Things to consider—

Since early 2011, Obama's been waging proxy war on Syria. Imported death squads masquerade as freedom fighters. The scheme's familiar. It repeats. It reflects US imperialism's dark side. In the 1980s, CIA-recruited mujahideen fighters battled Afghanistan's Soviet occupiers. Ronald Reagan called them "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers." He characterized Contra killers the same way. —Stephen LendmanFor over a century now US ambassadors have acted as fifth columns in the nations they are embedded in, their role chiefly to foster corporate and plutocratic power and coordinate machinations against any truly pro-democratic government.•••••"The dead end identity politics of SF Pride, which sells out a peace hero like Bradley Manning to curry favor with the American ruling class, is what I had in mind. The empire loves your tameness, irrelevance and cowardice, SF Pride. You don’t bother the American ruling class — a five foot two, 105 pound soldier does because he has a conscience and because he didn’t make comfort the guiding principle of his life...." —Randy Shields
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CJR: How the Media Has Shaped the Social Security Debate

 ANNOTATED NEWS, CITIZEN TOOLS, CLASS STRUGGLE, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, PUTRID CORPOMEDIA  Comments Off
Apr 232012
 

NB: We have published numerous pieces warning readers about the continuing—bipartisan—attack on social security.  All articles make clear that the alarm—let alone “the crisis”—that supposedly attaches to the urgent “fixing” of social security is little more than a scam. Meanwhile, the corporate media not only permit this nonsense to sink ever deeper into the nation’s consciousness, but make sure that when politicians pick up the axes to destroy this invaluable program the masses will be suitable paralyzed, divided or confused. Oh, by the way, clarifying the topic is fairly easy to do.—PG 

Campaign Desk / Columbia Journalism Review— April 18, 2012 11:55 AM

The press plays a dubious role

 

FDR signing the Social Security Act, in 1935. Today, it would never happen. 

By Trudy Lieberman, Campaign Desk, Columbia Journalism Review

Shortly after the 2010 midterm elections, Washington Post budget correspondent Lori Montgomery reported that, while a debate raged around major budgetary changes and the wisdom of cutting Social Security, a “surprisingly broad consensus is forming around the actions required to stabilize borrowing and ease fears of a European-style debt crisis in the United States.” A consensus among whom, we asked? Ordinary people who like Social Security the way it is, opinion leaders, or the reporters who record what those opinion leaders say? Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 6:08 pm