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Sheikh Hamad: ahlan wasahlan (welcome to Palestine)
By Khalid Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem
It is very difficult to underestimate or downplay the visit of the Qatari Emir, his highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani to the Gaza Strip. The visit, short in its duration, will be proven monumental in its symbolism as well as its practical ramifications. The fact that an Arab statesman has decided to fly in the face of Israeli hegemony and the so-called "international consensus" by visiting the thoroughly abandoned, thoroughly blockaded, thoroughly starved and thoroughly tormented Gaza is a badge of honor for Qatar and its gallant and generous Emir.
BREAKING NEWS: AP, Media Fumble News Story
by WALTER BRASCH
On the Sunday before the final presidential debate, Mitt Romney and some of his senior staffers played a flag football game with members of the Press Corps on Delray Beach, Fla.
Ashley Parker of the Associated Press, apparently mistaking fashion reporting for news, reported that Mitt Romney was “wearing black shorts, a black Adidas T-shirt and gray sneakers.” Romney’s team, composed of senior campaign staff whom Parker identified, was “clad in red T-shirts.” She didn’t report what the members of the press wore, their names, or how many were on a team, but did acknowledge she “also played, winning the coin toss for her team, but doing little else by way of yardage accrual.” Yardage accrual? If this was Newswriting 101, and she put that phrase into a news story, there wouldn’t be one college prof anywhere in the country who wouldn’t have red-marked it, and suggested she stop trying to be cute.
Ship to Gaza Activists Brutalized
by Stephen Lendman
On October 22, GazaArk.org headlined "Release: Estelle crew beaten during (Israel's) attack. (Participants) were beaten during the attack and by interrogators." Former Canadian legislator "Jim Manly still in detention."
Israeli policy includes repeated crimes of war and against humanity. Occupied Palestinians suffer most. Humanitarian activists are brutalized for trying to help.
Participants in about a dozen missions were lawlessly interdicted in international waters. They were brutalized, imprisoned and deported. In May 2010, nine Mavi Marmara activists were murdered in cold blood.
A previous article headlined "Brave Israeli Commandos Slaughter Aid Activists at Sea."
In the Grip of War and Sanctions…. Damascus Street Notes
Franklin Lamb
Damascus
The half hour drive from the Lebanese border at Maznaa to Damascus is always pleasant with the wide, well paved and maintained highway, cutting through rolling hills often with large herds of goats and sheep lazily watching the traffic below. As this observer watched some of the herds the other day when traveling to Damascus, I noticed that there appeared to be an unusually large number of shepherds above us tending their herds. On second look, the shepherds turned out to be soldiers peering down on the main highway from among and behind the vegetation nibbling animals.
Two Essays from the Past, On the 10th Anniversary of the Strange Death of Paul Wellstone
Gary G. Kohls
October 25th, a week and a half before 2012’s election day, was the 10th anniversary of the death of Paul Wellstone. A number of commemorative events during the week and, sadly, the loss of this courageous patriot will soon be forgotten by voters who should care enormously that his death, very likely, according to all the evidence available, was planned by evil proto-fascist forces deep within Vice President Dick Cheney’s office.
Cheney and many other Bush-era Republicans that are still in positions of power in the Republican Party particularly the Ryan, Rove, Koch Brothers’, FoxNews, Tea Party obstructionists in the GOP, hated, with a passion, the liberal Jewish Wellstone and his progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
Western Media Dictatorship
By Dr. Elias Akleh
The Western wars against the Middle Eastern countries, especially the Islamic Republic of Iran, had been escalated, lately, to an unprecedented higher level. Besides being economical, political, intelligence and technological, the war had been escalated to include telecommunication. On Monday, October 15th, a total of 19 Iranian satellite TV channels and radio stations broadcasting to Europe were cut off of its Hot Bird Frequencies. Among these channels are Press TV, Al-Alam, Jam-e-Jam 1 and 2, Sahar 1 and 2, Islamic Republic of Iran News Network, Quran TV, and the Arabic-language al-Kawthar.
Although the Iranian satellite companies have signed broadcasting contracts that are valid until 2021, and have not breached or violated these contracts in any way, the European satellite provider Eutelsat SA had ordered its media services company, Arqiva, to terminate the broadcast of the Iranian satellite channels.
Rage Against Austerity
by Stephen Lendman
The criminal class in Washington is bipartisan. Together they planned force-fed pain. They met secretly. They mandated poverty, unemployment, homelessness, and hunger during hard times.
They did it when vital help is needed. Officially it's called "austerity." Obama calls it "shared sacrifice." In other words, ordinary people "sacrifice" to let rich ones "share." Rape, pillage, loot, steal, or plunder best describes it.
The name of the game is shifting public wealth to bankers, other corporate favorites and wealthy elites already with too much. It's gone on for decades. Post-9/11, Bush and Obama took it to a higher level. They represent wealth, power and privilege. Serving them means throwing everyone else under the bus.
Rigged Elections for Romney?
By Michael Collins
A group of independent researchers caught a pattern of apparent vote flipping during the 2012 Republican primaries that consistently favored Mitt Romney. A form of election fraud, vote flipping occurs when votes are changed from one candidate to another or several others during electronic voting and vote tabulation. (Image: Dean Terry)
Vote flipping is difficult to detect because the vote totals remain the same for each precinct. In one of several possible scenarios, an instruction is given to a precinct level voting machine or to a county-level central tabulator. The corrupted totals from precincts are sent from county election officials to state elections board and published as final results. (Primary documents for this article: Republican Primary Election 2012 Results: Amazing Statistical Anomalies, August 13, 2012 and 2008/2012 Election Anomalies, Results, Analysis and Concerns, September 2012).
Will ‘America’ ever change its ways?
By Larry Pinkney
“What happens to a dream deferred? . . .”—Langston Hughes
Will the United States ever genuinely change its bloody and hypocritical ways at home and abroad?
The answer to this question is NO, not until or unless the masses of everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this nation decide that they have had enough of the corporate-owned dictatorship of the Democrats and Republicans, and act accordingly.
There will continue to be massive social injustice and economic austerity at home, and perpetual corporate-driven wars abroad, for as long as the people in this nation allow it. These horrors will continue for as long as ‘we the people’ shirk our collective responsibility and stay on the psychological plantations/reservations of the U.S. corporate political de facto police-State. This horrid reality will continue for as long as, we the people, accept and buy into the mind-numbing and manipulating novocaine of the U.S. corporate-stream ‘news’ media.
Good Guys We're Not
by Stephen Lendman
David Cromwell is a Scottish writer, activist and oceanographer at the National Oceanography Centre in Britain. He and David Edwards are Media Lens.org co-editors.
It's an antidote to misinformation. It critiques mainstream media propaganda, bias and censorship. It provides credible facts, opinion, and in-depth analysis on issues mattering most.
It's what journalism should be but isn't in an age of mass deception. People are on their own to separate truth from fiction. Media Lens provides help.
Both writers co-authored "NEWSPEAK in the 21st Century
Dissent is marginalized and targeted. Democratic values are fast eroding en route to disappearing altogether in Western societies and Israel.
Raising public awareness more than ever is vital. Independent voices are essential. So is speaking truth to power and spreading it to mass audiences.
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