(Note: Image in public domain.)
FROM NPR
Congress Passes 9/11 Responders Bill
December 22, 2010
by MARK MEMMOTT
Update at 5:40 p.m. ET: The House has now passed the bill by a vote of 206-60, sending it to the president.
Update at 5:25 p.m. ET: The House is now voting on the 9/11 first responders bill and at this moment it's close to passing — 204 "aye" votes have been cast, there have been 60 "no" votes, and 170 members have yet to declare themselves.
Update at 2:32 p.m. ET: By a voice vote, the Senate just approved a measure to help 9/11 first responders pay health care costs related to diseases they developed from exposure to harmful elements at ground zero.
Our original post:
"Senators have struck a deal to approve the James Zadroga 9/11 health bill, New York's Daily News says it "has learned."
CNN and the Associated Press are also saying it has heard that a deal's been struck.
We reported yesterday that Sen. Tom Coburn, R-0K, was planning to block a vote on the measure because he wanted to see its paid for by spending cuts from other parts of the federal budget.
According to the Daily News: "The initial Zadroga bill called for a 10-year, $7.4 billion treatment and compensation package. To win GOP support, the proposal was trimmed down to 5 years at $4.3 billion."
Named for a New York City police detective who went to ground zero after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and died five years later of respiratory disease, the measure aims to help first responders and their survivors cope with the costs of medical bills related to illnesses suffered because of their exposure to the toxins at the scene.
Moments after being released on bail, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was already making plans for his next venture, a social network for diplomats called Twofacebook.
Mr. Assange said he came up with the idea for the new site while combing through hundreds of thousands of pages of WikiLeaks documents: “I realized that diplomats didn’t have a way to reconnect with old colleagues so they could lie to them.”
Saying that he hopes to build the site into a “portal of deceit,” Mr. Assange said, “This will be a must-visit destination on the Internet for sworn enemies to friend each other.”
The WikiLeaks founder said that Twofacebook would also enable members of the diplomatic community to share information about music, movies and TV shows “that they say they like but actually detest.”
Additionally, he said he had high hopes for the site’s first online game, Harmville, in which diplomats can kill or maim each other’s sheep.
Elsewhere, President Obama said he was “delighted” by his new deal with Republicans, in which he agreed to give them his lunch money.
December 18th, 2010 4:47 AM
¡Viva WikiLeaks! SiCKO Was Not Banned in Cuba
By Michael Moore
Yesterday WikiLeaks did an amazing thing and released a classified State Department cable that dealt, in part, with me and my film, 'Sicko.'
It is a stunning look at the Orwellian nature of how bureaucrats for the State spin their lies and try to recreate reality (I assume to placate their bosses and tell them what they want to hear).
The date is January 31, 2008. It is just days after 'Sicko' has been nominated for an Oscar as Best Documentary. This must have sent someone reeling in Bush's State Department (his Treasury Department had already notified me they were investigating what laws I might have broken in taking three 9/11 first responders to Cuba to get them the health care they had been denied in the United States).
Former health insurance executive Wendell Potter recently revealed that the insurance industry -- which had decided to spend millions to go after me and, if necessary, "push Michael Moore off a cliff" -- had begun working with anti-Castro Cubans in Miami in order to have them speak out and smear my film.
So, on January 31, 2008, a State Department official stationed in Havana took a made up story and sent it back to his HQ in Washington. Here's what they came up with:
XXXXXXXXXXXX stated that Cuban authorities have banned Michael Moore's documentary, "Sicko," as being subversive. Although the film's intent is to discredit the U.S. healthcare system by highlighting the excellence of the Cuban system, he said the regime knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them.
Sounds convincing, eh?! There's only one problem -- the entire nation of Cuba was shown the film on national television on April 25, 2008! The Cubans embraced the film so much so it became one of those rare American movies that received a theatrical distribution in Cuba. I personally ensured that a 35mm print got to the Film Institute in Havana. Screenings of 'Sicko' were set up in towns all across the country. In Havana, 'Sicko' screened at the famed Yara Theater.
But the secret cable said Cubans were banned from seeing my movie. Hmmm.
We also know from another secret U.S. document that "the disenchantment of the masses [in Cuba] has spread through all the provinces," and that "all of Oriente Province is seething with hate" for the Castro regime. There's a huge active underground rebellion, and "workers there readily give all the support they can," with everyone involved in "subtle sabotage" against the government. Morale is terrible throughout all the branches of the armed forces, and in the event of war the army "will not fight." Wow -- this cable is hot!
Of course, this secret U.S. cable is from March 31, 1961, three weeks before Cuba kicked our asses at the Bay of Pigs.
The U.S. government has been passing around these "secret" documents to itself for the past fifty years, explaining in painstaking detail how horrible things are in Cuba and how Cubans are quietly aching for us to come back and take over. I don't know why we write these cables, I guess it just makes us feel better about ourselves. (Anyone curious can find an entire museum of U.S. wish fulfillment cables on the website of the National Security Archive.)
So what do you do with about a false "secret" cable, especially one that involves you and your movie? Well, you wait for a responsible newspaper to investigate and shout what it discovers from the rooftops.
But yesterday WikiLeaks gave the 'Sicko' Cuba cable to the media -- and what did they do with it? They ran it as if it were true! Here's the headline in the Guardian:
WikiLeaks: Cuba banned Sicko for depicting 'mythical' healthcare system
Authorities feared footage of gleaming hospital in Michael Moore's Oscar-nominated film would provoke a popular backlash
And not one scintilla of digging to see if Cuba had actually banned the movie! In fact, just the opposite. The right wing press started to have a field day reporting a lie (Andy Levy of Fox -- twice -- Reason Magazine and Hot Air, plus a slew of blogs). Sadly, even BoingBoing and my friends at the Nation wrote about it without skepticism. So here you have WikiLeaks, who have put themselves on the line to find and release these cables to the press -- and traditional journalists are once again just too lazy to lift a finger, point and click their mouse to log into Nexis or search via Google, and look to see if Cuba really did "ban the film." Had just ONE reporter done that, here's they would have found:
June 16, 2007 Saturday 1:41 AM GMT [that's 7 months before the false cable]
HEADLINE: Cuban health minister says Moore's 'Sicko' shows 'human values' of communist system
BYLINE: By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: HAVANA
Cuba's health minister Jose Ramon Balaguer said Friday that American filmmaker Michael Moore's documentary 'Sicko' highlights the human values of the island's communist-run government... "There can be no doubt this documentary by a personality like Mr. Michael Moore helps promote the profoundly human principles of Cuban society."
Or, how 'bout this little April 25, 2008 notice from CubaSi.Cu (translation by Google):
Sicko premiere in Cuba
25/04/2008
The documentary Sicko, the U.S. filmmaker Michael Moore, which deals about the deplorable state of American health care system will be released today at 5:50 pm, for the space Cubavision Roundtable and the Education Channel.
Then there's this from Juventudrebelde.cu (translation by Google). Or this Cuban editorial (translation by Google). There's even a long clip of the Cuba section of 'Sicko' on the homepage of Media Roundtable on the CubaSi.cu website!
OK, so we know the media is lazy and sucks most of the time. But the bigger issue here is how our government seemed to be colluding with the health insurance industry to destroy a film that might have a hand in bringing about what the Cubans already have in their poverty-ridden third world country: free, universal health care. And because they have it and we don't, Cuba has a better infant mortality rate than we do, their life expectancy is just 7 months shorter than ours, and, according to the WHO, they rank just two places behind the richest country on earth in terms of the quality of their health care.
That's the story, mainstream media and right-wing haters.
Now that you've been presented with the facts, what are you going to do about it? Are you gonna attack me for having my movie played on Cuban state television? Or are you gonna attack me for not having my movie played on Cuban state television?
You have to choose one, it can't be both.
And since the facts show that the movie played on state TV and in theaters, I think you're better off attacking me for having my films played in Cuba.
¡Viva WikiLeaks!
"The children were clearly offended by the lime green and fuchsia back drop. This is what happens when you fail to make your Phipps appointment."
Edmond Oklahoma: Protesters cut short Edmond sustainability forum
EDMOND — A City Council Workshop to share ideas about sustainability was abandoned midstream Monday night amid protests about the City of Edmond’s involvement in sustainable conservation efforts.
The Edmond Sustainability Forum was created by the Planning Department and designed for Edmond residents to share their ideas and priorities for sustainable conservation efforts in their community, said Shannon Entz, community development manager. Police at the event estimated the audience to number about 200 people.
“It’s about saving money, saving energy, reducing waste, which the City of Edmond and many of you have been doing for many, many years,” Entz said.
BIO
Mr. Fish lives in Philadelphia, PA. He never asked to be born.
Occasionally, he laughs his head off. His mother has no idea what he’s up to. She cries very easily. For more information, date him.
Awards
In 2010, the Society of Professional Journalists granted Mr. Fish the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Editorial Cartooning for work published on Truthdig.
| Colbert Report Full Episodes | 2010 Election | March to Keep Fear Alive |
| Colbert Report Full Episodes | 2010 Election | March to Keep Fear Alive |
Second, we've suffered a major blow to our ability to collect information. Talking candidly to a U.S. diplomat can now earn you headlines around the world, reprisals at home, or worse. Success in the war on terrorism depends on being trusted with other countries' secrets. Who's going to trust us now?
Third, this makes us look bad, very bad. But not in the way Secretary of State Hillary Clinton implied in her cringe-inducing apology speech in which she scolded these awful leakers for having done a disservice to "the international community," and plaintively deplored how this hampers U.S. attempts to bring about a better world.
The problem is not that the purloined cables exposed U.S. hypocrisy or double-dealing. Good God, that's the essence of diplomacy. That's what we do; that's what everyone does. Hence the famous aphorism that a diplomat is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country.
And where are the intelligence agencies on which we lavish $80 billion a year? Assange has gone missing. Well, he's no cave-dwelling jihadi ascetic. Find him. Start with every five-star hotel in England and work your way down.
"If Assange were a real activist, he would not be getting any coverage from the mainstream media, let alone so headlines every day in every well known corporate media outlet. The alleged hide and seek between Assange and the US government as well as Interpol is played out on the theatrical stage of the world’s media when it is well known the US government and Interpol can arrest anyone they want virtually any time they want given their immense resources."
MEDIA ADVISORY : M10-167
NASA Sets News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery; Science Journal Has Embargoed Details Until 2 p.m. EST On Dec. 2
WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.
AMY GOODMAN: What are your thoughts today? For example, we just played this clip of New York republican congress member Peter King who says WikiLeaks should be declared a foreign terrorist organization.
NOAM CHOMSKY: I think that is outlandish. We should understand- and the Pentagon Papers is another case in point- that one of the major reasons for government secrecy is to protect the government from its own population. In the Pentagon Papers, for example, there was one volume- the negotiations volume- which might have had a bearing on ongoing activities and Daniel Ellsberg withheld that. That came out a little bit later. If you look at the papers themselves, there are things Americans should have known that others did not want them to know. And as far as I can tell, from what I’ve seen here, pretty much the same is true. In fact, the current leaks are- what I’ve seen, at least- primarily interesting because of what they tell us about how the diplomatic service works.
What is the ‘Mighty Wurlitzer’?
It used to be the honorific of Frank Wisner, the first chief of political warfare for the Central Intelligence Agency, used to describe the C.I.A.’s plethora of front organizations and newsmedia stooges that he was capable of playing (like a great organ with many keyboards) for synthesizing any propaganda tune that was needed for the day. See Operation Mockingbird
The fact that such an omnipresent Message-Machine is not ancient history but very much current affairs, is underscored by this NYT headline “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand”, Sunday, April 20, 2008
Therefore, today, I use the term ‘Mighty Wurlitzer’ as a metaphor to pluralistically refer to the same message-machine, i.e., the intelligence apparatus for manufacturing consent and controlling dissent, and its concomitant conscious manipulation of peoples’ thoughts, feelings, actions and in-actions, in order to serve the primacy interests of the ruling-elite. The latter are, invariably, also the de facto owners of the complete messaging-system now even more globally ubiquitous than when Frank Wisner played the world for a fool.
This ‘grand organ’ is now able to even more effectively synthesize, implant, and reinforce, all the right set of beliefs (myths) among the entire world’s public – by suitably combining ‘events’ with imaginative ‘expos’ writing – which appropriately primes the world populations to acquiesce to the oligarchic agendas. While playing this orchestra is now an integral part of all state-craft, its major musical themes are entirely determined by the behind the scenes owners of the system. While some might refer to the underlying techniques as propaganda and psy-ops, ‘Mighty Wurlitzer’ singularly captures the messaging-system controlled under a unified purpose of command which is both highly compartmentalized and cellularized. Only the Mighty Wurlitzer knows the entire tune.
What this means is that not all who willingly cooperate with the Mighty Wurlitzer in synchronistically humming its themes are knowingly being purveyors of its myths and deception. Many of its most shrill echoers are often well intentioned functionaries who are fed different motivating myths at different levels in the hierarchy – sometimes the lie is different at every level – such that it suitably motivates each according to their own predilection, professional station, and mission statement.
That is the real import of the craftsmanship of the Mighty Wurlitzer! To engineer a fait accompli by manufacturing consent among the gullible masses and dissent among the rabble rousers, leaving future scholars, historians, and the odd malcontent to laudingly study the ashes left behind by “history’s actors”. A diabolical modus operandi of democratic statecraft which the Mighty Wurlitzer’s operators even brazenly brag about: ‘“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”’ (Ron Suskind, New York Times, Oct. 17, 2004)
