Incredible article by Ted Rall (3/21)!

[tom_paine]

http://www.uexpress.com/tedrall/

(this link becomes null when a new column comes out, so you would have to go there and search the date)

RALL 3/21/06

A Growing Gap Between Raw and Packaged News Destroys Credibility
NEW YORK--Hurricane Katrina survivors' shocking testimony to Congress about their abuse at the hands of federal troops and local police ought to have been one of the biggest news stories ever. What happened instead--and what didn't happen--is a perfect illustration of the widening gap between raw and packaged news, and why 66 percent of Americans don't believe what they read in the paper.

There it was, right there on CNN the afternoon of December 6. Ishmael Mohammed, an attorney for the People's Hurricane Relief Fund, quoted a young woman named Denise, talking about her experience in the New Orleans Superdome: "The National Guard did not serve or protect. They were constantly threatening us and herding us by machine guns like cows. I saw a teenage boy beaten up by a National Guard officer in front of a crowd of thousands of people." Denise confirmed accounts of "white and Asian tourists... rushed quietly out one side of the barricade that held thousands of exhausted, financially underprivileged black families with babies." Tammy, a thirtysomething African-American woman who was attempting to escape the city by car, said police stopped, arrested and jailed her and her two daughters for weeks. "Lie down on the ground, you black monkey bitch," she claims one of them yelled. Patricia Thompson, a 53-year-old New Orleans evacuee, testified that soldiers aimed their machine gun target lasers at her granddaughter's forehead, and that New Orleans cops routinely spat racist insults at storm victims.

<snip>

Amazing stuff. But if you weren't watching cable news that afternoon, you probably missed it. Network news buried the Congressional hearings on Katrina; so did the next day's papers. The New York Times never covered it. Only three groups of people know that New Orleanians drowned because they were too terrified to leave their homes, after watching their neighbors shot by rampaging police officers and national guardsmen: New Orleanians, people who have talked to them, and those who watch CNN while everyone else is at work. As far as the rest of America is concerned, these atrocities never occurred.

More...

http://www.uexpress.com/tedrall/

[leftchick]

1. oh god this is sad

I did not watch the Katrina hearings and I consider myself pretty well informed. This is horrible. :cry:

[tom_paine]

2. Yeah...it slipped by me too

I wonder what atrocities the Blackwater Mercs perpetrated. Of course, Hessians being Hessians, I'm sure those who observed them in action were probably seeing the last thing they ever saw.

Sad, but 90% chance it's true. In fact, I recall seeing an account during Katrina (unconfirmed/unverified) of Blackwater Mercs executing some "looters".

Don't cry, leftchick. Let it turn to something else. We are all going to need all of our internal strength and fortitude to deal with the penultimate and final phases of BushPutinism, whatever they are going to be.

[leftchick]

3. I am crying a lot these days tom p

I am running out of strength. I can not see a future for my sons here anymore. I am ready to leave for them. If I did not have them I would stay and become a part of the new resistance. I have to keep them safe.

peace,
lc

[OneBlueSky]

4. recommended . . . btw, you can bookmark this . . .

if you click on "Print This Article" . . . it will take you to a more permanent page . . .

[yurbud]

5. I remember hearing those stories on "This American Life"

I had it on as background noise, and when it got to what happened when they tried to leave, I stop everything I was doing to listen to the rest.

I couldn't imagine something like that happening in America today.

But it did.

That was one of the things that should have made Democrats take off the gloves and leave them off, but they still act like they are dealing with Bush's dad or even Gerald Ford.

[tom_paine]

6. Sort of the reverse for me

Ever sonce 12-12-2000, the day the Old American Republic died, I have known and expected a rise in evil behaviors across the world. From Bush's Soulmate Comdrade Putin enacting his own version of The Bush Plan for America against the Russians, to more torture, more lies, more evidence fabrication, more general BushSovietism, and so forth.

But it is always shocking to hear about what we are not premitted to see firsthand.

Sadly, I can imagine and bnelieve that much worse will soon be happening in Amerika, unless America is restored to a condition of Liberty.

[GabrielSyme]

7. Interesting article

Ted Rall claims "cops had murdered civilians just for fun" and relates a story where a woman claims "soldiers aimed their machine gun target lasers at her granddaughter's forehead". And you say Blackwater operators were executing looters. These accounts are quite startling to me. Do you have any further information about them?

[tom_paine]

9. Some. You might want to do some research on your own

Mind you none of this is 100% confirmed, but I am afraid that does not preclude the veracity of the claims since Amerika has gone (or is going, depending on how you look at it) Totalitarian.

Much in the same way the 1957 Siberian Nuclear Disaster and the Network of Gulags couldn't be confirmed if yoiu read Soviet Media.

So I have no way to divine 100% proof. But here's what I have:

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/09/katrina_authorities_.html

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002349.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0910-07.htm

[GabrielSyme]

13. Indeed

Thank you for the links. I read them as well as the links they supplied, but I did not see any mention that "cops had murdered civilians just for fun", "soldiers aimed their machine gun target lasers at her granddaughter's forehead" or Blackwater operators executed looters. To assert that just because there seems to be no evidence that any of these things happened "does not preclude the veracity of the claims" is specious.

As far as the former Soviet Socialist Republic, are you really claiming that information is now being suppressed by the US government with the same sweeping ruthlessness? Or are all the news agencies in tacit cooperation with the government and voluntarily suppressing information?

[tom_paine]

14. You are correct regarding speciousness

I also agree with you that just because something is possible or even probable, doesn't mean it happened.

The decline and fall of the Formerly Free American Press has been better documented all over by other besides myself. Do I think that modern Bushists suppress media information with the same ruthless methodolgy as the Soviets? Of course not. Every nation's Totalitarianism comes in a form tailor-fitted to that nation. The new form, BushPutinism as I like to call it, is no different.

To answer your questions, it is a combination of those factors and a few others undreamt of by Goebbels or Molotov.

There are numerous examples of self-censorship by MSM outlets, like when the New York Times suppressed the illegal domestic wiretapping story FOR ONE YEAR, to name one particularly egregious example.

http://democracycentral.blogspot.com/2006/01/abuse-of-power.html

If you continue the research yourself, it shouldn't be too hard to find the Times' own admission of how it sat the on the story for one year or more. I haven't the time to do it for you.

The Katrina Hearings happened.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0512/07/ltm.04.html

Dig further, if you wish, you may be able to find full transcripts of the hearings themselves, somewhere.

The allegations of these witnesses would have warranted further investigation in a Free Country, but then, we Americans don't really belong in that category anymore. Again I say, in the absence of a Free Press, sometimes we are left having to rely on Samizdat.

Would I have preferred that a thorough investigation of these allegations been performed so that we could have some of the more concrete proof you quite correctly desire?

Yes, but it isn't going to happen. And the point of the Rall article is how easily things are dumped down the Memory Hole in "1984 Bushmerica"...like the Anthrax Assassin who sent US-made anthrax to his victims, all of them either Democrats or members of the "Liberal Media".

The Anthrax Assassin...who 'dat?

My point is that I am as distressed as you at the absence of solid information on these allegations. I wish I did not have to make a leap of faith in Samizdat like a 1978 Soviet, but given the current state of things I have little choice.

It is the troubling state of affairs of ALL Totalitarianism's Citizens, even we who are merely in the process of transitioning from Freedom to Totalitarianism with one foot in each world. It is the troubling issue all who are so ill-served, who are subjects to torrent of misinformationa nd disinofrmation by official channels and MSM press.

By the way, welcome to DU, GabrielSyme. :toast: :toast:

[GabrielSyme]

16. Aber die strassenbahn fahrt direkt dahin

Thank you for the kind welcome. I sincerely appreciate your hospitality.

The NYT has worse credibility problems than holding a story for a year, as Jayson Blair and Howell Raines can attest. It's certainly no friend of Bush or the administration, but if it held a story for what it considered national security reasons, I am less offended than when they simply make something up.

I didn't doubt there had been hearings on Katrina, and the claims of a soldier holding his machine gun target laser on a child might have been made during these hearings. Since soldiers do not have machinegun target lasers, other than in Predator 2 and similar movies, I don't believe this event occurred. I also find it unlikely that cops were killing civilians for fun, since killing civilians is an uncommon divertissement among American law enforcement. I did see footage of fat female New Orleans police looting, and it seems a number of NO PD stole Cadiallacs and fled the city, while others simply refused to come to work. Which makes the fact that businesses hired more responsible Blackwater operators to protect their investments quite reasonable. I've seen no indications the Blackwater personnel executed anyone.

It is true that no one has been arrested for the anthrax, though there is, or at least was, a suspect. I'm not sure if the "National Enquirer" would be considered "liberal media" by Brokaw, the NYT, and CNN, which are more what I would consider liberal media. In any event, I don't see how failing to find the anthrax mailer validates any of Ted Rall's fantastical claims.

None of these internet postings can be compared to "samizdat" since there is absolutely no risk to anyone and little or no effort even in disseminating the information. One is free to heap calumny upon the government, the president, and politicians of every stripe, all from the comfort of home.

[yurbud]

11. smarter than me--I just expected a C student's bad imitation of his dad

not Caligula on steroids.

[oblivious]

8. Talk about hell on earth. How can people be that evil?

[tom_paine]

10. Sadly, it's easy. At any given moment a large minority of us is capable

of evil. Look at the "Milgrim Experiments" (Google them for an enlightening read), which shows that virtually 3/4s of us will commit evil with just the tiniest prodding and authorization.

Look at all of human history. We are capable of great good or great evil. For whatever reason, some degree of evil seems to be more prevalent in the Ruling Classes. Certainly it "outnumbers" good by at least 2-1 and perhaps much higher, if you consider all the nations and all the rulers throughout human history.

[oblivious]

12. I've read threads about that on DU,but I guess I don't want to believe it.

[tom_paine]

15. Live in denial at your own peril, ESPECIALLY these days in Imperial

Amerika.

As Karl Jaspers, the German Psychiatrist who lived through Hitler's rise, once said:

"All over the world I dread the self-deception which we have experienced - that this could not happen here. It can happen anywhere. It is improbable only where the broad masses of the population are aware of the possible menace and thus will not be lulled into security; where they know the type of totalitarianism and will recognize it in its rudimentary stages and in each of its manifestations - this Proteus who keeps appearing in ever new masks, who slips eel-like out of our grasp, who does the opposite of what he says, who distorts the meaning of words, who speaks not in order to communicate or tell the truth, but in order to numb, to distract, to hypnotize, to intimidate, to dupe - who will exploit and evoke every fear, and will promise security and utterly wreck it at the same time.

Totalitarianism is neither Communism nor fascism nor National Socialism, but it has appeared in all of these forms."

Does that mean it WILL happen here? No. There are many possible outcomes still remaining, including a return of the Old American Republic.

But the worst thing you can do is not to recognize the darkening clouds on the horizon as they appear today. The worst thing you can do is to blind yourself with denial so that you ae not prepared if/when that dreaded "knock on the door in the middle of the night" (as the Russians used to call it) comes.