Here are 3 timely and short articles on issues of the day. Also, kpfk went off the air at 10pm, but the engineers are on the job and hopefully all will be well, shortly. I have to leave early this morning so can't follow-up. Try tuning in at 9 for DN! -Ed
THE LYNCHING OF DAN RATHER On British TV, Dan feared the price of "asking questions" By Greg Palast September 21, 2004 "It's that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions," the aging American journalist told the British television audience. In June 2002, Dan Rather looked old, defeated, making a confession he dare not speak on American TV about the deadly censorship -- and self-censorship -- which had seized US newsrooms. After September 11, news on the US tube was bound and gagged. Any reporter who stepped out of line, he said, would be professionally lynched as un-American. "It's an obscene comparison," he said, "but there was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires around people's necks if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be necklaced here. You will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck." No US reporter who values his neck or career will "bore in on the tough questions." Dan said all these things to a British audience. However, back in the USA, he smothered his conscience and told his TV audience: "George Bush is the President. He makes the decisions. He wants me to line up, just tell me where." During the war in Vietnam, Dan's predecessor at CBS, Walter Cronkite, asked some pretty hard questions about Nixon's handling of the war in Vietnam. Today, our sons and daughters are dying in Bush wars. But, unlike Cronkite, Dan could not, would not, question George Bush, Top Gun Fighter Pilot, Our Maximum Beloved Leader in the war on terror. On the British broadcast, without his network minders snooping, you could see Dan seething and deeply unhappy with himself for playing the game. "What is going on," he said, "I'm sorry to say, is a belief that the public doesn't need to know -- limiting access, limiting information to cover the backsides of those who are in charge of the war. It's extremely dangerous and cannot and should not be accepted, and I'm sorry to say that up to and including this moment of this interview, that overwhelmingly it has been accepted by the American people. And the current Administration revels in that, they relish and take refuge in that." Dan's words had a poignant personal ring for me. He was speaking on Newsnight, BBC's nightly current affairs program, which broadcasts my own reports. I do not report for BBC, despite its stature, by choice. The truth is, if I want to put a hard, investigative report about the USA on the nightly news, I have to broadcast it in exile, from London. For Americans my broadcasts are stopped at an electronic Berlin wall. Indeed, Dan is in hot water for a report my own investigative team put in Britain's Guardian papers and on BBC TV years ago. Way back in 1999, I wrote that former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes had put in the fix for little George Bush to get out of 'Nam and into the Air Guard. What is hot news this month in the USA is a five-year-old story to the rest of the world. And you still wouldn't see it in the USA except that Dan Rather, with a 60 Minutes producer, finally got fed up and ready to step out of line. And, as Dan predicted, he stuck out his neck and got it chopped off. Is Rather's report accurate? Is George W. Bush a war hero or a privileged little Shirker-in-Chief? Today I saw a goofy two page spread in the Washington Post about a typewriter used to write a memo with no significance to the draft-dodge story. What I haven't read about in my own country's media is about two crucial documents supporting the BBC/CBS story. The first is Barnes' signed and sworn affidavit to a Texas Court, from 1999, in which he testifies to the Air Guard fix -- which Texas Governor George W. Bush, given the opportunity, declined to challenge. And there is a second document, from the files of US Justice Department, again confirming the story of the fix to keep George's white bottom out of Vietnam. That document, shown last year in the BBC television documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," correctly identifies Barnes as the bag man even before his 1999 confession. At BBC, we also obtained a statement from the man who made the call to the Air Guard general on behalf of Bush at Barnes' request. Want to see the document? I've posted it at: http://www.gregpalast.com/ulf/documents/ draftdodgeblanked.jpg This is not a story about Dan Rather. The white millionaire celebrity can defend himself without my help. This is really a story about fear, the fear that stops other reporters in the US from following the evidence about this Administration to where it leads. American news guys and news gals, practicing their smiles, adjusting their hairspray levels, bleaching their teeth and performing all the other activities that are at the heart of US TV journalism, will look to the treatment of Dan Rather and say, "Not me, babe." No questions will be asked, as Dan predicted, lest they risk necklacing and their careers as news actors burnt to death. "Bush Family Fortunes," the one-hour documentary taken from Greg Palast's BBC investigative reports, including the story of George Bush and Texas Air Guard, can be viewed, in part, at http://www.gregpalast.com/bff-dvd.htm To subscribe: http://lists.portside.org/mailman/listinfo/portside *** http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58007-2004Aug11.ht ml Washington Post August 12, 2004; Page A07 Nader vs. the ADL By Brian Faler Ralph Nader, that master of controversy, has a new bete noire: the Anti-Defamation League. The independent presidential candidate has become embroiled in an ugly exchange with the Jewish organization, after he suggested that President Bush and Congress were "puppets" of the Israeli government. "The days when the chief Israeli puppeteer comes to the United States and meets with the puppet in the White House and then proceeds to Capitol Hill, where he meets with hundreds of other puppets, should be replaced," Nader said earlier this summer. That prompted an angry letter from the league, which complained that the "image of the Jewish state as a 'puppeteer,' controlling the powerful US Congress feeds into many age-old stereotypes which have no place in legitimate public discourse." Nader is not backing down. In a letter to the group that will be released today, he reiterated his arguments, challenged the league to cite a recent example of when American leaders have pursued a policy opposed by the Israeli government and pointed to Israeli peace groups that he said share his criticism of that country's leadership. "There is far more freedom in the media, in town squares and among citizens, soldiers, elected representatives and academicians in Israel to debate and discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than there is in the United States," Nader wrote. The longtime consumer advocate's willingness to criticize Israel may win him some votes, since both Bush and Democratic nominee John F. Kerry strongly support Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. But not if Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the league has anything to say about it. "What he said smacks of bigotry," Foxman said. *** Newsday September 16, 2004 Americans support health care regulation Majority of those polled say they favor insurance system similar to Canada and Britain to help combat rising costs and less coverage By Randi F. Marshall - Staff Writer <http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-bzheal16q3973004sep16,0,1101422.story > Rising health care costs and shrinking coverage have prompted a significant majority of Americans to support government regulation - or even universal health care, according to a survey released yesterday. Two-thirds of those surveyed said they supported a health care "guarantee," similar to the Canadian or British systems, according to the survey, which was issued by Results for America, a division of the Civil Society Institute, a Newton, Mass.-based think tank. Additionally, 78 percent of Americans advocate government regulation of health care, similar to utilities such as gas and water, the survey found. "What this survey shows is a nation in the grips of a health care crisis," said Civil Society Institute president Pam Solo. "Americans are now prepared to embrace some tough ideas." The Civil Society Institute says it is a nonprofit, independent organization that attempts to focus on social issues such as health care, education and the environment. Solo, is a social activist and grassroots advocate who has focused on issues such as national health care, stem cell research and global warming. The institute's survey of 1,020 adults showed that while 85 percent of respondents have health insurance, the majority of them have either seen their coverage cut, or their costs rise. That represents about 100 million Americans, according to the institute. The survey's results, particularly on the rising cost of health care, have been echoed by other experts and research groups. The Kaiser Family Foundation just announced its findings that health care premiums rose by double digits for the fourth year in a row in 2004. "Health insurance is becoming increasingly unaffordable in our country, especially for small employers," said Kaiser president Drew Altman at a Washington, D.C., news conference last week. "We unfortunately should expect the ranks of the uninsured to continue to pick up." The statistics don't surprise Sher Sparano. The Forest Hills health insurance broker has watched costs skyrocket, as she negotiates plans for other employers, and for her own small business. "It's very expensive, and you deal with it every single day," said Sparano, who runs a company called Benefits Advisory Services. "I think there have to be some changes." That might include more government regulation, Sparano said. In the long run, she noted, it will cost more if people aren't getting the medical care they need. Indeed. According to the institute's survey, nearly 20 percent said they skip or reduce dosages of their medications because they cannot afford their prescription drugs. That translates into more than 20 million Americans, according to Wayne Russum, senior researcher with Opinion Research Corp., which conducted and analyzed the survey. As a result, more and more Americans are turning to Canada and other countries to buy their medications. More than a third are either purchasing or would consider purchasing their prescription drugs from Canada or elsewhere, the survey found. Russum said 6 percent - or as many as 10 million Americans - have bought their medications abroad. Solo argued that the American public was ahead of Washington politicians in their concern for health care costs. "The longer our leaders fail to take steps ... the more millions of Americans will be squeezed out of our health care system and left out in the cold," Solo said. 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