This Week: ANOTHER Stroll Through the News With Nygaard!

Quote of the Week

Consumer "Choice," 10,000 Needless Deaths

"Reporters Reluctant to Criticize the Military"

There's Always Room For Tax Cuts!
This "May" Be Propaganda

Greetings,

Another Stroll Through the News With Nygaard!  When will it end?!

I'm not telling.

Nygaard

"Quote" of the Week:

This is from an editorial in the June 26th U.S. News and World Report by David Gergen:

"At the moment, the political world is transfixed by the revival of the Bush presidency -- and it is indeed a good story. Team Bush is on a roll, winning a string of victories."

Did I miss something?

Consumer "Choice," 10,000 Needless Deaths

Digging through the "Business" pages of the newspapers, as I always do, I found a remarkable article in the June 13th New York Times (All The News That's Fit To Print!) with the headline, "Electronic Stability Control Could Cut Highway Fatalities by 10,000."

Here's the lead paragraph, which sort of says it all:

"As many as 10,000 fatal highway crashes could be prevented each year if all vehicles were equipped with technology that helps drivers maintain control at high speeds and on slippery roads, a new study shows.  The technology, called electronic stability control, applies the brakes to individual wheels or cuts back the engine power when sensors detect the vehicle is beginning to spin or skid." 

The study was released by the  Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

This technology, the Times reports, "was developed in the 1990's, but only in the last few years have automakers been including it on many of their vehicles."  Now it is offered on "just over half" of new cars but "few car shoppers select" the life-saving option.  A Nissan dealer, according to the Times, claims that "Many shoppers simply view it as an add-on that they can do without to keep the vehicle's price down."  It costs between $300 and $800, which is between 1 and 3 percent of the price of the average new car.  The Nissan dealer adds that "A lot of people don't ask about it.  I don't think many even know what it is."

How would "people" come to "know what it is," one wonders.  By reading the Business section?  And, although it would limit these car buyers' "choices," there is the option of making it mandatory to put this technology in all new cars.  Would 10,000 lives saved be worth it?

"Reporters Reluctant to Criticize the Military"

On June 10 three people committed suicide after having been held for over four years in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  A few days later three newspaper reporters and a photographer were banished from the island by the U.S. military.  The reasons were unclear, but the story certainly has the aura of direct government censorship about it.

Remarkably, the story has gone almost unnoticed in the U.S. media, despite having the following seemingly-newsworthy elements: A) It's about press freedom; B) It's about war; C) It's about international law, and; D) It involves three major newspapers (the LA Times, the Miami Herald and the Charlotte, NC Observer).

The NY Times did have a story, but it was reported five days after the expulsions, and was relegated to page 3 of the Business Section (!).  It had a few interesting comments about the reality of reporting from the most famous of the U.S.'s detention centers.  I'll just present three of them here:

1.  "Reporters who visit Guantanamo are usually reluctant to criticize the military publicly because it controls their access to the base.  Once there, reporters are paired with 'minders,' who organize and restrict their movements and escort them around the grounds."

2.  "Rick Thames, the editor of The Charlotte Observer, said the Pentagon was unhappy with articles Mr. Gordon [one of the banished reporters] had filed..."

3.  Mr. Thames added "We can't be certain, but we believe the Pentagon was uneasy with close-up access to the operations of the prison at a time of crisis."

The system at Guantanamo, then, in summary:

1.  The military is given direct control over reporters;

2.  Reporters then censor themselves, for the most part, since they can't afford to alienate their "minders;"

3.  If reporters look like they might not censor themselves sufficiently, then you kick them out!

One would think this sort of direct control of the media would bother the media.  Wouldn't one?

Postscript:

Note the following comment, which appeared in a story about supposed claims of a presence of Al-Qaeda operatives in a training camp in Somalia run by the Islamists who now are in control of affairs there: "[The Islamist leader Ahmed] agreed to a request to visit the [training camp], but a spokesman later told the Associated Press that Ahmed would have to accompany journalists and the tour could only occur after the militiamen in the camp were notified."

The reporter in this case assumed, and rightly so, that reporting under these conditions would be less than credible.  Now recall that, at Guantanamo, "the reporters who visit ... are paired with 'minders,' who organize and restrict their movements and escort them around the grounds."  Any reports filed under these conditions should be judged just as credible as the reports from the Somalian training camps.

There's Always Room For Tax Cuts!

You don't really see the word "ideology" in the headlines too much, so I took note when the headline on the front page of the NY Times on June 7th read: "Senate Emphasis on Ideology Has Some in G.O.P. Anxious."  Unfortunately, the article wasn't very interesting, as it was mostly about the infighting among Republicans about how much time to spend on the "ideologically charged topics" of same-sex marriage and "flag desecration."
While the article -- at the top of the front page on this Wednesday -- wasn't very interesting in terms of what it actually said, it became quite interesting as soon as I began to read between the lines.  The most telling line was when the Times claimed that, among the "multiple reasons why Congress is taking up the issues now," the very first one is that "The legislative calendar is relatively thin" at the moment.

Relatively thin, you say?  Now, THERE is a headline for you: "Nation In Midst of War, Facing Multiple Crises, Including Health Care, Budget and Trade Deficits, Environment, Electoral Fraud, and More: Congress Addresses None of It."

The Times' priorities were further revealed elsewhere in that day's paper, with a pair of articles in the Business Section.  On the front page of that section was another article about Republican infighting, headlined "Estate Tax Showdown Is Splitting The G.O.P."  A story buried on page 8 in the same section, meanwhile, was headlined "A Boon for the Richest In an Estate Tax Repeal."  That article led off with the words, "Repealing the estate tax, which applies to large fortunes after death, would save a lot of money for a very few people--about one in 6,000, whose estates would each save an average of more than $800,000."

The Times reporter added that "The Senate is expected to vote as early as Thursday on whether to repeal the estate tax permanently..."

What was that, again, about the legislative calendar being "thin?"  Hey, there's always room for tax cuts for the wealthy!

This "May" Be Propaganda

Q: When are mindless speculation and anonymous accusations considered "news?"

A: When they are propaganda from official sources!

As in the following two examples...

Example #1: Somalia

"Al-Qaida Link Possible in Somalia."  This was the headline of an Associated Press story that appeared in the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) on June 25th.  Note here the presence of Propaganda Red Flag #1: The word "possible."  Of course an Al-Qaida link is "possible."  That is called "speculation," and normally, one hopes, would not qualify as news.

I read the entire article, searching for a fact or two to support the "possible" link. There was not a fact to be found.  Here's a list of the words and phrases used to convey the "information" in the article:

The sub-headline that accompanies the "possible" headline states that "the new leader [of Somalia] ... reportedly has ties to Osama bin Laden."  Who "reported" this?  The U.S. State Department.  Based on what evidence?  The report never gives any evidence.

In the second paragraph we read that "the Bush administration says [the new leader] was an associate of Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s."  Well, first of all, that was a long time ago, so of questionable relevance to anything.  And, as for evidence to support this incendiary claim, none is offered.

Later on: "U.S. officials have accused the Islamists of harboring al-Qaida leaders..."  Evidence?  None.

Now, don't get me wrong.  It's possible that Al-Qaeda is operating in Somalia.  But this article has no evidence--beyond claims by official and/or anonymous sources--to back up the claim.  This is not "news."  Why is it in the newspaper?

Example #2: Venezuela

Here's another headline from the Star Tribune, this time from June 26th: "Venezuelan Partnership With Iran Questioned: U.S. Officials Worry Iran May Be Exporting Terrorists into the South American Country, Giving it a Base Closer to U.S. Shores."

There's another Propaganda Red Flag: this time it's the word "may."  Of course Iran "may" be "exporting terrorists."  But, again, there is no evidence produced to support this supercharged claim.

The first thing mentioned in the article is a tractor factory, which is a joint project between Iran and Venezuela.  This nefarious project "is one of the signs of Iran's growing presence in Venezuela..." along with future plans for "a bus factory and a cement plant."   This "presence," says the Times, "is being monitored by a U.S. government on alert for any evidence that Iran may be exporting terrorism."

Now, it may seem like it's quite a leap from making tractors and buses to "evidence" of "exporting terrorism" but, as the Times accurately reports, "Such evidence would come in handy to the United States..."  The U.S., you see, is currently engaged in a "pull-out-the-stops campaign to prevent Venezuela from securing the rotating Latin American seat on the United Nations Security Council."  The reason given for this campaign is that the U.S. "has said Venezuela would be a 'disruptive' and 'non-consensus-seeking' force on the Security Council."

Consensus, you say?  Disruptive, you say?  Since the article brings up those charges, it should perhaps have pointed out that, over the past 20 years, the U.S. has vetoed far more Security Council resolutions than any country on the Security Council, permanent or rotating.  "In fact," the London Guardian reported in 2003, "every veto since 2000 has been cast by the U.S."

The article does say (in paragraph 13) that "U.S. officials acknowledge that there is no evidence of [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez engaging directly in terrorism."

Yet the reporter feels compelled to bring up the Lebanese group Hezbollah, pointing out that the group has been "labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. and Israel."  He then cites some mysterious and unnamed "U.S. government sources" who "note that Iranian embassies have funded, accommodated and, in some cases, housed Hezbollah operations."  Why he mentions this when he also states that the U.S. government "has no proof that Hezbollah ... has set up operations in Venezuela" is, like the identity of the sources cited here, a mystery.

The article, in the end, is nothing but vague innuendo, gleaned from anonymous sources.  Consider:

*  "A U.S. official," who is unnamed, supposedly said that "Iranian embassies and Hezbollah seem to go together."  Do they go together in Venezuela?  No evidence.

* "U.S. officials," again unnamed, "are also worried about whether Iran will share its know-how on jury-rigging U.S.-made jets" for which "the U.S. has refused to give [Venezuela] spare parts.  (Why the U.S. refuses to provide parts is another, very relevant, story.  No time here.)  Any evidence for this odd claim, or even a hint of who these "worried" people may be?  No.

* "U.S. government officials say they are ... watching for nefarious activities."  Who says this? What "nefarious activities"?  We'll never know.

* "Top American officials paint Chavez as sympathetic to terrorists."  They're anonymous, of course, and no evidence is offered.

*  "Western diplomats in the region are clearly uneasy" and "fear the Islamic Republic's designs in the region may not be strictly business."  Who?  Why?  No evidence needed.

There's more, much more, but you get the idea.  Those of us who have been around for a while have seen this kind of campaign before, in which a country gets on the "bad side" of Washington and suddenly all we hear is bad news.  And it's often placed in the press by anonymous officials and consists, as in this case, of nothing but vague and unproven innuendo.  Since compliant behavior by both Somalia and Venezuela are--for very different reasons--seen as strategically important to the current U.S. leadership, stories like these are ominous and not to be taken lightly.