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| U.S. military assault on women in service |
Excerpt, editing by
Carolyn Bennett
Project Censored examines the coverage of news and
information important to the maintenance of a healthy and functioning
democracy.The mission of Project Censored is to teach students and the public about the role of a free press in a free society – and to tell the News That Did not Make the News and Why.
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odern Censorship as defined by Project Censored is “the
subtle yet constant and sophisticated manipulation of reality in mass media
outlets: on a daily basis, the intentional non-inclusion of a news story – or
piece of a news story – based on anything other than a desire to tell the
truth. Such manipulation can take the form of political pressure (from
government officials and powerful individuals), economic pressure (from
advertisers and funders), and legal pressure (the threat of lawsuits from
deep-pocket individuals, corporations, and institutions).”
Through a partnership of faculty, students, and the
community, Project Censored conducts research on important national news
stories that are under-reported ignored, misrepresented, or censored by the U.S.
corporate media. Each year, Project Censored publishes a ranking of the top 25
most censored nationally important news stories in the yearbook, Censored:
Media Democracy in Action, which is released in September. Recent Censored
books have been published in Spanish, Italian and Arabic.
Founded in 1976 as a media research program, Project Censored works in cooperation with numerous independent media groups
in the United States. Its principle objective is training Sonoma State
University: (SSU) students in media research and First Amendment issues and the
advocacy for and protection of free press rights in the United States.
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roject Censored obviously does a great job pointing up what
mass media inadvertently or deliberately missed ─ censored. What
I wanted further was to see the censored stories or issues placed in categories
by type so I made an attempt. And though there is overlap and the categories are
not perfect, in making them I find the greatest harm has been done to civil/human
rights, health, education and welfare, and foreign relations.
We are the world
but not in the sense that many Americans like to think. What I mean is that the practices
we use on others, the harm we do to peoples of the world is the harm we also do
to ourselves. These are my alphabetically listed categories containing numerical ratings of Project
Censored.
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| Universal Declaration of Human Rights |
CIVIL LIBERTIES/ HUMAN RIGHTS
1. Signs of an Emerging Police State
Since the passage of the 2001 PATRIOT Act, the United States
has become increasingly monitored and militarized at the expense of civil
liberties.
The 2012 passage of the National Defense Authorization Act
(NDAA) has allowed the military to detain indefinitely without trial any U.S.
citizen the government labels a ‘terrorist’ or an accessory to terrorism.
President Barack Obama’s signing of the National Defense
Resources Preparedness Executive Order has authorized widespread federal and
military control of the national economy and resources during ‘emergency and
non-emergency conditions.’
Since 2010, the Department of Homeland Security’s ‘If You
See Something, Say Something™’ campaign has encouraged the public to report all
suspicious activity to local authorities ─ even though actions that the DHS
identifies as ‘suspicious’ include the constitutionally protected right to
criticize the government or engage in nonviolent protest.
4. FBI Agents Responsible for Majority of
Terrorist Plots in the United States
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has embarked on an
unusual approach to ensure that the United States is secure from future
terrorist attacks.
The agency has developed a network of nearly 15,000 spies to
infiltrate various communities in an attempt to uncover ‘terrorist’ plots; however,
these moles are actually assisting and encouraging people to commit crimes. Many
informants receive cash rewards of up to $100,000 per case.
9. Prison Slavery in Today’s USA
The U.S. comprises less than 5 percent of the world’s
population yet U.S. prisons hold more than 25 percent of all people imprisoned
globally.
Many of these prisoners labor at twenty-three cents per hour
or similar wages in federal prisons contracted by the Bureau of Prisons’
UNICOR, a quasi-public, for-profit corporation ─ the United States government’s
thirty-ninth largest contractor.
As incarceration rates rise, so do the numbers of prisoners (in
the thousands) confined to solitary units, often for having committed minor
disciplinary infractions.
10. HR 347 Would Make Many Forms of Nonviolent
Protest Illegal
In March 2012, President Obama signed into law HR 347 (the
Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011).
The law criminalizes acts of entering or remaining in areas
defined as ‘restricted’ … [and makes] it
easier for the Secret Service to overuse or misuse existing laws to arrest
lawful protesters by lowering the requirement of intent in the prosecution of
criminal activity.
16. Sexual Violence against Women Soldiers on
the Rise and under Wraps
The U.S. Department of Defense ruled it suicide but the death
of U.S. Army Private LaVena Johnson (2005) is an example of the sexual violence
suffered by female soldiers while serving their country. The autopsy of Private
Johnson revealed wounds inconsistent with suicide, including chemical burns
that many believe were intended to destroy DNA evidence of rape.
Johnson’s case is among at least twenty cases in which female
soldiers have died under suspicious circumstances. The mysterious deaths
coincide with an increase in sexual violence against women in the military. The
Pentagon has tried to intimidate reporters and editors working on stories about
Johnson.
There were 3,158 total reports of sexual assault in the
military in 2010. The Department of Defense estimates that this number
represents only 13.5 percent of the actual assaults, making the total number of
military rapes and sexual assaults in excess of 19,000 for the year.
19. New York Police Plant Drugs on Innocent
People to Meet Arrest Quotas
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| Police impunity |
A host of stories document how the New York Police
Department operates outside the very laws it is charged with enforcing. And
although the NYPD’s use of unlawful restraints and disproportionate force to
arrest peaceful Occupy protesters received some news coverage, police brutality
directed against people of color continues to go underreported.
In October 2011, a former NYPD narcotics detective testified
that he regularly saw police plant drugs on innocent people as a way to meet
arrest quotas.
The NYPD’s controversial ‘stop and frisk’ program has
invested seventy-five million dollars to arrest suspects for possessing minimal
amounts of marijuana, each arrest costing approximately $1,000 to $2,000.
25. Evidence Points to
Guantánamo Dryboarding
In June 2006, three Guantánamo prisoners were found dead in
their cells. They were hanging from what appeared to be makeshift nooses.
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| Invest in People Not prison |
The Department of Defense declared the deaths suicides. The Naval
Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) inquiry found evidence inconsistent with
suicide (e.g., the prisoners’ hands were bound behind their backs) and concluded
that the prisoners had died from lethal interrogations including ‘dry-boarding,’
the use of controlled suffocation.
DISESTABLISHMENT
PUBLIC SERVICES
PUBLIC TRUST FDIC destroyed
(See also EDUCATION)
21. Conservatives Attack U.S. Post Office to
Break the Union and Privatize Postal Services
The U.S. Postal Service has been under constant assault for
years from conservative Republicans who aim to eviscerate the strongest union
in the country.
Under the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act,
USPS must fully fund retirement health benefits for future pensioners—including
the retirement packages of employees not even born yet.
No other organization, public or private, has to pre-fund
100 percent of its future health benefits. Thus, the post office’s oft-reported
nine-billion-dollar deficit is largely a result of government-imposed
overpayments.
22. Wachovia Bank Laundered Money for Latin
American Drug Cartels
Wachovia Bank between 2004 and 2007 handled funds totaling
$378.4 billion for Mexican currency-exchange houses acting on behalf of drug
cartels.
These transactions amount to the largest violation of the
Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history. Wachovia is one
among several United States and European banks (e.g., HSBC) used by drug
cartels to launder money.
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| Climate Crisis |
ENVIRONMENT
2. Oceans in Peril
We thought the sea was infinite and inexhaustible ─ it is
not.
Scientists from the Climate Change and European Marine
Ecosystems Research project report the overall rise in ocean temperature has
led to the largest movement of marine species in two to three million years.
A February 2012 study of fourteen protected and eighteen
unprotected ecosystems in the Mediterranean Sea demonstrate that this
previously healthy sea is now quickly being depleted of resources.
An international team of scientists conducted the study over
a period of three years and found that in well-enforced marine reserve areas
the fish populations were five to ten times greater than the fish populations
in unprotected areas. The work of these scientists encourages the establishment
and maintenance of marine reserves.
FOREIGN RELATIONS
8. NATO War Crimes in Libya
Although the rationale of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) for entry into Libyan conflict invoked humanitarian principles, the
results have proved far from humane.
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| Civilian dead U.S. war in Afghanistan |
In July 2011, NATO aircraft bombed Libya’s main water supply
facility that had provided water to approximately 70 percent of the nation’s
population.
12. U.S. Joins Forces with al-Qaeda in Syria
From its beginning in 2011, the United States, Britain,
France, and some conservative Arab allies have funded and armed the Syrian
rebellion.
Though the United States has been funding groups opposing Syria’s
head of state since the mid 1990s, those filling the anti-Assad ranks are
members of al-Qaeda, Hamas, and other groups the United States lists as ‘terrorist’
organizations.
18. Palestinian Women Prisoners Shackled during
Childbirth
Female Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons are treated
inhumanely and often denied medical care and legal representation and are
forced to live in squalid conditions.
The United Nation’s Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) says the conditions and violations faced
by women in Israeli jails need to be addressed from a gender perspective.
23. U.S. Covers up Afghan Massacre
The March 2012 massacre of sixteen unarmed Afghan civilians,
nine of whom were children, received a great deal of news coverage.
But independent news sources have focused on whether the
massacre was perpetrated by, as U.S. officials insist, one U.S. solider acting
alone; or whether, as Afghan witnesses and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai contend, multiple U.S.
soldiers bear direct responsibility for the killings.
Independent news reports highlight the fundamental
responsibility of U.S. high military command including the Commander in Chief, U.S.
President Barack Obama for the crimes committed by U.S. troops.
HEALTH, EDUCATION, WELFARE
3. Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Worse than
Anticipated
Developing evidence from a number of independent sources
suggests that negative consequences of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
disaster are far greater than first acknowledged or understood.
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| U.S. Disestablishment |
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
radiation-detection network (RadNet) has serious drawbacks, including a lack of
maintenance and equipment that is often improperly calibrated; but a December
2011 report by the International Journal of Health Services reveals an
estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the
radioactive fallout in Japan.
13. Education “Reform” a Trojan Horse for
Privatization
Public education is the target of a well-coordinated,
well-funded campaign to privatize as many U.S. schools as possible,
particularly in cities.
This disestablishment campaign ─ whose driving logic is
profits ─ claims it wants great teachers in every
classroom but its rhetoric demoralizes teachers, reduces the status of the
education profession, and champions standardized testing that perpetuate social
inequality.
15. Dangers of Everyday Technology
Recent research raises compelling concerns about two
commonplace technologies, cellular phones and microwave ovens.
Heavy, long-term exposure to cell phone radiation increases
risks for certain types of cancer, including leukemia, and in males impairs
sperm production. Prenatal exposure to cell phone radiation has been shown to
produce blood-brain barrier leakage, and brain, liver, and eye damage.
Microwave radiation that heats food also creates free
radicals that can become carcinogenic, while the consumption of microwave foods
is associated with short-term decreases in white blood cells.
The Food and Drug Administration has yet to recognize
studies that indicate microwave ovens alter foods’ nutritional structure, and,
as with the dangers of cell phone use, most studies indicating minimal or no
health risks are, in fact, industry-sponsored.
17. Students Crushed By One Trillion Dollars in
Student Loans
In April 2012, U.S. student loan debt exceeded credit card
debt, topping one trillion dollars.
Student loan debt is the only form of consumer loan debt
that has increased substantially since 2008. The threat of massive student loan
defaults requiring another taxpayer bailout is a systemic risk as serious as
the bank failures that brought the U.S. economy to the brink of collapse in
2008; and the Federal Reserve could introduce a new quantitative easing program
to remove student loan debt, giving the economy a boost similar to that created
by the GI Bill.
The corporate media reported the trillion-dollar milestone
but underplayed its significance and ignored a promising solution.
20. Stealing from Public Education to Feed the
Prison-Industrial Complex
A systemic recasting of education priorities gives official
structure and permanence to a preexisting underclass comprised largely of
criminalized, poor people of color.
The rise of corporate-backed charter schools and privatized
prisons cannot be understood apart from the record closures of public schools
across the country.
24. Alabama Farmers Look to Replace Migrants
with Prisoners
Alabama’s expansive anti-immigrant law (HB56) has been so
economically devastating that farmers in the state sought legislation to force
hard labor on prison inmates eligible for work release programs, to ‘help farms
fill the gap and find sufficient labor.’
Alabama’s Department of Corrections opposed the legislation
noting that its approximately 2,000 prisoners eligible for work release already
have jobs and ‘the prison system is not the solution to worker shortages caused
by the law.’
ORCHESTRATED INEQUALITY
SOCIETY
5. First Federal Reserve Audit Reveals Trillions
Loaned to Major Banks
An audit of the First Federal Reserve reveals sixteen trillion
dollars in secret bailouts to major American and European banks during the
height of the global financial crisis (2007-2010)
Documentation obtained through Freedom of Information Act
requests, months of litigation and an act of Congress shows Morgan Stanley
received up to $107.3 billion, Citigroup $99.5 billion, and Bank of America
$91.4 billion.
6. Small Network of Corporations Run the Global
Economy
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| Ochestrated Inequality |
A University of Zurich study (the first study to look at all
43,060 transnational corporations and the web of ownership among them) reported
that a small group of companies—mainly banks—wields huge power over the global
economy.
The researchers’ network analysis identified 147 companies
that form a ‘super entity,’ controlling 40 percent of the global economy’s
total wealth.
The close connections mean that the network could be prone
to “systemic risk” and vulnerable to collapse.
7. 2012: The International Year of Cooperatives
The United Nations named 2012 as the International Year of
Cooperatives.
According to the UN, nearly one billion people worldwide are
co-op member-owners, and the co-op is expected to be the world’s fastest
growing business model by 2025.
Worker-owned cooperatives provide for equitable distribution
of wealth and genuine connection to the workplace ─ two key components of a
sustainable economy.
11. Members of Congress Grow Wealthier Despite
Recession
Regardless of the economic recession, the net worth of the
members of the U.S. Congress continues to rise.
Roll Call magazine’s analysis of financial disclosure forms using
the minimum valuation of assets shows that members of the U.S. House and Senate
in 2010 had a collective net worth of $2.04 billion ─ a $390 million increase
from the 2008 figure of $1.65 billion. Excluded from disclosure forms are non-income-producing
assets.
14. Who Are the Top 1 Percent and How Do They
Earn a Living?
The richest 1 percent of the country now owns more than 40
percent of the wealth and takes home nearly a quarter of national income.
Evidence based on tax returns indicates that this super-élite
1 percent consists of nonfinancial executives, financial professionals, and
members of the legal, real estate, and medical professions.
A 2011 Stanford University study shows earnings at this
level correlate with the deregulation and other legal changes that brought on
the financial crisis. The 1 percent increasingly left behind deteriorating
neighborhoods in favor of wealthy enclaves, further isolating themselves; the
99 percent are left to deal with the direct consequences of the crisis.
Sources and notes
http://www.projectcensored.org/about/
http://www.projectcensored.org/
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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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