Stephen Lendman

Bahraini youths demonstrate in front of the police in Manama.

They continue in Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, Tunisia, and most recently in Iran and Bahrain, Al Jazeera saying:

"At least one person has been killed and several others injured after [Bahrain] riot police opened fire at protesters holding a funeral service for a man killed [a] day earlier."

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at thousands in Manama, Bahrain's capital, demanding the regime's removal. Majority Shias want redress, saying Sunni rulers unfairly discriminate. However, more than sectarian issues are involved. Others include political freedoms, ending media and Internet state controls, prohibiting police use of excessive force, and addressing the extreme wealth gap between Bahrain elites and majority citizens.

On February 15, Al Jazeera's unnamed correspondent for his safety said:

"Police fired on the protesters this morning, but they showed very strong resistance. It seems like [a] funeral procession was allowed to continue, but police are playing a cat-and-mouse game with protesters."

Angered by deaths from their ranks, al-Wefaq Shia opposition members suspended their parliamentary participation, calling it a first step toward continuing or resigning, depending on future developments. In a rare gesture, Bahrain's king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, offered condolences on state television. Words, of course, don't suffice.

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Stephen Lendman

"Whether now, later or in between, Obama's budget hammers working Americans, especially those poor, forgotten, vulnerable, and ignored since Reagan succeeded Carter. Democrats have been as cruel as Republicans, serving wealth and power interests alone while pretending to care."

Despite its flaws and failures during America's Great Depression, FDR's New Deal was remarkable for what it accomplished. It helped people, put millions back to work, reinvigorated the national spirit, built or renovated 700,000 miles of roads, 7,800 bridges, 45,000 schools, 2,500 hospitals, 13,000 parks and playgrounds, 1,000 airfields, and various other infrastructure, including much of Chicago's lakefront where this writer lives. It cut unemployment from 25% in May 1933 to 11% in 1937, before declaring victory too early and letting it spike before early war production revived economic growth and headed it lower.

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Gilad Atzmon
Vera Macht
Gilad Atzmon's Blog

Gilad Atzmon: In the last month I circulated some invaluable reports by Vera Macht, an ISM (International Solidarity Movement) activist operating in Gaza.

My friend Gabi Weber decided to launch an urgent appeal for Vera Macht and ISM in Gaza.

Gabi writes, “These young activists who work with the ISM in Gaza, do it on a voluntary basis. They do not earn a single penny. In fact most of their activity is financed by themselves. At the moment there is no money left for urgent medical treatment.

The work of these young ISM activists is admirable and should be supported by every humanist. Day by day they witness horrific crimes committed by the Israeli army. The least we can do, is help them financially.

In the following you’ll find data from Vera´s bank account in Germany. We decided to collect all the money on this account and then transfer it to Gaza. This will be less expensive.

Jazza production also lends its PayPal account for the cause. In the next month (until March 15th 2011) money that will be channeled to Jazza Production’s PayPal will be sent to Vera Macht and the ISM in Gaza.

Please spread this appeal widely, so we’ll have the chance to help Vera and the ISM.

THANK YOU ALL.

SALAM

Gabi Weber, Freiburg, South Germany

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Ilan Pappé
Patrick Mac Manus Blog

The view from Israel is that if they indeed succeed, the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions are bad, very bad. Educated Arabs — not all of them dressed as “Islamists,” quite a few of them speaking perfect English whose wish for democracy is articulated without resorting to “anti-Western” rhetoric — are bad for Israel.

Arab armies that do not shoot at these demonstrators are as bad as are many other images that moved and enthused so many people around the world, even in the West. This world reaction is also bad, very bad. It makes the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and its apartheid policies inside the state look like the acts of a typical “Arab” regime.

For a while you could not tell what official Israel thought. In his first ever commonsensical message to his colleagues, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked his ministers, generals and politicians not to comment in public on the events in Egypt. For a brief moment one thought that Israel turned from the neighborhood’s thug to what it always was: a visitor or permanent resident.

It seems Netanyahu was particularly embarrassed by the unfortunate remarks on the situation uttered publicly by General Aviv Kochavi, the head of Israeli military intelligence. This top Israeli expert on Arab affairs stated confidently two weeks ago in the Knesset that the Mubarak regime is as solid and resilient as ever. But Netanyahu could not keep his mouth shut for that long. And when the boss talked all the others followed. And when they all responded, their commentary made Fox News’ commentators look like a bunch of peaceniks and free-loving hippies from the 1960s.

The gist of the Israeli narrative is simple: this is an Iranian-like revolution helped by Al Jazeera and stupidly allowed by US President Barack Obama, who is a new Jimmy Carter, and a stupefied world. Spearheading the Israeli interpretation are the former Israeli ambassadors to Egypt. All their frustration from being locked in an apartment in a Cairean high-rise is now erupting like an unstoppable volcano. Their tirade can be summarized in the words of one of them, Zvi Mazael who told Israeli television’s Channel One on 28 January, “this is bad for the Jews; very bad.”

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Kourosh Ziabari
Interview by Kourosh Ziabari

Craig LaMay is an associate professor of journalism at the Northwestern University. He is a former editorial director of the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center and editor of Media Studies Journal; and a former newspaper reporter. LaMay's articles and commentaries have appeared on New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, Communication & the Law and a number of other media outlets.

LaMay has published several books on journalism and mass media of which we can name Journalism and the Problem of Privacy (2003), Commercial Transformation of the Nonprofit Sector, with Burton Weisbrod (1998) and Abandoned in the Wasteland: Children, Television and the First Amendment with Newton Minow (1995).

Prof. LaMay joined me in an exclusive interview to discuss the constraints of journalism in the United States, freedom of speech in the EU, the performance of local magazines as opposed to the national news outlets and the gradual disappearance of traditional media with the emergence of new internet-based technologies. What follows is the complete text of my interview with Prof. Craig LaMay of the Northwestern University.

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