Posts by ProjectCensored:
Rage Against the System: Why It Matters
July 18th, 2013By Stephen Lendman.
Public anger in Egypt, Turkey, Palestine, Brazil, Chile, across Europe, in America against Wall Street, and elsewhere is real. It’s visceral. It’s deep-seated. It’s growing. It reflects what media scoundrels won’t explain.
Democracy’s more illusion than real. People get the best kind money can buy. Manipulated elections control things. Systemic rule is hardline. Progressive change is verboten.
Monied interests have final say. Corporate giants rule the world. Exploiting nations, markets and people for profit matters most.
Governments conspire with business to facilitate it. Popular needs more than ever go begging. People increasingly are on their own sink or swim.
Wealth, power, and privilege are hugely disproportionate. Wars on humanity rage. Freedom’s on the chopping block for elimination. Rule of law principles don’t matter.
Might makes right. Police state tactics assure it. They’re vicious. Things go from bad to worse. Humanity and planet earth are up for grabs.
Independent thought is verboten. Controlling the message is prioritized.
Most nations aren’t fit places to live in. Hardline governments keep things that way. Popular uprisings reflect discontent too intense to contain.
Public anger rages against systemic injustice. It’s exploitive. It’s predatory. It’s uncaring. It’s merciless. It’s untenable.
Immanuel Wallerstein envisions disruptive change. It’s happening in real time. It’s coming incrementally. Something different lies ahead. It could be better or worse.
We’re “in the midst of a structural transition from a fading capitalist world economy to” something new. That’s “the real battle of the next 20 – 40 years,” Wallerstein believes.
How things play out matter. Future prospects depend on it. Rage against the system is needed. People power works. Change comes bottom up.
Breaking free isn’t easy. Sustained commitment is needed. Struggles are longterm. Triumphs depend on keeping them. Waned energy is self-defeating.
Powerful forces want things that way. Media scoundrels march in lockstep. They support entrenched interests. They aid and abet state crimes. They support corporate exploitation.
They turn truth on its head. They substitute fiction for fact. They manipulate people to back what demands condemnation.
They glorify wars in the name of peace. They believe human and civil rights don’t matter. They’re suppressed for our own good, they say.
They champion might over right. They endorse neoliberal harshness. It’s polar opposite fairness, equity and justice.
A 19th century proverb is ignored at our own peril, saying:
“Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.”
Egypt’s uprising is ground zero. It reflects the heart of today’s storm. Don’t expect media scoundrels to explain. Tragedy’s unfolding in real time. Generals unseated a sitting government.
Coup d’etat authority rules. A coup is a coup is a coup. It’s illegitimate. New York Times articles, commentaries and editorials don’t explain.
They endorse neoliberal harshness. They support technocratic rule. They call Beblawi’s prime ministerial appointment “a signal that the military-led transitional government intends to move forward with economic reforms and restructuring including reductions in the country’s vast public subsidies.”
They ignore greater harm coming. They’re mindless of extreme public pain. They’re dismissive of coup d’etat authority.
A July 10 editorial never once mentioned the word. It’s fundamental. It explains illegitimate rule.
Times editors fear potential civil war. Egypt’s military treads on thin ice. It’s transition plan leaves much to be desired.
There’s much “to be alarmed about,” they said. “Experts say it repeats many mistakes of the last transition….”
Ousting a sitting government matters most. Doing so puts a lie to democratic rule. Times editors don’t explain.
“Egypt needs to move from military control to an elected civilian government,” they said.
Egyptians chose one. Now it’s gone. Morsi and other Freedom and Justice Party officials are under house arrest. Junta power rules.
Democracy’s a convenient fiction. Nothing ahead suggests positive change. Times editors ignored what’s most important. So did columnist Thomas Friedman.
His writing reflects some of the worst hack journalism. It won him three Pulitzer Prizes. His books are best-sellers. He’s featured on corporate TV.
He supports imperial aggression. He’s no big thinker. He’s disingenuous. He’s shallow and it shows.
Journalism Professor Robert Jensen explained. He tells America’s privileged class what it wants to hear, he said.
He does it with “pithy-though-empty anecdotes, padded with glib turns and phrases.”
“He’s the perfect oracle for a management-focused, advertising-saturated, dumbed-down, imperial culture that doesn’t want to come to terms with the systemic and structural reasons for its decline.”
He avoids speaking truth to power. He ducks afflicting the comfortable. He “never goes very far beyond parroting the powerful and comforting the comfortable.”
Many others like him do the same thing. They show up often on Times pages.
On July 9, Friedman headlined “Egypt at the Edge,” saying:
Avoiding civil war is still possible. He left unexplained why perhaps it’s likely. He ignored longstanding grievances. He never once mentioned the word “coup.”
He focused on Ramadan’s holy month instead, saying:
“One can only hope that the traditional time for getting family and friends together will provide a moment for all the actors in Egypt to reflect on how badly they’ve behaved – all sides – and opt for the only sensible pathway forward: national reconciliation.”
“In the wake of….violent turmoil, it is no longer who rules Egypt that it is at stake. It is Egypt that is at stake. This is an existential crisis.”
Friedman and others like him avoid explaining what’s most important. Democracy in Egypt’s a four-letter word. It’s a convenient fiction.
Junta power rules. Generals make policy. Politicians serve at their pleasure. America has final say. Egypt’s capital isn’t Cairo. It’s Washington. It’s been that way for decades.
People power didn’t oust Mubarak. Strings were pulled in America. Morsi’s fate was similar. Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is right.
Longstanding grievances are real. Conditions now perhaps are worse than ever. Ousting Morsi was strategic. At issue is “pre-empt(ing) a popular revolution from taking place.”
In 2011, removing Mubarak changed nothing. Things went from bad to worse. This time won’t be different.
Appointed Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi explained. So-called economic reforms assure greater public pain. Popular concerns will remain unaddressed.
“We must create a clear understanding for the public that the level of subsidies in Egypt is unsustainable, and the situation is critical,” said Beblawi.
“Subsidies have exceeded reasonable limits, and take more than 25 percent of the budget.”
“People must understand that they must accept some of the consequences: the canceling of subsidies requires sacrifices from the public and therefore necessitates their acceptance.”
Widespread poverty, unemployment, and extreme deprivation turned Egypt into a tinder box. Doing so makes “popular revolution” possible.
Illegitimately changing of the guard aggravates things. At best, it may delay one. It won’t prevent it.
According to Friedman, “there is only one way for Egypt to avoid the abyss: the military, the only authority in Egypt today, has to make clear that (ousting) the Muslim Brotherhood (reflects) ‘reset.’ ”
It’s “for the purpose of starting over and getting the transition to democracy right this time.”
“(T)he job of Egypt’s friends now is not to cut off aid and censure, but to help it gradually but steadily find that moderate path.”
Jensen’s right about Friedman. He tells America’s privileged class what it wants to hear. He avoids painful truths. He’s well-paid to do so. Readers are best served by avoiding him.
Conditions in Egypt remain tense. Extreme violence could erupt any time. Public anger isn’t assuaged. Growing numbers of Egyptians deplore America. They do so for good reason.
One protester perhaps spoke for others. He has “a problem with American politics that tries to interfere with the way we want to live and that is not right,” he said.
Proliferating anti-Obama posters are visible. Anti-American sentiment is strong. According to Pew Research, 80% of Egyptians expressed negative attitudes toward Washington. Just 16% are positive.
About 75% deplore Obama. Visceral disapproval reflects his handling of foreign affairs. Regional sentiment is similar. America and Israel are widely despised.
Ousting Morsi intensifies negativity. Expect nothing positive ahead to change things. Belt-tightening assures greater public rage. Popular revolution may follow. It may transcend borders for vitally needed change.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.
It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour
List of words used online that will make you a target for DHS
June 29th, 2013
By Irene North.
After a hearing in the House of Representatives, the Department of Homeland Security was forced to release their list of hundreds of words that will trigger analysts to monitor behavior online. Naturally, the list contains words such as Al Qaeda, terrorism, and bomb, but there are some rather odd, yet interesting words as well.
For example, the DHS may dig through your cyber life if you write something about snow. Or pork.
So, you’ve just come back from a beach holiday in Mexico and posted about it on your blog. Or maybe you’ve tweeted about skiing lessons? Updated your status, saying you’re stuck home with food poisoning?
All those things will tweak the DHS antennae, according to a manual published by the agency. The Analyst’s Desktop Binder, used by agency employees at their National Operations Center to identify“media reports that reflect adversely on DHS and response activities,” includes hundreds of words that set off Big Brother’s silent alarms.
It’s also hard to believe that the supposed terrorists that the DHS is on the lookout for are that stupid. Can you honestly imagine one person posting “hey, let’s go make a pipe bomb and blow up a police car this weekend” on a friend’s wall? I’d imagine people who plot terrorist acts are focusing on two things: not getting caught and getting their job done. Why on earth would they broadcast their malicious intentions online?
And so, like many of the DHS’s brilliant, thought-out programs, this one seems to be directed at the unsuspecting, innocent general public. Only now, as well as possibly being branded a terrorist for not wanting to use a credit card or buying a flashlight, you might get locked up for blogging about clouds. (Very dangerous word, cloud. Who knows what it could mean.)
Anyone who is seriously considering attacking the United States is not going to be talking about it openly on the internet. The government is either naive or highly incompetent if they think otherwise.
When you take your next ski trip, be sure to write about it online as good times on the white stuff. You can also choose from a variety of words listed below. Get creative. Give the DHS analysts something to do while they find new and inventive ways to monitor our online behavior.
I’ll get you started. The Al Qaeda operative at some pork in the snow after he completed his jihad to kill illegal downloaders of child porn who want to legalize pot. He was a good Muslim and hoped to retire to North Korea, but became sick because he had never eaten swine before. He then thought his services could be utilized elsewhere in Mexico, but he was afraid of the drug cartels and violence. Plus, he’s not too fond of methamphetamines, heroin, marijuana, or cocaine. He decided law enforcement in Tijuana, Yuma, or Tuscon would do a better job. Also, he didn’t want to risk decapitation. He also decided against joining FARC, the IRA, the PLO, AQAP, AQIM, TTP, and all other terrorist groups that like to go by initials in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
He had completed his mission. He was not assigned as a suicide bomber, nor did he have a weapons cache. The magnitude of a cyber attack was beyond his skills as a simple terrorist. His work was done. So, he retreated to an unknown location and began to use social media as a way to entertain himself all day with cute pictures of cats and cyber porn.
New York Times Editors Defend the Indefensible
June 8th, 2013
By Project Censored: Stephen Lendman.
It’s standard Times practice. It’s longstanding. On June 6, Times editors praised Obama’s selection of Susan Rice and Samantha Power.
They’re deplorable choices. They’ll move from current capacities to new national security positions. More on that below.
Times editors endorsed what demands condemnation. What they say matters. Times articles, commentaries and editorials have impact. What’s reported attracts global attention.
Longstanding Times policy is consistent. It operates as a quasi-official ministry of managed news misinformation. It masquerades as the real thing.
Doing so violates fundamental journalistic ethics. The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics Preamble states:
“….public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy.”
“The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues.”
“Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty.”
“Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility.”
The Times violates its own “Company Policy on Ethics in Journalism.” It does so without apology or explanation.
It states in part:
“In keeping with its solemn responsibilities under the First Amendment, our company strives to maintain the highest standard of journalistic ethics.”
“(W)e tell our audiences the complete, unvarnished truth as best we can learn it.”
“(I)t is essential that we preserve professional detachment, free from any hint of bias.”
The longstanding record of “the newspaper of record” belies its high-minded rhetoric. It’s deplorable. Times management and editors support wealth, power and privilege. Populist interests are spurned. Pretense claims otherwise.
When America goes to war or plans one, Times editors march in lockstep. Rule of law principles and other democratic values don’t matter. Powerful privileged interests alone are served.
Public trust, credibility, honor, integrity, impartiality, fairness and truth are sacrificed in the process. Doing so is longstanding Times policy.
This writer’s open letter challenged Times editors. It asked:
Do imperial wars bother you? Does human suffering matter? Is business as usual OK? Are sham elections? Is democracy for the few alone?
Do corporate interests count more than populist ones? Do wealth, power, privilege, and unchallenged dominance alone matter? What about an unconscionable growing wealth gap?
How about corporate and political lawlessness? What about a private banking cartel controlling America’s money? Is looting the federal Treasury OK? What about reckless money printing to serve them?
Do growing poverty, homelessness, hunger and despair concern you? What about deepening social decay symptomatic of national decline?
How about growing millions worldwide calling America a pariah state for good reason? Waging political, economic, social, and hot wars put it in a class by itself.
Are you concerned? Is this the America you support? Dare you call it beautiful?
You have global clout. You could use it responsibly. You could expose what’s wrong and help reverse it. You’d be heroic for trying.
Doing the right thing is its own reward. So is good journalism. Try it sometime and see.
Try publishing “All the News That’s Fit to Print” for real. Perhaps you’ll never look back and go another way.
It’s wishful thinking to expect America’s establishment broadsheet to change longstanding practices. Serving wealth, power, and privilege are too engrained.
On June 6, Times editors headlined “The New Security Team,” saying:
As National Security Advisor, Rice’s “task will be to help Mr. Obama go beyond (his) first-term goals explain to Americans and the world how he intends to wield American leadership and fulfill his stalled promises, including reducing nuclear weapons, curbing climate change and using foreign aid and other economic tools to help the nations that were changed by the Arab Spring uprisings achieve economic and political stability.”
Fact check
Obama’s promises aren’t stalled. They’re systematically spurned. He broke every major one made. His word falls short of his bond. He’s a serial liar. He’s a moral coward. He’s a war criminal multiple times over. His national security and other key officials share culpability.
His nuclear policy asserts the right to use these weapons preemptively. His 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) reflects old wine in new bottles.
Rhetoric changed, not policy. NPR 2010 said America “reserves the right” to use nuclear weapons “that may be warranted by the evolution and proliferation of the biological weapons threat and US capacities to counter that threat.”
No threat whatever exists. New more advanced weapons replace older ones. US nuclear policy prioritizes greater deterrent capability. It unilaterally asserts the right to strike preemptively. It does without cause, justification or consequences of doing so.
So-called foreign aid serves US interests alone. So-called Arab Spring terminology is doublespeak duplicity. It’s a Western term, not a Middle East one.
America deplores peace and stability. It prioritizes conflict, violence and destabilization. Doing so serves longstanding imperial interests. Don’t expect Times editors to explain.
In choosing Power as UN envoy, Obama named “a strong human rights advocate and former White House aide….,” said Times editors.
She and Rice “are seen as liberal interventionists who favor using American power on behalf of humanitarian causes overseas. Both will bring fresh energy to their positions.”
Previous articles discussed both nominations. Rice is morally depraved. South African journalist Getahune Bekele was right calling her a “consummate ally of grubby despots.”
Banality of evil best describes her. Death and destruction don’t bother her. Imperial priorities alone matter. Her style matches Hillary Clinton. She deplores peace, nonviolence, diplomacy and social justice. Her outbursts reflect bullying, bluster and arrogance.
Her support for US lawlessness makes her complicit. She’s indifferent to human suffering. She’s a monument to wrong over right. She’s a disgrace and embarrassment to her country, position and humanity.
She’s criminally unqualified to serve. Her rap sheet includes complicity in major crimes. As Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, she was involved in proxy genocidal wars on Congo.
She has close ties to Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni. Both men are two of many African “grubby despot” US allies. As Obama’s UN envoy, Rice was instrumental in supporting them. She did so earlier under Clinton.
As National Security Advisor, she’ll add to her rap sheet. It’s already bloodstained. She’s morally unqualified for any public or private office.
Samantha Power has her own cross to bear. Edward Herman once called her a prominent “cruise missile left” adherent.
Her book titled “A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide” gained her prominence. She “never departs from the selectivity dictated by the establishment party line,” said Herman.
Genocides are what they do, not us, she believes. America bears full responsibility for centuries of genocidal slaughter. Airbrushing them from history doesn’t wash.
Ideologues like Power try reinventing history their way. So-called liberal and more hawkish ones represent two sides of the same coin. Imperial interests alone matter.
Power calls US foreign policy “a toolbox.” It includes a whole range of options, she says. “There is always something you can do.” Her notion of humanitarian intervention is show no mercy.
She and Rice played leading roles in urging “humanitarian war” on Libya. Genocidal slaughter followed. Africa’s most developed country was ravaged and destroyed.
Violence, instability, poverty, unemployment and human misery reflect current conditions. It’s true wherever America intervenes. Dark side realpolitik alone matters.
In their new national security capacities, expect Rice and Power to urge more of the same. Don’t expect Times editors to explain.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.
It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour
Merchants of Death and Nuclear Weapons
March 4th, 2013By ProjectCensored.
The Physicians for Social Responsibility released a study estimating one billion people — one-sixth of the human race — could starve over the decade following a single nuclear detonation. A key finding was that corn production in the US would decline by an average of 10% for an entire decade, with the most severe decline (20%) in year 5. Another forecast was that increases in food prices would make food inaccessible to hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest The 925 million people in the world who are already chronically malnourished (with a baseline consumption of 1,750 calories or less per day), would be put at risk by a 10% decline in their food consumption.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), released its 180-page study showing that nuclear-armed nations spend over 100 billion dollars each year assembling new warheads, modernizing old ones, and building ballistic missiles, bombers and submarines to launch them. The United States still has about 2,500 nuclear weapons deployed and 2,600 more as backup (Rosenthal, 2011). Washington and Moscow account for 90% of all nuclear weapons
Despite a White House pledge to seek a world without nuclear weapons, the 2011 federal budget for nuclear weapons research and development exceeded $7 billion and could (if the Obama administration has its way) exceed $8 billion per year by the end of this decade.
Nuclear-armed nations spend over 100 billion dollars each year on their weapons programs. The institutions most heavily involved in financing nuclear arms makers include Bank of America, BlackRock and JP Morgan Chase in the United States; BNP Paribas in France; Allianz and Deutsche Bank in Germany; Mistubishi UJF Financial in Japan; BBVA and Banco Santander in Spain; Credit Suisse and UBS in Switzerland; and Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland in Britain.
Title: Occupying the Merchants of Death
Author: Marc Pilisuk
Project Censored, November 22, 2012
ProjectCensored.org/top-stories/articles/occupying-the-merchants-of-death/
Student Researcher: Jessica Eccles, Sonoma State University
Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips PhD, Sonoma State University
http://www.mediafreedominternational.org/2013/02/26/merchants-of-death-and-nuclear-weapons/
Ongoing media manipulation in Croatia – the case of Karolina Vidović-Krišto
March 4th, 2013By ProjectCensored.
(This story has been updated on 1/9/2013)
In the old Yugoslavia, the Croatians knew only what the communist government wanted them to know. Today, in 2013, we Croats do not believe that we have a free and impartial media in Croatia. The Croatian people are not being informed of what they need to know in order to make educated civic decisions. Over the last month, a Croatian reporter has been publicly sanctioned and suspended, while her program has been taken off the air solely for giving counterarguments to government policies. According to some measures, Croatia, a soon to be EU member, is on par with Third World countries such as Burkina Faso and Botswana in terms of media freedom.
“Freedom of the press, or, to be more precise, the benefit of freedom of the press, belongs to everyone – to the citizen as well as the publisher… The crux is not the publisher’s ‘freedom to print’; it is, rather, the citizen’s ‘right to know. ” Arthur Sulzberger, chairman of the board of The New York Times Company
Background to present situation
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Croatia has experienced a long line of manipulation and corruption of media integrity. “Red” journalists are supported even when they do wrong while “Blue” journalists are attacked when they do what they are supposed to do. In 2000 some 50 journalists and editors were fired from HTV when Ivica Račan came to power. In 2012, in preparation for new socialist oriented leadership at HTV, about 40 editors and journalists were demoted.
Both UNHCR and Freedom House have found that the media is only partly free in Croatia. In 2012, Freedom House ranked Croatia in 83rd place out of 197 countries. In 2011, Croatia ranked 83rd and in 2010 ranked 85th, with the status of a country with partly free media. Freedom of the media is not improving.
The present situation
Karolina Vidović-Krišto
The most recent manipulation and corruption of media independence and integrity, which has sparked outrage in the public, deals with Ms Karolina Vidović-Krišto, a well respected journalist with HRT/HTV. Ms Vidović-Krišto was the editor and host of a program, produced specifically for the Croatian Diaspora, called “Slika Hrvatske” (Portrait of Croatia). The program is quite popular and has received wide acclaim for the topics presented and quality of production.
Note: HRT, and the TV arm HTV, is the main national media entity in Croatia. You should be aware that HRT/HTV is a public and not private media organization. The funding for HTV programming comes directly from the people, who are mandated by law to pay a monthly fee for the operation of HTV. The people are forced to pay for media services but have no say in the nature and editorial content of the programming!
On December 29, 2012 Ms Vidović-Krišto hosted an episode that investigated the government’s new policies and strategies on sex education. The sex education issue has been a topic of widespread debate in Croatia, in the media and by the people online in various forums. The program was well researched, professionally produced and of significant interest to the citizens of Croatia. The program, as are most Croatians, was critical of the government policy and the foundations on which the program is based.
On December 30, 2012 the HRT/HTV publically sanctioned Ms Vidović-Krišto, suspended her from her duties and took the show Picture of Croatia off the air. HRT/HTV made the following statement: “HRT apologizes to viewers of the program Picture of Croatia (which is broadcast for expatriates) for yesterday’s broadcast by editor and host Karolina Vidović-Krišto. We point out that the opinions expressed in the show are not the opinions of HRT. Due to serious breaches of professional rules and abuse of position, HRT will take strong measures” – HRT said in a statement.
Zdenko Duka, president of the Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND), with alleged ties to the previous communist regime and alleged ties to the present “red”
government, has done nothing to help Karolina (who is not a red). He has made comments along the lines of “you got what you deserve”. Mr Duka has stood behind a “red” journalist who was taken to court for defamation and in which she pleaded guilty. The CJA / HND is a member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) but many of us do not believe that the CJA/HND lives up to the high international standards for journalism.
Ms Vidović-Krišto is receiving support from large segments of the population but the government is ignoring the people. The Croatian Diaspora, which is accustomed to a media system outside of government control, is particularly outraged. Numerous people from around the world wrote letters of support for Ms Vidović-Krišto and sent them to the HRT main office, but no one ever received a response.
A Facebook support page for Ms Vidović-Krišto has accumulated more than 25,000 supporters in less than a week – a huge accomplishment in Croatian social media. A survey in the largest Croatian newspaper, Vecernji List, shows the high level of support for the program with 84% of online respondents said “Finally, they said what is true”.
The importance of a free and independent media
The media in Croatia appears to be more of a government propaganda arm rather than a servant of the people and a check on the government. With important local elections occurring later this year and a presidential election next year, debate about government policy must be promoted. Manipulation and corruption of Croatian media independence and integrity, at the only public media entity in the country, destroys the fundamental rights of Croatian citizens to information and subsequently making informed decisions in civic life and elections.
This incident sets an extremely bad precedent because journalists across Croatia are now, more than ever, afraid of speaking against the government. There are numerous journalists, especially in the younger generation, that want to be impartial investigative journalists – but are afraid of voicing their concerns. In a country with unemployment at about 20% and near 40% for those under 25, keeping your job is a powerful motivator to “toe the party line”.
When journalists are afraid of the government, so too are the citizens. If democratic institutions in Croatia are to mature, and people feel empowered to be civically active and to fulfill their civic duties, the freedom and integrity of the media must be protected!
Change is not happening from the inside as indicated in the MSI Professional Journalism assessment for Croatia in the graphic below.
We hope that investigation and pressure from around the globe can help Croatia become a First World nation in media integrity and freedom.
Željko Zidarić
Civic Innovation Incubator
Zagreb – Toronto
Thank you for protecting our families
(Updates!):
The following is info about media attacks against Judith Reisman, threats made against the children of a journalist fighting for media freedom and upcoming re-organization at HRT which we fear will further destroy media freedom and credibility in Croatia.Karolina Vidović Krišto: I received a second threatening letter!Karolina Vidović Krišto: Dobila sam drugo prijeteće pismo!Maybe I should not, but after speaking with Professor Reisman and we concluded what I am about to say I must say for the safety of my children. I received another threatening letter in which threats were made to my children. I did not want to talk about before, but I know that threats were made in this way to all those who fought for the truth. I do this for the safety of my children, said a brave journalist.‘I’ll sue anyone who called me a walking mockery’ Judith Reisman announced she will stay in Croatia a bit longer‘TUŽIT ĆU SVE KOJI SU ME NAZVALI HODAJUĆOM SPRDNJOM’ Judith Reisman najavila da u Hrvatskoj ostaje do daljnjegMs Reisman says that she will sue the media outlets that called her an anti-semite and a Holocaust denier. This is quite absurd since Ms Reisman is Jewish and some of her family was lost in the Holocaust. You might want to get in touch with Ms Reisman to get her thoughts on what she has seen in Croatia. Her email is jreisman@liberty.edu. Ms Reisman is a professor at Liberty University.On another note, there are many worries about an upcoming re-organization at the Croatian national media outlet HRT. The new director Goran Radman might entrench a socialist cadre even further and this might preclude a neutral and unbiased national media. Old departments will be eliminated and new ones formed. Who will be hired and who will be fired? These are key questions which Croatian conservatives worry about.Eccentric Presentation of HRT boss as Work-Man with a loop and sheathed saves public television from disasterEKSCENTRIČNA PREZENTACIJA ŠEFA HRT-A Rad-Man s petljom i plaštom spašava javnu televiziju od propastiThe national media, paid for by the people, is undergoing some major re-organizations. The re-orgs are necessary in order to make the media outlet more modern, but there is a lot of fear internally that people of the blue political orientation will lose their jobs and those of the red political orientation will gain higher positions and that the result will be even more political bias and less freedom and professionalism of the media.I also send you a petition that was started by Academic Josip Pecaric back in 2011. You can see that this is a problem identified quite some time ago and the number of people that have signed the petition is indicative of how big this problem is in Croatia.Sincerely,Zeljko ZidaricCivic Innovation IncubatorZagreb – Toronto