The
result is an emerging macro-symbiotic relationship between news dispensers
and news suppliers. Perfect examples of this relationship are the press
pools organized by the Pentagon both in the Middle-East and in Washington
D.C., which give pre-scheduled reports on the war in Iraq to selected groups
of news collectors (journalists) for distribution through their individual
media organizations.
Embedded reporters (news collectors) working directly with military units in
the field must maintain cooperative working relationships with unit
commanders as they feed breaking news back to the U.S. public. Cooperative
reporting is vital to continued access to government news sources.
Therefore, rows of news story reviewers back at corporate media headquarters
rewrite, soften or spike news stories from the field that threaten the
symbiotics of global news management.
Journalists who fail to recognize their role as cooperative news collectors
will be disciplined in the field or barred from reporting as in the recent
celebrity cases of Geraldo Rivera and Peter Arnett.
Journalists working outside of this mass media system face ever-increasing
dangers from "accidents" of war and corporate-media dismissal of their news
reports. Massive civilian casualties caused by U.S. troops, extensive damage
to private homes and businesses, and reports that contradict the official
public relations line were downplayed, deleted, or ignored by corporate
media, while content were analyzed by experts (retired generals and other
approved collaborators) from within the symbiotic global news structure.
Symbiotic global news distribution is a conscious and deliberate attempt by
the powerful to control news and information in society. The Homeland
Security Act Title II Section 201(d)(5) specifically asks the directorate to
"develop a comprehensive plan for securing the key resources and critical
infrastructure of the United States including Ôinformation technology and
telecommunications systems (including satellites)' emergency preparedness
communications systems."
Corporate media today is perhaps too vast to enforce complete control over
all content 24 hours a day. However, the government's goal is the
operationalization of total information control and the continuing
consolidation of media makes this process easier to achieve.
Freedom of information and citizen access to objective news is rapidly
fading in the United States and the world. In its place is a complex
entertainment-oriented news system, which protects its own bottom-line by
servicing the most powerful military-industrial complex in the world.
For the majority of Americans who depend on corporate media for their daily
news, this monolithic news structure creates intellectual celibacy, inaction
and fear. The result is a docile population, whose principal function within
society is to simply shut-up and go shopping. The powerful would like us
quiet and consumptive and the corporate media is delivering that message on
a daily basis.
Peter Phillips is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State
University and Director of Project Censored a media research organization
(projectcensored.org)
The rights of homosexual, bisexual, or transsexual men and women have never been officially recognized by the United Nations, despite the fact that international laws on the issue began to emerge at the close of World War II
U.N. Commission Leaves Gays, Lesbians Waiting another Year
Gustavo Capdevila
Inter Press Service on
Yahoo! News
Sun Apr 27, 7:26 PM ET
GENEVA, Apr 25 (IPS) - Homosexual men and women will have to wait at least one more year for the first-ever formal recognition of their human rights in official United Nations documents.
A coalition of Islamic nations, with the support of other countries apparently under pressure from the Vatican, blocked approval in the U.N. Commission on Human Rights this week of a resolution sponsored by Brazil calling for guarantees to protect gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals.
Friday, as it wrapped up its annual sessions, the Geneva-based Commission, the maximum human rights authority at the U.N., put off debate on the text until next year.
The amendments presented by five Muslim states--Egypt, Libya, Malaysia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia--aimed at watering down the resolution met the same fate, though they did achieve their goal of blocking discussion of the Brazilian text.
Pakistan sought to annul the resolution Thursday, stating that the text "did not reflect Islamic values."
Independent human rights organizations say the failure of the Brazilian initiative to be decided this week is largely due to the "bias" of the Commission's chairwoman, Libyan diplomat Najat El Mehdi Al-Hajjaji.
The proposed amendments seek to remove all mention of discrimination based on sexual orientation, rendering the resolution meaningless, complained rights activists.
Brazil's draft resolution expresses "deep concern at the occurrence of violations of human rights in the world against persons on the grounds of their sexual orientation."
The text "calls upon all states to promote and protect the human rights of all persons regardless of their sexual orientation" and states that the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights must "pay due attention to the phenomenon of violations of human rights on the grounds of sexual orientation."
The rights of homosexual, bisexual, or transsexual men and women have never been officially recognized by the United Nations, despite the fact that international laws on the issue began to emerge at the close of World War II, noted Canadian jurist Douglas Sanders.
And no homosexual organization to date has obtained "consultative status," which the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) grants certain non-governmental organizations, said Sanders, professor at the University of British Columbia.
"Millions of people across the globe face imprisonment, torture, violence, and discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity," Melinda Ching, spokeswoman for the London-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International, reiterated during Commission sessions this week.
In Egypt, for example, 21 men were sentenced to three years in prison after being caught up in a wave of arrests and trials of individuals singled out as gay, said Ching.
"Adoption of the resolution is the only way to end the intolerable exclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people from the full protection of the UN system," states an Amnesty International communiqué.
The draft resolution tabled by Brazil, and co-sponsored by 19 European nations, warns the 53-member U.N. Commission that an underlying factor of many human rights violations committed around the world is intolerance of the sexual orientation of the victims.
Brazil's diplomatic team has maintained a consistent stance on this issue for several years, says Brasilia's representative in Geneva, Luis Felipe de Seixas Correa. He noted that his country had presented a homosexual rights initiative at the World Conference against Racism, held in 2001 in the South African city of Durban.
Seixas Correa criticized the Commission Friday, saying the U.N. body was created to erase taboos, not to maintain them. He said Brazil's Foreign Ministry would keep up pressure to ensure that the resolution passes next year.
Debate on the draft resolution was rocky, a result of the procedural obstacles set up by the Muslim states, "in a maneuver to block discussion" or postpone it, commented Morris Tidball, director of the International Service for Human Rights.
Al-Hajjaji, in the final days of the six-week sessions, did not act with the impartiality that was expected, apparently to ingratiate herself with the countries or blocs of nations that had supported her, commented Tidball.
Loubna Freih, of the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), agreed that Al-Hajjaji acted with bias, alleging that she used the power of the Commission chair to support the plans of Libya and allied countries.
In the last two days of the U.N. Commission's sessions, which ended Friday, the chairwoman proved reticent to facilitate debate on human rights and sexual orientation, said the HRW activist.
During Friday's sessions, the five Muslim countries tried to block debate through procedural tactics, and Al-Hajjaji finally proposed that the resolution be put off until the Commission's next period of sessions, in 2004.
The chairwoman's proposal was approved by a vote of 24 in favor, 17 against and 10 abstentions. Among the votes in favor were Muslim nations, as well as Argentina, China and India.
Voting against were Brazil, the European nations--with the exception of Ireland, which is strongly Catholic and chose to abstain--as did the Latin American countries Costa Rica, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.
Tidball commented that in addition to the Islamic support, the vote results clearly show the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, which, like Islam, rejects homosexuality.
He said the Vatican had exerted pressure to halt what was originally unconditional support from Latin American countries for the Brazilian initiative.
"As a gay man, to hear a witness equating me with pedophiles, with those who would have sex with babies, with those who would engage in bestiality, is not acceptable from any witness, and I won't accept it. It's not acceptable.
Spaced Out and Anti-Gay
March 6, 2003
Rabble
Opponents of gay marriage can be filled with notions both hateful and bizarre. A recent example appears in the minutes, published yesterday, of the February 11 session of continuing parliamentary hearings on same-sex unions. At the mic: the Catholic Women's League.
The following commentary comes from Joe Varnell and Kevin Bourassa of Equal Marriage for Same-Sex Couples.
Spaced-Out Testimony
Out of this World with the Catholic Women's League
Equal Marriage for Same-Sex Couples
March 5, 2003
As minutes slowly trickle out from the proceedings of the marriage hearings conducted by Parliament's Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, it becomes clear that opponents to same-sex marriage are filled with bizarre and hateful notions. The most recent example is found in minutes, published today, from the February 11 appearance of the Catholic Women's League.
In a performance that was out of this world, Ms. Rita Curley (CWL) began her statement predictably enough, by supporting faith-based bigotry with quotations from the Bible (Genesis and Matthew). Then things began to appear unhinged.
"Astronauts are in the news again," Ms. Curley began in the first of her weird associations. "On Christmas eve, 1968, the Apollo astronauts took turns reading the Bible, and Frank Borman said the first prayer made by man above the moon."
Ms. Curley read the prayer: a general call for "universal peace" and "goodness" and "understanding hearts." Nice sentiments. Perhaps Ms. Curley was trying to establish a common ground of good will? But she went on to quote another astronaut, William Anders, who had a prayer about wisdom. Clearly taking flight, Ms. Curley invoked yet another heavenly astronaut James Lovell and finally soared into irrelevance with RCAF pilot John Magee's sonnet "High Flight."
Where was this going? Who knows? Ms. Curley, apparently spaced out, was not tethered to the realities of this world. From her heightened perspective, she launched into a tirade as hateful as anything this committee has yet heard.
"To redefine marriage to be more inclusive of homosexuality is to create a new morality in which homosexuality is not merely tolerated but is normalized and would branch out into sexual activity with babies, children of both sexes, and with animals."
"I've been silent, but I will not be silent any longer," MP Svend Robinson said, when Ms. Curley's time was up:
"As a gay man, to hear a witness equating me with pedophiles, with those who would have sex with babies, with those who would engage in bestiality, is not acceptable from any witness, and I won't accept it. It's not acceptable. Frankly, I'm disappointed that no other member of this committee has spoken out. If this kind of hatred and venom were directed at blacks or aboriginal people, does anyone think that members around this committee would be silent and just listen as this kind of hatred is spewed? I don't think so. It's not acceptable. I'm asking the chair to rule that when witnesses appear before this committee they can certainly make vigorous arguments and disagree fundamentally with the concept of gay marriage, but to equate gay people and lesbian people with criminals and those who would engage in pedophilia is simply not acceptable."
"I'm sorry Svend Robinson took it the way he did," Curley replied. "I have God on my side."
Ms. Curley went on to compare homosexuals to alcoholics and shared her belief that people become gay because "these people have been molested in their childhood and that's what gave them the habit. It started them off on the wrong foot. But they can change ... Do the homosexuals ever pray?"
"I've searched in the New Testament as hard as I possibly can, and I can't seem to find a single word by Jesus Christ on homosexuality," Robinson said. "Can you help me on that?"
"Yes," Curley replied. "What was it he said now?"
Ms. Curley paused while her associate, a nun, lent her some Catholic infallibility.
"Sister Louise tells me it wasn't an issue at the time."
"It wasn't an issue at that time?" Robinson asked.
"It wasn't an issue at that time." Curley confirmed.
"There were no homosexuals at that time?"
"Yes, he said ... What was it now? Christ did say something."
But she was unable to answer, finally left speechless, like the rest of us.
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