It’s Too Late To Save The Obama Administration. Can We Still Save Ourselves?

By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Two and half years into the Obama presidency, some of us spend more time mooning over pretty pictures of the First Family, their beautiful kids and regal mother-in-law than we spend publicly worrying over the fates of millions of families, children and elders we personally know. Why are some of us still trying to “save” the Obama administration. When will it be time to save ourselves from endless war, climate change, joblessness and the other ravages of late predatory capitalism?
Back in the summer of 1996 I saw the movie Independence Day in a Chicago theater where two thirds of the audience was black. The scene that got the audience on its feet cheering was one in which aliens hovered over the White House, and blasted it to matchwood. I’ve often thought that if that same flick were released in 2009 or 2010, that same mostly black audience would have gasped in horror.

“What about Michelle and the kids?” I can imagine them saying? “Did the dog make it out OK?” I’m pretty sure Al Sharpton, Warren Ballantine and the clowns on the Tom Joyner Morning Show would denounce the movie as racist, and that talk shows and corporate outlets that manage the “black conversation” on line like the Grio and the Root would continue the conversation indefinitely.

To many, it wouldn’t matter at all that the First Black President has ignored skyrocketing black unemployment, endemic black mass incarceration, and singled out disproportionately black and unionized public workers for pay freezes, benefit cuts and other “shared sacrifices.” It would not matter that the international good name of African Americans, once symbolized by iconic fighters for justice at home and peace abroad like Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King had been replaced by the likes of Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice and Barack Obama, black Americans who have made their careers waging predatory and merciless wars upon struggling people in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It would be, critics of the movie would argue, about respect: respect for the First Black President, they’d say, is symbolic of respect for all of us.

When we place a value upon the image and the symbolic meaning of the First Black President, of his fine black wife and children and mother-in-law living in that big White House that make these things even nearly as important as Obama’s policies, we are loving the royal presidential family more than we love our own families, our own children, our own elders. That can’t be good.
The Obama campaign bus appeared in Iowa this week, at the same time that Republican presidential candidates are swarming the place. The 2012 presidential campaign is upon us. It’s time to evaluate the performance of the First Black President, a subject that Glen Ford, Margaret Kimberley, I and others here at Black Agenda Report have written tens of thousands of words over the last couple years.

To start with, the president is easily the most powerful figure in government. Short of impeachment — and if the Bush-Cheney gang couldn’t get impeached, nobody can — Congress and the courts have little power to counteract or overrule an aggressive and energetic president. Hence the notion that Blue Dog Dems and wily Republicans kept Obama from advancing his legislative agenda during the two years he had a 50 vote margin in the House and a filibuster proof Senate majority are silly.

Barack Obama’s first policy achievement was to work the phones and persuade enough congressional Democrats to support Bush’s September 2008 bailout bill. That legislation failed to pass the Democratic dominated Congress the first time. Thanks to Barack, it succeeded the second time, netting the banksters $3 trillion, and when Obama became president, he upped the ante to $16 trillion, bailing out all the derivative and other speculative bettors in Wall Street’s casino. What Obama didn’t do is bail out the families in those homes. An unprecedented wave of foreclosures has doubled the wealth gap between white and black families in only a few years, and the wave continues.

Obama has retired the phrase “war on terror” but continued and expanded armed interventions in too many countries to name here, most notably Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Colombia and Somalia. The military budget continues to grow, and with his participation in the debt ceiling hoax, Democrat Barack Obama has done what no Republican would have been able to do — he unleashed a process that will impose radical cuts in social security, Medicare and Medicaid. Obama reversed his promises on network neutrality after the election, and has apparently never met a giant corporate merger he didn’t like.

The Obama Justice Department, with a black Attorney General has refused to confront a wave of restrictive laws and administrative procedures enacted by states to make voter registration difficult or impossible for many citizens, ans which may keep hundreds of thousands of black, brown and poor voters from taking part in future elections. That same Justice Department has refused to prosecute corporations for intercepting the emails and phone calls of millions of people. DOJ won’t weigh in on whether people have the right to record police interactions with the public, and is letting states sentence people who record police to prison.
Only the most foolish among us —- and those whose careers and boat payments depend on it — are still concerned with “saving” the Obama presidency, or obsessing about how adorable the First Family looks. Not to worry. Michelle, Sasha, and whatshername will be just fine. Barack will do OK too, even if he doesn’t get a second term. And like they say, some grown folks just don’t want to be saved. Obama should be working on how to save us from endless war, climate change and joblessness. He isn’t. And he won’t. It’s time for us to love our own families, our own children and elders as much or more than we love his, and get busy.

Bruce Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and based in Marietta GA where he is a state committee member of the Georgia Green Party. He can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.

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Barbara Ehrenreich: America’s Tragic Decline — Resistance Bursts Out All Over the World, While We Do Nothing to Fight Corporate Takeover

By Amy Goodman and Barbara Ehrenreich, Democracy Now!

Amy Goodman

SEN. JOHN KERRY: I believe this is, without question, the Tea Party downgrade. This is the Tea Party downgrade because a minority of people in the House of Representatives countered even the will of many Republicans in the United States Senate, who were prepared to do a bigger deal, to do $4.7 trillion, $4 trillion, have a mix of reductions and reforms, in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, but also recognize that we needed to do some revenue.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, to talk more about the state of the American economy and how it impacts the American people, we go to Washington, D.C., to talk to bestselling author Barbara Ehrenreich.

On her Facebook page, Ehrenreich writes, quote, “My patriotic pride is not offended by S&P’s downgrade of the US credit rating, but by the fact that while resistance bursts out everywhere—Tel Aviv, Santiago, Tottingham, not to mention No. Africa and Middle East—we do NOTHING.”

The 10th anniversary edition of Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America has just been published. In the book, she tells the story of life in low-wage America, and she herself tries to earn a living working as a waitress, a hotel maid, a nursing home aide and a Wal-Mart associate. The book, over the last 10 years, has sold more than two million copies.

She’s also the author of many other books, including Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America and Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, a frequent contributor to Harper’s and The Nation and has also a columnist at the New York Times and Time Magazine.

Barbara Ehrenreich, welcome to Democracy Now!

BARBARA EHRENREICH: Good to be with you, Amy.

BARBARA EHRENREICH: I don’t know. I’m not sure. I mean, it’s part of a general sense of decline that I think we’ve gotten in many ways and that people like Tom Friedman have been writing about in the New York Times for some time. But, you know, in some ways, that is in another world from most Americans and their day-to-day struggles. What is it going to mean to you if you have no job now? Or if you have a job and you have no health insurance? Or if you are trying to get through college while working full time? It just seems very distant and abstract. When we’re talking about the economy in this country, we seldom talk about real people’s lives.

AMY GOODMAN: And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. Your book took this country by storm. I am sure there was no one more surprised than you, Barbara. You have written a number of books. You did do something very interesting in Nickel and Dimed, but the fact that it caught on in a time when “prosperity” was the watchword, the buzzword, in the mainstream media—talk about—especially for young people who were 10 years old when the book came out, talk about exactly what you did, what you found then, and what it means today, 10 years later, when “prosperity” is certainly not the buzzword.

BARBARA EHRENREICH: Well, I took on a challenge that I set myself, which was to see whether I could support myself on the money I could earn in, well, obviously entry-level jobs, which are the, you know, kind of jobs where you go and apply, and they’re not going to ask—you know, they’re not going to ask for a résumé. They’re not going to—they don’t care about anything, except whether you’re a convicted felon or whether you have—you’re actually—you know, it’s legal for you to work in this country. So, I—you mentioned some of the jobs I worked at. I think you left out the maid with a house cleaning service, though. That was a very instructive one. And all these jobs averaged at the time, in around 2000, about $7 an hour, even including the tips with waitressing, which would be equivalent to about $9 an hour now.

And basically, what I found, that for me, just as one person—I wasn’t trying to support my family with my earnings or anything like that—it just wasn’t doable, because the rents were so out of line with my earnings. And I did try. I mean, I didn’t spend any money except on gas, food and, you know, the bare minimum, which was possible to do because I worked at each city for only a month. So I wasn’t depending—you know, medical care or anything like that was not coming through my jobs.

But I found a very important thing—well, two very important things. First, at $7 an hour, or $9 an hour in today’s dollars, you’re not considered poor. You don’t show up in the poverty statistics. You’re considered to be fine if you’re one individual earning that much. And the other big lesson here is—which is maybe a hard one to remember at a time of high unemployment—is that jobs are not necessarily a cure for poverty. Jobs that don’t pay enough to live on do not cure poverty. They condemn you, in fact, to a life of low-wage labor and extreme insecurity.

AMY GOODMAN: This figure, Barbara, of the number of Americans on food stamps, almost one in six, almost 15 percent. The figures from May, people on food stamps were 12 percent higher than a year earlier, according to the Agriculture Department. One in almost six Americans. And this applies directly to the people that you met, to the jobs that you took—for example, being a Wal-Mart associate. Talk about that and the woman you wrote about and where she is today.

AMY GOODMAN: So, in other words, I mean, you have Wal-Mart, that is famous around the country for fighting unionization, part of the whole movement of corporations that fight tax cuts for the wealthy, for example, is subsidized by the government, is subsidized by the U.S. taxpayers.

BARBARA EHRENREICH: Oh, yes. In many more ways than that. There are so many subsidies often involved in luring a Wal-Mart to one’s area—tax rebates or things like that. But I was very excited yesterday. I went to the Jobs with Justice conference in Washington, D.C. That’s an organization that’s devoted to getting workers rights and improving their standard of living. And there were a number of women Wal-Mart employees there—or “associates,” as they are called—who are now organizing their own workers’ association, called “OUR Walmart.” And this is a new thing. And they were dynamic. So things may be about to change a little.

AMY GOODMAN: In 2009, you co-authored an article called “The Destruction of the Black Middle Class.” And you wrote, quote, “For African Americans—and to a large extent, Latinos—the recession is over. It occurred between 2000 and 2007. […] What’s happening now is a depression,” you wrote.

Well, we’ve just reported on a new study of the U.S. census data by the Pew Research Center that reveals wealth gaps between whites and people of color in the United States have grown to their widest levels since the U.S. government began tracking them a quarter of a century ago. White Americans now have on average 20 times the net worth of African Americans, 18 times that of Latinos. Last month, we spoke about the findings with Roderick Harrison, who’s the former chief of racial statistics at the Census Bureau.

RODERICK HARRISON: People use net worth or draw on net worth to invest in their children’s education, to help with perhaps a first home, a down payment for a first home. We’re entering a period now where black and Hispanic families, one-third of whom have no net worth at all or negative net worth, won’t be able to help their children in this way. So this is going to definitely play into the next generation.

AMY GOODMAN: Barbara, your thoughts on the report and of the state of black and Latino middle class in this country, if you can even talk about these—

BARBARA EHRENREICH: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: —lines anymore?

BARBARA EHRENREICH: Yes. You know, the case of African Americans is very particularly tragic. When you recall that they didn’t—in the middle of the 20th century, they didn’t have a lot of wealth compared to white people, because they came from, you know, very underpaid agricultural jobs, often, in the South. Then—and they couldn’t get credit. You know, that was a big problem. You could not get credit because of racist lending policies. Then, in the 2000s, suddenly, the banks started offering credit actually targeting African Americans, and to a certain extent, Latinos, much more than white people with their subprime mortgages. And it was—you know, it seemed like a great boon to people who hadn’t had credit before because of racism. Surprise, of course. That was a big part of the wipeout of so much of the black middle class, plus the fact, which is hard to explain, that blacks have been much more likely to be laid off in the peak years of the layoffs in the recession and to be unemployed now, three times more likely.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about some of the other people in Nickel and Dimed that you’ve caught up with 10 years later, that you met as you eked out your living as a house cleaner, as a maid, as a Wal-Mart associate. Who did you find, and who didn’t you find?

BARBARA EHRENREICH: Well, I didn’t find most people. And the reason for that is simple: you may leave that person with an address and a phone number, but those—neither of those is likely to be good in a few months. People—you know, there’s a lot of insecurity among low-wage people, a lot of turmoil in terms of their housing situation, cell phones get cut off, and so on.

A couple of people, I tracked down. One was not doing that badly. She was still at Wal-Mart. She had advanced to, I think, the huge amount of $10 an hour. But in the meantime, her husband had lost his job, so that, you know, their situation was not at all better. And another woman was piecing together a living cleaning houses and cooking for other people, sort of what she called “catering.” But she was in very bad health, and it was hard for her to do.

The thing that is so painful is that there’s no help coming for people like that. There’s so little help anymore. Food stamps, yes, that’s a help. And I am very—I was very pleased that Obama expanded the food stamp program in ’08 and ’09. He made it easier for many people to get unemployment insurance. Now, of course, it’s been the aim of Republicans in the Congress to eliminate all such things and to eliminate Medicaid. There’s very little help.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re extremely critical of President Obama. You’ve advocated that students not pay back their college loans, among other things. Talk about both.

BARBARA EHRENREICH: Well, I didn’t come up with that idea, but there is organizing going on among debt-burdened young people, who come out of college, you know, with an average of $25,000 in debt and very likely no job or no professional job that’s going to help them pay that off. And there’s a movement among them for debt forgiveness, to just say, “Hey, we cannot do this. You know, we can’t—we don’t have the jobs that’ll allow us to pay these debts off.” And, you know, that’s kind of exciting. That’s what’s going on in Chile right now, has to do with the cost of college, tuition. You know, all the demonstrations in Santiago in the last few days have to do with the cost of college. And I think we’re going to have to see something like that here, with people just saying, “Can’t do it. We can’t do it.”

AMY GOODMAN: Now President Obama, your assessment of him, particularly how he’s dealing with, or not, the jobs crisis?

BARBARA EHRENREICH: Yes. Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation has had a campaign for many decades now to prove that the poor in America really live in some kind of luxury. I would like to say, yeah, in some places, boy, you better have air conditioning. You know, in the D.C. area where I live now, you could not have survived very easily the summer, even with occasional cooling centers to go to.

But the truth is, here’s what’s happening. More and more people are having to crowd into smaller spaces to live. This is since—this has been going on for a lot of people, you know, for many years. But since the recession, since the financial crisis in ’07, you find more and more families—you can have one family per bedroom and somebody, a couch surfer, on the couch in the living room. There’s nothing comfortable about that. You know, one of the things that really woke me up to how bad things were was in ’09 when a family member of mine suddenly needed money to pay her mortgage or her home would be taken away. I was able to help, but when I found out the real facts, I was horrified. Her home was a trailer home. Not only that, it’s a dilapidated trailer home. She lives in it—a single-wide trailer home—along with her daughter and two grandchildren. Now that’s getting down to, you know, third-world levels of poverty, when you crowd that many people into such an inadequate dwelling.

Another thing people are doing: give up on medical care. You know, if we have a healthcare system in the United States, I think its real name is Tylenol. You can’t—you know, it’s something you have to drop. You can’t do it. Food prices are too high. Fuel prices are too high. So you have to give up on those things that it seems like you can get through another day without, even if that’s your blood pressure medicine.

AMY GOODMAN: There are some—

BARBARA EHRENREICH: So I—

AMY GOODMAN: There are some who are doing very well, of course. The luxury category has posted 10 consecutive months of sales increases compared to a year earlier, this a report in the New York Times. Luxury items are—

BARBARA EHRENREICH: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: —you know, are flying off the shelves, if yachts can fit on shelves.

BARBARA EHRENREICH: Yes, yes, the rich are back. The rich are back. And that’s one reason why, when you read some of our major national newspapers, there’s not much mention anymore of the recession or economic hard times, because the people at the top are doing great. There was an article recently in the New York Times about tree houses that the very wealthy will build for their children, you know, in their backyard, if they even call them “backyards,” on their property—tree houses that can cost as much as $350,000 and include flat-screen TVs and air conditioning. That’s for the kid to go out in a backyard and play in. Three hundred fifty thousand dollars. You know, I think that’s flaunting it a little too much.

AMY GOODMAN: Last week, Congress agreed to raise the federal debt ceiling following protracted negotiations. The deal includes no new tax revenue from wealthy Americans, no additional stimulus for the economy. Speaking on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid criticized Republicans for blocking the tax hike on the wealthy.

SEN. HARRY REID: The vast majority of Democrats, Independents and Republicans think this arrangement we’ve just done is unfair, because the richest of the rich have contributed nothing to this. The burden of what has taken place is on the middle class and the poor. My friend talks about no new taxes. Mr. President, if their theory was right, these huge taxes [cuts] that took place during the Bush eight years, the economy should be thriving. These tax cuts have not helped the economy.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Barbara Ehrenreich, as we begin to wrap up, your comment?

AMY GOODMAN: Barbara Ehrenreich, I want to thank you very much for being with us, author of—

BARBARA EHRENREICH: Oh, thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: —the bestselling book, Nickel and Dimed. It’s its 10th anniversary and has just been republished, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.

Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated radio news program, Democracy Now!.

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of thirteen books, including the New York Times bestseller Nickel and Dimed. A frequent contributor to the New York Times, Harpers, and the Progressive, she is a contributing writer to Time magazine. She lives in Florida.

© 2011 Democracy Now! All rights reserved.

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Amy Goodman on the need for radical media

AMY GOODMAN in an interview with RT explains why the world needs radical media, with the first step being the ‘Freeing of American media’. WATCH VIDEO BELOW

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The moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as the bottom

By Peter Oborne Politics

Tottenham ablaze: the riots began early on Sunday.

David Cameron, Ed Miliband and the entire British political class came together yesterday to denounce the rioters. They were of course right to say that the actions of these looters, arsonists and muggers were abhorrent and criminal, and that the police should be given more support.

But there was also something very phony and hypocritical about all the shock and outrage expressed in parliament. MPs spoke about the week’s dreadful events as if they were nothing to do with them.

I cannot accept that this is the case. Indeed, I believe that the criminality in our streets cannot be dissociated from the moral disintegration in the highest ranks of modern British society. The last two decades have seen a terrifying decline in standards among the British governing elite. It has become acceptable for our politicians to lie and to cheat. An almost universal culture of selfishness and greed has grown up.

It is not just the feral youth of Tottenham who have forgotten they have duties as well as rights. So have the feral rich of Chelsea and Kensington. A few years ago, my wife and I went to a dinner party in a large house in west London. A security guard prowled along the street outside, and there was much talk of the “north-south divide”, which I took literally for a while until I realised that my hosts were facetiously referring to the difference between those who lived north and south of Kensington High Street.

Bon vivant Branson: An irresponsible tycoon who typifies the real mores of his class.

Most of the people in this very expensive street were every bit as deracinated and cut off from the rest of Britain as the young, unemployed men and women who have caused such terrible damage over the last few days. For them, the repellent Financial Times magazine How to Spend It is a bible. I’d guess that few of them bother to pay British tax if they can avoid it, and that fewer still feel the sense of obligation to society that only a few decades ago came naturally to the wealthy and better off.

Yet we celebrate people who live empty lives like this. A few weeks ago, I noticed an item in a newspaper saying that the business tycoon Sir Richard Branson was thinking of moving his headquarters to Switzerland. This move was represented as a potential blow to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, because it meant less tax revenue.

I couldn’t help thinking that in a sane and decent world such a move would be a blow to Sir Richard, not the Chancellor. People would note that a prominent and wealthy businessman was avoiding British tax and think less of him. Instead, he has a knighthood and is widely feted. The same is true of the brilliant retailer Sir Philip Green. Sir Philip’s businesses could never survive but for Britain’s famous social and political stability, our transport system to shift his goods and our schools to educate his workers.

Yet Sir Philip, who a few years ago sent an extraordinary £1 billion dividend offshore, seems to have little intention of paying for much of this. Why does nobody get angry or hold him culpable? I know that he employs expensive tax lawyers and that everything he does is legal, but he surely faces ethical and moral questions just as much as does a young thug who breaks into one of Sir Philip’s shops and steals from it?

Our politicians – standing sanctimoniously on their hind legs in the Commons yesterday – are just as bad. They have shown themselves prepared to ignore common decency and, in some cases, to break the law. David Cameron is happy to have some of the worst offenders in his Cabinet. Take the example of Francis Maude, who is charged with tackling public sector waste – which trade unions say is a euphemism for waging war on low‑paid workers. Yet Mr Maude made tens of thousands of pounds by breaching the spirit, though not the law, surrounding MPs’ allowances.

A great deal has been made over the past few days of the greed of the rioters for consumer goods, not least by Rotherham MP Denis MacShane who accurately remarked, “What the looters wanted was for a few minutes to enter the world of Sloane Street consumption.” This from a man who notoriously claimed £5,900 for eight laptops. Of course, as an MP he obtained these laptops legally through his expenses.

Yesterday, the veteran Labour MP Gerald Kaufman asked the Prime Minister to consider how these rioters can be “reclaimed” by society. Yes, this is indeed the same Gerald Kaufman who submitted a claim for three months’ expenses totalling £14,301.60, which included £8,865 for a Bang & Olufsen television.

Or take the Salford MP Hazel Blears, who has been loudly calling for draconian action against the looters. I find it very hard to make any kind of ethical distinction between Blears’s expense cheating and tax avoidance, and the straight robbery carried out by the looters.

The Prime Minister showed no sign that he understood that something stank about yesterday’s Commons debate. He spoke of morality, but only as something which applies to the very poor: “We will restore a stronger sense of morality and responsibility – in every town, in every street and in every estate.” He appeared not to grasp that this should apply to the rich and powerful as well.

The tragic truth is that Mr Cameron is himself guilty of failing this test. It is scarcely six weeks since he jauntily turned up at the News International summer party, even though the media group was at the time subject to not one but two police investigations.

Even more notoriously, he awarded a senior Downing Street job to the former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, even though he knew at the time that Coulson had resigned after criminal acts were committed under his editorship. The Prime Minister excused his wretched judgment by proclaiming that “everybody deserves a second chance”. It was very telling yesterday that he did not talk of second chances as he pledged exemplary punishment for the rioters and looters.

These double standards from Downing Street are symptomatic of widespread double standards at the very top of our society. It should be stressed that most people (including, I know, Telegraph readers) continue to believe in honesty, decency, hard work, and putting back into society at least as much as they take out.

But there are those who do not. Certainly, the so-called feral youth seem oblivious to decency and morality. But so are the venal rich and powerful – too many of our bankers, footballers, wealthy businessmen and politicians.

Of course, most of them are smart and wealthy enough to make sure that they obey the law. That cannot be said of the sad young men and women, without hope or aspiration, who have caused such mayhem and chaos over the past few days. But the rioters have this defence: they are just following the example set by senior and respected figures in society. Let’s bear in mind that many of the youths in our inner cities have never been trained in decent values. All they have ever known is barbarism. Our politicians and bankers, in sharp contrast, tend to have been to good schools and universities and to have been given every opportunity in life.

Something has gone horribly wrong in Britain. If we are ever to confront the problems which have been exposed in the past week, it is essential to bear in mind that they do not only exist in inner-city housing estates.

The culture of greed and impunity we are witnessing on our TV screens stretches right up into corporate boardrooms and the Cabinet. It embraces the police and large parts of our media. It is not just its damaged youth, but Britain itself that needs a moral reformation.

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Falsified Major Media Reports on Libya

By Stephen Lendman

His obits are premature.

Major media specialize in what they do best: truth inversion (aka bad fiction), not doing what journalists are supposed to do – their job, especially covering imperial wars for dominance and rich spoils.  With Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) falling apart and rebel forces in disarray, today’s headlines belie the truth, reported by independent “un-in-bed-with” journalists and other sources.

On August 16, Lizzie Phelan’s Libya diary “clear(ed) up the latest media rubbish on Libya,” saying:

Gaddafi forces liberated the “hitherto rebel-held” town of Misrata. “Last night, the Libyan army moved into the center of the city, and now the rebels are trapped between Misrata and Tawergha.”

About three-fourths of the city, including its port, is secured, “which was a lifeline” for shipping rebels arms and other supplies.

At a press conference attended by around 200 tribes (including the four largest comprising half the population), Libya’s media spokesman, Dr. Moussa Ibrahim, confirmed it.

Th major four, including Wafalla, Tarhouna, Zlitan and Washafana, all support Gaddafi.

“The tribal leaders also confirmed that Zawiya and Sorman are secure, in contrast to (falsified) claims by (in bed with) foreign reporters in Tripoli and Djerba (Tunisia) that they have been taken by the rebels.”

In addition, claims that rebels control Ghuriyan are untrue. Ongoing clashes there continue.

Major media reports lie, although pockets of rebel resistance remain. Nonetheless, they’re “isolated and surrounded by the Libyan army and tribes.”

Falsified major media reports stand in stark contrast to “Libyan tribes who, of course, know their land with great intimacy.”

It’s clear media bosses want Libyans demoralized to think all is lost so give up. In addition, NATO’s “been desperately trying to secure some victory before August 17 (Ramadan’s 17th day), a very important date in the Islamic calendar.

On Ramadan’s 17th day in 624 AD in the Islamic calendar, the Prophet Muhammad won an important Battle of Badr victory in present day Saudi Arabia. It was a key turning point against his opponents.

Fast-forwarding to today, major media sources falsify reports “to create confusion and panic on the ground.” I

n an August 15 telephone address to supporters massed in Green Square, Gaddafi “reasserted his calls for the Libyan people to remain steadfast in defeating NATO’s allies on the ground and NATO itself.”

Phelan also said unconfirmed reports say rebel commander Khalifa Hefter was captured, the former army officer turned CIA asset, having formerly lived near its Langley, VA headquarters since the early 1990s.

If true, it’ll will create more disarray among TNC leaders, perhaps better described as the gang that can’t shoot or get their stories straight.

“So the media war goes on,” said Phelan, on the ground in Tripoli, reporting important truths on her Lizzie’s Liberation site, accessed through the following link:

http://lizziesliberation.wordpress.com/

Contrasting Falsified Major Media Reports

The vulgarity of lying needs no comment. Doing it for a living is beyond reproach. It doesn’t deter takers, however, like New York Times writers David Kirkpatrick and Kareem Fahim headlining, “A Top Libyan Official Appears to Defect, as Rebels Defend Recent Gains,” saying:

Interior Minister Nassr al-Mabrouk “landed in Cairo in a private plane with nine family members who were traveling on tourist visas….The defection would signal a new crack in the Qaddafi government….”

Fact check:

Al-Mabrouk didn’t defect as widely reported. He left for an operation in Cairo, saying he stands firmly with Gaddafi. It’s unsurprising he’d want family members with him for support.

Kirkpatrick and Fahim continued saying, “(R)ebels, emboldened by their gains in recent days, are losing incentive to make concessions.”

Fact check:

Falsified rebel gains are, in fact, unreported losses and disarray. Moreover, without NATO air support, they’d have been routed months ago. Air cover also gave NATO a chance to slaughter and injure thousands of Libyan civilians, as well as cause horrific mass destruction, related to imperial, not military, aims.

Both Times writers also reported rebel claims of having Tripoli surrounded as well as key supply lines cut off. None of it is true, but fact-checking isn’t part of Times writers’ job description – just reporting accounts ordered by their bosses.

From Tripoli, independent journalist/Middle East/Central Asian analyst Mahdi Nazemroaya explained in a morning email:

“The insurgency was defeated in Misurata. NATO responded with massive bombing. One route is controlled. Zawiya and Sorman have not fallen. There have been attacks on the route. They are trying to cut the supply routes off” but haven’t succeeded.

On August 15, Washington Post writer Leila Fadel was no better than other accounts headlining, “Gaddafi isolated as rebels advance, aide flies to Cairo,” falsifying the same agitprop as their Times counterparts, claiming rebels have “a stranglehold on the Libyan capital, Tripoli.”

London Guardian writers are also complicit, headlining the following August 15 and 16 stories, better described as media lies:

August 15: “Libya’s interior minister flies to Egypt in apparent defection”

August 15: “Libyan rebels enter oil town where decisive battle may yet be fought”

Fact check: Zawiya was referred to, securely controlled by Gaddafi’s forces.

August 15: “No stalemate in Libya – the writing is on the wall for Gaddafi”

August 16: “Libya shows signs of slipping from Muammar Gaddafi’s grasp”

August 16: “Live Syria, Libya and Middle East unrest – live updates,” many, in fact, falsified like others.

Al Zajeera is also complicit in misreporting on Libya. On August 16, it headlined, “Libyan rebels push to isolate Tripoli,” sounding more like CNN, Fox News, and The New York Times than legitimate journalists.

The report repeated the same misinformation about isolating Tripoli, controlling most of Zawiya, and other distortions.

An earlier August 12 report claimed “Fleeing Libyans say Gaddafi regime crumbling” as rebels advance toward the capital. Again untrue.

Al Jazeera, of course, is based in, funded by, and controlled by Qatar, a coalition NATO partner against Libya, its armed forces supporting rebels on the ground.

As a result, it reports lack credibility and should be avoided. Angry Arab editor As’ad AbuKhalil says they’re “like watching MSNBC after being purchased by Murdoch.”

Of course, it’s worthless under its current owner, Comcast, and previous one, General Electric, especially on issues of war and peace, as well as lawless US imperialism.

A Final Comment

The battle for Libya continues. Overwhelming numbers support Gaddafi and want their country free from imperial control. They’re also prepared to fight for it, knowing the unacceptable alternative – colonization, pillaging, loss of freedom, and perhaps their lives.

What better reasons to resist than those!
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

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