Ed Miliband: politicians must listen to the St Paul's Cathedral protestersh/t Weissnicht
Labour leader says only 'most reckless' will ignore danger signals from Occupy London protest
Daniel Boffey and Mark Townsend
Saturday 5 November 2011
Ed Miliband says the protesters camped outside St Paul's Cathedral present a stark warning to the political classes and reflect a wider national crisis in confidence about the values of those in business and politics.The Labour leader says that, while some have dismissed the cause of the protesters, they present a wake-up call, though they should not be allowed to dictate the terms of such a critical debate.
Writing in the Observer, Miliband describes the Occupy London protest and others around the world as "danger signals" that only the "most reckless will ignore". He says: "The challenge is that they reflect a crisis of concern for millions of people about the biggest issue of our time: the gap between their values and the way our country is run."
He adds: "I am determined that mainstream politics, and the Labour party in particular, speaks to that crisis and rises to the challenge". The Labour leader has until now made no comment on the furore around the protests, which have led to a debate about whether the camp should be forcibly removed.
His intervention will be regarded as a risky manoeuvre designed to hit home the theme of his party conference speech of a need to rid the country of "irresponsible, predatory capitalism". Miliband was widely praised after risking the wrath of some in the media by calling for Rebekah Brooks's resignation early on in the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World and he will be hoping his comments today will chime with the wider electorate who he believes share some of the anger of those at St Paul's.
Miliband is careful to avoid endorsing the "long list of diverse and often impractical proposals" of the protesters. But he says their activities are a symptom of a wider crisis caused by record unemployment, rising inflation, squeezed living standards and turmoil in the eurozone which, he says, adds to the "sense that the economy is on the brink".
He says: "Certainly, few people struggling to makes ends meet and worried about what the future holds for their children will have either the time or the inclination to camp outside a cathedral. And many people will not agree with the demands or like the methods of the protesters. But they still present a challenge: to the church and to business – and also to politics."
The protesters settled on their current site three weeks ago yesterday after an initial plan to base themselves at nearby Paternoster Square, the private business and retail development housing the London Stock Exchange, was thwarted by an injunction. Since then the canon, chaplain and dean of St Paul's have all resigned amid confusion and indecision over whether the church should welcome the protesters or move them on.
Last Tuesday morning the Corporation of London was preparing to hand the camp a 48-hour eviction notice, but was forced to change its policy after the cathedral publicly backed the protesters. They have since been told that they will be allowed to continue to camp outside St Paul's until the new year.
While distancing himself from the methods and goals of the protesters, Miliband says this moment in time is similar to 1945, 1979 and 1997 in that a point has come where "business as usual is not an option". He says: "This is another of those moments because the deeper issues raised by the current crisis are too important to be left shivering on the steps of St Paul's."
The archbishop of York also criticised excessive salaries for top City executives, saying that large differences in income between rich and poor "weaken community life and make societies less cohesive". Dr John Sentamu said that excesses in the financial sector had helped to create big inequalities, "demonstrating how scandalously unfair our society is". He said: "If they [FTSE 100 chief executives] have a responsibility to their staff, it is hard to imagine a more powerful way of telling someone that they are of little value than to pay them one-third of 1% of your salary.
"Top pay has been found to bear little or no relation to company performance, but even if it did, isn't the performance of a company dependent on the work and wellbeing of all its staff?
"Among the ill effects of very large income differences between rich and poor are that they weaken community life and make societies less cohesive." gruniad
Showing posts with label Media Propaganda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media Propaganda. Show all posts
Milliband Speaks Out (in Favour) Of Occupy
The Guardian J'accuse
Not me personally, but the writer.
And it does no harm to remember, for all its recent self righteous smugness, the Guardian is no different to all the other rags that litter this country.
Previous: John Pilger on The 'Getting' of Assange The Guardian and The US Justice System
And it does no harm to remember, for all its recent self righteous smugness, the Guardian is no different to all the other rags that litter this country.
The Guardian of Israel
By Gilad Atzmon
November 05, 2011
Israeli hasbara insists that an attack on Iran is compatible with both Western interests and NATO strategy. For example, this week Israel released information about an IAF exercise in NATO’s bases in Italy. The statement was made to create the impression that any future Israeli aggression against Iran enjoys Western backing. NATO however was quick to disassociate itself from any such attack. NATO leader Fogh Rasmussen confirmed in a press conference that the alliance has no intention whatsoever of intervening in Iran.
To date, we’ve not seen any British public official statement that would suggest that Britain is ready to back either the US or Israel in any possible strike on Iran.
Yet, it seems as if the Guardian, once a respected British newspaper, has already become fully integrated in the Israeli psychological war machine.
Yesterday the Guardian joined the hasbara chorus and informed us that the UK military has ‘amid fresh nuclear fears’ stepped up plans for an attack on Iran.
The Guardian didn’t even try to substantiate its claim. Instead, it produced a gossipy news story that didn’t adhere to the most minimal journalistic standards.
The Guardian reported that “British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government.” This is a somewhat bizarre statement considering the complete silence of the Government and the MOD on the matter. Could Britain launch another criminal war, (this time, potentially a nuclear world war), with no public discussion or even a single official government comment on the subject? I don’t think so.
Did the Guardian make it up? I doubt it – it’s just suspiciously too damn similar to the official Israeli hasbara line. On the face of it, it looks as if the Guardian has, quite simply, joined the Israeli war machine.
Interestingly enough, the JC, Britain largest Jewish weekly was a bit more reliable than the Guardian. The JC wrote that, “the talks (between British and Israeli military leaders) took place as reports suggested that Britain was ready to back the US in a possible strike on Iran.” Yet the JC ended its report suggesting that at least “privately, senior MoD officials flatly refuted suggestions that Britain was ready to be part of a US-led attack on Iran.”
While the JC still seems to maintain some journalistic integrity, this week the Guardian failed miserably. It was caught, whether consciously or unconsciously, disseminating Israeli propaganda. But this shouldn’t take us by complete surprise. As we know, this same ‘progressive’ paper also censored Wikileaks concerning Israel and Palestine.
Like 80% of our ruling party MPs, who just happen to be CFI members (Conservative Friends of Israel), the Guardian also seems to be in open alliance with the Jewish State. I guess that friendship with Israel must really pay.
Gilad Atzmon is a musician-composer. He is particularly well-known his political analysis which is widely published. His website Gilad.co.uk
Previous: John Pilger on The 'Getting' of Assange The Guardian and The US Justice System
I Know it Must Be Shite Because I read it Dacre's Daily Mail
Not to be confused with: It's Absolutely True Because I Read It In Paul Dacre's Daily Mail
When visiting my mother yesterday I had the unfortunate experience of glancing at this highly partisan article from Paul Dacre's shitty little rag, the Daily Mail. My initial reaction was one of, don't be reticent, tell people whose side your really on.
And it is no small article, there are reams of the stuff; what a pity it's all bullshit. But hey, what are truth and facts to the Mail, it's not as though it comes as a surprise when they make shit up. No of course it isn't, it is after all the Daily Mail.
Yes, all very well, but herein lies a problem, it's all bullshit.
Oh! I almost forgot.
Nice headline.
But I do wish I had a nickel for every time the media have wheeled Hitler out. When all else fails, bring on Adolf
When visiting my mother yesterday I had the unfortunate experience of glancing at this highly partisan article from Paul Dacre's shitty little rag, the Daily Mail. My initial reaction was one of, don't be reticent, tell people whose side your really on.
And it is no small article, there are reams of the stuff; what a pity it's all bullshit. But hey, what are truth and facts to the Mail, it's not as though it comes as a surprise when they make shit up. No of course it isn't, it is after all the Daily Mail.
These are the damning images that prove the anti-capitalist protest that has closed St Paul’s Cathedral is all but deserted at night.
Footage from a thermal imaging camera taken late at night reveals just a fraction of the makeshift camp was occupied.
An independent thermal imaging company, commissioned by the Daily Mail, captured these pictures after similar footage from a police helicopter found only one in ten tents were occupied after dark. A host more shite here.
Yes, all very well, but herein lies a problem, it's all bullshit.
Following all the media hype (Telegraph, The Times, Daily Mail, Daily Express) about 'empty tents' at OccupyLSX we decided to check out whether their thermal imaging evidence was true.
We got hold of *exactly* the same thermal imaging camera and showed that - surprise, surprise - you can't tell when people are in their tents.
So don't believe the lies - come down to OccupyLSX and join the vibrant community of people working for a better world. http://occupylsx.org
Oh! I almost forgot.
Surrender of St Paul's: Protest rabble force the cathedral to close, a feat that Hitler could barely manage The Wail
Nice headline.
But I do wish I had a nickel for every time the media have wheeled Hitler out. When all else fails, bring on Adolf
Blacklist Bill Allows Feds to Remove Websites From Internet
Blacklist Bill allows Feds to remove websites from Internet
by Nancy Houser
Oct 27, 2011
The House version of the Internet Blacklist Bill was released October 26, 2011, with no effort to fix problems that existed in the Senate version. A violation of the First Amendment, it is contrary to official positions of internet freedom and censorship.
“Under the Internet Blacklist Bill -- S.968, formally called the PROTECT IP Act -- the Department of Justice would force search engines, browsers, and service providers to block users' access to websites that have been accused of copyright infringement -- without even giving them a day in court.” (Demand Progress)
The S.968 bill is considered dangerous and short-sighted due to its broad writing that covers a multitude of issues, bringing danger to not only Internet security but is considered a serious threat to free online speech and innovation. The Censorship-galore Department describes it as an attempt to build the Great Firewall of America,
requiring service providers to block access to certain websites.
This bill could shut down YouTube, Twitter and many other social websites that bring together the Occupy movements across the nation and world---any user-generated content site where the law can make the sites’ owners legally responsible for the posted content of its users.
Additionally, the bill could shut down music storage lockers and cloud-based products, while its broad-based terminology includes provisions that allow selected websites to be charged with felony charges for streaming unlicensed content---video game play-throughs, coverage of band performances and karaoke videos.
As reported to Tech Dirt the CCIA, CEA and NetCoalition prepared a joint letter to members of Congress who had originally sponsored the bill, saying that on behalf of the technology industry they had never been approached about the bill.
This is ironic, as Protect IP is basically driven by the demands of the entertainment industry. Yet the bill will dramatically reduce jobs, job growth and innovation in the country---something promised by the GOP when they were voted into office and something not yet seen.
The House had previously agreed to meet with organizations that represented the tech industry and who would be most affected by Protect IP. However, the House has chosen to rush the bill through this past Wednesday without listening to professional opinions or advice from the tech industry, individuals who feel strongly that the bill is “jobs-destroying,” “innovative-binding,” “and internet-breaking.”
Letter to the GOP House from CCIA, CEA and NetCoalition: more
Amy Goodman Democracy Now New York Times
I have the greatest respect and admiration for Amy Goodman, she is a rare bird indeed in America today. That sentiment reflected in this nice article from the New York Times.
I telephoned the Library yesterday as it happens, ordering three books.
Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary TimesAmy Goodman
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ José Saramago
Cain José Saramago
A more comprehensive review from the Guardian. Sounds like a fun book.
A few words to come on those no doubt.
I telephoned the Library yesterday as it happens, ordering three books.
Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary TimesAmy Goodman
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ José Saramago
Cain José Saramago
A more comprehensive review from the Guardian. Sounds like a fun book.
A few words to come on those no doubt.
A Grass-Roots Newscast Gives a Voice to Struggles
By Brian Stelter
October 23, 2011
Hours after Amy Goodman, the host of the grass-roots newscast “Democracy Now!,” was arrested in Minnesota in 2008 while trying to cover protesters at the Republican National Convention, she was sitting in a network news studio above the convention floor, when a producer said: “I don’t get it. Why wasn’t I arrested?”
Amy Goodman, right, interviewing Tawakkol Karman, left, a Nobel laureate, with an interpreter.
Ms. Goodman asked him, “Were you out on the streets?” No, he said, he had been in the studio the whole time. “I’m not being arrested here either,” she said she told him. “You’ve got to get out there.” (Clip here)
For Ms. Goodman, that exchange expresses both a shortcoming of the network newscasts that many Americans consume and a strength of “Democracy Now!,” the 15-year-old public radio and television program. The newscast distinguishes itself by documenting social movements, struggles for justice and the effects of American foreign policy, along with the rest of the day’s developments.
Operated as a nonprofit organization and distributed on a patchwork of stations, channels and Web sites, “Democracy Now!” is proudly independent, in that way appealing to hundreds of thousands of people who are skeptical of the news organizations that are owned by major media companies. The program “escapes the suffocating sameness that pervades broadcast news,” said John Knefel, a comedian and freelance writer who started listening about four years ago and now tries never to miss an episode.
Though it has long had a loyal audience, “Democracy Now!” has gained more attention recently for methodical coverage of two news events — the execution of the Georgia inmate Troy Davis and the occupation of Wall Street and other symbolic sites across the country. Ms. Goodman broadcast live from Georgia for six hours on Sept. 21, the evening of the execution, and “Democracy Now!” reporters were fanned out in Manhattan from the first day of the protests against corporate greed.
“At the time, we had no idea if the protest would even last the night, but we recognized it as potentially an important story,” said Mike Burke, a senior news producer for the program. He noted that “it took NPR more than a week to air its first story on the movement.”
Distribution for “Democracy Now!” — which is live each weekday at 8 a.m. Eastern — comes from public, community and college radio stations; public access television stations and some PBS affiliates; the noncommercial satellite networks Free Speech TV and Link TV; and from the program’s Web site, DemocracyNow.org, which streams each hour long newscast in full.
The producers say the program is broadcast on more than 950 stations. But because the distribution is cobbled together and because the program has no commercials, no Nielsen ratings are available.
The media, Ms. Goodman said in an interview last week, can be “the greatest force for peace on earth” for “it is how we come to understand each other.” But she asserted that the views of a majority of Americans had been “silenced by the corporate media.”
“Which is why we have to take it back,” she said, echoing the sentiments of many of her fans.
Friends and former colleagues describe Ms. Goodman as ferocious and persistent, traits that have not changed since the program’s inception in 1996 on five Pacifica Radio stations.
“On the radio, she sounded at times like a giant, at others a giant slayer,” said Jeremy Scahill, now an investigative reporter for The Nation magazine, who practically begged Ms. Goodman to let him volunteer for the program in 1997. She agreed and initially paid him $40 a day from her own pocket. On Facebook he lists the program as his college education.
“What drove us was telling stories we felt were being ignored, misreported or underreported by corporate media outlets,” Mr. Scahill said.
The program slowly gained more stations and, amid a dispute with Pacifica, which was later resolved, it established itself as a nonprofit news organization in 2001. The week of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the program began to be simulcast on television. Since then, Ms. Goodman said, “the growth has just been phenomenal.”
While many media outlets were faulted for playing down antiwar protests after the attacks, “Democracy Now!” covered such events extensively.
Some fans as well as critics describe “Democracy Now!” as progressive, but Ms. Goodman rejects that label and prefers to call it a global newscast that has “people speaking for themselves.” She criticized networks in the United States that have brought on professional pundits, rather than actual protesters, to discuss the Occupy protests.
Last week, no United States television network covered the filing of a lawsuit in Canada by four men who said they had been tortured during the Bush administration and who are seeking Mr. Bush’s arrest and prosecution. But one of the men, Murat Kurnaz, a former prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, was interviewed at length by Ms. Goodman and her co-host, Juan Gonzalez.
The nonprofit nature of the program means that the producers “never have to worry about how an advertiser might feel,” avoiding potential self-censorship, Mr. Burke said. But it also sharply limits the size of the staff. The program relies on volunteers to transcribe segments and, occasionally, to translate foreign-language interviews.
Ms. Goodman regularly helps raise money for stations that broadcast the program. The Internet has given the program a global audience and the ability to reach that audience for more than an hour a day. On the evening of Sept. 21, the live stream about the execution of Mr. Davis was viewed more than 800,000 times.
The live stream attested to “the hunger for this kind of information,” Ms. Goodman said. “Yet there was no network that was there to cover this moment throughout the night.”
Except, in a sense, “Democracy Now!” was able to be that network, at least for a night. YTN
Yes Rupert Even The Best Drop The Occasional Clanger
Rupert's MySpace mea culpa
Everybody else's fault, actually
By Natalie Apostolou
23rd October 2011
War-weary News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch made one concession at the company’s high drama AGM on Friday, stating the MySpace acquisition was a “huge mistake.”
The sorry tale of the social network’s digital demise at the hands of NewsCorp began with the purchase of MySpace for $US580 million in 2005. “We paid $US600 million. We could have sold it for $US6 billion a month later,” Murdoch told shareholders.
“I made a huge mistake. We then proceeded to mismanage it in every possible way,” he said. But Murdoch then threw in the caustic barb, “all of the people concerned with it are no longer with the company.”
This isn’t strictly true as former AOL CEO Jon Miller, who joined News Corp in March 2009 as its great digital savant, is still apparently in Camp Murdoch as CEO of digital media and chief digital officer.
He was brought in to - among other digital super charging duties - turn the ailing fortunes of MySpace around. Despite ousting a lot of bodies and a couple of CEOs, it was pretty clear that this feat wasn’t going to happen. He then helped shift the asset into the hands of Justin Timberlake and Specific Media for $US35 million earlier this year.
Miller also spearheaded News Corp's foray into its iPad only newspaper, The Daily, and is also in charge of Hulu, which was pulled out of serious sale discussions earlier this month.
Perhaps Murdoch was pointing the finger at former MySpace CEO (and Miller oustee) Owen Van Natta who is now at Zynga as EVP and earned $US43 million last year; or Mike Lang, one of the architects of the MySpace acquisition when he was an EVP at News Corp, who is now the freshly installed CEO of Miramax; or former MySpace CEO Mike Jones who has recently started a Los Angeles-based incubator? The Register
By some strange coincidence my other great clanger (mistake/error) story involves a railway.
And as clangers go, they don't come better than this. Isobard Kingdom Brunel's Atmospheric Railway.
Links
http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/em/_events/atmospheric_railway.php
http://www.gkweb.net/myheroes/brunel/railways/atmospheric.php
Daily Mail in The Shit - Good
Mirror and Mail face contempt charge for Bellfield reports
By PA Mediapoint
18 October 2011
The Attorney General has launched proceedings for contempt of court against the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail over their coverage of Levi Bellfield's conviction for the abduction and murder of schoolgirl Milly Dowler.
Dominic Grieve QC filed papers with the Divisional Court last Friday last week seeking to bring proceedings against the two papers but a hearing date has not yet been listed.
Bellfield was convicted on 23 June - but the jury still had to reach a verdict on the second charge that on the day before he snatched Milly from a street in Walton-on-Thames in 2002 he had attempted to abduct schoolgirl Rachael Cowles, then aged 11.
The following day, however, the trial judge, Mr Justice Wilkie, discharged the jury from returning a verdict on that charge, claiming the publicity after Bellfield's conviction of Milly Dowler's murder was so prejudicial that the jury could no longer be expected to consider the abduction charge.
Mr Justice Wilkie said he was referring coverage of the case to the Attorney General.
He said: "This is most unfortunate and, in a sense, deplorable. The only person who is going to be affected by what has happened and most affected adversely has been Rachel Cowles and her family. She has had to live for nine years with what happened to her and she has given evidence in court which has no doubt been an ordeal for her.
"As a result of the trigger being pulled too soon on what would otherwise have been proper and appropriate material, I have been put in a position where I am obliged to discharge the jury from reaching a verdict in her case. It is no longer possible for any jury in receipt of this volume and nature of material to give fair and proper consideration to its verdicts at this stage."
The judge said he was not specifying which organisations were responsible, but added: "It does seem to me that at the very least the legitimate question arises, whether by publishing this material these organisations may have committed a contempt of court.
"It seems to me to be inevitable that the court will have to refer this volume of material to the Attorney General for him to have to consider, having viewed the material, whether it is appropriate for proceedings to be taken against any of the news media involved, in respect of what happened.''
Mr Justice Wilkie said some of the material published about Bellfield after the murder verdicts had "strayed" into allegations "of a hugely prejudicial nature" made by others about the defendant.
Bellfield's counsel, Jeffrey Samuels QC, asked for the jury to be discharged saying that since the verdicts in Milly Dowler's case there had been an "avalanche of publicity adverse to the defendant", adding: "The reader could be forgiven for not realising that this trial is still ongoing and this jury is still deliberating."
Material published included "matters which were excluded from evidence in this trial" such as allegations made by Bellfield's former partners, Samuels said, adding that nothing the judge could say to the jury would be able to remove the "very real risk of prejudice". pressgazette.co.uk
