Ne News: Independent News

James Wilt Canadian Dimensions 25 November 2017 A few weeks ago, at  3:30 in the morning , the Manitoba government froze public transit funding to Winnipeg, equivalent to a $10-million cut. It was a quiet affair. The bill that it was contained in wasn’t ever brought to committee, meaning the public weren’t able to formally comment on it. But we’ve already started to see the brutal consequences: soon after, Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman   announced that the city will have  to cut 59 routes, fire 120 bus drivers and increase fares by a considerable 25 cents. Let’s be perfectly clear. This is class warfare. The basic ability for people to get from one place to another – whether for work, family or leisure – has been totally gutted in recent decades. We’re now almost entirely reliant on the neoliberalized ‘solutions’ of privatized cars and airplanes, marked by rabid union-busting in the workplaces, the emitting of massive amounts of greenhouse gase...

Sue Wilson The Sacramento Bee 17 November 2017 What would happen if the politician you love to hate were indicted, but your local news didn’t report it? No newspaper stories, no TV news, no radio news on the hour, nothing. Couldn’t happen? Think again. The Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission voted on Nov. 16 to allow just one corporation to own the local newspaper plus nearly every commercial TV station in your town. Nifty way to reduce down to just one newsroom then dictate whatever information that corporation does — and does not — want you to know in this democracy. It’s exactly what’s happened with radio. Back in the day when lots of companies owned 40 radio stations, the broadcast industry made big promises that local information would be much more diverse if they could simply own many more stations. The 1996 Telecommunications Act resulted in a handful of corporations owning thousands of stations — and force feeding conservativ...

Carla Stea Global Research 17 November 2017 Throughout the past decade, the UN General Assembly Third Committee has adopted the resolution: “Combating Glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.”  Every year the resolution is adopted by an overwhelming majority of UN member states, while the European Union, which, as the battleground of Nazism should have supported the resolution, merely abstains, and their fence-straddling raises disturbing questions about their actual tendencies. Japan’s abstention raises equally disturbing questions. The United States has consistently, and shockingly, opposed this resolution. The resolution is sponsored by the Russian Federation, which together with its Soviet comrades, lost more than 30 million citizens in the struggle against the Nazi invasion. The resolution is co-sponsored by more tha...

Eric Zuesse Global Research 17 November 2017 On November 8th, Britain’s Daily Mail bannered  “NATO tells Europe to prepare for ‘rapid deployment’:”  and sub-headed “Defence chiefs say roads, bridges and rail links must be improved in case tanks and heavy vehicles need to be quickly mobilised” (to invade Russia, but the newspaper’s slant was instead that this must be done purely defensively: “In October, NATO accused Russia of misleading them, saying that Moscow had deliberately violated international rules of military drills”). The article continued: Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called for the infrastructure update across Europe as NATO is set to overhaul its command structure for the first time since the Cold War During a press conference in Brussels, Stoltenberg said NATO needs a command structure to ensure ‘we have the right forces, in the right place, with the right equipment at the right time.’ He then added: ‘This is ...

Free Press 15 November 2017 T he Federal Communications Commission plans to vote to overturn open-internet protections at its open meeting on Dec. 14, according to a report Wednesday from Bloomberg News. In May, the agency voted along party lines to begin a rulemaking process to jettison these strong protections grounded in Title II of the Communications Act — a move that would undermine the sound and successful basis for the FCC’s landmark 2015 Open Internet Order, which has been upheld by the federal courts. The FCC’s December decision will be the culmination of this seven-month proceeding, during which millions of people rejected the agency’s proposal and urged FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to preserve the safeguards put in place under the Obama administration. Free Press President and CEO Craig Aaron made the following statement: “In less than a month, and in defiance of the tens of millions of Americans who have spoken out for the free and open inter...

Dave Lindorff Salon.com 6 November 2017 These are tough days to be a serious journalist. Report a story now, with your facts all lined up nicely, and you’re still likely to have it labeled “fake news” by anyone whose ox you’ve gored — and even by friends who don’t share your political perspective. For good measure, they’ll say you’ve based it on “alternative facts.” Historians say the term “fake news” dates from the late 19th-century era of “yellow journalism,” but the term really took off in 2016, a little over a year ago, during Donald Trump ’s run for the presidency. It described several different things, from fact-free, pro-Trump online media to sensationalistic and largely untrue stories whose only goal was eyeballs and dollars. During the primary season, Trump himself began labeling all mainstream media stories about him as “fake news.” The idea that there could be different truths, while dating at least back to the administration of President Georg...

Phil Rockstroh Consortiumnews.com 27 October 2017 Rumors of war and the lexicon of war permeate the culture of empires, and the U.S. empire is not an exception. In a concomitant manner, the specter of violent death pervades the imagery of the U.S. entertainment industry and stalks the citizens’ dreams. At the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to conduct a devastating aerial assault on Baghdad, known as “shock and awe.” Present circumstances merge with the sleeping monster of history: Close your eyes and images of cross burnings, lynchings, mountains of bison skulls, flaring veils of napalm, and blooming mushroom clouds rise from within. All the bristling, military armaments of the Pentagon cannot turn back the raging storm. The mere existence of vast arrays of weapons, deployed or not, does great harm to the soul of a nation. U.S. Americans are fearful, day and night. We would not feel secure even...

Moon of Alabama 5 November 2017 Yesterday the ruling Salman clan in Saudi Arabia executed a Night of the Long Knives cleansing the state of all potential competition. The Saudi King Salman and his son Clown Prince Mohammad bin Salman initiated a large arrest wave and purge of high ranking princes and officials. Part of this internal coup was the confiscation of huge financial estates to the advantage of the Salman clan. The earlier forced resignation of the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri is probably related to the last night's events. The Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahoo endorsed the resignation. This guarantees that Hariri will never again be accepted in a leading role in Lebanon. In Saudi Arabia eleven princes, including sons of the deceased King Abdullah, more than thirty former and acting ministers as well as the heads of three major TV stations were taken into custody or put under house arrest. The National Guard Commander Prince Mitieb Bin A...

Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu Global Research 5 November 2017 “And thou wilt find the nearest in friendship to the believers to be those who say, ‘We are Christians’. That is because there are priests and monks among them and because they are not proud.” ( Al-Qur-an, Surah Maidah : 82) Introduction: Context and Commitment . The current expansion in mass media and communications reveal more evidently that our world contains variety of cultures, races, religions, and ideologies. Despite globalization and its attendant efforts towards homogeneity, ours is still a pluralist world. As such, tolerance is a foundational notion and a very relevant conceptual and practical prerequisite in establishing a pluralistic society. In pluralism’s point of view, people living in a society with varied religious, cultural, and ideological commitments should enjoy equal rights and should not sacrifice their beliefs at the mercy of the hegemonic ideology of a particular State ...