Wake Up AM Podcast show # 45

This week :
- General Wesley Clark tests the Presidential waters in New Hampshire. We have an exclusive interview.
-Hospital acquisitions by capitalist speculators. Can this be good for our health?
-The Green Party candidate for senate in New York can't debate Hillary but he can tell US why he'd be a better senator. Thanks to Activist Radio for the interview.
- Marjorie Cohn elaborates on the fine print in the"habeus corpus" bill.
- we read some email and of course, the usual dosage of the ranting and raving that you've come to expect from us here at Wake Up AM.
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"Conspiracy Theorists" versus Corporate Journalists

I recently read an article in the New Yorker Magazine that really pissed me off. So I wrote the guy and a letter to the editor. Ordinarily, I read the New Yorker to get pissed off at someone other than the writer, but not this time. This "guy" turns out to be the Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism and after doing a little research found that he regularly bashes bloggers and the whole idea of alternative media by contrasting them with "real" journalists. The article is entitled "Paranoid Style" and can be found in the Oct 16 edition. Below is the letter I sent.

Lumping everyone who feels compelled to speak out against the outrages that this country has had to endure under this Bush Administration into a troubled culture on the left in need of psychoanalysis is apparently what Nicholas Lemann attempts to accomplish in his piece entitled, "Paranoid Style."
From bloggers and podcasters to activists and filmmakers we are seeing an outpouring of work that is attempting to address not only the outrages coming from this White House, but the corporate media, which is perceived more and more each day as a partisan tool of the current power structure, and return the role of the press to checking power with truth. This new media revolution is a democratically based alternative media movement that is more based in truth than spin, and democracy than capitalism.
Lemann's premise is based in the world of the 911 Truth Movement, where the label of "conspiracy theorist" is routinely used by those who are quick to stereotype millions of citizens around the world who feel short changed by the reigning official explanation, then extends this label across the issues to include Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s work on election fraud, and reputable films by filmmakers like Robert Greenwald ("Iraq for Sale") and Eugene Jarecki ("Why We Fight").
Most of this new media movement is fueled by dedicated citizen's whose concern for the fate of this democracy compels them to spend their all too limited free time trying to do the job that the well paid, mainstream media, including Mr. Lemann, are failing to do.
It is so easy to dismiss anyone raising questions about the 911 attacks by simply uttering the stereotype label "conspiracy theorist" instead of doing the hard, investigative work that journalist should have and should still be doing. It took a handful of widows from New Jersey and millions of supporters to even get a 911 investigation launched, only to have the administration that opposed it, set up an underfunded whitewash overseen by their man Phillip Zelikow who then proceeded to hand pick the evidence while dismissing a multitude of unanswered questions. And in the aftermath and the run up to the war in Iraq, while the corporate media lended it's hand to flag waving, this country's new media got to work and have been a new journalistic force in checking the abuse of power ever since.
If I may be permitted to return the favor to Mr. Lemann with a bit of psychoanalysis of my own, I would say that "Paranoid Style" projects the self-serving attributes that motivate the White House, the corporate media and you sir, onto a movement that is motivated by concern for the fate of this country, it's Constitution, and, yes, even freedom of the press.

After writing that I am more convinced than ever that we all need to keep doing our part to hold the mainstream media accountable.

Brian

also posted at New Media Revolutionaries Blog

Wake Up AMerica Podcast show #44

This week:
Keith Olbermann takes it up a notch and earns his place in journalism history by giving a national voice to the outrage at Bush and his assault on our Constitution.
-As the election approaches, what are we to believe, the polls or yet another election fraud?
-Iraq. We hear from two soldiers.
-We read emails!
And I'm too lazy to write up the complete notes this week, so you'll just have to tune in to find out what else we talk about.
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Corporations Oppose Labor Reforms in China.

Unions, yes Labor Unions, remember them?, are all watching China to see how the possibly biggest confrontation between labor and capital in many, many years unfolds. According to the NY Times article :

SHANGHAI, Oct. 12 — China is planning to adopt a new law that seeks to crack down on sweatshops and protect workers’ rights by giving labor unions real power for the first time since it introduced market forces in the 1980’s.
The NY Times resports that workers have already set up unions in all 66 Wal Mart outlets in China and are looking to do the same with companies like Kodak and Dell.

I noticed this story was quickly taken off the front page after I read it online and a followup story was published the following day that skewed the emphasis away from U.S. Corporations opposing these basic workers rights and towards a depiction of the government-sanctioned All-China Federation of Trade Unions as wanting to exert conrol over the work force in China. In other words the bad guy went from U.S. Corporations one day to the All-China Federation of Trade Unions the next.

Tim Costello is a member of Global Labor Strategies and their analysis of the story is the one to read.
“‘You have big corporations opposing basically modest reforms,” said Tim Costello, an official of the group and a longtime labor union advocate. “This flies in the face of the idea that globalization and corporations will raise standards around the world.’”
Their report goes on to say that:
This corporate campaign contradicts the justifications that have been given for public policies that encourage corporations to invest in China. US based corporations have repeatedly argued that they are raising human and labor rights standards abroad. But US based corporations are trying to block legislation designed to improve the remuneration, treatment, health and safety, and other standards of Chinese workers.

Where is all this leading? If the standard of living of Chinese workers is raised to a comparable world level will where will the corporations go next?
The corporations can't argue on the one hand that they are lifting Chinese workers out of poverty and on the other hand oppose basic labor reform. And the U.S. government is going to find it more difficult to uphold this contradiction through policy. Their biggest fear is that workers everywhere are going to figure this out and the words that strike fear into the hearts of the Corporate class will take on new, real meaning when resurrected. Workers of the world, unite!

Brian

Wake Up AM Podcast show #43

This Week:
-The World Can't Wait and neither can we to be rid of Bush!
(We hold our own little protest in our own little town.)
-Gays in Congress, why would legislators legislate against themselves?
-Deaths in Iraq, which is it, 30,000 or 654,000? Which number is more credible?
-Another Bush press conference. Another embarrassment to all participants except one.
-And North Korea, who gets the blame?

It's another simulcast from our local FM station, WSCA in Portsmouth, NH,
where we "Live Free or Die" and if our state motto is true, we'll all be dead before you know it.
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Wake Up AMerica Podcast show #42

This week:
-Foleygate, Slimeygate, Spankygate, whatever you want to call it, call it great timing for Democrats.
-Meanwhile, historic legislation that moves this country from democracy to fascism passes and is relegated to the back burner.
-Election Fraud part two, can the voting infrastructure be saved before November?
We're simulcasting live from our WSCA studio this week with a range of ten miles by radio and worldwide by podcasting! Then we're off to the World Can't Wait protest. Join Us!

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Condi Can't Recall?

Stanford -- The admissions office at Stanford University have experienced a dramatic drop in applications this fall as its reputation plummets due to the schools former association with the confirmed and habitual liar, Condasleezy Rice, a former provost of Stanford. Until recently, anyone associated with Stanford was automatically thought to have an incredibly high IQ but not anymore. Students say they are just not interested in attending a University once associated with Rice, who epitomizes the horrific and illegal behavior of this administration. Nobody wants to attend a school that has had such an unsavory individual as provost, even if it was in the past. Just what kind of statement does that send to people and who would want to hire anyone from such a place? ____________________________________________________________

Rice is lying again, as usual. The White House confirmed Rice did meet with Tenet and Black on July 10, 2001, one day after her claims of not recalling the meeting. Didn’t recall the meeting? Come on, most of us may not have her high IQ level but just how stupid does she think we are? Her blatant statement of lies, are sooo transparent.

How could she possibly not recall this particular meeting with Tenet? He called her from his car immediately after he received disturbing information warning of an impending attack on U.S soil by al-Qaeda. Tenet was so concerned; he called from his car, asking to see her immediately, hoping he could prompt her into taking some kind of action. We all know the results of that meeting.

Robert Sheer has a great article on the Rice lies at Alternet. http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/42614/