Propaganda Alert
compiled by Cem Ertür
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
7 June 2009
1) Transcript of the Interview of US President Obama with Justin Webb of the BBC (2 June 2009)
2) Transcript of Foreign Minister Hillary Clinton’s interview on ABC’s ‘This Week’ (7 June 2009)
3) Obama and Merkel visit Buchenwald concentration camp (5 June 2009)
4) UK Prime Minister Brown’s words at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp (28 April 2009) Continue reading
By Jeremy R. Hammond
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Foreign Policy Journal
June 7, 2009
In his speech in Cairo last Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama noted that the “situation” between Israel and Palestinians was a “major source of tension” that must be addressed.
His addressing of that issue began with a reemphasis of “America’s strong bonds with Israel”, which “is unbreakable.”
The “aspiration for a Jewish homeland”, he said, “is rooted in a tragic history” of anti-Semitic persecution and the Holocaust that, he correctly noted, cannot be denied.
But the implied logic here is that since the Jewish people suffered so horribly in the past, they therefore were entitled to the state of Israel, which, by logical extension, means they therefore were somehow entitled to unilaterally proclaim Arab lands their own and forcibly expel Arab Palestinians from their homes or terrorize them into fleeing of their own accord.
This is not a new argument. Towards the end of the British Mandate over Palestine, the newly created United Nations established a special commission to examine the question of Palestine. The commission consisted of 11 member nations, none of which was an Arab country.
Hartman: Will Obama behave like Roosevelt or will he create a moment of opportunity for the right?
Bill Moyers Journal
June 5, 2009
Jeremy Scahill
Bill Moyers sits down with award-winning investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill to examine the human and financial costs of America’s wars.
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Brooke Gladstone & Jay Rosen
From headlines surrounding the health care debate to media frenzy over Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, NPR’s On the Media host Brooke Gladstone and NYU journalism professor and PressThink blogger Jay Rosen sort the messages and spin from the week’s news.
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PBS
June 10, 2009
Vodpod videos no longer available.
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Vodpod videos no longer available.
see
Barack Obama: A New Beginning (Cairo University 06.04.09)
Obama’s Speech – America’s Violent Extremism By Paul Craig Roberts
Chomsky on Obama Speech + The 3rd Rail – Obama’s game-changing speech in Egypt
Bill Moyers Journal: Single Payer Health Care
By Paul Craig Roberts
June 05, 2009 “Information Clearing House”
What are we to make of Obama’s speech at Cairo University in Egypt?
“I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”
Cairo is the capital of Egypt, an American puppet state whose ruler suppresses the aspirations of Egyptian Muslims and cooperates with Israel in the blockade of Gaza.
In contrast to the Islamic University of Al-Azhar, Cairo University was founded as a civil university. Obama’s Cairo University audience was secular.
Nevertheless, Obama said startling words that many Muslims found hopeful. He said that colonialism and the Cold War had denied rights and opportunities to Muslims and resulted in Muslim countries being treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. The resulting blowback from “violent extremists” bred fear and mistrust between the Western and Muslim worlds.
by William Blum
www.killinghope.org
June 5, 2009
The Anti-Empire Report
The great, international, demonic, truly frightening Iranian threat
The United States is “facing a nuclear threat in Iran” — article in Chicago Tribune and other major newspapers, May 26
“the growing missile threat from North Korea and Iran” — article in the Washington Post and other major newspapers, May 26
“Iran’s threat transcends religion. Regardless of sectarian bent, Muslim communities need to oppose the attempts by Iran … to extend Shia extremism and influence throughout the world.” — op-ed article in Boston Globe, May 27
“A Festering Evil. Doing nothing is not an option in handling the threat from Iran” — headline in Investor’s Business Daily, May 27, 2009
This is a very small sample from American newspapers covering but two days.
“Fifty-one percent of Israelis support an immediate Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites” — BBC, May 24
After taking office, on Holocaust Memorial Day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “We will not allow Holocaust-deniers [Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] to carry out another holocaust.” — Haaretz (Israel), May 14, 2009
Like clinical paranoia, “the threat from Iran” is impervious to correction by rational argument.
Two new novels have just appeared, from major American publishers, thrillers based on Iran having a nuclear weapon and the dangers one can imagine that that portends — “Banquo’s Ghosts” by Rich Lowry & Keith Korman, and “The Increment” by David Ignatius. “Bomb, bomb, bomb. Let’s bomb Iran,” declares a CIA official in the latter book. The other book derides the very idea of “dialogue” with Iran while implicitly viewing torture as acceptable.1
Pepe Escobar: Commentary on Obama’s speech to the Muslim World.
by Tom Burghardt
Global Research, June 4, 2009
Antifascist Calling
With billions of dollars in federal funds hanging in the balance, President Barack Obama unveiled the Cyberspace Policy Review May 29 at the White House.
During his presentation in the East Room Obama said that “America’s economic prosperity in the 21st century will depend on cybersecurity” and that efforts to “deter, prevent, detect and defend” against malicious cyberattacks would be run from the White House.
How this debate is being framed however, has a familiar ring to it. Rather than actually educating the public about steps to prevent victimization, state prescriptions always seem to draw from the same tired playbook.
by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
5 June 2009
If President Obama is serious about ever closing Guantánamo, and bringing justice to any of the 239 men still held there, the chaotic events on Monday, in the first hearing of the Military Commission trial system since the President’s four-month freeze on proceedings expired, should persuade him that all that awaits him, if he proceeds with his plan to revive the trials, is ridicule, frustration and injustice.
Last month, evidently scared by the advice of paranoid officials who suggested that, in some cases, trials in federal courts might fail (and ignoring the fact that no US jury would fail to convict a terror suspect against whom the merest shred of genuine evidence could be mustered), Obama announced that he was planning to revive the Commissions.
Critics bayed in disbelief. After all, the much-criticized system, conceived by former Vice President Dick Cheney and his legal counsel David Addington, ruled illegal by the Supreme Court in 2006, and then revived by Congress, was, essentially, a shape-shifting legal quagmire, which, over six years, had led to only three convictions (of David Hicks, Salim Hamdan and Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, each of which had its own problems), the resignation of several prosecutors (including one Chief Prosecutor), the sacking of the Pentagon’s legal adviser, and a permanent state of semi-open revolt against the government in the military defense teams.
President Obama Speaks to the Muslim World from Cairo, Egypt
whitehouse
June 04, 2009
“A New Beginning”
The President gives a speech in Cairo, Egypt, outlining his personal commitment to engagement with the Muslim world, based upon mutual interests and mutual respect, and discusses how the United States and Muslim communities around the world can bridge some of the differences that have divided them. June 4, 2009. (public domain)
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Transcript:
Remarks by the President at Cairo University, 6-04-09
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
Cairo,Egypt
________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 4, 2009
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON A NEW BEGINNING
Cairo University
Cairo, Egypt
1:10 P.M. Local
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning; and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt’s advancement. And together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. I’m grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. And I’m also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: Assalaamu alaykum. Applause.
We meet at a time of great tension between the United States and Muslims around the world — tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of coexistence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.
by Ted Rall
uExpress.com: Ted Rall , 05/28/2009
June 03, 2009 “Information Clearing House”
With Democrats Like Him, Who Needs Dictators?
MIAMI–We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama’s inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.
From healthcare to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn’t have the ‘nads to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning?
Obama is useless. Worse than that, he’s dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now–before he drags us further into the abyss.
Rev. Jackson: A progressives voice in DC must come from a movement in the streets
Sent to DS by the author, thanks, Robert.
By Robert S. Becker, Ph.D.
Dandelion Salad
www.beyondchron.org
June 2, 2009
Oratory Commands High Ground, But Decisions Decidedly Middle Ground
With Dubya’s counterfeit boast, “I’m the Decider,” still ringing in my ear, it’s appropriate to ask: who runs our government, who makes policy, and who most benefits? Barack Obama has evolved marvelously from savvy campaigner to commanding, inspiring President. But to what end? Is he playing it safe to shore up power, eventually to challenge entrenched forces and bring about systemic reform? Or will he become a voice of the vested, as when recently pitching American cars, the pragmatist who partners with, rather than defies the status quo?
Democracy Now!
June 2, 2009
Nader: Ex-DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe Offered Bribe to Drop Out of 19 Battleground States in ’04 Election
Former presidential candidate Ralph Nader accuses former Democratic National Committee chair Terry McAuliffe of trying to bribe him to stay off the presidential ballot in nineteen so-called “battleground” states in 2004. McAuliffe is currently running for the Democratic nomination in Virginia’s gubernatorial race. [includes rush transcript]
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Ralph Nader and Labor Professor Harley Shaiken Discuss the Bankruptcy and Future of General Motors
Auto giant General Motors filed for Chapter 11 yesterday in one of the largest bankruptcy cases in US history. Shortly after the filing, GM said it would close fourteen more plants, including seven in Michigan, and cut up to 21,000 more jobs. More than 2,000 car dealerships will be shut down, as well. After the factory closings, GM will have fewer than 40,000 workers buildings cars in the United States, one-tenth of a workforce that numbered nearly 400,000 in the 1970s. [includes rush transcript]
via Ralph Nader and Labor Professor Harley Shaiken Discuss the Bankruptcy and Future of General Motors.
see
Kucinich on Saving the Auto Industry
Countdown: Michael Moore on GM Bankruptcy: We Own a Car Company + Goodbye, GM
President Obama’s prepared remarks on General Motors’ bankruptcy
Robber Class v. Robbed Class: What Can We Do? by Cindy Sheehan
Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM by Greg Palast
by Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com
June 1, 2009
It was one thing when President Obama reversed himself last month by announcing that he would appeal the Second Circuit’s ruling that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) compelled disclosure of various photographs of detainee abuse sought by the ACLU. Agree or disagree with Obama’s decision, at least the basic legal framework of transparency was being respected, since Obama’s actions amounted to nothing more than a request that the Supreme Court review whether the mandates of FOIA actually required disclosure in this case. But now — obviously anticipating that the Government is likely to lose in court again (.pdf) — Obama wants Congress to change FOIA by retroactively narrowing its disclosure requirements, prevent a legal ruling by the courts, and vest himself with brand new secrecy powers under the law which, just as a factual matter, not even George Bush sought for himself.
The White House is actively supporting a new bill jointly sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman — called The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009 — that literally has no purpose other than to allow the government to suppress any “photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States.” As long as the Defense Secretary certifies — with no review possible — that disclosure would “endanger” American citizens or our troops, then the photographs can be suppressed even if FOIA requires disclosure. The certification lasts 3 years and can be renewed indefinitely. The Senate passed the bill as an amendment last week.
[…]
via Obama’s support for the new Graham-Lieberman secrecy law – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com
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see
Court Rules In Favor Of Transparency In Guantánamo Cases + Why’d Obama switch on detainee photos?
Busted, Pentagon – Why The Photos Probably Do Show Detainees Sodomized and Raped By Naomi Wolf
Abu Ghraib Abuse Photos ‘Show Rape’ + Was Rape an Enhanced Interrogation Technique?
