argued the bulk of officials and vendors, whose careers and company solvency depended on minimizing such failures as little more than “glitches,” “hiccups,” “snags,” and “snafus,” as they were almost always downplayed in the media.

Whether marginalized or not, the failures were extraordinarily widespread in 2008, just as they were in 2004 (and in 2006), after which little was done before all would all be repeated again in the next Presidential election.

Some progress, one could argue, had been made in the intervening four years. At least reported occurrences of failures and vote flips were not as immediately dismissed as “conspiracy theories” that never actually happened, as they’d been frequently characterized in 2004. By 2008 enough citizens had become aware of known, documented problems with DRE voting, so reports were taken somewhat more seriously. And it didn’t hurt that many grassroots outlets such as Video the Vote had sprung up to document polling place problems, nearly instantaneously, by citizens armed with video cameras.

There were many notable failures on touchscreen systems even before early voting for the General Election kicked off. For example, in Horry County, South Carolina, in the Republican Presidential Primary held entirely on ES&S iVotronc touchscreen voting systems just days after the New Hampshire election, all machines in the county failed to fire up at all when the polls opened at 7:00 am.

As CNN reported[xvi] that afternoon, “Workers have been giving out paper ballots but at least one precinct has run out of envelopes to seal them in (not a sign of turnout—they had just 23 such ballots on hand).” Untold numbers of voters were sent away unable to vote at all, local news outlets reported. “Everyone is being turned away,” concerned voter Steve Rabe complained to News13, “There are no paper ballots. We were just turned away along with many of our neighbors. We were told to check back later . . . in the rain. This is a crisis.”

Tom Reynold wrote in, “I voted by paper ballot at the Socastee library and saw them run out of those while I was there at 10 am. I went to the Forestbrook precinct with a neighbor, picked up some paper ballots there and took them to the Socastee library. They told me they had ‘turned away’ 20 voters in the time I was gone! Turned away?! That’s not supposed to happen according to the Horry county elections commission.”

“All over the county,” it had been reported by evening, voters used scraps of paper, notebook paper, and even paper towels as ballots before officials were able to get most of the unverifiable touchscreens working around noon. The county would be forced to hand-count thousands of pieces of paper to determine results of the election that night.

Before the Democratic primary in the same state the following week, CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight would report on the meltdown and discuss the matter as an illustration of problems inherent in “paperless electronic voting machines.” CNN’s Kitty Pilgrim neglected to note in her report, however, that even if South Carolina’s DREs had “paper trail” printers, they would have been of no use since the machines failed to fire up at all, so they couldn’t have printed out so-called “voter-verifiable paper audit trails” featured on certain DRE models.

Given the disaster the week before, Democrats, in advance of their primary the next Saturday, instructed voters to print out sample ballots at home before going to the polls, just in case the massive failure of the Republican Primary was repeated. The machines “worked” the following week, even though it would still be 100 percent impossible to know if any machine succeeded in recording anybody’s vote accurately.

Three days later, in Palm Beach County, Florida’s primary (yes, ground zero for the 2000 Presidential paper ballot battle, prompting the hasty move to e-voting systems), Rush Limbaugh himself encountered problems with his touchscreen vote “when the screen seemed to freeze or ‘stick’ on the list of presidential candidates.” The Palm Beach Post blog[xvii] reported Limbaugh’s description to listeners on his widely-syndicated radio show.

“I hit ‘next’ and it didn’t go there,” Limbaugh explained, before he then hit the ‘back’ button and “got my candidate page again with the vote already recorded there.”

“So I said ‘hmmmmm, I wonder if this is going to count twice.’” He unclicked his candidate, selected it again and hit “Next” a second time, and saw his selection properly on the review screen. “I don’t know if I voted twice,” Limbaugh told listeners. “Probably not,” he guessed, not knowing for certain, of course, if his vote would count even once.

The following week, in New Jersey, on the February 5 “Super Tuesday,” Democratic Governor John Corzine “was unable to vote . . . at his designated polling site in Hoboken because the voting machines were not working,” as AP reported.[xviii] He was delayed for forty-five minutes when the AVC Advantage DRE systems, made by Sequoia, failed to start up, making it impossible to vote—not unlike what had happened to voters in South Carolina two weeks earlier. “The big question is why did this polling place not have any provisional ballots,” ABC 7 asked[xix] that day, noting “lots of people were obviously turned away” during the pre-work morning crush at the polls.

That same day, over at Daily Kos—the same site which pooh-poohed concerns about New Hampshire, and even purged users and diaries raising concerns about the 2004 election years earlier—a report[xx] was posted from a diarist noting her husband’s selection “reset” from Obama to Clinton, several times, on New Jersey’s touchscreen machines before he was able to push “the vote button” without it flipping back to Clinton.

The couple’s experience would become commonplace, repeated again and again, at polling place after polling place, in state after state, as the election ‘glitched,’ ‘hiccupped,’ ‘snagged,’ and ‘snafud’ towards November 3.

As early voting began in October, so too did nearly nonstop reports through Election Day of votes flipping and/or disappearing on DRE voting machines. As in previous years, the flips were almost always from Democratic candidates to others.  A few examples:

In Jackson County, WV, Virginia Matheney told the Sunday Gazette-Mail: [xxi]“When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain.” Others in the same precinct reported identical experiences on their ES&S iVotronics DREs. Who knows how many others didn’t notice, or didn’t report it.
In Putham County, WV, Martha Louise Harrington reported a similar problem with the same machines: “I was very cautious to put my fingernail in the middle of the square. I hit it in the square to vote for Obama. Immediately, it went to McCain.”
In Nashville (Davidson County), TN, Patricia Earnhardt—ironically, the Executive Producer of Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections, a documentary film focused on the dangers of touchscreen voting—saw her own ES&S iVotronic vote flip from Obama to Green Party Candidate Cynthia McKinney: “I touched ‘Obama’ for president & nothing lit up. I touched 2 or 3 more times & still nothing lit up. I called the poll worker back over to tell him I was having a problem. He said I just needed to touch it more lightly. I tried it 2 or 3 more times more lightly with the poll worker watching & still nothing lit up. The poll worker then touched it for me twice—nothing lit up. The third time he touched the Obama button, the Cynthia McKinney space lit up!” she emailed me, as reported on The Brad Blog at the time.
(In yet another irony, akin to Earnhardt’s—one that would momentarily light up the Internet with headlines such as “Election Integrity Journalist Sees Own Votes Flipped”—four of twelve of my own votes would be misprinted by the e-voting system in Los Angeles County during California’s June 2008 state primary.)

On Hilton Head Island (Beaufort County), SC, Nancy Roe discovered that races were missing on the review screen of her ES&S iVotronic touchscreen: “I’m real political, so I checked the ballot. If I had only given it a quick glance and punched ‘vote,’ I never would’ve known,” she told the Island Packet.[xxii] She solved the problem by voting with a paper ballot.
In Berkeley County, WV, again on the ES&S iVotronic, Roger Bolozier told poll workers when he tried to vote “straight Democratic ticket. But it switched my vote to Republican candidates five different times.” He was “concerned about a lot of people who might not notice or people who might be intimidated.”
In Palo Pinto County, TX, residents reported the by then too-familiar tale of problems with the ES&S iVotronic. Lona Jones told theMineral Wells Index:[xxiii] “When I cast an early vote at Palo Pinto County Courthouse, my vote was switched from Democrat to Republican right in front of my face—twice!” Teresa Crosier, an alternate election judge and office manager of the Palo Pinto County Democratic Headquarters had the same problem when she tried to vote straight party Democratic “and it came up straight party, Republican party.”
Back in WV, the problems on the ES&S systems continued, as the Sunday Gazette-Mail reported[xxiv] in late October, in at least six different counties (Jackson, Putnam, Berkeley, Ohio, Monongalia, and Greenbrier). And just one day after she’d held a press conference to discuss problems with ES&S vote-flipping in the state, West Virginia’s Secretary of State Betty Ireland actually presented an “award of merit” to ES&S vice-President Gary Greenhalgh, “a pioneer in the use of technology in the election process.” As ES&S’s vice president of sales, Wired reported,[xxv] Greenhalgh “helped the company win a $17 million contract to supply machines to West Virginia in 2005 and was the company’s point person for dealing with election officials.” It was the perfect illustration of our e-voting vendor/election official logrolling nightmare in a nutshell.
To the credit of Adams County, CO’s Clerk and Recorder Karen Long, a Diebold touchscreen system that had flipped votes from a Democratic candidate to a Republican was removed from service and quarantined, rather than allow it to be dangerously “recalibrated” in the middle of the election. But only after it happened to the Democratic state Representative who had tried to vote for herself, only to see it flipped to her opponent. “I always just trusted the machines, and it opened my eyes,” state Rep. Mary Hodge told the Colorado Independent.[xxvi]
Had anyone bothered to pay attention to Dan Rather’s breathtaking investigative HDNet report, “The Trouble with Touch Screens,” in the summer of 2006, they might have expected these problems, particularly from ES&S machines. Rather detailed nearly non-existent quality control in the Filipino sweatshop where many of them were built. Election officials may not have noticed Rather’s exposé, however, since not a single mainstream media outlet bothered to note, much less offer follow-up reportage on his award-worthy investigative report.

Even had those officials bothered to notice, most of them were, by then, so deeply in denial and/or millions of dollars into their commitment to the machines and private vendors who sold and serviced them, that dumping them for another likely-as-unreliable system was no longer an option—not if they wished to hold an election that year and continue their careers in the election industry thereafter.

Democrats Nowhere to Be Found

The Democratic Party—clearly with much to lose from the now-familiar pattern of e-voting systems adversely affecting attempted votes for their own candidates—was also in denial.

Just prior to the general election, Pennsylvania’s Democratic Secretary of the Commonwealth Pedro A. Cortes fought tooth and nail—even in court—against providing “emergency paper ballots” at polling places. Only a federal court challenge from voting rights advocates and the NAACPforced the state to offer at least a few paper ballots at the precincts, in case of machine failures. Earlier in the year, just before the make-or-break Pennsylvania Primary, election reform journalist Jake Soboroff asked officials[xxvii] if they had concerns about DRE systems used virtually across the entire state. Democratic Governor Ed Rendell dismissed Soboroff, admitting he “didn’t know enough about it to answer” before pointing to state and federal approval of the machines (the same ones found insecure, inaccurate, and hackable by one state test after another by then).

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter summed up the thinking of so many elected officials on the issue of voting machines by telling Soboroff, “I just got elected on them last year,” so how bad could they be?

Subsequently and predictably there were major problems on Election Day in Pennsylvania, particularly in Philadelphia, that April. All the while, Democrats, including the Obama campaign, had long been singing their familiar 2004 refrain: ‘If anything goes wrong at the polls this year, we’ll have thousands of attorneys on the ground, ready to take care of it.’ Apparently, as in 2004, they were just kidding.

The day before the 2008 General Election, The Brad Blog reported on hundreds of incidents called into Obama’s election protection hotline in Nevada as detailed in their incident report database code-named “Atlas Voter Protection.” In one incident after another during the state’s early voting period, machines failed to turn on, candidate names were reported missing and so-called “voter-verifiable paper audit trail” printers failed to work on the state’s Sequoia DRE systems.

The Obama/DNC attorneys declined to demand any of the failed systems be removed from service, or that voters be given paper ballots to record votes instead. Rather, the entire matter was kept quiet, the information never shared with the public.

Earlier in the year, citizen journalist Michael Richardson and I had broken the story of the illegal certification and use of Nevada’s Sequoia DRE “paper trail” system in 2004 by then Secretary of State Dean Heller (now a US Congressman, elected on his own machines in 2006.) Heller publicly lied about machine failures as they were being tested by the US Election Assistance Commission’s woeful certification process.  He also lied about them being federally certified when he first used them in 2004, in violation of state law. The EAC, responsible for overseeing all such certification and testing of e-voting systems at the federal level, not only looked the other way, but actually colluded in helping Heller use the uncertified machines illegally. When notified, neither the new Democratic Secretary of State nor the mainstream media in Nevada batted an eyelash.  (Our complete investigative report was published as a chapter in Mark Crispin Miller’s 2008 Loser Take All, a compilation of similar election failures). Heller’s illegally certified machines would fail again during the 2008 cycle, as neither Obama nor the Democrats nor the mainstream media seemed to care.

There was, of course, reason for everyone to be concerned, particularly about voting machines made by Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc. The company had been on the verge of bankruptcy and hostile takeover all year, and—though they had told federal investigators that they had divested from Smartmatic, their Venezuelan-owned, Hugo Chavez-tied parent company, in late 2006, after a hue and cry from Republicans—all of their systems’ Intellectual Property rights had secretly remained under the ownership of the Venezuelan firm.

In May of 2008, The Brad Blog reported the exclusive story of Sequoia’s lie to federal investigators, including company CEO Jack Blaine’s admission on a company-wide phone call that they didn’t own the IP rights to their own products—Smartmatic still did. We also detailed his lies-by-omission to Chicago officials—who’d just purchased the company’s touchscreens (the ones to be used by Oprah)—concerned the divestiture had been “a sham transaction designed to fool regulators.” It was, indeed. But again, the corporate media failed to notice, and Sequoia was able to invoke claims of IP violations while arguing against independent examinations of their machines in a New Jersey court case after their touchscreens misreported vote totals on Super Tuesday, and in DC, where thousands of “phantom votes” appeared on the city’s optical-scan systems in their September primary.

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

While many Democrats were ultimately satisfied with the outcome of the 2008 elections, they were a mess nonetheless. Rather than the machinery of American democracy improving since 2002’s Help America Vote Act, democracy continued to disappear as corporate control solidified and citizens became farther removed from the ability to oversee their own elections.

The media, however, happily distracted the American people from the those issues. While offering wall-to-wall coverage of the GOP’s “ACORN Voter Fraud” hoax, real cases of disenfranchising voter registration fraud, revealed by the arrest of the head of the company hired by California’s GOP to register voters, was barely reported. (Had I not, myself, during an appearance on Fox News, noted the arrest, it seems unlikely the cable “news” channel would have reported it at all.)

While evidence-free allegations of Democratic “voter fraud” made headlines, the well-documented case of Ann Coulter’s actual voter fraudin Florida was almost entirely ignored.

The story of record turnout would eclipse stories of illegally purged voter rolls in state after state, as the same private voting machine companies who’d performed so abysmally with voting machines were given state contracts to computerize voter rolls.

While Republicans fought for photo ID requirements at polls, nuns, veterans, minorities, students, and the elderly who had no state-issued ID were turned away, disenfranchised, robbed of their rights.

While the media obsessed over Norm Coleman’s challenge to Al Franken’s victory in Minnesota’s razor-thin US Senate Race—featuring the most transparent, painstakingly accurate post-election recount in the history of the nation (thankfully, they had paper ballots and bothered to count them!) —few noticed when a citizen transparency project discovered hundreds of ballots deleted without notice by Diebold’s optical-scan system in Humboldt County, CA. The company admitted the problem had been known since 2004.

While easily debunked Republican conspiracy theories of Franken ballots appearing “mysteriously” in an election director’s car were echoed again and again, the corporate media took little notice of a small plane crash killing the GOP’s top IT guru, Mike Connell, after he’d allegedly been threatened by Karl Rove weeks earlier when subpoenaed to testify about GOP election fraud in 2004. (See Chapter 1 for details on The Brad Blog’s Project Censored Award-winning coverage of the Connell story.)

California’s investigation of Humboldt’s deleted ballots revealed that Diebold/Premiere’s audit log system was in violation of federal voting system standards. E-voting audit logs had been pointed to by vendors for years as insurance that any mischief could easily be spotted by reviewing the supposedly indestructible logs. As the state investigation revealed, however, Diebold’s audit log system allowed deletion of ballots without notice; misdated and mis-time-stamped entries, and featured a “clear” button allowing complete deletion of all audit log records with a single mouse-click.

A Diebold/Premier spokesman admitted,[xxviii] during a CA Secretary of State hearing in March of 2009, that the flaws in the Diebold GEMS audit log exist in every version of its tabulation software—the same software used in thirty-one states across the nation and, yes, in the state of New Hampshire, where our 2008 nightmares began.

But in the end, the story that would continue to be the most under-reported was the quiet, nearly-complete takeover of our public democracy by private corporations, paving the way for so many of those nightmares. VotersUnite.org’s Ellen Theisen warned in a critical, if largely ignored, August, 2008 report that “Vendors are Undermining the Structure of US Elections.”

As we approached the 2008 general election, the structure of elections in the United States—once reliant on local representatives accountable to the public—had become almost wholly dependent on large corporations, which are not accountable to the public. Most local officials charged with running elections are now unable to administer elections without the equipment, services, and trade-secret software of a small number of corporations.
Our dependence on vendor support has left our election structure vulnerable to corporate decisions that are not in the public interest, corporate profiteering, and claims of trade secrecy for information that is essential to public oversight of elections.

Theisen adds ominously, “If the vendors withdrew their support for elections now, our election structure would collapse.”

In Humboldt County, California , after the discovery that Diebold/Premier’s system deleted ballots without notice in March of 2009, the company quietly sent two letters to the county, unilaterally “terminating” them.

“Premier has chosen to terminate the County’s right to use Premier’s GEMS software upon certification of your upcoming May 2009 election,” one letter stated. Humboldt would no longer be allowed to use the voting system, which the county had already decided to abandon following discovery of the ballot deletions.

The second letter gave Humboldt ninety days to uninstall the company’s voter registration software, which the county had no problems with. The vindictive letter informed the company was “terminating its relationship with the County” in all regards, sending Humboldt scrambling for another voter registration system—likely from another private vendor—even as they were amidst ensuring accuracy and accessibility for all voters in their May 2009 state special election.

In 2010, a national census year, elections across the nation will help determine the political balance of power for the next decade as Congressional districts are re-drawn and re-apportioned to match new census numbers. Those in power after the crucial 2010 elections will draw the boundaries set to affect elections and power in this nation for at least the next ten years. Those elections will be almost wholly run by four private for-profit companies, accountable to virtually no one.

Unless the media do their job by stepping up to report these matters, helping to force election officials, elected officials and law enforcement to do their jobs, the citizens—the rightful owners of those elections—will be able to do little about it.

Is anybody paying attention to the man behind the curtain yet?

Friedman, Brad, Video: Oprah Sees Own Presidential Vote Dropped By Touch-Screen Voting Machine, October 21, 2008, http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6603.
[ii] See http://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/map.php?state=Illinois&county=Cook&ec=allall&year=2008.

[iii] See http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/03/iowa.caucuses/index.html.

[iv] Real Clear Politics, January 8, 2008,http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/nh/new_hampshire_democratic_primary-194.html.

[v] Wikipedia, Bradley Effect, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect.

[vi] See http://hackingdemocracy.com/.

[vii] Susan Pynchon, “Around the States: The Harri Hursti Hack and its Importance to our Nation,” Florida Fair Elections Coalition, January 21, 2006, http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=820&Itemid=113.

[viii] Latest Investigations from Black Box Voting, December 13, 2005, http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/15595.html.

[ix] Brad Friedman and Chris Matthews, “Raw EXIT POLL Data ‘Indicated Significant Victory’ for Obama in NH,” January 10, 2008,http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5535.

[x] Dorgan, Lauren, “One Ballot at a Time,” January 18, 2008, Concord Monitor,http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080118/FRONTPAGE/801180340.

[xi] “The recount: Kucinich goes for answers,” NewHampshire.com, January 21, 2008,http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=The+recount%3A+Kucinich+goes+for+answers&articleId=8813e51e-89a1-4cc1-a917-f39324575beb.

[xii] “Our view: Recount won’t change New Hampshire result, The Eagle-Tribune online, January 21, 2008,http://www.eagletribune.com/puopinion/local_story_021103319?keyword=topstory+page=1.

[xiii] Kevin Landrigan, “Paul Backers Paid for GOP Recount,” Nashua Telegraph, January 24, 2008,http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080124/NEWS08/143908662/-1/news08.

[xiv] Dana Houle, “Enough With the ‘Diebold Hacked the NH Primary’ Lunacy,” Daily Kos, January, 9, 2008,http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/10/02623/2264/85/434176.

[xv] Josh Marshall, “Enough,” Talking Points Memo, January 10, 2008,http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063292.php.

[xvi] “South Carolina primary plagued by bad voting machines, snow,” CNNPolitics.com, January 19, 2008,http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/19/south.carolina.gop/index.html?iref=newssearch.

[xvii] “Rush Limbaugh has Trouble Voting,” PlanBeachPost.com, January 29, 2008,http://www.postonpolitics.com/2008/01/rush-limbaugh-has-trouble-voting/.

[xviii] “Corzine can’t vote because of poll problems,” Associated Press, February 05, 2008,http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/02/corzine_cant_vote_because_of_p.html.

[xix] “McCain, Hillary Win in NJ, Polling Problems Earlier in the Day,” ABC, Feburary 6, 2008,http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/politics&id=5936011.

[xx] “Trying to Vote for Obama, Machine Resets to Clinton in NJ,” Daily Kos, February 5, 2008,http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/2/5/123158/7065/255/450294.

[xxi] Paul Nyden, “Some early W.Va. Voters Angry over Switched Votes,” WVGazette.com, October 18, 2008,http://wvgazette.com/News/200810170676.

[xxii] Renee Dudley, “Machine Ballots Omit Candidates’ Names,” Island Packet October 22, 2008, ,http://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/story/645376.html.

[xxiii] See http://www.mineralwellsindex.com/local/local_story_298161535.html.

[xxiv] Paul Nyden, “Voting Machine Complaints Continue,” WVGazette.com, October 27, 2008,http://wvgazette.com/News/200810270020?page=1&build=cache.

[xxv] Kim Zetter, “W. Virginia Gives E-Voting VP an Award While Machines Malfunction,” Wired.com,http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/10/w-virginia-give/.

[xxvi] Ernest Luning, “Adams County ‘Quarantines’ Machine that Switched Candidate’s Vote,” The Colorado Independent, October 29, 2009, http://coloradoindependent.com/13187/adams-county-quarantines-machine-that-switched-candidates-vote.

[xxvii] “PA Officials: No Trouble With Touchscreens,” Why Tuesday?, April 17, 2998,http://www.whytuesday.org/2008/04/17/pa-officials-no-trouble-with-touchscreens/.

[xxviii] Kim Zetter, “Diebold Admits Systemic Audit Log Failure; State Vows Inquiry,” Wired.com, March 17, 2009,http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/03/diebold-admits/.

From March 16-22, 2009, the World Water Council (WWC) presented the fifth World Water Forum in Istanbul, Turkey.  Boasting participation by over 33,000 people from around the globe, the WWC heralded the Forum as “the world’s biggest ever water-related event.” Nonetheless, as detailed in Chapter 1, the World Water Forum, and its competing Peoples’ Water Forum, ranks prominently among 2008-2009’s most under-reported news stories.

The dearth of US coverage should surprise even the most jaundiced critics of America’s corporate media.  At least four episodes from the Forum not only fit conventional definitions of newsworthiness, but also contrasted sharply with the Forum’s declared theme, “Bridging Divides for Water.” Thus, most Americans probably do not know that:

- Turkish police forces shot water cannons to disperse protesters outside the forum.  Water cannons, they subsequently explained, were more cost-effective than tear gas.

Turkish police disperse demonstrators with water cannons outside the World Water Forum, Istanbul, March 18, 2009.

- Though the Forum’s official program heralded “more diverse participation mechanisms,” in Istanbul the World Water Council refused to allow the President of the United Nation’s General Assembly a public audience.  President Miguel d’Escoto has been an outspoken critic of water privatization.

- At the Forum’s inaugural event, two activists representing International Rivers unfurled a banner reading “No Risky Dams” in peaceful protest.  Ann Kathrin Schneider and Payal Parekh were immediately detained, arrested and subsequently deported after being charged with “manipulating the public opinion.”

Activists at the opening ceremony of the Forum, subsequently arrested for “manipulating public opinion.”

Of course, since its inception in 1996, the World Water Forum has constituted an ongoing attempt to manipulate public opinion, specifically regarding the desirability, if not the inevitability, of privatized water as both a commodity, and, in the words of the World Water Council’s President, Loïc Fauchon, “a strategic resource.” Though President Fauchon has publicly advocated that the “human right to water should be formally, constitutionally recognized in every country across the globe,” his business interests— including his long-standing affiliation with Eaux de Marsielle, the subsidiary of two multinational French water corporations—undermine his claim’s credibility.

- Finally, many Americans would be surprised to learn that in Istanbul, the United States joined China and several other countries in opposing a declaration of the right to water.  Instead, the Forum concluded that access to water was a “basic need.”

As Maude Barlow, a senior advisor to the President of the UN General Assembly noted, the distinction between a right and a basic need is not simply semantic:  “[Y]ou cannot trade or sell a human right or deny it to someone on the basis of an inability to pay.”[ii]

This chapter aims to remedy the corporate media’s inadequate coverage of the World Water Forum by examining:

the significance of water control as a means of power;
the history, organization, and aims of the World Water Council;
the significance of Turkey as the host site of the fifth World Water Forum; and
what concerned citizens can do to support alternatives to the WWC and its utilitarian belief of water as nothing more than commodity and strategic resource.
These four themes’ significance stems in part from the fact that, on one hand, according to World Health Organization figures, 1.4 billion people worldwide lack access to clean drinking water, and 2.6 billion lack access to sanitation; and on the other hand, the battle over privatization of water hinges on different conceptions of accountability:- Advocates of water privatization—including the majority of invited participants in the World Water Forum—ultimately place their faith in markets, and they understand accountability as a matter of corporate entities’ responsibilities to theirshareholders.  In this view, water is a commodity.

- By contrast, advocates of water as a basic human right seek recognition of water as a public trust, so that accountability for its management, delivery, and use ultimately resides in local communities.  In this view, water is not a commodity, but a commons, belonging to and equally shared by all.  In Water Wars, Vandana Shiva writes, “Water is a commons because it is the ecological basis of all life and because its sustainability and equitable allocation depends on cooperation among community members.”[iii]

Under What Conditions Is Water Control A Source Of Power?

When World Water Council President Fauchon describes water as a “strategic resource,” he is, to some extent, correct.  As Donald Worster and other scholars of water control demonstrate, in arid environments control of water is a source of both economic wealth and political power.[iv] Thus, in Rivers of Empire Worster argues that,

Control over water has again and again provided an effective means of consolidating power in human groups—led, that is, to the assertion by some people of power over others.  Sometimes that outcome was unforeseen, a result no one really sought but dire necessity seemed to require.  In other places and times, the concentration of power within human society that comes from controlling water was a deliberate goal of ambitious individuals, one they pursued even in the face of protest and resistance.

To explain how water control contributes to the consolidation of power, Worster develops the concept of hydraulic society, which he defines as “a social order based on the intensive, large-scale manipulation of water and its products in an arid setting.”[v]

Worster then identifies three distinct modes of hydraulic society, defining each mode in terms of its (1) scale of water works, (2) managerialauthority, and (3) goals.  He characterizes the most developed form of hydraulic society, the “capitalist-state mode,” in terms of:

1.  large scale, technologically advanced water works;

2.  controlled by an “iron-triangle” of bureaucratic planners, elected officials and corporate agriculture;

3.  with the aim of “rational, calculating, unlimited accumulation of private wealth.”

This social order is flawed for two fundamental and intertwined reasons, Worster argues.  First, the consolidation of power that occurs in the capitalist-state mode of water control is counter-democratic.  Though the iron triangle of elites must contend with one another, overall their rule is resistant to traditional democratic checks and balances.  “Democracy cannot survive,” Worster writes, “where technical expertise, accumulated capital, or their combination is allowed to command.”[vi] Second, hydraulic societies risk “environmental vulnerabilities,” including the problems of water quantity, water quality, and the degradation of ecological communities.

For Worster, hydraulic society’s twin threats to democracy and the environment suggest what a sustainable alternative to the capitalist-state mode of water control must look like:

[T]he promotion of democracy, defined as the dispersal of power into as many hands as possible, is a direct and necessary, though perhaps not sufficient, means to achieve ecological stability. . . . [D]espite so much rhetoric to the contrary, one cannot have life both ways—cannot maximize wealth and empire and maximize freedom and democracy too.

Worster’s point about the ultimate incompatibility of wealth and empire, on one hand, and freedom and democracy, on the other, is essential to understanding the World Water Forum and the ambitions of those who created it.

What Is The World Water Council?

Who established the World Water Council?  According to the WWC’s website, the Council “was established in 1996 in response to increasing concern from the global community about world water issues.” The passive construction— “was established”—proves significant here.  A subsequent page elaborates only somewhat, revealing that the Council was established “on the initiative of renowned water specialists and international organizations.”

Suez and Veolia, two of the world’s largest private water corporations, are accurately described as “water specialists” and “international organizations.” It is not clear from the WWC’s website whether Suez and Veolia created the World Water Council, but a look beneath the surface of the Council’s webpage reveals the extent to which these two corporations constitute the prime movers of the WWC.[vii] The Council’s President, Löic Fauchon, is also President of Groupe des Eaux de Marseille, which Veolia and a Suez subsidiary jointly own.  Compagnie Générale des Eaux, a subsidiary of Veolia, has employed the WWC’s alternate president, Charles-Louis de Maud’huy, since 1978.

Moreover, the WWC’s Board of Governors is composed primarily of individuals and institutions that fit closely with Worster’s model of the bureaucratic planners who constitute one third of the ruling iron triangle.  The Council’s board members represent countries, corporations and organizations that actively promote, and/or stand to benefit financially from, water privatization.[viii]

Among the Board of Governors, even Green Cross International (GCI)—an environmental education organization, and the lone board member that appears to represent civil society—advocates private financing and management of water according to market principles.  GCI’s founding president and honorary board member, Mikhail Gorbachev, has publicly stated that corporations are “the only institutions” with the intellectual and financial potential to solve the world’s water problems.[ix]

The World Water Council has risen to prominence partly by filling a vacuum in governance.  In 1947, when the United Nations passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it did not include water as a human right.  World leaders did not perceive a human rights dimension to water at the time.  As an unintended consequence, water policy today has shifted from “the UN and governments toward institutions and organizations that favor the private water companies and the commodification of water.”[x]

However, as Aldo Leopold observed in his famous land ethic essay, ethical criteria evolve over time.[xi] Leopold advocated an evolving land ethic that would counter a strictly utilitarian conception of land as property by enlarging “the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.” In this view,

a system of conservation based solely on economic self-interest is hopelessly lopsided.  It tends to ignore, and thus eventually eliminate, many elements in the land community that lack commercial value, but that are (as far as we know) essential to its healthy functioning.

Building on Leopold’s ethical vision, Sandra Postel and others advocate the development of a water ethic:

Instead of asking how we can further control and manipulate rivers, lakes, and streams to meet our ever-growing demands, we would ask instead how we can best satisfy human needs while accommodating the ecological requirements of freshwater ecosystems.  It would lead us, as well, to deeper questions of human values, in particular how to narrow the wide gap between the haves and have-nots while remaining within the bounds of what a healthy ecosystem can sustain.[xii]

Despite Leopold and Postel’s eloquence, not to mention the concerted efforts of local communities and the global justice movement, the World Water Council and its supporters continue to promote a market-based, utilitarian approach to the world’s water crisis.  Perhaps no nation in the world today more clearly exemplifies the extremes of treating water as commodity than Turkey, the host nation of the fifth World Water Forum.

Why Meet In Turkey?

Under the leadership of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the government of Turkey is currently undertaking what may be “the most sweeping water privatization program in the world.”[xiii] The government not only wants to privatize the nation’s drinking water supply and delivery systems, but also the water itself.  Such a transformation would be unprecedented in modern history, since the proposal entails the sale of not only the rights to use of the water, which has been commonplace since water was first treated as a commodity, but in fact the water itself.  The conventional legal distinction between rights to use of the water and ownership of the water itself would be overturned by Energy and Natural Resources Minister Hilmi Güler’s plan to sell at least a dozen rivers, including the Euphrates and Tigris, to private companies for up to forty-nine years.[xiv]

Officials estimated that privatizing the nation’s water would generate $3 billion in revenues for the government.  Notably, in addition to opposition from Turkish agriculturalists, two articles of the national constitution (articles 43 and 168) reserve control of natural resources and their operating rights to the state.  As of the March 2009, the Turkish government has not succeeded in modifying articles 43 and 168 of its constitution to implement sales of the nation’s rivers and lakes.  Nonetheless, one can imagine that the World Water Council looked favorably on Turkey as a host nation for its 2009 Forum, given the AKP’s audacious proposal to sell the nation’s water to private corporations.

In addition to the Turkish government’s evident support for the World Water Council’s privatization agenda, at least four of the ten Forum Sponsors listed in the Istanbul 2009 program are Turkish-based multinational corporations with vested interests in water privatization:

1.  Cengiz Holding, a conglomerate of twelve companies, established in 1987, is currently constructing four major dams with hydroelectric power plants, as well as two additional dams and three irrigation canals in Turkey;

2.  Nurol, a construction conglomerate founded in the 1966, includes dams and hydroelectric power plants, irrigation and drainage systems, and water supply and sewage systems among its infrastructure projects;

3.  BM Holding A.S., established in 1972, is now building at least six large-scale dams and/or hydropower plants in Turkey; and

4.  Enerjisa, an electricity provider established in 1996, aims to control ten percent of the Turkish market by 2015; Enerjisa is owned jointly by the Sabanci Group, one of Turkey’s leading industrial and financial conglomerates, and Verbund, an Austrian-based hydro-power producer.

A fifth sponsor of the 2009 World Water Forum, Grundfos, is a Danish multi-national that produces water pumps and pumping systems.  Each of these five sponsors clearly has business interests in alignment with the World Water Council’s agenda.

Finally, Turkey is strategically situated relative to Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Israel, four Middle Eastern states that loom large in contemporary global politics.  One recent example will serve to illustrate this point.  In April 2009, Iraq’s Water Resources Minister, Abdul-Latif Jamal Rasheed, accused Turkey and Iran of contributing to Iraq’s growing water shortages.  Minister Rasheed blamed dams and reservoirs on the Tigris and Euphrates, both of which originate in Turkey, and called for Iraq to receive a “sufficient and fair share of water” from the rivers.[xv]

Of course, the 2009 World Water Forum brought together not only a global elite ambitious to consolidate its members’ wealth and power by promoting water privatization as the only viable response to the world’s water crisis, but also activists intent on challenging this agenda.  Those who would concentrate wealth and power by privatizing water met with protest, resistance, and a positive alternative vision in Istanbul.

At the meeting’s conclusion, Maude Barlow spoke on behalf of the alternative People’s Water Forum, telling “Democracy Now’s” Amy Goodman, “It’s no longer about the World Water Forum . . . [N]ow it’s about us and our vision.  The World Water Forum is bankrupt.  They’re bankrupt of ideas.  They’re bankrupt of money, frankly. And they have nothing to offer but what’s failed . . . It’s been a transfer of power.”

Advocates of water as a human right will aim to consolidate that transfer of power during the December 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.  Many expect water issues, including the ongoing public-private debate, to feature prominently in Copenhagen, when the world’s leaders gather to update the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

What Can You Do?

If you are reading a chapter about water in Censored 2010, chances are you already cast a wary eye on bottled water, take shorter showers, and avoid pouring your used motor oil down the storm drain.  So what else can you do to link arms with members of the global justice movement who gathered in Istanbul to resist the privatization of water and to promote the establishment of water as a basic human right?  Here are six activities to engage you in the global effort for water justice.

1.  Inform yourself about local and global water issues. In addition to the books cited in this chapter, each of which is worth reading, independent film makers have now produced a number of excellent documentaries on water issues, including:

- Flow (directed by Irena Salina, 2008), http://www.flowthefilm.com/.

- Thirst (Alan Snitow & Deborah Kaufman, 2004), http://www.pbs.org/pov/thirst/ and

http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/thirst.html.

- Dead in the Water (Neil Docherty, 2004), http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/deadinthewater/index.html.

- The Dammed (Franny Armstrong, 2003; originally titled Drowned Out),

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/dammed/index.html and

http://www.spannerfilms.net/?lid=16.

- Cadillac Desert (Jon Else, 1997),http://web.archive.org/web/20030212083841/www.kteh.org/cadillacdesert/home.html.

2.  Become Watershed Literate.  A watershed encompasses all the land surface that collects and drains water to a single exit point.[xvi] After exploring the length of the Colorado River, in 1890 John Wesley Powell encouraged the US Congress to organize the settlement of the American West on the basis of watersheds, a recommendation Congress ignored.[xvii] More than 100 years later, advocates of ecologically sustainable communities are adapting and extending Powell’s vision.  The Occidental Arts and Ecology Water Institute is one of the leaders in promoting watershed literacy. See http://oaecwater.org.

3.  Harvest Rainwater. Turn water scarcity into abundance by learning how to design and implement simple water harvesting systems for the home and yard. As an example of rainwater harvesting’s potential, Brad Lancaster calculates that the average annual rainfall for the desert city of Tucson (population approaching one million) exceeds the city’s current municipal water use, suggesting that, at least, all residential outdoor water needs could be met by rainwater harvesting, reducing the city’s pumping of groundwater and reliance on imported Colorado River water.[xviii]

See http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/. And for an immediate, and conscious-changing start, place a bucket in your shower to catch the water flow while you wait for the warm water.  Carry the bucket to the yard to water flowers or vegetables.

4.  Advocate for a Clean Water Trust.  In the US, urge your congressional representatives to create a Clean Water Trust Fund.  Food and Water Watch, a nonprofit consumer organization, challenges corporate control and abuse of food and water. Seehttp://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/trust-fund.

5.  Call for water as a basic human right. Join the grassroots movement for water democracy by urging the United Nations to establish a covenant on the right to water.

See http://www.blueplanetproject.net/ andhttp://www.article31.org/.

6.  Demand better coverage of water issues from corporate media, and support independent media that do provide informative, useful reports. Submit letters to the editor and opinion pieces on water issues, local and global.  Give kudos when journalists and news organizations provide good coverage.  Keep them honest when they fail to do so.

Andrew L. Roth has taught Sociology courses focused on water issues at UCLA, Pomona College, and Sonoma State University.  He was Associate Director of Project Censored from 2006-2008.  He now lives in Tucson, Arizona, where he harvests rainwater and continues to advocate for water justice.

Notes
For Ann Kathrin Schneider’s account seehttp://www.alternet.org/bloggers/schneider/132725/why_i_was_deported_from_turkey/.

[ii] Maude Barlow, “Making Water a Human Right,” in Water Consciousness: How We All Have to Change to Protect Our Most Critical Resource, edited by Tara Lohan (San Francisco: Alternet Books, 2008), p. 181.

[iii] Vandana Shiva, Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2002), p. 24.

[iv] Donald Worster, Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity and the Growth of the American West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).  See also Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, revised edition, (New York: Penguin, 1993).

[v] Worster extends Karl Wittfogel’s original conception “hydraulic society” as a distinct type of social order.  Wittfogel (1896-1988) drew on Karl Marx, Max Weber and the emerging Frankfurt School to understand the relationships among nature, technology, and society. Wittfogel raised the profound question that Worster’s study pursues: “How, in the remaking of nature, do we remake ourselves?” (p. 30).

[vi] Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman reiterate Worster’s point:  “The concept of democracy itself is being challenged by multinational corporations that see Americans not as citizens, but merely as customers.  They don’t see government as something of, by, and for the people, but as a market to be entered for profit.” Snitow and Kaufman, “The New Corporate Threat to Our Water,” in Water Consciousness, op cit, p. 45.

[vii] Jeff Conant’s award-winning Alternet reports emphasized the corporate foundations of the World Water Council’s leadership.

[viii] Unfortunately, the WWC website lists the Board of Governors membership for April 2006.  Though dated, the available roll call nonetheless provides a clear picture of the Council’s driving interests.

[ix] Barlow, “Making Water a Human Right,” Water Consciousness, op cit, p. 181.

[x] Ibid, p. 179.

[xi] Aldo Leopold, “The Land Ethic,” pp. 201-226 in Sand County Almanac (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

[xii] Sandra L. Postel, “Why We Need a Water Ethic,” in Water Consciousness, op cit, t p. 188.  See also Sandra Postel, Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992).

[xiii] See, for example, Olivier Hoedeman and Orsan Senalp’s “Turkey Plans to Sell Rivers and Lakes to Corporations,” Alternet, April 23, 2008, http:/www.alternet.org/story/83304/.  This story should probably have been awarded a Project Censored prize in 2007-2008.

[xiv] See http://www.globalwaterintel.com/archive/8/9/general/the-puzzle-of-turkish-river-privatisation.html.

[xv] “Blackwater bowing out; Va. Firm will protect US diplomats in Iraq,” Arizona Daily Star, April 2, 2009: A2.  Notably the information on the Iraqi minister’s complaint against Turkey and Iran was effectively buried at the end of the headline story about the private security firm, Blackwater.

[xvi] Brock Dolman, “Watershed Literacy: Restoring Community and Nature,” in Water Consciousness, op cit, p. 101.

[xvii] See Worster, Rivers of Empire, op cit, pp. 138-143.

[xviii] Brad Lancaster, Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond (Tucson: Rainsource Press, 2008), pp. 18-19.

Public diplomacy is a catchall term for the various ways in which the United States promotes itself to international audiences (as opposed to “regular” diplomacy, which targets foreign governments). These include international media, such as the Voice of America; cultural and educational exchanges, such as the Fulbright Program; and a wide range of information activities, including foreign press centers, speaking events and publications. As the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy notes, the term “was developed partly to distance overseas governmental information activities from the term propaganda, which had acquired pejorative connotations.”

In the United States, public diplomacy’s legislative history also involves propaganda. The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which provided a legal framework for public diplomacy activities, forbids the government from disseminating within the United States information intended for foreign audiences. Other legislation, such as appropriation bills, theoretically reinforces the ban on using taxpayer money for “publicity or propaganda purposes.”

From 2002 to 2008, the Defense Department secretly cultivated more than seventy retired military officers who frequently serve as media commentators. Initially, the goal was to use them as “message force multipliers,” to bolster the Bush administration’s Iraq War sell job. That went so well that the covert program to shape US public opinion—an illegal effort, by any reasonable reading of the law—was expanded to spin everything from then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s job performance to US military operations in Afghanistan to the Guantanamo Bay detention center to warrantless wiretapping.

David Barstow of the New York Times wrote on April 20, 2009, “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand,” a stunning exposé of the Bush administration’s most powerful propaganda weapon used to sell and manage the war on Iraq.  This involved the embedding of military propagandists directly into the TV networks as on-air commentators. We and others have long criticized the widespread TV network practice of hiring former military officials to serve as analysts, but even in our most cynical moments we did not anticipate how bad it was. Barstow painstakingly documented how these analysts, most of them military industry consultants and lobbyists, were directly chosen, managed, coordinated and given their talking points by the Pentagon’s ministers of propaganda.

Thanks to the two-year investigation by the New York Times, we today know that Victoria Clarke, then the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, launched the Pentagon military analyst program in early 2002. These supposedly independent military analysts were in fact a coordinated team of pro-war propagandists, personally recruited by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and acting under Clarke’s tutelage and development.

One former participant, NBC military analyst Kenneth Allard, has called the effort “psyops on steroids.” As Barstow reports, “Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as ‘message force multipliers’ or ‘surrogates’ who could be counted on to deliver administration ‘themes and messages’ to millions of Americans ‘in the form of their own opinions.’ . . . Don Meyer, an aide to Ms. Clarke, said a strategic decision was made in 2002 to make the analysts the main focus of the public relations push to construct a case for war.”

Clarke and her senior aide, Brent T. Krueger, eventually signed up more than seventy-five retired military officers who penned newspaper op/ed columns and appeared on television and radio news shows as military analysts. The Pentagon held weekly meetings with the military analysts, which continued as of April 20, 2008, when the New York Times ran Barstow’s story. The program proved so successful that it was expanded to issues besides the Iraq War. “Other branches of the administration also began to make use of the analysts. Mr. Gonzales, then the attorney general, met with them soon after news leaked that the government was wiretapping terrorism suspects in the United States without warrants, Pentagon records show. When David H. Petraeus was appointed the commanding general in Iraq in January 2007, one of his early acts was to meet with the analysts.”

The use of these analysts was a glaring violation of journalistic standards. As the code of ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists explains, journalists are supposed to

* Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.

* Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.

* Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel, and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office, and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.

* Disclose unavoidable conflicts.

* Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.

* Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.

* Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money.

The networks using these analysts as journalists shamelessly failed to vet their experts and ignored the obvious conflicts of hiring a person with financial relationships to companies profiting from war to be an on-air analyst of war. They acted as if war was a football game and their military commentators were former coaches and players familiar with the rules and strategies. The TV networks even paid these “analysts” for their propaganda, enabling them to present themselves as “third party experts” while parroting White House talking points to sell the war.

Since the 1920s there have been laws passed to stop the government from doing what Barstow has exposed. It is actually illegal in the United States for the government to propagandize its own citizens. As Barstow’s report demonstrates, these laws have been repeatedly violated, are not enforced and are clearly inadequate. The US Congress therefore needs to investigate this and the rest of the Bush propaganda campaign that sold the war in Iraq.

The Iraq war would likely never have been possible had the mainstream news media done its job. Instead, it has repeated the Big Lies that sold the war. This war would never have been possible without the millions of dollars spent by the Bush administration on sophisticated and deceptive public relations techniques such as the Pentagon military analyst program that David Barstow has exposed. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Victoria Clarke, who designed and oversaw this Pentagon propaganda machine, now works as a commentator for TV network news. She may have changed jobs and employers since leaving the Pentagon, but her work remains the same.

In April 2008, shortly after the New York Times first reported on the Pentagon’s pundits—an in-depth exposé that recently won the Times’ David Barstow his second Pulitzer Prize—the Pentagon suspended the program. In January 2009, the Defense Department Inspector General’s office released a report claiming “there was an ‘insufficient basis’ to conclude that the program had violated laws.” Representative Paul Hodes, one of the program’s many Congressional critics, called the Inspector General’s report “a whitewash.”

Now, it seems as though the Pentagon agrees. On May 5, 2009, the Defense Department Inspector General’s office announced that it was withdrawing its report on the Pentagon pundit program, even removing the file from its website.

“Shortly after publishing the report . . . we became aware of inaccuracies in the data,” states the “withdrawal memo” (PDF) from the Inspector General’s office. The office’s internal review of the report—which it has “refused to release,” according to the Times—“concluded that the report did not meet accepted quality standards.” The report relied on “insufficient or inconclusive” evidence, the memo admits. In addition, “former senior [Defense Department] officials who devised and managed” the Pentagon pundit program, including Victoria Clarke and Lawrence DiRita, “refused our requests for an interview.”

While the Inspector General’s “highly unusual” about-face is welcome, it gets us no closer to accountability. “Additional investigative work will not be undertaken,” the withdrawal memo states, because the Pentagon pundit program “has been terminated and responsible senior officials”—such as Allison Barber—“are no longer employed by the Department.”

Of course, accountability for the Pentagon pundit program was never likely to come from the Defense Department itself. Now it’s up to Congress to demand—and the Government Accountability Office and the Federal Communications Commission to carry out—real investigations into the elaborate propaganda campaign.

There is a long history of various administrations seeking to propagandize the American people. The Bush administration, and the Clinton administration before it, funded video news releases (VNRs) that television stations across the United States aired as independent “reports” during their news programming. Not surprisingly, the VNRs portrayed government actions and policies in a favorable light. One on educational assistance under No Child Left Behind concluded, “This is a program that gets an A-plus.”

Congress’ investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), repeatedly ruled that government VNRs are illegal covert propaganda unless their source is made clear to viewers. The Bush administration rejected the GAO’s rulings, substituting their own intent-based standard. They argued that government VNRs are permissible, whether disclosed or not, as long as the intent behind them is to inform, not to persuade.

The Department of Defense has also relied on intent to dismiss concerns about propaganda blowback. The Department’s 2003 Information Operations Roadmap admits, “Information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and PSYOP [psychological operations], increasingly is consumed by our domestic audience and vice-versa.” However, it argues that, “the distinction between foreign and domestic audiences becomes more a question of USG [US government] intent rather than information dissemination practices.”

The 8,000 pages of Pentagon pundit documents, which the New York Times obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request (backed up by lawsuits) and the Department of Defense later made public, reveal the daily operations of the program.

The morning of June 20, 2006, an email message circulated amongst US Defense Department officials.” Jed Babbin, one of our military analysts, is hosting the Michael Medved nationally syndicated radio show this afternoon. He would like to see if General [George W.] Casey would be available for a phone interview,” the Pentagon staffer wrote. “This would be a softball interview and the show is 8th or 9th in the nation.”

Why would the Pentagon help set up a radio interview? And how did they know that the interview would be “softball”?

From early 2002 to April 2008, the Department of Defense offered talking points, organized trips to places such as Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, and gave private briefings to a legion of retired military officers working as media pundits. The Pentagon’s military analyst program, a covert effort to promote a positive image of the Bush administration’s wartime performance, was a multi-level campaign involving quite a few colorful characters.

One Pentagon pundit arguably steals the spotlight: Jed Babbin. A former Pentagon official himself, the retired Air Force officer served as a deputy undersecretary of defense with the George H.W. Bush administration. Since then he has kept busy authoring books, serving as a contributing editor to the conservative monthly American Spectator, frequently filling in for right-wing radio hosts such as Laura Ingraham and Hugh Hewitt, and appearing as a military pundit on cable television.

Babbin repeatedly appears in the Pentagon pundit documents, usually either emailing his American Spectator articles to Pentagon officials, or using his special access to arrange interviews with high-ranking government and military officers for his articles and radio guest host gigs.

In February 2006, Babbin emailed Pentagon legal advisor Thomas Hemingway. “I’m subbing for Hugh Hewitt again tomorrow and want to bash the UN report,” he wrote, referring to an inquiry into conditions at Guantánamo Bay that led the United Nations to call for the detention center to be closed. “I asked for [US Army Major General] Jay Hood and got the answer that the military isn’t going out on that now. Can you do it? Please call asap.” Babbin didn’t just use Pentagon public affairs staffers as his radio bookers. He also asked them for their thoughts on what he should say, as a pundit.

“I just got a call from Jed Babbin,” wrote one Pentagon public affairs officer in October 2006. “He is going to be on [the CNBC show] Kudlow [& Company] tonight and want [sic] to be prepared if they ask him about the [Al-Qaeda] threat to Saudi oil fields. . . . Anything we could share with him??”

The Pentagon was also more than proactive. “[Fox News’] Hannity and Colmes is having Jed Babbin on today to talk about North Korea,” emailed Pentagon public affairs staffer Dallas Lawrence to Ruff and Whitman in February 2005. “We are getting Jed a one pager on the status of forces in the Korean Peninsula (the message being, we still have a massive deterrent there for [North Korea]). We will also put him into touch with State for talking points on the 6 party talks.”

In a phone interview, Babbin defended his communications with the Pentagon. “I am a journalist,” he told me. “I have information that’s given to me by sources of all sorts. Private information is what you normally do in Washington. You get confidential sources and you rely on them. I’m not compromised. I can’t speak for anybody else other than myself, but I have no relationship with defense contractors, I have no contracts with the Pentagon. There’s no conflict there.”

But Babbin’s contacts with the Pentagon are still problematic, according to Kelly McBride, Ethics Group Leader at the Poynter Institute for media studies. “When you hire a former general [as a media commentator], you’re hiring him for his expertise and his ability to independently analyze what’s going on,” she explained. “If you’re assuming because he’s retired he has a measure of independence and then you find out, no, he’s actually been to all these trainings where he’s received talking points, that’s a problem. You have promised your audience that you’re going to deliver them independent analysis—not a mouthpiece for the Pentagon.”

That raises the question of whether the responsibility to ensure the integrity and independence of military analysts lies with the pundits themselves or with the media outlets that hired them. In this case, says McBride, it’s the latter.

“The journalists had the obligation to figure out if their sources were independent,” she said. “Each show decided how they were going to use these people, and at that point, somebody should’ve been having a conversation about what they’re bringing to the product and how that works, and then finally, there should be an overall standard that says when we hire people, here is what we should ask of them.”

In his defense, Babbin said that “everyone I wrote for and so forth knew I was talking to people in the Pentagon.” Babbin also went on government-funded trips to Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, but said he doesn’t believe that any of the media outlets he writes or appears on-air for have policies against such activity. So, Babbin concludes that he had no conflicts of interest.

Do the media outlets that Babbin appeared on feel the same way? Salem Radio Network, which produces both “The Hugh Hewitt Show” and “The Michael Medved Show,” radio programs that Babbin appeared on while participating in the Pentagon’s pundit program, refused comment. Phone calls to the American Spectator and WMET of Washington, DC were not returned.

Todd Meyer, a producer for Greg Garrison’s show on Indianapolis radio station WIBC, one of Babbin’s more frequent stomping grounds, said, “I’m not sure if Jed mentioned he was a part of [the Department of Defense’s military analyst program]. He might at some point. He said over the years, though, that he’s been part of many, many briefings at the Pentagon, most when he was actually working there under Bush.”

Meyer added that Babbin was never presented on the show as an independent analyst. “Jed Babbin is the editor of Human Events, he wrote for National Review, he wrote for American Spectator. He’s conservative,” stressed Meyer. “We’re a conservative talk show. Mr. Babbin’s been on our show many, many times over the years and he comes from a conservative background. He was privy to a number of briefings. We took advantage of hearing what was in those briefings.”

But is being conservative synonymous with being a mouthpiece for the Pentagon?

Babbin contends that he was nothing of the sort. “If they were buying my loyalty, they got a pretty bad bargain. If they thought they were buying my reporting, they really had a very poor investment. Look at my stories, look at what I’ve written. I’ve been very highly critical at times of the president and a lot of the people who conduct the war.”

Judging by the Pentagon pundit documents, the Department of Defense sees Babbin as an ardent supporter. “Babbin will do us well,” Pentagon PR staffer Bryan Whitman wrote in a March 2005 email. In June 2005, Larry Di Rita told fellow Pentagon public affairs officers, “We really should try to help [Babbin secure guests for his radio hosting gigs]. . . . He is consistently solid and helpful.” Another message, this one from Thomas Hemingway to Eric Ruff in June 2006, reads: “I’m sure all your folks are familiar with the tremendous support we’ve received from Jed.” And that’s in addition to the aforementioned “softball interview” comment.

While Jed Babbin was only one of some seventy-five retired military officers that the Department of Defense used as their so-called “message force multipliers” and “surrogates,” and while he wasn’t seeking defense contracts like some of his fellow pundits, his case is representative of the breakdown of transparency and accountability consequent to the Pentagon’s covert program. Babbin’s experience also shows that someone could consistently parrot the administration’s talking points, while believing himself to be independent and even, at times, critical of the official narrative.

But the pundits weren’t just selling government talking points. As Robert Bevelacqua, William Cowan and Carlton Sherwood enjoyed high-level Pentagon access through the analyst program, their WVC3 Group sought “contracts worth tens of millions to supply body armor and counterintelligence services in Iraq,” reported Barstow. Cowan admitted to “push[ing] hard” on a WVC3 contract, during a Pentagon-funded trip to Iraq.

Then there’s Pentagon pundit Robert H. Scales Jr. The military firm he co-founded in 2003, Colgen, has an interesting range of clients, from the Central Intelligence Agency and US Special Operations Command, to Pfizer and Syracuse University, to Fox News and National Public Radio.

Of the twenty-seven Pentagon pundits named publicly to date, six are registered as federal lobbyists. That’s in addition to the less formal—and less transparent—boardroom to war-room influence peddling described above. (There are “more than seventy-five retired officers” who took part in the Pentagon program overall, according to Barstow.)

The Pentagon pundits’ lobbying disclosure forms help chart what can only be called a military-industrial-media complex. They also make clear that war is very good for at least some types of business.

Fox News analyst Timur J. Eads works for the military contractor Blackbird Technologies. His job title there, “vice-president of government relations,” is often used to describe someone who crafts lobbying strategies but may not take part in lobbying meetings. So, it’s not surprising that Eads isn’t listed on Blackbird’s lobbying disclosure forms. (In 2007 and 2008, Blackbird lobbied Congress on “communications technologies” and the National Guard on “information systems.”)

From 2001 to 2003, Eads was in the lobbying trenches for EMC Corporation, a multinational “information infrastructure” company. Eads helped lobby Congress and a long list of federal agencies—including the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Coast Guard—for “funding for data storage infrastructure.” EMC’s annual report (PDF) for 2003 lists the Air Force Materiel Command and Pentagon Renovation and Construction Program Office among its US government clients.

Prior to EMC, Eads lobbied for the major defense contractor Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). In 1999 and 2000, he was on SAIC’s million-dollar-plus lobbying team, influencing federal spending on the armed services, foreign operations, national security and Veterans Administration, among many other appropriations bills.

A January 2009 public diplomacy conference was organized in Washington, DC to critically reconsider Smith-Mundt. Many presenters supported changing the Act; specifically, removing or watering down its restriction on domestic dissemination. Among the reasons given were that the restriction, which effectively divides the world into US residents and everyone else, is outdated in the global information age; that it hampers public diplomacy efforts; that it suggests to foreign audiences that U.S. government-provided information is suspect, since it can’t be shared with US residents; that it denies US residents useful information; and that it keeps US residents from accessing information necessary to evaluate work done overseas, in their name and with their tax dollars. On the other side, there were conference attendees who argued that the Smith-Mundt restriction doesn’t impact work in the field, and that it helps insulate sensitive international work from domestic political pressures.

It was an informed, in-depth debate, led by people with extensive State Department and military experience. But until Rep. Hodes spoke—during the last session of the day—no one mentioned that, until just nine months ago, there had been an active covert campaign to influence US public opinion: the Pentagon’s pundit program.

Let me posit what I believe should be the rule,” said outgoing Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James Glassman, a keynote speaker at the conference. Domestic dissemination should be permissible, he suggested, “if the intent of the work involving domestic audiences is to influence foreign audiences.” According to Glassman the government’s motivation behind engaging US residents is key. “The reasonable way to judge whether the State Department should be prohibited from disseminating a film, or a television program, or a speech, or a magazine, is the intention of the department,” he declared. While “traditional American concerns about government involvement—not merely in influence, but in information—are deeply rooted and appropriate . . . intent should be our guide. If our target is foreign audiences, as it must be in public diplomacy, then we should be able to engage domestic individuals and groups in this effort.”
Glassman’s emphasis on intent is nothing new. In other words, it doesn’t matter whether material designed to influence foreign audiences—including, in the case of military information operations and psychological operations campaigns, material that may be misleading—is conveyed to US residents as “news.” All that matters is that the responsible government officials’ hearts are pure.

We know that the conveniently slippery standard of intent has already resulted in fake TV news that would make Soviet-era propagandists proud. As professor Marc Lynch noted at the conference, “Who knows what evil lurks in the minds of men? The Shadow knows, but State Department lawyers don’t, which makes it very difficult to build a regulatory foundation on questions of intent, particularly when . . . intent can be multi-faceted and highly complex.”

The State Department—and the US Information Agency, before it was folded into State—used to be responsible for public diplomacy. In 1999, then-President Clinton tasked numerous federal agencies with “influenc[ing] foreign audiences.” He established an International Public Information group, comprised of officials from the State, Defense, Justice, Commerce, and Treasury departments, along with the FBI and CIA. Post-9/11, the Pentagon’s budget ballooned and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld proclaimed that communications must be “a central component of every aspect of this struggle.” As a result, the US military has become increasingly involved in public diplomacy.

On the question of Smith-Mundt, its ban on domestic dissemination has clearly been rendered moot by Google. Instead of using that as an excuse to burn down firewalls, the US government should follow strict media ethics standards, regardless of whether its intended audience is in Iowa or Islamabad. All public diplomacy communications and activities should be clearly attributed. Information operations and psychological operations, which require a lack of transparency, should be kept completely separate from public diplomacy and public affairs. Lastly, the military’s role in public diplomacy should be decreased and, perhaps, ended.

Instead of loosening propaganda restrictions by relying on intent, why not adjust to the global information era by ensuring clear attribution of all government communications? Truth is an obvious second standard, but public diplomacy, by definition, deals with issues in which the US government is an interested party. It’s therefore naive to claim that a standard of “truth”—which must transcend, or at least fairly acknowledge, competing interests—could be upheld.

Today, the broadcast and cable networks are steadfastly refusing to cover or otherwise address the Pentagon military analyst program, with very few exceptions. In this case, though, the pundits’ undeclared financial interests are only part of a larger and much more serious problem. These officers participated in a covert government program designed to shape US public opinion—an illegal program, and one that relied on the willingness of major media to play along, without asking too many questions. And that’s exactly what happened. The media outlets that featured the Pentagon’s pundits need to address both aspects of this debacle: that they failed to identify or disclose conflicts of interest, and that they helped propagandize US news audiences.

Increasingly, news audiences are realizing the many ways in which interested parties skew media coverage. Media outlets need to wake up to that reality and work to strengthen their safeguards in defense of the public interest. Their only alternative is to start composing their next weak and belated mea culpa, in a desperate attempt to protect their ever-dwindling credibility.

Diane Farsetta is the Center for Media and Democracy’s senior researcher.

Searchable versions of the Pentagon pundit documents available at http://www.prwatch.org/pentagonpundits.

The human family consists, for the most part, of wonderfully ordinary people who work hard to care for themselves and their children. However, there are a few people who aspire to positions of power, and then work to use their authority to manipulate and control all the others.

This nation’s teenage children are currently being tracked, targeted, and sometimes captured by a global dominance military-industrial-media complex under orders of an exceptionally callous neo-conservative group now in control of the US government. The people in power today systematically use armed services recruiters – motivated by rank and bonus – as the agents of control and manipulation of US youth.

Parents of teens and preteens are seldom aware of how their children are at increasing risk of being systematically targeted, manipulated into recruiter offices, and psychological remodeled for use within the war machine. Military planners, hungry for new recruits, commission psychological research and carefully read neuro-psychiatric literature as it pertains to adolescent behavior. They then apply that research information to their recruitment efforts that focus on the vulnerability of the teenage mind.

As the 9/11 wars continue and as the numbers of dead and disabled young men and women climb, civilian doubts over the purpose and direction of the conflict has evolved and grown. As a result, convincing new potential recruits to enlist has become an increasingly difficult task. The Pentagon addresses this recruitment problem by spending thousands of millions of our tax dollars on programs designed to deceive, seduce, and to capture our youth. Military recruiters have been granted full access to our children at home, at school, and wherever else they can be tracked. The Pentagon has invaded our movies, our televisions, and our minds, and has invited our children to play violent, and damaging video games while feeding them emotionally charged materials designed to manipulate and reformat them into replacement soldiers.

A Brief & Recent History Of US Military Recruitment

Ending the Draft

The Vietnam War was fought by a generation of young men whose teen experiences were distorted by a persistent and disruptive force – conscription. That constant threat helped fire the tremendous social unrest that attended those war years.  As the war came to its painful end, Pentagon planners moved to eliminate future reliance on draftees. The recommendation was tendered and Congress agreed to end the draft, replacing it with an all volunteer armed services system.

Building and maintaining an all volunteer military during peacetime worked reasonably well. The process during war however, has proven to be problematic.  After years of war and violent occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq, public perception of military life has gradually soured. And, as civilian jobs – albeit low paying for many – continue to be available, the recruiting process has become increasingly difficult. The Pentagon has responded by offering, or giving the appearance of offering, a set of incentives to potential enlistees.  Bait has since included cash and promises (frequently unfulfilled) of job training, educational funding, and future medical care.

Teenagers Increasingly Targeted

After recent Pentagon research revealed that the desire and intention to enlist is highest among younger recruits (six in ten current US soldiers entered the military as teenagers),1, 2, 3 a level of subtlety, or rather subterfuge has been employed to guide teens toward recruiter offices. As one example of the many available: the US Army sponsors a website labeled “eCybermission.” It offers “web-based science, math, and technology competition” for 11, 12 , and 13 year olds, and the services of on-line uniformed Army personnel “CyberGuides.”4

Since 2002 the Pentagon has developed a massive teen data base gleaned from sources, including records obtained via the “No Child Left Behind Act.” That information is filed in JAMRS, the “Joint Advertising and Marketing Research & Studies” system – a giant Pentagon run, privately subcontracted (Equifax) database containing contact and identification data on over thirty million 16-25 year olds.5

Plummeting Numbers / Plummeting Standards

Despite recent reports of an increasing rate of suicides among US troops,6 and despite news reports of “stop-loss” troop recycling and declining troop moral, the Pentagon’s recent recruiting and retention report for 20077 implies success. The facts underlying the statistics offered, however, tell a different story: “The number of wavers granted to Army recruits with criminal backgrounds [125,000] has grown about 65 percent in the past three years…,”8 and the percentage of minimally qualified recruits has quadrupled since 2002.9

Representative Martin T. Meechen, Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight: “The data is crystal clear; our armed forces are under incredible strain, and the only way that they can fill their recent quotas is by lowering their standards.”8

Recruitment Funding

Pentagon spending on recruitment has increased dramatically over the past few years, approaching $4 billion by 2003.10 As of 2006, there were over 22,000 recruiters nationwide,11 charged with signing up between 180,000 and 200,000 new active duty recruits,10, 11 and approximately 120,000 new reservists per year.11 In 2000, the US House of Representatives determined that $6400 was being spent to sign up each marine,12and by 2005, the military spent approximately $16,000 in total promotional costs to enlist each new recruit.11, 13

Despite the enormous sums spent attempting to maintain an all volunteer military during these times of growing anti-war sentiment, the armed forces have been unable to meet new recruit sign-up quotas.  There is always a way, however, and here the balance sheets have been righted by dropping ballast, also known as “standards,” and by implementing military contract fine-print: Executive Order #12728, dated 8/22/90 referring US Code, Title 10, section 12305 and Title 3, section 301, better known as “Stop Loss,” which allows troops to be returned to battlefields again by delaying their removal from active duty indefinitely. In this way, military statisticians have forced the claim that recruitment quotas are being fulfilled.14

TARGETING THE ADOLESCENT BRAIN

Adolescence has long been recognized as a time when impulsive and risk-taking behaviors increase. As adolescence gives way to adulthood, learning to gauge risk with greater precision gradually proceeds. Modern neuroscience tools, including Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanning techniques have now shown that adolescent stereotypic behavior is based on a phase of structural brain development.15, 16, 17

In a recent study,15 multiple high-tech scans were collated over time, and were combined with serial assessments of neuro-developmental function. It was discovered that the adolescent brain exists as a structurally and functionally distinct entity from that found earlier in childhood, or later in adulthood. The adolescent brain develops structurally enlarged, but functionally immature prefrontal and limbic grey matter areas.  Those structural features appear to result in a change in balance between limbic reward and prefrontal higher executive assessment functions, and helps to explain typical adolescent behaviors of increased novelty and sensation, or thrill-seeking on the one hand, and limited consequence analysis on the other. By the early twenties, as the structurally enlarged areas decrease to typically adult volumes, brain function settles into adult patterns. These changes are accompanied by recognized adult thought processes and behaviors.

It is during adolescence, when changes in brain structure and function result in the characteristic behaviors of that age, that teens are actively recruited toward and into the military. The techniques employed by military recruiters directly target the unique functional brain development characteristics of the adolescent; that targeting is undoubtedly purposeful.18, 19

HIGH SCHOOLS AS “MARKETS”

“No Child Left Behind” – Section 9528

The Bush Administration wrote and signed into law the “No Child Left Behind Act,” January 8, 2002,20 with subsequent reauthorization in 2007.21As is now widely known, included in the 670 pages of that voluminous act – within section 9528 – is a provision enabling military recruiters to access high school students’ records, and to access the students themselves as they attend high-school campuses throughout the country.  Students and/or their parents are offered the choice to “opt-out” of this demand, but they must actively do so, requiring of course, that they are first informed of this option. As will later be documented, this is often not the case.  If school districts otherwise fail to provide military recruiters with the required information and access, millions of dollars in federal funding for that district can be cut.

Military recruiter manuals then provide guidance on how to maximize the effect of the law on targeted adolescents.22 Here are a few examples of advice given to recruiters:

School Recruiting Program [SRP] Handbook22 (Excerpts)

From section 1-4 c: “The objective of the SRP is to assist recruiters with programs and services so they can effectively penetrate the school market. The goal is school ownership that can only lead to a greater number of Army enlistments. Recruiters must first establish rapport in the schools. This is a basic step in the sales process and a prerequisite to an effective school program. Maintaining this rapport and establishing a good working relationship is next. Once educators are convinced recruiters have their students’ best interests in mind the SRP can be effectively implemented.”

From section 2-4: “Some influential students such as the student president or the captain of the football team may not enlist; however, they can and will provide you with referrals who will enlist.”

And from section 5-1-f-4: “Don’t forget the administrative staff…. Have something to give them (pen, calendar, cup, donuts, etc.) and always remember secretary’s week, with a card or flowers.”

Using computers fed with socioeconomic census data, past recruiting numbers, and other demographic information, recruiters target specific schools where students are less likely to go on to college and are more likely to sign up with the military.23, 24 Then, school yearbooks, newspapers, and any other pertinent local informational sources are scrutinized, allowing recruiters to simulate familiarity and interest in a few of the more popular kids on campus. As those kids are approached and befriended, others are attracted to the social bait and, seeking approval, gather around.

Once a student swims anywhere near the hook, recruiter anglers use every trick available.11 Students are phoned and written to without end, and are offered visions of a virtual cornucopia of money, education, training, and adventure.25, 26, 27 All responses are, of course, tracked.28

ASVAB “Realize your strengths. Realize your dreams.”

The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB)29 is a three hour test, offered to, and taken by nearly one million high school students every year. It is placed before them ostensibly as a helping hand – as a way to explore their career potentials, and to guide them toward appropriate life choices. The offer and the test are scams.

Here is what the military tells the parents of teenage students in this confidence game:

“The ASVAB Career Exploration Program includes eight individual tests covering verbal and math skills, mechanical knowledge, electronics, and several other areas. It also produces three Career Exploration Scores for Verbal Skills, Math Skills, and Science and Technical Skills. These three scores serve as one of several pieces of information about your child that can aid in the exploration of a wide variety of career options.” 30

Recruiters, on the other hand, understand the ASVAB recruitment tool quite well.  From the Commander, Navy Recruiting Command, Policy and Programs Division, 2002 – Recruiting Manual:

“The ASVAB is used by the Armed Forces for recruiting purposes… The ASVAB’s ability for determining civilian job skills has not yet been proven.”31

Because the ASVAB is exempt from the provisions of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, students are given the test and information acquired is released to the military without parental consent.32 Furthermore, military recruiters are free, at the option of school administrators, to contact test takers – even if the student, or their parents opted-out of Section 9528 of the No Child Left Behind Act.27, 32

Exam information is then forwarded to the DoD JAMRS database for further analysis.5, 31

The JAMRS Database:

In 2002, the Pentagon joined forces with the corporate database industry and began gathering, organizing and analyzing personal information on the military’s “market” of teens and their families. The Joint Advertising and Marketing Research & Studies (JAMRS) database now includes the records of over thirty million US 16 – 25 year olds.5

As families soon discovered they were unable to control the records collected on them, an ACLU lawsuit was brought against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense David Chu, and JAMRS Program Manager Matt Boehmer in April 2006.33 It was settled a few months later, and became effective January, 2007, specifying that families have the power to opt-out of the database.34 To date, as both the database and the option to opt-out of it is known to only a handful of families, opt-in remains the rule.

A Department of Defense survey taken November 2004, found that “only 25 percent of parents would recommend military service to their children, down from 42 percent in August 2003.”35 The Pentagon responded with a media campaign featuring faux-parents and their faux-children discussing enlistment in a positive light.36 In addition, the Pentagon tasked JAMRS with studying “influencers,” – parents, teachers, clergy, and the like – in the hope of minimizing and/or neutralizing their interference.5

JROTC:

The “Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps” system was created through the National Defense Act of 1916.  It offers high schools federal subsidies in the form of funding, equipment, and supplies,37,38 which appear to be a good deal for cash-strapped school districts. In fact, this too good to be true deal turns out to be – just that. After a short time, schools discover they have ended up on the red side of the balance sheet – paying out more than they receive. Hidden costs include additional insurance coverage, new facilities construction and maintenance, a portion of JROTC instructors’ salaries, benefits, taxes, etc. In short, school districts and the children they support are ripped-off by the program. 39

In exchange for the faux-benefits offered, school districts must allow retired military personnel to act as instructors, and they must allow instructors to offer students a course of training that is authorized by the military, as opposed to local school boards. 37, 38 Classes can be taught by either accredited or non-accredited instructors, and reading and study materials have been found to include racist versions of history, and which stress a military approach to social and political change.37

JROTC courses are now offered in over 3000 high schools as of June 2003,40 and bend the minds of over 500,000 teenage children toward the military.39 Former United States Secretary of Defense William Cohen described the JROTC program as: “one of the best recruitment programs we could have.”39 And, true enough, forty percent of those entering the program go on to enlist.38

THINGS RECRUITS AND RECRUITERS PROMISE

Recruits and the Military Contract

A promise is a promise, unless it is offered by a military recruiter.  After a recruit is promised the moon, they are asked to sign on the dotted line, most often missing the fine print:

“Laws and regulations that govern military personnel may change without notice to me. Such changes may affect my status, pay, allowances, benefits, and responsibilities as a member of the Armed Forces REGARDLESS of the provisions of this enlistment/reenlistment document.”41

In other words, recruits may be promised specific training and assignments, lofty jobs, or anything at all. The only contract made – despite any oral or written promise – is that the recruit will serve under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)42 rather than under civilian Constitutional law until full and final discharge is allowed (sans “Stop-Loss”).  Any other statements, assurances, or promises – written or otherwise, do not apply.

The Mirage of Jobs and College Funding

Congress and the Department of Defense have long understood that as civilian jobs and educational opportunities decline, the military option becomes more attractive to potential recruits. Military Recruiters – and a vast expanse of advertisement copy – hammer the idea home that joining the military and serving it for a few years will open to an oasis of educational and job opportunities. The oasis is a mirage.

A typical recruitment advertisement reads: “Join the Army and earn up to $70,000 for college.”27 The truth is, nearly all enlistees join the Montgomery GI Bill on entering the military, but only one in twenty qualify for the higher Army College Fund or Navy College Fund benefits.43 In fact thirty percent of those joining the program receive nothing from it,44 and the rest, nearly always receive only a fraction of the benefits promised.43, 45

There are conditions:

In order to be allowed entry into any of the college fund programs, recruits must first pay $100 per month for the first twelve months of service. That $1200 is fully non-refundable.44,46
A full honorable discharge from the military is required.27, 46 One in four fail to achieve that condition.27

For those who do achieve full honorable discharges, the payout is tricky: it is made over a total of no more than 36 months of educational expenditure (9 month academic year x 4 years = 36 months). If, as is typical, a veteran is unable to take full course loads over each of those 36 months, the payout is less, and will still be terminated after a total of 36 months in any case. So, for example, if a war-traumatized veteran is able to maintain only a one-half coursework load, the total payout would be – at a maximum – only one-half of that originally promised.47 Most veterans (56%) using the Montgomery GI Bill begin by attending community colleges or vocational schools spread out over time, and therefore receive only a fraction of the maximum promised for full time, full coursework study.47
The cost of education has continually increased while educational benefits have increased less rapidly. As benefits lag further and further behind the inflation curve, the value of the original promise is equally degraded with time.47
In summary, recruits rarely collect on the military’s “big print” promise to provide significant educational funding.

RECRUITMENT TOOLBOX: Movies, Toys, TV, & Computer Games

Blackhawk Helicopters on High School Campuses

As US families pushed back against the slogans “Be All You Can Be,” and “An Army of One,” and as potential new recruits increasingly said “no” to joining up, military planners moved new people into command chairs, ramped up their efforts, crafted new slogans, and basically pulled out the stops.27 Fully camo’ed military recruiters now land Blackhawk helicopter warships on elementary, middle and high school campuses around the country, and issue promises of fun, excitement, and glory to the overwhelmed kids.

Children as young as 6-8 years old are sometimes invited to these landing events, where they are rewarded with tiny black (hawk) footballs after they gather close around recruiters. 48,49

______________________________________

Photo Credit: Kent Porter / The Press Democrat

18-Wheeler “Recruiting Vans,” on high school campuses

The US Army, in a well-funded effort to recruit children, has decked out seven “Cinema Vans” with multiple slide projectors, viewing screens, and rock-climbing walls. Another 18-wheeler, the “Army Adventure Van,” features a helicopter simulator, an M-1 Tank simulator, and an M16 Machine-gun simulator, allowing high school kids to practice and to visualize cutting enemies to pieces. Other vehicles include a “Nuclear Power Van,” an “America’s Sea Power Van,” etc. Together, these propaganda shows on 18 wheels visit nearly 400,000 of America’s children each year.50

“‘The vans zero in on our target market, and that’s in high schools,’ explained Fred Zinchiak, Public Affairs Specialist in the Sacramento Army Recruiting Battalion.”50

The targeted markets – this nation’s teenagers – are offered a vision of military life as being sexy and exciting.  The reality of post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression, and traumatic brain injury suffered by over one-third of a million troops returning from the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan51 is ignored.

Recruitment via Television

As of March 2008, over 11,000 schools have contracted with “Channel One,” an organization which promises to provide schools with free television equipment and wiring in exchange for a mandatory daily viewing of the programs produced, edited, and broadcast by them.

The twelve minute programs, aired daily, are interspersed with two minutes of “corporate sponsorship” messages, half of which are paid for by US taxpayers c/o the Department of Defense, and in the form of military recruitment pitches to the captive children who are required to watch.27

From the Channel One Network website: “Nearly 30 percent of all American teens are in classrooms that show Channel One News.” In other words, over six million middle and high school students are presently forced to receive daily military recruiter pitches during classroom time.52,53,54

Recruitment via Hollywood Movies
The Pentagon has had a cozy relationship with the entertainment industry for many years, providing open door base access, material, and consultation to movie studios… for a price.55

“We may think that the content of American movies is free from government interference, but in fact, the Pentagon has been telling filmmakers what to say – and what not to say — for decades.  It’s Hollywood’s dirtiest little secret.”56

It is now widely known that the Pentagon has influenced film producers and studios for years – trading access to military resources for censorship rights. Under authority of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, the Pentagon’s film liaison office trades script changes – acceptable to the brass – with access to otherwise impossibly expensive military material, locations, and expertise. In the end, we the taxpayers pay for our own propagandizing.  Recent movies that were given a “hand” by the Pentagon include: “Stripes,” “Black Hawk Down,” “Pearl Harbor,” “Top Gun,” “The Great Santini,” “The Right Stuff”, “Apollo 13,” and many others.56,57 From David Robb’s book “Operation Hollywood: “… the Pentagon is quite candid about why it provides this assistance to Hollywood. According to the army’s own handbook, A Producer’s guide to U.S. Army Cooperation with the Entertainment Industry, this collaboration must ‘aid in the recruiting and retention of personnel.’”56

Recruitment via Video Gaming

The Pentagon has vigorously supported development of PC war game software after discovering their use as both recruitment and as military training vehicles. Take, for example, the Microsoft X-Box game “Close Combat: First to Fight” – created by and for the military, but soon ported directly to “T” for Teens.57

Another “success” story, in terms of the number of teens and young adults participating, is the US Army’s video game project “America’s Army,” accessed by several million “players” as of 2007.58“America’s Army” is a highly graphic, fast paced and graphically violent battle simulation for youthful players. The army states that the game is for growing adults, but it is freely available on the Internet without age restriction and is widely distributed to children.59

It has been argued that “America’s Army” is blatant government propaganda pitched to those who are least able to understand the effects of exposure to its various subtle and not-so-subtle messages.60

VIOLENT VIDEO / VIDEO GAMING IS HARMFUL TO CHILDREN

Despite the overwhelming raft of data documenting ill effects in children and adolescents exposed to violent video and video games, the military services continue to support delivery of those images and experiences to children, seen only as potential future recruits.57

From the Committee on Public Education of the American Academy of Pediatrics:

“The American Academy of Pediatrics recognizes exposure to violence in media, including television, movies, music, and video games as a significant risk to the health of children and adolescents. Extensive research evidence indicates that media violence can contribute to aggressive behavior, desensitization to violence, nightmares, and fear of being harmed. Pediatricians should assess their patients’ level of media exposure and intervene on media-related health risks. Pediatricians and other child health care providers can advocate for a safer media environment for children by encouraging media literacy, more thoughtful and proactive use of media by children and their parents, more responsible portrayal of violence by media producers, and more useful and effective media ratings.”61

From the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry:

“Studies of children exposed to violence have shown that they can become: “immune” or numb to the horror of violence, imitate the violence they see, and show more aggressive behavior with greater exposure to violence. Some children accept violence as a way to handle problems. Studies have also shown that the more realistic and repeated the exposure to violence, the greater the impact on children. In addition, children with emotional, behavioral and learning problems may be more influenced by violent images.

“Youth who exposed themselves to greater amounts of video game violence saw the world as a more hostile place, were more hostile themselves, got into arguments with teachers more frequently, were more likely to be involved in physical fights, and performed more poorly in school. Video game violence exposure was a significant predictor of physical fights even when respondent sex, hostility level, and weekly amount of game play were statistically controlled.”62

Summary of the Evidence: Exposure to violent video, whether in the form of video games, television, or theater movies is linked to, and causal of, increases in aggressive cognition, affect and behavior.63,64,65,66,67,68,69

STUDENTS, PARENTS, SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES RESPOND

Here is a small sampling of student, parent, school, and community responses to predatory military recruiters and the tactics they employ:

Vallejo, Ca. School Board Addresses The Opt-Out Clause

2008 – Vallejo, California: The Vallejo School Board voted to end the practice of providing military recruiters with complete and unrestricted access to student information.  District spokesman Jason Hodge: “This action brings the school district into compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act which requires parents and students be given the option to ‘opt out’ of having military recruiters gain access to their personal information.”70

Berkeley, Ca: City Council Resolution

2008 – Berkeley, California: The Berkeley City Council passed a resolution that initially stated Marine recruiters were “uninvited and unwelcome intruders.” The council later issued a clarification, stating that the recruiting center retains the legal right to exist, but telegraphed to citizens that vigorous protesting of the center’s existence is also a protected right.71

Seattle’s Garfield High School Pta: “No” To Recruiters

2005 – Seattle, Washington: The Garfield High School PTA voted to adopt a resolution stating in part: “public schools are not a place for military recruiters.”72

National PTA Position: Protect Students’ Privacy

2005 – “National PTA seeks to increase awareness and community sensitivity about the collection and dissemination of information regarding students and believes that such records should respect the rights to privacy and be relevant to a child’s education.

“National PTA will continue to support legislation and policies [that] would change current law by providing for an ‘opt in’ policy where interested students and families can instead choose to request contact from military recruiters. Parents and students deserve to know who has their information, and parents should be involved in the important decision to enlist in military service.”73

High School Students Take Action Against The Asvab Scam

2006 – Lindale, Georgia: Two seventeen year old Pepperell High School students confronted recruiters, the school board, and the school’s administration, who had insisted students were compelled under law to take the ASVAB military (recruiting tool) test. As the result of their ad-hoc plan to distribute anti-ASVAB flyers to their fellow students and despite the argumentative efforts of local recruiters, an estimated two-thirds of the eligible students present refused to be “tested.”74

CONCLUSION

Military recruiters have been given legal authority to openly recruit adolescents on high school campuses, and tacit authority to recruit both adolescents and younger children through more subtle means. Techniques employed include those that are known to be harmful to children, including repeated exposure to violent games and images. Recruiters rely on the immature status of their prey to capture them with false promises, and subterfuge. Military recruitment of children must be understood for what it is: predatory.

The highest calling of any society is to protect its young from harm. Our society is failing to heed this call.

With many thanks to Rick Jahnkow, Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities.

Gary Evans MD is a practicing pediatrician and activist in Sonoma County California. He maintains a website – www.ringnebula.com – dedicated to peaceful activism.

FOR MORE INFORMATION (in alphabetical order):

• American Friends Service Committee: Youth & Militarism http://www.afsc.org/youthmil/default.htm

• Code Pink: Women for Peace
  http://www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?id=3911

• Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft
  http://www.comdsd.org/

• National Network Opposing Militarism In Our Schools
  http://www.nnomy.org/joomla/index.php

• Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities
  http://www.projectyano.org/

OPT-OUT FORMS:

• No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB):

English: http://themmob.org//lmca/lmca_forms/Opt_Out_Form_Schools.pdf
Spanish: http://themmob.org//lmca/lmca_forms/lmca-e.pdf

• The Joint Advertising and Marketing Research & Studies (JAMRS) Database:

Note: ”Opt-Out requests will be honored for ten years. However, because opt-out screening is based, in part, on the current address of the individual, any change in address will require the submission of a new opt-out request with the new address.”

English: http://themmob.org//lmca/lmca_forms/JAMRS_OPT_OUT.pdf
Spanish: http://themmob.org//lmca/lmca_forms/lmca-pentagon-espanol.pdf
____________________________

REFERENCES

1. Population Representation in the Military Services, Fiscal Year 2004; Table A-1: DoD new recruits ages 16 – 17 = 22.22%, age 18 = 23.53, age 19 = 14.48 (tot = 60.23%): http://www.defenselink.mil/prhome/poprep2004/download/2004report.pdf,http://www.defenselink.mil/prhome/poprep2004/download/2004appendices.pdf

2. “America’s Child Soldier Problem”; In These Times, May 17, 2007: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3199/americas_child_soldier_problem/

3. “Pentagon’s Teen Recruiting Methods Would Make Tobacco Companies Proud”: http://www.alternet.org/story/51889/

4. US Army’s e-Cybermission Website: http://www.ecybermission.com/base_public.cfm?url=38500C5F40530E011C27501A1D4A564C

5. DoD’s “Joint Advertising Market Research & Studies” database website: www.jamrs.org

6. “’Epidemic’ of military suicides investigated,” The Seattle Times, Nov. 17, 2007:http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004019358_aliciacol17.html

7. “DoD Announces Recruiting and Retention Numbers for FY2007,” U.S. Department of Defense, News Release No. 1202-07, Oct. 10, 2007:http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=11398

8. “Army Giving More Waivers in Recruiting,” New York Times, Feb. 14, 2007: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/us/14military.html

9. “Recruiters struggle to find an Army,” The Seattle Times, Nov. 12, 2007:http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004008540_recruit12.html

10. ”MILITARY RECRUITING: DOD Needs to Establish Objectives and Measures to Better Evaluate Advertising’s Effectiveness;” GAO 03-1005:http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d031005.pdf

11.: “MILITARY RECRUITING: DOD and Services Need Better Data to Enhance Visibility over Recruiter Irregularities;” GAO 06-0846, Aug. 2006:http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06846.pdf

12. Hearings On National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001—H.R. 4205 and Oversight of Previously Authorized Programs Before the Committee On Armed Services – House of  Representatives, 106 Congress, 2nd Session, Full Committee Hearings on Authorization and Oversight; Feb. 10, 2000: http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/security/has041000.000/has041000_0f.htm

13. “Army Recruiters Take Show On Road,” CBS News, Mar. 16, 2005:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/16/eveningnews/printable681055.shtml

14. “MILITARY PERSONNEL: Preliminary Observations on Recruiting and Retention Issues within the U.S. Armed Forces;” GAO 05-419t (released Mar. 16, 2005): http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05419t.pdf

15. Article: “The Teen Brain: Insights from Neuroimaging” by Jay N. Giedd, MD (Nat. Institute of Mental Health); Journal of Adolescent Health, Volume 42, Issue 4, April 2008

16. Editorial: “Adolescent Brain Development: Forging New Links?” by Elizabeth R. McAnarney, MD; Journal of Adolescent Health, Volume 42, Issue 4, April 2008

17. “In vivo evidence for post-adolescent brain maturation in frontal and striatal regions”; Nature Neuroscience  2, 859 – 861, 1999: doi:10.1038/13154:http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v2/n10/full/nn1099_859.html

18. Re: military recruitment and sensation-seeking propensities and risk-taking propensities; National Research Council. Evaluating Military Advertising and Recruiting: Theory and Methodology. Committee on the Youth Population and Military Recruitment—Phase II. Paul R. Sackett and Anne S., pg. 25:http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10867

19. “Attitudes, Aptitudes, and Aspirations of American Youth: Implications for Military Recruitment”: http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10478&page=R1

20. NCLB of 2001, signed 1/8/02 (Contained in § 9528 of the ESEA (20 U.S.C. § 7908), as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (P.L. No. 107-110), and in 10 U.S.C. § 503, as amended by 544 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002 (P.L. No. 107-107):http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/107-110.pdf

21. NCLB Reauthorization 2007:  http://www.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/reauth/index.html

22. United States Army Recruiting Command: USAREC Pamphlet 350-13; 2004: http://www.nodraftnoway.org/public_html/USAREC%20Pam%20350-13%2020040901.pdf

23. “Military Recruits by High School, Zip Code, Community, State,” Bulletin, National Priorities Project, Nov. 1, 2005:http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=9492

24. Pentagon Creating Student Database, Washington Post, June 23, 2005: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/22/AR2005062202305.html

25. “Army Offers $40K Recruiting Bonus to H.S. Grads,” NPR, Feb. 5, 2008: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18710386

26. “Earn Money For College” (US Navy): http://www.navy.com/benefits/education/earnmoney/

27. “Army of None,” David Solnit & Aimee Allison, Seven Stories Press, 2007

28. “Modeling the Individual Enlistment Decision: Final Study Report” (June, 1999); US Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences:http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA364946

29. The ASVAB Program: http://www.asvabprogram.com/
30. “Parent Fact Sheet” from the ASVAB program website: http://www.asvabprogram.com/downloads/ASVAB_factsheet-parents.pdf

31. Navy Recruiting Manual 1130.8F, pg 2-59 (2I-2-5a): http://usmilitary.about.com/od/navyregs/p/usmilitary.about.com/library/pdf/navrecruit.pdf

32. ASVAB Counselor Manual; Nov. 2005, pg. 13:
http://www.asvabprogram.com/downloads/asvab_counselor_manual.pdf

33. ACLU Complaint/Lawsuit re: JAMRS: http://www.nyclu.org/files/hanson_v_rumsfeld_complaint_042406.pdf

34. DoD’s Answer to ACLU – Revised JAMRS Plan, Jan. 9, 2007:  http://www.nyclu.org/files/jamrs_revised_rules_notice_0109007.pdf

35. “Growing Problem for Military Recruiters: Parents,” New York Times, June 3, 2005: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/nyregion/03recruit.html?oref=login

36. “Army, Marine recruiters shift focus to wary parents,” USA Today, Apr. 4, 2005: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-04-04-recruiters-parents_x.htm

37. “Making Soldiers in the Public Schools,” American Friends Service Committee, 1995: http://www.afsc.org/youthmil/militarism-in-schools/msitps.pdf

38. “Recruiting the Class of 2005”; Mother Jones, Jan-Feb, 2002: http://motherjones.com/news/feature/2002/01/rotc.html

39. “Trading Books for Soldiers: The True Cost of JROTC,” Philip Clark; American Friends Service Committee; 2000: Summary available at:http://web.archive.org/web/20000816192857/www.afsc.org/youthmil/html/issues/schools/jrotcost.htm)

40. “Feeding the military machine: JROTC expansion and inner-city academies mark recruiting incursion into U.S. public school classrooms, critics say”; Mar. 28, 2003, National Catholic Reporter: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_21_39/ai_99849547

41. Enlistment Contract: DD FORM 4/3, Oct 2007, page 2, section C. 9(b): www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/infomgt/forms/eforms/dd0004.pdf

42. Uniform Code of Military Justice Legislative History (and general information): http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/UCMJ_LHP.html

43. “Joining the Military is Hazardous to Your Education”: http://www.objector.org/before-you-enlist/gi-bill.html

44. “Lawmakers Urge GI Bill Extension,” Military.com website, May 9, 2007, : re: 30% of veterans cannot or do not use benefits:http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,135109,00.html

45. “Why aren’t military vets going to college?,” Orange County Register, Mar. 10, 2008: http://www.ocregister.com/news/veterans-college-state-1995807-people-military

46. US Dept. of Vet. Affairs, Montgomergy GI Bill – CH30 Pamphlet (honorable discharge required):http://www.gibill.va.gov/pamphlets/CH30/CH30_Pamphlet_General.htm;  (For the entire program, see US Dept. of Veterans Affairs, GI Bill Website:http://www.gibill.va.gov/GI_Bill_Info/benefits.htm)

47. “GI Bill falling short of college tuition costs,” Boston Globe, Feb. 10, 2008:http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/02/10/gi_bill_falling_short_of_college_tuition_costs/

48. “Hanna grad flies Blackhawk to school,” Sonoma Index-Tribune, Mar. 20, 2008:http://www.sonomanews.com/articles/2008/03/21/news/doc47df124d179b9525933769.txt

49. “Black Hawk touches down at schools,” Press Democrat, Mar. 15, 2008:http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080315/NEWS/803150397/1033/NEWS&template=kart

50. “Mobile Recruiting 2001”: http://www.objector.org/awol/mobile.html

51. “One In Five Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Suffer from PTSD or Major Depression”; RAND Corporation, Apr. 17, 2008 News Release: http://rand.org/news/press/2008/04/17/

52. “Why Go to College, When You Can be Cannon Fodder?,” Counterpunch, Feb. 17, 2005: http://www.counterpunch.org/whitehurst02172005.html

53. “Fast Facts,” Channel One News website: http://www.channelonenetwork.com/corporate/fast_facts.html

54. “FAQS,” Channel One News website: http://www.channelonenetwork.com/corporate/faqs.html

55. “The Pentagon Goes Hollywood,” Time Magazine, November 24, 1986: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,962933,00.html

56. “Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors the Movies”, David Robb, 2004; “Operation Hollywood” author David Robb interview here: http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2004/09/09_403.html

57. “The Complex,” Nick Turse; Henry Hold & Co., New York (2008); ppg. 115-117

58. “Gamers Downloading America’s Army,” Jan. 12, 2007: http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-01/2007-01-12-voa35.cfm

59. US Army’s “Official Army Game” website: http://www.americasarmy.com/

60. “Army’s War Game Recruits Kids” Joan Ryan; SF Chronicle, (Orig. pub. Sept. 24, 2004): http://www.twincitiesvfp.org/army_09_11_04.htm

61. “Media Violence,” American Academy of Pediatrics, Policy Statement, Pediatrics, Vol. 108#5, Nov. 2001, pp.1222-1226:http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics;108/5/1222 [Full Article]

62. “Children and Video Games: Playing with Violence,” American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Facts for Families: No. 91:http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/children_and_video_games_playing_with_violence; also No. 13, “Children and TV Violence”:http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/children_and_tv_violence

63. “An update on the effects of playing violent video games,” Anderson CA; Journal of Adolescence, 2004; 27: 113-122

64. “The Effects of Violent Video Game Habits on Adolescent Aggressive Attitudes and Behaviors,” Lynch, Paul J.; University of Oklahoma Medical School; Gentile, Douglas A., National Institute on Media and the Family; Olson, Abbie A., University of Minnesota; van Brederode, Tara M., University of Minnesota Institute of Child Development (Paper presented at the Biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development (Minneapolis, MN April 19-22, 2001)

65. “Short term and long term effects of violent media on aggression in children and adults,” Bushman BJ, Huesmann R.; Arch Pediatr Adolesce Med., 2006; 160:348-352.

66. “Television and adolescent aggressiveness,” Chaffee SH.  In: Comstock GA, Rubinstein EA eds. “Television and social behavior: a technical report to the Surgeon General’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior,” Vol. 3. Television and adolescent aggressiveness (DHEW Publication No. HSM 72-9058). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972;  pp. 1-34).

67. “Deciding to defect: the effects of video game violence on cooperative behavior,” Sheese BE, Graziano WG.; Psychol Science, 2005; 16:354-357.

68.  “The effects of violent video game habits on adolescent hostility, aggressive behaviors, and school performance,” Gentile DA, Lynch, PJ, Linder JR, Walsh DA; Journal of Adolescence, 2004; 27; 5-22

69. “Exposure to violent video games increases automatic aggressiveness,” Uhlmann, E, Swanson J.. J.Adolescence, 2004; 27:41-52

70. “Vallejo School District Votes To Shut Out Military Recruiters,” NBC.com, March 20, 2008:http://www.nbc11.com/newsarchive/15655946/detail.html

71. “The Military vs. Berkeley,” Newsweek, Feb. 13, 2008: http://www.newsweek.com/id/110911

72. “Rift Over Recruiting At Public High School,” Christian Science Monitor, May 18, 2005: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0518/p02s01-ussc.html

73. “Military Recruitment in Schools,” Military recruitment in schools and DOD database information, National PTA, August 2, 2005:www.pta.org/documents/military.pdf

74. “Teens Frustrate Military Recruiter’s ASVAB Scam,” Antiwar.com, Nov. 24, 2006: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/horton.php?articleid=10055