Audio slideshow: One woman's war

Canadian photojournalist Rita Leistner travelled to Baghdad in 2003 as a freelance reporter determined to get behind the front lines of the war in Iraq. Over the next 18 months she returned to the country several times capturing images of life with the troops - as well as behind the scenes in a psychiatric hospital.

Because I do not have a java player installed, please to to this url and watch.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/7301682.stm

It will make you cry ... in pain and in joy, both.

Please make the wars stop! Please!

Dan Froomkin's list of web sties for journlists

Web sites for journalists

SHOWCASE | July 01, 2004

Here are some outstanding sites that help journalists do better work.

Profiles of select journalism Web sites can be found below.

Journalism Web sites

• American Journalism Review
• American Press Institute
• American Society of Business Publication Editors
• American Society of Journalists and Authors
• Asian American Journalists Association
• Associated Press Managing Editors
• Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
• Association of Alternative Newsweeklies
• Association of Health Care Journalists
• AlterNet
• American Society of Newspaper Editors
• Center for Investigative Reporting (Muckracker.org)
• Center for Media and Public Affairs
• Center for Public Integrity
• Columbia Journalism Review
• Committee of Concerned Journalists
• Committee to Protect Journalists
• Cyberjournalist.net
• Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma
• Editor and Publisher
• Education Writers Association
• Freedom Forum
• High School Journalism
• International Freedom of Expression eXchange
• Investigative Reporters and Editors
• Journalist's Toolbox
• Institute for Analytic Journalism
• Investigative Reporters & Editors
• Knight Center for Specialized Journalism
• Local TV News Media Project
• Maynard Institute
• MediaChannel
• Media InfoCenter
• Media Matters for America
• Media Tenor
• National Association of Black Journalists
• National Association of Hispanic Journalists
• National Center for Business Journalism
• National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association
• National Press Club
• Native American Journalists Association
• NewsLab
• NewsLink
• Newseum
• Newspaper Association of America
• Newspaper Guild
• Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University
• Online News Association
• Online Journalism Review
• Organization of News Ombudsmen
• Pew Center for Civic Journalism
• Pew Research Center for the People and the Press
• Poynter Institute
• PR Watch
• Pressthink
• Project for Excellence in Journalism
• Radio-Television News Directors Association
• Religion Newswriters Association
• Richard Prince's Journal-isms
• Romenesko
• Reporters Without Borders
• Society of Environmental Journalists
• Society of Professional Journalists
• South Asian Journalists Association
• Student Press Law Center
• Unity: Journalists of Color
• Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism

Romenesko and Pressthink

Two journalism blogs -- Jim Romenesko's Romenesko and Jay Rosen's Pressthink have become essential daily stops on the World Wide Web for anyone interested in the current state of the industry – and its future.

Romenesko ceaselessly updates his site with the latest media-related stories, tidbits and gossip from publications across the Internet. And increasingly, he's linking to himself, because his letters page is one of the liveliest, smartest and best-informed forums around. Plus he Web-publishes internal memos. He's got great sources; they're also his readers.

Rosen is the chair of the journalism school at NYU, and where Romenesko's posts are pithy summaries of hot items, Rosen's are long, thoughtful musings on Big Ideas. And they're the big ideas everyone else will be talking about, too, before long. A fundamentally old-fashioned journalist who is fascinated by the new technology, Rosen writes in his blog's mission statement:

"The people who will invent the next press in America -- and who are doing it now online -- continue an experiment at least 250 years old. It has a powerful social history and political legend attached."

Rosen writes copiously about blogging, but also looks at general-interest topics such as the issue of media bias, news judgment and the relationship between the White House and the press.

IRE Web site

Looking for examples of fine investigative reporting? Look no further than Extra! Extra!, the blog of the Investigative Reporters & Editors Web site.

Derek Willis and the IRE staff update the site daily with links to and descriptions of the latest and greatest investigative works. You can also sort by topic, such as housing or justice.

The main IRE Web site also offers a wide variety of resources for journalists, including some compiled for recent breaking news stories.

Journalism.org (Project for Excellence in Journalism)

Journalism.org is the Web site of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a research organization that specializes in using empirical methods to evaluate and study the performance of the press. It is non partisan, non ideological and non political.

Committee of Concerned Journalists

The Committee of Concerned Journalists (CCJ) is a consortium of reporters, editors, producers, publishers, owners and academics concerned about the future of journalism. Affiliated with the University of Missouri School of Journalism, it conducts traveling workshops and offers a catalog of tools, techniques and ideas, research, and many other resources. From 1997 until 2006, CCJ was affiliated with and administered by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Center for Public Integrity

A nonprofit, nonpartisan group, the Center for Public Integrity conducts investigative research and reporting on public policy issues in the United States and around the world.

Come here for The Buying of the President 2004, continuing coverage of who's bankrolling who -- and what they expect in return.

Use their Media Tracker to find out who controls the media where you live.

See their Global Integrity Report, a comprehensive assessment of the precise extent of openness, accountability and governance in 25 countries that hold elections. It uses a Public Integrity Index to measure the extent of citizens' ability to ensure their government is open and accountable.

Dan Froomkin is the deputy editor of the Nieman Watchdog Project. He also writes the White House Watch column for washingtonpost.com. E-

SOLUTIONS: Alternatives to Economic Globalization

Alternatives to Economic Globalization
A Better World is Possible

Download the Global to Local: What You Can Do section from the Alternatives book
Describes steps you can take as a consumer, worker, depositor and investor, and as a citizen to help transform the global economic system and create a better world!

Download the Alternatives to Economic Globalization (2nd edition, October 2004) press release from publisher Berrett-Koehler

In the last few years, the IFG became the first major organization to initiate work on alternative policies and visions to the current global economic model enforced through institutions such as the World Bank, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as international investment agencies and other such bureaucracies. Our work is closely linked to social and environmental movements, providing them with critical thinking and frameworks that inform campaigns and activities "on the ground."

We have finished a new expanded, updated Alternatives to Economic Globalization released in October 2004. Since mid-2002 when the first edition of the book was completed, the world has gone through dramatic changes. The military responses to the terrorist attacks of 9-11 have polarized world opinion and the body politic, driving great wedges into what had formerly seemed firm alliances and bringing entirely new and unexpected power shifts among nations. This is reflected not only in military terms, but in others as well, including shifting economic alliances and power centers, creating a new context for discussions about globalization.

The revised edition includes new sections on U.S. empire and militarization, ecological economics, climate change, the role of the media, elaboration of the proposals on the commons, and more. There is also a new section that chronicles living alternatives models and actions for change that citizens can do today.

The book tries to incorporate hundreds of the living examples of alternatives on the ground as well as some of the better proposals for alternatives at local, national, and global levels. After years of close collaboration with social movements—especially worker, farmer, and environmental organizations—we have used many of their calls for change as the basis for developing alternative proposals in the book. Here is what we've included:

A) A new introduction that tries to make sense of the emergence of countervailing power to the U.S. since Cancun, Miami, and the Iraq invasion.

B) A more detailed "ten principles for sustainable societies." This is based on our own culling of hundreds of civil society and popular movement documents over the past five years.

C) A more detailed presentation of "Reclaiming the Commons." This attempts to pull in all the most innovative proposals from campaigns on water, air, social services, and other commons.

D) New detailed sections on "alternatives in action" in energy, transport, manufacturing, agriculture, and the media. This is an area we anticipate will expand in each edition; we’d really welcome your input/writings on these subjects.

E) Our best case on how to change corporate structures and strategies needed to implement such changes.

F) An expanded attempt at new institutions of "global governance" to replace the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). This includes expanded power for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and for Multilateral Environment Agreements (MEAs). It also tries to lay out new principles that these institutions should fulfill.

G) An additional chapter on "Global to Local: What You Can Do" that attempts to lay out what the individual can do as a consumer, worker, investor, depositor, local citizen, national citizen, and global citizen.

Alternatives to Economic Globalization remains the only comprehensive set of alternative proposals to economic globalization that answer the question "if you are not for globalization, then what are you for?"

In 2002, the International Forum on Globalization (IFG) released Alternatives to Economic Globalization [A Better World is Possible], detailing alternatives to the current rules and institutions of economic globalization. Written over three years by 19 leading researchers and activists from around the world, the report is a bold answer to critics who assert that the anti-corporate globalization movement does not have alternative proposals.

Written, not as separate essays, but by group consensus, by Jerry Mander, John Cavanagh, Sarah Anderson, Debi Barker, Maude Barlow, Walden Bello, Robin Broad, Tony Clarke, Teddy Goldsmith, Randy Hayes, Colin Hines, Antonia Juhasz, Andy Kimbrell, David Korten, Sarah Larrain, Victor Menotti, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Simon Retallack, Vandana Shiva, Vicky Tauli-Corpuz and Lori Wallach, the report offers detailed proposals, including:

• the emerging principles that groups around the world assert should underpin new rules, policies and institutions;
• an outline of the rules and institutions that could replace the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization, and that would promote democracy and sustainable societies;
• new proposals for responsibly managing the world's water and other natural resources;
• a compendium of actual alternative systems in agriculture, energy, transportation, and manufacturing around the world; and
• a spectrum of proposals to end corporate dominance.

Alternatives to Economic Globalization proposes concrete steps that people can take today to bring about the better world that we all know is possible.

From the introduction:

"The issue is governance. Will ordinary people have a democratic voice in deciding what rules are in the best interest of society? Or will a small ruling elite, meeting in secret and far from public view, be allowed to set the rules that shape the human future? If the concern of the decision makers is only for next quarter's profits, who will care for the health and well-being of people and the planet?"

The report was published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. We encourage everyone to purchase the report directly from your local bookseller. But go ahead and review the book on Amazon.com to encourage others to read it too!

For more information call the IFG (415) 561-7650 or email us at ifg@ifg.org.

David Swanson, the "pocket veto", 2008 election and THE LEFT

All of it, all of it, is too true.

Here it is election year, and BuZh just "vetoed"/torpedoed the budget, using lies and crookiness as USUAL .. saying CONgress is on holiday! when in fact, the Senate is sitting in order to prevent him from making recess appointments (one coming is the replacement of CHERTOFF, with a Col. Bart Johnson. This is not your common, ordinary everyday garden variety of pocket veto. (More like a bouquet of nightshades.)

Like (most) everyone on the blogosphere is saying, he fears oversight because it would mean his and his entire administration's ass, which we all want on a platter...

Bush has

rejected a pay raise for the troops, VA care for wounded veterans, a new “Truman Commission” to fight fraud and waste by military contractors, and expanded job protections for family members of severely wounded troops.

And we are discussinsg the timber of Barak Obama's speech, Mike Huckabee's latest fantasy interlude, what rating we give Rudy Giulani in drag, how Many (not if) lies HiLIARy is telling,

Man, it is to LAUGH, if we're so damned sad.

Why are these candidates getting away with NOT DISCUSSING IMPEACHMENT??????

And, David, is there someone, anyone who can take a court challenge over this "veto", which is NOT a veto under the Constitution, to put to rest his friviolous claim? Isn't there SOMEONE with standing under the law (any of the candidates!) who can challenge this??

Why didn't BuZh call back the House to fix whatever he found wrong?? Why is no one attacking what he has done???

Is discussing what is happening taboo, or .. just a thought crime???

I am serious, can you give me any ideas??

by ladybroadoak (13 articles, 16 quicklinks, 129 comments) on Monday, December 31, 2007

In response to::

Death By Election by David Swanson Page 1 of 3 page(s) http://www.opednews.com

There must be a Star Trek episode (if there's not, there should be) in which all the best minds in the leftist political opposition on some planet are diverted into an obsession with a virtual reality game, leaving all the right-wingers free to drive the planet into inevitable war and destruction. A game is a harmless thing when not put to such use. Elections are a fundamental pillar of democracy when not put to such use. That makes the case I want to argue all the more difficult. My thesis is that, if we do not change our thinking, elections are going to be the death of U.S. democracy.

How can that be? Without elections, there can be no democracy. And participating in elections is the principal, if not sole, duty of the citizens of a democracy. The health of our democracy can be measured by the wide range of candidate choices we've been offered. We've even got a woman and an African American. What in the world can you be talking about?

Well, I would make a slight modification to one of the claims above: Without HONEST AND CREDIBLE elections, there can be no democracy. We have not had anything approaching those in the past 8 years, and we have left in place a system that will deny us those again in November 2008: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2920 Citizens who are busy working to create a credible election system in certain states, and perhaps someday in the entire United States, are doing crucial work. They should be encouraged, joined, and supported.

I would make another slight modification: Without honest and credible elections and an INFORMED ELECTORATE, there can be no democracy. The corporate media that dominates the U.S. information system does not provide useful electoral information. While we are developing an independent, web-based, and radio communications system, much of that system currently, voluntarily, and self-destructively submits to the frames of the corporate media, serving as critic rather than educator, boosting cynicism rather than participation. Leftists, liberals, and progressives, and those who share their views but run in fear from their names, have more than enough money to create honest democratic television news. In fact, every election cycle, we dump that much money into election advertising that funds the destructive corporate media. It's as if we're hooked on the game and keep feeding it quarters without stopping to think.

I could go on modifying the claim about elections to rule out systems that have legalized massive bribery, imposed undemocratic primaries, locked out new parties and movements, developed election seasons that last from one election to the next, or in the immediate instance already weeded out any truly decent candidates. (Yes, you should vote for Kucinich. Yes, you should believe anything is possible. But you're going up against the televised voices in everyone's heads.)

Well, what are we supposed to do, ignore elections until we can fix them? That'll just get us more elected officials less likely to fix them, won't it?

That depends. Certainly focusing on the elections will do that, given that the elections are now routinely stolen. And I wouldn't want you to ignore elections in order to watch football. I would ask you to ignore elections in order to fix the election system now and in order to fix other pressing problems that you don't need elections to fix. I would modify this claim:

"And participating in elections is the principal, if not sole, duty of the citizens of a democracy."

to read:

Participating in honest, credible, informed elections is one of the LESS IMPORTANT of the many necessary duties of the citizens of a democracy. Participating in non-credible elections is a DISTRACTION. Of course, in the current system, the primaries offer more real choices, less fraud, and many fewer voters than the general election. They also don't put anyone in office.

Have you ever noticed that the U.S. Constitution doesn't mention primaries? Or political parties? Or corporations? Or churches? It provides no right to vote. Instead, it mentions the freedoms to speak, to assemble, to publish news, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. And it goes on repeatedly, at some length, to establish the power of the people's representatives in the House of Representatives to hold an outlaw executive or judiciary in check through impeachment.

O.K. But how do we petition our government for a redress of grievances except by waiting until the next election and voting it out?

Is it possible we really have to be told this again? We do it by assembling, by speaking, by publishing news, and by drawing on the traditions of Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King Jr., the tradition of suffragettes and labor, the lessons of abolitionists and populists. We resist injustice here and now through creative nonviolent action. In early January, the peace movement will announce a series of major actions in March 2008. Resistance to the new American policy of torture is planned for January 11: http://www.witnesstorture.org A growing list of members of the House Judiciary Committee is pushing for hearings to begin in January on Dick Cheney's impeachment: http://impeachcheney.org On January 26, we can join the world for World Social Forum events: http://www.wsf2008.net On January 31, we can all help end global warming: http://www.focusthenation.org/nationalteachin.php On February 15, we can demand an end to the occupation of Iraq: http://www.iraqmoratorium.org By the time March comes around, we can build the activist culture needed to revive a democracy that is wilting under the heat of election madness.

And not a moment too soon. Scientists agree that we have a limited number of years to reverse the current climate change, or we will be past the point of no return. The common acceptance that we must waste the next year before acting is evidence, I think, of greater self-destructive tendencies than ever surfaced during the Cold War. We do NOT have to wait another year. We have to impeach Cheney and Bush. We have to work at the state level. We have to work internationally. We have to educate and mobilize, pressure, resist, and sacrifice. The occupation of Iraq is worse every year. The attack on Iran is still a threat. Pakistan, a nation that really DOES have nuclear weapons, is in turmoil. And where is the so-called progressive online media? Where is the blogosphere? Why, it's got its nose so far up the ass of the November 2008 elections it can taste the inaugural champagne.

Is it really true that the health of our democracy can be measured by the wide range of candidate choices we've been offered? Take this 1-minute test, and then tell me if you still believe that: http://www.dehp.net/candidate

How closely did any of the candidates come to agreeing with you? Did those who came closest fall into the category of corporate-acceptable "viability"? Why can't you find anything about this situation or any substantive reporting on candidates' positions at all? Because for some politics is a sport, and the fascination lies in the techniques and maneuvers, not in what it might mean for the world. For others, politics is a soap opera, an excuse to obsess over whether in the next episode Obama will take his shirt off or Giuliani's ex-wife's ex-husband will claim to have Hillary's child. Think I'm exaggerating? Not much.

The political blogs, like MyDD are all election, all the time. Firedoglake gets credit for being 2/3 election, all the time. Huffington Post is 3/4 election, and 3/4 of that is election fluff and refuse. On New Year's Eve, this was the top HuffPost story, with two big photos: "Edwards: Obama Too "Nice" For The Presidency." It was followed by these edifying tracts:

Huckabee Questions Romney's Honesty
Marty Kaplan: I Know Who's Going to Win
Iowa>> Romney Surging In Polls As Caucus Nears
Live Iowa Campaign Journal - Blowing Bubbles
Politics >> Clinton-Backing Ohio Governor Calls IA Caucuses "Hugely Undemocratic"
Washington Post Editorial Misses Mark With Criticism of Obama
More in Politics >> McCain's Extensive Wooing Of Lobbyists Exposed ... NYT: Bloomberg Moves Closer To Prez Run
Obama: "The Real Gamble Is Having The Same Old Folks Doing The Same Old Things And Expecting A Different Result"
Joe Biden: Dem Rivals "Not Making Sense" On Bhutto...
Huckabee Pleads Poverty As He Takes Cash For Speeches
Edwards Radicalizes Anti-Corporate Pitch
Ron Paul Third?
BIO: Up Close and Personal With Edwards
HuffPolitics: Marc Cooper >> Will Edwards Really Win Iowa?
BIO: Obama Rolls The Dice With Latest Edwards Criticism
Edwards: Bill Clinton Has A Place In My White House
Hillary's Final Strategy: Be Afraid
Media Insiders Shaft Biden, Richardson, Dodd, Kucinich and America
What's the Matter with Iowa?

<

Some of those articles are by people I greatly admire, and in some cases know and like. But if they were in that Star Trek episode I mentioned, my concern would be that their abilities were being wasted when we needed them most. Here is the complete set of headlines that the otherwise wonderful website BuzzFlash Emailed out in a New Year's Eve Email:

Awhile back there was a rumor buzzing around that McCain was pleading with the NYT not to post an article revealing his extensive -- and hypocritical -- tie to lobbyists. Turns out it was the WP working on the article, and they posted it on Dec. 31.

Latest MSNBC-McClatchy Poll: Dem Race Still Too Close to Call, With Shifts of One or Two Percentage Points Day by Day. "Where Edwards previously had lagged slightly behind Clinton and Obama, the poll showed him at 24 percent, compared with Clinton at 23 percent and Obama at 22 percent."

BuzzFlash's Last Chance Democracy Cafe: Screw Bipartisanship

Senator Obama's Barber Shop: Come on a BuzzFlash Video Visit to the Home of the "Obama Cut." Learn About Barack's Favorite Sports Team and His Loyalty to His Neighborhood Barber of 13 Years. We Needed a Break, As You Do, from the Doom and Gloom.

Over on Dailykos on New Year's Eve, the top story was "Huckabee's Imaginary Conception." Below it were posts like these: "More failed 'leadership,' please! On white toast with mayo," and "Mike Huckabee's incisive grasp of foreign policy." The top recommended diary was "MSM Continues Blackout of John Edwards." It was followed by "The Iowa Edwards Surge -- first-hand, on the ground," and "Barack Obama will change the system part 2."

I guess it's a relief to know that WE don't have to be the ones to change the system. Over on Alternet, the top story on New Year's Eve was "GOP Mess in Iowa: Romney Stalls, Giuliani's Flailing, Huckabee Scares the GOP Establishment." It was followed by these gems:

Despite Media Hype, Iowa's Democratic Caucuses Will Have No True Winner
Huckabee: 'I Don’t Know' If People Are 'Born' Gay, But It’s a 'Choice' to Act Gay [VIDEO]
Election 2008: Huckabee has a record of using the power of government to discriminate against the choices that gay Americans make in their private lives.
Iowa: Edwards Takes on Corporate Greed
The Imperial Presidency: The '08 Candidates Weigh In
Behind the Edwards Surge: Right Message at the Right Time
The Best Moments in Mike Huckabee's Extremism
Iowa Caucuses: Not the Battle of the Century

Oh, and that "Imperial Presidency" one - contributed by Huffington Post - is a column arguing that we should address through an election, a year away, exactly what the authors of the Constitution told us to address through impeachment.

Better than average on the awaking-from-eternal-election-daze count is Common Dreams, which on New Year's Eve ran the top headline: "FROM IOWA CORNFIELDS, A LEFT-TILTING TRADITION, MOST DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES VOTE FOR NUCLEAR POWER," but which carried below it a relatively small percentage of election headlines, including these:

An Endorsement from the Wilderness
Behind the Edwards Surge: Right Message at the Right Time
What Hillary Hasn’t Done in Foreign Policy
Mitt Romney’s Pursuit of Tyrannical Power, Literally
Candidates Split Along Party Lines on Healthcare

Truthout.org does relatively well too, tending to run 50% or less election coverage. OpEdNews is superb, making election coverage far less than half its news. On New Year's Eve, it featured two election-related top headlines, but one of them was about preventing election fraud and the other about Ron Paul's refusal to support impeachment.

Democratic Underground is pretty far gone on most days, running lots of election blogs and even more election videos. Video websites are easily dominated by election fluff, but video-heavy Crooks and Liars tends to keep election nonsense to a relatively low level.

I mention all of these websites, because they are the ones I like and would like to see focused on the work needed to restore our democracy, not a year from now, but immediately. My goal is not to leave the business of elections to those who will steal what we break our necks preventing them from winning. My goal is to shift the political discussion in ways that, among many other things, compel better political candidates.

I know there are tender feelings involved here. I know John Edwards is cute, and even Hillary seems measurably less insane than Huckabee. I know Gravel has more heart than Biden. I know you adore Ron Paul more because you think he'll shut down the empire than because he's a xenophobic bigoted moron. I get that there are differences and intrigues, personalities, and tons of money and hard work at stake. My point is that we need not lower our standards so far that supporters of the last invasion who refuse to forswear the next one count as the best we can do.

But we cannot raise those standards through electoral work. If we want John Edwards to promise never to launch an aggressive war, we will impeach the people who launched the last one. If we want Hillary Clinton to commit to not spying on Huckabee (or any of us) without a warrant and probable cause, we will put behind bars the architects of the current spying programs. If we want the world to understand that Bush and Cheney and the current Congress do not speak for us, we will raise our voices now, not next November. Focusing on the choices presented to us in a two-year electoral campaign leads to insufficient pressure on Congress (with disastrous results in 2007), not to mention independent billionaire campaigns.

If we want credible elections and palatable candidates, we will break the electoral spell and start behaving like the citizens of a democracy.

The March Toward Despotism

I found this entertaining video at Daily Kos. It runs a bit over 8 minutes. If you look at the bottom of the screen, you will see additional videos on related topics.

Don't want to be an American idiot /
One nation controlled by the media /
Information age of hysteria /
It's calling out to idiot America.

~ Green Day

Alternet media criticism article

This story is pretty good, but reeks of a drug-induced sensibility . He spent $8 on the drink and $9 on the vodka, and yet he is seriously deluded.

Hemp clothing IS good and would be a profoundly good choice for lots of people. But that means going in and getting "consumer groups" to demand a repeal on the laws against growing hemp and I SERIOUSLY doubt that this guy is going to do that . actually LEAD SOMETHING. To my mind he is an active part of The Problem. I also don't like the way he "debunks" every so delicately a very real problem with child abuse.

Hey! Name the enemy .. it is Big Pharma, it is the industry that produces all sorts of crock on child rearing (and for one do not include Dr. Phil in that number, but he gets damned close) and so-called self empowerment .. it is self delusion that working class people have that they are not working class . it is all sorts of thing!! None of which is GROWTH or LIFE ENCHANCING!!

This is a typical secular humanist point of view; it "works" but it doesn't ultimately work to undo all the damage done. When writing an article like this it is best to be extremely directive as to what the problem is and what you would want people to do about it!

His stuff on sex offenders is really to my disliking. He goes and speaks to ONE GUY and has all the answers. There is a child sexploitation increase: it's on the internet! Why doenst' he talk about THAT type of media and why sex offenders lie . and lie .. and lie ....

Ultimately, all these articles do is make people MORE cynical ....

Pysops? Maybe. Bad journalism . definitely.

A Feast of Bullshit and Spectacle:

The Great American Media Mind Warp

By Joe Bageant, AlterNet. Posted August 9, 2007.

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/58437

Watch television in countries with supposedly primitive media, and after a while you will be shocked at the technologically mediated and shape-shifted image of the world presented to Americans.

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