“No ambition to oppress them”? By Leftist Critic | Dissident Voice | December 2, 2016 Recently, I’ve been reading Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, a book by veteran New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer, which focuses on US-backed coups from 1893 (Hawaii) to Iraq (2003). In the book, Kinzer devotes […]
Not an “expert” or “analyst”: Me (left) with my buddy on one of many visits to Maaloula. Would you be surprised to learn the think-tank and media “expert” community is often dominated by people who have never stepped foot in the countries of their expertise? I’VE BECOME INCREASINGLY ALARMED at the number of “experts” and … Continue reading On Syria Analysts and “Experts” Who Have Never Stepped Foot Inside the Country →
The problem is not just that foreign reporting is being stripped of financial resources as the media find it harder to make a profit from their core activities. It is, as Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky pointed out long ago in their book Manufacturing Consent, that the corporate media is designed to reflect the interests of power – and the corporations that control our media are power. They select journalists through a long filtering process (school, university, journalism training, apprenticeships) precisely designed to weed out dissidents and those who think too critically.
Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press. Reporting about carnage in the ancient city of Aleppo is the latest reason why.
The post The media are misleading the public on Syria appeared first on BSNEWS.
After Kennedy took office, he was unaware that the CIA, in accord with an OK from President Eisenhower and working with the Belgians, had overseen the gruesome torture and brutal murder of the Congo's popular first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. With Lumumba already dead a month and his body dissolved in sulphuric acid, Kennedy called for him to be reintegrated into the new nation's government. The CIA-- Allen Dulles, who JFK foolishly kept on as director-- hadn't told him that they had carried out Eisenhower 's orders to have him murdered as a commie dupe.
Growing up, CBS' weekly game show What's My Line? was one of the most popular shows on the relatively new television machine. It ran from 1950 to 1967 and won a bunch of Emmys and Golden Globes. By the time the above episode ran in 1959, the guest, Tom Dooley, had already had his major impact on the word stage, although in a role that certainly never came up on the show. To John Daley, Arlene Francis, Bennett Cerf, Dorothy Kilgallen-- and their audience-- young Dr.
One month ago, to the day, we looked at a fascinating bit of interaction, billed as a HARDtalk interview, between Glenn Greenwald and a British government stooge who broadcasts propaganda on the BBC, Stephen Sackur, the voice of Establishment Group Think.
You may have noticed that the latest polls show have completely turned around from October when voters were furious at Republicans for shutting down the government and were reporting 50-42% that they planned to back Democrats in 2014. Republicans have now opened a 49-44% lead over Democrats in this generic polling.
If you're following the narrative on the blog with any regularity over the week, you probably noticed we've been taking a close look at Stephen Kinzer's brilliant new book, The Brothers, an intense look at the two worst and most destructive arch-villains in 20th Century American history.
Everyone blames Nazi-sympathizer John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower's Secretary of State, and his bumbling and incompetent brother, Allen, head of the CIA, for the unintended consequences brought on by the violent CIA overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh. History blames them-- and history was meant to blame them. Eisenhower's fingers are nowhere near any of that stuff-- only on his revered speech warning Americans about the Military-Industrial Complex.
