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Post subject: Project Censored
 Posted: Nov 10, 2002 - 06:21 AM
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I thought with all the political talk on this site that ya'll might like to look at this link:
Project Censored
My understanding is this site is run by a sort of watchdog group-they try to focus attention on news that they consider to have been, for whatever reason, under-reported. This is the stuff that flies under the radar. I can't testify as to the veracity of every single article there but it certainly makes for interesting reading.. |
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Post subject:
Posted: Nov 10, 2002 - 09:24 AM
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This is a gold mine, nighthawk! I could spend all day there... did you read the bit about the Bush administration and Bin Laden before 9/11?
love sue |
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rag451 |
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Post subject:
Posted: Nov 10, 2002 - 02:12 PM
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Member
Joined: Oct 24, 2002
Posts: 352
Location: Texas
Status: Offline
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I'm looking at the site right now, and from what I am seeing, it doesn't appear to be all that credible; however, I could be wrong. Interesting site you found, Nighthawk. 
Robert |
_________________
"Maybe we weren't meant for Paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through, struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute, we must march to the sound of drums."
-- Kirk to McCoy
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Post subject:
Posted: Nov 10, 2002 - 02:36 PM
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Rag,
I imagine that one's view of the credibility of the site has a lot to do with one's politics and what one is more or less open to believing. Not trusting governments or the CIA any more than I would trust the Spanish Inquisition, I wouldn't be surprised if there's at least a big kernel of truth in most of those stories. Thanks, NH, for pointing out the site.
Diane |
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rag451 |
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Post subject:
Posted: Nov 10, 2002 - 02:40 PM
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Member
Joined: Oct 24, 2002
Posts: 352
Location: Texas
Status: Offline
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| *diane* wrote: | Rag,
I imagine that one's view of the credibility of the site has a lot to do with one's politics and what one is more or less open to believing. Not trusting governments or the CIA any more than I would trust the Spanish Inquisition, I wouldn't be surprised if there's at least a big kernel of truth in most of those stories. Thanks, NH, for pointing out the site.
Diane |
Yes, and you're right. My first inclination is to distrust that website; however, I am at least willing, in the higher functions of my brain, to give it the benefit of the doubt. I've saved it in my favorites, and I intend to, in a few minutes, go back and look around for a little while. Fear not, I am not so blind as to distrust anything without a RNC Stamp of Approval on it. 
Robert |
_________________
"Maybe we weren't meant for Paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through, struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute, we must march to the sound of drums."
-- Kirk to McCoy
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tj03a |
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Post subject:
Posted: Nov 10, 2002 - 03:41 PM
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Member
Joined: Oct 25, 2002
Posts: 1250
Location: New York, Long Island
Status: Offline
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From what I was able to gather the site is run by a Sociology professor at Sonama Univerity in California. This goes to the univerities directory.
http://it.sonoma.edu:8100/cgi-bin/t3.cgi/phone/Directory_read.taf?_function=detail&AR_HD_CALLER_INFO_uid1=00002650&_UserReference=AD31C0DD576BFB513DCE6E1F
Other than that (Sorry I am as suspicious of California college professors especially sociology ones as I am of most politicians) it is a pretty interesting web site.
I could take the position that it's nothing but left wing democratic propaganda as a polar opposite view in response to a reaction I got to all the stuff I dug up on Clinton but that's just too hypocritical and just as completely inane in my eyes 
There's plenty of good stuff here but it definitely feels contradictory to me in some ways but that could be a carry over vibe I got from some of the sf.indymedia.org site that I found myself at after linking through project censored.
One particular thing makes me somewhat suspicious about this site in that here http://www.projectcensored.org/nominations.htm the list the requirements on stories if you wish to nominate one but the first story on the list (the one on Peru's power plants) only fulfills criteria 3 and 4. Although some may argue that it could meet the first criteria but I don't think so.
Going further down going by the titles alone there's these two links
Bush's War in Afghanistan: A Case of Big Mission Creep?
and
Anti-Pashtun Violence in Northern Afghanistan: Recent Testimonies
I'm sorry but that seems like a conflict to me. The first article seems to imply that we're doing too much in Afganistan while the second seems to imply that we're not doing enough. I'm sorry call me selfish but as far as I'm concerned being there and attempting to kill any and all Al Qaeda (along with their support people the Taliban) is necessary while policing the crimes committed on the citizens there by other citizens there is just not as important a concern for the U.S. People are already critical of the U.S. policing the world without us setting up actual police stations.
On a side note surfing around a bit through the links I was going through some of the archives for 'The Nation' from March of 2000 and I found this in an article
"The most successful third-party candidate in living memory, Ross Perot, is a conservative lunatic; he got twenty-eight times as many votes in 1992 as Ralph Nader got in 1996."
I'm sorry to all the Ralph Nader supporters but I found this to be extremely funny. I had forgotten that Nader was on the ballot in '96. Considering that as far as I can tell most of Perots supporters were dissatisfied republicans this alone tells me that there's a good chunk of people who tend to vote republican yet are willing to vote for someone else at times (even a conservative lunatic looks promising sometimes). There doesn't seem to be anything similar among the democrats going by the support Nader has been receiving in the past two presidential elections. This tell me two things, one the democrats are less likely to support a third party candidate and two the republican politicians had better keep their noses clean and do their real job (not just get elected) if they want to keep those jobs in two years.
So all in all Nighthawk you've definitely provided hours and hours of reading material (or is that days and days? hahaha) |
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Post subject:
Posted: Nov 10, 2002 - 04:16 PM
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tj--
On a somewhat side note it will be interesting to see what happens in Afghanistan over the next 20 years. I'd heard rumors that the initial heady feeling of ousting the Taliban may be facing the cold light of the reality of nation building. We're looking at a place with a radically different political landscape than we have here: wheelings and dealings and ultrafluid coalitions among warlords. On top of that, the place has been factionated and at war with the Soviets for decades before the Taliban. What a nightmare of anarchy. I don't think that culturally we know quite how to work with a system like that--we can't easily predict it, meaning we can't easily manipulate it over the long term (although I'm sure we have some illusion that we can). We're attempting to impose Western politics on a culture that clearly is not like ours; whether or not this mess untangles itself is anyone's guess. All I know that I sure as hell wouldn't want to be president of Afghanistan right now.
Diane |
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rag451 |
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Post subject:
Posted: Nov 10, 2002 - 04:17 PM
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Member
Joined: Oct 24, 2002
Posts: 352
Location: Texas
Status: Offline
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Well, you see, Californian Professors, in my opinion, are all left-wing, and as such, I find it very hard to believe a word they say.
Robert |
_________________
"Maybe we weren't meant for Paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through, struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute, we must march to the sound of drums."
-- Kirk to McCoy
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erifah |
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Post subject:
Posted: Nov 10, 2002 - 04:50 PM
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This account has been Permanently Banned
Joined: Oct 24, 2002
Posts: 2110
Location: The Great State of Arizona
Status: Offline
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| rag451 wrote: | | *diane* wrote: | Rag,
I imagine that one's view of the credibility of the site has a lot to do with one's politics and what one is more or less open to believing. Not trusting governments or the CIA any more than I would trust the Spanish Inquisition, I wouldn't be surprised if there's at least a big kernel of truth in most of those stories. Thanks, NH, for pointing out the site.
Diane |
Yes, and you're right. My first inclination is to distrust that website; however, I am at least willing, in the higher functions of my brain, to give it the benefit of the doubt. I've saved it in my favorites, and I intend to, in a few minutes, go back and look around for a little while. Fear not, I am not so blind as to distrust anything without a RNC Stamp of Approval on it.
Robert |
Personally, anything that features cartoonist Dan Perkins, (aka Tom Tomorrow, creator of This Modern World), as a keynote speaker, I do tend to distrust.
But I won;t dismiss it outright, as I would if Ted Rall were involved... |
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Post subject:
Posted: Nov 10, 2002 - 05:03 PM
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Tom Tomorrow is involved? I love This Modern World. But, of course, I am a left wing academic, dontcha know.
Diane |
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Post subject:
Posted: Nov 10, 2002 - 05:15 PM
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| sueinbrum wrote: | This is a gold mine, nighthawk! I could spend all day there... did you read the bit about the Bush administration and Bin Laden before 9/11?
love sue |
Skimmed it. Actually I hadn't been here for 6 months or so-but something someone said last night made me twig to the fact this site might be of interest. I am glad ya'll like it. |
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Post subject:
Posted: Nov 10, 2002 - 05:27 PM
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Another source of information on news topics all too often ignored by our (biased?) massmedia outlets is the Utne Reader.
Diane |
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Post subject:
Posted: Nov 10, 2002 - 05:39 PM
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| *diane* wrote: | Another source of information on news topics all too often ignored by our (biased?) massmedia outlets is the Utne Reader.
Diane |
The article on chocolate was interesting and I enjoyed the Emotional IQ test. |
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tj03a |
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Post subject:
Posted: Nov 10, 2002 - 06:09 PM
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Member
Joined: Oct 25, 2002
Posts: 1250
Location: New York, Long Island
Status: Offline
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| *diane* wrote: | tj--
On a somewhat side note it will be interesting to see what happens in Afghanistan over the next 20 years. I'd heard rumors that the initial heady feeling of ousting the Taliban may be facing the cold light of the reality of nation building. We're looking at a place with a radically different political landscape than we have here: wheelings and dealings and ultrafluid coalitions among warlords. On top of that, the place has been factionated and at war with the Soviets for decades before the Taliban. What a nightmare of anarchy. I don't think that culturally we know quite how to work with a system like that--we can't easily predict it, meaning we can't easily manipulate it over the long term (although I'm sure we have some illusion that we can). We're attempting to impose Western politics on a culture that clearly is not like ours; whether or not this mess untangles itself is anyone's guess. All I know that I sure as hell wouldn't want to be president of Afghanistan right now.
Diane |
I think you really hit the nail on the head here. Culturally speaking Afghanistan is about as far as you can get from the land of McDonalds, game consoles and wall street (also well just about everything else too) here in the U.S. I was in a Borders book store recently and they had one of those maps that has little cartoon versions of the cities of the world in their locations and there's absolutely nothing in Afghanistan, I didn't notice any other countries like that (although maybe Africa I didn't look) but every other country in the Mid East has cities. It's a very thorny situation that is not going to have any sort of easy answer or an answer that everybody is going to be happy with.
Another interesting side note on covering the news. A close friend of mine worked at CNN several years ago and she encountered a fresh young bright eyed college student who was upset that CNN was covering less than 1/10th the number of armed conflicts going on in the world at the time. Basically ignoring many small wars or 'conflicts' raging around the planet. She didn't understand how CNN basically one of the worlds largest news companies could ignore all that. I would think that logistically speaking there just isn't enough resources to cover everthing that goes on out there. No matter what a lot of stuff is going to be ignored. Even if it was somehow managed to cover every last bit of disturbing news I don't think the average citizen in any civilized or developed country would pay any attention after a while, it would just become part of the background.
Seriously the story on 'Emergency in Southern Peru' story is interesting along these lines. Does it really concern me as a citizen of the U.S. that a Belgian company that is part of a French utility is buying generators that supply electricity to southern Peru? Is it really censorship when most of the U.S. news stations don't bother to cover this story. To tell the truth I found that particular story hilarious since the good citizens of Peru were so upset that they might not get a chunk of the $167 million dollars the French utility paid the Peru government that they caused over $100 million dollars in damage to their own city. It seems to me that maybe the country of Peru is trying to win some sort of Darwin award. As to what this has to do with censorship of the news in America though I haven't the faintest clue and if anybody should be questioning what people of their country are up to in other parts of the world than as far as this particular story goes it seems to have more to do with France than the U.S. either way I don't see any outside countries doing anything wrong here this is pure stupidity on the part of the citizens of Peru. There was an interesting mention in the article that all of these riots are going to have the exact opposite effect for the country that the people want in that it will now be that much harder to attract outside investment of any sort into the country. Personally if I were head of a big company that was looking to invest money in some other country I would be thinking that Peru (if I thought of it at all) would now be pretty close to the bottom of the list. Is that evil capitalism putting profits ahead of the people of Peru or is it just good business sense to avoid losing money because a bunch of yahoos might flip out?
I still don't see how that article gives any sort of realistic example on censorship in America, which make me question the motives behind this site. Sorry NightHawk but it's very interesting and I'm sure that there's a lot of truth in there but it also has some strikes against it. |
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Post subject:
Posted: Nov 10, 2002 - 06:15 PM
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| Nighthawk wrote: | | *diane* wrote: | Another source of information on news topics all too often ignored by our (biased?) massmedia outlets is the Utne Reader.
Diane |
The article on chocolate was interesting and I enjoyed the Emotional IQ test. |
I have a hard time with those tests, because I have to be careful to put down an accurate response (what I'd really be likely to do) versus the best response (what I know I ought to do). I never understand how those tests really get at anything, given that problem. But, anyway, I scored exactly average, 100 points.
So much for the idea that women are necessarily more emotionally astute.
Diane |
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