The Raw Story

Focused on providing independent journalism.

Tuesday, 20 January 2015

110% rise in anti-Muslim incidents in France

french muslim

© AFP Photo / Stephane De Sakutin



There has been a huge increase in anti-Muslim incidents in France following the Islamist attacks in Paris two weeks ago. At 116 confrontations this month, it's more than double the amount recorded for the whole of January, 2014.

The National Observatory Against Islamophobia said over one hundred incidents have been reported to the police since the terrorist attacks of January 7-9. Three French Islamists killed 17 people during their shooting spree. The human rights group says there have been 28 attacks on places of worship and 88 threats have been made, as reported by AFP.




The rise in attacks over the last two weeks represents an increase of 110 percent over the whole of January 2014, the organization said on Monday.

Observatory president, Abdullah Zekri, has condemned "acts of hatred towards French people of the Muslim faith, the immense majority of whom respect the values of the Republic and secularism."


He added that "this situation is unacceptable and we're asking the authorities to go beyond the reassuring speeches and act to put an end to this scourge," he said, as cited by AFP.


There is a growing fear of reprisals amongst Muslims in France, who have an estimated 3.5-5 million followers. Mourad Ben Azizi, a French national of Tunisian origin, wondered, "how Muslims will go on living normally in a country where they are believed to be behind all the violence and attacks in France," as reported by the Xinhua news agency.


Meanwhile on December 18, a rally was held in Paris to demonstrate against the stigmatization of Muslims in France. It was organized by The National Federation of Muslims of France, with its president, Mohamed Bechari, expressing his concern that a whole religion is being victimized for the actions of "three crazy guys."


"Today, we feel more and more a feeling of increased Islamophobia that is taking hold and this worries us. There have been more and more places of worship being attacked. Muslim girls and women who wear the veil or those who don't are being attacked and there's silence from the politicians," Bechari said, as reported by AP.


Abdelrahim Braihim, who is the Imam of Sevran, a suburb in the North East of Paris, said that although the Muslim community is feeling anxiety, "we have confidence in the French government which is doing everything for peace."


French authorities banned a planned anti-Islamist march on Sunday. They believed it could have led to an increase in public disorder if it was allowed to go ahead. A member of the right-wing Riposte Laique, Christine Tasin said in a news conference after the rally was banned that she didn't want to have "terrorists and jihadists as our neighbors."


On January 16, a Moroccan man was killed in his home in the south of France in a race related attack. The attacker confronted Mohamed El Makouli shouting, "I am your god, I am your Islam," before repeatedly stabbing him, according to AFP.


French President Francois Hollande, who has seen a surge in his approval ratings for his handling of the terrorist attacks, said in a speech last week: "Muslims are the main victims of terrorism." He was quick to say that not all Muslims should be labeled with the same Islamist brush.




In a bid to alleviate the fears of Muslims and Jews, 10,000 troops have been stationed across the country, with a portion assigned to protect mosques in France.

The leader of the far-right National Front party, Marine Le Pen, has been critical of the French government for its failure to tackle the problem of Islamic fundamentalism.


In an opinion piece for the , Le Pen said, "It does our Muslim compatriots no favors to fuel suspicions and leave things unspoken. Islamist terrorism is a cancer on Islam, and Muslims themselves must fight it at our side." The piece was published on Sunday.


There has been continued debate of the word 'Islamist' in France, with Le Pen critical of the French government for not using this term to describe the Muslim attackers. However, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who was specifically, singled out by Le Pen for criticism, said, "I don't want to play the role of censor, but I think the word Islamist ... is not the right one to use. I call them terrorists. Because as soon as you use the word Islam, you are promoting an idea of continuity between a Muslim - who practices his religion, which is a religion of peace - and something which is an interpretation of the Muslim religion," AFP reported.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://bit.ly/1xcsdoI.


BEST OF THE WEB: Think Putin and Russia are 'the bad guys'? Think again

E-mails sent to Sott.net become the property of Quantum Future Group, Inc and may be published without notice.



Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://bit.ly/1xcsdoI.


Germany's Bundesbank resumes gold repatriation


Three weeks ago, when looking at the latest NY Fed data of foreign gold held at the largest central bank gold vault in the world, we showed that in the month of November not only was a near record amount of gold withdrawn from the NY Fed, which at 42 tons was the single biggest monthly outflow at the NY Fed in over a decade...



... but that though the end of November, all of the Netherlands' 122 tons of gold withdrawals had been fully accounted for. This brought up an interesting question:

"... net of the Netherlands withdrawals, there is some 44 tons of extra gold that has been also quietly redeemed (by another entity). The question is who: is it now the turn of Austria to reveal in a few weeks that it too, secretly, withdrew some 40+ tons of gold from "safe keeping" in the US? Or was it Belgium? Or did the Dutch simply decide to haul back some more. Or did Germany finally get over its "logistical complications" which prevented it from transporting more than just a laughable 5 tons in 2013? And most importantly, did Germany finally grow a pair and decide not to let "diplomatic difficulties" stand between it and its gold?



We now know the answer, and it was, indeed, the latter with confirmation coming from the Bundesbank itself. As the German Central Bank announced earlier today, after withdrawing an embarrassing 5 tonnes of gold from New York in 2013, its rate of repatriation soared, and in what appears to have been just the past two months, has transferred a whopping 85 tonnes of gold from 80 feet below street level at Liberty 33 back to Frankfurt!

From Buba:



The Bundesbank successfully continued and further stepped up its transfers of gold last year. In 2014, 120 tonnes of gold were transferred to Frankfurt am Main from storage locations abroad: 35 tonnes from Paris and 85 tonnes from New York. "Implementation of our new gold storage plan is proceeding smoothly. Operations are running very much according to schedule," said Carl-Ludwig Thiele, Member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank.


The Bundesbank took advantage of the transfer from New York to have roughly 50 tonnes of gold melted down and recast according to the London Good Delivery standard, today's internationally recognised standard. "We also called on the expertise of the Bank for International Settlements for the spot checks that had to be carried out. As expected, there were no irregularities," said Mr Thiele.


According to its new gold storage plan, unveiled in January 2013, the Bundesbank will be storing half of Germany's gold reserves in its own vaults from 2020 onwards. This necessitates a phased transfer to Frankfurt am Main of 300 tonnes of gold from New York and all 374 tonnes of gold from Paris.


Since the transfers began in 2013, the Bank has relocated a total of 157 tonnes of gold to Frankfurt am Main - 67 tonnes from Paris and 90 tonnes from New York. This is equivalent to roughly 23% of the total quantity to be transferred. The following table gives an overview of the gold that has been transferred to date.



As at 31 December 2014, the Bundesbank's gold reserves were stored at the following locations.



And the punchline:

The Bundesbank assures the identity and authenticity of German gold reserves throughout the transfer process - from when they are removed from warehouses abroad until they are stored in Frankfurt am Main. As soon as the gold was removed from the warehouse locations abroad, Bundesbank employees cross-checked the lists of bars belonging to the Bundesbank against the information on the bars removed. Finally, once they arrived in Frankfurt am Main, all the transferred gold bars were thoroughly and exhaustively inspected and verified by the Bundesbank. When all the inspections had been concluded, no irregularities came to light with regard to the authenticity, fineness and weight of the bars.



A curious amount of precautions and safeguards when transporting the "safe" and "untainted" gold held at the NY Fed to Frankfurt. Almost as if the Bundesbank, gasp,

Ironically, it was exactly one year ago that we wrote "Germany Has Recovered A Paltry 5 Tons Of Gold From The NY Fed After One Year" in which we wrote:



The official explanation was as follows: "The Bundesbank explained [the low amount of US gold] by saying that the transports from Paris are simpler and therefore were able to start quickly." Additionally, the Bundesbank had the "support" of the BIS "which has organized more gold shifts already for other central banks and has appropriate experience - only after months of preparation and safety could transports start with truck and plane." That would be the same BIS that in 2011 lent out a record 632 tons of gold...


Welt goes on to "debunk" various "conspiracy websites" that the reason why the gold is being melted is not to cover up some shortage (and to scrap serial numbers), but that the gold is exactly the same gold as before. Finally, to silences all skeptics, the Bundesbank says that "there is no reason for complaint - the weight and purity of the gold bars were consistent with the books match." In conclusion, Welt reports that in 2014 "larger transport volumes" can be expected from New York: between 30 and 50 tons.



Welt was off by just 50% with the full 2014 repatriated amount hitting 85 tons in what appears to have been a year-end scramble following the Netherlands repatriation shocker. And, as it turns out, all it took for the Bundesbank to send its repatriation amounts surging is for the Dutch to show it how it is done: i.e., by plane because crossing the Atlantic with a Brinks' truck full of gold certainly presents some "logisitcal challenges."

Sarcasm aside, it is quite clear that "logistical difficulties" is merely a politically correct strawman. Recall the real reason for the paltry repatriation by Buba in 2013, as explained by Deutsche Bank two months ago:



... the gold community paid great attention to the decision of the German Bundesbank to "bring German gold home". At the beginning of 2013, the Bundesbank announced it would repatriate 300 tonnes of gold stored in the US by 2020. It is well behind schedule, citing logistical difficulties. Yet diplomatic difficulties are more likely to be the chief cause of the delay, especially seeing as the Bundesbank has proven its capacity to organise large-scale gold transports. In the early 2000s, the Bundesbank incrementally repatriated 930 tonnes of German gold held by the Bank of England.



Which leads us to the only relevant question: now that the "diplomatic difficulties" have been overcome and the Bundesbank is back on track to repatriating precisely the right amount of gold from the NY Fed to indicate that it has far less faith in the US central bank than it did when it was barely conducting any transfers in 2013, just how worse as the diplomatic difficulties now? We expect to get at least a partial answer on Thursday when Mario Draghi finally announces his long-overdue €500 billion QE program, with Bundesbank's Jens Weidmann, sitting quietly in a corner, and ignored by the ex-Goldman head of the ECB, contemplated just how much more, if not all, gold (there is still some 517 tonnes of gold left to be repatriated to Germany from NY and Paris) he should withdraw now in preparation for the "next steps"?

One thing is certain: Germany sends its kindest gratitude to Ukraine, whose gold, now long gone, is most likely to be found in a far safer, and remelted, state somewhere in the bowels under Wilhelm-Epstein-Straße, number 14 in Frankfurt am Main.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://bit.ly/1xcsdoI.


Seedy Business: Big Food is hiding GMOs with a slick public relations campaign


U.S. Right to Know - a new nonprofit organization - released a new report today on Big Food's PR campaign to defend GMOs: how it manipulated the media, public opinion and politics with sleazy tactics, bought science and PR spin.

Since 2012, the agrichemical and food industries have mounted a complex, multifaceted public relations, advertising, lobbying and political campaign in the United States, costing more than $100 million, to defend genetically engineered food and crops and the pesticides that accompany them. The purpose of this campaign is to deceive the public, to deflect efforts to win the right to know what is in our food via labeling that is already required in 64 countries, and ultimately, to extend their profit stream for as long as possible.


This campaign has greatly influenced how U.S. media covers GMOs. The industry's PR firm, Ketchum, even boasted that "positive media coverage has doubled" on GMOs.


The report outlines fifteen things that Big Food is hiding with its artful PR campaign on GMOs.



  1. The agrichemical companies have a history of concealing health risks from the public. Time and again, the companies that produce GMOs have hidden from consumers and workers the truth about the dangers of their products and operations. So how can we trust them to tell us the truth about their GMOs?

  2. The FDA does not test whether GMOs are safe. It merely reviews information submitted by the agrichemical companies.

  3. Our nation's lax policy on GMOs is the work of former Vice President Dan Quayle's anti-regulatory crusade. It was designed and delivered as a political favor to Monsanto.

  4. What the agrichemical and tobacco industries have in common: PR firms, operatives, tactics. The agrichemical industry's recent PR campaign is similar in some ways to the most infamous industry PR campaign ever - the tobacco industry's effort to evade responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans each year.

  5. Russia's PR firm runs the agrichemical industry's big PR salvo on GMOs. We don't trust the PR firm Ketchum when it spins for Russia and President Putin. Why should we trust its spin on GMOs?

  6. The agrichemical industry's key front groups and shills aren't trustworthy. Many of the industry's leading advocates have records of defending the indefensible, or other scandals and conduct that inspires no confidence.

  7. The agrichemical companies have employed repugnant PR tactics. These tactics include attacks on scientists and journalists, and brainwashing children.

  8. The agrichemical companies have a potent, sleazy political machine. They have allies in high places, and employ their power vigorously - and sometimes corruptly - to protect and expand their markets and their profits from GMOs.

  9. Half of the Big Six agrichemical firms can't even grow their GMOs in their own home countries. Because of the health and environmental risks of GMOs, citizens of Germany and Switzerland won't allow farming of BASF, Bayer and Syngenta's GMO seeds.

  10. Monsanto supported GMO labeling in the UK but opposes it in the USA. Although Monsanto is based in St. Louis, Missouri, Monsanto believes that British citizens deserve stronger consumer rights than Americans do.

  11. The pesticide treadmill breeds profits, so it will likely intensify. It is in the financial interest of the agrichemical companies to promote the evolution and spread of the most pestilential superweeds and superpests, because these will spur the sale of the greatest quantities of the most expensive pesticides.

  12. GMO science is for sale. Science can be swayed, bought or biased by the agrichemical industry in many ways, such as suppressing adverse findings, harming the careers of scientists who produce such findings, controlling the funding that shapes what research is conducted, the lack of independent U.S.-based testing of health and environmental risks of GMOs, and tainting scientific reviews of GMOs by conflicts of interest.

  13. There are nearly no consumer benefits of GMOs. The GMOs that Americans eat are not healthier, safer or more nutritious than conventional foods. They do not look better, nor do they taste better. By any measure that consumers actually care about, they are not in any way an improvement. Profits from GMOs accrue to the agrichemical companies, while health risks are borne by consumers.

  14. The FDA and food companies have been wrong before: they have assured us of the safety of products that were not safe. Many drugs and food additives that the FDA allowed on the market have subsequently been banned because they were toxic or dangerous.

  15. A few other things the agrichemical industry doesn't want you to know about them: crimes, scandals and other wrongdoing. The agrichemical industry's six major firms - Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow, DuPont, Bayer and BASF - have been involved in so many reprehensible activities that documenting them would require at least an entire book.


U.S. Right to Know is a new nonprofit food organization. We expose what food companies don't want us to know about our food. We stand up for the right to know what's in our food. We bring accountability to Big Food and its compliant politicians. For more information, please see our website at usrtk.org.

Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://bit.ly/1xcsdoI.


Paris mayor plans to sue Fox News for its racist reporting of Muslim "no-go zones"




Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris





Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo told CNN Tuesday she intends to sue Fox News in the wake of the channel's coverage of supposed "no-go zones" for non-Muslims.

Hidalgo said the channel had "insulted" her city.


"When we're insulted, and when we've had an image, then I think we'll have to sue, I think we'll have to go to court, in order to have these words removed," Hidalgo told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. "The image of Paris has been prejudiced, and the honor of Paris has been prejudiced."


Fox News representatives did not respond to requests for comment, and outside legal analysts largely dismissed the likelihood that a lawsuit would succeed.


Hidalgo's warning about a lawsuit came after a series of Fox segments suggested there are parts of Paris and other European cities where Islamic law is practiced and where police are fearful to work. The "no-go" zone segments were widely mocked and challenged as inaccurate, particularly by French media outlets.


Some critics have accused the network of using the controversial "no-go zones" idea to perpetuate a fearful narrative about Muslims, particularly in the days since terror attacks in Paris.


[embedded content]




One Fox show, for example, displayed an inaccurate map of the alleged "no-go zones" in and around Paris. On another show, a guest who was identified as a security expert claimed that Birmingham, England is a "totally Muslim city where non-Muslims don't go in."

Among those who ridiculed the Fox News claims was British Prime Minister David Cameron, who said of the Birmingham claim: "When I heard this, frankly, I choked on my porridge and I thought it must be April Fools Day."


Fox News anchors issued several apologies on Saturday for the segments.


With regards to Paris, "some of the neighborhoods were highlighted incorrectly," host Anna Kooiman said.


At another point, Julie Banderas issued a blanket apology to "the people of France and England."


Citing the apologies and the embarrassment suffered by Fox, CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said "the system has worked" and "the courts don't need to get involved here."


Other media law experts said that in the U.S., where Fox is based, a lawsuit for defamation filed by a city would likely be tossed out right away.


"A claim like this would never succeed in a United States court because there's no such thing as defamation" of a municipality, said Jeff Hermes of the Media Law Resource Center. (MLRC is nonprofit organization of media outlets; Fox News is a member.)


It's a precedent that was established nearly 100 years ago, when the city of Chicago sued the over a series of critical editorials. The Illinois Supreme Court ruled citizens had nearly free range to criticize their government.


So in this case, Paris would be left to pursue a suit in a French court. That's also problematic: Fox News has limited presence there, leaving the justice system with limited leverage over the company.


Also, U.S. law gives media outlets special protections against the decisions of foreign courts.


A 2010 law called the SPEECH Act "was designed to protect American publishers from defamation lawsuits overseas," said Anthony Fargo, a professor and director of the Center for International Media Law and Policy Studies at Indiana University. He, too, thinks it unlikely a U.S. court would hear the case.


CNN, the owner of this web site, was once sued by a small town in Brazil, but CNN won the case on appeal.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://bit.ly/1xcsdoI.


UK Police State actions ramping up - military to deploy troops domestically and clamp down on Internet free speech


The former head of Britain's intelligence agency MI5, Lord Evans, has added his voice to demands for a clampdown on the Internet and e-communications in the wake of the terror assaults on the office in Paris and a Jewish supermarket, in which 17 people were killed.

His remarks underscore that the British government is leading efforts in Europe and internationally to exploit the events of January 7 in France to significantly strengthen the repressive powers of the state. Under the banner "Je suis Charlie" (I am Charlie) and the supposed defence of free speech, police state measures are being imposed.


Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Evans claimed that the UK's existing anti-terror legislation was "no longer fit for purpose" and that new laws were "vital" to enable the state to monitor services such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Snapchat, as well as encrypted communications.


His op-ed appeared just two days after Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking in Washington alongside President Barack Obama, called for "pressure" to be exerted on Internet companies such as Facebook and Twitter to work more closely with UK intelligence agencies. Cameron has pledged that if the Conservatives return to power after the May General Election, they will press ahead with plans for a "snoopers' charter" Communications Bill giving the British intelligence agencies MI5, MI6 and the Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) the power to access encrypted communications.


Simultaneously, it was announced that Britain's Intelligence and Security Committee, consisting of nine senior Members of Parliament and peers, would announce plans for sweeping new state powers in the next weeks.


Conservative Sir Malcolm Rifkind, ISC chairman, backed Cameron's call for new powers. He told the Sunday Telegraph that the ISC would announce in the next weeks "very radical" reforms of existing anti-terror provisions so as to grant the intelligence agencies new powers to intercept e-communications.


"If as we all accept, the problem is international jihadi terrorism, how do international terrorists communicate with each other?" he asked rhetorically. "They communicate by the Internet, by email, by social messaging. That's the world we live in."


Evans and Rifkind both denounced former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden for his exposure of the US and UK's massive and illegal surveillance operations.


Snowden's revelations had led to significant public opposition to the government's original Communications Data Bill, first brought forward in 2012. Evans complained that this had "led to a position where the terrorists and criminals now know enough about interception capabilities to avoid scrutiny, while Internet and communications providers are reluctant to help the authorities as much as they used to in case they suffer commercial disadvantage or media criticism."




Rifkind complained that Snowden "stole - and I use the word explicitly - he stole a million highly classified documents, top secret documents" and handed them over to "the Guardian or other newspapers."

That was not "whistleblowing," but a "political" and "criminal act," Rifkind said.


Blanket surveillance is not the only draconian state power being brought forward on the backs of the confusion and disorientation created by the Paris killings. According to the , "Army chiefs have drawn up plans to deploy 1,900 troops in support of police" anti-terror operations.


The moves came as the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre increased the security threat facing the UK to severe. Steve White, chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said, "The level of extreme terrorism we are facing on an international scale cannot be underestimated and the police service and its security partners are doing all they can."


Home Office officials have claimed the police do not have enough resources to tackle the threat, the reported. Consequently, officers "at the military's Joint Headquarters drafted the plans in Civil Contingency Operations and have asked Army Headquarters in Andover, Hants, to identify available troops."


The newspaper cited a senior military officer stating, "The delicate decision for politicians is when and how to use the Army without causing panic. I expect we will see a small number deployed first and if the situation warrants it more will be called out."




The continued, "Sources at Army Headquarters in Andover said two battalions could be called out at short notice."

The moves come after hundreds of police were deployed in Belgium in the wake of raids on a suspected terror cell in the capital, Brussels. In France, 10,000 troops have been deployed around the country.


Since 9/11, successive UK governments have introduced a plethora of "anti-terror" legislation, each more draconian than its predecessor. This has included the adoption of a secretive "shoot to kill" policy that claimed the life of innocent Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, who was murdered in broad daylight on July 22, 2005.


Such measures have nothing to do with protecting the public. Rather, fear and panic over Islamic extremism - which British and western foreign policy is largely responsible for creating - is being used, once again, to clamp down on democratic rights and legitimise further imperialist interventions.


It should be noted that it was on Evans' watch that, in 2010, the UK Court of Appeal found that British intelligence services were complicit in the extraordinary rendition and torture of UK resident Binyam Mohamed in Morocco and Guantanamo Bay between 2004 and 2009. Mohamed, who was eventually released from Guantanamo without charge, was awarded £1 million compensation for his ill treatment.


On Thursday, London is to host an international summit on combating Islamic terrorism. Co-hosted by US Secretary of State John Kerry, a "military coalition" of more than 20 countries is to meet to discuss "the next phase in the armed conflict with the jihadists," it was announced.


In preparation, the Cameron government has announced it is stepping up operations against Isis forces in Iraq, including the use of extra drones and the despatch of "British experts" to the country. While a planned return of British troops to the country has been delayed - reportedly until after the general election - RAF aircraft continue to carry out bombing raids.


British forces are also to officially begin training Syrian "opposition groups." The US, UK and others deliberately fomented the civil war in Syria as part of their plans for regime-change. In August 2013, Parliament vetoed plans for British military intervention in the country, but Cameron agreed in his talks with Obama that the UK troops will begin training "by the end of March."


The UK has also agreed to enhanced cooperation with Yemen "in military fields and combating terrorism," and the Ministry of Defence is reportedly drawing up plans to increase the number of military personnel for deployment to Nigeria.


Cameron used his Washington appearance to announce the despatch of an extra 1,000 British troops to Eastern Europe, as part of the provocative NATO-led military build-up on Russia's borders.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://bit.ly/1xcsdoI.


FLASHBACK: CIA war propaganda and the corporate media partnership that manipulates public opinion


The mainstream media is the most obvious in its inherent bias and manipulation. The mainstream media is owned directly by large multinational corporations, and through their boards of directors are connected with a plethora of other major global corporations and elite interests. An example of these connections can be seen through the board of Time Warner.


Time Warner owns Time Magazine, HBO, Warner Bros., and CNN, among many others. The board of directors includes individuals past or presently affiliated with: the Council on Foreign Relations, the IMF, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Warburg Pincus, Phillip Morris, and AMR Corporation, among many others.


Two of the most "esteemed" sources of news in the U.S. are the (referred to as "the paper of record") and the . The has on its board people who are past or presently affiliated with: Schering-Plough International (pharmaceuticals), the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Chevron Corporation, Wesco Financial Corporation, Kohlberg & Company, The Charles Schwab Corporation, eBay Inc., Xerox, IBM, Ford Motor Company, Eli Lilly & Company, among others. Hardly a bastion of impartiality.


And the same could be said for the , which has on its board: Lee Bollinger, the President of Columbia University and former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and individuals associated with (past or presently): the Coca-Cola Company, New York University, Conservation International, the Council on Foreign Relations, Xerox, Catalyst, Johnson & Johnson, Target Corporation, RAND Corporation, General Motors, and the Business Council, among others.


It is also important to address how the mainstream media is intertwined, often covertly and secretly, with the government. Carl Bernstein, one of the two Washington Post reporters who covered the Watergate scandal, revealed that there were over 400 American journalists who had "secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency." Interestingly, "the use of journalists has been among the most productive means of intelligence-gathering employed by the CIA." Among organizations which cooperated with the CIA were the "American Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting Company, the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the and the old and ."


By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with the , CBS and Time Inc. The CIA even ran a training program "to teach its agents to be journalists," who were "then placed in major news organizations with help from management."


These types of relationships have continued in the decades since, although perhaps more covertly and quietly than before. For example, it was revealed in 2000 that during the NATO bombing of Kosovo, "several officers from the US Army's 4th Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) Group at Ft. Bragg worked in the news division at CNN's Atlanta headquarters ." This same Army Psyop outfit had "planted stories in the U.S. media supporting the Reagan Administration's Central America policies," which was described by the as a "vast psychological warfare operation of the kind the military conducts to influence a population in enemy territory." These Army PSYOP officers also worked at National Public Radio (NPR) at the same time. The US military has, in fact, had a strong relationship with CNN.


In 2008, it was reported that the Pentagon ran a major propaganda campaign by using retired Generals and former Pentagon officials to present a good picture of the administration's war-time policies. The program started in the lead-up to the Iraq War in 2003 and continued into 2009. These officials, presented as "military analysts", regurgitate government talking points and often sit on the boards of military contractors, thus having a vested interest in the subjects they are brought on to "analyze."


In 2013, Public Accountability reported:



During the public debate around the question of whether to attack Syria, Stephen Hadley, former national security adviser to George W. Bush, made a series of high-profile media appearances. Hadley argued strenuously for military intervention in appearances on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and Bloomberg TV, and authored a op-ed headlined "To stop Iran, Obama must enforce red lines with Assad."


In each case, Hadley's audience was not informed that he serves as a director of Raytheon, the weapons manufacturer that makes the Tomahawk cruise missiles that were widely cited as a weapon of choice in a potential strike against Syria. Hadley earns $128,500 in annual cash compensation from the company and chairs its public affairs committee. He also owns 11,477 shares of Raytheon stock, which traded at all-time highs during the Syria debate ($77.65 on August 23, making Hadley's share's worth $891,189). Despite this financial stake, Hadley was presented to his audience as an experienced, independent national security expert.



The major philanthropic foundations in the United States have often used their enormous wealth to co-opt voices of dissent and movements of resistance into channels that are safe for the powers that be. As McGeorge Bundy, former President of the Ford Foundation once said, "Everything the Foundation does is to make the world safe for Capitalism."

Examples of this include philanthropies like the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation providing immense financial and organizational support to Non-Governmental Organizations. Furthermore, the alternative media are often funded by these same foundations, which has the effect of influencing the direction of coverage as well as the stifling of critical analysis.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://bit.ly/1xcsdoI.


Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)