Leaked: The Internet must go!

Hey! Are you on the internet right now? Of course you are! Then you should definitely check out this amazing video about what the internet companies are planning. This move could hurt both consumers and content creators--but of course would be a huge windfall for internet providers.

How weathly are Americans?

The disparity in wealth between the richest one percent of Americans and the bottom 80 percent has grown exponentially over the last thirty years — but the video, posted by user politizane and relying on data from a popular Mother Jones post, focuses on the difference between the ideal disparity that Americans would like to see and the reality.

Tax the Rich

So long! It's been fun.

Dear listeners,

In July 2011 I started a new job teaching Italian at Kansas State University. In some ways this was a return to my roots, as I taught English as a Foreign Language for 17 years in Italy. Now I am teaching English speakers Italian. I've come full circle.

This coming full circle also means the end of an attempt on my part to start a new career in my 50s. Sadly, as much as I tried to bring community radio to Manhattan, I was not successful. So I have decided to dedicate my energy and time to my first love, being an educator.

The archive of my shows will remain active - there's a lot of great content in the shows. So I hope you continue to listen and enjoy them.

Once again thank you for your support and encouragement over the five years the show was on the air. I know many feel that my program needs to be on the air and I agree with you that a diversity of voices is sorely lacking in the local media. But alas, it is not I who will bring that diversity. It will have to be someone else.

Christopher E. Renner

27 June 2008

Naomi Klein on Disaster Capitalism - A Truthdig Interview with Naomi Klein
Critics and challengers of Naomi Klein’s work had better take a close look at her latest book, “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” before launching their attacks. This is one writer whose research and documentation are so exhaustive that potential detractors will not only find her analysis to be dauntingly watertight, but they might also discover that some of her source material seems strangely familiar.

For complete interview, click here.

Five Inconvenient Truths
David Downs writes in the Columbia Review of Journalism: "In its June issue, Wired dedicated its cover story to the 'inconvenient truths about global warming,' taking conventionally unconventional looks at ten strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The feature aimed to turn tenets of modern environmentalism on their heads by declaring that 'A/C is OK; organics are not the answer; and carbon trading doesn’t work.' It also urged readers to 'accept genetic engineering; buy used cars, not hybrids; and embrace nuclear power.'"

For complete story, click here.

US Border Agents Copying Contents of Travelers' Laptops

Federica Narancio, of McClatchy Newspapers reports: "US border agents are copying and seizing the contents of laptops, cell phones and digital cameras from US and foreign travelers entering the United States, witnesses told a Senate subcommittee Wednesday. The extent of this practice is unknown despite requests to the Department of Homeland Security from the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution and several nonprofit agencies."

For complete story, click here.

War Contracting Gone Bad

Matthew Blake, of The Washington Independent writes: "A Congressional report released Tuesday details the sordid story of how the military contractor AEY, and its 22 year-old company president, Efraim Diveroli, won, and then lost, a $298-million Pentagon contract to supply munitions to Afghanistan security forces. AEY and Diveroli became infamous after a March New York Times story detailed how the company, which employed less than a handful of people and operated from an unmarked Miami Beach office, rapidly rose to become one of the most successful, and unreliable, wartime contractors."

For complete story, click here.

Scalia Cites False Information in Habeas Corpus Dissent

Marjorie Cohn writes for Truthout: "To bolster his argument that the Guantanamo detainees should be denied the right to prove their innocence in federal courts, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissent in Boumediene v. Bush: 'At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantanamo have returned to the battlefield.' It turns out that statement is false."

fFor the complete column, click here.

Telecom Donations Tied to FISA Vote
http://www.truthout.org/article/telecom-donations-tied-fisa-vote
Mike Lillis reports for The Washington Independent: "When scores of House Democrats joined Republicans last week to reauthorize a controversial White House spying program, many critics attributed that support to election-year jitters. But as liberal voters continue to bash Democrats on the issue, some campaign finance reformers charge that political contributions from the telecom industry, which benefited handsomely under the bill, probably also swayed votes."

For complete story, click here.

24 June 2008

Reporters Say Networks Block War Reports
Brian Stelter, of The New York Times, reports: "Getting a story on the evening news isn't easy for any correspondent. And for reporters in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is especially hard, according to Lara Logan, the chief foreign correspondent for CBS News. So she has devised a solution when she is talking to the network. 'Generally what I say is, "I'm holding the armor-piercing R.P.G.,"' she said last week in an appearance on 'The Daily Show,' referring to the initials for rocket-propelled grenade. '"It's aimed at the bureau chief, and if you don't put my story on the air, I'm going to pull the trigger."' Ms. Logan let a sly just-kidding smile sneak through as she spoke, but her point was serious. Five years into the war in Iraq and nearly seven years into the war in Afghanistan, getting news of the conflicts onto television is harder than ever."

For complete story, click here.

The Price of Hunger
The Los Angeles Times editorial board poses the question, "What would it really cost to end global hunger? The United Nations estimates that it would take at least $30 billion per year to solve the food crisis, mainly by boosting agricultural productivity in the developing world. Over the decade that it would take to make sustainable improvements in the lives of the 862 million undernourished people, that amounts to $300 billion. Three hundred billion dollars is a lot of money, and the U.S. government won't foot the bill alone. But it's less than half of 1% of the world's combined gross domestic products, not an unreasonable sum to invest in ending the misery and degradation of hunger. After all, Congress shelled out $21 billion last year for foreign aid and this week it approved $162 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for fiscal 2009. The U.S. spent $340 billion in 2006 alone on public and private research and development. Directing just one-tenth of that seed money to sustainable, high-yield agriculture in the developing world could trigger a second Green Revolution."

For complete editorial, click here.

Corporate Espionage Detailed in Documents
Defunct Md. Agency Targeted Activists
Reporting for The Washington Post, Jenna Johnson writes: "The agency, Beckett Brown International, had an operative at meetings of a group in Rockville that accused a nursing home of substandard care. In Louisiana, it kept tabs on environmental activists after a chemical spill. In Washington, it spied on food safety activists who had found taco shells made with genetically modified corn not approved for human consumption."

For complete story, click here.

Religious Right Groups Want Pastors to Cross the Partisan Line and Spark Court Showdown
Rob Boston whose original editorial appeared in Church & State Magazine, writes for Alternet: "For years, Religious Right groups have complained about the federal tax law that forbids houses of worship and other tax-exempt groups to intervene in political campaigns by endorsing or opposing candidates. Several organizations pushed Congress to change the statute, without success. The Religious Right suffered another setback in 2000, when a federal appeals court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of the tax law."

For complete commentary, click here.

Put Oil Firm Chefs on Trial, Says Leading Climate Change Scientist
Ed Pilkington, The Guardian UK, says: "James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer."

To read full article, click here.

In Media, Too Few Control Too Much

22 June 2008

The Return of the Neocons
In The Washington Independent, James Risen says, "Ever since the Rumsfeld era at the Pentagon ended abruptly in the aftermath of the Democratic victory in the 2006 mid-term elections, the civilian hawks who ruled the Defense Dept. during the early years of the Iraq war have remained largely silent. They have not engaged publicly even as their culpability for the Iraq war's myriad failures has congealed into accepted wisdom."

For the complete commentary, click here.

Democrats Legalize Bush's Crimes
Writing for Consortium News, Robert Parry says, "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims that a key positive feature of the new wiretap 'compromise' is that the bill reaffirms that the President must follow the law, even though the same bill virtually assures that no one will be held accountable for George W. Bush's violation of the earlier spying law."

For the complete column, click here.

Is the Tyranny of Right-Wing Radio Coming to an End?

Roy O'Conner writes for Medicachannel.org: "Conservative fears of an impending Democratic attack on talk radio - dubbed the “Hush Rush” effort in an homage to top-rated radio talker Rush Limbaugh — continue to escalate, despite ample evidence that such an assault is unlikely to occur when (as is likely) Democrats sweep back into power in the forthcoming elections in November."

For complete commentary, click here.

Disabled Soldier Returning to War, Facing "Stop Loss"

The Handford Sentinel's Tom Philpott writes: "One day last August, while manning the .50-caliber gun atop his a Humvee on a dirt road in northern Iraq, Army Spc. Daniel 'Joey' Haun suddenly lost consciousness. His vehicle had struck a buried bomb, an 'improvised explosive device.' Haun was ejected, his vehicle flipped over."

For complete article, click here.

Is Obama Flipflopping on So-called "Free Trade"
Jonathan Tasini writes for glabour writers: "Yesterday, Senator Obama made comments to a business reporter that leave the impression that he is already shifting his stated position on NAFTA and, by extension, so-called "free trade." It is worth looking at as a sign where Senator Obama really intends to lead us on trade if he wins the White House."

For the complete article, click here.

Health Care and Ghosts of War
For Truthout, Norman Solomon writes: "Speaking in a time of war, Martin Luther King Jr. said: 'Somehow this madness must cease.' Forty-one years later, young soldiers are returning to the United States from terrifying zones of carnage. The old claims of a justified war have melted away. So have the promises of a humane society back home. Statistics about the war dead tell us very little about human realities. And familiar downbeat numbers about health care - 47 million Americans with no health insurance, perhaps an equal number woefully underinsured - tell us very little about the actual consequences or other options."

For the complete column, click here.

A Government of Law, not Fear.
Stanley Kutler writes for Truthdig.com on McCain, Obama and the abuse of power the following: "The Constitution holds, albeit by a slender thread. The Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote in Boumediene v. Bush, ruled unconstitutional a 2006 law barring enemy combatants held at Guantanamo from seeking writs of habeas corpus. For now, we are not under Chief Justice John Roberts’ or Justice Antonin Scalia’s constitution. Fear reigns in their dissent amid Cassandra-like threats that we are doomed unless we scrap our constitutional protections for the duration of that never-ending and nebulous 'war on terror.'"

For the complete commentary, click here.

Weather Reports Are Missing the Story.
Journalist Amy Goodman write for Truthdig.com: "The floodwaters are rising, swamping cities, breaching levees. Tens of thousands are displaced. Many are dead. No, I am not talking about Hurricane Katrina, but about the Midwest United States. As the floodwaters head south along the Mississippi, devastating communities one after another, the media are overflowing with televised images of the destruction. While the TV meteorologists document “extreme weather” with their increasingly sophisticated toolbox, from Doppler radar to 3-D animated maps, the two words rarely uttered are its cause: global warming."

For the complete column, click here.

18 June 2008

The Economic Debate Has yet to Target Key Issues
Danny Schechter writes for Media Channel: "There is still an air of unreality in the economic debate that is increasingly dominating the election. For one thing, it is still “AAU” (All About Us), as if what happens in the US economy in a globalized world is somehow separate and disconnected to what happens to people “out there.” It is as if our growing deficit, subprime crisis and dropping dollar only affects the United States. Of course, that’s not true. OPEC has blamed the rising price of oil on speculators, the subprime scandal and the deliberate decline of the dollar."

For complete story, click here.

Shock Jocks: Hate Speech and Talk Radio
Written by veteran media critic and Emmy winner Rory O'Connor, Shock Jocks features unsparing profiles of the ten worst conservative radio talkers in America, including Michael Savage, Bill O' Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Don Imus and the rest. Shock Jocks highlights the politicized and often factually challenged world of talk radio that dominates a sizable portion of America's airwaves, and shows how misogyny, racism, and utter contempt for other human beings is disguised as “free speech”. This scathing account also details the progressive alternatives fighting for airtime, and what you can do to help.

To watch an video interview of Rory O'Conner, click here.

To order the book, click here.

An Excerpt From Robert Scheer’s “The Pornography of Power”
War doesn’t pay, nor does imperial ambition. This proposition should be evident to anyone who has paid attention to the fivefold increase in the price of oil since George W. Bush took office. The principle of nonintervention is neither liberal nor conservative in orientation, and at the inception of the Republic it was accepted as a commonsense.

To read Empire or Republic, click here.

Fifty New Manhattan Projects
Vladimir Keilis-Borok and Michael D. Intriligator write: "Both history and common sense teach us that to overcome these threats requires innovative research at the frontier of basic science. Such research has again and again rescued humankind from immediate dangers through decisively better new technologies. We would like to propose a new approach to setting up such research that would address the major threats humanity faces."

Despite its catastrophic outcome, the Manhattan Project can provide a useful model of how we might now mobilize science to address the major global dangers we now face—but overcoming these threats will require innovative research and international cooperation among scientists focused on the common good.

For the complete report, click here.

I Guess You Can Call It Torture.
McClatchy reporters traveled to 11 countries to interview 66 freed Guantanamo and Afghanistan prison detainees. The result is a stunning 5-part series and multi-media presentation titled "Guantanamo: Beyond the Law."


McCain's Playbook: Hate, Fear and Caveman Politics
According to Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone: "The idea that John McCain is kicking off his trek to the White House by fleeing at top-end speed from the faltering Republican brand is the kind of absurdly facile misperception that only the American campaign press could swallow whole. The reality is that the once independent-thinking McCain has by now completely remade himself into a prototypical, dumbed-down Republican Party stooge -- one who plans to rely on the same GOP strategy that has been winning elections ever since Pat Buchanan and Dick Nixon cooked up a plan for cleaving the South back in 1968. Rather than serving up the 'straight talk' he promises, McCain is enthusiastically jumping aboard with every low-rent, fearmongering, cock-sucking presidential aspirant who's ever traveled the Lee Atwater/William Safire highway."

For complete story, click here.

16 June 2008

Taking Back the Republic

Gore Vidal writes for Truthdig.com: "On June 9, 2008, a counterrevolution began on the floor of the House of Representatives against the gas and oil crooks who had seized control of the federal government. This counterrevolution began in the exact place which had slumbered during the all-out assault on our liberties and the Constitution itself.

I wish to draw the attention of the blog world to Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s articles of impeachment presented to the House in order that two faithless public servants be removed from office for crimes against the American people. As I listened to Rep. Kucinich invoke the great engine of impeachment—he listed some 35 crimes by these two faithless officials—we heard, like great bells tolling, the voice of the Constitution itself speak out ringingly against those who had tried to destroy it."

To read the entire commentary click here.

To listen to Gore Vidal read his essay click here.

On the June 19th Community Bridge we will discuss the topic of requiring photo identification or other proof of identity in order to be able to vote. Here are some background articles to help listeners participate in this week's discussion.

Voting Rights Lawyers Defeat Texas' Bogus Voter Fraud Prosecutions

Steven Rosenfeld for AlterNet writes: "A years-long, high-profile campaign by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, to prosecute elderly Democratic Party volunteers for voter fraud because they helped homebound seniors to vote by mailing their absentee ballots -- but not signing the backs of envelopes -- fell apart on federal court house steps in Texas on Wednesday. The Attorney General agreed to settle a federal lawsuit challenging the voter fraud prosecutions of the Democratic volunteers rather than go to trial, according to the Lone Star Campaign, which first characterized the AG's prosecutions as politically motivated voter suppression and funded the litigation. Gerald Hebert, an ex-Department of Justice Voting Section Chief and now executive director of the Washington-based Campaign legal Center, represented the Texas Democratic Party and volunteers in the suit.

For the complete story click here.

Voting Machine CEO Reportedly Lies About Foreign Ownership of Firm
Brad Friedman writes on Brad Blog: "The CEO and President of one of America's largest voting machine companies, Sequoia Voting Systems, gave both deceptive, and carefully selective answers in his reply to a letter sent earlier this year from two high-ranking officials in Chicago, according to documents recently obtained during an ongoing investigation by the Brad Blog. Sequoia's chief executive, Jack Blaine, repeated knowingly false answers, at least three different times, in his January 18 response to Chicago Alderman Edward M. Burke and the Chair of Chicago's Board of Election Commissioners Langdon D. Neal. The pair had written to the company on January 11, expressing concerns about the truth behind Sequoia's claims that they had completely divested from their purportedly "former" parent company, Smartmatic, the Venezuelan-run firm with direct ties to Hugo Chavez and his government."

For the complete story, click here.

Voter ID Battle Shifts to Proof of Citizenship

IAN URBINA in the New York Times wrote on May 12, 2008: "The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote."

For complete story click here.

Missouri Bill to Block Nuns, Eldery from Voting Defeated
Art Levine write in the Huffington Post: "A GOP-pushed effort, aided by Republican voter-fraud scam artist Thor Hearne, to pass the country's most draconian photo ID bill has been stopped today in the Missouri Senate. Republicans, despite proclaiming the menace of voter fraud, didn't have enough votes to bring it to the floor for a vote. An angry outpouring from senior citizens, nuns, the disabled and others who would be blocked from voting under the proposed constitutional amendment, led by a broad-based progressive coalition that included the AARP, swamped Republican legislators with over 4,000 phone calls and an outcry from local newspapers."

For complete story, click here.

The Fraudulence of Voter Fraud
Joel Bleifuss writes in In These Times: "On April 6, 2006, in Washington, D.C., Karl Rove gave a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association and issued this dire warning:
We are, in some parts of the country, I'm afraid to say, beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where the guys in charge are, you know, colonels in mirrored sunglasses. I mean, it's a real problem, and I appreciate all that you're doing in those hot spots around the country to ensure that the ballot - the integrity of the ballot - is protected, because it's important to our democracy.

When Rove talks about protecting "ballot integrity," that is shorthand for disenfranchising Democratic Party voters. Over the last several years, the Justice Department, with the help of White House operatives, has sought to boost GOP electoral fortunes by orchestrating a national campaign against voter fraud. But the administration overreached on Dec. 7, when President George W. Bush fired eight U.S. attorneys, a political scandal that some say could become this president's Watergate."

For complete story, click here.

Supreme Court's voter ID decision is a blow to democracy

David A. Love writes in the Progressive: "In its 6-3 decision in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, the court ruled that the law, which requires Indiana voters to show photo identification at the polls, is constitutional. But the law was devised with partisan motives in mind. The Republican-dominated legislature enacted it in 2005 against the wishes of Democrats and civil rights advocates who were concerned that it would deny equal access to the voting booth. Why? Because the law places an unfair burden on the poor, minority groups, students, the disabled and the elderly, groups that are least likely to have proper ID."

For complere commentary, click here.


15 June 2008

Media Reformers: It's the Economy!!

Michael Winship writes for Truthout: "Last weekend's National Conference on Media Reform in Minneapolis was a freewheeling, articulate, committed gathering of activists, policy wonks and everyday citizens dedicated to the idea that there can be no real democracy without a media democracy - independent reporting from diverse communities free of the interference and spin of government and big business. Perhaps, nowhere else can you witness an FCC commissioner like Michael Copps get a rock-star-like standing ovation worthy of Mick Jagger, or hear the words, 'Common carrier rules are hot!'"

To read the entire article click here.

Forget Nuclear

This is a great, fairly new analysis from the Rocky Mountain Institute that details the risks, costs and problems with nuke plants in comparison with other available forms of energy. For those of you who dare to think of an emission-free energy future, this is a good read.

RMI researchers write: "Nuclear power, we’re told, is a vibrant industry that’s dramatically reviving because it’s proven, necessary, competitive, reliable, safe, secure, widely used, increasingly popular, and carbon-free—a perfect replacement for carbon-spewing coal power. New nuclear plants thus sound vital for climate protection, energy security, and powering a growing economy. There’s a catch, though: the private capitalmarket isn’t investing in new nuclear plants, and without financing, capitalist utilities aren’t buying. The few purchases, nearly all in Asia, are all made by central planners with a draw on the public purse. In the United States, even government subsidies approaching or exceeding new nuclear power’s total cost have failed to entice Wall Street."

For the complete report click here.

94% of Americans support solar energy development

Source: mongabay.com
June 11, 2008

94 percent of Americans say it's important for the U.S. to develop and use solar energy, according to a new poll that found support for solar power runs across the political spectrum.

The SCHOTT Solar BarometerTM
survey, conducted by the independent polling firm, Kelton Research, found that 91 percent of Republicans, 97 percent of Democrats and 98 percent of Independents agree that developing solar power is "vital" to the United States.

The poll revealed that 77 percent of Americans believe the development of solar power, and other renewable energy sources, should be a major priority of the federal government. 86 percent of Independent voters supporting the statement.

When asked which one energy source they would support if they were President, 41 percent of Americans picked solar, followed by wind. Coal was listed by only 3 percent of those polled.

"These results are an undeniable signal to our elected leaders that Americans want job-creating solar power, now," said Rhone Resch, President of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

The survey found more than 70 percent of Americans are in favor an extension of the federal investment tax credits (ITC) as a way to encourage development of solar power and fund continued development of the technology. The U.S. Senate will consider the Renewable Energy & Job Creation Act of 2008 (H.R. 6049) later this month.

11 June 2008

Blame Rising Oil Prices on Bush
Robert Scheer writs for Truthdig: "Wow, a lot of people must have bought Hummers last week. How else to explain the spike in oil prices? No, I’m not being silly: They are, and by they I mean the gaggle of media pundits and other administration apologists—abetted by some green zealots—who want to explain our energy crisis by reference to profligate consumers."

For complete column, click here.

Investigate This
Also on Truthdig this week, Scott Ritter, chief weapons inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq, writes: "As a critic of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, especially when unsubstantiated allegations of weapons of mass destruction are used to sell a war, I am no stranger to the concept of questioning authority, especially in times of war. I am from the Teddy Roosevelt school of American citizenship, adhering to the principle that “to announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but it is morally treasonable to the American public.”

For complete article, click here.

Kucinich Introduces Impeachment Articles Against Bush
Christopher Kuttruff of Truthout reports, "Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush late on Monday during a speech on the House floor."

For the complete story, click here.

Prices Leap for Corn and Crude Oil

Keith Good, FarmPolicy.com, writes: "The New York Times editorial board stated in today’s paper that, 'Over the past year, the prices of grains and vegetable oils have nearly doubled. Rice has jumped by about half. The causes include soaring energy costs, drought in big agricultural producers, like Australia, and rising demand by a burgeoning middle class in China and India. But misguided mandates and subsidies in the United States and Europe to produce energy from crops are also playing an important role.'"

For the complete article, click here.

Make No Mistake: McCain's a Neocon
Robert Parry, of Consortium News: "Since clinching the Republican presidential nomination, John McCain has sought to hide the forest of his neoconservative alignment with George W. Bush amid the trees of details, such as stressing differences over military tactics used in Iraq. But the larger reality should be clear: McCain is a hard-line neoconservative who buys into Bush's 'preemptive war' theories abroad and his concept of an all-powerful 'unitary executive' at home."

For the complete article, click here.

These Steps Could Lower Oil Prices, but Nobody'll Take Them
Kevin G. Hall writes for McClatchy Newspapers: "As gasoline prices soar to new records, America's president - and the two men who hope to succeed him - are offering only partial or long-term solutions and ignoring three steps that many experts say could bring some relief now. Americans began this workweek by crossing a dismal threshold, paying a once-unthinkable nationwide record average of $4.02 per gallon Monday for unleaded gasoline, with the prospect of even higher prices in months ahead."

For the complete story, click here.

Irony of All Ironies: FOX Shows Up at Media Reform Conference

FOX News once again had the gall to show up with a film crew to a progressive conference (their last escapade involved an assault on Arianna Huffington at Take Back America). Ironically, this time they were at the National Conference for Media Reform. They're not the only ones with cameras, though! Of course, as Greenwald points out, this guy in the green striped shirt isn't the enemy per se, but his bosses are. FOX is propaganda, and will be greeted as such.

Watch the video by clicking here.

The Tipping Point for Media Reform
Megan Tady writes for CommonDreams.org: "There are moments in every decade when monumental struggles for social change finally tip in favor of the public interest. We've seen the relief of a 40-hour work week, the long-awaited arrival of women’s right to vote, and the even longer fight to end segregation. This decade — now — we’re facing another tipping point. Our fight is to reform our broken media system, and to stop heavy-handed corporate control of what Americans read, watch and hear."

To read her complete blog entry click here.

05 June 2008

Who'll Unplug Big Media? Stay Tuned

By Robert McChesney and John Nichols,
The Nation, June 18 edition

On a Thursday in mid-May, the Senate did something that would have been unimaginable a decade ago. Led by Democrat Byron Dorgan, the senators--Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives--gave Rupert Murdoch and his fellow media moguls the sort of slap that masters of the universe don't expect from mere mortals on Capitol Hill. With a voice vote that confirmed the near-unanimous sentiment of senators who had heard from hundreds of thousands of Americans demanding that they act, the legislators moved to nullify an FCC attempt to permit a radical form of media consolidation: a rule change designed to permit one corporation to own daily and weekly newspapers as well as television and radio stations in the same local market. The removal of the historic bar to newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership has long been a top priority of Big Media. They want to dramatically increase revenues by buying up major media properties in American cities, shutting down competing newsrooms and creating a one-size-fits-all local discourse that's great for the bottom line but lousy for the communities they are supposed to serve and a nightmare for democracy.

That's just some of the good news at a time when the media policy debate has been redefined by the emergence of a muscular grassroots reform movement. Bush Administration schemes to use federal dollars to subsidize friendly journalists and illegally push its propaganda as legitimate news have been exposed and halted, with the House approving a defense appropriations amendment that outlaws any "concerted effort to propagandize" by the Pentagon. Public broadcasting, community broadcasting and cable access channels have withstood assault from corporate interlopers, fundamentalist censors and the GOP Congressional allies they share in common. And against a full-frontal attack from two industries, telephone and cable--whose entire business model is based on lobbying Congress and regulators to get monopoly privileges--a grassroots movement has preserved network neutrality, the first amendment of the digital epoch, which holds that Internet service providers shall not censor or discriminate against particular websites or services. So successful has this challenge to the telecom lobbies been that the House may soon endorse the Internet Freedom Preservation Act.

But while the picture has improved, especially compared with just a few years ago, the news is not nearly good enough. The Senate's resolution of disapproval did not reverse the FCC's cross-ownership rule change. It merely began a pushback that still requires a House vote--and even if it passes Congress, it will then encounter a veto by George W. Bush. Likewise, while public and community media have been spared from the executioner, they still face deep-seated funding and competitive disadvantages that require structural reforms, not Band-Aids.

The media reform movement must prepare now to promote a wide range of structural reforms--to talk of changing media for the better rather than merely preventing it from getting worse. "Media reform" has become a catch-all phrase to describe the broad goals of a movement that says consolidated ownership of broadcast and cable media, chain ownership of newspapers, and telephone and cable-company colonization of the Internet pose a threat not just to the culture of the Republic but to democracy itself. The movement that became a force to be reckoned with during the Bush years had to fight defensive actions with the purpose of preventing more consolidation, more homogenization and more manipulation of information by elites. Now, however, we must require corporations that reap immense profits from the people's airwaves to meet high public-service standards, dust off rusty but still functional antitrust laws to break up TV and radio conglomerates, address over-the-top commercialization of our culture and establish a heterogeneous and accountable noncommercial media sector. In sum, we need to establish rules and structures designed to create a cultural environment that will enlighten, empower and energize citizens so they can realize the full promise of an American experiment that has, since its founding, relied on freedom of the press to rest authority in the people.

Despite all the revelations exposing government assaults on a free press, too many media outlets continue to tell the politically and economically powerful, "Lie to me!" Five years into a war made possible by the persistent refusal of the major media to distinguish fact from Bush Administration spin, we learned this spring about the Pentagon's PR machine's multimillion-dollar propaganda campaign that seeded willing broadcast and cable news programs with "expert" generals who parroted the White House line right up to the point at which the fraud was exposed. Even after the New York Times broke the story, the networks still chose to cover their shame rather than expose a war that has gone far worse than most Americans know.

Recently we have seen an acceleration of the collapse of journalistic standards. Veteran reporters like Walter Cronkite are appalled by the mergermania that has swept the industry, diluting standards, dumbing down the news and gutting newsrooms. Rapid consolidation, evidenced most recently by the breakup of the once-venerable Knight-Ridder newspapers, the sale of the Tribune Company and its media properties and the swallowing of the Wall Street Journal by Murdoch's News Corp continues the steady replacement of civic and democratic values by commercial and entertainment priorities. But responsible journalists have less and less to say about newsroom agendas these days. The calls are being made by consultants and bean counters, who increasingly rely on official sources and talking-head pundits rather than newsgathering or serious debate.

The crisis is widespread, and it affects not just our policies but the politics that might improve them. There are two critical issues on which a free press must be skeptical of official statements, challenging to the powerful and rigorous in the search for truth. One of them is war--and in the case of the post-9/11 wars, our media have failed us miserably. (Even former White House press secretary Scott McClellan now acknowledges that the media were "complicit enablers" in the run-up to the Iraq invasion). The other issue is elections, when voters rely on media to provide them with what candidates, parties and interest groups often will not: a serious focus on issues that matter and on the responses of candidates to those issues. Instead, when the Democratic race was reaching its penultimate stage, the dominant story was a ridiculously overplayed discussion about Barack Obama's former minister. Before the critical Pennsylvania primary, studies show, the provocative Rev. Jeremiah Wright got more coverage than Obama's rival for the nomination, Hillary Clinton. And forget about issues--the most covered policy debate of the period, a ginned-up argument about whether to slash gas taxes for the summer, garnered only one-sixth as much attention as Wright.

Viable democracy cannot survive, let alone flourish, with such debased journalistic standards. Despite some remarkable recent victories by grassroots activists, our media still fail the most critical tests of a free press. This is an impasse that cannot last for long, and in all likelihood the outcome of the 2008 presidential election will go a long way toward determining which side, the corporate owners or the public, will win the battle for the media. The stakes could not be higher.

The next President will make two important decisions. The first will be whether to accept media reform legislation or veto it. There is little doubt that Congress has shifted dramatically as a result of popular pressure. Corporate lobbyists who used to worry only about battling one another for the largest slice of the pie know the game has changed. The 2008 elections will almost certainly increase support in both houses and from both parties for media reform.

Second, the next President will appoint a new FCC chair who will command a majority of the commission's five members. This is a critical choice. The right majority would embrace the values and ideals of the thousands of media critics, independent media producers and democracy activists who will gather June 6-8 in Minneapolis for the fourth National Conference for Media Reform. Dissident commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, who have battled the FCC's pro-Big Media majority on issues ranging from media ownership to net neutrality and corporate manipulation of the news over the past four years, will both address the conference. If Copps, the senior of the two, is named chair, this savvy Washington veteran is prepared to turn the agency into what it was intended to be by Copps's hero, Franklin Roosevelt: a muscular defender of the public interest with the research capacity and the authority to assure that the airwaves and broadband spectrum, which are owned by the people, actually respond to popular demand for diversity, competition and local control. After years of battling to block rule changes pushed by corporate lobbyists, Copps has called for a New American Media Contract, saying, "I'm sick of playing defense." In these pages on April 7, he urged that we "reinvigorate the license-renewal process" by returning to standards set during Roosevelt's presidency, when "renewals were required every three years, and a station's public-interest record was subject to FCC judgment."

Don't look for a President John McCain to hand Copps the chairmanship. There is a clear difference between McCain and Obama when it comes to what the candidates say about media issues, and an even clearer difference in their records. Although many GOP voters, and some back-benchers in Congress, are supportive of media reform, the commanding heights of the party are a wholly owned subsidiary of the media giants. On the surface McCain may appear to be a complex figure who straddles the fence. In the increasingly distant past he occasionally tossed out a soundbite recognizing citizen concerns. But in recent years he has invariably championed the corporate lobbies. McCain's free-market rhetoric about government-created and indirectly subsidized media monopolies is increasingly recognized for what it is: propaganda to advance the policy objectives of massive corporations.

More than a decade ago McCain voted against the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which gave the green light to media consolidation. He also loudly opposed the efforts of commercial broadcasters to quash low-power noncommercial FM broadcasting in 2000. Progressives applauded in both cases. But as chair of the all-important Senate Commerce Committee, which was responsible for implementation of the Telecom Act, the Arizona senator resisted numerous opportunities to mitigate its worst excesses. The hallmarks of McCain's "leadership" have been: (1) a failure to promote the public interest; (2) hypocritical pro-consumer rhetoric that hides pro-business action; (3) a fundamental misunderstanding of technology and economics; and (4) troubling, at times scandalous, loyalty to particular special interests.

While most of the attention to February's New York Times investigation of McCain's relationship with Vicki Iseman focused on speculation about romantic entanglement, shockingly little attention was paid to the revelation that in 1999 McCain had, as Commerce Committee chair, pressured the FCC to issue a critical TV station license to Paxson Communications, for whom Iseman was lobbying. McCain's approach was so aggressive and so out of bounds even for corporate-cozy Washington that then-FCC chair William Kennard complained about the senator's attempted intervention. Paxson's executives and lobbyists contributed more than $20,000 to McCain's 2000 presidential campaign, and its CEO lent McCain the company's jet at least four times for campaign travel. The senator's symbiotic relationship with Paxson and telecom giants like AT&T is rarely mentioned on the Straight Talk Express.

Also unmentioned is the crucial role McCain played in shaping the Bush-era FCC. It was McCain who personally and aggressively promoted Michael Powell to serve as FCC chair, and who defended Powell's attempts in 2003 to rewrite media ownership rules according to a script written by industry lobbyists. While other senators objected to those rule changes after more than 2 million Americans communicated their opposition, McCain sought to preserve them. And he remains joined at the hip with Powell, who unabashedly thinks the job of government is to promote the interests of the largest communication firms. In May Powell represented the McCain campaign on a panel discussion at the annual conference of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.

It is unlikely that McCain would reappoint the disgraced Powell as chair. But it is reasonably certain he would appoint someone who shares Powell's deafness to the pleadings of public interest. The senator's 2006 vote against maintaining net neutrality suggests that his commitment to the business objectives of AT&T outweigh any commitment to the public interest. Straight-talk soundbites notwithstanding, McCain will be a reactionary force on media issues across the board.

Barack Obama is different. Obama's campaign has produced the most comprehensive, public-interest-oriented media agenda ever advanced by a major presidential candidate. Like Hillary Clinton, the Illinois senator has been an outspoken defender of net neutrality. The Obama camp's position paper on media issues echoes Copps when it says that as President, he "would encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation's spectrum." In a recent speech Obama called for strengthened antitrust enforcement, specifically warning against media consolidation. An Obama presidency would, he and his supporters say, use all the tools of government to promote greater coverage of local issues and better responsiveness by broadcasters to the communities they serve. Like Copps, Obama favors investment to connect remote and disenfranchised communities to the Internet and to make public broadcasting a more robust voice in the national discourse.

While a President Obama would almost certainly be different from a President McCain on media issues, the extent of the difference remains open to debate. Would Obama actually make Copps or someone like him FCC chair? Would Obama move immediately and effectively to break the stranglehold of media lobbyists? That is by no means certain. While his stated policies are encouraging, competing forces are struggling to influence the candidate. Industry money is going to Obama in anticipation of his victory. He is a self-styled party centrist, and in recent Democratic Party history, "centrism" has usually meant putting the demands of moneyed interests ahead of those of rank-and-file citizens. The good news is that many of Obama's younger advisers are products of the media reform movement or have been influenced by it. The bad news is that others, like Clinton-era FCC chair Kennard, have records of compromising with the telecom industry. So while some Big Media will be betting on McCain, they won't give up easily on Obama.

What Obama's candidacy offers, then, is an opening and--if we dare employ an overused word from this campaign season--a measure of hope. The proper response to that opening is not celebration but vigilance and determination. Obama's positions, while sometimes vague, do allow us to imagine securing increased funding for public and community broadcasting, a broadband build-out that allows all Americans to realize the promise of the Internet, and a new approach to the licensing and regulation of the people's airwaves that respects the public interest more than Rupert Murdoch's bottom line. We can anticipate the development of creative policies to promote and protect viable independent journalism and local media. The right President will make achieving all these ends easier. The right Congress will make the task easier still. But above all, we will need the right media reform movement--one that is aggressive in its demands regardless of who sits in the White House, savvy in its approach to the FCC and Congressional committees, bipartisan and determined to build broad coalitions, and focused not just on playing defense but on shaping popular media for the twenty-first century.

About Robert W. McChesney
Robert McChesney is research professor in the Institute of Communications Robert McChesney is research professor in the Institute of Communications Research and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois. He and John Nichols, The Nation's Washington correspondent, are the founders of Free Press, the media reform network, and the authors of Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy (New Press). more...

About John Nichols

John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written The Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.

Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other newspapers.

The End to the Internet, the Loss of Net Neutrality

Jon Sayer writes in Western Front on 3 June: " The Internet is the greatest invention in the history of the human race. You don’t believe me? Well, what’s the capital of the Mexican state of Tabasco? If you are reading this article on WesternFrontOnline.net, then you can look it up with a few keystrokes. You will know the answer in 10 seconds flat. If you were reading it in the dead-tree edition of this paper back in 1988, well you would have to go find a print encyclopedia, which you probably don’t have laying around in your dorm room. That’s a big hassle. You would ask your roommate and he would say, “Sauce! LOL!” Only he would have actually laughed out loud. He wouldn’t have said “el-oh-el.” The printing press may have enabled one-to-many mass communication. The steam engine may have connected the Atlantic and Pacific. But the Internet enables many-to-many mass communication. It connects the Atlantic and Pacific to the Mediterranean, Caspian and South China Seas. The sum of human knowledge is literally at your fingertips."

To read complete commentary, click here.

Media Reform: Politics or Democracy?

Josh Wilson in Illustrated Media writes: "There is a widespread and paradoxical fallacy among media reformers that considers the nature of our media as a “second issue” that can and must be harnessed to specific political agendas of the progressive variety. In fact, media is a primary issue that serves the entire socio-political process, not just the needs of progressive politics.
Failure to recognize this ultimately will marginalize the efforts of the media reform community. It limits the issue of reform to one smaller fragment of the larger body politic, and does little to build inclusive media that can accommodate the breadth, depth and diversity of the political discourse — not to mention the journalistic inquiry — this nation requires to survive as a democracy."

For the complete commentary, click here.

Report says converting to green economy creates jobs
John Myers, Duluth News Tribune Published Wednesday, June 04, 2008The movement of giant wind turbines through the port of Duluth has created a boomlet of economic activity for the region, just the kind of clean, green jobs that will flourish when the U.S. turns away form oil and coal in the battle against global warming.

That was the message Tuesday from leaders of environmental, labor and political groups who say U.S. action is needed to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and push the nation’s economy toward green energy.

The groups released “Job Opportunities for Green Economy,’’ which looked at current jobs and potential in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia.

For complete story click here.

McCain: I'd Spy on Americans Secretly, Too

Writing for Wired, Ryan Singel reports, "If elected president, Senator John McCain would reserve the right to run his own warrantless wiretapping program against Americans, based on the theory that the president's wartime powers trump federal criminal statutes and court oversight, according to a statement released by his campaign Monday."

For complete story, click here.

Judges Uphold Voting Rights Act

The Washington Post's Del Quentin Wilber writes: "A federal court yesterday rejected the first legal challenge to a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, in a case that legal scholars view as an important test of one of the country's seminal pieces of civil rights legislation."

To read the whole story, click here.

The Corporate State and the Subversion of Democracy

Chris Hedges gave this keynote address on Wednesday, May 28, in Furman University’s Younts Conference Center. The address was part of protests by faculty and students over the South Carolina college’s decision to invite George W. Bush to give the May 31 commencement address.

He begins: "I used to live in a country called America. It was not a perfect country, God knows, especially if you were African-American or Native American or of Japanese descent in World War II or poor or gay or a woman or an immigrant, but it was a country I loved and honored. This country gave me hope that it could be better. It paid its workers wages that were envied around the world. It made sure these workers, thanks to labor unions and champions of the working class in the Democratic Party and the press, had health benefits and pensions. It offered good public education. It honored basic democratic values and held in regard the rule of law, including international law, and respect for human rights..."

For complete speech, click here.

Indefensible Spending

Robert Scheer Writes in an Op-Ed that originally appeared in the L. A. Times: "What should be the most important issue in this election is one that is rarely, if ever, addressed: Why is U.S. military spending at the highest point, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than at any time since the end of World War II? Why, without a sophisticated military opponent in sight, is the United States spending trillions of dollars on the development of high-tech weapons systems that lost their purpose with the collapse of the Soviet Union two decades ago?"

For complete op-ed, click here.

03 June 2008

New Contracts Reflect Continued Presence in Iraq
Walter Pincus of The Washington Post writes: "The depth of US involvement in Iraq and the difficulty the next president will face in pulling personnel out of the country are illustrated by a handful of new contract proposals made public in May."
For complete story click here.

ACLU Sues Denver for Weapons Information
Rick Sallinger, CBS4 News, reports: "The American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit against the city of Denver after an open records request for information about the purchasing of security equipment for the Democratic National Convention was denied. The group wants to know what weapons the city is buying for crowd control during protests."
For complete story click here.

Why Women Are the Primary Drivers of Change
In their new book, published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Lisa Witter and Lisa Chen state, "Women are on the forefront of all the primary drivers of change: money, volunteer service, and the power of the vote. This is why they are the primary target audience for non-profits and political campaigns. A closer examination of their standing in these arenas helps crack open some conventional, but misguided, wisdom chestnuts such as women's income (and giving potential) lags behind men's, and that by appealing to women, you'll drive men away. In fact, just the opposite is true."
To read an excerpt from their book, click here.

Interview With Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky
Maya Schenwar, of Truthout.org writes: "Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky has had enough of the war in Iraq, and she's had enough of the military contractors that are making it possible. 'These are the guys who carry guns - I would call them mercenaries - who are engaged in inherently governmental activities,' she told me in a recent interview, noting that while contractors carry out many of the same functions as the military, they are held to much less stringent standards. 'One has to ask, 'Is it the policy of the United States of America that contractors can get away with murder?' And frankly, so far, it seems like the answer is 'yes.'"
To read the accompany article and watch the interview, click here.

When Will U.S. "Journalism" Be Held Accountable for Promoting War?
In a thought provoking commentary, News Dissector Danny Schechter poses just this question. Schechter made WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception in 2004, a film shown in 40 countries. (Wmdthefilm.com). He wrote two books on media complicity, Embedded (2003) and When News Lies (2006).
To read commentary click here.

Gramm-UBS Lobbyist Questions Dog McCain Campaign
Mark Hosenball, of Newsweek: "For weeks now, John McCain's presidential campaign has faced awkward questions about the outside activities of several top advisers. Add one more name to the list: former Texas senator Phil Gramm, McCain's longtime friend and one of his five campaign co-chairs. According to McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker, the co-chair position affords Gramm 'broad input into the structure, financing and conduct of the campaign.'"
For complete article click here.

Is Water Becoming the New Oil?
Mark Clayton, for The Christian Science Monitor, reports, "'Water,' Dow Chemical Chairman Andrew Liveris told the World Economic Forum in February, 'is the oil of this century.' Developed nations have taken cheap, abundant fresh water largely for granted. Now global population growth, pollution, and climate change are shaping a new view of water as 'blue gold.'"
For the complete article, click here.

Number of Uninsured US Young Adults Grows
Will Dunham writes for Reuters: "The number of uninsured US young adults, who already represent a major chunk of the American population without health coverage, rose again in 2006, according to a study released on Friday."
To read the complete article, click here.