In one of the most horrendous blows to press freedom since the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s, the U.S. Department of Justice has forced the news broadcaster RT America to file under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
The assault on RT America, on which I host the show “On Contact,” has nothing to do with the dissemination of Russian propaganda. It is driven by RT America’s decision to provide a platform to critics of American capitalism and imperialism, critics who lambast a system of government that can no longer be called democratic. And it is accompanied by the installation of algorithms by Google, Facebook and Twitter that divert readers away from left-wing, progressive and anti-war websites, including Truthdig. The World Socialist Web Site has seen its search traffic from Google fall by 74 percent since April. Google, in a further blow, this month removed RT from its list of “preferred” channels on YouTube. Twitter has blocked all advertising by the channel.
Put the censorship campaigns together and the message is clear: Left-wing critics, already marginalized by the state, must be silenced.
It would seem, given how we are locked out of the corporate media and public broadcasting, that the assault is overkill. But the ideology that sustains the corporate state, the “free market” and neoliberalism has lost all credibility. The corporate state has no counterargument to its critics. The nakedness of corporate greed, exploitation and repression is transparent across the political spectrum. The ideological fortress erected by corporate power and sustained by its courtiers in the press and academia has collapsed. All it has left is a crude censorship.
Complicit in this censorship is a bankrupt liberal class. The institutions tasked with defending press freedom—including the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists and PEN—along with major news outlets such as The New York Times, have served as the corporate state’s useful idiots. Only a handful of journalists, including Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer, grasp and decry the very real danger before us.
The charge that RT and these left-wing sites disseminate “foreign propaganda” is the beginning, not the end, of a broad campaign against press freedom. Once this precedent of state censorship is normalized, far more tepid and compliant media outlets will be targeted. Max Blumenthal wrote two good pieces on AlterNet about the puppet masters behind the censorship campaign. [Click here and here.]
He's exactly right.
When we're in the midst of this and it's finally obvious to all, don't expect many of us to be forgiving of the idiots who paved the way for this with their hysteria and their rush to repeats MSNBC 'reports' as facts.
"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Monday, November 13, 2017. An earthquake hits Iraq, another US service member dies int he Iraq War . . .
"Someday We'll Be Together" by Diana Ross & the Supremes is one of the 19 number one pop songs (BILLBOARD US singles chart) that Diana Ross has sang on. November 19th, she'll be on the live broadcast (ABC) of The American Music Awards to perform and to receive the American Music Award for Lifetime Achievement. Motown Classic is issuing DIAMOND DIANA: THE LEGACY COLLECTION November 17th to note this monumental achievement.
Yesterday, an earthquake hit the Middle East.
"Someday We'll Be Together" by Diana Ross & the Supremes is one of the 19 number one pop songs (BILLBOARD US singles chart) that Diana Ross has sang on. November 19th, she'll be on the live broadcast (ABC) of The American Music Awards to perform and to receive the American Music Award for Lifetime Achievement. Motown Classic is issuing DIAMOND DIANA: THE LEGACY COLLECTION November 17th to note this monumental achievement.
Yesterday, an earthquake hit the Middle East.
A very strong earthquake has shaken parts of Middle East.
In this video, the guest is speaking from Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimani when the studio started to shake
A magnitude 7.2 earthquake has hit near the Iraqi city of Halabja close to the Iraq-Iran border, US Geological Survey says. cnn.it/2hsswgB
Australia's ABC NEWS explains, "The quake's epicentre was in Penjwin in the north-western Sulaimaniyah province, within the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region very close to the Iranian border, according to an Iraqi meteorology official. The electricity was cut off in several Iranian and Iraqi cities, and fears of aftershocks sent thousands of people in both countries out onto the streets and parks in cold weather."
Since the earthquake hit, some have noticed who is -- and is not -- providing aid.
So Turkey has sent aids and rescue teams to Iraqi Kurdistan (which most of the damage is in Sulimania and Halabja provinces) but Iraq's PM al-Abadi has neither offered help nor sent teams. This is not how you build a country, @HaiderAlAbadi.
Iraq wants Kurds be part of it!
But...
Hours after the deadly earthquake hit Kurdish areas of so-called #Iraq, NOT A SINGLE IRAQI OFFICIAL talked about it.
-
#PrayForKurdistan #Kurdistan is not Iraq!
If I was @HaiderAlAbadi, I would have visited the affected areas (by earthquake) near the Iraqi-Iranian border, just the way he has been visiting liberated Sunni areas and visited Karbala on Arbaeen.
And this lack of effort on the part of the Baghdad-based government means other issues are raised as well.
#Iraqi Government prevents medicine of Cancer patient to enter #Kurdistan Region, and asks all the private medical companies to avoid entering any medicine into #KRG, otherwise they will face punishment of law.
@HaiderAlAbadi continue to punish the Kurdish people of #KRG.
Is that not an issue to the global community?
Hayder al-Abadi is preventing medicine from entering the KRG. How is this acceptable?
How is it acceptable that the Iraq War continues?
Or that people continue to die in the Iraq War.
Pentagon: Chief Warrant Officer 2 Lee Smith died Saturday at Camp Taji, Iraq, due to injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident.
The US Defense Dept announced Sunday:
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Inherent Resolve.
Chief
Warrant Officer 2 Lee M. Smith, 35, of Arlington, Texas, died Nov. 11
at Camp Taji, Iraq, due to injuries sustained from a non-combat related
incident. He was assigned to the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, 101st
Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, KY. The incident is under
investigation.
For more information regarding CW2 Smith, media may contact the 101st Airborne Division Public Affairs Office at (931) 217-5074 and martin.l.odonnell.mil@mail.mil.
For more information regarding CW2 Smith, media may contact the 101st Airborne Division Public Affairs Office at (931) 217-5074 and martin.l.odonnell.mil@mail.mil.
The Iraq War drags on.
Many Americans don't realize that.
Some Americans don't know what the hell they're talking about. Case in point:
The tradition of black women leading #TheResistance is a strong one, dating back to Harriet Tubman. Shirley Chisholm was 1st black woman elected to congress. Barbara Lee was the ONLY house vote against the disastrous Iraq war and Maxine waters leads opposition to trump
"Barbara Lee was the ONLY house vote against the disastrous Iraq War."
Uh, no, she wasn't.
133 members of the House voted against.
How stupid do you have to be to claim that "Barbara Lee was the ONLY house vote against the disastrous Iraq War"?
Pretty damn stupid.
Here are the ones voting against:
| Abercrombie Allen Baca Baird Baldacci Baldwin Barrett Becerra Blumenauer Bonior Brady (PA) Brown (FL) Brown (OH) Capps Capuano Cardin Carson (IN) Clay Clayton Clyburn Condit Conyers Costello Coyne Cummings Davis (CA) Davis (IL) DeFazio DeGette Delahunt DeLauro Dingell Doggett Doyle Duncan Eshoo Evans Farr Fattah Filner Frank Gonzalez Gutierrez Hastings (FL) Hilliard | Hinchey Hinojosa Holt Honda Hooley Hostettler Houghton Inslee Jackson (IL) Jackson-Lee (TX) Johnson, E. B. Jones (OH) Kaptur Kildee Kilpatrick Kleczka Kucinich LaFalce Langevin Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) Leach Lee Levin Lewis (GA) Lipinski Lofgren Maloney (CT) Matsui McCarthy (MO) McCollum McDermott McGovern McKinney Meek (FL) Meeks (NY) Menendez Millender-McDonald Miller, George Mollohan Moran (VA) Morella Nadler Napolitano Neal | Oberstar Obey Olver Owens Pallone Pastor Paul Payne Pelosi Price (NC) Rahall Rangel Reyes Rivers Rodriguez Roybal-Allard Rush Sabo Sanchez Sanders Sawyer Schakowsky Scott Serrano Slaughter Snyder Solis Stark Strickland Stupak Thompson (CA) Thompson (MS) Tierney Towns Udall (CO) Udall (NM) Velazquez Visclosky Waters Watson (CA) Watt (NC) Woolsey Wu |
Again, how stupid do you have to be to claim Barbara Lee was the only member of the House to vote against the Iraq War?
Grasp that the mistake says many things including that you talk about the Iraq War despite not knowing the first thing about it.
It also says that you're a White person so desperate to prove you're 'down' with Women of Color that you'll toss out anything -- but won't do the actual work required to be 'down' with the facts.
And by the way, Jon and Joel, how about breaking the stereotype of middle-aged, middle-class gay men being hostile to lesbians?
If you're looking for an "only'' on the 2002 Iraq War vote you might note Tammy Baldwin -- the fist openly gay woman to be elected to the House (and, later, the first openly gay woman to be elected to the Senate). Tammy Baldwin -- in 2002, the only openly gay woman in the House -- voted against the Iraq War.
For a pair that self-describes as:
Male Couple together 18 years, living in Indianapolis, IN. Fiercely protect & advance LGBT rights via progressive action. Resist the trump fascist regime !
you might need to take a moment to note Tammy Baldwin.
Kat's "Kat's Korner: Taylor Swift's REPUTATION is b-a-a-a-d in the best way" went up last night. If you're wondering about THIRD -- I believe all pieces were completed last night. (Ava and I completed ours.) I think the issue is the typing of what felt like a forever roundtable.
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