Lots Of Letters To The Editor, Don't Indicate Freedom Of The Press

By Randy Cole

I had to laugh when I read the letter titled “Let's not take freedom of expression for granted,” published Jan. 28. Here is someone who actually believes that we have a free press in this country because The Day prints a lot of letters to the editor. Letters to the editor do not make a free press. We have a corporate-controlled press and a population with blinders on. Here are five items of information that were buried or brushed aside by our media — if they get past The Day's cutting room:

• In September 2007 the British polling firm Opinion Research Business, not an anti-war group, estimated that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed violently since the U.S. invasion, at least 10 times more than government figures state. This number eclipses the Rwandan genocide and our leaders are directly responsible.

• Al-Qaida — the “outside enemy of America” as well as the alleged architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — is a creation of the CIA. To learn more, log on to the Web site globalresearch.ca

• The mass media have ignored reports circulating on the Internet claiming that evidence of thermite, an explosive used to cut steel, was found in the wreckage of the World Trade Center towers.

• Well-researched reports on the rampant theft of both the 2000 and 2004 elections, and on Republican plans for theft of the 2008 election, such as Mark Crispin Miller's “Fooled Again,” have gone unmentioned in the corporate media. Books on the subject, such as Mr. Miller's and Greg Palast's best-selling “Armed Madhouse” have never been reviewed.

The Homeland Security Department last year awarded Halliburton $385 million in a no-bid contract to construct prison camps designed to hold tens of thousands of unspecified prisoners in the event of domestic unrest. Meanwhile, President Bush has signed a bill altering the Insurrection Act so that he can declare martial rule and order active-duty troops to take charge anywhere in the United States in the event of “public disorder.” No one in the corporate media has reported on these developments or asked the White House to explain what it's all about.

These are only the tip of the iceberg. Freedom is impossible where the information systems are monopolized by private corporations, which include “public” broadcasting. In America, the news has become a study in uniformity; presenting the very same topics of interest from the same perspective; only the network anchors are different. This creates the impression that the facts are agreed upon, which is not the case.

About 65 percent of the American people do not support the media's pro-war stance, and yet, the anti-war position is nowhere to be found on commercial TV.

Link

CovOps wrote:: Freedom is impossible where the information systems are monopolized by private corporations, which include “public” broadcasting.

That's slowly changing, thanks to the internet.

Lots Of Letters To The Editor, Don't Indicate Freedom Of The Press

Lots Of Letters To The Editor, Don't Indicate Freedom Of The Press

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