Censorship and the heroes of our generation

Along with the loss of their jobs, many people who provide information for Censored News have been hungry, homeless, sick, arrested, jailed and beaten over the past two years.

Article and photo by Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

In today's column, Roberto Rodriquez describes the blatant racism by Lou Dobbs on CNN. In a slightly more subtle form of manipulation and control, Indian Country Today has a large ad for CIA Clandestine Services -- CIA spies -- on its website today. The ad has been revolving there for months. This means that ICT is funded by the CIA.
When I was a staff reporter for Indian Country Today, the managing editor in 2005 demanded that I not write about "grassroots people or the genocide of American Indians." I continued to do so and was terminated in 2006. But, before I was terminated, my articles were censored and the wording changed, over my objections. The non-Indian staff members responsible continued at the newspaper over the past years in various positions.
Today, unless one reads a great deal on the Internet, because of the censorship, it is possible to remain unaware of current events.
The most underreported news includes the Zapatistas Digna Rabia gatherings in Chiapas; American Indians support for Palestinians; the discovery of US-made white phosphorus munitions used by Israel on Palestinians; the digging up of the graves of O'odham ancestors, 69 at one site alone, in Arizona for the US/Mexico border wall and the secret removal of the remains of O'odham ancestors by Boeing while constructing the border wall on O'odham land.
The rapes, murders and drug smuggling carried out by US Border Agents on the US border are among the most concealed facts, even in the alternative media, because the crimes are concealed. (Although dozens of US military soldiers, with a police officer and prison guard were convicted and sentenced in Arizona for smuggling cocaine last year, border agents carried out the sting and were not exposed.)
The smuggling of weapons into Mexico, which fuels the current drug violence, is also censored. Ultimately, it is the people in the US who buy the drugs and provide the weapons for this wave of violence. The US even trained some of the most brutal murderers in this drug war, the Zetas, formerly as US Special Forces. The privatization of US prisons, and media fueled racism toward migrants, has resulted in profiteering for politicians and corporations like GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut) and resulted in abuse and murders in prisons.
The issues in Mohawk Nation News are widely censored, including land theft and oppression by a wide range of security forces. The exposure of mass graves of Indian children at Canadian residential schools was among the most censored articles. The hoax of carbon credits, to enrich the World Bank and corporations, is also censored.
Another censored fact was that Leonard Peltier was recently beaten by a gang in a Pennsylvania prison, and transferred. The question of why so many American Indians in some Indian Nations are living in poverty, while millions of dollars are pouring into their casinos, is largely censored. Peabody Coal, along with a long list of corporations in collusion with the Navajo Nation government, continues to produce disease and pollution, even in the area of the Navajos' place of origin, Dinetah, in what is now New Mexico. On Western Shoshone land, and around the world, Barrick Gold, and other coal, gold, silver and copper mining corporations, continue to oppress the people and destroy Indigenous lands and water. In Guatemala, there have been assassinations, and in New Guinea, rapes and murders of villagers.
To expose all of these issues, many people have lost their jobs and positions, including Kevin Annett, a minister in Vancouver who continues to expose the murders and mass graves in church residential schools. In the US, Native Americans have been removed from their positions on tribal councils for demanding justice at the US border, while others have been detained and threatened by border agents and tribal police.
Kahentinetha Horn, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, and Katenies, MNN editor, two Mohawk grandmothers, were beaten at the Canadian border by border agents and Kahentinetha suffered a heart attack. Others continue to struggle for justice, like Angelita Ramon, Tohono O'odham, whose 18-year-old son Bennett Patricio, Jr., was ran over and killed by the US Border Patrol in Arizona.
Along with the loss of their jobs, many people who provide information for Censored News have been hungry, homeless, sick, arrested, jailed and beaten over the past two years.
They don't receive a salary from CNN, but they remain the heroes of our generation.

Censored articles by Brenda Norrell, 2004 -- 2006:
http://bsnorrell.tripod.com/

Photo: At San Xavier on Tohono O'odham land, crosses in memory of migrants who died in the desert. Walkers from Tucson to San Xavier included supporters of Derechos Humanos, No More Deaths, Humane Borders and Samaritans. Photo Brenda Norrell

Rodriguez: 'Face of the New American Bigot, Part II'

Face of the New American Bigot, Part II

By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez


In writing about CNN’s Lou Dobbs and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio recently – readers rightly asked about why CNN continues to carry an obsessed bigot in its daily lineup?
The question is the same for other media outlets that have for years carried Dobbs and others whose careers seemed to be based on an obsession with immigration (illegal or otherwise), the border and the Spanish language.
Unquestionably, it is an unhealthy obsession, one in which during difficult times leads to un upsurge in hate crimes, discrimination, harassment and scapegoating. In this case, the scapegoats are Mexicans primarily, but also Central and South Americans. Many of those
targeted are in fact either legally here or U.S. born citizens.
This is not news to CNN. Virtually every media outlet, every media watch dog group and every human rights organization has noted Dobbs’s obsession.
The Southern Poverty Law Center – the premier human rights organization that monitors hate nationally, regularly features Dobbs (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intpro.jsp). It regularly questions his incendiary work, his accuracy, and his penchant for relying on white supremacist sources. They have also written to CNN’s top management about this. (Incidentally, the SPLC has been reporting a major increase in hate crimes against Latinos every year since 2000).
The media watchdog, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) – which is dedicated to challenging media bias and censorship – regularly Dobb’s daily obsession, always noting his brazen xenophobia, his habitual misreporting and his reliance on an all-star cast of
extremist sources (http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=100).
Recently, another media watchdog, Media Matters for America(http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/immigration), featured and documented more of Dobbs’s fabrications. On Jan. 29, Dobbs falsely claimed that “illegal aliens” would be able to take advantage of the massive economic stimulus bill; the bill specifically precludes this
from happening. On Feb 4, Dobbs’s nightly report asserted the same about the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), signed that day by President Obama. The banner during his newscast read: “Healthcare for Illegal Aliens.” CNN correspondent Lisa Sylvester
reported that the SCHIP would make it likely that “illegal aliens” would be able to access the program. But as FAIR noted: “The SCHIP bill also explicitly states in Section 605 that ‘[n]othing in this Act allows Federal payment for individuals who are not lawfully residing
in the United States’:”
CNN’s president Jonathan Klein has long been aware of Dobbs’s obsession and his habitual misstatements and misreporting, telling the New York Times (3/29/06), "Lou's show is not a harbinger of things to come at CNN,” adding that he is “one of a kind." Yet, CNN – “the most
trusted name in news” – has continued to carry Dobbs and has made available its vast financial resources, including the use of its “trusted” regular reporters to help push his xenophobic agenda.
One has to wonder whether CNN would tolerate a show on crime and welfare by Dobbs that daily featured black welfare queens and black street hoodlums? Dobbs’s defense would be that he is not concerned with race, but rather, cheats and criminals. Would CNN carry a show by
Dobbs that daily railed against Jews for cheating and embezzling Americans out of their hard-earned dollars? The claim would be that the concern is with illegality, regardless of who was doing the cheating and embezzling. What about a daily show dedicated to the extermination of American Indians… or that daily denigrated women or the LBGT community? (Witness what just one racial episode – the chimpanzee/Obama cartoon – at the New York Daily Post (2/19/09) – has rightfully generated.
If Dobb’s obsession is transparent, why then indeed do CNN and other media outlets carry his show? Why does the media in general do the same with other documented hate-mongers?
The answer is two-fold. “Illegal aliens” are not considered full human beings. Officially, there are no [racially identified] faces associated with them, though in reality, we know that thanks to the
bigots in our midst, illegal alien is code for brown, which generally equals Mexicans. Similar to the debate over the official language in this country, it is a coded debate about the racial and cultural future of this nation.
Secondly, with its competition with the “fair & balanced” FOX Network, one can only ascertain that CNN’s decision to continue to carry Dobbs, tells us volumes about its ethics and responsibilities. They apparently mean little in the face of profits. Yet with the 2008
elections now over, perhaps it can soon regain the trust it has otherwise earned.
Rodriguez can be reached at XColumn@email.com
* CNN can be reached at (404) 827-1500 or on the web at:
www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form1.html?39