Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Information Poverty

Do you ever flick channels during the news at six? And have you noticed that many of the reports on any subject are copies word for word on several channels? You often assume these similar news items are picked up from other mainstream news sources, as interesting tidbits for your consumption. Hmm.
But so many news stories today are written by corporate PR departments with the slant towards guiding your thoughts about a certain subject. The so called yellow journalism. Indeed, what actual free journalism goes on today? Not much it seems. Mainstream=Corporate.

The School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, under the supervision of Dr. Kathleen Cross has released a study on the most under-reported news stories today. It says 25 but includes 100, some of which may shock you and others only confirm your suspicions of being manipulated. All are relevant to us living in a sane world.

- Like the under-reporting of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Suppressed so the boiling public doesn't decide to take occupying action against the nuclear industry? And we're wondering how radioactive that gyre of Japanese earthquake-meltdown debris floating toward North America is and how it may affect our beaches? Keep your toddlers out of the sun AND the sand!

- Or the fact that so called Big Pharma (nickname for huge pharmaceutical companies) engineer their clinical studies to put a warm light on the use of their drugs. But you watch CNN and see the long lists of ailments from using their drugs, don't you? (side effects always downplayed during the shots of 'all-better-now' smiling actors) Well, you should. Do you care that pharmaceutical company reps are within the US Government FDA agencies right now writing the laws on the use of their drugs? Do you care that they may have omitted the fact that deaths occurred during their testings?

- I don't see it on their list but it is a lingering suspicion on my own; the Gulf oil spill and the fact that there are rumors of it still leaking and the ability of the oil companies to keep people away from the disaster area while they hide the pollution! That is cheating the world but did you think oil companies were ethical? Did you believe they could simply snub the US Government to do what they want? Even keeping the US Navy away and tieing the President of America's hands.

- Would you be shocked to learn that in 2010, in the American Army, 462 soldiers were killed in the line of duty? While 468 committed suicide!
Well of course you would because we only get the reports of 'embedded' reporters now. Those who travel with an Army unit and stage their reporting to suit the military minds. The mental health of war will be ongoing for decades!

- And did you read anywhere about the CETA negotiations? Sort of like NAFTA, no benefit whatsoever to Canada but allowing European corporations access to government procurement actions, to our public institutions like hospitals and public utilities. And all behind closed doors. Like NAFTA. A secret from the people. Does our news media have a don't- ask-don't-tell policy?

The SFU list makes excellent reading or even browsing if you like. And you could, if you cared enough, pick one of these items and make it your own. Something to yell about. Or write about. Or research yourself. Or complain about to your local news source for their lack of coverage.

Spend a little time perusing the SFU School of Communication study. All the items show a Synopsis, Significance, Media Coverage and Original Source Material. Beats the mainstream media's unnamed sources all to hell! Especially when those sources are PR Department flacks.
If you do go and read the study, be sure to go to Appendix A: Alternative & Independent News Sites Used for Researching Stories. This is important for anyone pursuing information on their own. Appendix D has the top 100 Underreported Stories.

Yes we all know that the current news organizations are firmly controlled by corporate interests. And we see the scandal in Britain about movie stars phones being tapped, but it is far more serious than gossip folks, it is about our small planet and your health, your family's safety, and our democratic right to reliable reporting.
And we, as a public interested in the preservation of our very lives, need to know truth, and to recognize where to find it and who is lying to us. The SFU Under-Reported News Study is a tool to use. A source for a further independent pursuit of the real information. Truth.

So one would ask: Are our reporters just lazy, stupid or bought? If there is a reason we are being denied investigative news reporting, that reason must be secret too. But secrecy fosters speculation and conjecture too, doesn't it?

Educate yourself and start using your voice. Information poverty is affecting us all, and they should not be getting away with it.


http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/newswatch/files/2011/11/NewsWatch-Canada_SFU-Research-Seminar_2010_2011_Underreported-Stories_Print-Ready.pdf


http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/newswatch

Saturday, December 10, 2011

New USA-Canada Trade Deal

So you're reading about it now. A new deal that the US thought up, and has been programming Canadians to accept for at least 10 years now. The Bush/Cheney people thought it up, and as we all know now, Barak Obama has little to do with running America, and no president in the future will have either.
So the paranoid Americans 'conditioned' Canadians to believe that those wild-eyed terrorists were on their way here too, and unless we go along with their ideas, we'll be unsafe. Left to duck under our beds while the bombs go off. We need the same protection as all red blooded Americans get to keep them safe. Yes.
Well, not exactly. Terrorism hasn't much to do with the real plan.
Because along with the sharing of a national border with America, we will now go ahead with the so-called North American Security Border Perimeter Protection. This allows information sharing, and interoperability, (nice vague word) and Integrated Border Enforcement Teams (IBET). The Civil Assistance Plan of 2008 allows the military of one country to respond to a cross-border domestic civil emergency, at the request of the other country. The Shiprider Agreement of 2009 enables jointly-crewed RCMP and Coast Guard vessels to patrol shared waterways and seaways, with cross-border jurisdiction.
Interoperability also encourages a militarized approach to border crimes such as drug smuggling, contraband and the undocumented movement of people. Already, unmanned drones are patrolling the Canada-U.S. border. Since 9/11, five land and marine military bases have been established close to the Canada-U.S. border as part of the U.S. Northern Border Air Wing.

But don't just think of that border below us, folks, think North too!

Yes this agreement of course, considers OUR borders from sea to sea to sea.
And the third sea is the Arctic. And that's where America wants to be active. And protecting ALL North American borders means using US troops for that task. And allowing those troops to occupy our sovereign border in the Arctic. Why?
To guard against sandy terrorists or Russians sneaking across the diminishing ice floes disguised as polar bears (also diminishing) with high explosives strapped under their bomber jackets and destined for targets in Toronto! OMG! WTF?

Well of course the American and Canadian governments are playing it down. But the result of this new protection we get by signing the agreement, will be to allow America to control the emerging Canadian Arctic resource of billions of barrels of oil beneath those thawing ice packs! Estimated to be about 400 BILLION barrels!
A US based oil company has laid claim to ALL the Arctic oil reserves under OUR North, and has a legal argument based on their proposal that the Arctic's petroleum deposits are the "common heritage of mankind," (the lawyer who thought up that one got a huge bonus) and has argued that the polar region requires a private "lead manager" to organize.

Now wouldn't that conveniently come under the new perimeter border of North America? Of course it would. We need secure oil resources to lessen our dependance on foreign oil and to guarantee $1.00 a gallon prices to those righteous mid-western straw chewers who are still living in the fifties.
So all the talk about helping us poor Canadians get our goods to market across the Ambassador Bridge is subterfuge.

And that's not all. We have water. And lots of it. In a relevant aspect. It has been said that water will be the oil of the 21st century, and that it will cause wars between nations.
Sea water makes up 97.5 percent of all the water on Earth. And not all the remaining 2.5% is drinkable. Of that tiny amount we have an estimated 6 to 20% as renewable resource. That is 20% of about ONE percent, people.
America is in a drought situation and has been for a century or more! Some say the worst in 500 years! And getting scary worse.

Many people believe that the quality CBC TV show Intelligence was cancelled because the Americans were nervous of Chris Haddock's plot direction which was moving toward the US using the FBI and CIA to influence decisions in Canada which would allow America free access to our water! http://thetyee.ca/Entertainment/2007/12/03/NoIntelligence/

The Great Lakes water levels continue to drop. Barge traffic on America's waterways only carry half loads to avoid scraping bottom in those rivers. Americans continue to use up to 350 gallons a day for drinking and sanitation when the world average is 20 to 40 gallons! And again, the big bad corporations are lobbying to drain America's wetlands to put more water into the river systems! Crops are failing, livestock cannot be fed.
And all the while sprinklers are pouring water non stop into the nice green golf courses of Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas!

America has been looking to the North for years. The Keystone XL oil pipeline is but the first step in draining Canada's liquid resources into America. Why not a water pipeline to follow? Do you think Keystone is a random name? You can bet the idea of a water pipeline is under discussion right now. And the first action will be to 'condition' the Canadian public into accepting the idea.
And it will probably hinge on existing clauses within the new border perimeter agreement to protect us from (once again) terrorists.
Why not?
The concept has worked on Americans since 9/11 who now have no recourse to sue American corporations for misdeeds or to stop police from tracking you or storming into your home without judicial warrants! And the growth of private security forces, like America's Blackwater, now called Xe, and Canada's Can/Aust Security could be used to subjugate and control an emerging angry populace. (Blackwater was used during Hurricane Katrina, Can/Aust was involved in a plan to smuggle Saadi Gaddafi to Mexico) Homeland security is about to become omnipotent. President Obama has just signed into law, an act that allows the US Military to police the streets, make arrests and jail citizens without charge or US Constitutional protection!

Don't hide under your bed, folks, without looking under it first. You might find a wild-eyed terrorist or a wild-eyed Senator there already. Go back to sleep, that's the only place you'll have freedom.
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US oil company lays claim to ALL oil in the Arctic -
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/story.html?id=0e151a0a-c5e6-49d7-bfa7-99bc4ff85f57

Canada's potential oil -
http://www.gac.ca/PopularGeoscience/factsheets/ArcticOilandGas_e.pdf

USA drought monitor -
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/new.html
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