Activism

New Participatory Project: Updating Profiles on Think Tanks

Some of the highest traffic pages in SourceWatch are those on the proliferating number of think tanks scattered around the world. Keeping track of what their latest projects are, their finances and key personnel is a challenge. That's where you come in.

Yes

Young, Reliable "Activists" Outed as Corporate Spooks

The Happy Valley Coalition protests Solid (Squalid) EnergyA private investigation company, Thompson & Clark Investigations, employed agents to infiltrate environmental, peace and animal rights groups in New Zealand, investigative journalist Nicky Hager has revealed.

No

Democratic Spin Won't End the War in Iraq

After several months of empty posturing against the war in Iraq, politicians in Washington have made what Democratic congressman James P. Moran called a "concession to reality" by agreeing to give President Bush virtually everything he wanted in funding and unrestricted license to continue waging the increasingly detested war that has made Bush the most unpopular president since Richard Nixon.

This is the outcome that we warned against two months ago when we wrote "Why Won't MoveOn Move Forward?" In it, we criticized MoveOn for backpedaling on its previously claimed objective of ending the war in Iraq immediately. Anti-war sentiment was the main factor behind last year's elections that brought Democrats to power in both houses of Congress. Once in power, however, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed through a "compromise" bill, supported by MoveOn, that offered $124 billion in supplemental funding for the war. To make it sound like they were voting for peace, the Democrats threw in a few non-binding benchmarks asking Bush to certify progress in Iraq, coupled with language that talked about withdrawing troops next year.

Has the Internet Changed the Propaganda Model?

Noam Chomsky speaks at the Chrysler Theatre in Windsor, Ontario, May 17, 2007In their groundbreaking 1988 book, Manufacturing Consent, professors Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky not only explained, but documented with extensive case studies, how mass media and public opinion are shaped in a democracy. Twenty years later, can their "propaganda model" still be used to explain modern media distortions? That was one of the main questions discussed last week at a conference in Windsor, Ontario, titled "20 Years of Propaganda?" Organized by Dr. Paul Boin, the conference drew hundreds of scholars and activists including myself, and more than 1,000 people attended a closing speech by Chomsky on May 17.

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