May 2007
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Media Lens: Newsnight Diplomatic Editor Mark Urban Responds
31 May 2007 — Media Lens On May 22, we published a Media Alert, ‘The Surge – Here To Help,’ analysing a May 14 BBC report from Iraq by Newsnight’s diplomatic editor Mark Urban. (See: www.medialens.org/alerts/07/070522_the_surge_here.php) We had previously written to Urban on May 15: Continue reading
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So what’s changed? By William Bowles
30 May 2007 It’s time for some plain speaking about the issue of climate change and capitalism and the progressive movement’s approach to the whole issue, at least in the so-called developed world. (Progressives in the developing world have more pressing needs right now which is why we have to get our act together.) Continue reading
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Media Lens: The Surge – Here to Help
On the May 14 edition of Newsnight, the BBC’s Mark Urban reported from Iraq that the US troop “surge” was an attempt to “turn the tide of violence” in Baghdad. Urban did not mean it was an attempt to turn the tide of violence in America’s favour and against its enemies – the media essentially… Continue reading
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From ‘al-Qu’eda’ to ‘Abductions’-the deceptions continue By William Bowles
17 May 2007 It’s ages since I’ve dumped on my favourite newspaper, the Independent for its ‘news’ coverage but I broke down and bought the damn thing because of what I found on the front page this week. Under the head of “An American Nightmare” (15/5/07) we read that US troops have been “kidnapped” by Continue reading
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Ghosts of Tim Leary and Hunter Thompson By Joe Bageant
In my ragged assed 40 years of writing, I’ve been lucky enough — or sometimes unlucky enough — to meet and write about many of America’s “somebodies,” mostly vapid asshole movie and TV stars and rock musicians. When I was young, so-called “media journalism” then was just what it is now, what we called “starfucking,”… Continue reading
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Democracy inaction By William Bowles
15 May 2007 Believe it or not, there was a time when working people actually directly participated in the political process, believing that as members of the class of producers they could manage the affairs of state and eventually take control of the businesses they worked for; that was what socialism in the 19th century Continue reading
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Media Lens: The Shining City On A Hill – Part 2
11 May 2007 — Media Lens The BBC’s Justin Webb On ‘Anti-Americanism’ The Lexicon Of Totalitarianism In Part 1 of this alert (www.medialens.org/alerts/07/070508_the_shining_city.php), we analysed Justin Webb’s recent BBC Radio 4 series on “anti-Americanism”, ‘Death to America’. It is worth considering Webb’s premise that “anti-Americanism” is a meaningful concept that merits ‘balanced’ analysis. Continue reading
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Rising Above Politics — Can we quit talking and start walking? By Joe Bageant
8 May 2007 — Joe Bageant Well, lo and beshit! I never thought I’d ever see the day. But even in my hardcore Republican run hometown, many conservatives are quietly sneaking away from the sing-along around the campfire of George Bush’s war-crazed hootenanny. Most of them are ordinary bona fide conservatives. But others slipping off under Continue reading
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Media Lens: The Shining City On A Hill – Part 1
8 May 2007 — Media Lens The BBC’s Justin Webb On ‘Anti-Americanism’ “The shining city upon a hill” was how John Winthrop, one of the early Pilgrims, described America, his new homeland. Winthrop was making reference to the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus had addressed a large crowd: Continue reading
The New Dark Age 