Every year since 1976, California-based Project Censored has spotlighted the most significant news stories that were largely ignored or misrepresented by the mainstream press. Now the group is expanding its mission—to promote alternative news sources.
The term “censored” doesn’t mean that some government agent stood over newsrooms with a rubber stamp and forbid the publication of the news—or even that the information was completely out of the public eye. The stories Project Censored highlights may have run in one or two news outlets, but didn’t get the type of attention they deserved.
Project Censored doesn’t just expose gaping holes in the news brought to you by the likes of Fox, CNN, or USA Today—it also shines a light on less prominent, but more incisive alternative-media sources serving up in-depth investigations and watchdog reports.
Benjamin Frymer, a sociology professor at Sonoma State University who is taking over as director of Project Censored, says he believes the time is ripe for new sources of information. “The actual amount of time that people spend reading online is increasing,” Frymer points out. “It’s not as if people are just cynically rejecting media—they’re reaching out for alternative sources.”
1. CONGRESS SELLS OUT TO WALL STREET
The total tab for the Wall Street bailout, including money spent and promised by the United States government, works out to an estimated $42,000 for every man, woman and child, according to American Casino, a documentary about sub-prime lending and the financial meltdown. The predatory lending free-for-all, the emergency pumping of taxpayer dollars to prop up mega-banks and the lavish bonuses handed out to Wall Street executives in the aftermath are all issues that have dominated news headlines. But another twist in the story has received scant attention from the mainstream news media: the unsettling combination of lax oversight from national politicians with high-dollar campaign contributions from financial players. In the 10-year period beginning in 1998, the financial sector spent $1.7 billion on federal campaign contributions, and another $3.4 billion on lobbyists. Since 2001, eight of the most troubled firms have donated $64.2 million to congressional candidates, presidential candidates and the Republican and Democratic parties. Wall Street’s spending spree on political contributions coincided with a weakening of federal banking regulations, which in turn created a recipe for the astronomical financial disaster that sent the global economy reeling.
Sources: “Lax Oversight? Maybe $64 Million to DC Pols Explains It,” Greg Gordon, Truthout.org and McClatchey Newspapers, October 2, 2008; “Congressmen Hear from TARP Recipients Who Funded Their Campaigns,” Lindsay Renick Mayer, Capitol Eye, February 10, 2009; “The Big Takeover,” Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone, March 2009.
2. DE FACTO SEGREGATION DEEPENING IN PUBLIC EDUCATION
Latinos and African Americans attend more segregated public schools today than they have for four decades, Professor Gary Orfield notes in “Reviving the Goal of an Integrated Society: A 21st Century Challenge,” a study conducted by the Civil Rights Project of the University of California Los Angeles. Orfield’s report used federal data to highlight deepening segregation in public education by race and poverty. About 44 percent of students in the nation’s public school system are people of color, and this group will soon make up the majority of the population in the U.S. Yet this racial diversity often isn’t reflected from school to school. Instead, two out of every five African American and Latino youth attend schools that Orfield characterizes as “intensely segregated”—comprised of 90 to 100 percent people of color. Schools that are segregated by race and poverty tend to have much higher dropout rates, higher teacher turnover and greater exposure to crime and gangs, placing students at a major disadvantage in society. The most severe segregation is in Western states, including California. Fifty-five years after the Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, Orfield wrote, “Segregation is fast spreading into large sectors of suburbia and there is little or no assistance for communities wishing to resist the pressures of resegregation and ghetto creation in order to build successfully integrated schools and neighborhoods.”
Source: “Reviving the Goal of an Integrated Society: A 21st Century Challenge,” Gary Orfield, The Civil Rights Project, UCLA, January 2009
3. SOMALI PIRATES: THE UNTOLD STORY
Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa were like gold for mainstream news outlets this past year. Stories describing surprise attacks on shipping vessels, daring rescues and cadres of ragtag bandits extracting multimillion-dollar ransoms were all over the airwaves and front pages. Even as the pirates’ exploits around the Gulf of Aden captured the world’s attention, however, very little ink was devoted to factors that made the Somalis desperate enough to resort to piracy: the dumping of nuclear waste and rampant over-fishing in their coastal waters. In the early 1990s, when the government of Somalia collapsed, foreign interests began swooping into unguarded coastal waters to trawl for food—and venturing into unprotected Somali territories to cheaply dispose of nuclear waste. Those activities continued with impunity for years. The ramifications of toxic dumping hit full force with the 2005 tsunami, when leaking barrels were washed ashore, sickening hundreds and causing birth defects in newborn infants. The uncontrolled fishing harvests, meanwhile, damaged the economic livelihoods of Somali fishermen and eroded the country’s supply of a primary food source. That’s when the piracy started. “Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome?” asked journalist Johann Hari in a Huffington Post article. “We didn’t act on those crimes—but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply, we begin to shriek about ‘evil.’”
Sources: “Toxic waste behind Somali piracy,” Najad Abdullahi, Al Jazeera English, October 11, 2008; “You are being lied to about pirates,” Johann Hari, The Huffington Post, January 4, 2009; “The Two Piracies in Somalia: Why the World Ignores the Other,” Mohamed Abshir Waldo, WardheerNews, January 8, 2009
4. NORTH CAROLINA’S NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE
The Shearon Harris nuclear plant in North Carolina’s Wake County isn’t just a power generating station. The Progress Energy plant, located in a backwoods area, bears the distinction of housing the largest radioactive-waste storage pools in the country. Spent fuel rods from two other nuclear plants are transported there by rail, then stored beneath circulating cold water to prevent the radioactive waste from heating. The hidden danger, according to investigative reporter Jeffery St. Clair, is the looming threat of a pool fire. Citing a study by Brookhaven National Laboratory, St. Clair highlighted in CounterPunch the catastrophe that could ensue if a pool were to ignite. A possible 140,000 people could wind up with cancer. Contamination could stretch for thousands of square miles. And damages could reach an estimated $500 billion. “Spent fuel recently discharged from a reactor could heat up relatively rapidly and catch fire,” Robert Alvarez, a former Department of Energy advisor and Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies noted in a study about safety issues surrounding nuclear waste pools. “The fire could well spread to older fuel. The long-term contamination consequences of such an event could be significantly worse than Chernobyl.”
Shearon Harris’ track record is pocked with problems requiring temporary shutdowns of the plant and malfunctions of the facility’s emergency-warning system. When a study was sent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission highlighting the safety risks and recommending technological fixes to address the problem, St. Clair noted, a pro-nuclear commissioner successfully persuaded the agency to dismiss the concerns.
Source: “Pools of Fire,” Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch, August 9, 2008
5. U.S. FAILS TO PROTECT CONSUMERS AGAINST TOXICS
Two years ago, the European Union enacted a bold new environmental policy requiring close scrutiny and restriction of toxic chemicals used in everyday products. Invisible perils such as lead in lipstick, endocrine disruptors in baby toys and mercury in electronics can threaten human health. The story that’s gone unreported by mainstream American news media, however, is how this game-changing legislation might impact the U.S., where chemical corporations use lobbying muscle to ensure comparatively lax oversight of toxic substances. As global markets shift to favor safer consumer products, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is lagging far behind in its own scrutiny of insidious chemicals. As investigative journalist Mark Schapiro pointed out in Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power, the EPA’s tendency to behave as if it were beholden to big business could backfire in this case, placing U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage because products manufactured here will be regarded with increasing distrust. Economics aside, the implications of loose restrictions on toxic products are chilling: just one-third of the 267 chemicals on the EU’s watch list have ever been tested by the EPA, and only two are regulated under federal law. Meanwhile, researchers at University of California Berkeley estimate that 42 billion pounds of chemicals enter American commerce daily, and only a fraction of them have ever undergone risk assessments.
Sources: “European Chemical Clampdown Reaches Across Atlantic,” David Biello, Scientific American, September 30, 2008; “How Europe’s New Chemical Rules Affect US,” Environmental Defense Fund, September 30, 2008; “US Lags Behind Europe in Regulating Toxicity of Everyday Products,” Mark Schapiro, Democracy Now! February 24, 2009
6. AS ECONOMY SHRINKS, D.C. LOBBYING GROWS
In 2008, as the economy tumbled and unemployment soared, Washington lobbyists working for special interests were paid $3.2 billion—more than any other year on record. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, special interests spent a collective $32,523 per legislator, per day, for every day Congress was in session. One event that triggered the lobbying boom, according to CRP director Sheila Krumholz, was the federal bailout. With the U.S. government shelling out billions in stimulus money, industries wanted to ensure they’d get a piece of the pie. The list of highest-ranking spenders on D.C. lobbying reads like a roster of some of the most powerful interests nationwide. Topping the list was the health sector, which spent $478.5 million lobbying Congress last year. A very close runner-up was the finance, insurance and real-estate sector, spending $453.5 million. Pharmaceutical companies plunked down $230 million, electric utilities spent $156.7 million and oil and gas companies paid lobbyists $133.2 million.
Source: “Washington Lobbying Grew to $3.2 Billion Last Year, Despite Economy,” Center for Responsive Politics, Open Secrets.org
7. OBAMA’S CONTROVERSIAL DEFENSE APPOINTEES
President Barack Obama’s appointments to the U.S. Department of Defense have raised serious questions among critics who’ve studied their track records. Although the news media haven’t paid much attention, the defense appointees bring to the administration controversial histories and conflicts of interest due to close ties to defense contractors. Obama’s decision to retain Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense under President George W. Bush, marks the first time in history that a president has opted to keep a defense secretary of an outgoing opposing party in power. Gates, a former CIA director, has faced criticism for allegedly spinning intelligence reports for political means. In Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA, author and former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman described him as “the chief action officer for the Reagan administration’s drive to tailor intelligence reporting to White House political desires.” Gates also came under scrutiny for questions surrounding whether he misled Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal in the mid-1980s, and was accused of withholding information from intelligence committees when the U.S. provided military aid to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. Critics are also uneasy about the appointment of Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, who formerly served as a senior vice president at defense giant Raytheon and was a registered lobbyist for the company until July 2008. Lynn, who previously served as Pentagon Comptroller under the Clinton Administration, came under fire during his confirmation hearing due to “questionable accounting practices.” The defense department flunked multiple audits under Lynn’s leadership, because it was unable to properly account for $3.4 trillion in financial transactions made over the course of several years.
Sources: “The Danger of Keeping Robert Gates,” Robert Parry, ConsortiumNews.com, November 13, 2008; “Obama’s Defense Department Appointees- The 3.4 Trillion Dollar Question,” Andrew Hughes, Global Research, February 13, 2009; “Obama Nominee Admiral Dennis Blair Aided perpetrators of 1999 church Killings in East Timor,” Allan Nairn, Democracy Now! January 7, 2009; “Ties to Chevron, Boeing Raise Concern on Possible NSA Pick,” Roxana Tiron, The Hill, November 24, 2008
8. BIG BUSINESS CHEATS THE IRS
The Cayman Islands and Bermuda are magnets for financial giants such as Bank of America, Citigroup, American International Group and eleven other beneficiaries of the federal government’s 2008 Wall Street bailout. It’s not the balmy weather that inspires some of America’s wealthiest companies to open up operations in the Caribbean archipelago: the offshore oases provide safe harbors to stash cash out of the reach of Uncle Sam. According to a 2008 report by the Government Accountability Office—which was largely ignored by the news media—83 of the top publicly held U.S. companies, including some receiving substantial portions of federal bailout dollars, have operations in tax havens that allow them to avoid paying their fair share to the Internal Revenue Service. The report also spotlighted the activities of Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), which has helped wealthy Americans cheat the IRS out of billions in recent years. In December 2008, banking giant Goldman Sachs reported its first-ever quarterly loss, then followed up with a statement that its tax rate would drop from 34.1 percent to 1 percent, citing “changes in geographic earnings mix” as the reason. The difference: instead of paying $6 billion in total worldwide taxes as it did in 2007, Goldman Sachs would pay a total of $14 million in 2008. In the same year, it received $10 billion and debt guarantees from the U.S. government.
Sources: “Goldman Sachs’s Tax Rate Drops to 1% or $14 Million,” Christine Harper, Bloomberg, December 16, 2008; “Gimme Shelter: Tax Evasion and the Obama Administration,” Thomas B. Edsall, The Huffington Post, February 23, 2009
9. U.S. CONNECTED TO WHITE PHOSPHOROUS STRIKES IN GAZA
In mid-January, as part of a military campaign, the Israeli Defense Forces fired several shells that hit the headquarters of a United Nations relief agency in Gaza City, destroying provisions for basic aid such as food and medicine. The shells contained white phosphorous, a smoke-producing, spontaneously flammable agent that is designed to obscure battle territory but can also ignite buildings or cause grotesque burns if it touches the skin. In the aftermath of the attacks, Human Rights Watch volunteers found spent white phosphorous shells on city streets, apartment roofs, residential courtyards and at a UN school in Gaza. Human Rights Watch says that IDF’s use of white phosphorous violated international law, which prohibits deliberate, indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks that result in civilian casualties. After gathering evidence, the international organization issued a report condemning the repeated firing of white phosphorus shells over densely populated areas of Gaza as a war crime. Amnesty International, another human-rights organization, followed suit by calling upon the United States to suspend military aid to Israel—to no avail. The U.S. was a primary source of funding and weaponry for Israel’s military campaign. Washington provided F-16 fighter planes, Apache helicopters, tactical missiles and a wide array of munitions, including white phosphorus.
Sources: “White Phosphorus Use Evidence of War Crimes Report: Rain of Fire: Israel’s Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza,” Fred Abrahams, Human Rights Watch, March 25, 2009; “Suspend Military Aid to Israel, Amnesty Urges Obama after Detailing US Weapons Used in Gaza,” Rory McCarthy, Guardian/UK, February 23, 2009; “US Weaponry Facilitates Killings in Gaza,” Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service, January 8, 2009; “US military re-supplying Israel with ammunition through Greece,” Saed Bannoura, International Middle East Media Center News, January 8, 2009
10. ECUADOR SAYS IT WON’T PAY ILLEGITIMATE DEBT
When President Rafael Correa announced that Ecuador would default on its foreign debt last December, he didn’t say it was because the Latin American country was unable to pay. Rather, he framed it as a moral stand: “As president, I couldn’t allow us to keep paying a debt that was obviously immoral and illegitimate,” Correa told an international news agency. The news was mainly reported in financial publications, and the stories tended to quote harsh critics who characterized Correa as an extreme leftist with ties to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. But there’s much more to the story. The announcement came in the wake of an exhaustive audit of Ecuador’s debt, conducted under Correa’s direction by a newly created debt audit commission. The unprecedented audit documented hundreds of allegations of irregularity and illegality in the decades of debt collection from international lenders. Although Ecuador had made payments exceeding the value of the principal since the time it initially took out loans in the 1970s, its foreign debt had nonetheless swelled to levels three times as high due to extraordinarily high interest rates. With a huge percentage of the country’s financial resources devoted to paying the debt, little was leftover to combat poverty. Ecuador eventually agreed to a restructuring of its debt at about 35 cents on the dollar, but the move nonetheless served to expose deficiencies in the World Bank system, which provides little recourse for countries to resolve disputes over potentially illegitimate debt.
Sources: “As Crisis Mounts, Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate and Illegal,” Daniel Denvir, Alternet, November 26, 2008; “Invalid Loans to Ecuador: Who Owes Who,” Committee for the Integral Audit of Public Credit, Utube, Fall 2008; “Ecuador’s Debt Default,” Neil Watkins and Sarah Anders, Foreign Policy in Focus, December 15, 2008
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