When America was betrayed

Through the lens of the late reporter, Gary Webb, Robert Parry reviews the moment in American history when the media turned from reporting the news to actively suppressing it.

The media has always tailored its reporting to power. One can name many times when it failed to report critical stories. That Watergate and the Pentagon Papers ever came out were miracles. But in the 1980s, the press was actively corrupted. For example, a newspaper run by a convicted felon became a must-read. But nowhere was the corruption more evident than in the Iran-Contra story where for years, reporters like Bob Parry nibbled at the edges of a huge diversion of funds and resources into an off-the-shelf “war” fought principally through death squads and other methods that constitute crimes against humanity. Hundreds of thousands of civilians died. And in this country, hundreds of thousands fell to addictive narcotics imported by the criminals flying weapons south and narcotics north.

At last– and I remember this moment very acutely– a brave reporter by the name of Gary Webb told the story of how those drugs had ravaged poor neighborhoods. The major media, rather than admitting the truth of the story he had broken, mocked him. His editor succumbed to cowardice and failed to back up Webb. Webb ultimately committed suicide.

It was at that moment, at exactly the same time that the complicity of the major media in spreading lies about Bill Clinton began to unravel, that we knew that our media were hopelessly corrupt, acting as friends and allies of narcotraffickers and murderers. It was at that historical moment when Gary Webb’s character was systematically assassinated to silence the little ray of truth that he shone on corruption at high levels that we knew at last that America had been betrayed, that evil had overcome the nation.

Rest in peace, Gary. You served your country as much as any soldier ever did.

Fill in the blank. _____ = Narcotraffickers

They’re more dangerous than terrorists!

They’ll bankrupt us faster than the banks!

They’re… teachers!

They’re… THE CARTEL!

Yes, this bit of idiocy has probably come to a theater near you and you haven’t noticed. It was advertised on Rachel Maddow, which seemed like a very odd placement.

I have my own complaints about the public school system and, as with every part of American society, there are cases of corruption and incompetence. But I would never dream of equating teacher unions with narcotraffickers.

The New Jersey Education Association presents their findings on the funding of this movie here. Only in nation so close to the breakdown of democratic governance is this sort of thing possible.

Purely for your amusement

News for the simple-minded. Admit it: it’s more entertaining than FOX.

Tinker to Evans to No Chance

The destruction of the United States is not a bug in the Republican plan.

It’s a feature.

Avedon links to a link from Yves at Naked Capitalism which eventually gets to a Reuters opinion piece by James Pethoukokis as well as to a blog post by Bruce Krasting which makes it clear that the Republican plan is to destroy the American economy, leaving it no chance of reviving.

Pethokoukis:

Congressional Republicans appear to be quietly but methodically executing a plan that would a) avoid a federal bailout of spendthrift states and b) cripple public employee unions by pushing cash-strapped states such as California and Illinois to declare bankruptcy. This may be the biggest political battle in Washington, my Capitol Hill sources tell me, of 2011.

That’s why the most intriguing aspect of President Barack Obama’s tax deal with Republicans is what the compromise fails to include — a provision to continue the Build America Bonds program. BABs now account for more than 20 percent of new debt sold by states and local governments thanks to a federal rebate equal to 35 percent of interest costs on the bonds. The subsidy program ends on Dec. 31. And my Reuters colleagues report that a GOP congressional aide said Republicans “have a very firm line on BABS — we are not going to allow them to be included.”…

it’s about more than just openness. Some Republicans hope the shock of the newly revealed debt totals will grease the way towards explicitly permitting states to declare bankruptcy. Indeed, legislation amending federal bankruptcy law is currently being prepared by congressional Republicans. Local municipalities do declare bankruptcy from time to time, most famously California’s Orange County in 1994. But states can’t. Allowing them the same ability to renegotiate obligations could enable them to slash public employees’ lavish benefits, a big factor in their financial woes.

So, basically, the Republican plan consists of turning New Jersey into Ireland, Illinois into Portugal, and California into Spain and use the crisis to steal pension benefits.

That’s pretty bad.

But it gets worse. Krasting links the Bond Buyer, who says:

If the Build America Bond program expires at the end of this year, long-term tax-exempt bonds could lose their latest pillar of support.

BABs represent the most recent valve the municipal market has employed to divert long-term supply from a tax-exempt market whose natural buyers are notoriously averse to long maturities.

and Krasting says :

I’m thinking to myself, “How could they have blundered on this?” They extend the Bush cuts for everyone. They tack on another 120b of deficit spending with a cut in SS taxes. And they throw in another year of unemployment checks. They threw the sink at the economy at the sake of the deficit. But they failed to pass BABs? Knuckle heads. If there is a hiccup that takes a big state out of the market for a spell it will trump the economic benefits of all the new deficit spending. It might do it a few times over.

But it’s actually worse than that. If a state defaults, interest rates for everything go up. Higher interest rates will impact states that are not in deficit, will make houses harder to sell, and will cause corporations to lay off even more people, meaning more unemployment. If you read the comments at Krasting’s site, you’ll realize that the end game of the right is destroying the United States. There are people who think that the only way forward is to force the states and eventually the federal government into bankruptcy.

This is a recipe for disaster, concocted by the party that brought you the Great Depression, doubtless licking its chops at the prospect of blaming a Democratic president for creating the Second Great Depression.

Honduras dictatorship, day 333

Joaquín A. Mejía R. published an all-too-brief description of an article by Spanish Supreme Court Justice Perfecto Andrés Ibáñez that appeared in Debate regarding the despicable treatment by the Honduran Supreme Court of lower court judges Ramón Barrios, Luis Chévez de la Rocha, Guillermo López Lone, and Tirza Flores. The judges were stripped of their posts for declining to go along with the coup, vitiating any sense that the Honduran judiciary enjoys any independence whatsoever.

According to Mejía, Ibáñez article is called “Corte Suprema de Honduras: de golpe en golpe”, which might be translated “Supreme Court of Honduras: (arising from a) coup (and going) into a coup” or “Supreme Court of Honduras: from coup to coup”, with an echo of Psalm 84:7, which can be translated “de fuerza en fuerza” or, and this seems to be his meaning, “Supreme Court of Honduras: from blow to blow”. But the subtle ambiguity of meanings adds a layer of depth to the title.

Ibáñez asks, “Does the Supreme Court know that those it dispossessed enjoyed the admiration and respect of thousands of colleagues on several continents…Has the Supreme Court noted that the important German association Democratic Jurists has offered Tirza Flores Lanza… the Hans Litten Prize, instituted in memory of a lawyer murdered by the Nazis in an extermination camp?

Are the members of the Supreme Court aware of the level at which the prestige of the institution is now, precisely due to their decree? Do the members of the Supreme Court to what depth they deepen with these resolutions the abyss of delegitimation in which, in a kind of suicide, they decided to cast themselves that fateful day of the 28th of June, 2009?”

He says that the Supreme Court is sadly adrift, which carries it from blow to blow.

In other news, Adrienne did a dozen radio interviews (and TeleSur) in nine days. Not to mention posting maybe three dozen pieces on everything from Wikileaks to Dario Euraque’s new book, writing articles for and about “The Inter-American Monologue” (known in some quarters as The Inter-American Dialogue) and carrying a teaching load. The “Monologue” articles serve as a witty takedown of the pretensions by which American foreign policy is run, saying in part:

By engaging in the exercise of speculating on the effect of WikiLeaks on the U.S. government in this forum, academics and pundits help maintain a fiction of democracy and dialogue where none is present… We have been informed that it is “a bad time for leaks,” … We are told that our security will be put at risk.

A “security” that requires suspending freedom of the press—and critical thought—to hide State Department attacks on the national sovereignty of countries in Latin America and around the world is mutually exclusive with democracy, ours and theirs. Censorship provides security only for governments, their militaries, the business interests they protect and the institutions that provide them ideological cover. The security of human beings—in the United States and Latin America— requires real democracy.

If that’s what constitutes “anarchist comic relief,” as she fears it will become in being institutionalized in the Inter-American Dialogue, I hope she’ll get a permanent gig. We could all use some laughs to soften the groans. And, for sure, there’s no question that the people running our foreign policy need to hear what she’s saying. A “‘security’ that requires suspending freedom of the press” is called tyranny.