Showing all posts tagged United States
Al Jazeera’s Listening Post on dangers of journalistic embedding with military
Reporters have been embedding with the US military (and other armies) for years, especially since 9/11. The results are usually pretty dismal, politically tone-deaf, pro-government and lacking criticism. Which is exactly how the military wants it. Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post asked me to comment on this tradition (I appear around 22:34) and my previous…
Does the European Left ignore Islamist violence in a mutual hatred of Israel?
It’s an interesting and long argued detail, here by Colin Shindler in the New York Times. He makes some disturbing points but ignores the elephant in the room, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and how that affects global attitudes towards Israel, Jews and Zionists: Last week, Twitter… shut down… a popular account for posting anti-Semitic messages in…
Obama’s vast, global scope of murdering “terrorists”
The Washington Post reports the largely hidden counter-terrorism policies of the Obama administration, without oversight, legal checks or balances and media scrutiny. There’s a word for this and it ain’t democracy. Part one: Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list…
Wikileaks reveals documents that prove inhumane US-led prisoner policies
Wikileaks remains utterly relevant to understanding our world. The evidence? … Yet more releases about US detainee policies since 9/11. Here’s Julian Assange talking about its importance on CNN:
“Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America’s Prisons”
The kind of stories that real journalists should be doing but so rarely do. America is land of the free? More like country of mass imprisonment. Here’s Democracy Now!: We turn now to a major new investigation by Shane Bauer, one of three Americans detained in 2009 while hiking in Iraq’s Kurdish region near the…
ABCTV New24’s The Drum on Romney/Obama debate, Iran, Israel and Zionist occupation
Last night I appeared on ABC TV News24’s The Drum (video here) discussing the last Presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. The real challenge was counting how many times Israel was loved/praised/embraced/kissed during the 90 minute discussion (clue: 65432 times). I argued that it’s remarkable how little it is acknowledged that one nation,…
Talking Haiti on Triple J’s Sunday Night Safran
After my recent trip to Haiti, I was on this week’s ABC Triple J’s Sunday Night Safran talking about the reality on the ground there, what disaster capitalism means in the nation and the role of the US:
What culture jamming looks like; The Yes Men score
The provocative American duo (some background here) are back with a new project and looking for funds to support their dissenting, anti-vulture capitalism antics: