- Disinformatiion By The Corporate Media Is A War Crime
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- As the Bush War escalates, so does the intensity and
wantonness of the propaganda disseminated by the corporate media. Overnight,
it has cross the line from exaggeration, suppression, and calculated spin
to outright lies and the total repression of meaningful coverage of dissent.
To prevent the truth from being known is to permit opinions to be formed
and decisions to be made on false pretexts. These opinions and decisions,
in turn, are leading to the promotion of an illegal war and the deaths,
dismemberment and permanent scarring of tens of thousands of human beings.
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- Thereby, I believe that any news outlet or newscaster
that knowingly disseminates false information or suppressed true information
prior to and during a war - acts we will collectively refer to as disinformation
- are guilty of war crimes and crimes, in general, against humanity, and
should be held accountable. This regularly updated report will present
evidence of these crimes and alerts to the schemes used by the perpetrators.
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- American Media DISINFORMATION HIGHLIGHTS for 3/23
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- MEDIA Propaganda:
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- U.S. is pushing ahead, meeting little resistance from
a cowed Iraqi military force, making it obvious that we are being greeted
as welcomed "liberators."
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- TRUTH:
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- As of Saturday, 3/22, the U.S. force had not even reached
the boundary of the southern No Fly Zone, a line which runs the 32nd parallel
and approximately through the town of An Najaf, about 100 miles south of
Bagdhad. So, in reality, the U.S. troops have been crossing territory that
has, for years, been essentially secured by air coverage. In short, the
U.S. troops have not yet begun to fight.
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- MEDIA DISINFORMATION:
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- All troops and military families are enthusiastic supporters
of the Bush War and view any casualties as "American heroes."
This lie helps to "keep the warm bodies coming" and make potential
military dissents afraid to speak out.
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- TRUTH:
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- A growing number of military families are rebelling against
Bush. One group of military wives has started a "Bush Countdown"
campaign through the Internet, that ticks off the days until Bush leaves
office, on which occasion they plan to throw an nationwide party. They
also plan to organize against Bush in the next election to make sure he
is defeated and can no longer needlessly threaten the lives of their loved
ones.
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- When a young Baltimore marine was killed, on the morning
of 3/22, the Today Show was trying to present the usual spin - fallen warrior
as hero, his family was proud he gave his life, etc. But the local news
station got the real story, which, of course was suppressed. This is from
WBAL Baltimore: "As he held a picture of his son, Waters-Bey's father,
Michael, (pictured, left), said: "I want President Bush to get a good
look at this, really good look here. This is the only son I had, only son."
He then walked away in tears, with his family behind him.
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- Next to this paragraph is a photo of Mr. Waters-Bey holding
a photo of his handsome young son up to the camera. The father's expression
clearly says, "Do you see him, Bush? Do you give a damn?"
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- Of course, Waters-Bey is black...as a disproportionate
number of front line casualties are likely to be.
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- http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/2056537/detail.html
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- (NOTE: on 3/23 in the morning, Katie Couric interviewed
Waters-Bey on the Today Show...trying to wring patriotic schmaltz from
the grieving family, who sat on the couch with stony faces...resisting
her efforts. Then, later in the day, Waters-Bey made a Dixie Chicks-style
apology....sorry he lashed out at Bush. What kind of threats do you suppose
were made between the evening of 3/22 and the afternoon of 3/24?
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- According to a USA Today report on 3/22, some soldiers
are saying they will refuse to fight because they believe this is an immoral,
wrong war. In its coverage, USA Today commits a war crime by, in essence,
calling in its headline for these soldiers to be condemned as cowards.
The headline was changed by evening, 3/23, with the "critics condemn
act as cowardly" deleted, undoubtedly due to a wave of enraged callers.
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- DISINFORMATION ALERT !!!!
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- THE 50-50 LIE
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- This classic disinformation technique is used to inflate
the opinion the corporate media wants to promote, while minimizing any
dissent against that opinion. To add an even more egregious dimension of
cynical fraud to this crime, it is billed by the perpetrators as "unbiased
news."
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- In the 50-50 lie, instead of reporting the actual fact
that the number of people moved to take to the streets to protest the war
totally overwhelms those willing to protest in favor, the networks or newspapers
report that "protests both for and against the war are being staged."
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- Conspicuously absent from such reports is any mention
of comparative numbers of protests and protestors involved. The implication
is everything, the truth nothing.
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- Here's a classic example: At the height of this week's
international protests involving millions, one headline on AOL's mainpage
(AOL is the FOX of the Internet), described this historic situation as
a "Mixed reaction to war around the world." Mixed reaction? That's
like calling Vermont, which has the fewest non-white residents of all the
states, a melting pot. This isn't unbiased reporting, this is lying by
implication and it is a crime.
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- The reality is, the number of anti-war protestors outnumbers
the number of pro-war protestors by, at the LEAST, about 100,000 to 100.
The largest protest the pro-war people have mustered is about 6,000, near
Valley Forge in PA. And, it was recently revealed that these protests had
been funded by the corporate media giant, CLEAR CHANNEL i.e, they were
a rightwing corporate sham and hardly a grassroots movement.
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- On 3/22, as FOX TV showed the hundreds of thousands of
protestors in NYC that that filled all of Broadway south of Times Square,
across the bottom, the banner headline said "protests for and against
the war across the country."
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- On NBC (Nazi Broadcasting Corporation) 3/23 Nightly News,
the footage was so slanted it was stomach-turning. The New York protests
- over 200,000 people of all ages, colors, and backbrounds, was juxtaposed
in a 50-50 way with a tiny protest in an ultra-rightwing, very white community
in California.
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- Then the protest in London - over 500,000 strong! - was
(can you believe it?!) downplayed as being not as big as expected...HUH?
Then heavily-edited clips (edited to slant) of protests elsewhere were
shown.
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- A Beirut anti-war protest was billed as "Pro-Saddam
Hussein" by the NBC commentator - even though the signs shown in the
sea of protestors all read "NO WAR." Then, at the close of this
farce, Tom Brokaw says what proof this is of a "world deeply divided."
Since when is 6 billion people in several hundred nations united against
a few million rightwingers in, essentially, two countries, a "DIVIDED
WORLD." It isn't - and that is the truth Brokaw and his pals in the
Bush Corporate Empire do not want people to see.
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- Another 50-50 technique is to present an equal number
of pro and con statements on an issue - even if the cons (or pros, depending
on the case) represent a tiny minority. In truly unbiased, accurate reporting,
the number of statements presented reflect the reality of your sample.
If your sampling of "men on the street" includes 10 pros and
one con, then you present several pros and one con, without spin or judgement.
That accurately reflects reality. You do not select the weakest or flakiest
pro statement and pair it with the only con - which is what the media now
does.
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- DISINFORMATION BRIEFS 3/23
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- FOX Ad: Running over and over, and always (from witness
reports) directly after footage of protests. This slick package of an ad
shows five scrubbed looking college students saying... "We speak..we
listen..we unite...support our troops...." At the end of the ad, no
attribution is given at all, which is suspicious, to say the least. Afterall,
even Phillip Morris has to stick on an attribution at the end of its "anti-smoking
public service ads). So, who paid for the FOX ad? The Charitable Rumsfeld
Foundation?
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- Just before 2:00 pm, TV news reports journalists being
fired on. Suddenly, the networks cut back to regular programming."
I.e., a blackout. I learn online later that at least 6 journalists have
been killed in a "secured town." In times gone by, a disaster
such as this would have triggered an intensive round of coverage...minute
to minute. Now, because it works against propaganda, it is scrubbed until
an appropriate spin can be constructed.
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- Meanwhile, AOL is running headlines (throughout the afternoon
of 3/23) straight out of fantasy land: "Franks says fight is "on
our terms." Do those terms include the slaughter of journalists? I
wonder.... Another AOL headline: "U.S. Won't Use Turkish Bases."
This wording, of course, implies that we have CHOSEN not to use the bases.
The fact is, their use has been denied by the Turkish parliament. Here's
the real story: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/story.asp?id=90C727C7-29D3-4AFB-8F9B-CCDBCAD4263B
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- http://home.earthlink.net/~cherylseal/index.html
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