AMERICAN-FM Radio Diary

Progressive Majority Stunt Should Backfire For Its Own Good

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:53:14 GMT

I'm sorry, but there is nothing "progressive" about using a holiday (which, like it or not, does have *spiritual* significance for many) as an excuse to provoke political adversaries and solicit money for the joy of doing so.  In fact, *it is completely contrary* to the spirit of the season. There are millions of people who need our help, who are out of work, who are losing their homes, and you're trying to pocket $5 donations just to do something spiteful?  

I am disappointed in this action on your part.  You should know better. This is something Glenn Beck would do. I will henceforth think twice before blogging on your behalf or supporting you in the future.

Sincerely,
Christine Bush
Mountain View, California

Dear friend,

Remember when Glenn Beck said President Obama had "a deep-seated hatred of white people?" Or when he told Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, that he felt like asking him "to prove he was not working with our enemies?" Yeah. Well, there is one bright spot in all of his rantings - it's a reminder of what we're up against. Right wingers like Glenn Beck will do and say ANYTHING to get what they want. I don't know about you, but every time he opens his mouth, I feel inspired to do a little more, work a little harder for the progressive causes you and I both care about.

So we were thinking about sending Glenn a special holiday message - and I'm inviting you to sign onto it.

Dear Glenn- I just wanted to say thanks for a year filled with your hatemongering, your hissy fits, and your misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist remarks. Every time we forget for even a moment how important our work is, you are right there to remind us. Thanks for the inspiration - it keeps me motivated to fight for all the people and progressive causes I believe in! Sincerely, A proud supporter of Progressive Majority

We're asking all of our supporters to send an end of year gift of $5 or more to Progressive Majority in honor of Glenn. He would probably hate you for it - but who doesn't he hate? Click here to make a donation of Glenn today!

Thanks,

Gloria A. Totten President Progressive Majority

Democracy Now! Season's Greetings & Year End Appeal

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 23:03:24 GMT

Support Democracy Now!

Congrats to MTT + SFS

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:05:19 GMT

Press Release
Source: http://community.sfsymphony.org/profiles/blogs/san-francisco-symphonys-mahler

THE SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY AND MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS’ RECORDING OF MAHLER’S SYMPHONY NO. 8 AND ADAGIO FROM SYMPHONY NO. 10 RECEIVES THREE GRAMMY® AWARD NOMINATIONS

The Latest Release in Ongoing Mahler Cycle Nominated For Best Classical Album, Best Choral Performance, and Best Engineered Classical Album in the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards

SAN FRANCISCO, December 2, 2009 –The San Francisco Symphony’s (SFS) live concert recording of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 and the Adagio from Symphony No. 10 conducted by Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) received three Grammy® Award nominations today in the categories of Best Classical Album, Best Choral Performance and Best Engineered Classical Album. This recording is the latest release in the ongoing Mahler recording cycle for the orchestra’s own SFS Media label. Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 in E flat major, Symphony of a Thousand, was recorded live in Davies Symphony Hall November 19, 21, 22 and 23, 2008 and features performances by sopranos Erin Wall, Elza van den Heever, and Laura Claycomb; mezzo-sopranos Katarina Karnéus and Yvonne Naef; tenor Anthony Dean Griffey; baritone Quinn Kelsey; and bass-baritone James Morris. The San Francisco Symphony Chorus under the direction of Ragnar Bohlin is featured on the recording as well as the San Francisco Girls Chorus and the Pacific Boychoir. The Adagio from Symphony No. 10 which opens this two-disc set was recorded April 6-8, 2006. A short video with behind the scenes footage and insights from the recording can be viewed here: “A Universe of Sound: Recording Mahler’s Symphony No. 8.”. The 52nd annual Grammy Awards will be held in Los Angeles on Sunday, January 31, 2010.

With these three nominations the SFS’s Mahler cycle has now received a total of nine Grammy nominations and four Grammy awards to date. The first recording, Mahler’s Symphony No. 6, was released in February 2002 and won the Grammy for Best Orchestral Performance of 2005 and was also nominated for Best Classical Album. Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 and Kindertotenlieder, featuring mezzo-soprano Michelle De Young, the women of the SFS Chorus, the San Francisco Girls Chorus and the Pacific Boy Choir won Best Classical Album in 2003, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, with soprano Laura Claycomb, was nominated for Best Surround Sound Album in 2004. Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 won Best Classical Album and Best Orchestral Performance in 2007.

Since the Mahler recording project began in 2001, the San Francisco Symphony has recorded all of the Mahler symphonies, the Adagio from the unfinished Tenth Symphony, Kindertotenlieder and Das Lied von der Erde and released a re-mastered recording of Das klagende Lied. Additional works still to be released include Mahler’s Rückert Lieder, Songs Of A Wayfarer (Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen) and selected songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. All of the new SFS/MTT Mahler symphony recordings were produced by Andreas Neubronner and have entered the top ten of the Billboard Classical Chart.

Michael Tilson Thomas has distinguished himself as one of the world’s foremost Mahler interpreters, and through his signature performances, as one of the composer’s most compelling advocates. In 1974, at the age of 29, he made his SFS debut conducting Mahler’s Symphony No. 9. Now in his fifteenth season as Music Director, he and the SFS have formed an orchestral partnership acclaimed for their interpretations of the music of Mahler as well as for innovation and artistic excellence.

For more information about this and other Grammy nominations visit www.grammy.com.

MAHLER / SYMPHONY NO. 8 AND ADAGIO FROM SYMPHONY NO. 10

SFS Media 821936-0021-2
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor
San Francisco Symphony
Symphony No. 8 Recorded live in concert November 19, 21, 22 and 23, 2008 in Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, California
Adagio from Symphony No.10 recorded live in concert April 6-8, 2006 in Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, California

Distribution:
Harmonia Mundi (North America excluding Canada)
SRI Canada (Canada)
Avie (International)
Online: sfsymphony.org/store
MP3: iTunes, Rhapsody and eMusic and others.

Wikipedia

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 05:58:39 GMT

"I share what I know, I find what I need, and I trust what I find at Wikipedia."
Christine Bush

Democratic majority doesn't necessarily mean a progressive majority

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:57:56 GMT

Dear friend,
This week, as Democrats worked to pass healthcare reform, we were reminded once again that a Democratic majority doesn't necessarily mean a progressive majority.
Members of Congress voted to include an anti-choice amendment to the health insurance reform bill. If it holds, it will restrict women's access to abortion coverage, even if they want to pay for most of the premium with their own money. It imposes new restrictions on abortion coverage and takes away benefits that women currently have.
Why'd it pass? Because, we may have an overwhelming Democratic majority in the Congress, but it's not a progressive majority.
What happened this week in Congress makes our work more important than ever. There isn't a progressive majority in Washington, DC -- we must have state and local elected officials who will protect our rights. They are our firewall against these kinds of attacks.
Please support Progressive Majority's 2010 candidates with a contribution of $25, $50, $100 or more so that we can elect more pro-choice leaders in the states.
This summer, thanks to a newly elected progressive majority in 2008, the Wisconsin legislature was finally able to pass prescription protection to ensure that pharmacists may not deny women birth control, and contraceptive equity, requiring all health insurance companies in Wisconsin to cover birth control.This is just one example of how Progressive Majority candidates are making an impact.
Since 2004, we have helped elect 375 progressives to office. They are making a difference in our communities every day. Like they did in Wisconsin, they're passing laws we can't get passed in Congress. And they're putting state regulations in place to help soften the blow when Congress gets it wrong, like they did this week.
We have 149 candidates gearing up to run for office in 2010 and we're just getting started. Your support means more now than it ever has. Click here to support Progressive Majority's 2010 candidates.
Thanks so much for your commitment to progressive, pro-choice candidates!

Sincerely,

Gloria A. Totten
President
Progressive Majority

Help Us Build a Progressive Majority: We're building a progressive network of candidates, activists and friends. Tell five friends about Progressive Majority's work and email list and help us build the movement across the country!
Support Progressive Majority: Progressive Majority is on the ground, working with progressive candidates and campaigns to make sure they have the skills and knowledge to win! Your support of Progressive Majority can make all the difference in ensuring we have qualified candidates running for office.

Contributions and gifts to Progressive Majority are not tax deductible. Contributions to Progressive Majority may be used to support our state and local political activities. Contributions from foreign nationals are prohibited. Paid for by Progressive Majority, 1825 K Street NW, Suite 450, Washington, DC 20006.

Putting Intelligence Back In The Airwaves?

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:52:18 GMT

Source: http://www.wun.ac.uk/view.php?id=6032

Press release Mar 20, 2009 David Garner, University of York

‘Thinking’ radio points way to communication future

An international consortium, led by the University of York, is aiming to revolutionise communications systems by giving them artificial intelligence.

A research group, established by the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN), wants to help to realise the full potential of wireless communications devices through more flexible regulation and use of the radio spectrum.

WUN is providing logistical and financial support to the Cognitive Communications (CogCom) group which includes 21 academic and industrial partners. WUN CogCom will look at novel ways to significantly enhance the capability of wireless devices to access the radio spectrum and form networks.

The consortium set out its objectives at a two-day workshop at the University of York. It intends to play a leading role in influencing future research and policy in the Cognitive Communications.

The multi-disciplinary WUN Research Project will bring together wireless communications, distributed artificial intelligence, applied electromagnetics, and implementation.

Dr David Grace, of the University of York’s Department of Electronics, who chairs the consortium, said: “Communications devices are more sophisticated than ever, and many rely on wireless connections. But the systems have become so complex that conventional approaches to organisation, implementation and regulation are increasingly inadequate

“This is particularly true with the radio spectrum, where inadequate command and control regulation, and conventional technical understanding – can mean that up to 90 per cent of the radio spectrum remains idle in any one geographical location.

“The rapid improvements in functionality will come to an end if standard approaches to communications delivery are not radically updated. This presents a global challenge not only for device manufacture, software and firmware, but also because of the need for changes to radio regulation, business models and economics.

“The key to the next revolution in communications delivery is the application of distributed artificial intelligence (i.e. cognition) to communications devices.”

Two fields of study are already emerging: cognitive radio, which deals with the intelligent assignment and use of the radio spectrum; and cognitive networking, which deals with the intelligent routing of information through a network, taking into account local constraints. WUN CogCom will also examine how to develop smarter and greener systems.

The consortium’s next meeting is scheduled for Hannover, Germany in June.

National Rifle Association is gunning for condor

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:20:20 GMT

The National Rifle Association is gunning for America's largest and most endangered bird -- the condor.

Calling us "extremists" for trying to stop the poisoning of condors by lead bullets -- inside a federal national monument, no less -- the NRA is pitting its multimillion-dollar legal team against our lawyers in a showdown that will determine whether condors survive or disappear forever.

Please help us win this critical battle to save the condor -- give to our Condor Legal Defense Fund today. We need to raise $50,000 by November 20 to defeat the NRA.

Twenty-five condors have already died a slow, painful death from feeding on deer and other animals killed with lead bullets. The lead enters their bloodstream, causing the digestive system to shut down until the great birds starve to death. Those that survive have to go through painful blood transfusions…many only to be poisoned again as soon as they return to the wild.

The situation is so bad that top condor scientists just issued a warning:

"The condor recovery program has reached a crossroads…Lead poisoning resulting from ingestion of spent ammunition in carcasses is so severe and chronic...that condor recovery cannot be achieved so long as such lead exposure continues."

To stop the killing, the Center for Biological Diversity's legal team has filed a lawsuit to ban hunting with lead bullets on federal lands surrounding the Grand Canyon. With steel and copper bullets readily available, there is simply no reason to poison endangered species -- or any animal -- with lead.

The NRA, however, has marshaled its vast resources to keep the lead bullets flying, no matter how many condors are killed.

With your generous donation to the Condor Legal Defense Fund, we'll beat back the NRA, ban lead bullets, and give condors a fighting chance.

$50,000 isn't much compared to the NRA's millions, but if we raise it by November 20, it will put us over the top and ensure the end of lead poisoning and a new lease on life for condors.

Thanks so much,

Kierán Suckling
Executive Director
Center for Biological Diversity

P.S. Our legal team is also preparing a motion to stop the largest development in California's history in order to save the condor. The TAREX Corporation plans to destroy 19,000 acres of a federally designated condor preserve on Tejon Ranch to build luxury homes and golf courses. Please help us stop the country's most horrific example of sprawl by donating to the Condor Legal Defense Fund today.

Condor photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons/Chuck Szmurlo under the GNU free documentation license.

Why the Star needs its own editors

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:45:22 GMT

Building Bridges/WBAI Looks At Obama Administration Treatment of Undocumented Workers in the US

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:57:44 GMT

Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report
National Edition
Produced by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg
**************************************
Obama Continues Bush Policy Towards Undocumented, Lock Them Up & Throw Away The Key with Families in sanctuary & supporters of the New Sanctuary Movement

The Obama administration has continued the Bush's enforcement-only approach to immigration, leading to the imprisonment and deportation of countless family members, many with no criminal record, leaving the deportees’ families abandoned. A national gathering of the new sanctuary movement under the banner “celebrate & defend community without borders” brought that message and their protest to the Varick Street Detention Center in New York City.

**********
Rethinking Afghanistan
By Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films

Testimony of Rick Reyes, a member of Iraq Veterans against the War to the Senate foreign relations committee April 2009 that the Afghanistan war must end.

Listen: http://www.archive.org/details/ImmigrantDetentionUnderObama

National Conference To Create Living-Wage Jobs For All in NYC on 2009/11/13-14

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:45:27 GMT

My SaveTheNews.org FTC Public Comment Submissions

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:35:12 GMT

1. How is the Internet changing the way you consume news and information? (How has it affected your ability to access high-quality local, national and international news? Will greater competition among media outlets support new forms of journalism?)

The internet IS the way I consume news and information. We became so frustrated with the abuse of public airwaves by corporate broadcast licensees that we threw away our television set five years ago. We do not miss it.

I pay good money for online access to newspapers and media and try to support the important work of programs actually doing the work of journalism like Democracy Now!

Without the internet, there would be no access to quality news.

2. How has cost-cutting by news organizations affected your access to quality journalism and reporting? (What types of news stories receive less coverage than they used to? What are the long-term consequences of media consolidation for consumers and citizens?)

Cost cutting? You mean the wholesale disenfranchisement of the newspaper industry so that a handful of moguls can continue to throw irrationally high profit margins at their stockholders? Oh that. Well, that has ruined just about everything.

Cost cutting? You mean the continued cycle of consolidation of broadcast outlets so that I can count on one hand the number of companies controlling the news cycle? Oh that. That is a failure by the FTC to do their job. It is a crime against democracy being rewarded instead of punished.

Quality journalism is now the exception to the rule. I don't even think most pieces are double checked for grammatical errors any more, never mind for the presence of content.

3. What government polices are needed to ensure that communities have access to the kind of high-quality journalism they need? (Examples include changes in media ownership laws, funding for public media, tax codes, Internet policy or other media laws and policies.)

I would like to see the public airwaves returned to the public. Period. Strip the moguls of their licenses and subject license holders to scrutiny on an annual basis. Broadcasters should be serving their listeners first, not their advertisers and certainly not their stockholders.

Put Bob McChesney in charge of the FTC. [Correction: put him in charge of the FCC.]

4. How can the government support new forms of journalistic innovation and entrepreneurship? (Should the government invest in journalism the way it does in sectors like technology, medicine and defense?)

The government should be regulating licenses and producing content for the airwaves, not subsidizing corporations under the guise of "innovation". The government should be slapping Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs and others who abuse the public airwaves with their hate filled diatribes with extraordinary fines and censure. Also, the government should be directly subsidizing and funding journalists themselves. (See my response to question 5.) We can pay soldiers and paramilitary contractors to carry guns in foreign countries, but we won't support journalists working at home?

5. Every year, public media organizations like NPR and PBS struggle to retain funding. How should the federal government tackle this problem? (How might public media help address some of the problems facing commercial journalism? Should there be more public funding to support journalists?)

NPR and PBS are stale, old, embittered ideas. They should be staffed by a constantly changing base of young journalism students who receive educational credits and grants for contributing to NPR or PBS for two years before being accredited to work at a commercial licensee. Put Robert Siegel, Ann Taylor and Cokie Roberts out to pasture already!

The government should be supporting journalists, not the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:14:45 GMT

SaveTheNews.org, a project of Free Press, is leading the search for new public policies to support quality journalism and ensure that communities get the news they need. Learn More »

Why Does the News Matter to You?

The Federal Trade Commission is investigating the crisis in journalism — and they need to hear from you by Friday, Nov. 6, 2009.

If the public doesn't weigh in now, the loudest voices will be the Big Media lobbyists and corporate execs who got us into this mess.

We've created a quick survey to make it easy for you to participate.

Tell the FTC What You Need from the News

The FTC is accepting public comments now in preparation for a two-day summit in December on the future of news.

We know Big Media will be there, pushing for more mergers and consolidation. Their lobbyists want to relax antitrust laws so they can fix prices and prop up old business models at the expense of innovation and good jobs for journalists.

We don’t need more of the same bad policies. We do need to invest in more public interest journalism, support promising new media models, protect the First Amendment, and encourage diverse voices online, on the air and in print.

Make Sure the FTC Hears from You

You know better than anyone what cost-cutting and newsroom layoffs have meant for your community: less quality news and fewer watchdogs.

The FTC needs to hear your ideas for saving the news. And we need to act quickly — the public comment period ends Friday, Nov. 6.

Thanks for your help,

Josh Stearns
Program Manager
Free Press & SaveTheNews.org

Silicon Valley Tells US Chambers of Commerce To Clean Up Their Act

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:56:42 GMT

Columbus Day

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:26:14 GMT

The Myth of "America"

Monday 12 October 2009

by: Dahr Jamail and Jason Coppola, t r u t h o u t | Feature

To read story with photo click here

Happy Columbus Day

Columbus sailed the ocean blue in Fourteen Hundred and Ninety Two ...

May the spirit of adventure and discovery always be with you.

Wishing you a great Columbus Day

- Columbus Day greeting card

To mark Columbus Day In 2004, the Medieval and Renaissance Center in UCLA published the final volume of a compendium of Columbus-era documents. Its general editor, Geoffrey Symcox, leaves little room for ambivalence when he says, "This is not your grandfather's Columbus.... While giving the brilliant mariner his due, the collection portrays Columbus as an unrelenting social climber and self-promoter who stopped at nothing - not even exploitation, slavery, or twisting biblical scripture - to advance his ambitions.... Many of the unflattering documents have been known for the last century or more, but nobody paid much attention to them until recently. The fact that Columbus brought slavery, enormous exploitation or devastating diseases to the Americas used to be seen as a minor detail - if it was recognized at all - in light of his role as the great bringer of white man's civilization to the benighted idolatrous American continent. But to historians today this information is very important. It changes our whole view of the enterprise."

But does it?

****

"They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells," Christopher Columbus wrote in his logbook in 1495. "They willingly traded everything they owned.... They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane.... They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want. Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold."

Catholic priest Bartolome de las Casas, in the multi-volume "History of the Indies" published in 1875, wrote, "... Slaves were the primary source of income for the Admiral (Columbus) with that income he intended to repay the money the Kings were spending in support of Spaniards on the Island. They provide profit and income to the Kings. (The Spaniards were driven by) insatiable greed ... killing, terrorizing, afflicting, and torturing the native peoples ... with the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty."

This systematic violence was aimed at preventing "Indians from daring to think of themselves as human beings. (The Spaniards) thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades.... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write."

Father Fray Antonio de Montesino, a Dominican preacher, in December 1511 said this in a sermon that implicated Christopher Columbus and the colonists in the genocide of the native peoples:

"Tell me by what right of justice do you hold these Indians in such a cruel and horrible servitude? On what authority have you waged such detestable wars against these people who dealt quietly and peacefully on their own lands? Wars in which you have destroyed such an infinite number of them by homicides and slaughters never heard of before ..."

In 1892, the National Council of Churches, the largest ecumenical body in the United States, is known to have exhorted Christians to refrain from celebrating the Columbus quincentennial, saying, "What represented newness of freedom, hope, and opportunity for some was the occasion for oppression, degradation and genocide for others."

Yet America continues to celebrate "Columbus Day."

That Americans do so in the face of all evidence that there is little in the Columbian legacy that merits applause makes it easier for them to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions, or the actions of their government. Perhaps there is good reason.

***

In "Columbus Day: A Clash of Myth and History," journalist and media critic Norman Solomon discusses how historians who deal with recorded evidence are frequently depicted as "politically correct" revisionists while the general populace is manipulated into holding onto myths that brazenly applaud inconceivable acts of violence of men against fellow humans.

For those of us who are willing to ask how it becomes possible to manipulate the population of a country into accepting atrocity, the answer is not hard to find. It requires normalizing the inconceivable and drumming it in via the socio-cultural environment until it is internalized and embedded in the individual and collective consciousness. The combined or singular deployment of the media, the entertainment industry, mainstream education or any other agency, can achieve the desired result of convincing people that wars can be just, and strikes can be surgical, as long as it is the US that is doing it.

Never has this process been as blatant and overt as in recent years when the time has come for America to legitimize the idea of global domination. A Department of Defense report titled Joint Vision 2020 calls for the US military to be capable of "full spectrum dominance" of the entire planet. That means total domination and control of all land, sea, air, space and information.

That's a lot of control.

How might this become accepted as "Policy" and remain unquestioned by almost an entire population?

The one word key to that is: Myths. The explanation is that the myths the United States is built upon have paved the way for the perpetuation of all manner of violations.

Among the first of these is that of Christopher Columbus. In school we were taught of his bravery, courage and perseverance. In a speech in 1989, George H.W. Bush proclaimed: "Christopher Columbus not only opened the door to a New World, but also set an example for us all by showing what monumental feats can be accomplished through perseverance and faith."

Never mind that the monumental feats mainly comprised part butchery, part exploitation and the largest part betrayal of host populations of the "New World."

***

On their second arrival in Hispaniola, Haiti, Columbus's crew took captive roughly two thousand local villagers who had arrived to greet them. Miguel Cuneo, a literate crew member, wrote, "When our caravels ... were to leave for Spain, we gathered ... one thousand six hundred male and female persons of those Indians, and these we embarked in our caravels on February 17, 1495.... For those who remained, we let it be known (to the Spaniards who manned the island's fort) in the vicinity that anyone who wanted to take some of them could do so, to the amount desired, which was done."

In 1500, Columbus wrote to a friend, "A hundred castellanoes (a Spanish coin) are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten (years old) are now in demand."

Such original "monumental feats" as were accomplished by our nation's heroes and role models were somewhat primitive. Local inhabitants who resisted Columbus and his crew had their ears or nose cut off, were attacked by dogs, skewered with pikes and shot. Reprisals were so severe that many of the natives committed mass suicide and women began practicing abortions in order not to leave children enslaved. The population of Haiti at the time of Columbus's arrival was between 1.5 million and 3 million. Sixty years later, every single native had been murdered.

Today, "perseverance and faith" allow us to accomplish much more and with far greater impunity. The US continues to liberate Iraq and Afghanistan with 2,000-pound bombs in civilian areas and purge Pakistan via drone attacks on weddings.

Neither case is of isolated whimsy. It was and remains policy.

In "A People's History of the United States," celebrated historian Howard Zinn describes how Arawak men and women emerged from their villages to greet their guests with food, water and gifts when Columbus landed at the Bahamas. But Columbus wanted something else. "Gold is most excellent; gold constitutes treasure; and he who has it does all he wants in the world, and can even lift souls up to Paradise," he wrote to the king and queen of Spain in 1503.

Rather than gold, however, Columbus only found slaves when he arrived on his second visit with seventeen ships and over 1,200 men. Ravaging various Caribbean islands, Columbus took natives as captives as he sailed. Of these he picked 500 of the best specimens and shipped them back to Spain. Two hundred of these died en route, while the survivors were put up for sale by the archdeacon of the town where they landed.

Columbus needed more than mere slaves to sell, and Zinn's account informs us, "... desperate to pay back dividends to those who had invested, (he) had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.

"The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed."

As a younger priest, the aforementioned De las Casas had participated in the conquest of Cuba and owned a plantation where natives worked as slaves before he found his conscience and gave it up. His first-person accounts reveal that the Spaniards "thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades. They forced their way into native settlements, slaughtering everyone they found there, including small children, old men, pregnant women, and even women who had just given birth. They hacked them to pieces, slicing open their bellies with their swords as though they were sheep herded into a pen. They even laid wagers on whether they could manage to slice a man in two at a stroke, or cut an individual's head from his body, or disembowel him with a single blow of their axes. They grabbed suckling infants by the feet and, ripping them from their mothers' breasts, dashed them headlong against the rocks. Others, laughing and joking all the while, threw them over their shoulders into a river, shouting: 'Wriggle, you litle perisher.' They slaughtered anyone on their path ..."

***

Full Spectrum Dominance

In a letter to the Spanish court dated February 15, 1492, Columbus presented his version of full spectrum dominance: "to conquer the world, spread the Christian faith and regain the Holy Land and the Temple Mount."

With this radical ideology, Las Casas records, "They spared no one, erecting especially wide gibbets on which they could string their victims up with their feet just off the ground and then burned them alive thirteen at a time, in honour of our Saviour and the twelve Apostles."

About incorporating these accounts in his book, Zinn explained to Truthout, "My point is not to grieve for the victims and denounce the executioners. Those tears, that anger, cast into the past, deplete our moral energy for the present ... but I do remember a statement I once read: The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don't listen to it, you will never know what justice is."

****

Author journalist Chris Hedges believes that glorification of (the atrocities of) Columbus is one of several myths that sustain the illusions that justify the imperial visions of the United States.

In conversation with Truthout, he said, "It's really easy to build a holocaust museum that condemns Germans. It's another issue to build a museum that confronts our own genocide, the genocide that was perpetrated by our own ancestors towards Native Americans or towards African-Americans. I am all for documenting and remembering the [World War II] Holocaust, but the disparity between the reality of the [World War II] Holocaust or the reality of the genocide as illustrated in the [World War II] Holocaust museum and the utter historical amnesia in the Native American museum in Washington is really frightening and shows a complete inability in a public arena for us to examine who we are and what we've done."

Noam Chomsky holds a similar view. "We have [World War II] Holocaust museums all over the place about what the Germans did," Chomsky told Truthout. "Do we have one about what we did? I mean about slavery, about the Native American population? It's not that the people involved didn't know about it. John Quincy Adams, a great grand strategist, who had a major role in these atrocities, in his later years when he reflected on them, referred to that hapless race of North Americans, which we are exterminating with such insidious cruelty. They knew exactly what they were doing. But it doesn't matter. It's us."

Explaining how the mythology of a country becomes its historic reality, Chomsky stated, "If you are well-educated, you can internalize that and it. That's part of what a good education is about, enabling people to live with those contradictions. And you see it very consistently. In the case of, say, the Iraq war, try to find somebody who had a principled objection. Actually you can, occasionally, but it's suppressed."

Historical revisionism and amnesia are critical for nation-building, opines Paul Woodward, the writer and author of the blog "War In Context". He elaborates, "Every nation is subject to its own particular form of historical amnesia. Likewise, imperial powers have their own grandiose revisionist tendencies. Yet there is another form of historical denial particular to recently invented nations whose myth-making efforts are inextricably bound together with the process of the nation's birth ...

"Whereas older nations are by and large populated by people whose ancestral roots penetrated that land well before it took on the clear definition of a nation state, the majority of the people in an invented nation - such as the United States or Israel - have ancestry that inevitably leads elsewhere. This exposes the ephemeral link between the peoples' history and the nation's history. Add to that the fact that such nations came into being through grotesque acts of dispossession and it is clear that a psychological drive to hold aloft an atemporal exceptionalism becomes an existential necessity. National security requires that the past be erased."

Robert Jensen is an author and teaches media law, ethics and politics at the University of Texas. In an essay where he justifies his decision to not celebrate Thanksgiving as a holiday, he says, "Imagine that Germany won World War II and that a Nazi regime endured for some decades, eventually giving way to a more liberal state with a softer version of German-supremacist ideology. Imagine that a century later Germans celebrated a holiday offering a whitewashed version of German/Jewish history that ignored that holocaust and the deep anti-Semitism of the culture. Imagine that the holiday provided a welcomed time for families and friends to gather and enjoy food and conversation. Imagine that businesses, schools and government offices closed on this day. What would we say about such a holiday? Would we not question the distortions woven into such a celebration? Would we not demand a more accurate historical account? Would we not, in fact, denounce such a holiday as grotesque?"

Of course we would.

But our story is different, and once again this year, on October 12, we will once again "Hail Columbus."

---------

Bhaswati Sengupta contributed to this report.

** Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches **
** Visit Dahr Jamail's website http://dahrjamailiraq.com **

Dahr Jamail's new book, The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, is now available.

Order the book here http://tinyurl.com/cnlgyu

As one of the first and few unembedded Western journalists to report the truth about how the United States has destroyed, not liberated, Iraqi society in his book Beyond the Green Zone, Jamail now investigates the under-reported but growing antiwar resistance of American GIs. Gathering the stories of these courageous men and women, Jamail shows us that far from "supporting our troops," politicians have betrayed them at every turn. Finally, Jamail shows us that the true heroes of the criminal tragedy of the Iraq War are those brave enough to say no.

Order Beyond the Green Zone
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/bookpage

"International journalism at its best." --Stephen Kinzer, former bureau chief, New York Times; author All the Shah's Men

Winner of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Award for Journalism

Infomercial By Mistake?

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 06:23:44 GMT

Forum Folk: I was disappointed, though not surprised, that you failed to make full disclosure of the fact that calhospitalcompare.org (mentioned repeatedly by one of the guests on your program of Tuesday, August 25, 2009) is a service provided by a regular underwriter of KQED. I'm sure the California Healthcare Foundation appreciated the 30-minute informercial disguised as a segment of Forum. I did not.

CNN Pressures Cable Outlets To Censor Media Matters Ad Campaign

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:54:57 GMT

	August 5, 2009

Dear Christine,

Thanks to your help, our ad on CNN's Dobbs problem has ignited a firestorm. The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, the LA Times, and several other major outlets have reported on our ad campaign. In less than 48 hours, the ad has been viewed by more than 135,000 people on YouTube, and Bill O'Reilly aired it on his show in order to attack Media Matters. Unfortunately, CNN, having already allowed one of its premier hosts to promote racially charged conspiracy conspiracies, is now attempting to duck accountability by declining to run the ad on its network.

Yesterday, Washington Post Co. blogger Greg Sargent reported that he was told by a CNN source that "the network privately pressed cable operators not to run the Media Matters ad attacking Dobbs." CNN's attempt to prevent criticism of the network from running on its airwaves is unethical, underhanded, and, quite frankly, unacceptable. Let's keep the pressure on and make sure the ad runs as many times as possible on Fox News and MSNBC. Watch the ad and please make a donation today:

mediamatters.org/dobbsadcampaign

CNN's attempts to protect one of its premiere hosts from being held accountable for his promotion of fringe conspiracy theories have not gone unnoticed. During an appearance on Imus in the Morning yesterday, Dobbs said that "Klein, all of the folks at CNN, are just terrifically supportive ... [I] couldn't ask for more support." As I noted to you in previous emails, Klein's "support" has consisted of dishonestly claiming that Dobbs has merely covered the "phenomenon of the doubters" -- even though Dobbs himself has questioned the validity of President Obama's birth certificate. CNN owes its viewers more.

Help us show CNN that their attempts to duck accountability are not without consequences. Watch the ad and please help us run it as many times as possible:

mediamatters.org/dobbsadcampaign

Thank you for your continued help in holding CNN accountable.

Eric Burns
President,
Media Matters for America

Music Video created using Google SketchUp

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 04:40:48 GMT

Source: http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/2009/07/he-made-music-video-with-sketchup.html

I care whether the public cares

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:50:07 GMT

When Lou Dobbs told 60 Minutes "If we reported it, it's a fact" apparently what he meant was that his opinions are above fact checking. His arrogance has reached a point where he believes his voice creates facts. This is what many refer to as delusional behavior.

I have trouble believing CNN is willing to allow this outrageous betrayal of their responsibilities as a news organization. Lou Dobbs has forfeited his integrity and should be taken off the air, immediately. The most trusted name in news? As long as Mr. Dobbs is on the air, the phrase is meaningless. Perhaps it always was. There is one way to find out: CNN should reality check Mr. Dobbs and take him off the air.

Christine Bush

===================================

July 30, 2009

Tell your friends
Send a message to CNN

A lot has happened since I contacted you last week about Lou Dobbs and his latest racist conspiracy-mongering.

As you recall, we asked you to join our call to CNN to take Dobbs off the airbecause he refuses to stop peddling extremist propaganda in the guise of journalism.

We've had an overwhelming response, and many other organizations are also now demanding that CNN and Dobbs stop mainstreaming hate and extremism. Dobbs has dug in his heels, saying he will continue to raise questions about whether President Obama was really born in the U.S. and therefore eligible to be president. He's even suggested that Obama is an undocumented immigrant.

As I told you, this wild conspiracy theory has been repeatedly and thoroughly debunked by virtually every reputable news organization — even Dobbs' own CNN. Yet Dobbs persists in perpetuating the lie, just as he has for years spread xenophobic falsehoods that demonize Latinos.

This week, I appeared on the "O'Reilly Factor," and Bill O'Reilly told me that we shouldn't take Dobbs seriously, that it's all just about ratings.

But Dobbs is playing a dangerous game. By promoting paranoid conspiracy theories that originate in extremist circles, he's fanning the flames of racism among a segment of society that can't accept a black man in the White House. And we've already seen a wave of violence committed by racial extremists since Obama was elected.

Let me be clear: This issue has nothing to do with Dobbs' First Amendment rights. We're not calling for the government to silence Dobbs. We're simply calling for CNN to exercise responsible editorial judgment.

O'Reilly told me that CNN won't care what the public thinks about Dobbs' irresponsible reporting. I disagree. I think, together, we can make a difference. I want to thank all of you who have joined this call and all who support SPLC's work.

Please help us again by joining our call to take Dobbs off the air— and forward this email to your friends and family members so that we can make our voices ring even louder in CNN's executive offices.

Sincerely,

Richard Cohen
President

Farewell to Lou Dobbs?

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:50:15 GMT

Lou Dobbs

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:56:16 GMT

SPLC President Calls on CNN to Remove Lou Dobbs from Air, Cites Newsman's Support for Extremist-Inspired 'Birther' Claims

The following is a letter from SPLC President Richard Cohen to CNN President Jonathan Klein.

July 24, 2009

Jonathan Klein
President
CNN/U.S.
1 Time Warner Center
New York, N.Y. 10019-6038

Dear Mr. Klein,

As an important and respected news organization, CNN has a special responsibility to ensure the accuracy of its reporting. We have written to you before about our concern that Lou Dobbs repeatedly fails to live up to this standard in his reporting on immigration. Now, Mr. Dobbs is again trading in falsehoods and racist conspiracy theories, questioning President Obama's American citizenship.

On the July 15 edition of "Lou Dobbs Tonight," Mr. Dobbs questioned the official certificate provided by the president and the State of Hawaii and complained that President Obama has not made public the "original document." On his radio program, Mr. Dobbs has repeatedly questioned the president's fitness for office, demanding he "show the documents" and, at one point, jokingly suggesting President Obama may be "undocumented."

The truth about the president's birth is not in dispute. It has been verified by Factcheck.org, among many other serious news organizations, and his official birth documents have been made public. CNN itself has repeatedly reported on the falsity of the claims of the "birthers," and the network's esteemed legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, recently called those claims "a joke." As you know, even Mr. Dobbs' frequent fill-in anchor, Kitty Pilgrim, debunked the birthers on the July 17 edition of Mr. Dobbs' own CNN show. The fact that Mr. Dobbs suggests otherwise on CNN — while real CNN reporters tell the truth — is both deplorable and an embarrassment to all serious journalists.

As he has in several other instances, Mr. Dobbs, in taking up the birthers' claims, is adopting an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that originated on the radical racist right. As Gawker.com has reported, this particular conspiracy theory was first developed by an open anti-Semite and circulated by right-wing extremists who cannot accept the fact that a black man has been elected president of the United States. Among its adherents was neo-Nazi James von Brunn, the alleged murderer of a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., this June. Von Brunn had helped spread the birthers' claims on the Internet and attacked the "dishonest & conspiratorial Media" for not taking them up.

This is not the first time Mr. Dobbs has pushed racist conspiracy theories or defamatory falsehoods about immigrants. We wrote you in 2007 to bring to your attention his utterly false claim that 7,000 new cases of leprosy had appeared in the United States in a recent three-year period, due at least in part to immigrants. (The real number, according to official statistics, was about 400. Mr. Dobbs took his spurious information from the late right-wing extremist, Madeleine Cosman.) In addition, Mr. Dobbs has reported as fact the so-called Aztlan conspiracy, which claims that undocumented Mexican immigrants are part of a plot to "reconquer" the American Southwest. He has suggested there is something to a related conspiracy theory that claims the governments of Mexico, the United States and Canada are secretly planning to merge into the "North American Union." He has falsely claimed that "illegal aliens" fill one third of American prison and jail cells. And Mr. Dobbs has routinely disparaged, on CNN's air, those who have had the integrity to point out the falsity of these and similar claims.

Respectable news organizations should not employ reporters willing to peddle racist conspiracy theories and false propaganda. It's time for CNN to remove Mr. Dobbs from the airwaves.

Sincerely,
J. Richard Cohen
President

Airline Indifference Takes One On The Chin While Guitar Maker Shines

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:02:32 GMT

Lawrence Lessig for Change-Congress.org

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:57:20 GMT

The (New and Improved Digital) Nation

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:59:30 GMT

AMERICAN-FM completely endorses the important progressive journalism of The Nation magazine.

Thanks for your support, too!

Cheers,
Christine Bush

Dear Nation Friend:

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The Nation's new and improved electronic edition is now available for a full year (47 issues) at the introductory price of just $18. It even includes a PDF version that looks exactly like the printed copy, and we send an e-mail with a link as soon as we post each new weekly issue.

In this era of rapid change and information overload, our electronic edition is the best way to keep up with the award-winning analysis and investigative reporting that explains the meaning underlying the news.The electronic edition includes fully searchable access to every weekly article, editorial and review we've ever published (since 1865) at no additional charge.

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If our electronic edition is the right choice for you, I like saving the paper and printing costs. It allows me to better manage our extremely limited resources in these difficult financial times -- so The Nation can continue delivering news we're all getting less of from other sources as a result of the crisis afflicting corporate-funded newspapers and magazines.

Click here to order an electronic (digital) edition of The Nationtoday!

Sincerely,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor and Publisher

PBS v. The State of Reality

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:04:35 GMT

My friend and ephemeral archivist, Rick Prelinger, has posted an interesting consideration of interest to all of us concerned about the dumbing down of public broadcasting.

"Of course, there's nothing wrong with storytelling, whatever it may be, and not all stories are bad. What's wrong is the assumption, which has become not only pervasive but compulsory, that documentaries need characters, that the narrative arc must reign supreme, and that we're obliged to show people wrestling with and resolving problems. I've sat with PBS gatekeepers and heard them refer to programs as "stories," not films or shows. Ultimately this insults potential audiences by assuming they're only able to ingest a limited narrative menu. Is it really true that, when it comes to media, 'the best surprise is no surprise?' "

For more:

http://blackoystercatcher.blogspot.com/2009/06/taking-history-back-from-storytellers.html

A Report On ReportingOn Project by Ryan Sholin

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:30:29 GMT