June 2010
14 posts
What if there were lies in the media? →
Now, wait right there…. There’s a chance there could by LIES printed in our media? Portrayed as the truth??
This completely hypothetical threat sounds serious.
David Edwards: Have you heard of the British historian Mark Curtis?
Jon Snow: I don’t know.
DE: He argues that there’s a pattern to post-1945 British and US interventions, basically defending profits and installing people like the Shah in Iran…
JS: Oh this is bollocks! Total bollocks!
DE: Do you think so?
JS: Utter bollocks!
(From “Newspeak in the 21st Century” by David Edwards and David Cromwell. Page 1.)
“We need to be clear that the commandant of Auschwitz did not for one moment see...”
– Guardians of Power, by David Edwards & David Cromwell. Page 178.
From Arbenz to Zelaya: Chiquita in Latin America →
Chiquita, formerly known as United Fruit Company and United Brands, has had a long and sordid political history in Central America. Led by Sam “The Banana Man” Zemurray, United Fruit got into the banana business at the turn of the twentieth century. Zemurray once remarked famously, “In Honduras, a mule costs more than a member of parliament.” By the 1920s United Fruit controlled 650,000...
n+1: World Cup Preview →
England is always surprised when they lose, as they think they invented soccer. They have a good coach (an Italian) and some good players, most notably the great Wayne Rooney, but eventually they will lose and be shocked and hurt as always.
Israeli Public's Support for Dismantling Most... →
The Truman Institute’s latest survey sheds light on Israeli views regarding West Bank settlements that are grounds for a less pessimistic outlook about Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects. The Israeli public’s support for dismantling most settlements as part of a peace agreement has risen considerably in recent months and is at its highest level in five years (60%). Surprisingly, no more than a...
What an Estate Looks Like to the New York Times →
This weekend the New York Times (6/13/10) reminded me once again that I am not the paper’s target audience.
While supporters say the estate tax affects only the richest members of society and helps counteract the concentration of wealth, that million-dollar limit would seem to ensnare many people who consider themselves decidedly middle class—especially in the Northeast and...
Alfred McCoy: Our Man in Kabul →
The crisis has come suddenly, almost without warning. At the far edge of American power in Asia, things are going from bad to much worse than anyone could have imagined. The insurgents are spreading fast across the countryside. Corruption is rampant. Local military forces, recipients of countless millions of dollars in U.S. aid, shirk combat and are despised by local villagers. American...
CEPR: Crime and Punishment (and Budgets) →
In 2008, more than 2.3 million people were behind bars in U.S. prisons and jails. This translates to a rate of 753 per 100,000 people, which is more than seven times higher than the median (102) in rich countries that make up the OECD. (Iceland has the lowest rate at 44, while Poland has the second-highest at 224.) This is also much higher than rates that we have seen in our own past. In 1980,...
Khoi Vinh: What I Said About Apple and Typography →
Fine typography is important; it’s a tradition that goes back for centuries, that has helped us elevate our communication and that informs our sense of self and civilization. Now, it’s true that in the midst of the digital revolution we’re living through, we may have to leave many such traditions behind, but fine typography doesn’t have to be one of them. There’s no technological or business...
The Conservative Nanny State Strikes Again →
The truly remarkable part of the story is that so many progressives feel obligated to do the Republicans’ work by attacking them as “free market fundamentalists.” People who want to use the government to change the terms of a contract after the fact to help banks have no interest in the free market. These people are about taking money from everyone else and giving it to the...
Thomas Friedman Doesn't Get Much Uglier Than This →
So, to summarize Friedman, Lula should criticize the torture of prisoners by Iran—but presumably not by his fellow democrats in the United States. And he should promote democracy by praising a government that continues to murder hundreds of civilians a year as a democratic success story.
This Is The Article I Am Sick Of Reading →
This is the article the New York Times might be daring to publish, or the BBC might report on but always ending with the number of rocket attacks into Israel and misleadingly -without context- say Hamas seized power in Gaza.
This is the article that will not mention the gas fields Israel is stealing from Palestinians, or the water or the land, because an even hand of condemnation must be...
“Israel
Over 57 per cent of Jewish Israelis think human rights organisations...”
– Amnesty Magazine (UK), May/June 2010, p.6