[Vision2020] Top Ten 2010 Censored Stories: # 1: More 2010 U.S. Soldier Suicides Than Combat Deaths

[Paul Rumelhart]

My entire thesis on Jim Wilson is that I found him to be a nice guy and 
you guys are still upset about it.

Paul

On 10/02/2011 02:26 PM, Art Deco wrote:
> Here is another item that Rumelhart and his fellow co-chair of the Jim 
> Wilson Fan Club, Gary Crabtree, can celebrate:
> "Regular guy" Jim Wilson testified on behalf of confessed wife 
> murderer, deceiver, and body burner Silas Parks at a bail hearing for 
> Parks during that case.
> Now let's all join in a circle and sing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" 
> for Jim Wilson to congratulate him on his endearing, God-loving habit 
> of supporting male abusers against the interests of their abused 
> children/wives.  What a prince!  What a role model!
> w.
>
> *From:* Ted Moffett <mailto:starbliss at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Sunday, October 02, 2011 1:15 PM
> *To:* Paul Rumelhart <mailto:godshatter at yahoo.com>
> *Cc:* Moscow Vision 2020 <mailto:vision2020 at moscow.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [Vision2020] Top Ten 2010 Censored Stories: # 1: More 
> 2010 U.S. Soldier Suicides Than Combat Deaths
>
> You're much more amusing when trying to convince us that those locally
> in positions of social and religious power, who promote a sexist
> bigoted ideology, with real world political and social impacts on
> peoples lives, are actually harmless nice guys, than when trying to
> convince us that human impacts on climate are not a major problem,
> that must be addressed
>
> But really this is not funny at all, in either case...
> ------------------------------------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
> On 10/1/11, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com 
> <mailto:godshatter at yahoo.com>> wrote:
>
> > Given our current level of knowledge about the intricacies of how the
> > climate works, I'd say that trying to manipulate the weather right 
> now would
> > be a text-book example of "a disaster waiting to happen".
> >
> > Also, until James Hansen can tell us exactly what set of conditions or
> > events set off the last ice age with a high degree of confidence, I 
> really
> > don't think he should be telling us how confident he is that the 
> next one
> > will not happen.  That just seems like common sense to me.
> >
> >
> > Paul
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com <mailto:starbliss at gmail.com>>
> > To: Moscow Vision 2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com 
> <mailto:vision2020 at moscow.com>>
> > Sent: Saturday, October 1, 2011 12:05 PM
> > Subject: [Vision2020] Top Ten 2010 Censored Stories: # 1: More 2010 U.S.
> > Soldier Suicides Than Combat Deaths
> >
> > The article below is in the most recent edition of the Pacific
> > Northwest Inlander that is distributed free around Moscow etc.
> >
> > I found the # 9 censored story, "The government is manipulating the
> > weather," to be ironically amusing, insofar as the behavior of our
> > entire society, including government policies as they influence this
> > behavior, is at this moment geo-engineering the Earth's climate and
> > weather, increasing the magnitude of flooding, drought, heat waves,
> > cryosphere ice loss, sea level rise, etc. via massive CO2 emissions
> > and other human behavior.
> >
> > We have no rational sane choice at this point in time--the genie is
> > out of the bottle--but to deliberately geo-engineer the Earth's
> > climate to lessen catastrophic impacts of anthropogenic global
> > warming, which the article does address mentioning deliberate
> > injection of aerosals to reflect solar energy to counter climate
> > change.  Therefore indeed we need a deliberate government program to
> > maniplate the weather, in one way or another.  For example,
> > deliberately planting trees to sequester CO2 is geo-engineering of
> > climate and weather.
> >
> > Humanity now has the unavoidable responsibility of a God, to engineer
> > the Earth's climate.  I recall NASA climate scientist James Hansen's
> > comment that future major ice ages won't happen, unless humanity goes
> > extinct, from his book "Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About
> > the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity:"
> >
> > "The size of continental-scale ice sheets is mind-boggling. Although
> > thinner toward the edges, ice over New York towered several times
> > higher than the Empire State building--thick enough to crush
> > everything in today's New York City to smithereens. But not to
> > worry--even though we sometimes hear geoscientists talk as if ice ages
> > will occur again, it won't happen--unless humans go extinct. Forces
> > instigating ice ages, as we shall see, are so small and slow that a
> > single chlorofluorocarbon factory would be more than sufficient to
> > overcome any natural tendency toward an ice age. Ice sheets will not
> > descend over North America and Europe as long as we are around to stop
> > them."
> > ---------------------------
> > But contrail generated cirrus clouds as secret government military
> > weather control, even if there is substance to this claim, seems a bit
> > overblown for a top ten censored story.
> >
> > http://www.inlander.com/spokane/article-17011-downplayed.html
> >
> > Project Censored
> > Downplayed
> > Ten stories the mainstream media ignored in the past year, according
> > to Project Censored.
> > Rebecca Bowe
> >
> > In an age of blogs, tweets, hacks and piles of beans spilled by
> > WikiLeaks, the notion of media censorship may seem dated.
> >
> > But the rundown of stories Project Censored calls attention to this
> > year serves as a reminder that mainstream media outlets favoring the
> > superficial over the substantive don’t give us all the information we
> > need.
> >
> > Since 1976, Project Censored has endeavored to spotlight important
> > news articles that didn’t find their way into mainstream headlines.
> > Originating with a classroom assignment at Sonoma State University,
> > the perennial project has evolved into a book, a radio show, and the
> > Project Censored and Media Freedom International websites, which
> > aggregate underreported independent news stories from around the
> > globe.
> >
> > Students and professors engaged in unearthing oft-ignored stories,
> > part of a nationwide network of affiliates working under the direction
> > of history professor Mickey Huff, bring a harsh critique to standard
> > mainstream media fare.
> >
> > “Corporate media is the information control wing of the global power
> > structure,” former Project Censored director Peter Phillips writes in
> > the introduction to Censored 2012: Sourcebook for the Media
> > Revolution. “The corporate media systematically censors the news
> > stories that challenge the propaganda of empire.”
> >
> > In Huff’s words, “We try to highlight the things that are highly
> > relevant, that seem to be conspicuously absent.”
> >
> > Huff says the selection process for the top censored stories begins
> > with nominations of independent articles that readers feel warrant
> > greater attention than they’ve received. From there, students comb
> > through LexisNexis or other databases to see whether the stories have
> > been adequately covered. If not, they fact-check the stories with
> > professors or other experts in the field.
> >
> > Once they’ve been “validated” in this way, they’re posted to Project
> > Censored’s sister site, Media Freedom International. The Top 25
> > Censored Stories list is the result of a ranked-choice voting process,
> > in which judges and affiliates select from the entire pool of
> > validated news articles posted from April to April.
> > The end product — an annual book featuring a compilation of the
> > censored stories as well as sociological essays on media censorship
> > and scathing critiques of “junk food news” churned out by the likes of
> > Fox News — can be considered a kind of historical almanac, Huff says.
> >
> > “Journalism is the rough draft of history,” he notes, “and if you have
> > these mainstream corporate news outlets getting so much of it wrong or
> > missing it, how does that impact historical construction?”
> >
> > For the most part, Project Censored’s story list offers a sampling of
> > smart, investigative journalism produced by the independent press.
> > They include deep investigative pieces such as “Diet Hard With A
> > Vengeance,” by David Moberg of In These Times, and a heartrending
> > portrayal by Chris Hedges of a marine stationed in a mortuary unit in
> > Iraq.
> >
> > Yet there are instances when Project Censored seems to wander too far
> > afield. Their claims of “censorship” seem dubious at times, as with
> > the charge that the mainstream media has ignored the real unemployment
> > rate because it hasn’t turned an eye toward the analysis of economist
> > John Williams, who maintains a website called Shadow Government
> > Statistics.
> >
> > Huff and Phillips regularly discuss questions surrounding the Sept.
> > 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center on their KPFA radio show,
> > and their emphasis on this particular issue, along with a recent
> > tendency to give weight to fringe theories concerning things like
> > suspicious contrails issuing from airplanes, have caused allies of the
> > organization to defect in the past.
> >
> > The organization’s definition of censorship has evolved, too, to the
> > point where the authors cast it as a form of propaganda that is
> > “intentional by nature ... In essence, this is a conspiracy.”
> >
> > Nevertheless, the Project Censored team delivers yet another rundown
> > of surprising, alarming, and thought-provoking stories that are worth
> > noting — more so, perhaps, because they received so little attention
> > to begin with. Without further ado, here are the Top 10.
> >
> > 1. More U.S. soldiers committed suicide than died in combat in 2010
> >
> > Six more, to be exact. That’s the figure reported by Good magazine and
> > spotlighted by Project Censored in an article highlighting the fact
> > that 462 American soldiers were killed in combat in 2010, while 468
> > soldiers, counting enlisted men and women as well as veterans, took
> > their own lives.
> >
> > This was the second consecutive year that more soldiers died by their
> > own hands than in combat — in 2009, the 381 suicides of active-duty
> > soldiers recorded by the military also exceeded the number of deaths
> > in battle. The Good report, which references Congressional Quarterly
> > as a source, was published in January 2011, just weeks after military
> > authorities announced that a psychological screening program seemed to
> > be stemming the suicide rate among active-duty soldiers.
> >
> > “This new data, that American soldiers are now more dangerous to
> > themselves than the insurgents, flies right in the face of any
> > suggestion that things are ‘working,’” Good Senior Editor Cord
> > Jefferson wrote.
> >
> > Project Censored also spotlighted Chris Hedges’ sobering portrayal of
> > Jess Goodell, a marine who was stationed in the Mortuary Affairs unit
> > in Iraq. Goodell published a memoir titled “Death and After in Iraq,”
> > which is also the name of Hedges’ column.
> >
> > 2. U.S. military’s “friend” fake-out
> >
> > Anyone suspicious of “sock puppets,” those online commenters
> > pretending to be someone they’re not, would be unnerved by the U.S.
> > military’s “online persona management service,” a little-known program
> > described in the Guardian U.K., Raw Story and Computerworld stories
> > unearthed and highlighted by Project Censored.
> >
> > The U.S. Central Command (Centcom) secured a contract with a Los
> > Angeles-based tech company to develop the program, which enables U.S.
> > service workers to use fake online personas on social media sites to
> > influence online chatter. Using up to 10 false identities, they can
> > counter charged political dialogue with pro-military propaganda.
> >
> > “These ‘personas’ were to have detailed, fictionalized backgrounds, to
> > make them believable to outside observers, and a sophisticated
> > identity protection service was to back them up, preventing suspicious
> > readers from uncovering the real person behind the account,” according
> > to a Raw Story account.
> >
> > A Centcom spokesperson told the Guardian that the program would only
> > intervene in online conversations in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu or Pashto,
> > and that it wouldn’t initially target Twitter or Facebook. However,
> > critics likened this U.S. endeavor to manipulate social media to
> > China’s attempts to control and restrict free speech on the Internet.
> >
> > 3. Obama’s hit list
> >
> > The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the U.S. military have the
> > authority to kill U.S. citizens abroad, outside war zones, if strong
> > evidence exists that they’re involved in terrorist activity, the
> > Washington Post reported in a front page story in January of 2010.
> >
> > Despite this prominent press treatment of targeted assassinations
> > under the Obama administration, Project Censored deems this an
> > underreported news story, because “a moral, ethical, and legal
> > analysis of the assassinations seems to be significantly lacking
> > inside the corporate media.”
> >
> > The authors instead point us to coverage in Salon, the Inter Press
> > Service, Common Dreams and several other sources that sharply question
> > the president’s authority to license extrajudicial executions of
> > individuals. In December of 2010, Human Rights Watch asked for
> > clarification of the legal rationale behind this practice after a
> > judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging the notion.
> >
> > Columnist Glenn Greenwald blasts the practice in Salon: “Bush merely
> > imprisoned [Jose Padilla] for years without a trial. If that’s a
> > vicious, tyrannical assault on the Constitution — and it was — what
> > should they be saying about the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s
> > assassination of American citizens without any due process?”
> >
> > 4. Manmade food crisis
> >
> > David Moberg offers an in-depth breakdown of the global food crisis
> > for In These Times in an article highlighted by Project Censored,
> > touching on the environmental context of worsening droughts and
> > flooding, as well as the economic ramifications of a system in which
> > free-market speculators stand to profit from volatile food prices.
> >
> > Beyond crop reductions resulting from irregular weather patterns,
> > Moberg places the blame for rising food prices and increasing
> > malnutrition on flawed economic policies. “Hunger is currently a
> > result of poverty and inequality, not lack of food,” he concludes.
> >
> > The food price index rose to its highest level since 1990 in February
> > 2011, according to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization
> > of the United Nations. “Since 2010 began, roughly another 44 million
> > people have quietly crossed the threshold into malnutrition, joining
> > 925 million already suffering from lack of food,” Moberg writes. “If
> > prices continue to rise, this food crisis will push the ranks of the
> > hungry toward a billion people.”
> >
> > 5. Prison companies fund anti-immigrant legislation
> >
> > When Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer ran for re-election in 2010, her greatest
> > out-of-state campaign contributions came from high-ranking executives
> > of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), one of the nation’s
> > largest prison companies. Brewer gained notoriety among
> > immigrant-rights advocates after championing Senate Bill 1070, strict
> > anti-illegal-immigration legislation that drew criticism for
> > legitimizing racial profiling.
> >
> > The bill established new crimes and corresponding prison sentences
> > relating to illegal immigration. CCA profits directly from building
> > and operating prisons and detention centers.
> >
> > Bringing it closer to home, CCA previously employed two of Brewer’s
> > legislative aides as lobbyists.
> >
> > In a Counterpunch article titled “Wall Street and the Criminalization
> > of Immigrants” (spotlighted by Project Censored), Peter
> > Cervantes-Gautschi explores Brewer’s links to CCA and goes deeper
> > still, offering an historic account of how investors in CCA and prison
> > giant Geo Group have, for years, actively pushed for legislation that
> > would result in the widespread incarceration of undocumented
> > immigrants.
> >
> > 6. Google spies?
> >
> > A flurry of stories aired in the spring of 2010 when it became
> > apparent that Google Street View vehicles, in the process of
> > collecting data for its mapping service, also picked up consumer
> > “payload” data on Wi-Fi networks, including email messages, website
> > data, user names and passwords.
> >
> > The tech giant publicly apologized for what it characterized as a
> > mistake, saying it had “failed badly.” The Federal Trade Commission
> > (FTC) admonished Google in a letter but declined to pursue it further.
> > From there, Project Censored authors make the leap that the FTC
> > abandoned its inquiry because, a week earlier, President Obama
> > attended a Democratic Party fundraiser at the Palo Alto home of Google
> > executive Marissa Mayer, citing a San Francisco Chronicle article
> > about the $30,000-per-person affair.
> >
> > Project Censored authors also point to an article by Eric Sommer
> > titled “Google’s Deep CIA Connections,” which appeared on Pravda.ru (a
> > website whose most-read article was “Bermuda Triangle: New Anomalous
> > Phenomenon Discovered”). Sommer claims that “Google is, in fact, a key
> > participant in U.S. military and CIA intelligence operations,” basing
> > his argument on a perplexing set of links between investors in Google
> > and CIA technologies.
> >
> > 7. Stay positive — at all costs
> >
> > A military training program that Project Censored has deemed “U.S.
> > Army and psychology’s largest experiment — ever” was profiled in a
> > detailed American Psychologist series in early 2011. Comprehensive
> > Soldier Fitness (CSF) is described as a “holistic approach to warrior
> > training,” emphasizing positive psychology as a means to counter
> > mental health problems arising from horrific combat situations.
> >
> > While the American Psychologist series reads like a puff piece
> > finessed by the professionals who developed CSF, Project Censored
> > spotlighted articles in Truthout and The Psychology of Wellbeing that
> > raised questions about the wisdom of launching a required, untested
> > psychology program for more than 1 million soldiers — one that
> > encourages soldiers to think positive even in the face of traumatizing
> > events.
> >
> > In an article appearing on OpEdNews.com, authors Roy Eidelson, Marc
> > Pilisuk, and Stephen Soldz write that the CSF “training” program would
> > better be described as a research project. They point out that a
> > hypothesis of the program’s success lies at the very core of CSF, “yet
> > it is merely a hypothesis — a tentative explanation or prediction that
> > can only be confirmed through further research.”
> >
> > 8. The myth of clean nuclear power
> >
> > The terrifying meltdowns of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactors
> > reignited a worldwide debate about the wisdom of relying on nuclear
> > energy as an electricity source. While Germany opted to phase out its
> > nuclear facilities by 2022 in the wake of the tragedy, the U.S.
> > Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) came under scrutiny after a Union
> > of Concerned Scientists report analyzed 14 “near misses” at nuclear
> > power plants in 2010, revealing the shortcomings in NRC inspections.
> >
> > Project Censored’s critique of mainstream media’s treatment of nuclear
> > power is that the media is too willing to endorse the idea that
> > nuclear power is safe so long as proper safety measures are in place,
> > and that major news publications readily go along with the nuclear
> > industry’s branding of the power source as “clean” and “carbon-free”
> > when it’s really not.
> >
> > Claiming that “the refrain of the corporate media” is that nuclear
> > power is “perfectly harmless,” the authors spotlight a number of
> > articles and literature from anti-nuclear nonprofit organizations
> > explaining the health hazards of radiation, plus Jeff Goodell’s
> > “America’s Nuclear Nightmare,” an in-depth Rolling Stone article
> > investigating ties between the NRC and the nuclear industry.
> >
> > 9. The government is manipulating the weather
> >
> > This one stretches credulity, and it’s probably the best example of
> > why Project Censored has gained detractors even on the left in recent
> > years. The authors point us to a Centre for Research on Globalization
> > article titled, “Atmospheric Geoengineering: Weather Manipulation,
> > Contrails and Chemtrails,” by Rady Ananda, who begins by informing
> > readers, “The military-industrial complex stands poised to capitalize
> > on controlling the world’s weather.”
> >
> > It describes an “international symposium” held in Belgium in May of
> > 2010, during which “scientists asserted that manipulation of climate
> > through modification of cirrus clouds is neither a hoax nor a
> > conspiracy theory,” and is “fully operational.”
> >
> > That sounds rather serious, but a web video of that symposium easily
> > located online offers a closer look. One speaker begins by showing
> > slides of old paintings to demonstrate “what the sky is supposed to
> > look like,” then offers evidence of a chemtrail cover-up by quoting an
> > unnamed pilot who tells someone in an online comment that he could
> > reveal the truth about chemtrails but is bound by contract to shoot
> > anyone he tells.
> >
> > Scientific American and other publications have reported that
> > geoengineering — spreading tiny atmospheric particles to reflect
> > sunlight as a method to counter climate change — has actually come
> > under serious consideration in recent years. Yet Project Censored
> > seems to conflate this with a fringe obsession with supposedly
> > suspicious airplane contrails.
> >
> > 10. The “real” unemployment rate
> >
> > The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) calculates the “official
> > unemployment rate” by counting everyone who had no job, was available
> > for work, and had actively sought work in the last four weeks,
> > according to the BLS website. But alternative BLS statistics
> > incorporate so-called “discouraged workers,” unemployed individuals
> > who’ve given up on the job hunt.
> >
> > In the first four months of 2011, the national unemployment rate
> > officially stood at around 9 percent, while a BLS statistic
> > incorporating discouraged workers and the marginally employed bumped
> > that figure up to 15.9 percent.
> >
> > However, Project Censored highlights an article by Greg Hunter,
> > published on Information Clearinghouse, claiming that the “real”
> > unemployment rate is actually 22.1 percent, or one out of five U.S.
> > residents. Hunter’s claim is based on his interview with San
> > Francisco-based economist John Williams, who maintains a website
> > called Shadow Government Statistics.
> >
> > By ignoring the claims of this economist, Project Censored argues, the
> > mainstream media is engaging in censorship.
> > As with several claims in this year’s list, that may be stretching
> > things a bit.
> >
> > Comments? Write totheeditor at inlander.com 
> <mailto:totheeditor at inlander.com>. This article first appeared
> > in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
> > ------------------------------------------
> > Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
> >
> > =======================================================
> > List services made available by First Step Internet,
> > serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
> > http://www.fsr.net
> > mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> > =======================================================
>
> =======================================================
>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
> http://www.fsr.net
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> =======================================================
>
>
> =======================================================
>   List services made available by First Step Internet,
>   serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
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