June, 2009 | vol. vi, no. 6

SENSE AND NONSENSE—KEEPING OUR EYES ON THE BALL

From the editor: To write this column every month, I make an honest effort to monitor various sources of relatively unbiased and factual news about current events. It is more difficult than one might imagine due to the overall poor, unprofessional nature of today’s journalism that attempts to fill what is now a 24-hour news cycle. Print journalism is struggling to survive economically, and broadcast journalism worships at the altar of Nielsen ratings and sensationalism.

At least 90 percent of the print documents I review and more than 98 percent of the broadcast journalism I try to monitor can be accurately classified as “irrelevant noise.”

These so-called “news” outlets, more often than not, try to peddle controversy and emotional social issues as if they are relevant to the overall social and political welfare of this country and the world. Twenty-four hour news outlets leap at the issues of abortion, crime, and immigration as if our safety and long-term national security depend upon keeping the general public in a frenetic state of emotional upheaval.

The latest prime example of this new-age “gonzo” journalism is an article by New York Times reporter Peter Baker, published Sunday, May 30. In this article, headlined “Court Choice Pushes Issue of ‘Identity’ Back to Forefront,” Baker makes the weak claim that President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor is an example of “Identity” politics. The article does not cite a single case in which Judge Sotomayor has ruled on the legal issue of discrimination. In fact, she has ruled against the claimant of discrimination in more than 80 percent of the cases she has heard while a sitting judge.

If I had the power to serve as a “journalism czar” who could keep the business side of journalism completely separate from the news and editorial side, I would insist upon a focus on the following relevant social and political issues:

1. The Middle-East Peace Process and finding a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This problem, more than any other issue, provides the most damaging source of propaganda used to incite Islamic extremism against the United States and Israel.
2. Nuclear Non-proliferation and the importance of both reducing current stockpiles of nuclear armament and preventing further development of nuclear capabilities in North Korea and Iran through effective diplomatic efforts and on-site international monitoring and economic sanctions.
3. A Truth Commission on Torture as a policy of the United States. If we do not allow the truth to be known about who authorized torture, in addition to when and why, President Obama will simply be saying that the executive branch of government can operate “above the law” if the wrong people are elected to public office. Our War Crimes Act of 1994 criminalizes violations of the U.N. Convention Against Torture signed by the United States in 1987. The language of the War Crimes Act is found in Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113C, Paragraph 2340 of the U.S. Code and defines torture as “an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control.” It is not enough to say, “From this point forward, we will not torture.”
4. Affordable Health Care for all U.S. citizens. Whether this takes the form of a single-payer health care system or some combination of public and private insurers of health care, this country can no longer afford the cost of almost 50 million people without health care. A good start would be to insist that elected representatives and senators be stripped of their health insurance benefits so that they can experience the same problems as uninsured and underinsured Americans under the current “for-profit” health care system.
5. Energy Independence and Reduction of Carbon-based Emissions by providing incentives for the manufacture and distribution of clean energy sources such as wind, solar, and bio-fuels. Currently, our response has been like that of a frog placed in a container of water that is slowly heated to the boiling point. We do not have the sensitivity to jump out of the water to save ourselves.
6. Call “Privatization” What It Is—privatization is a government-sanctioned raid upon the national treasury by giant corporations including corporate journalism. Simultaneously, the conservative propaganda war against big government seeks to perpetuate the myth encapsulated by Reagan when he stated, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’” Reagan less famously said, “The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away.” Those are very peculiar words for a politician who served as governor and president. By privatizing everything from a health care delivery system to our prison system, we daily buy into the notion that the profit motive can properly replace the need to protect the general public from corporate abuse. Now that President Obama has moved to stabilize our financial system, he must move to regulate financial institutions that are “too big to fail” as well as enforce and re-instate the rights of individuals against corporate greed and abuses of political power.

Maynard Chapman, Editor
The Compass

CHENEY’S BIG LIES

From the editor:Dick Cheney and his daughter have assumed an omni-presence on broadcast outlets culminating most recently in Cheney’s appearance before the National Press Club. Cheney obviously believes in the “Big Lie” theory of propaganda, which holds that if one tells a lie big enough and often enough, it will be swallowed by many as the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Truth checkers for McClatchy Newspapers have identified at least three “Big Lies” in Cheney’s most recent attempts to revise history.

First, he continues to insist that even the CIA and its director George Tenet identified a 10-year history of a relationship between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. (Parenthetically, in his speech before the Press Club, Cheney actually referred to Osama bin Laden as “Obama.”) In truth, George Tenet’s book actually says, “…the intelligence then and now” showed “no evidence of Iraqi complicity” in the 9/11 attacks. In addition, the military’s own Joint Forces Command issued a report stating there was “no operational” relationship between Hussein and Al Qaeda.

Second, Cheney now tries to pose as a defender of the CIA when, in truth, he and Lewis “Scooter” Libby made multiple trips to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, as documented by the Washington Post in June, 2003, to create an environment intended to pressure CIA leadership into making assessments that fit the administration’s positions on war in Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.

Third, Cheney repeats the absurdly cowardly argument that “only a few bad apples” were responsible for the torture and humiliation at Abu Ghraib (also Abu Ghurayb) prison in Iraq. He also tries to perpetuate the lie that there is no connection between the interrogation techniques used at Abu Ghraib and the “enhanced interrogation techniques” approved for use by the CIA.

In a question and answer session after his speech before the National Press Club, Cheney unabashedly and flippantly accuses Richard Clark of “missing” the warnings that Al Qaeda terrorists were going to attack the United States. Between January, 2001 and September, 2001, Clark repeatedly tried to persuade Condoleezza Rice (his immediate boss) to convene an emergency meeting of the National Security Council to discuss and take action upon precisely this threat. In truth, it was Bush and Cheney who totally ignored the threat and the intelligence “chatter” regarding a plan to attack the U.S.

THE SECRET CHENEY

From the editor: In what is undoubtedly the most ironic and hypocritical aspect of Cheney’s propaganda campaign since leaving office, Cheney insists that the release of secret CIA documents would prove that torture elicited vital and operational intelligence in the war on terror. As a hypocritical proponent of “transparency,” Cheney’s legacy is actually one of unprecedented secrecy and obfuscation.

Washington Post staff writers Barton Gellman and Jo Becker authored a Pulitzer Prize winning series of articles and book titled, Angler: the Cheney Vice Presidency. Following are the lead paragraphs in that series of articles, which first appeared June 24, 2007:

“Just past the Oval Office, in the private dining room overlooking the South Lawn, Vice President Cheney joined President Bush at a round parquet table they shared once a week. Cheney brought a four-page text, written in strict secrecy by his lawyer. He carried it back out with him after lunch.

“In less than an hour, the document traversed a West Wing circuit that gave its words the power of command. It changed hands four times, according to witnesses, with emphatic instructions to bypass staff review. When it returned to the Oval Office, in a blue portfolio embossed with the presidential seal, Bush pulled a felt-tip pen from his pocket and signed without sitting down. Almost no one else had seen the text.

“Cheney’s proposal had become a military order from the commander in chief. Foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States were stripped of access to any court -- civilian or military, domestic or foreign. They could be confined indefinitely without charges and would be tried, if at all, in closed ‘military commissions.’

“‘What the hell just happened?’ Secretary of State Colin L. Powell demanded, a witness said, when CNN announced the order that evening, Nov. 13, 2001. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, incensed, sent an aide to find out. Even witnesses to the Oval Office signing said they did not know the vice president had played any part.

“The episode was a defining moment tin Cheney’s tenure as the 46th vice president of the United States, a post the Constitution left all but devoid of formal authority. ‘Angler,’ as the Secret Service code-named him, has approached the levers of power obliquely, skirting orderly lines of debate he once enforced as chief of staff to President Gerald R. Ford….

“Before the president casts the only vote that counts, the final words of counsel nearly always come from Cheney.”

Copyright © 2009, The Compass Society