Media - Macska Moksha Press

The Chilling Arrest of Max Blumenthal

October 29, 2019 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

Max Blumenthal on RT America (12/8/11), Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported

This past weekend, with the arrest of Max Blumenthal, we were reminded again that leftist activism and independent media in the United States are increasingly under siege.

Max Blumenthal is an activist and the founder/editor of The Grayzone, a website that describes itself as featuring “original investigative journalism and analysis on politics and empire.” His body of work has covered diverse topics including US imperialism, the Israeli war on Palestine, and independent media, among many others. But a particular focus for Blumenthal in 2019 has been Venezuela, and this arrest happened within that context.

Assange Indictments are not about Assange: Democrats Need to Drop their Hate and Support him

May 27, 2019 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

“The Department of Justice just declared war––not on WikiLeaks, but on journalism itself. This is no longer about Julian Assange: This case will decide the future of media.” —Edward Snowden*

“For the first time in the history of our country, the government has brought criminal charges against a publisher for the publication of truthful information. This is an extraordinary escalation of the Trump administration’s attacks on journalism, and a direct assault on the First Amendment. It establishes a dangerous precedent that can be used to target all news organizations that hold the government accountable by publishing its secrets.” —Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union

“No matter your thoughts on Julian Assange, the latest indictments—under the outdated Espionage Act—are a disgrace. If you support the indictments out of hate for him, you’re giving Trump a weapon to restrict the press. The charges should be dropped and the Espionage Act repealed.” —Sen. Mike Gravel

We are at a pivotal moment in history. With the Assange espionage indictments, we are within spitting distance of naked fascism. How will we choose to act?
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Politics, Perspective & Imagination

April 9, 2019 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

I was camping with a friend in southern California recently and we were talking about politics. Not “talking politics,” as in weighing the features of the Green New Deal or arguing blue vs. red – that is, policies and parties – but talking “about” politics. I gestured towards some nearby vegetation to make a point.

“See those two trees,” I asked. “Right next to each other there?”

My friend nodded and smiled. She saw where this was going.

I jumped up, ran over and stood between the pair. With exaggerated movements, I faced first one and then, ostentatiously, turned around to face the other. “They’re coming from completely different directions!” I declared. Allowing myself a smirk I said, “That’s the perspective of a partisan Democrat or a Republican.”

I jogged back to her. “But from here, it’s easy to see how close they are to each other.”

Indeed, the branches of the two trees were growing in each other’s airspace, meaning that their roots were probably entangled under the surface. They were quite literally drawing their sustenance from the same ground.

I pointed up at the rocky hills behind us. “And from up there, the view is different again.”

“You might not be able to tell them apart,” she said.

I nodded. “And from here, we can only imagine that perspective, unless we go up there.”

This is why imagination is so important.
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Biomass not so “green” – Interview with Josh Schlossberg

February 21, 2019 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

Josh Schlossberg is an investigative journalist, horror author and former environmental organizer who lives in Denver, Colorado. He is also the editor-in-chief of the Biomass Monitor, a subscription-supported publication that bills itself as “the nation’s leading publication investigating the whole story on bioenergy, biomass, and biofuels.” In early September 2018, I was visiting Colorado and met up with Josh. We talked biomass, “renewable” energy, wildfires, politics and activism. What follows is a partial transcript, edited for clarity.

Kollibri: This term, “biomass.” I’d just like to start there. I think a lot of people hear that word and they’re like, “Oh it’s got ‘bio’ in it, this is something good that’s going on,” and they move on. But it’s a more complicated issue.
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meme: attacks on independent media

January 15, 2019 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

this meme is free to use. download and distribute at will.

The Myth of the USA’s “greatness” – A conversation with Margaret Kimberley

September 23, 2018 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

Margaret Kimberley [photo courtesy of Ms. Kimberley]

In mid-August, I enjoyed the great pleasure of meeting Margaret Kimberley for lunch in midtown Manhattan. Ms. Kimberley is an Editor and Senior Columnist for Black Agenda Report, a member of Administration Committee for United National Antiwar Coalition, and a member of the coordinating committee of the Black Alliance for Peace. Her work is also published in other venues, including Counterpunch. I have been an admirer of Ms. Kimberley and her writing for a number of years so it was a thrill to sit across a table from her. Our discussion ranged among many topics, including politics and media, technology and social change, and history and the future. What follows is a transcription, edited for length and clarity.

Trump, racism and immigration

Kollibri terre Sonnenblume: How do you react when people are like – as some political scientists recently said – that Trump is the, quote, “worst president ever.”

Margaret Kimberley: It means they don’t like him. That’s all it means. “Worst” based on what? Did he invade another country? I mean, look at what they’ve done. How they’ve rehabilitated George Bush. Depending on which number you believe, he killed a minimum of half a million people in Iraq. Maybe one million. But Trump is worse? Now maybe before he leaves office he’ll do something equally as horrible, but he’s certainly not worst right now.

KtS: Not yet. It seems to me that it shows very little –

MK: It shows you they’re biased. They don’t even dislike him for the reasons they should dislike him. Trump was dangerous to them and they were spying on him during the campaign because he talked about ending the neoliberal consensus. Now, he’s not a peace candidate, but for him to even say we should have a better relationship with Russia, or, “I wouldn’t have gone into Syria,” or “These trade deals are bad” – he’s upending everything that they depend on. It doesn’t make him good, but it makes him dangerous to them, and that’s why they don’t like him. They don’t even dislike him because he’s a racist.
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Cowardly New World: Alternative Media Under Attack by Algorithms

October 23, 2017 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

"Objective media is one of the main reasons that American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long." -Hunter S. Thompson

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An insidious assault is underway against alternative media on the internet. Leftist and progressive websites have been suffering significant declines in traffic. Some have had online income sources cut. Many others have been publicly defamed.

Who is behind this onslaught? Must be Trump and the Republicans, right? Nope. It was started by the Democratic leadership during the 2016 election campaign and is being executed by liberal-leaning tech giants, mainly Google and Facebook. Essential to the fight has been the mainstream media, which has been doing what it does best: fanning the flames of fear.

For the Earth’s Sake, Drop “Russiagate” Now

June 15, 2017 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

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The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue. (Emma Goldman)

I was born in 1969, so the Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation were major themes in the political and emotional landscapes of my childhood. When the neighborhood kids got together, “nuclear war” was one of the games we played. This was in Omaha, Nebraska, and we were told that our city would be one of the first hit by the Russians due to the location of the Strategic Air Command nearby. This was taken as reassuring by some since it was assumed that in the utter horror of a post-nuclear exchange world, the survivors would “envy the dead” (in the famous words of Herman Kahn).

Throughout the 70’s and 80’s, the Cold War was regularly referenced not just on the news, but in movies, songs and television. It was omnipresent and inescapable, a threat that never went away. Authority figures, including the nuns at my school, used it as a hammer to keep people in line. I hated it. I don’t think anyone enjoyed it except the arms manufacturers and politicians.

It was a great relief, then, when (as it seemed to me at the time) Gorbachev stepped back from the whole terrible business, and with the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, ended the Cold War. It felt like the world had been given a new lease on life, like taking a deep, free breath after years of suffocating and terrifying constriction.

So I was alarmed when Hillary Clinton started revving up the anti-Russia rhetoric during the presidential campaign in 2016. Don’t we have enough challenges to face in the world today without adding that one back into the mix?

DNC Playing Dirty Tricks on WikiLeaks

August 26, 2016 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

Something smelled fishy to me when I first read a news story accusing WikiLeaks of outing gay people in Saudi Arabia.

But let me correct that choice of words. What I really smelled was the stench of DNC propaganda and I certainly don’t want to insult our innocent water-dwelling friends by associating them with something as rotten as the Democratic Party.

The DNC has it out for WikiLeaks, of course, after the party’s corruption was exposed in the emails that WikiLeaks released. With bold and breathless speed, the Democrats successfully changed the subject with their baseless charges linking WikiLeaks and Russian hackers. The move was transparently political, but the mainstream media followed it like a dog who runs after a stick when their owner has only pretended to throw it and is still holding it in their hand. To me, this was obvious from the beginning, and I was astonished at how almost everyone fell for it. Including the media.

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Trump, racism and immigration