News & Articles

Top Stories from Project Censored

 Project Censored started in 1976 and reflects top stories that have been chosen by faculty and students from campuses across the country. While some of these stories may already have come to your attention, they were deemed some of least covered stories from the last year. We selected a number of these stories to pass on to you, our reader. Don’t get angry at us for this information. It is backed up by sources and we’re sharing it to perhaps let you know where our world and society is going. Knowledge is power and knowing is half the battle. 

 Pentagon Awash in Money Despite Audit Problems

 The United States is known for throwing more money at “National defense” than any other country and it’s a little odd that law enforcement has killed more Americans than terrorists in the last few years, but for whatever reason tax payers continue to feed the war machine of this country. It’s even more bizarre that we’re overseas spending this money on wars that have been based on lies and use tactics that have made several politicians more or less guilty of war crimes although it’s unlikely any of them will ever face a trial. Only the poor and powerless get to be handed out “justice.”

The Pentagon receives $600 billion. This is one out of every five dollars a tax payer pays in. The Pentagon receives even more money on top of that in various other budgets. These numbers aren’t exact because the Pentagon is considered “inauditable.” In 1997 this problem was addressed and the general consensus is that the Pentagon won’t be ready to “achieve audit readiness” until 2017. So while you’re scrambling to pay your taxes and have been honest in paying for wars based on lies that support the deaths of innocent people, ignore international laws on torture and neglect the soldiers who fought in those wars, the Pentagon can pretty much do what the hell they want and there’s nothing going to happen out of it. We’re not trying to be negative here. Dick Cheney is just fine with you paying his company billions on a lie he told you. 

 “Chaptered Out”: US Military Seeks to Balance Budget on Backs of Disabled Veterans

 From the points above we know that the US is spending a lot of money of wars that are a little questionable, but we’re taking care of the people we send on to the battlefield, right? Hell no, why the hell would the richest of the rich bother with people fighting wars for them? That makes absolutely no sense. Wars don’t have much to do with freedom. There’s been religious extremists for years and it seems like they get the most violent when we fight them. In the case of Afghanistan, we trained them, gave them weapons and then bailed. There’s no doubt soldiers to this day that are walking towards the barrels of automatic rifles paid for by you the tax payer. The military has found that a good loop hole in not paying soldiers for past service is to force wounded and disabled veterans out of the service to take in new recruits. The injured soldiers are labeled as delinquent and dishonorably discharged leaving them without federally sponsored health care, unemployment and educational programs. 

One example is that of Sgt. Jerrald Jenson, a decorated two-tour Afghanistan war veteran who was recovering from injuries that happened on the battlefield. After failing to pass a urine test due to drugs prescribed for his injuries and once being late for an appointment he was told that he was going to be “chaptered out” despite his requests for a retest and explanations for what was going on. An estimated 76,000 soldiers have been chaptered out since 2006 and that number continues to increase each year. 

 Top Ten US Aid Recipients All Practice Torture

 Well, if your tax dollars aren’t being spent on Veterans who got kicked out of the military, where is that hard earned money going? A good amount of it is going into the pockets of the world’s most wealthy, but we’re also helping out other countries. That doesn’t sound too bad, but unfortunately all of the countries we’re giving money to torture people, but we torture people, so it’s not like we’re being hypocrites or anything. Consistency is nice. We’re committing atrocities and causing untold suffering so it kind of makes sense we’d spend money on helping other countries do the same thing.

A Congressional Research Service report, prepared for the members and committees of Congress, indicated the projected fiscal year 2014 budgets for US foreign assistance by country. According to this report, the top ten countries and their expected assistance (in millions of current US dollars) are as follows:

    Israel 3,100

    Afghanistan 2,200

    Egypt 1,600

    Pakistan 1,200

    Nigeria  693

    Jordan  671

    Iraq 573

    Kenya 564

    Tanzania 553

    Uganda 456

Israel is on top of this list and within the last year children have been killed, tortured and sexually assaulted for just “minor crimes” according to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. It also found that “74 per cent of Palestinian child detainees experience physical violence during arrest, transfer or interrogation.” A United Nations report indicated that torture is “widespread” in Afghanistan, while Amnesty International documented torture as a “common” practice in Iraq, and an “abysmal” human rights situation in Egypt. Human Rights Watch reported that torture is practiced with “near-total impunity” in Jordan.

 Lawsuit Challenges Nuclear Power Industry Immunity From Liability in Nuclear Accidents

 While the United States has managed to avoid a major nuclear disaster on our own soil there have certainly been devastating accidents that have happened abroad. When it comes to disasters that involve energy, the company at fault is often let off the hook for the actual amount of damage that has been done. Incidents such as Fukushima have raised questions about liability when it comes to things such as nuclear disasters. In the past companies have been immune to lawsuits because insurance companies will not provide them coverage because they’re viewed as such a huge risk. Calculating the actual damage from such events is even difficult because in the case of the TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the Japanese government and TEPCO worked together to provide the public with inaccurate reports on how bad things actually were. When looking at BP’s Deep Water Horizon oil spill, it’s obvious that when corporations and government are too interconnected that it’s only the environment and people who will suffer and pay for their irresponsibility. In this way, there is no justice. 

Agribusiness Giants Attempt to Silence and Discredit Scientist’s Research on Herbicide’s Health Threats

 Another example of how major corporations are above the law and accountability one can look at the attitude of public officials towards our food industry. Yes, the people making the laws of what you, your child and your grandmother eat not only don’t give a shit, they back what’s dangerous for both you and the ecosystem. Why? Money. Also if you get sick, that helps out the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry, so it’s more or less in their interest to make sure your health suffers from these products. It should be noted that while these products are deemed “alright,” SWAT teams have raided organic farms for selling things like unprocessed milk. Something that could have probably have been addressed by perhaps a stern letter needed to have officers armed with assault weapons show up while major corporations get the go ahead to feed anyone anything they feel like. 

Yes, crops will yield more produce and be more resistant to pests and we’re starting to sound like hippie liberals here, but other countries have straight out banned agricultural giants such as Monsanto and Syngenta from having influence on their agriculture. When peer reviewed findings are retracted about things like the toxic impact of Monsanto’s herbicide and genetically modified foods having adverse health effects on rats, this isn’t us just saying that it seems that a government system that is built up of former Monsanto employees who are controlling our food supply, this is saying that we’re being poisoned and those of the top are straight out lying about it. Not only are they lying, they’ll go out of their way to smear the reputations of anyone who reveals the truth. 

 Corporate News Media Understates Rape and Sexual Violence

 The word “rape” is indeed a heavy one. It’s ugly and harsh and apparently mainstream media feels that it’s best to downplay the word by using terms such as “inappropriate sexual activity” or “forced sex.” While the actions are implied, the topic is frequently minimized in media and that’s even if cases of rape make it to the media. One example given by Project Censored is the case of where the Los Angeles Times reported on how two L.A. police officers threatened imprisonment to women who they had taken into custody if they did not have sex with them. While this coercion is obviously an egregious abuse of power and definitely rape, the Times used terms like “recruited” rather than saying “kidnapped” and “performed oral sex” or “engaged in sexual activity” over “forcefully penetrating her vagina.” The terms distort reality and it’s hard to say if such language was merely to soften the depictions for the reader or further the acceptance of what has been called our rape culture. Various college campuses have come under fire for how they deal with reported cases of rape and it is unknown how many rapes go unreported. It’s entirely possible that rape goes unreported because of our society’s attitude towards it.

 National Database of Police Killings Aims for Accountability

 With recent incidents such as the deaths of Michael Brown who was gunned down while unarmed in Ferguson, MO and Eric Garner who was strangled to death by officers while unarmed has raised questions about how many people are actually killed by police. The answer is: no one really knows. The police underreport it and shift the facts to classify their actions as something that might not even be considered a killing by police. 

In a December 2014 report from CBS, the FBI has started to investigate actually how many people are being killed by law enforcement. It was found that more than 550 killings by law enforcement were not included in FBI statistics and it was considered “nearly impossible” to tell how many people are killed by law enforcement in any given year. This means that not only can police kill on a whim and get away with it, there might be no actual statistical record of someone being killed by police. Although police work is sometimes dangerous and some of these killings were definitely justifiable, the fact that other killings are being swept under the rug indicates that there are some serious problems in the US when it comes to police and use of force.   

 Number of US Prison Inmates Serving Life Sentences Hits New Record

 It’s not really a secret that the United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. Even as patterns in crime are actually dropping, more money than ever has been pumped into law enforcement and the prison system has increasingly become privately owned where filling cells is profitable. 

It’s certain that there are people who should be kept away from society, but the question arrises why the United States has so many more of these people than other countries. Between 2008 and 2012 there has been an increase of 22.2 percent of people serving life sentences. 160,000 are serving life sentences with 49,000 doing life without possibility of parole. The state of California leads on the number of people doing life with one-quarter, over 40,000, lifers. It’s hard to say what these statistics mean. Is the United States turning out more people who should be behind bars for the rest of their lives, or is there a problem with the system?

2016 Will Find Gaza Out of Drinking Water 

Sure, living in the Twin Ports during winter isn’t always the greatest, but at least there’s going to be good drinking water for some years to come. Well, that’s if a pipeline doesn’t burst or there’s no other corporate caused environmental disaster, in which case we’re screwed and will probably have to pay for it for years. That hasn’t happened yet. It’s pretty clear that Gaza has been a war ridden hell hole for quite some years now, and it’s kind of shitty for them to note that it’s not getting any better. 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 95 percent of the water in Gaza does not meet drinkable standards and the polluted water has caused widespread disease. Up to 26 percent of disease in the area is attributed to contaminated water and those affected the most seem to be children. Some families in the area now spend up to a third of their income on clean water. In the end, fresh and clean water is the world’s most valuable commodity and it’s something to think about when making policies that affect our own area. Unfortunately for the people of Gaza, they face a nightmare that has no sign of ending. 

FBI Dismisses Murder Plot Against Occupy Leaders as NSA and Big Business Cracks Down on Dissent

We realize that this list isn’t really happy, but this last story should really make the impression that the government that we pay money to look out for you not only pays companies that are completely against your health, happiness and welfare, they’ll straight up attack you for expressing your rights. 

In October 2011, when the Occupy movement arrived in Houston, protesters were subject to local and federal surveillance, infiltration by police provocateurs, and police assault. Months later, Dave Lindorff reported for WhoWhatWhy, a document obtained in December 2012 from the Houston FBI office shows that the agency was aware of a plot to assassinate Occupy movement leaders—and did nothing about it.

The document, obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the Washington DC–based Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, reads in part:

    “An identified [DELETED] as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protestors (sic) in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary. An identified [DELETED] had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. [DELETED] planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles.”

As of June 2013, Lindorff reported, the FBI knew the identity of the person(s) who planned the sniper attacks, but had not released any names. The head of the FBI’s media office, Paul Bresson, explained, “The FOIA documents that you reference are redacted in several places pursuant to FOIA and privacy laws that govern the release of such information so therefore I am unable to help fill in the blanks. . . . [I]f the FBI was aware of credible and specific information involving a murder plot, law enforcement would have responded with appropriate action.”

Occupy Houston activists have speculated that the wording “if deemed necessary” might indicate that the unidentified plotter was an organization, such as the police or a private security group. Documents from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security identify Occupy as a “terrorist” activity.

The FBI has a record of orchestrating attacks on citizen organizations deemed to be threats. For example, the Church Committee hearings of the 1970s revealed that the FBI orchestrated local police attacks (in Chicago, San Francisco, and New York) on leaders of the Black Panther Party.

Alex Kane of AlterNet reported that Beau Hodai’s SourceWatch report provided “an eye-opening look into how US counter-terrorism agencies monitored the Occupy movement in 2011 and 2012.” Government documents, obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy and DBA Press from the National Security Agency and other government offices, revealed “a grim mosaic of ‘counter-terrorism’ operations” and negative attitudes toward activists and other citizens.

For instance, the largest Occupy Phoenix action took place in early December 2011, outside of meetings held there by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC hired forty-nine active but off-duty Phoenix Police Department (PPD) officers and nine retired PPD officers to act as private security during ALEC’s meetings.

The upshot, Hodai reported, is “the wholesale criminalization of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of American citizens who have dared to voice opposition to what is increasingly viewed as the undue influence of private corporate/financial interests in the functions of public government.”

Knowledge is Power 

While we don’t have answers to a lot of the worlds problems, there is nothing more important in this day and age to keep our eyes open and gather these issues that we face. Knowing the truth in a sea of lies is the first step to trying to work our way out this mess that we have to either deal with or ignore and let them get worse. If you think it’s alright that corporations use your tax dollars against you, then you’ve just bought into a system that is literally killing us rather than helping. At this point there is no easy answer to anything. Christians and Muslims have hated each other for centuries, people are going to die, there will be disease, we’ll continue to destroy the world around us, we’ll continue to strip the world of every resource it has and those on top will pocket most of the money from it. But one day, that money will be worthless. There will be a day where a fresh glass of water, a walk through the woods overlooking a lake as bees jump from flower to flower will be an irreplaceable thing that once it’s gone, it won’t be coming back. Standing up and talking about it and truly deciding to make a change is just the very beginning of how we can turn things around. Those on top have shook hands and passed laws to make sure that things go their way. They’ve ignored science, their constituents and any voice of reason to the point where even expressing your rights is a crime and if you get killed, you had it coming and it just might not be reported. We hope you see that this is a very dangerous path we’re being led down and we must find a way to not accept that this is the way things should be.