The Greanville Post —Vol. VII- 2013

Something to think about—(put cursor over scroller to stop it)

We're engaged in a protracted mass communications battle, a contest of propagandas, Their object is to prop up the system's legitimacy; ours precisely the opposite. The core of a system's illegitimacy is nothing more nor less than its easily demonstrable Orwellian nature. If it claims to be a democracy it must be a plutocracy; if it proclaims to defend the safety of its population, it actively endangers it; if it struts around loudly shouting its allegiance to freedom and the rule of law, it is in actuality a cynical hidden dictatorship; If it brags about its "free press", then you know for sure that it is an abject, servile tool of the power elites. Of course the most infamous contradiction is that when this hypocritical scum kneel before the altar of peace they are actively engaged in making war. On and on. Always the opposite of what it claims. In America, especially, anyone awake can see that readily. But unfortunately the majority are still asleep.—Sean Lenihan •••The cowardice and duplicity of Congress, above all, the Democrats, and the subservience of the media, exhibited in their response to the exposure of the NSA spying programs, encourage the military and intelligence agencies to go even further in their drive toward dictatorship. Mark Udall, the Democratic senator presented as the most “outspoken” critic of the spying programs, began his interview Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” program by pledging his support to the “war on terror” and denouncing leaks of classified information.—Barry Grey••••From Athens to Paris to Brazil, there is growing realization that politics as usual just won’t cut it anymore. We will always lose if we play by their rules rather than invent new forms of struggle, new social movements, and new sensibilities. The defense of the earth requires immediate and decisive action: logging roads need to be blocked, driftnets need to be cut, and cages need to be emptied. But these are piecemeal and reactive measures, and in addition to these tactics, radical movements and alliances must be built that unites struggles on behalf of humanity, nonhuman animals, and the earth in a politics of total liberation. Resistance is the oxygen of the future. Live to resist, resist to live.—Steve Best••••For 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 journalistic education of Gabriel García Márquez

ANTI-CORPORATISM, ANTI-NEOLIBERALISM, ARTS & FILM, BETTER HUMANITY, CELEBRITIES, CULTURE & CRITICISM, FICTION, INTERNATIONAL REPORTAGE, LatinAm-COLOMBIA, REAL JOURNALISM No Responses »

Jun 172013

From our archives: Articles you should have read the first time around but missed.
Second Read
[Originally published January 14, 2010]

The Hack

By Miles Corwin, Columbia Journalism Review

In 1955, eight crew members of a Colombian naval destroyer in the Caribbean were swept overboard by a giant wave. Luis Alejandro Velasco, a sailor who spent ten days on a life raft without food or water, was the only survivor. The editor of the Colombian newspaper El Espectador assigned the story to a twenty-seven-year-old reporter who had been dabbling in fiction and had a reputation as a gifted feature writer: Gabriel García Márquez. Continue reading »

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Constitutional Entropy in America

ABOMINATIONS, AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM, AMERICAN PARTY DUOPOLY, ANNOTATED NEWS, ANTI-CORPORATISM, ANTIWAR, CORPORATE MENTALITY, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, PUTRID CORPOMEDIA, REAL JOURNALISM, WAR CRIMES & CRIMINALS No Responses »

Jun 162013

Cordons of the Mind

by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR, Counterpunch.org

USAG Eric Holder, natural head of the Department of Dubious Justice.

USAG Eric Holder, a natural to helm the Department of Dubious Justice.

It is a somber measure of the accelerating pace of constitutional entropy in America that Alan Dershowitz, that avid advocate of torture, strutted forth as one of the few voices of restraint following the capture of young Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. When most commentators were making carnivorous howls for the bullet-ridden teenager to be stripped of his constitutional rights and declared an enemy combatant, Dershowitz, who has previously endorsed waterboarding suspected terrorists under the outlandish “ticking time-bomb” theory, urged the Obama administration to treat Tsarnaev as an ordinary criminal suspect, read him his Miranda rights and provide him access to an attorney.

Continue reading »

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Remembering real heroes: Megdar Evers

ACTIVISTS & HEROES, AMERICAN PARTY DUOPOLY, BLACK AMERICA, BOUGHT POLITICIANS & PHONIES, CLASS ANALYSIS, CLASS STRUGGLE, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, CORPORATE TELEVISION, MEDIA CRITICISM, REAL JOURNALISM, THE COLOR LINE No Responses »

Jun 132013

Evers: Like Malcolm and Dr. King, he defined real courage and what the good fight is all about.

This is what liberaloids like MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow are good for: they can come up with pretty nice information packages on matters that do not really threaten the status quo in social relations. Or matters whose adverse impact has long been absorbed and co-opted by the establishment. As our readers know, MSNBC, along with the Daily Kos, are literally appendages of the Democratic party, and as such, useless in terms of in-depth, out-of-the-bubble crusading journalism. MSNBC, in fact, is US television’s main barn for the medium’s Obamabots, which means that no real criticism of Barack Obama is ever permitted. This is too bad, not only because the mass American public, devoid of substantive information, on which so much depends, continues its long descent into confusion and political suicide. As this excellent segment on Megdar Evers proves, a genuine hero whose name should be a household name across the country, Maddow and her ilk can report clearly when they can, but much too often, they won’t—P. Greanville

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Annals of a sick society: Suicide Rates Rise Sharply in U.S.

AMERICAN STUDIES, ANNOTATED NEWS, ANTI-CORPORATISM, CULTURE & CRITICISM, REAL JOURNALISM Comments Off

May 032013

Even the corporate media have to focus on this phenomenon now. We inhabit a sick society, sick by dint of man-made rules, not an unfathomable “act of God.” Note the select readers’ comments indicating a high degree of awareness of the social causes of this disaster. This article is republished as a public service.—Eds.

By TARA PARKER-POPE, The New York Times, May 2, 2013

Among middle-aged Americans have risen sharply in the past decade, prompting concern that a generation of baby boomers who have faced years of economic worry and easy access to prescription painkillers may be particularly vulnerable to self-inflicted harm. Continue reading »

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THE TOPPLING: Saddam’s statue falls, spontaneous event or propaganda?

AMERICAN STUDIES, ANTI-NEOLIBERALISM, ANTIWAR, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, IMPERIAL APOLOGISTS & COLLABOS, IMPERIALISM, IRAQ, MEDIA CRITICISM, REAL JOURNALISM Comments Off

Apr 042013

From the archives—
THE WAYWARD PRESS

THE TOPPLING

How the media inflated a minor moment in a long war.

by Peter Maass (Originally: The New Yorker, JANUARY 10, 2011)

As viewers watched on television, Marine Gunnery Sergeant Leon Lambert and Corporal Edward Chin prepared to bring down the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad’s Firdos Square. (Photograph by Alexandra Boulat.)

On April 9, 2003, Lieutenant Colonel Bryan McCoy, commander of the 3rd Battalion 4th Marines, awoke at a military base captured from the Iraqis a few miles from the center of Baghdad, which was still held by the enemy. It had been twenty days since the invasion of Iraq began, and McCoy had some personal chores to take care of—washing his socks, for one. Afterward, he walked over to a group of marines under his command who were defacing a mural of Saddam Hussein. As I watched, he picked up a sledgehammer and struck a few blows himself. The men cheered. Then he began preparing for the serious business of the day: leading the battalion into the heart of the city. He expected a house-to-house brawl that would last several days. Continue reading »

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When capitalists write their own history

AMERICAN STUDIES, BOURGEOIS VALUES, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, PLUTOCRATIC POWER, PLUTOCRATS, PROPAGANDA, PUTRID CORPOMEDIA, REAL JOURNALISM Comments Off

Mar 292013

Notes from the Editors for March 2013 (vol. 64 no. 10) :: Monthly Review

The Editors more on History , US Politics/Economy

» Notes from the Editors

buy this issue

The history of capitalism is replete with cases of successful captains of industry who, suddenly concerned with their place in history, decide to write a book celebrating their achievements, while articulating a new philosophy of philanthropic capitalism—usually with the help of a ghostwriter or “collaborator” of some sort. Continue reading »

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Lethal medicine linked to meningitis outbreak (VIDEO)

AMERICAN STUDIES, CITIZEN TOOLS, CORPORATE CRIMINALITY, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, GOVERNMENT CRIMES, GREAT HYPOCRISY, MEDIA CRITICISM, REAL JOURNALISM Comments Off

Mar 122013

Capitalism at its best
Lethal medicine linked to meningitis outbreak

A report by CBS 60 Minutes, 10 March 2013
Scott Pelley reads a (rare) report on New England Compounding Center (NECC), the pharmacy behind a tainted steroid that caused a deadly outbreak of fungal meningitis. Continue reading »

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Or Would You Rather Be a Fish?

ACTIVISTS & HEROES, AMERICAN STUDIES, ANIMAL DEFENDERS, ANIMAL MARTYRDOM, ANNOTATED NEWS, REAL JOURNALISM Comments Off

Mar 012013

‘Leviathan’ From Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel

A scene from “Leviathan,” which is set on a groundfish trawler out of New Bedford, Mass.

By A. O. SCOTT, The new York Times

To describe “Leviathan” as a documentary about fishing is both accurate and deceptive. The misleading word would be “about.” The film, by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, is a work of nonfiction set entirely on a groundfish trawler out of New Bedford, Mass., but it avoids the standard equipment of interviews, analysis and explanation. If you want to understand the ecological consequences and economic challenges of the modern commercial fishing industry, or to learn about the place of the ocean in the global food chain, you will have to go elsewhere. Continue reading »

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MEDIA: The (Wel)Coming of Al-Jazeera? Three more views.

AMERICAN STUDIES, ANNOTATED NEWS, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, CULTURE & CRITICISM, IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE, PROPAGANDA, PUTRID CORPOMEDIA, REAL JOURNALISM Comments Off

Jan 042013

Pan-Arab news channel al-Jazeera has acquired Current TV to gain access to the US cable TV market.

Editor’s Note: In this series of articles (see the first article on the topic, Al-Jazeera’s Big Gamble, here) we explore further the imminent debut of Al-Jazeera (AJ) on the US media market and its likely implications. The views of most observers range from outright hostile (Wolff) to enthusiastic (O’Connor) and moderately encouraging (Wasserman). How about you? —PG

Al Gore, chairman of Current TV, now bought by al-Jazeera

Former US vice-president and chairman of Current TV, Al Gore will remain on the advisory board of the cable TV company he co-founded and has now sold to al-Jazeera. Photograph: Danny Moloshok/AP

Even owning Al Gore’s Current will not make al-Jazeera current on US TV
US media industry hostility is not the Qatari-owned cable TV news company’s biggest problem. That is dreary programming

Michael Wolff, theguardian
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 January 2013
If you are a media company with unlimited funds and a hostile environment to your message, is it possible to buy respectability? If not respectability – what does that get you, anyway? – is it possible to buy an audience? Continue reading »

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Khrushchev’s Revisionism

ANTI-COMMUNISM, ANTIWAR, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, CLASS STRUGGLE, HISTORY, REAL JOURNALISM, REVOLUTION, RUSSIA, SOVIET UNION Comments Off

Dec 292012

BY STEPHEN GOWANS, What’s Left

Nikita-KhrushchevTIME Khrushchev’s revisionism refers to claims by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that:

• Socialism can be brought about by peaceful, constitutional means within capitalist democracies.
• Socialist and capitalist countries can coexist peacefully.

Was he right? Did he really believe these claims?

Socialism, if it is understood as a publicly owned, planned economy, has yet to be brought about through peaceful, constitutional means within capitalist democracies, or elsewhere, and it is difficult to imagine conditions under which it ever could be. In order for socialism to be achieved at the ballot box, the wealthy and powerful who dominate the state, including its police, security, and military apparatus, would have to stand idly by as their private productive property—the basis of their wealth and privileges—was denied them and brought under public control. This is unrealistic. We cannot imagine slave owners peacefully standing by, as their slaves set themselves free, nor feudal lords peacefully accepting their serfs’ expropriation of their estates. Unless we believe that capital-owners are somehow unique, we should not imagine that they would be any less likely than other ruling classes to use the repressive apparatus of the state to preserve their privileges and beat back challenges from a subordinate class that seeks to abolish private productive property. Continue reading »

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Older Entries

Many topics to choose from

There’s violence and there’s violence

Revolutionary Violence vs Institutionalized Violence

"There were two 'Reigns of Terror,' if we could but remember and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passions, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon a thousand persons, the other upon a hundred million; but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief terror that we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror - that unspeakable bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves..." —Mark Twain, writing about the French Revolution.