Media and Government Deceit on 9/11

“The sad truth is that the tragedy of 9/11,” writes Dave Lindorff, “has been successfully used by powerful people of both parties in Washington as an excuse and opportunity to destroy civil liberties, concentrate power in the Executive Branch of the government, [and] stifle public debate on the behavior of police and the military.”

Lindorff, winner of the 2019 Izzy Award, tells the story of New York police officer Adam Hernandez on 9/11, 2001, examining the implications of what Hernandez saw during the cleanup and the ruinous responses to the attacks from government and media.

Read the full commentary on The Edge.

For insights into writing this piece and working as an investigative journalist, watch Lindorff speak with PCIM Director Raza Rumi’s independent media class.

In a primer on the shadowy dollars funneled into national security, Brandon Smith demonstrates the inextricable link between U.S. defense spending and the general well-being of the citizenry: as President Dwight Eisenhower said, “We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.”

Smith lists national security issues to consider when consuming news and articulates the alarming implications of apparently limitless spending, nuclear arsenals, civilian deaths, and spiraling executive power.

Read the full commentary on The Edge.

Following the September 11 attacks 20 years ago, and the subsequent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the media broadly published pro-war pieces, often lauding U.S. military instigators as saviors amid the nation’s outpouring of furious grief.

The next two decades of news coverage showed major media outlets have strayed shockingly little from this perspective, despite the well-documented history of U.S. war leaders’ ineptitude and deceit.

“As the U.S.’s Afghanistan withdrawal coincides with the horrific act that brought troops there 20 years ago, the media has an opportunity to present the facts from the past decades of deceit and bloodshed.”

Read the full report on The Edge.

For System Change Not Climate Change, PCIM intern Alex Hartzog examines the smothering ubiquity of plastic pollution and advice from experts on how to combat it locally, in Ithaca, New York, and elsewhere.

Hartzog and Maura Stephens, independent journalist and former associate director of PCIM, are hosting a webinar concerning further research on plastic waste and how to mitigate it.

Join on Sunday, Sept. 26 at 1:00 p.m. EDT.

Read Hartzog’s latest piece tackling Plastics and Fossil Fuels, and refer to his recyclability guide for sorting through plastic waste at home—note that not everything with the recycling symbol will be repurposed, and some items can contaminate batches of otherwise recyclable materials.

Unemployment benefits that were implemented to aid workers during the pandemic ended September 6, coinciding with Labor Day. The Department of Labor’s weekly unemployment insurance report shows that about 35 million people, 10% of the U.S. population, are affected by the cuts.

Media outlets covered this, and some mentioned the upcoming Democratic bill to expand the social safety net, but many should have considered deeper examinations of the state of workers’ rights and unions across the U.S.

Read the full report on The Edge.

“The US government has manipulated and mobilized anti-Taliban feelings for their own ends but have done so in the name of women’s rights. This means that the recognition of women’s rights is over-identified with the US and the West and manipulated by the US for its own purposes. And yet, Afghan women have their own history and resistance to the Taliban.”

Zillah Eisenstein, professor emerita of politics at Ithaca College, writes on the new struggles faced by Afghan women and the potential for a new, global feminist movement.

Read Eisenstein’s analysis on The Edge.

1. Nearly 500,000 without power as Hurricane Nicholas makes landfall (The Independent)

2. What California’s Recall Election Says About America (The Atlantic)

3. Democrats Fear Jan. 6 Redo In Follow-Up Right-Wing Rally At U.S. Capitol (HuffPost)

4. California recall election: Fact-checking Governor Newsom and his challengers (BBC)

5. Taliban accused of killing 20 civilians in Panjshir valley (The Guardian)