Otherjones.com: Two Versions of the News

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Two Versions of the News

Here's CNN's morning news for Wed August 24, 2011:

Gadhafi sends a message; rebels say they're in control

Gadhafi men won't let reporters out

LIBYA OPINION & ANALYSIS
Battle still looms after Gadhafi
Zakaria: New era in U.S. foreign policy
How credible are rebel leaders?
Keys to bright future | Or 'nightmare'

LATEST NEWS
Irene strengthens, aims at U.S. | Tracker

9/11 families to be briefed on hacking

Casey Anthony must serve probation

Stocks set to open lower CNNMoney

Syrian activists form 'national council'

DSK's team not worried about civil suit

Ticker: Palin content to wait?

Mayor runs city from hospital bed

Male bisexuality real, science says

Jay Bakker: 'I thought God hated me'

D.C. sights checked for quake damage

FEATURED

Economy hurts Labor Day travel plans
Bus explodes on first day of school

'Speak English' shop owner dies

Jews torn on Beck's Jerusalem rally

Pat Summitt has dementia, will coach
SI

Facebook sets up privacy like Google+

Winehouse: Report shows alcohol

When kids ask same-sex questions

Jeweler's pooch eats $10,000 in diamonds

Now for the BBC today:

Rebels pushing to secure Tripoli

Kim Jong-il in rare Russia talks

Earthquake strikes US east coast

Tax us more, France's rich say

Alaska mother abused adopted son

Eleven killed in Australia blaze

Irene strengthens over Caribbean

West pushes for Syria sanctions

CNN doesn't mention the fact that France's rich ASK to be taxed more. The details are lluminating:

"Sixteen executives, including Europe's richest woman, the L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, offered in an open letter to pay a "special contribution" in a spirit of 'solidarity'.

It was signed by some of France's most high-profile chief executives, including Christophe de Margerie of oil firm Total, Frederic Oudea of bank Societe Generale, and Air France's Jean-Cyril Spinetta.

They said: "We, the presidents and leaders of industry, businessmen and women, bankers and wealthy citizens would like the richest people to have to pay a 'special contribution'.

"They said they had benefited from the French system and that: 'When the public finances deficit and the prospects of a worsening state debt threaten the future of France and Europe and when the government is asking everybody for solidarity, it seems necessary for us to contribute.'

They warned, however, that the contribution should not be so severe that it would provoke an exodus of the rich or increased tax avoidance.

The move follows a call by US billionaire investor Warren Buffett for higher taxes on the American ultra-rich."

The BBC couldn't resist adding this final caveat, which tries to detract from the French wealthy's message: "That they are part of a culture which since 1789 been concerned with solidarity."

Even with respect to human interest, the BBC range includes many countries, while on CNN, it's all about us - and our politicians.

No comments:

Welcome to Otherjones!

The alternative press is replete with despair and ‘hope’, neither of which is helpful. ‘Squawking’ may alleviate some of the pain Americans experience at being identified with a government that brutalizes Others at will, but it doesn’t change the ‘facts on the ground’. As for hope, it is an easy cop-out: in the present state of the world, we can never be certain that tomorrow will come. Whether a barefoot child in Africa or a hedge-fund manager, all of us are the potential victims of hubris.

This blog aims to prepare readers in ways more important than stockpiling food and bandages for whatever happens, as we transition from an American century to a world century, helping them see through the web of lies with which we are being controlled.

Having lived for years at a time in half a dozen ‘foreign’, countries — learning their languages and histories — I have a unique ability to identify events that bear watching. That life, however, could not provide ‘retirement benefits’, so if you appreciate the unique combination of information and insight that characterizes my work, I hope you will integrate a small donation to Otherjones into your budget.

By clicking on the Donate button, you will be able to contribute via Paypal or your credti card. Thanks!

My Latest Book: Russia's Americans

If you’re not quite prepared to believe that the US should go to war with Russia, or even that its President, Vladimir Putin, is a thug — or even if you simply believe that they mean the US harm, check out my new book Russia’s Americans, at Amazon. You will discover that there are many things you do not know about the Russia story, including the fact that thousands of Americans have chosen to live and work there. It is available in both paperback, at $22.25 and e-book, and is illustrated with many color photographs from my May 2017 trip.

About Me

Born in Philadelphia, I studied in Paris, became a French citizen by marriage, debuted at Agence France Presse in Rome, then, as Deena Boyer, followed Fellini’s creative process for The Two Hundred Days of ’81/2’. The proceeds from this book enabled me travel to Cuba to to interview Fidel Castro for a major French weekly, meeting with him again a week after the Kennedy assassination and several times in 1964 for a book, Cuba 1964: When the Revolution was Young, in which the other members of the government (including Che Guevara, Raul Castro and Celia Sanchez), tell in their own words why they made the revolution. My Cuba archive is on-line at Duke University.

In the seventies, I did graduate work in Global Survival, taught at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and was a speech writer in the Carter State Department, publishing an article on U.S.-Soviet relations in the in-house journal in 1976.

Returning to Paris in 1981, with assistance from the Centre National du Livre, I published Une autre Europe, un autre Monde, the only book that foresaw the reunification of Europe and the breakup of the Soviet Union. I returned to Philadel-phia in 2000, and have been a contributor and senior editor at various on-line journals.

A Taoist Politics: The Case for Sacredness hopes to change the way both seekers and skeptics look at good and evil - -and at the daunting problems of the 21st century. It shows that religious belief is not necessary to achieve serenity, but that awareness of the sacred as confirmed by modern science, is. It does this by viewing the world as a system and exploring what that means for the role of politics.

America Revealed to a Honey-Colored World is a primer for Americans and others who find the policies of successive US governments difficult to square with their image of the country and its founding documents. The decades I spent living on both sides of the Iron Curtain provided me with a unique awareness of America’s image abroad and of the mainstream media’s failure to convey news and ideas to the voters in whose name policies are carried out. References to work by other political writers illustrate little-known or forgotten features of American history that have contributed to the tragic face the country presents today.

Cuba 1964 provides the definitive answer to the question: “Was Fidel Castro a Communist before he carried out the revolution, or did he become one because of the way the United States reacted when he ousted pro-US dictator Fulgencio Batista? While following day by day events, I had extensive conversations with the men and women who had joined the Castro brothers as early as 1953 and were now members of the revolutionary government. Together with Fidel, Raul, Che and Celia Sanchez, they told me in their own words why and now they made the Revolution hat continues to inspire countries in Latin America and around the world. The text is illustrated with photographs from my black and white archive which can be seen on-line at Duke University.

Lunch with Fellini Dinner with Fidel: How did it happen that a fourteen year old American girl found herself living among the French in post-war Paris? The answer to that question also explains why I went on to live in half a dozen countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain, becoming mutti-lingual, writing first about the cinema, then about ‘the big picture’ while raising two children, mostly on my own. A religious grandmother and a hedonistic lover accompanied me on a journal which has been both spiritual and political, and is illustrated by many photographs from my personal album.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Two Versions of the News

No comments:

Post a Comment