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"Singled out for blame in the wake of riots that broke out in Athens on February 12, Greek anarchists are eager to show that they “are not mere hooligans”. France24.com takes an exclusive look at the movement on the ground. "
Journalism should be about the new and unexpected, but most journalists really prefer the routine and expected, so their days go easier. And they shy away from questioning the status quo. All of which makes Occupy Wall Street (OWS) a nuisance to the mainstream media (MSM), says Danny Schechter.
in list: Occupy Movement
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The idea of a deeper challenge to a totally compromised system driven by big money and special interests is considered by some as anomaly that belongs in another century.
"False modesty does not become the media. When it comes to the Tea Party or the Taliban, reporters are quick to offer an explanation of their motivations and their demands. When it comes to the protests of the Left, there is reticence to do any real reporting or analysis."
in list: Occupy Movement
"A number of anarchist journals and websites have criticised my own and my comrades’ activism in recent months and weeks. Criticism from the right is easy to dismiss. When it comes from comrades I know and respect, I need to take it seriously and come up with a considered response."
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Some people have accused me of wanting to replace monarchist pageantry with some other self-promoting media spectacle. Actually, the project is to dissolve all such spectacle, opening the door to celebratory street parties, occupations, picket lines and, in general, popular revolution as ‘the carnival of the oppressed’. Glimpses of this have begun breaking out during moments of victory across the Arab world and more recently across Greece and Spain. Humour, dance and theatre maximise the difficulties for the media in portraying us as thugs. Anyway, liberation should be fun. As Emma Goldman said: ‘If I can’t dance in your revolution, it’s not my revolution’.
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it seems ironic that some anarchist organizations mirror many of the worst aspects of their Leninist and Trotskyist counterparts. They jealously guard their sectarian boundaries, promote their supposedly ‘correct’ theories, insist on being worthy and boring, insist that their radical ideas are the vital ingredient that the working class needs. The truth is that the working class doesn’t need any of this. Workers need information about their own solidarity, their own unity in action, their own ability to stand up to the bosses and liberate themselves, their own human creativity and potential. As workers become collectively empowered, they’ll work out their own theories, making use, perhaps, of some of the ideas we activists can provide.
The American media deploys a deep and varied arsenal of rhetorical devices in order to marginalise opinions, people and organisations as "outside the mainstream" and therefore not worth listening to.
Western media and think-tanks have long presented a mistaken and divisive understanding of Arab – and other – societies. There is a discrepancy between the actual situation and indicators-driven understanding.
"Wikleaks is upheld as a breakthrough in the battle against media disinformation and the lies of the US government. "
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Wikileaks is not a typical alternative media initiative. The New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel are directly involved in the editing and selection of leaked documents. The London Economist has also played an important role.
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While the project and its editor Julian Assange reveal a commitment and concern for truth in media, the recent Wikileaks releases of embassy cables have been carefully "redacted" by the mainstream media in liaison with the US government. (See Interview with David E. Sanger, Fresh Air, PBS, December 8, 2010)
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"It's more often used now as a jibe against someone who throws something at a protest, but anarchism has a long, complex history, and it's never really gone away"
"The most intensely debated documents released by WikiLeaks last week were about what some of the Arab rulers think of Iran and its nuclear program."
Writing in the March 11 Wall Street Journal, Steven J. Law, a bigwig lawyer for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, turns reality on its head by claiming working people and their unions were the BIG winners in the 5-4 Supreme Court "Citizens United" decision.
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The big business group is calling for draconian, and probably unconstitutional, limits on workers' ability to collectively have an impact on politics, to elect people that they feel will represent their interests. The Chamber of Commerce proposed anti-worker, anti-union restrictions include: require secret ballot elections to approve political spending; prohibit public sector unions from participating in elections of politicians who "will oversee their labor contracts" and prohibit the government from allowing automatic union dues payments from employee paychecks.
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The LA Times reports that the Chamber of Commerce is getting "record-setting amounts of money raised from corporations and wealth individuals."
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On February 23, 2010, Cuban inmate Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after 83 days on hunger strike. He was 42. This is the first such incident since inmate Pedro Luis Boitel died in 1972 under similar conditions. The corporate media put the tragic incident on the front page and emphasized the plight of Cuban prisoners.
"in an exclusive interview with Jonathan Karl of ABC News' "This Week," Cheney proclaimed his love of torture, derided the Obama administration for outlawing the practice, and admitted that the Bush administration ordered Justice Department attorneys to fix the law around his policies."
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The former vice president's declaration closely follows admissions he made in December 2008, about a month before the Bush administration exited the White House, when he said he personally authorized the torture of 33 suspected terrorist detainees and approved the waterboarding of three so-called “high-value” prisoners.
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The US has long treated waterboarding as a war crime and has prosecuted Japanese soldiers for using it against US troops during World War II. And Ronald Reagan's Justice Department prosecuted a Texas sheriff and three deputies for using the practice to get confessions.
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"While pro-democracy protests in Iran top the news agenda, similar tensions in Egypt pass unreported "
"In contrast to international news of looting in Haiti, local reports indicate that in reality, there is not massive violence or unrest"
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Partners in Health recently stated that "Our team on the ground reaffirms that the reports of violence on the streets of Port-au-Prince have been grossly exaggerated and have become a major obstacle to mounting the response needed to save tens of thousands of lives each day.”
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Haitian novelist and Port-au-Prince resident Evelyne Trouillot wrote, "Many of us Haitians are offended by the coverage of the earthquake. Once more, a natural disaster serves as an occasion to showcase the impoverishment, to exaggerate the scenes of violence that are common to any catastrophe of this type."
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"Edna Bonhomme looks at the distortions in the media and the politicians' depiction of Haiti--and what they won't admit about the real sources of the country's crisis."
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the mainstream media's representation of Haiti has been, at best, a sensationalistic account of Black people incapable of helping themselves, and at worst, a portrayal of Haitians as responsible for their plight because they "signed a pact with the devil."
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As author Linda Martín-Alcoff put it, "The practice of privileged persons speaking for or on behalf of less privileged persons has actually resulted (in many cases) increasing or reinforcing the oppression of the group spoken for."
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"Soon after almost every disaster the crimes begin: ruthless, selfish, indifferent to human suffering, and generating far more suffering. The perpetrators go unpunished and live to commit further crimes against humanity. They care less for human life than for property. They act without regard for consequences."
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