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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
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Location: Italy
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 Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 9:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | don't have any first hand experience with the Soviet internal ops, but friends of mine say it was common. Even things like natural disasters weren't reported. A friend of mine noted that during a train trip he was on, the soldiers made people close all curtains on rail cars when traveling through an area devastated by earthquake, because the official line was that there was no serious damage. |
I agree, have plenty of evidence myself of this kind, that's what "Soviet Reality" was all abour: a vast, state-imposed "conspiracy of silence": misinfo-by-omission. The USSR were world champions at pretending badstuff-never-happened - any and every kind of "badstuff": crimes never got reported in the papers except for purge-purposes, natural disasters were never-ever reported, industrial accidents ditto... only things that actually were reported was "upbeat" stuff about happy-tractor-drivers-in-Irkutsk-being-awarded-prize-of-holiday-in-Soci-for-winning-provincial-folkdancing-competition, happy-workers-of-steelworks-in-xxxgrad-being-awarded-trophy-for-exceeding-the-5-year-plan-after-only-two-years etc etc etc ad nauseum. Result of info-starvation was that Soviet citizens networked to spread news by word-of-mouth in parks and kitchens, one side-effect was that they also developed a fantasist mindset: after the Chernobyl disaster there were rumors about the afflicted area breeding everything from dinosaurs to angels not to mention 10-foot fluorescent mushrooms.
Nonetheless, deliberately omitting/stifling info isn't quite the same as planting disinfo, which is what we were mostly talking about here?
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“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8380
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 9:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | As I said earlier, don't believe everything you read on the internets |
...nor in the press, nor that you hear on TV etc etc etc. That's why we're here, faik? - to check out what we're being fed by the various "sources"!
Cheryl, no need to tell me "don't believe everything" etc etc... please remember I'm Italian... formative years = strategy-of-tension with fascist bombs being passed off by police and press as commie-anarchist ones, corpses in the streets and all kinds of conflicting explanations being leaked/floated/debunked in the press and courts day by day.... and IMHO Italy is still THE most intrigue-prone, disinfo-prone and leak-rivalry-prone country I can think of offhand - except maybe for Lebanon??  So after that lil' lot, we're all natural-born, died-in-the-wool sceptics... hardly ever believe a word of anything on face-value ... national sport is poking around to try to find out what's "behind" events, what's being "kept from us" (dietrologia) Not really the same as US "conspiracy theory" though as Italian "dietrologia" is far less wildly imaginative and picturesque than the US version, no lizard-men no tiny satanic crew of universal-planetary evil-plotters, our version is sadly but firmly grounded on all-too-real previous national precedents and cynically slit-eyed "cui bono" local-political reasoning.
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“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
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| Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 10:41 pm Post subject: |
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Ah.. you were talking about Russian disinfo "mastery", Cheryl - here's a fascinating, still-controversial case which may-or-may-not be an example of it: US army field manual FM 30-31B - the Italian copy was discovered during a police search of P2 conspiracy-leader Licio Gelli's villa in 1981, btw.
| Quote: | 20 Febuary 2005. Cryptome today has made an FOIA request to the Central Intelligence Agency for information on the authenticity or falsity of FM 30-31B.
19 February 2005
See also: http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/congress/1994_cr/s940715-halperin.htm
Excerpt of Congressional Record statement on July 15, 1994, by Senator Strom Thurmond challenging the nomination of Morton Halperin (of Pentagon Papers fame) to a Defense Department position:
CAIB 1/79: "reprints a top secret U.S. army memo on infiltrating and subverting allies--although the Army continues to deny it was an official document.''
[Fact: the Army did more than deny it was 'an official document.' The alleged 'army memo' ['F. M. 30-31B'] was exposed as a KGB forgery. See House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, hearing, 'Soviet Covert Action (The Forgery Offensive),' February 1980, pp. 12, 13 and Appendix: 'CIA Study: Soviet Covert Action and Propaganda,' pp. 66 and 67; 176-185.] |
| Quote: | There is dispute about the authenticity of this document, which the US government claims is a forgery:
http://cryptome.org/inscom-foia02.htm
A photographic copy of FM 30-31B:
http://cryptome.org/fm30-31b/FM30-31B.htm
FM 30-31B was highlighted at a 1980 hearing of the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Subcommittee of Oversight, as an example of "Soviet Covert Action (the Forgery Offensive)." At the hearing CIA officials testified that the documents was a singularly successful forgery of the KGB:
Mr. BOLAND. All right. Of all the forgeries you have now, which was the most difficult to counter and which was the most successful, would you say, of the Soviet forgeries?
Mr. PEEK [CIA forgery technical analyst]. I would say the field manual 30-31B was the most successful because they have replayed it in many different countries, in fact in practically every continent in the world, and it was played in the press.
Three days ago Cryptome purchased a copy of the hearing record from an online source (apparently the last copy) and presents excerpts concerning FM 30-31B.
The hearing record includes a facsimile of the manual which matches that on Cryptome referenced above except for the word "FORGERY" stamped in large type on each page, including the alleged note to Philippines President Marcos.
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Scrolling down the FM30-31B cryptome-link to the very foot of the page you come to Daniel Ganser's history of some of the cases n' places in which this doc. kept on popping up:
| Quote: | Still today it remains very difficult to fully understand the crucial document FM 30-31B. Journalist Allan Francovich in his BBC documentation on Gladio and NATO’s secret armies asked former CIA director William Colby on the sinister FM 30-31B directives, whereupon Colby denied that the United States had engaged in such operations in Europe: "I never heard of such a thing. Frankly, I don't know the origins of the statement - and you can find any statement in any country, I mean you can find jack-ass statements anywhere." Journalist Francovich also interviewed Ray Cline, CIA Deputy Director from 1962 to 1966, who replied: "Well, I suspect it is an authentic document. I don't doubt it. I never saw it but it’s the kind of special forces military operations that are described. On the other hand you gotta recall, that the defense department and the president don't initiate any of those orders, until there is an appropriate occasion."[21]
The history of FM 30-31B itself is remarkable. The Pentagon document first surfaced in Turkey in 1973 where the newspaper Baris in the midst of a whole range of mysterious acts of violence and brutality which shocked the Turkish society announced the publication of a secretive US document. Thereafter the Baris journalist who had come into the possession of FM 30-31B disappeared and was never heard of again. Despite the apparent danger Turkish Colonel Talat Turhan two years later published a Turkish translation of the top-secret FM 30-31 and revealed that in Turkey NATO’s secret stay-behind army was codenamed “Counter-Guerrilla” directed by the Special Warfare Department. From Turkey the document found its way to Spain where in 1976 the newspaper Triunfo, despite heavy pressures to prevent the publication, published excerpts of FM 30-31B upon the fall of the Franco dictatorship. In Italy on 27 October 1978 excerpts of FM 30-31B were published by the [fairly liberal, totally non-commie] political magazine L'Europeo, whereupon the printed issues of the magazine were confiscated. The breakthrough for the document came arguably not in the 1970s, but in the 1980s, when in Italy the secret anticommunist P2 Freemason lodge of Licio Gelli was discovered. Among the documents seized by the Italian police ranged also FM 30-31B. The Italian parliamentary investigation into P2 decided to publish FM 30-31B in the appendix of the final public parliamentary report on P2 in 1987. |
Here's the US-official version of its origin/first appearance:
| Quote: | In February 1976, a photocopy of the bogus FM 30-31B was left on the bulletin board of the Embassy of the Philippines in Bangkok, Thailand with a cover note from an anonymous “concerned citizen.” This is a typical Soviet bloc practice. Surfacing attracted little attention. FM 30-31B reappeared in 1978 when it was reprinted in two Spanish publications, El Pais (18 September) and El Triunfo (23 September). This was the work of a Spanish communist and a Cuban intelligence officer. Since September 1978, the manual and/or articles concerning it have appeared in the world press in more than 20 countries, including the United States. [Source: Soviet Covert Action (The Forgery Offensive), Hearings before the Subcommittee on Oversight of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, House of Representatives, 96th Congress, Second Session, February 6, 19, 1980, p. 86.]
The hearings added that, “in summer 1979, the Soviets prepared Portuguese-language copies of the forgery and covertly circulated them among military officers in Lisbon.” (p. 87) |
So if it was a Russian disinfo-plant it really was a masterpiece!
Cryptome critique of the CIA claims that it's a forgery:
http://cryptome.org/cia-FM30-31B.htm
| Quote: | The hearing record also includes a copy of the Covert Action Information Bulletin (below) which published FM 30-31B in 1979 along with an assessment of its authenticity: "Regardless of the dispute, we believe, as do publishers in several other countries already, that the document is real, and that in any event our readers should see it and decide for themselves."
CIA testimony provided a single claim for calling the document a forgery: that it was marked "Top Secret" and that field manuals are never so highly classified. There may have been other claims which were deleted from the public record of the hearing to protect classified means and methods for detecting forgeries, but if so they do not appear to have been made public. Without such other information, the single CIA forgery claim appears weak:
1. Neither the US military nor intelligence agencies fully share their most secret documents with other government agencies, much less with the US Congress. That was the case in 1980 as it is now when the Department of Defense is in a tussle with the CIA over intelligence gathering and covert activities. See James Bamford's revelation of the 1960s Operation Northwoods, a top secret plan for the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff which proposes exactly the kind of covert action, including against the United States itself described in FM 30-31B (thanks to D. for the comparison):
http://cryptome.org/northwoods.htm
(...)
2. The CIA's testimony appears to closely follow the CovertAction analysis to offer counters to it, point by point, but does not offer evidence, at least not in the published versions, to support the claim of forgery, only unsupported assertions.
3. The CIA is reported to engage in the same covert actions, including forgeries, of which it accuses the Soviets, and it never publicly admits to them.
4. It is a common ploy for intelligence agencies to accuse their competitors of what they do themselves when publicly exposed, to offer piecemeal explanations, pause to see if they calm a storm, then issue more as required, each time gauging effectiveness. The hearing could be seen as part of such a counterintelligence operation. |
Noting that the CIA testimony at the hearing in 1980 - with the Cold War still in full spate - states the doc. was produced in/first appeared in 1976:
| Quote: | | The suspected Soviet and bloc forgeries which have appeared since 1976 fall into three groups. A single forgery, a bogus U.S. Army field manual, has surfaced in more than 20 countries around the world and has received substantial media attention. Soviet propagandists have exploited it repeatedly to support unfounded allegations that the U.S. acts as the agent provocateur behind various foreign terrorists, in particular the Italian Red Brigades. (*) (...) |
... whereas Ganser states it was first bandied about in Turkey in 1973, leaving a disappearing/disappeared/desparecido journalist in its wake, first actually-published in Turkey 2 years later i.e. in 1975, and while Ganser states it surfaced in Spain (published in "Triunfo") in 1976 (in the wake of Franco's death in 1975), the CIA testimony states it was first published in that country in 1978. Someone's clearly being sloppy/untruthful?
Re the CIA hearing testimony (in 1980) that FM-30-31B was being used to "cast unfounded [sic] allegations" that the CIA was "the agent provocateur behind the Red Brigades" in Italy - I never heard that story here in the 1970s-through-1980!... up to at least 1978 the local communist party called the Brigades "comrades who err", first vague suspicions of possibility of SISMI complicity/protection/intrigue-involvement with consequently-possible "deviation" from their original not-yet-bloodred course didn't start here till 1978-79 when/because a) the Moro kidnapping and its aftermath got seriously weird... and b) the Red Brigades started shooting communist trade-unionists... at which point the Italian communist party started calling 'em "objectively fascists", i.e. lumping them in "morally" with the bombers.
| Quote: |
Aldo Moro's assassination caused a strong reaction against the Brigades by the Italian law enforcement and security forces. The murder of a popular political figure also drew condemnation from Italian left-wing radicals and even the imprisoned ex-leaders of the Brigades. The Brigades lost much of their (small) social following.
A crucial turning point was also the murder, in 1979, of Guido Rossa, a member of the PCI [Italian Communist Party] and a trade union organizer. Rossa had observed the distribution of BR propaganda and had reported those involved to the police; he was shot and killed by the Brigades, but this attack against a popular trade union organizer totally alienated the factory worker base to which the BR propaganda was primarily directed. |
The typical lumpen-leftish catch-phrase from before the Moro kidnapping until well after the (somewhat weird) Dozier kidnapping in 1981 was typical Italian-style "third way" i.e. "we're neither with the State nor with the Red Brigades"... which certainly doesn't tally with the CIA claim that there was some kind of communist-propaganda offensive under way in Italy in/before 1980 to equate the Brigades with the CIA (i.e. make us consider them equiv. to a covert emanation of our notoriously spook-riddled "limited sovereignty" State)- in those years the left/leftish - including me - saw the Brigades as the equally-nasty opposite of the State i.e. far-far-left "deviationists" not CIA=NATO=SISMI=State catspaws, amongst other things because there had been NO campaign - leftist or otherwise - in Italy to equate them with the CIA! And of course preserving the "redness" of the Red Brigades suited the Italian right and its backers just fine as their line was/is communists=red brigades! So I repeat: in those years the CIA was being blamed in Italy (and elsewhere) for using Fascists not Red Brigades, entire country still considered the Red Brigades "maverick reds" not CIA catspaws, on the left/centre-left they were getting themselves hated and feared as "extremist-deviationist far-far-leftists", while on the right/centre-right they were hated and feared as "typical-commies-showing-their-real-bloodthirsty-nature". So to me, on that count too the 1980 CIA testimony is untruthful/misleading... deliberately or otherwise.
Subsequent confirmation-such-as-it-is that the Red Brigades really had not only been police-infiltrated but had actually become remote-controlled by the Powers-That-Be from around 1974 onwards (i.e. from the time of the tipoff-based arrests of Curcio, Mara Cagol and Franceschini) is based mostly on evidence such as very recent (2004) info contained in a book by real-red repentant former Red Brigade founding-member Alberto Franceschini detailing his own first suspicions of infiltration based on fellow-member Corrado Simioni's strange doings, Mario Moretti's ditto, some things said to him before his arrest in 1974 by Mara Cagol about how Simioni had been asking her to put together detailed secret dossiers on early Red Brigade members including their sex-lives(!!)... plus non-coincidental series of arrests of all early-RB members and genuinely-weird concrete-fact stuff such as Simioni's ties to a major Nato bigwig's secretary and free use of his fancy Italian riviera villa, police evidence that FBI-trained criminologist and late-phase top-level Red Brigades member Giovanni Senzani shared an apartment with a SISMI operative in Rome etc etc, etc etc... plus statements by Italian non-communist political and police/intel bigwigs.
(*) asfaik that doc. (FM 30-31B) was certainly NOT published here before 1981, in fact I believe the Italian police "sat on it" until 1987... so dunno-how the CIA could say it was "being used" here by the communists to cast suspicion on the Red Brigades a full year before its discovery by police in Gelli's villa???  Noting that according to Ganser, the Europeo attempted to publish it (via Spanish press-copy, I presume) in 1978 but that issue never hit the newsstands... as the magazine got seized by the Italian police! And the guys Italians themselves suspected of CIA-links in the 1970s - still do, with strong evidence including Vinciguerra's confession- were the bombers (fascists - Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari, Ordine Nuovo etc.), due in the first place to the collapse of the police attempt to frame anarchist Pietro Valpreda for the Piazza Fontana bombing in 1969, not the Red Brigades, who never bombed - preferred to shoot either to kill or to kneecap... and/or kidnap. Question was whether the fascist bombers were self-motivated or string-pulled, but failed police cover-ups and frame-ups made the "string-pulling" look highly probable right from the start. And as I've said, the hard evidence - with relative belief - re Red Brigades infiltration-or-worse by SISMI n' friends came out much later on in this country.
So for all these reasons my verdict on the parts of the 1980 CIA testimony I have most direct-local knowledge about is that they were ... shall we say "less than accurate"? And as the present evidence indicates that SISMI/Gladio/NATO had not only been feeding/protecting/using Fascist bombers n' assassins from way-way back (hard documentary evidence from now-available Italian US and UK intel archives, detailed with massive source-footnotes from 1997 to 2007 in a series of books by Sicilian historian Giuseppe Casarrubea, points way-way back starting from Angleton's OSS-days here - and certain ultra-nasty mass-murder events in Sicily around 1946-47)... but also infiltrated the Red Brigades very early on in their history... although NATO-etc had only got their plants (Simioni, Moretti, Senzani...) into the top Red Brigades leadership slots immediately after the arrests of bona-fide far-left former-PCI members Curcio, Cagol and Franceschini in 1974 . And AS the CIA could not have been unaware of this development, it follows that at very-least the information given on Italy by the CIA to the US House of Representatives in 1980 ("Soviet propagandists have exploited it [FM 31-32B] repeatedly to support unfounded allegations that the U.S. acts as the agent provocateur behind various foreign terrorists, in particular the Italian Red Brigades") is itself yet-another example of spooks purveying deliberately misleading/untruthful information - i.e. CIA "disinfo". 
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P.S. some still very vivid personal memories - both my very-own and from others - of what it was like living/trying-to-more-or-less-survive-as-a-normal-nonmurderous-nonfanatical-human-being in Italy during the "strategy of tension" years can be found here - including these from me :
| Quote: |
Re: Sports Nationalism (4.00 / 4)
| Quote: | | It was a very gloomy time.... And then all of a sudden, there's something to celebrate, and people are feeling happy. |
Reminds me of when Italy won the World Cup in 1982 - to me, that marked the end of the dark-dark "Years of Lead" - from night to day!
In a country where people had for the last 12 years or so - with a little help from our Gladio friends -been literally-murderously politically obsessed and polarized to the point of "cold civil war", with "reds" and "blacks" distinguished by neighbourhood/city/region-of-origin, dress, speech, lifestyle... to such an extreme extent that for young people in Rome it was physically dangerous to walk around in an upper-middleclass area such as Parioli wearing faded jeans and a parka, or in a working-class area such as Testaccio in a camelhair coat and flannel trousers or skirt - allofasudden we were "all Italians" together, all celebrating wild with joy, all united - it was unbelievable!!
And the weeks and months after that, compared to the previous dark bitter years spent counting corpses and meditating revenge, were quite dreamily relaxed ... political extremism was suddenly "out".. miraculously, everyone-but-everyone was suddenly sporting light, bright, summery and non-politically-specific clothes, reading sports mags instead of marx or julius evola ... half the country seemed to be spending its time wandering round the piazzas arm in arm joyfulling reminiscing about every tiny detail of the Great Match while licking lemon icecreams ... then off to the beach.
Not quite the end of the "strategy of tension" ... but it was a watershed - marked a huge mass-psychology turnabout.
by eternalcityblues (parvati_roma at yahoo.it) on Sat Dec 9th, 2006 at 10:05:08 PM EDT
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| Quote: | Re: Walter Rossi, Guido Rossa and Walter Alasia... (4.00 / 5)
(...) And apart from nasty questions such as Senzani's extremely dubious real allegiance etc. etc. - I can still remember - will never forget - when in 1981 I found myself in the same compartment on a train to France as a group of "brigatisti". All trying to look workingclass-inconspicuous so reading comic-books in the compartment - but their manner, attitudes .. "aura"???....and above all, snatches of jargon-heavy overheard conversations in the train corridors switched on my alarm-bells. I later recognised two of them for sure, the two sitting beside me - including one of the women - on TV when they were arrested several years later. Still don't know who the others were but they were seriously creepy.
'Course I didn't actually tell the railway personnel about my suspicions... typical cowardly omertà-reaction, OK? But I was seriously afraid of a shoot-out on the crowded train (... not bad intuition on my part as that's exactly what happened when Nadia Desdemona Lioce was arrested in 2003) - also because during the night, in the small hours before crossing the frontier they had been messing around in the dark and the nearest they could get to dead silence, but I could hear them -- and just make out their silhouettes through fake-closed eyes - surreptitiously shifting stuff around from ... a couple of suitcases to "somewhere else" (?)... when they believed everyone in the compartment was sound asleep. I hadn't been able to sleep because I was already rigid with anxiety, had been forcing myself to act normal and unconcerned but it was the scariest train-journey of my life.
(...)
by eternalcityblues (parvati_roma at yahoo.it) on Sun Dec 10th, 2006 at 12:46:39 PM EDT
[ Parent ] |
| Quote: | ah... here's one of my more charming memories - a cute little slogan straight from the Leaden Years. This one is from Autonomia Operaia (Workers' Autonomy) [...likewise spook-infested, btw]:
Se vedi rosa
spara a vista -
o è una saponetta
o è una femminista
(If you see pink
shoot at sight -
it's either a cake of soap
or a feminist)
...
They used to try to get the girls from the women's lib. movements put as near as possible to the lead-position in "united" leftwing demo marches - the "testa del corteo" - i.e. if the police started shooting the women would get the bullets instead of them, they could do their own shooting with their beloved P-38s from conveniently behind those human-shield "cakes of pink soap".
This isn't a feminist-victimist legend, btw - I got it straight from a guy who used to be part of Autonomia's Via dei Volsci setup.
Baaaaad times, grrrr - see why I was so elated about that World Cup victory and its pacifying aftermath??? |
_________________
“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8380
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:06 am Post subject: |
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When is an "urban legend" not an urban legend?
Back to Cheryl's opening post on the varieties of misinformation - sadly enough, there are very strong indications that what the article she quoted had dismissed as an "urban legend" is in fact a horrific reality:
| Cheryl's source wrote: | Urban Legend: One classic urban legend is the so-called "baby parts" myth. The false allegation is that Americans or others are kidnapping or adopting children from Latin America or other regions to use in organ transplants. This totally untrue story started as a word-of-mouth rumor, broke into the media in 1987 in Guatemala, and has circulated widely ever since. Media accounts giving credence to this false allegation won the most prestigious journalism prizes in France in 1995 and in Spain in 1996. The origins of this rumor and its spread in the world media are examined in the United States Information Agency report, The Child Organ Trafficking Rumor: a Modern "Urban Legend," which was submitted to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography in December 1994.
The "baby parts" myth was spurned by advances in organ transplantation that made organ theft seem more plausible to some. |
Nonetheless, regardless of the truth or otherwise of the 1987 Guatemalan case that so incensed the USIS - probably due to the American citizenship of some of those accused? - the phenomenon of child organ trafficking via criminal gangs does exist, it is one of the many forms of abuse and exploitation to which very poor/homeless/abandoned children are subject in the world's poorest and/or most socially-disrupted regions:
Azerbaijan probes child-organ traffickers (2004)
| Quote: | According to the UN agency for children, Unicef, about 1.2 million children are trafficked worldwide each year in a thriving business worth $10bn, and it is getting worse.
The International Campaign against Child Trafficking (ICACT) points out that children are not only trafficked for their organs and body parts but for a variety of illegal purposes, including sexual exploitation, adoption by childless couples, begging and transporting drugs. |
The Deadly Trade of Child Organ Trafficking (20/1/2007 - Asharq Alawsat)
| Quote: | Prakriiti Gupta, Srinagar - The horrific killings of 19 children and women in the Indian slum of Nithari, close to the affluent area of Noida on the outskirts of India’s capital, Delhi, has brought into focus the horrific trade of human organ trafficking that is claiming the lives of thousands of children worldwide.
There is huge demand and a market for body parts especially eyes, hearts and kidneys belonging to children. Estimates indicate that at least one million children have been kidnapped and killed in the past 20 years for organs. A kidney or eyes can fetch up to US $10,000 and a heart could cost US $50,000 or more. Estimates further indicate that money laundering in this deadly trade accounts for up to 10% of the world's GDP, or as much US $5 trillion. As a result, the black market for children's organs is expanding and more and more children are kidnapped and killed.
While victims are primarily from Asia, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Latin America and Africa, trafficking also takes place in developed countries.
(...)
According to Dr Sam Vaknin, the Senior Business Correspondent for United Press International (UPI), a kidney fetches US $5000 in Turkey. A kidney from an Indian or Iraqi child, however, would cost a mere US $2000. Such amounts are pitiful in comparison to the thousands of dollars that wealthy individuals would pay for an organ.
A recent report of a retired Italian couple, who had been arrested for buying a five-year-old Albanian boy to provide organs for a transplant for their grandson and who paid US $6000 to the trafficking gang, is a clear indicator to this trade.
In Russia in late 2000, a grandmother was arrested for trying to sell her five-year-old grandson Andrei. With the help of the boy's uncle, the child was handed over to a man in exchange for US $90,000 who would then take him to "the West," where his kidneys and other organs would be removed and sold.
(...)
Dr. Crockett, an English kidney specialist, lost his license to practice medicine for life in 1989 because he had organized a network to sell children in Turkey to India for kidney transplants.
An American lawyer was arrested in Peru in 2004, after having exported a total of three thousand children in thirty months to the United States and Italy for organ transplants.
Latin America, Mexico and Brazil where human organ trafficking has been practiced for decades have the worst proven record of abuses against children for organ transplants.
(...)
An adoption scandal also broke out in Italy in 1999 when 4000 Brazilian children arrived in Italy for adoption in four years. One thousand of them were located, however the other three thousand had disappeared without a trace. Two Italian judges, Angelo Gargani and Cesar Martinello went to Salvador de Bahia in Brazil. Upon their return, they warned the government that the Mafia was taking part in "human organ trafficking." These children were sent to clandestine clinics in Mexico and Thailand, as well as in Europe where they were dissected for their organs.
(...)
The trade, outlawed in all but a handful of countries, is legal and booming in Pakistan. According to a recent Pakistan Tribune report, frustrated by lengthy waiting lists at home and fearful of premature death, "transplant tourists," from Europe, the US and the Middle East are flocking to private Pakistani hospitals for operations which can be arranged in a matter days at a fraction of the cost in their native countries.
In 2004, similar instances of kidnapping in Afghanistan also made headlines. Ali Ahmad Jalali, the Interior Minister had also said that hundreds of children had been taken out of the country illegally in recent years, and some had been kidnapped for their organs. |
Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly - Recommendation 1611 (2003)
Trafficking in organs in Europe
WHO: Organ trafficking and transplantation pose new challenges (2004)
A recent interview I saw on Italian TV with a Bologna judge specialised in child abuse and human trafficking confirmed that East-to-West child organ trafficking is a reality in Europe - although nowhere near as frequent as trafficking for prostitution and similar forms of sexual abuse, and that socially-vulnerable Eastern European children are amongst its victims.
In addition, my contacts with the Nigerian charitable association CRARN - which protects and gives shelter to street-children in Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria's Delta region, especially those expelled from their communities due to witchcraft beliefs - have also confirmed that falling into the hands of international organ-trafficking and local and international pedophile/forced-prostitution-trafficking rings (whose local supply-gangs' trucks are a familiar sight throughout the entire region, as they systematically visit villages and towns to "harvest" abandoned or unwanted children) are amongst the gravest exploitation perils faced by the innumerable "street children" of poverty-stricken Africa - and the same phenomenon also extends, in various forms, to the poorest regions of Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.
More on the horrors of child trafficking in Africa and elsewhere for many and various highly-lucrative forms of exploitation, one of which is organ harvesting :
| Quote: | The International Campaign against Child Trafficking (ICACT), spearheaded by terre des hommes (TDH) declared 12 December as the day for global action to STOP CHILD TRAFFICKING.
Child trafficking, child prostitution and child pornography has become major money making operations for individuals, gangs and syndicates in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and other parts of the country; and in the world. Molo Songololo’s research revealed that children are trafficked across South Africa’s borders; both into and from South Africa, as well as within its borders.
The ICACT partners in six regions of the world (Latin America, Europe, West Africa, India, Southeast Asia and Southern Africa) have reports of children being sold, bought, acquired, obtained; bargained and paid for, procured, exchanged, abducted, kidnapped, removed, held captive and ‘stolen’ for a number of purposes.
ICACT reports reveal that children are trafficked into forced labour, illegal adoptions, forced marriages, for begging and criminal activities, to transport and sell narcotics, into gangs, conflict and armies, for their organs and body parts or cult rituals; and for sexual exploitation, this includes prostitution and pornography. |
....
P.S. the USIS debunking of illegal organ trafficking in general and child organ trafficking in particular as a "myth" or "urban legend" is based almost entirely on the alleged "impossibility" of traffickers having access to adequate medical facilities and highly-skilled medical personnel for the performance of such delicate surgical operations - the rest of their argument consists of 2 (two) widely-reported cases in Latin America in which claims of organ-theft had been made by mentally unbalanced persons and subsequently proved totally unfounded.
I have some disquieting news for them as regards at least one western country: in Southern Italy and Sicily the Mafia, Camorra etc. have very extensive tentacles in the heath system: not only do the "mobs" own and run fancy private hospitals they're also helluva-influential in the public health system - some mafiosi are in fact qualified physicians and surgeons...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jan/01/italy.mainsection
Ah the Guardian has allofasudden discovered the extent of mafia, camorra-etc. involvement in the health sector in southern Italy - here it's been common knowledge for decades... 
[quote]Absolutely no reason, btw, to presume - as Professor Nancy Scheper-Hughes of Organ Watch had once herself assumed - that similar situations cannot exist in other parts of the world where organised crime and/or corruption are prevalent/predominant, usually hand in hand. Wherever big-money talks, legality tends to fly out the window... all over the world:
| Quote: | “Part of it is to get out from under the idea that this is all mythical” says Professor Nancy Scheper-Hughes, speaking from the headquarters of Organs Watch, an organisation founded in 1999, operating out of the University of California, and with a research presence in over a dozen countries . Indeed, the myths surrounding organ trafficking are profuse both in the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ worlds. We’re all familiar with the urban legend of the tourist who takes a drink offered in a bar and next wakes up in a bath of blood stained ice, an incision in his side, and a note saying “your kidney’s been removed – get to a hospital!”, a dramatic image that obscures the real facts. Wealthy, in relative terms, western tourists are the group least at risk in the real system of organ trafficking. The people most at risk in the global system of organ trafficking are the impoverished, at the fringes, and, for the most part, from the slums and shanty towns of the developing world.
The origins and development of Scheper-Hughes’ involvement in the study of organ trafficking are instructive, illustrating many of the misconceptions and red herrings that allow the worldwide system to continue.
(...)
“I began to see a sort of political formation that was happening. You could map the rumour and see that it was tied especially to states going through civil war or genocide.” So, looking at this wider pattern, she developed a new theory: “maybe it can be seen as a sort of incohate testifying by illiterate people on the margins, who don’t have other discourses to fall back upon, but who recognise that their bodies are not safe under these regimes, where there’s torture, disappearances and so forth”.
At the same time, she was invited to be the sole anthropologist on the Bellagio Task Force, a body set up to report on transplantation, bodily integrity, and the international traffic in organs. Working as part of the task force, she soon came to realise, by talking to transplant doctors, that “there was trouble in the system”, and that in fact the buying and selling of organs was real, and spreading, whether it be in India, China (where, as admitted by Chinese Transplant surgeons, the authorities remove organs from executed prisoners, for the market. Scheper-Hughes has spoken to New York surgeons who have used organs from this self-same source), South Africa, Brazil or the Middle East. “I found out from the transplant surgeons that these weren’t just allegations but that they were true, and that organ trafficking amongst living people was spreading.” And so began a new phase of research ”I began by following the rumours, before I started following the bodies. My primary aim is to disabuse the world of the notion that this is just a rumour. It is actually happening, though not in the way that the rumour suggest, and I actually do believe that the rumour was circulated in part by the transplant profession. That it’s kept it going so that there would be diversion of attention from the things that are actually going on in transplant.” (...) |
Interesting - not the first time lurid, "over the top" hence easily-disproved rumors/stories get circulated as red herring disinfo to discredit/discourage serious research and investigation on "sensitive" issues, I'd say? 
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“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
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Location: Italy
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| Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 1:57 pm Post subject: |
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Re evidence that
| Quote: | | ... lurid, "over the top" hence easily-disproved rumors/stories can get circulated as red herring disinfo to discredit/discourage serious research and investigation on "sensitive" issues.... |
A personal experience pointing to the covert use of such material as "intox-disinfo" combined with entrapment: I once occasionally posted/vented on an antiwar site that also featured, very prominently, some of the more luridly mindbending 9/11 "conspiracy" theories, amongst others - many months after I'd drifted off, I was twice email-contacted by the site's owner... believe it or not, to try to involve me in what looked a heck of a lot like 2 separate "sting" operations! One set of emails started out with a lot of "we all miss you please come back" soft soap then proceeded to invite me to "pass on and publicise in italy" some "top-secret US military documents" allegedly leaked to the site-owner by disaffected US servicemen that could be sent to me if I'd give my address; the other was even more 100%-suspicious: after the initial soft-soaping I received an invitation to help intermediate - to Iran via the Iranian embassy in Italy, no less - the sale/transmission of blueprints for anti-missile equipment!!
When I read that, the hair on my head literally stood up a couple of inches! Needless to say, in both cases I wriggled out of the entrapment-proposals as fast as I could with a barrage of polite-n'-friendly illl-health etc. excuses accompanied by blahblah wish-you-all-well-good-luck-byebye-keep-safe messages... thankfully, I haven't heard from that person/site since - and no I'm not going to publicise its URL as it can be "unhealthy" to interfere with spooks-in-the-performance-of-their-duties - but a friendly warning to all readers including lurkers: not all antiwar/conspiracy-theory sites are spook-free and some are actually spook-operated.... so never-ever-ever follow up any proposals from such sources that involve any conceivable form of illegal/treasonous/dangerous behaviour!
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“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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marc anizan
Joined: 26 Apr 2002
Posts: 2584
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| Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 7:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | deliberately omitting/stifling info isn't quite the same as planting disinfo. |
Perhaps not, but in the same ballpark for sure. An astute reader might pick up on the difference but the intent to confuse/misinform/deceive remains the same. At one time or another we have all been guilty of believing that because it's in print it must be true.
Misinforming takes many forms.
How does one tell if the sexually explicit material we're "treated" to just about everywhere we look is meant to educate and/or inform, which is what we're told, or material meant to desensitize? One suspects it's more of the latter, less of the former. But hard to tell. If freedom to express one's self or one's convictions is trotted out as a supportive clincher, desensitization is probably the name of the game/purpose for the exercise. But not always. So it gets complicated.
The varieties of misinformation go far beyond misleading, misrepresentation or misteaching.
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Cui bono?
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Mircea
Joined: 15 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2008 6:17 am Post subject: |
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| marc anizan wrote: | | Quote: | | deliberately omitting/stifling info isn't quite the same as planting disinfo. |
Perhaps not, but in the same ballpark for sure. |
Maybe not.
| Quote: | Lt. Col. William Pierson: Thank you. I'm happy to take any questions you might have with the understanding that there are certain sensitive areas that I'm just not going to get into. Particularly, information that might be useful to the enemy. Yes?
Reporter #1: What date are we going to start the ground attack?
Lt. Col. William Pierson: Well, as I mentioned a moment ago, there are certain sensitive areas which we are just not going to go into, and that is certainly one of them. Yes?
Reporter #2: Sir, knowing what you know, where would you say our forces are most vulnerable to attack, and how could the Iraqis best exploit those weaknesses?
Lt. Col. William Pierson: Well, again, this falls into the area of information that might be useful to the enemy, and I just can't divulge it right now.
Reporter #3: Sir! Which method of hiding SCUD missiles is working best for the Iraqis?
Lt. Col. William Pierson: Now, this again is a good example of information that could help the enemy, and I just can't answer that.
Reporter #4: I have a two-part question. Are we planning an amphibious invasion of Kuwait, and if so, where exactly will that be?
Defense Secretary Richard Cheney: Excuse me. If I could interrupt here, I just want to underscore what Colonel Pierson said at the start of Q&A. There are two general categories of questions that we are simply not going to be able to address. On, those that would give our enemy advance warning of our actions, and two, those that would identify any points of weakness or vulnerabilities to the Iraqi forces. So let's reopen the floor to questions.
Reporter #5: I understand that there are passwords that our troops use on the front lines. Could you give us some examples of those?
Lt. Col. William Pierson: No, that is something I really cannot comment on.
Reporter #6: Yeah! Are we planning an amphibious invasion of Kuwait? And if so, where?
Lt. Col. William Pierson: I believe that question was asked and if you recall, I already answered it, or said I could not answer.
Reporter #7: Sir, what would be the one piece of information that would be most dangerous for the Iraqis to know?
Lt. Col. William Pierson: No can answer! I have time for two more questions. Yeah?
Reporter #8: Yes, Farud Hashami, Baghdad Times. Where are your troops, and can I go there and count them?
Lt. Col. William Pierson: Nope! Last question. |
That's a parody from SNL, but sometimes omissions are necessary.
| parvati_roma wrote: | | For instance, sez-who the "Karzai worked for Unocal" story - classified as a "media mistake" - wasn't deliberate disinfo planted by a French intel source (as payback for US Frog-bashing)? |
I believe it was deliberate disinformation planted by the US, not the French.
Zalmay Khalilzad, who was the US ambassador to Afghanistan up to about 2005 or so, was educated in the US. Khalilzad is a Neo-Conservative. He has repeatedly worked with other bona fideNeo-Conservatives such as Zbigniew Brzezinski during the Carter years and assisted Carter and Brzezinski (and Gary Sick) in formulating the Carter Doctrine. He has also been associated with the CFR and worked for Paul Wolfowitz, another bona fide Neo-Conservative. Khalilzad did work for UNOCAL (now Chevron) as a consultant, and in particular on the CentGas pipeline deal. His wife works for the RAND Corporation, a Conservative think-tank that sometimes espouses Neo-Conservative views.
You see the same pattern as with the sad case of Sayd Sheik, whose exact name was misrepresented repeatedly to prevent people from recognizing links between the alleged hijackers, Sayd Sheik, and the Pakistani ISI. In this instance, it is my opinion that the confusion was deliberate to throw people off of links between Khalilzad, UNOCAL, Afghanistan, the Taliban, the CentGas pipeline contract, and the fact that talks collapsed on July 1, 2001 and the US, according to published reports in the European media, threatened to bomb Afghanistan back into the Stone Age.
Also perhaps in part because the US was arguing that Afghanistan was a failed state and therefore the Taliban and al-Brzezinski, oops, I meant to say al-Qaeda, did not qualify for protections afforded under the Geneva Convention. That argument fails because the US (Bill Clinton) recognized the (women hating) Taliban as the legal government and entered into contract negotiations, something the US could not have legally done under US law if the Taliban had been on any of the US State Department terror watch lists, which would automatically classify Afghanistan as a failed state.
| Cheryl wrote: | | And we indeed see that former Trotskyites find the US right wing a comfortable home. |
And that means 'what' to me? The Trotskyites formed the Young People's Socialist League, which later joined with the Social Democrat Party of America. After the Trotskyites co-opted the leadership of the SDPA, the two groups merged and became the Social Democrat Party. Their "coming out" party as Neo-Conservatives was in the early 1970s.
If you remember, Irving Kristol, the "God-Father" of Neo-Conservatism wrote that, "Capitalism only deserves two cheers, but not three." [Two Cheers for Capitalism New York, Basic Books 1978], and reiterated that position again in Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea (1999). They're still heavily Marxist, but then what would you expect from disenchanted Welfare Liberals?
I really hate to disappoint you all, but King George II is NOT a Neo-Conservative, he is a Neo-Liberal Institutionalist, just like Daddy, just like Bill Clinton, and just like Hillary Clinton.
Reagan was a garden variety Conservative. Carter is the only president that could possibly be labeled a Neo-Conservative, but I would be reluctant to do so, since he was not pro-Israel.
If anyone's wondering, Colin Powell was a Liberal, just like Al Haig. In fact, the majority of senior military officers are Liberals, but it certainly appears that there is a growing number of Neo-Conservatives in the military.
Obama and McCain? I haven't looked. You can only rely 50% on the voting record, the rest has to come from speeches, writings and other things. Obama sort of strikes me as a Constructivist, or even a Radical, and that would certainly be refreshing, but still doesn't give me reason to get excited.
| Quote: | | Result of info-starvation was that Soviet citizens networked to spread news by word-of-mouth in parks and kitchens, one side-effect was that they also developed a fantasist mindset: after the Chernobyl disaster there were rumors about the afflicted area breeding everything from dinosaurs to angels not to mention 10-foot fluorescent mushrooms. |
Okay, but as a Constructivist, I would ask you to take into consideration that socially, the various peoples of the Soviet Union were not very sophisticated. It's important to remember that at the time of Chernobyl, there were a small number of people living in the USSR that had started their lives as slaves. Others born after 1912 were serfs, and the rest were "proles."
| Quote: | | Disinformation: The USSR's disinformation campaign on AIDS is the classic example. The Soviet intellegence and security service, the KGB, has a special service, Service A, for spreading false information. For example, soon after AIDS was recognized as a new disease, Service A concocted the story that the AIDS virus had been developed as a biological weapon by the Pentagon at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and was used in experiments on prisoners, which was allegedly why it initially appeared in New York, described as the largest big city near Fort Detrick. Several major U.S. cities are actually much closer to Fort Detrick than New York, including Washington, D.C., Balitmore, and Philadelphia, but few non-Americans realize that. |
Um, they stand corrected.
"...described as the largest big city near Fort Detrick." That statement is factually correct. While it is true, there are "several major US cities" which are "actually closer to Fort Detrick than New York," with a population of 8 Million people, NYC is by far the largest big city near Fort Detrick."
I'm inclined to believe the writer was trying to convey the potential for devastation. A person might knowingly or unknowingly be contaminated and board the Amtrak for NYC, or come into contact with others who end up in NYC. A biological agent could spread rapidly in such a densely populated area resulting in the deaths of millions very quickly, and worse than that, people in NYC who commute might spread it rapidly elsewhere.
| Quote: | | The Washington Post called Wheeler a "right-wing Indiana Jones." He is widely credited with inspiring the "Reagan Doctrine," which called for U.S. support of freedom fighters. |
Misinformation or Disinformation?
It is an undisputed fact that the Carter Administration created al-Brzezinski, I mean al-Qaeda, and set up the entire finance and supply network for the Mujhadeen.
It was also the Carter Administration who falsely characterized the Soviet action as an "invasion," when in fact, it was nothing more than one government coming to the aid of another allied government in need. That, his boycott of the 1980 Olympics and the worst recession since the Great Depression cost him the election. A more experience president would have blown off Soviet action as "just another Prague Spring," not politicized the apolitical Olympics, and instead of throwing away money at the Saudis and Pakis, dumped that money into the US economy. After he won the election, he could have "re-assessed" his policies.
| Quote: | FM 30-31B was highlighted at a 1980 hearing of the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Subcommittee of Oversight, as an example of "Soviet Covert Action (the Forgery Offensive)." At the hearing CIA officials testified that the documents was a singularly successful forgery of the KGB:
Mr. BOLAND. All right. Of all the forgeries you have now, which was the most difficult to counter and which was the most successful, would you say, of the Soviet forgeries?
Mr. PEEK [CIA forgery technical analyst]. I would say the field manual 30-31B was the most successful because they have replayed it in many different countries, in fact in practically every continent in the world, and it was played in the press. |
I have dozens of US Army FMs and TMs, and have seen dozens of others, but I have never seen one that has an alpha character in it.
I've never seen or heard of a "classified" FM either. I'm holding FM 90-8 "Counterguerilla Operations" in my hand and it merely states that dissemination is restricted due to technical or operational information.
It's possible the FM could be a partial forgery, that is the basic FM had stuff added to it.
If you have the time and want more information, I'd be looking at the ICJ rulings in Nicaragua v United States.
These are some of the violations of international law and the FCN:
| Quote: | (b) That the United States, in breach of its obligation under general and customary international law, has violated and is violating the sovereignty of Nicaragua by:
- armed attacks against Nicaragua by air, land and sea;
- incursions into Nicaraguan territorial waters;
- aerial trespass into Nicaraguan airspace;
- efforts by direct and indirect means to coerce and intimidate the Government of Nicaragua.
(c) That the United States, in breach of its obligation under general and customary international law, has used and is using force and the threat of force against Nicaragua.
(d) That the United States, in breach of its obligation under general and customary international law, has intervened and is intervening in the internal affairs of Nicaragua.
(e) That the United States, in breach of its obligation under general and customary international law, has infringed and is infringing the freedom of the high seas and interrupting peaceful maritime commerce.
(f) That the United States, in breach of its obligation under general and customary international law, has killed, wounded and kidnapped and is killing, wounding and kidnapping citizens of Nicaragua.
(g) That, in view of its breaches of the foregoing legal obligations, the United States is under a particular duty to cease and desist immediately from all use of force -- whether direct or indirect, overt or covert -- against Nicaragua, and from all threats of force against Nicaragua; |
Of note is paragraph (9)
| Quote: | | (9) By fourteen votes to one,Finds that the United States of America, by producing in 1983 a manual entitled "Operaciones sicológicas en guerra de guerrillas", and disseminating it to contra forces, has encouraged the commission by them of acts contrary to general principles of humanitarian law; but does not find a basis for concluding that any such acts which may have been committed are imputable to the United States of America as acts of the United States of America; |
That FM referenced there was produced by the CIA and basically is a "how-to" murder, terrorize, torture and conduct insurgency operations.
It's quoted quite a bit, so you'd be able to make comparisons and draw your own conclusions.
Does the US produce such FMs? The answer is yes, and the Nicaraguan government had copies it captured from Contras (there was no denial by the US, only that the US wasn't responsible for how the Contras acted after reading the FM).
Is the FM in question the "real McCoy?" Probably, although it could have been altered to some extent. However, I don't see where that would necessarily change the basic substance of the manual. |
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marc anizan
Joined: 26 Apr 2002
Posts: 2584
Location: The Canadian Far East
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 8:42 am Post subject: |
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In the "misinforming taking many forms" department, this from Politico:
| Quote: | Clinton's campaign rests increasingly on a game of make-believe. ... One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning. .... The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe. The real question is why so many people are playing. The answer has more to do with media psychology than with practical politics.
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A good read. The story behind the story. (Also the piece's title.) 
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Cui bono?
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Cheryl
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 8:54 am Post subject: |
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Marc, I think it's interesting that that article was published on the day that Bill Richardson, one of the contenders for the Democratic nomination, announced his support for Obama. Richardson's endorsement could be a turning point in the dynamics of the race and also in how the race is covered.
Richardson is the governor of New Mexico and also a superdelegate to the Democratic convention. He is Hispanic, and, even more important, was ambassador to the UN and Secretary of Energy under Bill Clinton. The popular vote in the New Mexico Democratic primary went to Hillary Clinton (although by a very small margin), so he is going against that vote, not to mention what the Clintons regard as his personal obligations to them. Bill and Bill smoked cigars and watched the Superbowl together.
Richardson also chose to help turn around what has been a bad week for Obama.
So, in terms of mis/disinformation, it will be interesting to see if this is indeed a turnaround and if the media join the Politico line.
Unfortunately, this is not an illustration of the media becoming more resistant to the general story line and therefore to the campaigns' mis/disinformation, but more that they are continuing to do so. It's useful for Politico to be ahead of the pack, but not too far ahead.
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marc anizan
Joined: 26 Apr 2002
Posts: 2584
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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Words in context by Paul Woodward is a great read.
| Quote: | | On Good Morning America on March 13, Brian Ross with the stealth of a terrorist who is just about to set off a bomb, uttered these seemingly innocent words: “… an ABC News review of more than a dozen sermons… ” — and we all know what followed. ... What we don’t know, but what could be as illuminating as the DVDs themselves, is what led ABC News to be conducting a review of Rev Jeremiah Wright’s sermons in the first place. |
Exactly. Why was ABC News conducting a review of Wright's sermons? And why would Brian Ross give only half the story? Too bad these guys can't be held to account.
There is a proverb that says something on the order of A lie can go around the world and back while the truth is lacing up its boots, and that's the truth of it. Another proverb has it, Once the damage is done, it's hard as hell to undo it.
I agree with Woodward, "If these guys were not framing the news, how did they decide that most of what came immediately after that line was irrelevant? Would most Americans not have responded in a different way if they had then heard Wright say:" | Quote: | | Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador [Edward Peck] said that y’all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that. |
I'll end with a third proverb. Some thing's rotten ....
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Cui bono?
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Cheryl
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 4:41 pm Post subject: |
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Good article, marc.
Here's something unusual from, of all places, Fox News.
Chris Wallace takes his colleagues to task for working over (and over and over) a comment by Barack Obama. He's criticizing them for sensationalizing trivia. Watch Wallace's face as his colleagues make excuses for themselves. He's just not buying it, is thoroughly fed up.
Could it be that he really heard what Obama had to say about having a serious conversation? He has a definite pov, doesn't agree with the comment that is being sensationalized, but he doesn't like what his colleagues are doing, and he sticks with his criticism.
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johnwilkins
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 5:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Cheryl wrote: | Chris Wallace takes his colleagues to task for working over (and over and over) a comment by Barack Obama. He's criticizing them for sensationalizing trivia. Watch Wallace's face as his colleagues make excuses for themselves. He's just not buying it, is thoroughly fed up.
Could it be that he really heard what Obama had to say about having a serious conversation? He has a definite pov, doesn't agree with the comment that is being sensationalized, but he doesn't like what his colleagues are doing, and he sticks with his criticism. |
Part of why I so enjoyed the conversation on the Bell Curve is that people immediately infer that a person who discusses its subject matter seriously is "racist." There needn't be any attempt at definition, qualification, understanding, etc. This is so regular that if a person said, "the typical black person," about anything, there would be a hew and cry about it. For example, "the IQ of the average black person," is a phrase that sent you into a dither when discussing the Bell Curve. You were throwing fits about racial definitions and so forth. Now, when the tables are turned and Barack Obama says, "typical white person," suddenly all bets are off. If stereotyping is wrong for whites, why isn't it wrong for blacks?
| marc anizan wrote: | | Exactly. Why was ABC News conducting a review of Wright's sermons? And why would Brian Ross give only half the story? Too bad these guys can't be held to account. |
Obama is not part of the neocon cabal, nor the realist cabal. They fear him becoming president. If Hillary is the nominee, you have two candidates to choose from, but the neocons win. That's why I lost interest in the 2004 race after Kerry won the nomination. It was over at that point.
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Cheryl
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 7:38 pm Post subject: |
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Chris Wallace's concern was the sensationalization of a single sentence. That's the kind of thing (I think) marc and I have been discussing - how the media focus on the wrong things.
Chris Wallace is of the media, even of Fox News. So it was fairly amazing to see him admonishing his colleagues.
That's what I was talking about, John. Looks like you're doing the same thing as Wallace's colleagues. 
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marc anizan
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| Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 10:28 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Too bad these guys can't be held to account. |
CBS brought Dan Rather to heel, Don Imus received a comeuppance of sorts from NBC (?) so it remains to be seen if ABC censures Brian Ross. The quote unquote evidence is there for all to see and the questions to be asked and answered are not complicated. Forget about why ABC was doing the piece ... one of the other campaigns was likely responsible but for sure the bones were so well scattered before they were buried that trying to unearth them at this late date would amount to a fool's errand which of course is not the same as saying that the matter should be laid to rest. Far from it. The questions Brian Ross needs to be asked are (1) Did you see the follow-up paragraph? and (2) If so, why did you not use it?
The breadth and direction of additional enquiries will be suggested by the kind of replies Ross makes. This is serious business and ABC needs to get to the bottom of it. If the network can't, then a congressional enquiry must!
johnwilkins wrote, | Quote: | | If stereotyping is wrong for whites, why isn't it wrong for blacks? |
John, we're not talking about stereotypes here. By definition a stereotype is a relatively rigid and over-simplified perception or conception of one aspect of reality (English and English). Stereotypes are foolish, sometimes they're hurtful and denigrating but basically they're a form of shorthand favoured by in-groups. They're useful to people who use them because it's a quick and easy way of getting a point across without having to go into great detail and they're useful to people who don't want them used because it's a relatively quick and easy way of controlling what is being said, written or whatever. That's the reason discussions on subjects like the Bell Curve elicit cries of stereotyping: people afraid to discuss a subject will go to great ends to cut it (discussion) off at the pass.
This Wright affair is a completely different matter. The man is accused of hate(ful) speech(ifying) which is light miles away and beyond stereotyping but more to the point, it's one thing to be accused of hateful speech but quite another to actually be guilty of it. It follows then that it is truly a serious matter when someone is accused of the crime, even more serious when it comes out that the charge is without basis in fact. This is why I am so exorcised with the conduct of this man Brian Ross: he proceeded to make a connection when none existed. There is no excuse for this: if he aired the material without knowing the full context, he is not competent and is no investigative reporter. If he omitted the subsequent paragraph, whatever the reason, he is guilty of conspiracy to defame.
Pure and simple.
_________________
Cui bono?
Thus Spake JimBob |
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Cheryl
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
Posts: 3932
Location: USA
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