Censorship: Only the media knows

By Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

No one knows better, or more clearly, than the U.S. media about the censorship that has taken place since the first bomb fell on Baghdad. At that moment, I happened to be driving passed the oil fields of Odessa in West Texas. I watched a flock of large buzzards, lined up in a row, each taking a singular turn to rip flesh from the carcass. Those of us who were censored and terminated in the years that followed the bombing of Iraq, were meant to be silenced about the War, torture, Rumsfeld profiteering from the sale of Tamiflu for bird flu, the role of Raytheon and all the other hidden agendas behind the profiteering. But we were never silenced. We continued to write and were published in articles around the world. If anything, those attempts to silence us only made us roar louder. Thanks to the Internet and the unpaid media -- CounterPunch, Indymedia, Infoshop, Narco News, Truthout and the U.N. OBSERVER & International Report, to name a few -- the truth has sounded out globally. As those attempts to silence us were ongoing, peace activists and American Indians were targeted by city and federal police in spy dragnets. Thanks to attorneys, including attorneys at the ACLU, those spy files are being revealed. Here's Dan Rather on the the government's influence in newsrooms.

Rather: Government Influencing Newsrooms
http://www.unobserver.com/
2007-09-22 NEW YORK
Dan Rather said Thursday that the undue influence of the government and large corporations over newsrooms spurred his decision to file a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and its former parent company.“Somebody, sometime has got to take a stand and say democracy cannot survive, much less thrive with the level of big corporate and big government interference and intimidation in news”, he said on CNN’s “Larry King Live”. MORE by Samantha Gross http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/21/3992
Please also see: CBS 2 Reporter Files Complaint After Scuffle Mike Flannery Was Shoved By Aide After Rep. Weller Speech
http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/local_story_264152104.html
Dan Rather's The Trouble with Touch Screens
http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout5.php&id=3737&blz=1


Government Influencing Newsrooms, true, is it not?
By Kenneth T. Tellis

When Dan Rather filed a suit for $70 million against the CBS for having made him a scapegoat, he also pointed out to the fact that Government was influencing Newsrooms. Who better to make such a statement than a news anchor? After all they know what is going on behind the scenes, do they not? But as was pointed out large corporations were also involved. Which begs the point, when did all this begin? Or has this being going on from the Spanish-American War of 1898? Remember the Hearst papers spurring on the crowd for the U.S. to declare war on Spain? After all war is good for business, is it not? Ask Dick Cheney and his corporate friends, they're making millions, while G.I.s are dying in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but who cares, as long as we're making big bucks, is standard corporate policy. It looks like Dan Rather inadvertently spilled the beans. Now, at least the public will be aware that the news they are receiving is cooked up by the government and their corporate allies, and is not necessarily the truth at all. Is this any different therefore to the African Witch Doctor's mumbo jumbo? Because, if this is the case, then generations of Americans have been weaned on this garbage propaganda, and some have even died believing it. So, it all comes down to who is giving out the real news, while the false info is taking the credit for controlling the minds of people. The point now is which news agency is not controlled by the government and the corporations? Is it CBS, CNN, FOX NEWS, NBC, ABC or some other lesser know news group? But we have to face the fact, the news we have been getting is not news at all but hype. Now just think of those Radio and TV stations in Venezuela, are they also getting their news from the same sources? No wonder they are all dumbing-down Hugo Chavez Frias of Venezuela. They have been ordered to do so by their parent company. How many may have connections with U.S. corporations and are deliberately fed false news to create confusion and panic in Venezuela. Thus, the people who run Radio and TV stations in Venezuela may be unwitting accomplices. What Dan Rather has done is a service to the people of not only the U.S., but the world, and we should be grateful to him on that score.