Saturday, January 28, 2012

Hysterical Nation Calms Down


If the nation had gone on Freud’s couch after 9/11 he might have diagnosed it as hysterical.
Although this diagnosis has lost favor because some deem it as anti-female, it originated with women but was not confined to them.
It concluded that hysterical symptoms were part of an attempt to protect the patient from psychic stress and sometimes had other motives including gain.
One might say many in the nation suffered from PTSD, especially the editors near Ground  Zero. It made them vulnerable, even duty-bound, to support the Bush-Cheney war machine.
In years past the human cost of phony missions searching for WMDs might have been reined in by the cost of dead soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.
Not an easy problem to resolve. Certainly we could use the all-volunteer military to avoid the Vietnam scenario. Still, frequent deployments would be required. To induce the required enlistments expensive bonuses, health care and educational grants would have to be promised.
It worked well until the PTSD and suicide rate began rising sharply among those fighting the wars. Neither was new to war. Some said Westerners had evolved to the point where killing at all, even in self defense, would scar them. The expanding use of roadside explosive devices created more head injuries. And generally speaking, most soldiers were deployed outside the wire longer than those in World War II. Studies then, by the U.S. government, found the longer the GIs were on the front lines the less effective they became.
Anecdotal signs of the cost were war crimes that turned up on YouTube. Urinating on dead Taliban was hardly the worse. There is a saying. We must remember who we are and who we are not.
Now with the date for ending the Afghan war still not known, and Iraq still explosive, President Obama wants to cut 100,000 soldiers.
Where will they work? What about those with PTSD or prescription drug problems? 
The director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, warned in a meeting yesterday in Davos that inappropriate spending cuts might strangle growth prospects, the BBC reported.
What if more wars break out, which seems likely. Will we have to bring them back, at a high cost, or hire even more private contractors, at an even higher cost? We are breaking our word to these people who fought dirty wars for their country.
The National Guard will be next, at the same time its burden will grow. Iowa is already considering how much it will pay for college for those who have served.
That has been a tradition in our military, especially on medical care. I know, my father, a 17-year-old machine gunner who pursued a military career for pay that amounted to peanuts, was one of them.
If they can pull this off with the military, seniors look out.
To sum up: don’t betray the soldiers. End the wars. Trillions will be saved because of the collateral costs. Plus it will keep 100,000 in good jobs and off the dole.



Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Internet TV


No, I am not talking about an Internet ready TV that requires an expensive wireless or HDMI cable connection. Nor the ability to have 3D or even some system that emulates the shaking of an earthquake or bomb blast.
Just make the bloody TV ready to go. Keyboard and mouse. All you need is a modem-router and an account.
There are so many workarounds now it is becoming silly.
For example, some devices can connect your TV to your cable TV box.
Apple TV offers splendid connections to Netflix, YouTube and others but will not surf the Web. Google has its version, much more expensive.
Apple only goes to certain sites.
When I brought this up with marketing reps several years ago they told me no one wanted a computer in their living room or entertainment room.
Wonder why alternatives such as iPads have done so well. Surely not everyone is reading it exclusively on trains, planes, and I certainly hope not while driving an automobile.
If they ever get this done (seems likely to happen this year actually) will there be a market for the HDMI cables.
And while we are at it, make sure it plugs right into your home theater complex.




Assange Russian TV Show



Wikileaks founder Julian Assange plans to host a show on Russian TV in March. The show will be taped in the United Kingdom so the long-running case of alleged sexual assault against Assange in Sweden would not necessarily interfere.
However, it wasn't clear how shows taped weeks in advance could be timely.
Ria Novosti, the official Russian news agency, confirmed plans for show.
It was an embarrassment for the U.S. media, coming on the same day that Reporters Without Borders lowered its ranking for press freedom from 20th to 47th.
Assange’s appeal of an extradition order is scheduled for a hearing in England’s high court on Feb. 1. The authencity of the allegations have has been challenged by Wikileaks and many others. Some consider it a U.S.-influenced attempt to discredit Wikileaks for the release of negative inform about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Assange has been under house arrest in England for more than a year.
The show will have ten half-hour segments with many outside guests, the channel Russia Today said. It will be called “The World Tomorrow," the station said.
“Guests of the show’s host and creator Julian Assange will include politicians and revolutionaries; people, who in his opinion, will form tomorrow’s agenda,” the channel said.
“We are proud and delighted that our channel will premiere Julian Assange’s project because the RT channel has gained a worldwide audience that's disappointed by the mainstream and has become open to new angles, making this show fitting for the purpose” RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan said.
U.S. viewers likely would have to watch the show on the Internet or via satellite, barring a decision by commercial American television to pick it up.
Wikileaks said on its Web site that this is timely because some in the U.S. Congress were pushing legislation which would virtually shut down the free flow of information on the Web.
“Upheavals and revolutions in the Middle East have started an era of political change that is still unfolding," WikiLeaks stated on its website. "In the West, the deterioration of the rule of law has demonstrated the bankruptcy of once leading political institutions and ideologies. The Internet has never been so strong, or so much under attack.”



Friday, January 20, 2012

Alice in Afghanistan


Are the lives of French troops more important to their government than U.S. fighters are to Washington.

The killing of four French soldiers, and wounding of at least 12 more, led President Nicholas Sarkozy to order a stop to training of Afghan soldiers and police.

Six Americans died in a helicopter Thursday. Washington seemed to think it was some comfort that the chopper probably was not shot down, but crashed due to a maintenance problem or pilot error.

Please don’t trick yourself into thinking the reason President Obama isn’t taking an action like Sarkozy is because our soldiers are better than the French.

Remember the French Navy made it possible for us to become independent. And then of course there is Napoleon. He took Moscow, something the Nazis couldn’t.
French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet was ordered to Afghanistan immediate. “As part of a drive inside the base that gunman shot, killed four of our soldiers in conditions that are unacceptable , he said. “They were not armed, they were murdered by an Afghan soldier.”
American and other NATO forces have suffered similar losses, betrayed by people we are trying to help. The fact is many of these people consider us invaders and themselves heroes.
"I can not accept that Afghan soldiers fired on the French soldiers " , said Sarkozy . The question of an early return of the French army was raised, he told Le Monde.

"If the conditions of security are not clearly restored, then the question of an early withdrawal of the French army would arise," Sarkozy said.
"The French army is in Afghanistan at the service of the Afghans against terrorism and against the Taliban. The French army is not in Afghanistan so that Afghan soldiers can shoot at them," the Guardian reported.
The Guardian also reported that research commissioned by the U.S. showed the lack of trust with NATO and the Afghan people probably will mean more ambushes.
Perhaps Sarkozy’s actions could partly be tied to his re-election bid. The wars are barely an issue in America, distracted by unemployment, the Internet, entertainment and hijinks by its political parties.
The war in Afghanistan is barely an issue in the U.S. The mainstream media, after helping the Bush Administration to launch us into a war in Iraq for no authentic reason, largely has given up interest. Only the Internet keeps it alive.
“A celebrated people lose dignity upon a closer view,” said Napoleon.
Army Times reports attacks one NATO forces by our so-called allies have been increasing.
U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan are seeing a rise in attacks from supposedly friendly Afghan security forces, most recently the shooting of four French troops Friday and a U.S. soldier earlier this month.

Timeline for assaults on NATO troops by Afghan Army or police:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/20/nato-troops-killed-afghanistan






Monday, January 16, 2012

U.N. to Intervene in Syria


Top AFP Free Syria Army Bottom  Reuters
The U.N. is intervening indirectly in Syria by agreeing to train Arab League monitors, who have lost the confidence of most of the outside world.
More than 400 people have died since the League monitors arrived Dec. 27, the Security Council was told in a closed-door meeting, the Washington Post reported.
The training will begin after a meeting this weekend in Cairo, AFP reported. It was not clear whether any of the monitors already in Syria will be among those trained or whether they will be withdrawn, as previously scheduled Thursday.
A U.N. spokeswoman, Vannina Maestracci, confirmed the plan.
The decision, which followed a request by Arab League member Qatar to send troops into Syria, is one step short of it.
Pressure for a military intervention in Syria was growing as President Bashar al-Assad sent out mixed messages on his intentions. Russia appeared so concerned about what seemed likely that it introduced a third resolution in the U.N. in hopes of stopping it.
Turkish media reported a Russian ship delivered fresh weapons Monday. But with the country’s economy near collapse some members of Parliament, following an example set in Libya, fled the country.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who had already warned Assad to stop the killing, sent a message from Abu Dabi to the Security Council to deal seriously with the 10-month uprising. More than 6,000 are believed to have died, the vast majority opponents of the regime or those who happened into the line of fire.
Assad, promised a referendum on a new constitution in March and said he was issuing a countrywide general amnesty for those involved in protests. However, he also said he would use an “iron fist” to suppress his opponents, who he said were backed by Western governments and media.

http://en.ammonnews.net/article.aspx?articleNO=15325

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Syria: Growing Pressure for Military Intervention



Pressure for a military intervention in Syria is growing as President Bashar al-Assad sends out mixed messages on his intentions.
One member of the Arab League, Qatar, has called for troops to be sent in to stop the regime’s killing of Syrians opposed to Assad. Qatar played a leading role in support of ousting the late Muammar Gaddafi.
“Today, I say again to President Assad of Syria: Stop the violence. Stop killing your people. The path of repression is a dead end,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said in a  a conference on democracy in the Arab world held in Lebanon on Sunday.
"The lessons of the past year are eloquent and clear. The winds of change will not cease to blow. The flame ignited in Tunisia will not be dimmed. Let us remember as well, none of these great changes began with a call for a regime change. First and foremost, people wanted dignity," he said.
Assad, promised a referendum on a new constitution in March and said he was issuing a countrywide general amnesty for those involved in protests. However, he also said he would use an “iron fist” to suppress his opponents, who he said were backed by Western governments and media.
 The Guardian reported Assad vowed "God willing, we will be victorious … We are nearing the end of the crisis." Supporters cheered him at the end of what was described as a rambling 100-minute speech at Damascus University.
Russian media, which had roundly condemned the Libya intervention, was more reserved on the Syrian situation. Moscow, however, continues to oppose sanctions. The U.S. has indicated support for intervention if the bloodshed does not stop.
Arab media carried a wide variety of reports ranging from Assad would install a new government in February to Moscow refusing to support Damascus because the death toll was too high.
The U.N., relying partly on human rights organizations, says 5,000 have been killed by Assad’s troops. The government claims up to 2,000 soldiers have died.
Although Syria’s military is stronger than the forces Gaddafi deployed, the country is much smaller geographically and is surrounded by much stronger armies, including Turkey.


http://en.ammonnews.net/article.aspx?articleNO=15325
https://sites.google.com/site/robertweller/rubicon

Friday, January 13, 2012

Honor of U.S. Military Plummets to New Low


When the four Marines urinated on the corpses of Taliban insurgents they might as well have been emptying their bladders on the honor of the U.S. military.
As occurred in the Roman Empire, and was predicted here, replacing the draft with all-volunteers, mercenaries in my view, has been followed with one case after another of America’s proud tradition being stained.
Now, at virtually the same time the Marines were caught on YouTube a military judge decided Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning should be court-martialed for leaking information about apparent misconduct in Iraq.
Only now, 18 months after he was arrested, flouting his right to a speedy trial, was he brought to court. In general, defendants are entitled to a trial within six months unless they seek delays.
His denial by the judge of habeaus corpus, his right to face a court, alone is more than enough to dismiss the charges. Word is, no definitive answer is available, that because Manning wanted to meet with his lawyer before going to trial he was deemed to have given up his right to a speedy trial.
At his kangaroo court, definition "a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted.”

“The outcome of a trial by kangaroo court is essentially determined in advance, usually for the purpose of ensuring conviction, either by going through the motions of manipulated procedure or by allowing no defense at all.”
The vast majority of his defense witnesses were blocked from appearing: only two were allowed.
What purpose does this serve. Primarily it obfuscates accountability.
The only thing proved in the Article 32 was that Manning gave more than enough warning that he should never have been near classified documents or in a war zone because of his unstable mental condition.
Just like the officers who escaped punishment for a crime spree outside Fort Carson in 2009 when at one point officers returning from the wars were charged in at least 11 murders, the guilty are allowed to fade into obscurity.
Many were suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. If ever the Army suffered a split personality this was it. While generals asked reporters to help them deal with it, lower-ranking officers whispered in their ears that the PTSD victims were just cowards trying to get out of fighting.
Even an Army psychiatrist was able to kill 11 and wound 31 at Fort Hood.
Does it take a Sherlock Holmes to identify these tsunamis as they approached?
Witnessing the Army not holding officers responsible at Fort Carson for the crime outbreak there, I asked the army surgeon general why officers were not being punished. He said something like this is not the time. “If not now, when,” I said in reply, quoting Holocaust writer Primo Levi.
As an Air Force brat I grew up in the lower middle class. My late mother was stunned to see bonuses of $10,000 and more enabling soldiers to drive BMVs. She also wondered if the civilian guards at Ft. Leavenworth would take a bullet for their country. We both knew they would deliver one.
Most of the so-called war crimes trials have ended with slaps on the wrist, with the exception of a handful that were just to big to hide.
But Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld didn’t dare call for a draft for a phony war meant to assuage the President’s ego and enrich Cheney’s business partners. Obama inherited it and didn’t have the spine to end it or the torture that accompanied it.
The story of Rome’s fall is attributed by some historians to the decision to use their wealth to employ mercenaries. Their draft had been much harder than America’s, which often relied on lower income troops. In Rome, only landowners could be in the Army. And they had to come when called, bring their own weapons, and stay until victory.
If the mercenary Army was such a good job why are there so many suicides? Why so much PTSD? Most never expected to be doing revolving tours deploying against guerrillas who followed no rules.
Manning reported things, by leaking them, that in some cases he had an obligation to report because they were violations of the rules of engagement, even war crimes.
What we must remember, to quote from the film “The Debt,” is who we are and who we are not.
Remember MASH, the TV show or the movie, the conscript surgeons put right ahead of military rules. They were not interested in rising up the chain. We don’t have lawyers like that now in our Armed Forces.
Army Times reports Friday that 15 soldiers involved in supervising Manning were being disciplined. This raises questions about the decision to prosecute him. His lawyer will argue he acted with the permission of his superiors.


Thursday, January 12, 2012

Honor Of U.S. Military Plummets To New Low


When the four Marines urinated on the corpses of Taliban insurgents they might as well have been emptying their bladders on the honor of the U.S. military.
As occurred in the Roman Empire, and was predicted here, replacing the draft with mercenaries has been followed with one case after another of America’s proud tradition being stained.
Now, at virtually the same time the Marines were caught on YouTube. Bradley Manning has been recommended for a court martial.
Eighteen months after he was arrested, flouting his right to a speedy trial, a military judge has recommended he be court-martialed for his alleged role in leaking classified documents.
His denial of habeaus corpus alone is more than enough to dismiss the charges. Word is, no definitive answer is available, that because Manning wanted to meet with his lawyer before going to trial he was deemed to have given up his right to a speedy trial.
At the kangaroo court, definition "a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted".
 “The outcome of a trial by kangaroo court is essentially determined in advance, usually for the purpose of ensuring conviction, either by going through the motions of manipulated procedure or by allowing no defense at all.”
The vast majority of his defense witnesses were blocked from appearing: only two were allowed.
What purpose does this serve. Primarily it obfuscates accountability.
The only thing proved in the Article 32 was that Manning gave more than enough warning that he should never have been near classified documents or in a war zone.
Just like the officers who escaped punishment for a crime spree outside Fort Carson in 2009 when at one point officers returning from the wars were charged in at least 11 murders, the guilty are allowed to fade into obscurity.
Many were suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. If ever the Army suffered a split personality this was it. While generals asked reporters to help them deal with it, lower-ranking officers whispered in their ears that the PTSD victims were just cowards trying to get out of fighting.
Even an Army psychiatrist was able to kill 11 and wound 31 at Fort Hood.
Does it take a Sherlock Holmes to identify these tsunamis as they approached?
Witnessing the Army not holding officers responsible at Fort Carson, I asked the army surgeon general why. He said something like this is not the time. “If not now, when,” I said in reply quoting Holocaust writer Primo Levi.
As an Air Force brat I grew up in the lower middle class. My late mother was stunned to see bonuses of $10,000 and more enabling soldiers to drive BMVs. She also wondered if the civilian guards at Ft. Leavenworth would take a bullet for their country. We both knew they would deliver one.
Most of the socalled war crimes trials have ended with slaps on the wrist, with the exception of a handful that were just to big to hide.
But Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld didn’t dare call for a draft for a phony war meant to assuage the President’s ego and enrich Cheney’s business partners.
The story of Rome’s fall is attributed by some historians to the decision to use their wealth to employ mercenaries. Their draft had been much harder than America’s, which often relied on lower incrome troops. In Rome, only landowners could be in the Army. And they had to come when called, bring their own weapons, and stay until victory.
If the mercenary Army was such a good job why so many suicides. Why so much PTSD. Most never expected to be doing revolving tours deploying against guerrillas who followed no rules.
Manning reported things, by leaking them, that in some cases he had an obligation to report because they were violations of the rules of engagement, even war crimes.
What has been forgotten here is that, to quote from the film "The Debt," we must remember who we are and who we are not.




Marines Allegedly Urinated On Taliban Bodies

The Marine Corps Times reports investigators at the highest level are reviewing whether Marines urinated on four Taliban bodies, as purportedly shown in a video on YouTube and elsewhere today.
So far there has been no indication the video is a fraud.
The Marines can be heard joking about what they are doing. “Have a good day buddy” and “Golden like a shower.”
One of the Marines is holding what the Times said is a “precision,” or sniper rifle.
That and their other Marine gear and uniforms could help the Naval Intelligence Service track them down.
The Times reported: “The unit identified in the caption beneath the video — 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines — returned to Camp Lejenue in October from a standard seven-month deployment to Afghanistan’s Helmand province. Its Marines saw intense action in and around Musa Qala, a violent district located in northern Helmand.” The unit’s chain of command denied comment.
 The video was first uploaded by a user named semperfiLoneVoice.
It has drawn acerbic remarks on Tweeter, including Semper Pee, a twist on the Marine code Semper Fi, roughly translated from Latin and meaning keep the faith.
On the other hand, some commenting on the Marine Corps Facebook page dismissed the action as irrelevant and some said they would do it if they had a chance.
“The actions portrayed are not consistent with our core values and are not indicative of the character of the Marines in our Corps. This matter will be fully investigated.”


Tuesday, January 10, 2012

New Hampshire: A Word of Warning



It probably won’t hold up but it is worth noting that President Obama beat all the Republican contenders in the two New Hampshire villages that voted early in the presidential primary.
Obama totaled 13 votes in Dixville Notch and Hart’s Location. Mitt Romney led the GOP candidates with a total of seven votes in the two towns that voted just after midnight today.
These two towns are well aware that they can get attention by departing from the media’s plan. Stepping out for Obama may be driven by antipathy to Republicans, though.
Reuters reported a fresh national poll showed Obama leading Romney and all other GOP candidates.
This could mean trouble for the Republicans though.
Obama has been portraying them as obstructionists, who have tried to block everything he wanted to do.
Some of the social issues pushed by the Tea Party and right are anathema in the "Live Free or Die State." Mary Jo Liacos of Manchester told the Guardian: "We don't want to be told what our values are."Romney may have moved to the top of the GOP cast because he is seen as a moderate. Running a moderate against Obama likely would cause many conservatives to stay at home.
And that might cancel out stay-at-home progressives, unhappy with Obama not keeping his word on health care, torture and the wars.
It could even lead to a third party candidate on the right.
The party of Lincoln once had a proud record on the environment and some other issues. Now it is seen as a mouthpiece for fundamentalist Christians in the south.
Should Obama win a second term, he might find himself facing a weakened and embarrassed opposition.

 First on Technorati.com

Friday, January 6, 2012

Occupy Movie


Occupy protesters note: A risk analyst at a prominent Wall Street firm, about to discover the company’s assets are mostly thin air, is fired.
After learning what was happening,  a trader is asked by his youthful assistants whether the rumor he made $2.5 million the year before is true.
In a sort of Nero fiddles while Rome burns style, Will Emerson (Paul Bettany) says it was easy and rattles it off in cars, houses, clothes, savings et al. 
When it is pointed out he still had $125.000 left, “Yeah well I did spend $76,520 on hookers, booze and dances, but mainly hookers.
He quickly notes he was able to claim much of that back on his taxes as entertainment.
He might not have been as sanguine if he had not known that like Nero he would not be hurt financially.
In what may be the closest inside look yet at what happened the night the spotlight was turned on the real estate market and it turned out to be a mirage turned out to be a mirage, he defends what the company had been knowingly doing.
A young trader in on the secret says: “This is going to affect people.”
Emerson replies: “Yeah it’s going to affect people like me.”
The youthful trader replies: “Real people.”
Emerson unleashes what is almost a soliloquy: “People want to live like this and their cars and their big f* houses they cannot even pay for … you’re necessary … you’re the only reason that they all get to continue living like kings is we’ve got our fingers on the scales in their favor.
… I take my hand off and the whole world gets really f* fair quickly and nobody actually wants that.
“They want to get what we have to give them but they also want to play innocent and pretend they have no idea where it came from … F* normal people.
“Margin Call” is one of the strongest American films of the year and easily the best Wall Street movie ever made," the New Yorker says. The New York Times and Roger Ebert also are impressed.
Writer-director J.C. Chandor employs a strong cast, including two Best Actor Oscar winners, Kevin Spacey and Jeremy Irons, and Demi Moore for his first feature-length film.
Some might see it as Spacey’s vilification of the market, just as he had shown the American Middle Class in the worst possible light in “American Beauty.” Some would say it was about time and that it would take an artist to do it. The mainstream media, which frequently stumbles when presented with new things like the Occupy movement.
Chandor doesn’t put times or dates on what is happening, just the time of day. The need for the CEO, played by Irons, to come to the headquarters after midnight in a chopper is all that you need.
Irons knows he won’t be able to pull off the dumping of the firm’s mostly worthless assets without the help of Spacey, his market trading manager. Spacey is troubled but takes the money and pulls it off, with Irons noting “there is going to be a lot of money to be made coming out of this mess.”
The movie ends with the company surviving and Spacey burying his beloved Labrador retriever, who he had just had to put down. His ex-wife hears him in the late night hours and comes out and finds him digging a grave in what was once the front yard of their luxury home.


Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Andy Zipser On Occupy


From Andy Zipser, former editor of the Guild Reporter:
Yes, the rise of the internet and social media played a significant role in debilitating an inquisitive, socially conscious press. But decades of newspaper ownership that resembled a game of Monopoly, emphasizing profit over purpose, has depleted the ranks of reporters, shrunk news holes and made publishers hyper-sensitive to anything that might further limit the flow of advertising dollars. Having failed to meet the internet challenge when its coffers were overflowing with 25% and 30% profit margins, the industry was incapable of anything resembling an innovative response when the roof caved in and the money went away.
Moreover, the industry as a whole has been driven by the same forces that have pushed the country ever further rightward. As cogently argued in a recent essay in New York magazine by David Frum, a conservative apostate: “The business model of the conservative media is built on two elements: provoking the audience into a fever of indignation (to keep them watching) and fomenting mistrust of all other information sources (so they never change the channel). As a commercial proposition, this model has worked brilliantly in the Obama era. As journalism, not so much.”
No surprise, then, that when the OWS phenomenon bloomed, the first reaction of the corporate press—its ranks depleted, its legitimacy fading—was to ignore it. OWS was an attack on the corporatist status quo, and the skeleton crews left to staff most newsrooms no longer had the resources, vision or nerve to act on their once fondly touted credo of “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.” Yet days turned into weeks, and the initial encampment in Zuccotti Park in New York metastasized into dozens of similar occupations all over the U.S. and then abroad. And when the pepper-spray started flying, ignoring what was happening was no longer an option.
But by then, of course, the rules of the game had changed completely.
The privileged position that newspaper reporters had occupied suddenly vanished. OWS protesters weren’t always receptive to press coverage, with its simplistic questions and fleeting attention span—and all too often, the horse-race kind of attention they got justified their apprehension. “We’re fighting a system, and this media is part of the system,” complained Patrick Bruner, an organizer for OWS in New York, whose repeated efforts to educate the media about the protesters’ issues had been ignored. Or as Alicia Shepard, a former NPR ombudsman, told the New York Times, most OWS coverage “hasn’t been about the issues, it’s been about who’s up and who’s down.”
At the same time, the police and many city officials demonstrated that they, too, have little regard for reporters, at times physically attacking, forcibly restraining and arresting journalists with or without official credentials. In one notable incident, New York police asked all credentialed reporters to raise their hands—then hustled them off to a “safe zone” too far away to see anything.
Yet to some extent, the effort to shape media perceptions was fruitless because the press was no longer the primary chronicler of events: that role fell to the social media, and most particularly to Twitter, as OWS protesters, bystanders and press reporters themselves all turned to 140-character tweets and cell phone videos to describe what was occurring. The paramount example cited in several accounts was that of Josh Harkinson from Mother Jones magazine, live-tweeting as police dragged him out of Zuccotti Park, but there were numerous similar instances.
The reliance on social media by mainstream reporters was, however, a two-edged sword. When an Associated Press reporter and a photographer were arrested at Zuccotti Park and one or both of them tweeted about it to a personal account, the wire service quickly issued a memo chastising employees for tweeting about a newsworthy event “before the material was on the wire.” The rebuke drew derisive responses from both corporate press pundits and electronic media mavens. Brian Stelter at the New York Times suggested that if tweets are beating the wire then maybe the wire should speed up. And as Mathew Ingram at GigaOm noted, “if a 140-character post or two by one of your reporters on Twitter is a threat to your news service, then you have a problem that can’t be fixed by simply enforcing your social-media policies more stringently.”
AP was simply attempting to prevent the commodification of news, but that horse had already bolted the barn. More than 5,000 people watched the Oakland police raid on that city’s OWS site via local resident Spencer Mills’ smartphone uploads to @OakFoSho, and at one point Al-Jazeera English was also simulcasting his broadcast. The Other 99 drew 20,000 viewers over 16 hours as it covered the Nov. 15 police action at Zuccotti Park. @Blogdiva, run by blogger Liza Sabater, became an RSS feed for occupations nationwide as well as for the ongoing protest in Egypt.
Even as corporate media like the Associated Press are fighting a rear-guard battle against the blurring of journalistic roles, so too is the establishment that is being challenged by OWS. “Imagine my surprise,” wrote Stu Loeser, an aide to New York Mayor Bloomberg, “when we found that only five of the 26 arrested reporters actually have valid NYPD-issued press credentials”—the implication being, of course, that reporters without credentials aren’t the real thing. Worse yet, the inevitable corollary of Loeser’s formulation is that only officialdom can determine who is and who is not a journalist.
That didn’t go down well with the establishment press, which soon hit back on a couple of levels. The New York Press Club announced that it was forming “The Coalition for the First Amendment,” along with other local media groups, “to monitor police actions”—something one might have presumed the press was already doing. Separately, a coalition of various media outlets and press advocacy groups wrote a letter seeking a meeting with police and city officials to complain about actions that “clearly violate NYPD policies and procedures as concerns the media.” Alas, the letter also griped that previous letters of complaint had been ignored—over a period of several months—adding a certain forlorn tone to the demand.
In the end, it may be that individual reporters will just have to decide for themselves how to make sense of a rapidly changing world in which all institutions are being challenged. The Newspaper Guild is attempting to help that process with a new Facebook page, “Occupied Journalists,” to serve as a forum for media workers to share anecdotes and survival strategies. “The Occupy movement is about justice,” explained TNG-CWA President Bernie Lunzer. “Our effort is to ensure just treatment for all journalists and media workers as they cover this story that’s playing out in the streets.”
But at least some of those journalists are already drawing their own conclusions about what it means to be a reporter—even if it means shedding a corporate strait-jacket that has twisted a once noble calling into something fundamentally dishonest. As reported by Natasha Lennard in a piece for Salon titled “Why I quit the mainstream media”: “[I]f the mainstream media prides itself on reporting the facts, I have found too many problems with what does or does not get to be a fact—or what rises to the level of a fact they believe to be worth reporting—to be part of such a machine. Going forward, I want to take responsibility for my voice and the facts that I choose and relay.”
And so Occupy Wall Street, whatever its ultimate outcome, succeeds in creating one more incremental change.

Media Always Has Last Word


Win Win Media
Not so much has changed. The pen remains mightier than the sword, and the Occupy movement doesn’t even have weapons.
The mainstream media is portraying the Iowa caucuses as a sign that the Occupy movement, which it has always opposed at least subliminally, has failed. The reason? The Iowa caucuses were held.
Did anyone think they would not be? It appears to be little more than a giant anti-climax. An eight-vote victory for the guy with the most money.
The real test of the Occupy movement is whether they can rein in some of the renegade selfish banks. They have scored a few victories.
Of course it can be said that they were non sequiturs. Just because banks dropped some plans to add new charges or increase existing ones does not mean it was because of the worldwide protests of greed.
That is why it is a win win argument. Writers can’t lose.
Ah for the days of Bertolt Brecht, a man who was described as never seeking to resolve conflict or achieve harmony. Rather he would put it on the stage and let the theater-goers decide what to do.
The same argument was used against Wikileaks despite an inherent contradiction. If they did not reveal anything really new then why were they a security threat?
Although there was a lot more noise about Vietnam War crimes, Lt. William Calley was pardoned after 3 years of house arrest in the My Lai massacre.
A trial begins today in a military courtroom in California for the killings of 24 civilians in Iraq in 2005. Don’t expect much. Seven have already had the charges dismissed or were acquitted.
So perhaps it is accurate to deem the Occupy protests ineffective. Will it change anything?

Monday, January 2, 2012

Ranger’s Death: We Must Pay the Price



While the mainstream media largely stayed as far as it could from the veteran angle in the Mt. Rainier ranger death, the social media debated it like a buzzsaw.
Should the former soldier get special treatment after the killing of Park Ranger Margaret Anderson, or should he be burned at the stake.
I can recall during the Vietnam War we journalists were urged to avoid mentioning that criminals were veterans.
These days I can’t imagine a worse approach. We sent Benjamin Colton Barnes, 24, to Iraq. He came back with a violent streak and PTSD.
All that was left of the would-be Rambo on Monday morning was a lifeless body.
He didn’t get very far from the shooting scene,  dying before law officers could track him down in the snow.
Are we not partly responsible for the death of Ranger Anderson, the mother of two, who was just doing her job in a usually tranquil park?
The media is especially responsible because it bought into a phony war and largely has supported two administrations keeping them going even after the truth was discovered.
Suicides are at record levels in the military, including Fort Lewis, which issued a report as the manhunt was continuing. Our country is facing an underfunded military health care system, even without the suicides. And there will more over the years to come.