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Our new security system prevents email messages coming through the AOL server from being delivered to our address. This is because of the probability of unwelcome and problematical attachments to messages from this source, coupled with the fact that AOL’s voluntary cooperation with various American, and foreign, law enforcement groups makes contact with them in any form a risky business.  Correspondents wishing to contact TBR News are suggested to use another server. To prevent unwanted correspondence from this source, simply put ‘aol.com’ on your block list. Ed.

Announcing TBR Ebooks!

Starting with a new publication concerning the background behind the 9/11 attacks, TBR News will be presenting a series of interesting, informative and definitive works for our readers. Future titles will include the complete Voice of the White House with much more added material that was considered too controversial to post, the heavily-censored Armenian Holocaust of 1916, the Bush-Lay private correspondence, the Assassination of JFK,Pearl Harbor intrigues and rare documents, Malaparte’s inside study of the making of revolution, sensational selected articles from the German Rudolf historical revision files, unpublished before Rudolf’s arrest and forced deportation to Germany, World War II studies of holocaust history, taken from secret German files and much more. Please see the title page for more information.

The Editors

Descending Into Darkness: The Harring Report

A well-researched study into the background of the 9/11 attack: Who knew what and when did they know it. Russian and German intelligence material, not published before show that the U.S. had ample warning...and did nothing about it.

THE VOICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE

The full collection of the twice-weekly commentary of what is really going on inside the corrupt Bush White House. The spectrum includes the Gannon scandal, the planned invasion of Iran, many stories of stupidity and corruption coupled with biting sarcasm. Interesting to note that many, if not most, of the predictions have come true.

REGICIDE The Official Assassination of John F. Kennedy

A landmark book that sold very well in hardback, this work contains actual intelligence documents concerning the inside U.S. plans to kill Kennedy; the reasons, the methods and the results.

The Final Reckoning: An Analysis of Demographics in Holocaust Literature

By Harold Kreig, Lt.Col, AUS ret.

This is the first rational, heavily documented work on the subject of the Holocaust. Colonel Krieg has taken thousands of documents, including the official SS concentration camp records from 1935 through 1945 and official U.S. government postwar analysis of the system and the casualties and causes of death and produced a book that is highly informative and readable.  Heavily footnoted and annotated, ‘The Final Reckoning’ is logical and compelling and is an historical work that should be read through by any student of the period and subject.

Coup D’Etat: The Technique Of Revolution

By Curzio Malaparte

First published in Italy by Curzio Malaparte in 1928, this is a seminal work on historical seizures of power from Napoleon through Hitler.

Gestapo-Chief: The CIA & Heinrich Müller by Gregory Douglas

                In 1948, the former head of Hitelr’s Gestapo was interviewed by senior officials of the CIA in Switzerland where Müller had been in hiding since the end of the Second World War. His interview, for Colonel James Critchfield of the CIA’s Gehlen Organization, runs to nearly a thousand pages and for years was hidden in the CIA’s files.

                This is a translation of a part of the interview, which was initially conducted in German and then translated into English for CIA use.

                It is a fascinating series of historical episodes covering both the Axis and Allied sides with comments on Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt, Henry Wallace, Winston Churchill, the 20^th of July bomb plot against Hitler, Bishop von Galen’s heroic, and successful, attacks on the Nazis and their euthanasia program, the concentration camps, the Duke of Windsor, the Roger Casement diaries and many more fascinating and insightful views of a man who ran the most effective counter-intelligence agency in modern times. 

                There is also extensive information on the attempts on the part of the CIA to silence or discredit the fact that the Gestapo Chief worked for the United States and eventually came to live in Washington, D.C. as part of the notorious “Operation Paperclip.”

                Fascinating inside views of many top Nazis and CIA officials. 

The CIA COvenant: Nazis in Washington

by Gregory Douglas

* From the end of World War II, the American CIA imported thousands of Nazis into the United States to work for them, many on the list of wanted war criminals

*One of the most important of these was Heinrich Mueller, once head of Hitler's Gestapo. Mueller was recruited by Colonel James Critchfield who ran the CIA's "Gehnel Organization' in Munich.

* Mueller kept journals and this book is a translation of three years (1948-1951) of notes and observations made of top CIA officials, President Truman, top U.S. government officials, plans for murder, thefts, kidnappings, wholesale thefts of public money and a terrifying pattern of uncontrolled ambition, unchecked by any person or agency.

* Also included are CIA and other agency's activities that have never been revealed.

*Mueller's deals in stolen Nazi art for the CIA are covered in detail.

*Also to be found are the steps the frightened CIA have taken to prevent the publication, sales or distribution of this work.

An Essay on the Principle of Population

by Thomas Malthus

The 1798 classic study of how supplies of food do not keep up with an expanding population

Malthus' theory is that population growth is geometric while the food supply increase is arithmetic.

A very literate and current study that clearly highlights present and current population problems

With the world's population higher than ever before, this is a work of great and current interest

CONSPIRACIES for Fun and Profit

Contents
The Evil Catholics Murdered Abraham Lincoln
TWA Flight 800: The Gathering of the Nuts
The Real Truth About the Kennedy Assassination!
The Great 9-11 Plot
Who is Sorcha Faal?
The Bush Indictments
Faked Conspiracy photos
The Sinking of the MV Estonia
The German Guy and the Destruction of Houston
The Great Contrail Conspiracy
Planet X
Remote Viewing unveiled

Notice!

Our new security system prevents email messages coming through the AOL server from being delivered to our address. This is because of the probability of unwelcome and problematical attachments to messages from this source, coupled with the fact that AOL’s voluntary cooperation with various American, and foreign, law enforcement groups makes contact with them in any form a risky business.  Correspondents wishing to contact TBR News are suggested to use another server. Ed.

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people, On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
- H.L. Mencken

“That we are to stand by the president, right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
-Theodore Roosevelt

“Mass movements do not usually rise until the prevailing order has been discredited. The discrediting is not an automatic result of the blunders and abuses of those in power, but the deliberate work of men of words with a grievance.”
-Eric Hoffer The True Believer

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

America’s Enemies!

There are four entities who represent the most dangerous enemies to American liberties since George III.

They are:

1.                    The Neocons or Likudists who owe their personal allegiance to another country and now completely control our foreign policy. They lied and deceived us into the Iraq war and are demanding that more and more American soldiers die to preserve their own country and ideals.

2.                    The Christian Evangelical right who is trying to force the United States into becoming a theocracy under their rule. They know in their hearts that they alone can restructure a secular humanist America into their idea of Heaven on Earth.

3.                    An element of American society that call themselves Patriots and are obsessively militaristic and great admirers of the corporate or fascistic state. Many of these have been very minor members of the American military and as a counterbalance to their reserve or rear area tours of duty, are rabidly in favor of draconian military action, the bloodier the better. Usually these drumbeaters are too old, or too fat, to fight and have no sons of draft age.

4.                    George W. Bush, who is the worst president in the history of the United States and directly responsible for the huge death tolls in Iraq, is determined to rule the United States until God puts a stop to him and is even more determined to force the American people into becoming obedient, Christian and self-sacrificing lemmings who worship at his shrine and march in step.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C., July 17, 2006:” Bush in St. Petersburg is pathetic. In spite of almost universal condemnation of Israel for her obviously deliberate savage attacks on her neighbors, Bush bleats about “poor Israel’s self-protection” and demands “complete support of Israel” in this nasty and very dangerous business. None of the other attendees at the conference support these views but Bush does as he is told and will continue to do so until they take him away.

We have allowed, and freely permitted, a vicious and ethnocentric state to drag our country into one bottomless military pit and now they are trying to widen the scope of the disaster by dragging us into another and this will, in the opinions of all, not some but all, experts I have spoken with or who have made reports on the current situation. Bush and Cheney will not listen to them because Israel demands obedience from those it supports. Should Bush chastise Israel or threaten to cut off aid as Reagan did, his Republicans would have their funds cut off and the entire Israeli-controlled U.S. media would rise up in anger against them, doing their best to defeat them at the mid-terms.

America should wake up and discover that baboons have taken over their house while they were sleeping and are destroying it, room by room.

For your Christian readers, here are thoroughly apt quotations from the Holy Bible.

‘They shall  put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosever killeth you will think that he does God service.’ John 16:2,

and further, ‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ Galatians 6:7”

Bush backs Israel at divided G8

July 16, 2006
BBC News

The US president, in St Petersburg for the G8 summit, has insisted Israel is defending itself against terror and Hezbollah is the root of the crisis.

George W Bush added that the Israelis had to be mindful of the consequences of their actions, as fresh air strikes and rocket attacks were reported.

French President Jacques Chirac spoke out in defence of Lebanon.

The leaders of the world's eight top economic powers have begun working meetings focusing on energy supplies.

With global energy use likely to increase by 50% in the next 25 years, Russian President Vladimir Putin is keen to convince other G8 members his country can be relied on as a supplier.

But Russia's G8 agenda has already been overtaken by events in the Middle East, the BBC's Steve Rosenberg reports.

With eight of the world's most powerful leaders meeting for talks, he says, they are under pressure to find a way to end the hostilities.

Divisions

"As a sovereign nation, Israel has every right to defend itself against terrorist activity," Mr Bush said after bilateral talks with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair on Sunday.

"Our message to Israel is defend yourself but be mindful of the consequences."

The root cause of the conflict, he added, was Hezbollah and its ties with Syria and Iran.

Hezbollah, he said, "was the start of this".

Speaking before the first summit working meeting of the day, France's president said that forces "who jeopardise the security, stability and sovereignty of Lebanon must be stopped".

He urged "the protection of civilians, moderation and a durable ceasefire" in both Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

Our correspondent notes that working out a common G8 position on the crisis will not be easy with a clear division emerging between the US on one hand, and France and Russia on the other.

President Putin has suggested Israel has ulterior motives in Lebanon rather than simply the return of abducted soldiers.

"We condemn any terrorist act including hostage-taking but we have the impression that besides the return of its abducted soldiers, Israel is pursuing other, wider goals," he said on Saturday.

Putin: Don't lecture me about democracy

July 16, 2006
Nick Paton Walsh and Patrick Wintour in St Petersburg
The Observer

Vladimir Putin delivered a barbed retort to George Bush's muted criticism of Russia's democratic record yesterday when he told reporters at a joint press conference that he did not want to head a democracy like Iraq's.

The remark, which raised a loud laugh from the assembled press pool, capped a joint appearance that exposed how relations between the two men have become strained in the past two years, since Washington began criticising Putin's iron grip on Russia's media and politics.

Bush said that, during two hours of discussions, 'I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like Iraq where there's a free press and free religion. I told [Putin] a lot of people in our country ... would hope that Russia would do the same thing. I fully understand, however, that there will be a Russian style of democracy.'

Putin replied, smiling: 'I'll be honest with you: we, of course, would not want to have a democracy like in Iraq.' Bush interrupted to say 'Just wait' - a reference to Iraq's democracy being in its infancy - before Putin continued: 'Nobody knows better than us how we can strengthen our own nation. But we know for sure that we cannot strengthen our nation without developing democratic institutions. And this is the path that we'll certainly take; but certainly we will do this by ourselves.'

Bush likes to speak of his close friendship with Putin; the White House claims it enables a frank exchange on sensitive issues such as the alleged backsliding of democracy in Russia and Putin's outright opposition to the Iraq war. Putin, however, is cooler about his friendship with Bush. But the two men did present some show of harmony in resurrecting an old idea to combat the threat of nuclear terrorism by setting up international enrichment centres to control atomic material under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Prime Minister Tony Blair secured a coup at the summit by ensuring that a separate discussion will be held in St Petersburg on progress towards meeting the ambitious goals to free Africa from poverty, made at the last G8 meeting in Gleneagles a year ago.

Blair himself will lead the discussion, which will also embrace efforts to combat climate change, including using new mechanisms outside the Kyoto Protocol as a way of engaging the Americans.

Blair is also increasingly hopeful that the summit will kickstart trade development talks, which have failed to make progress owing to disputes between America, the EU and Brazil. Number 10 is not expecting a deal, but hopes progress will be made on the details over the next month. If nothing happens in the next few weeks, Bush will lose his mandate to negotiate with the WTO and will have to go back to an increasingly protectionist Congress to try to get it renewed.

With Russia determined to pursue its agenda on energy security - code for greater Russian access to European markets - Blair is eager to widen the discussion from the supply of energy to its over-use and impact on the climate.

The talks otherwise ended with little real progress. Discussions over Russia's membership of the WTO stalled again. Bush and Putin were vague over their joint approaches over North Korea and Iran. Bush said: 'I'm confident that we can get something done at the United Nations.' Putin added: 'If the Iranians see that the US and Russia are working together, they will see the seriousness of our intent.'

World leaders alarmed, angered by Mideast violence

July 15, 2006
AFP

PARIS (AFP) - World leaders expressed alarm and anger at the upsurge in violence in the Middle East and sought a solution to the crisis, though differences over who bore responsibility emerged between the United States and some of its partners.

Before the formal opening of the G8 summit of industrialized nations in St Petersburg presidents

Vladimir Putin of Russia and George W. Bush of the United States called for an end to the escalating crisis as they sought to paper over a rift over Israel's role.

At a joint public appearance after talks here, Bush blamed the violence squarely on the Shiite militia Hezbollah, demanding the group "lay down its arms" and insisting Syria pressure it to end attacks on Israel.

"The best way to stop the violence is for Hezbollah to lay down its arms, and to stop attacking. And, therefore, I call upon Syria to exert influence over Hezbollah," Bush said.

He did not accuse Israel of bearing responsibility in the conflict, but he did not repeat an earlier assertion either that "Israel has the right to defend herself," which had widely been read as giving the US ally a free hand.

Putin, for his part, did not repeat his charge of a "disproportionate" Israeli answer to Hezbollah rocket attacks from Lebanese territory and the abduction of two of its soldiers.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov warned of a "real threat" that the Middle East crisis could drag other countries in the region into the conflict.

The Vatican's official newspaper, the Osservatore Romano, slammed the "immobilism" of the United Nations, arising from "clashing veto rights" in the UN Security Council.

On Thursday the United States vetoed a resolution calling on Israel to end its military activities in Gaza.

"The chief decision-making body of the international community is therefore again a spectator in the face of the death of the law, violated by the two parties, Israel and Hezbollah," the newspaper said.

Arab foreign ministers met Saturday in an emergency session in Cairo, facing an uphill battle to contain a Middle East crisis that threatens to engulf more countries in the region.

The ministers met at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo for a closed session, and and will reconvene later to adopt a final declaration.

Egyptian public television, quoting diplomats present at the meeting, said the foreign ministers will condemn the Israeli military operations and recommend a diplomatic solution to the crisis, as well as an exchange of prisoners.

But the meeting comes at a time of profound differences among Arabs on how to confront the situation in the region.

Egypt and Jordan have recognized Israel and established diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, whereas neighbouring Lebanon and Syria have long been implacable foes of Israel.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan charged that Western powers were "keeping mum" over mounting bloodshed in the Middle East, warning that they would "pay the bill" by facing more terrorist attacks, Anatolia news agency reported.

"Bombs are exploding, innocent people are being killed, infrastructures are being destroyed... The powerful continue to crush the weak, but unfortunately those who hold the power in the world are keeping mum," Erdogan said in the northeastern city of Artvin.

"Those who back global peace (only) with words will sooner or later pay the bill by facing global terrorism... This is what is provoking terrorism," he was quoted as saying.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero called on Israel to "end hostilities" and respect "international law."

He also said that events in the Middle East should make those countries that had unleashed the "unjustified military intervention in Iraq reflect."

"Those who pushed for the war in Iraq told us that after the intervention a horizon of peace would open up," he told a meeting in Ibiza in the Balearic Islands.

"I hope the lesson given by the facts will make them stop and think."

The war in Iraq had been a "disaster" which had led to "radicalization, fanaticism, conflict and instability in the region," he said.

Saad Hariri, Lebanon's parliamentary majority leader, urged the international community to stop Israel's "aggression" on his country and for fellow Arab states to take a strong stand.

Press warns Israel government

July 15, 2006
BBC Monitoring Service

Newspapers in both Israel and Palestinian territories accuse the Israeli government of using the missing soldier Cpl Gilad Shalit as an excuse to undermine the Palestinian Authority.

Israeli commentators especially are concerned that such actions will rebound on the government of Ehud Olmert and destabilise the Middle East even more.

SHIMON SCHIFFER IN ISRAEL’S TOP CIRCULATION YEDIOT

What we have here is not an attempt to rescue Cpl Shalit and bring him safe to his family and not an attempt to stop the firing of the Qassam rockets but a move aimed at destroying the Hamas government in the hope that next time the Palestinians will choose a responsible government that will negotiate with Israel.

GADI TAOB IN ISRAEL’S CENTER-RIGHT MAARIV

The danger in the military move is that it will speed up the fragmentation, promote chaos and reduce the chances of establishing a central government... Israel must reduce as much as possible the extent of the fragmentation it is causing, try not to hit the unifying forces and avoid toppling the Hamas government by military means. Pressure can force it to become moderate. Crushing pressure will only increase the number of organisations over which no-one has control.

DANNY RUBENSTEIN IN ISRAEL’S LEFT-OF-CENTER HAARETZ

From Israel's perspective, the continued functioning of the Palestinian Authority [PA] in the West Bank and Gaza is important. The alternative to the PA is chaos or the return of total Israeli occupation. It is difficult to assume that anyone in Israel wants this, because the security and diplomatic damage to the country in such a case would be grave indeed. Therefore, there is no alternative but to enter into negotiations immediately, with whatever degree of toughness is required, on the quid pro quo for the release of Gilad Shalit. There are many disadvantages to such negotiations, but the alternative is harsher and far more dangerous - both to the soldier's fate and to Israel's diplomatic and national interests.

HAGAY HUBERMAN IN ISRALI’S NATIONAL RELIGIOUS PARTY AFFILIATE HATZOFE

This is the sad truth: The objective of the operation is clear to no-one - not the government, not the prime minister, not the IDF with all its commanders. No-one tried to think 20 steps ahead. When an operation is called a 'rolling operation' they mean that the operation continues to roll independently and then we will all see where it leads. The leaders of the country have no advanced planning as to where it will lead.

HAFITH AL-BARGHUTHI IN THE PALESTINIAN AL-HAYTAL-JADIDAH

No one wants the Palestinian Authority to be strong. The occupation has worked to destroy it so that it will become a name empty of any content. The government is besieged and has not been able to find a way out of this crisis. We are all frustrated, angry and desperate. Beware of frustration for it might appear in the form of a violence from which there is no return.

HANI AWKL IN THE PALESTINIAN AL-AYYAM

Summer Rain [the Israeli Gaza incursion] does not bear the characteristics of an operation intended to save Shalit. It seeks to impose the Israeli agenda that wants to shred to pieces the Palestinians' resistance in all its forms, stop the launching of home made rockets and undermine Palestinian attempts toprevent Palestinian factions forming a lobby that presenting a united vision.

EDITORIAL IN THE PALESTINIAN AL-QUDS

A wider Arab-Islamic move is needed to exert pressure on Israel to find a way out of the spiral and help the region avoid a wider explosion. This move is also needed to make the international community intervene to find a drastic solution that would end the illegal Israeli occupation, end the Palestinian suffering that has been going on for half a century.

BBC Monitoring selects and translates news from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages. It is based in Caversham, UK, and has several bureaux abroad

Iran warns Israel of 'unimaginable losses' if Syria hit

July 16, 2006
by Farhad Pouladi
AFP

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran warned its arch-enemy Israel of "unimaginable losses" if it attacks Syria and vowed that it was standing by the Syrian people.

"We hope the Zionist regime does not make the mistake of attacking Syria, because extending the front would definitely make the Zionist regime face unimaginable losses," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

"Iran is standing by the Syrian people," he said of the Islamic republic's sole regional ally.

"We have offered and will offer Syria and Lebanon spiritual and humanitarian support," Asefi insisted, reiterating Iran's denial that it is providing military and financial assistance to the Hezbollah movement.

The Israeli army has said Hezbollah militants had used an Iranian-built radar-guided anti-ship missile in an attack on Friday on an Israeli warship off Lebanon's coast.

The attack marked the Lebanese militia's first successful strike on an Israeli warship, dealing an unprecedented blow to the Jewish state's military. One Israeli sailor was killed and three more were missing, feared dead.

An Israeli military intelligence official has also alleged that around 100 members of Iran's powerful ideological army the elite Revolutionary Guards were in Lebanon, acting as military advisors to Hezbollah.

Iran is a major backer of Hezbollah, but regularly insists that it only gives "moral support" to the Shiite movement.

"We have no Guards there. It is not true that we have sent missiles. Hezbollah is capable enough. The Zionist regime is under pressure," Asefi said, repeating Iran's denial of any connection to the attack.

He also hit out at the United States after President George W. Bush said Israel had "every right to defend itself".

"The United States has had a destructive role by vetoing resolutions and hence encouraging the Israeli crimes," Asefi said, referring to Washington's use of its veto in the UN Security Council Thursday to block a resolution calling for a halt to an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.

"The United States should reconsider its policies and correct its wrong attitude of supporting the Zionist regime."

On Friday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted that Israel was not powerful enough to take on Iran and also warned against an attack against Syria.

"Thanks be to God, despite its criminal and savage nature, the Zionist regime and its supporters in the West do not have the power to look in the same way towards Iran," the fiercely anti-Israeli president said.

"If Israel commits another act of idiocy and aggresses Syria, this will be the same as an aggression against the entire Islamic world and it will receive a stinging response," Ahmadinejad said in a telephone conversation with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad.

The hardline president, who has calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map" or moved as far away as Alaska, has also compared Israel's military strikes on Gaza and Lebanon to tactics used by Nazi Germany's leader Adolf Hitler.

"Their methods resemble Hitler's. When Hitler wanted to launch an attack, he came up with a pretext," Ahmadinejad said Saturday.

"Zionists say they are Hitler's victims, but they have the same nature as Hitler," said Ahmadinejad, who has previously described the Holocaust of six million Jews in wartime Europe as "a myth."

"We have two solutions for the crisis. One of them, which is a logical one, is that as you (Western nations) who imposed this regime by fabricating stories, you put an end to it and take it with you," he said.

Ahmadinejad's second solution was to have a referendum in which only the "true Palestinians," decide their fate.

Fleeing Lebanese Speak of Indiscriminate Terror Bombing

July 17, 2006
by Dahr Jamail
Asia Times

ADDABBAOUSIYEH (northern Lebanese border) - People fleeing the bombing of Lebanon say the Israelis are targeting civilian neighbourhoods and vital infrastructure, and not just Hezbollah centres.

The bombing has killed more than 100 Lebanese civilians so far.

Several border points between Syria and Lebanon are being deluged with refugees. Lebanon has a long border with Syria towards its south, east and north. The refugees include both Lebanese and tourists.

"Everything is being bombed," a teacher from the United States who was on vacation in Beirut told IPS. "It's terror. We've literally been terrorised."

Twenty-five-year-old social studies teacher Abdul Rahman was living with his family in downtown Beirut near the United Nations building before they all decided to flee.

"We have not slept for three days because we were living in terror and never knew when the Israelis would bomb us since they were hitting everything," he told IPS.

"If they want to hit Hezbollah, let them hit Hezbollah, but not the civilians. But civilians are all that they are hitting."

His mother feared for her 96-year-old father who they had to leave behind. "We cannot move him because he is too frail," she said. "And now all we can do is worry, since the Israelis are taking it out on the innocent people."

On Sunday, the Israeli army also re-entered the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip. According to reports from Gaza, three members of Hamas were killed after Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered Beit Hanun town early morning.

Gunfire and shelling by the Israelis is also reported to have killed a 75-year-old woman and wounded 10 others, along with a baby.

Israel launched several air strikes in Gaza as well. An Israeli army spokeswoman claimed they destroyed a Hamas operations room in the Jabaliya refugee camp.

Israel's stated goal in Gaza is to free a soldier captured by Hamas. So far Israeli actions there have left one Israeli soldier dead, along with 82 Palestinians.

Hamas is demanding the release of prisoners from Israeli jails in exchange for the Israeli soldier.

Israel is now embroiled in fighting on two fronts. The impact of the fighting with Lebanon is being felt widely in Syria.

Abud Aziz, a 31-year-old Lebanese pastry chef from Beirut crossed the border into Syria carrying his suitcase and looking for food and water. There had been no water or electricity in Beirut since Saturday, he said.

"Yesterday I saw two hospitals bombed," he told IPS. "Nobody who remains in Beirut can be safe. No way."

A 25-year-old construction worker named Hamed also said he saw warplanes bomb a hospital in Beirut.

"I saw them bomb a hospital yesterday," he told IPS. "I left just hours ago. They are bombing everything -- houses, casinos, fuel stations and so many bridges."

Meanwhile, on Sunday Hezbollah fired more than 20 rockets into the city of Haifa, Israel's third largest city, killing eight and wounding at least a dozen.

The Hezbollah clearly have the means to strike back at Israel. They are a well-armed and well-organised political and military group of Shia Muslims in Lebanon. Sustained military attacks by the Hezbollah forced Israel to vacate southern Lebanon in May 2000.

But the Hezbollah are not supported by all Lebanese. About 60 percent of the 3.8 million population of Lebanon is Muslim, most of them Shia. This is where Hezbollah draws its support.

The rest of the population is almost all Christian. A 15-year civil war between Muslim and Christian groups ended in 1991. The Hezbollah are believed to draw more support from outside the country than from many within.

In the wake of Hezbollah strikes into Israel, Israeli authorities have declared a 48-hour period of martial law over the northern part of the country. Hezbollah groups have fired more than 400 rockets into Israel, killing at least 16 civilians in the last five days.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Lebanon of "far-reaching" consequences after the rocket attacks. The Israeli army said that it had warned all civilians to leave southern Lebanon.

Many of those who have left report panic conditions in Lebanon. "The Israelis bombed a bridge to the airport near us and killed many people," 26-year-old Hasna told IPS. "When other people went on the bridge to help the wounded, the planes bombed it again."

Ambulances are usually not available because of the danger, she said. "We were the last people to leave our area. The road there was nearly empty."

Alham Aras, a Danish woman who was vacationing in Tripoli in Lebanon, drove up to the border with her six children Sunday. She said she had left on instructions from her embassy.

"The warplanes bombed the Palestinian camps in Tripoli," she said, "They are attacking up and down the coast, and the port in Tripoli was also attacked."

Her 14-year-old daughter Barihan al-Jassim said, "Somebody should stop this madness. How is it possible for a country to be bombed like this and nobody stops them from doing it?"

40 dead in Lebanon strikes

· More Hizbullah rockets hit Haifa
· Blair leads calls for UN peace force
· 40 British nationals evacuated

July 17, 2006
Mark Oliver, James Sturcke and agencies
Guardian Unlimited

More than 40 people were killed in Lebanon today as tit-for-tat strikes between Israeli forces and Hizbullah militia continued during the worst fighting the region has seen in nearly a quarter of a century.

In the deadliest attack, 10 civilians were killed and at least seven wounded when an Israeli air strike hit two cars travelling from south Lebanon towards the capital.

A building collapsed in Haifa, Israel's third largest city, after it was targeted in a Hizbullah rocket attack. Initial reports said two people were injured and there were fears people could be trapped in the rubble.

Hundreds of rockets have hit northern Israel in recent days, reaching as far as 33 miles south of the border. The fighting across the border has been the worst since Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982. Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed 203 people, all but 13 of them civilians, while 24 Israelis have died, including 12 civilians hit in rocket attacks.

Tony Blair today called for an international peace keeping force after private talks with the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, at the G8 summit in St Petersburg. "The only way we are going to have a cessation of violence is if we have an international force deployed into that area," the prime minister told reporters.

Israel said it was too early to talk about a new deployment of troops under UN or EU auspices. The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, tonight said he would agree to halt fighting if the two captured soldiers were returned and Hizbullah withdrew from the border region.

He told the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, that the country was "facing a moment of national truth".

"We are not looking for war or direct conflict, but if necessary we will not be frightened by it," he told MPs.

The Israeli army today announced it had made an overnight raid into southern Lebanon to attack Hizbullah bases. It was the first time Israeli ground troops had been used in six days of conflict.

The raid came after the Mr Olmert, vowed a "far-reaching" response to a rocket attack yesterday on Haifa that killed eight Israeli railway workers.

Some analysts believe a major ground invasion of southern Lebanon is being considered by Israel in order to wipe out Hizbullah's capacity to fire missiles over the border. One Israeli newspaper said today that the offensive had so far destroyed a quarter of Hizbullah's fighting capabilities.

As the conflict continued, thousands of foreign citizens were evacuated from Beirut. France, which has more than 20,000 citizens in Lebanon, chartered a Greek ferry to pick up 1,200 French citizens and other Europeans. About 850 of the 5,000 Swedes living in Lebanon have been evacuated, largely to the city of Aleppo in northern Syria. An Italian ship carrying nearly 400 evacuees was expected in the Cypriot port of Larnaca this evening.

US officials said a chartered ferry would arrive in Beirut tomorrow under naval escort to evacuate American citizens. About 40 British nationals, mainly women, children and those needing medical care, were evacuated from the city early this morning. Another 40 were expected to be airlifted out this evening.

Two Royal Navy ships are on their way to Lebanon and there are plans for a possible larger evacuation of British nationals. Some 4,000 British families are registered in Lebanon.

The French prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, today arrived in Beirut to show solidarity with his Lebanese counterpart and it is expected that the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, will soon make a visit to the region. In a private conversation about the crisis with Mr Blair at the G8, the US president, George Bush, was overheard saying, "I think Condi is going to go pretty soon".

Yesterday, leaders at the G8 put the onus on Hizbullah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, to end the conflict by freeing the two Israeli troops and stopping the attacks on Israel with rockets. Fuad Saniora, the Lebanese prime minister, today described Israel's offensive as "terrorism" that would foster extremism in the region.

The Israeli offensive has forced hundreds of thousands of Lebanese to flee, with residents of southern Lebanon going to Beirut or the eastern Bekaa valley, while some of the capital's residents have moved to homes on the hills to the east.

Fighting in Lebanon last week opened a second front for Israel. Israeli jets were today also in action in Gaza, where Israel believes one of its soldiers is being held by Hamas-linked militants. Air raids largely destroyed the empty Palestinian foreign ministry and severely damaged about 50 flats nearby.

Controlling the News

New York, July 16, 2006: “All an American has to do to realize how strongly controlled their print and television news media is would be to read the internet news sites for reputable foreign media like the Guardian, Le Mond, AFP, the BBC, Reuters and many others.  Then anyone can very, very clearly see what is not printed or otherwise released inside the United States.

As a long-time member of this media, I am sad to see it turning into a propaganda tool for the far right and the state of Israel. As bizarre or distasteful as this comment might seem to the casual observer, it the cold, plain truth that our media is now very firmly in the hands of fierce Israeli supporters and is likely to remain so and grow even stronger as time goes by and more and more mergers consolidate the press and television media into one or two hands.

The recent invasion of Gaza and growing artillery attacks on Lebanon and threats of a rain of death on neighboring Syria and dangerous but distant Iran are ordered by corporate to be presented to the American public as nothing but completely justified “self-defense” on the part of poor, beleaguered Israel (who actually deliberately sparked the trouble to justify smashing her enemies).

Unfortunately, Israel miscalculated because she depended, as she always has, on the military might of the totally controlled United States government to help it out when it was threatened by others, no matter what their provocation might be.

In the present case, Bush’s lunatic foray into Iraq has so tied down and depleted the American military that it would be absolutely impossible for it to threaten any other country and, if a general war does break out as it shows signs of doing, our troops would be put into deadly danger from Arab states other than Iraq. The Iranians are on one side of U.S. occupied Iraq and Syria on the other. Our troops would not only be fighting the very effective and deadly Iraqi guerrillas (or Freedom Fighters as you will) but there would be other, far better armed enemies to cope with and current military planning would be shattered almost overnight.

Israel has destroyed the Beirut air field and blockaded the ports to prevent the shipment of deadly weapons to the Lebanese fighting Israel, but for once, our intelligence people have it right when they report that such weapons were already sent to Syria, Egypt and Lebanon in anticipation of just such hostile moves by Israel.

If you think there is growing anger over the current.minimally-reported casualties in Iraq, there would be volcanic outrage over the sharply increased death tolls in an all-out Arabic jihad.

In the face of all of this naked Israeli aggression purportedly over a kidnapped soldier (the War of Jenkin’s Ear comes to mind here) the media, almost to a man, has its walking orders and they are: Unconditional Support for Israel and Universal Condemnation for their Arab victims.

The employees of these media outlets have nothing to say about any of this. We are given orders and we obey them unless we want our paychecks to stop and be universally blackballed throughout the Israeli-dominated media as ‘Jew haters.’”

The Control of the American News Media

by James Kelso

A covert policy, formulated by Ronald Reagan in conjunction with the CIA, was termed “perception management” and was formalized on January 14, 1983 when President Reagan signed the National Security Decision Directive No. 77.  The Reagan White House and the CIA felt that a resurrection of anti-war activism in the United States as had occurred during the prolonged and futile Vietnamese war could curtail or halt the Reagan/CIA policy of  “aggressive containment,” specifically in Central America.

This project was also called ‘public diplomacy’ and while it was ostensibly created to develop American public support for Reagan’s foreign policy, it also was constructed to effect control over the opinions of the American public through control of the American media, both TV and press reportage.

Under the “perception management/public diplomacy” program, the CIA was instructed to take a number of steps to bring the American public’s perceptions into line with an official U.S. governmental policy.

The first step in this program was to fully analyze the cultural, ethnic, political and religious backgrounds of the general population and attempt to discover what themes resonate best with the greatest number of Americans. When this was been achieved, the next step was to create specific themes to address these cultural weak spots, or “points of public concern.”

The second step was to gain control over organs of public information such as existing media outlets, so-called “think tanks” ( the Rand Corporation}, political opinion polling agencies, national news wire services, and the creation and promotion of media news personalities entirely in the pay of the government and obedient to their demands.

Although the Central Intelligence Agency is not mandated to operate within the United States, nevertheless, it has been heavily involved in influencing domestic American public opinion almost since its inception in 1948. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Hoover long had a friendly and very effective relationship with the media but the CIA siezed upon Hoover’s idea and made it their very own.

Through their efforts, many major American newspapers, and early television stations, were developed as CIA-responsive entities. In return for valuable news information, the media was expected to support international policies of the CIA, protect its interests by not reporting certain matters and, most especially, to attack individuals and organizations that were felt to either be hostile or potential impediments to CIA policies. These policies were initially foreign in nature but later, under the Nixon administration, expanded to cover domestic issues as well.

The Cold War was, in essence, not an ideological war between capitalism as represented by the United States and communism as represented by Soviet Russia. It was in reality a trade war between the two countries and in America, the CIA was in close connection with, and heavily influenced by, American commercial interests. Many top CIA officials had the closest economic and social connections with the business leadership of the United States and more often than not, acted as their enforcing arm in international matters. Governments hostile to American business interests were undermined and overthrown by CIA operatives by misrepresenting the aims of these foreign governments to the President and Congress.

While one element of the CIA had put Fidel Castro in power in Cuba (because Batista was considered unacceptable to several major American business concerns) another branch sought to remove him because he had, among other acts, nationalized the nickel industry (owned by American interests) and the lucrative casinos. The latter were owned and operated by the American Mafia who also had strong connections with the CIA. When Guzman in Guatemala tried to nationalize United Fruit holdings in that country, the CIA forced his ouster and replacement by a CIA informant, Arbanez.

In addition to foreign policy matters, the public resistance to the war in Vietnam was of great concern to not only the Johnson White House but also to the CIA. The US had initially entered that area at the request of the withdrawing French because the vast and very profitable rubber plantations in Vietnam were being threatened with seizure. CIA units under William Colby were brought into Vietnam for the express purpose of removing any anti-American elements from South Vietnam while American military units were detailed to put down the guerrilla activities of the North Vietnamese Viet Cong.

This “civil pacification” program was called “Operation Phoenix,” and was run by Colby with the aid of South Vietnamese police and security forces, supported by US Special Forces. This program, which failed in its goals, unleashed a bloody terror that surpassed anything the Third Reich’s SS Combat Groups ever did in Eastern Europe.

The eventual failure of the Vietnam campaign and the resultant collapse of the liberal Johnson administration brought a very conservative Republican Nixon into power. This president was clearly determined to halt the growing anti-war, and by definition liberal, movement in the United States and to fully prosecute the policies of “aggressive containment” throughout the world.

Nixon and his administration viewed the American media as liberal and anti-conservative and during both his first and into his second terms, Nixon sought by every means, legal and otherwise, to break up anti government groups by using the FBI against them, to destroy their leadership by any means available and to bring the American media under control.

The CIA was involved in much of this, opening first class mail, electronically spying on many Americans in direct competition with the FBI and both agencies engaged in ferocious territorial wars. Too much of this manipulation became public, again through the medium of the press, and Nixon was eventually forced from office, the FBI and CIA publicly discredited and much of their power greatly curtailed.

As American conservatives regrouped after their defeat, they became firmly determined to both regain power and prevent the media from its perceived anti-governmental policies during the Vietnam struggle.

Out of the political ruins, Richard Nixon’s former Treasury Secretary William Simon  was one of the leaders of a powerful movement to not only establish better control of what they viewed as a far left media but to set up various support organizations like think tanks and supportive private economic organizations that would fully support government policies, whatever they might be. From many wealthy individuals and corporations, millions of dollars were raised. In addition to open sources, even more money was obtained from dubious sources, such as the Reverend Moon and a number of Asian groups whose names never appear on any donors list, although a number of them are known to international law enforcement agencies involved with the interdiction of narcotics. The CIA first got into the drug business when they inherited a complete system from a former KMT General operating against the Communists in Burma. When the CIA discovered the incredible amounts of off-the-books money they could make running, and later refining, opium products, they took to the business like a duck takes to water. Much of this illegal money went back into the political coffers of whatever political organization that could best  keep secure the CIA’s official position in whatever administration chanced to be in power.

As George H.W. Bush had been DCI in 1976, his elevation to Vice President under Reagan and later, to the Presidency itself was considered to be of great importance to the Republican/CIA axis of power and many ultra-conservative CIA agents were brought into both the Reagan and, especially, into the following Bush administration..Chief among these émigrés were Donald Gregg and Walter Raymond, Jr. who left the CIA and moved into the White House. After the promulgation of the National Security Decision Directive No. 77.Raymond, who had conducted what was euphemistically called “public awareness” for the CIA took over the duties of the Reagan “public diplomacy” section of the White House. A small army of professional “psywar” (or psychological warfare) experts from the CIA, the DIA and the NSA flooded into the White House to develop and firmly cement a strong, coordinated policy of complete media control. Their agents, acting under the highest authority, developed working relationships with mainstream book and newspaper publishers and the rapidly-amalgamating television industry. Blandishments were tried, followed by veiled threats and eventually, a strong network of massive American print and television media cooperation was secured.

During the Reagan-Bush administrations, powerful media controls were developed and successful tactics for the destruction of any opposition and the media support of any and all ultra-conservative ventures solidified.

With the unexpected loss of the White House to the liberal Clinton, the fury of the dispossessed Republicans knew no bounds and they renewed their plans for the discrediting of any liberal elements in American politics and the strengthening of the machinery needed to remain in what they hoped would be permanent power.

Determined to regain the White House and hopefully, control of both the Senate and the House, the Republicans, allied with fanatical Neocons and the equally fanatical Christian Right, launched a long and thoroughly vicious campaign against the liberal Democrat Clinton. This did not result in his being removed from office as his enemies devoutly prayed but gave the political very far right the foundation for the next campaign. George W. Bush, a political cipher, was chosen as their candidate because it was well known that he was easily controlled and with his nomination, the state was set for an unprecedented campaign of savagery and massive vote fraud. In all of this, the American media, attempting to avoid the stigma of liberalism, joined in the attacks and often spearheaded them.

In the 2000 Presidential campaign, an obedient media turned from savaging the liberal Clintons to an ugly campaign against Al Gore and this pattern of  conservative viciousness started again in the 2004 campaign but as public perception of Bush’s gross and growing failures both in Iraq and the field of domestic economics grew, the media began to alter its stance. Presidents come and Presidents go but the media wishes to abide so allegiances shift. The business community, seeing Bush’s growing and deep unpopularity with a significant part of American consumers, now hedges its bets. No one likes to back a loser and CEOs are not idealists.

The Republican “informational message” machine, taking a leaf from the activities of Hitler’s brilliant Minister of Propaganda, Josef Goebbels, became unrivaled in its ability to shape how a majority of Americans perceived events. All media is dependant for income from advertising revenues. With their unrivalled and powerful business connections, the Republicans have been easily able to use economic pressure against media entities that they viewed as uncertain. Also, most of the news in the United States does not come from local reporters but from the wire services. Firm control of the few remaining American news services guarantees that a newspaper in Keokuk, Iowa and Alviso, California receive the same news copy at the same time as the major papers and television stations. De facto Republican  control of the wire services guarantees that a small paper without correspondents in Washington or Moscow are forced to take what is called “boilerplate” (fully controlled)  news for their local papers and other media outlets.

.It is interesting to note that the public Internet has made great inroads into the once-exclusive domains of the American media and the public, obviously disbelieving and disillusioned about the accuracy and fairness of the media are turning more and more to the Internet as a source of news. There exists a great body of highly accurate, non-controlled and very informative news information available to the American public. This consists of hundreds of very reputable news sites but unfortunately, they are only available on the Internet. Among these are: The British Guardian, the Observer, the Independent, the French AFP, the Toronto Globe and Mail and many mid-East, Russian and Asian English-language daily news sites. Much of this uncensored and objective news is culled by various American news website operators and given to a public on a daily basis. Anyone who does not believe that the American media is a fully controlled entity need only look at foreign news sites to see what may be known by but is never reported in the American press. This growing trend is frightening to both the Republicans and their allies in the mainline media  because it is free and the Internet sites are not responsive to pressure from any governmental agency or corporate advertising entity.

It is a sad commentary on the decline of the American media’s  reportage when 65% of Americans between 18 and 25 openly acknowledge getting all of their news from the satiric John Stewart’s program. “The Daily Show”  and not from the major networks.

Electronic News & Entertainment Media: A Brief Overview

by Harry Brunser

Continuing government deregulation of the telecommunications industry has resulted, not in the touted increased competition, but rather in an accelerating wave of corporate mergers and acquisitions that have produced a handful of multi-billion-dollar media conglomerates. The largest of these conglomerates are rapidly growing even bigger by consuming their competition, almost tripling in size during the 1990s. Whenever you watch television, whether from a local broadcasting station or via cable or a satellite dish; whenever you see a feature film in a theater or at home; whenever you listen to the radio or to recorded music; whenever you read a newspaper, book, or magazine -- it is very likely that the information or entertainment you receive was produced and/or distributed by one of these megamedia companies.

I should also note the obvious: That the American news and entertainment media is now almost entirely under the complete control of Jewish elements who strongly support Israel and who accordingly slant news and entertainment entirely in that direction. You will note this in the following overview:

Harry Brunser

AOL-TW. The largest media conglomerate today is AOL-Time Warner, created when America Online bought Time Warner for $160 billion in 2000. The merger brought together Steve Case as chairman of AOL-TW, and Gerald Levin as the CEO. A brief history of the company is in order.

The four Warner brothers founded their movie company in 1907 and had their first major success ten years later with My 4 Years in Germany. WB incorporated in 1923 and went on to cartoon success with Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny.. In 1948, WB sold its film library to MGM. In 1949, another court ruling forced WB to sell its cinema chain, obstructing vertical integration by a single movie-making company.

In 1958, WB created Warner Brothers Records, which was later renamed WEA. In 1968, Jack Warner sold his shares to Seven Arts, while DC and All-American Comics were bought by Kinney National Services (a funeral parlor conglomerate). Kinney turned around and bought a talent agency, then turned around again and bought Warner-Seven Arts, becoming Warner Communications.

Warner Communications bought Elektra Records in 1970, the same year that David Geffen started the Asylum label. Time bought HBO from Charles Dolan in 1972. Ironically, 1972 was also the year when Money magazine began publication, while the (original) magazine Life ceased.

Ted Turner entered the major media scene in 1976 when his TV station WTCG (Atlanta) was carried on US cable networks. In 1979, Turner Communications Group became Turner Broadcasting System, and WTCG was renamed WTBS. The following year, CNN became the world's first 24-hour all-news cable network. Turner tried to buy CBS in 1985, but he was blocked when Lawrence Tisch bought 25% of shares. Instead, Turner bought MGM's film library (1986). TBS merged with Castle Rock and New Line Cinema in 1994. In 1996, Turner made a career-busting faux pas by selling TBS to Time Warner. AOL bought Time Warner in 2000.

In 2001, Gerald Levin, who had been Chairman of Time Warner and then CEO of the merged AOL-TW, fired Ted Turner from his position during a telephone conversation. Control of TBS temporarily shifted to Robert Pittman , but was given shortly afterward to Walter Isaacson, who was recruited from his former position at Time Inc., to take over the company that Ted Turner built. We're reasonably certain that Ted Turner would not have sold TBS to Time Warner if he'd known that Levin was going to fire him only five years later. Levin smooth-talked Turner and Turner, paid the price for that mistake.

But Levin wasn't finished with his dagger. Having backstabbed Turner, he did likewise to his other useful dupe, Robert Pittman. Pittman had been Levin's champion for the AOL-TW merger on the AOL side. While we don't know for certain what Pittman's motive was, we could guess that it had something to do with Pittman believing himself to be Levin's choice as the new CEO at AOL-TW after Levin's retirement. But when the time came to finalize his choice of successor, Levin bypassed Pittman and gave the position to Richard Parsons. Parsons has been AOL-TW's CEO since May 2002. Pittman, though initially grumpy about this treatment, has moderated his tone. A paycheck less than Parsons' paycheck is still better than no paycheck at all.

Before the merger, AOL was the largest Internet service provider in America, and it is now being used as an online platform for Time Warner. Time Warner, with 1997 revenues of more than $13 billion, was the second largest of the international media leviathans when it was bought by AOL.

Time Warner's subsidiary HBO is the country's largest pay-TV cable network. Until the purchase in May 1998 of PolyGram by Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Warner Music was America's largest record company, with 50 labels, the biggest of which is Warner Brothers Records (WEA). Warner Music was an early promoter of "gangsta rap." Through its involvement with Interscope Records (prior to Interscope's acquisition by MCA), it helped to popularize a genre whose graphic lyrics explicitly urge blacks to commit acts of violence against whites.

AOL-TW's publishing ventures include Time-Life International Books, Time-Life Education, Time-Life Music, Time-Life AudioBooks, Book-of-the-Month Club (both adult and children's branches), Paperback Book Club, History Book Club, Money Book Club, HomeStyle Books, Crafter's Choice, One Spirit, Little Brown, Bulfinch Press, Back Bay Books, Warner Books, Warner Vision, The Mysterious Press, Warner Aspect, Warner Treasures, Oxmoor House, Leisure Arts, Sunset Books and TW Kids.

AOL-TW owns the following cable and satellite companies, among others: Cinemax, Time Warner Sports, HBO (7 US and 6 international divisions), CNN (10 divisions worldwide), Time Warner Cable, Road Runner, Time Warner Communications (primarily a telephone service), New York City Cable Group, New York 1 (a sort of CNN devoted exclusively to news in the NYC area), Time Warner Home Theater, Time Warner Security (video monitoring), Court-TV (ownership shared with Liberty Media), Comedy Central (ownership shared with Viacom) and Kablevision (Hungary).

AOL-TW owns the following TV and movie companies: Warner Brothers, WB studios, WB Television (Productions, Animation, and Network), Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Telepictures Production, Witt-Thomas Productions, Castle Rock Entertainment, Warner Home Video, WB Domestic Pay-TV, WB Domestic TV Distribution, WB International TV Distribution, The Warner Channel (separate companies for Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Australia, and Germany), and WB International Theaters in 12 countries.

The editor-in-chief of Time Warner's publishing division is Norman Pearlstine. AOL-TW owns the following magazines: Time, Time Asia, Time Atlantic, Time Canada, Time Latin America, Time South Pacific, Time Money, Time For Kids, Fortune, Life (the watered-down new version), Sports Illustrated (plus SI Women/Sport, SI International, and SI For Kids), Inside Stuff, Money, Your Company, Your Future, People, Who Weekly (Australia), People en Español, Teen People, Entertainment Weekly, EW Metro, The Ticket, In Style, Southern Living, Progressive Farmer, Southern Accents, Cooking Light, Travel Leisure, Food & Wine, Your Company, Departures, SkyGuide, Vertigo, Paradox, Milestone, Mad Magazine, Parenting, Baby Talk, Baby on the Way, This Old House, Sunset, Sunset Garden Guide, Health, Hippocrates, Costal Living, Weight Watchers, Real Simple, President (Japan), and Dancyu (Japan). AOL-TW owns 80 additional magazines (mostly hobby and leisure) in Britain.

AOL-TW holds the following music record labels: Atlantic Group, Atlantic Classics, Atlantic Jazz, Atlantic Nashville, Atlantic Theater, Big Beat, Background, Breaking, Curb, Igloo, Lava, Mesa/Bluemoon, Modern, Rhino Records, Elektra, EastWest, Asylum, Elektra/Sire, Warner Brothers Records, Warner Nashville, Warner Alliance, Warner Resound, Warner Sunset, Reprise, Reprise Nashville, American Recordings, Giant, Maverick, Revolution, Qwest, Warner Music International, WEA Telegram, East West ZTT, Coalition, CGD East West, China, Continental, DRO East West, Erato, Fazer, Finlandia, MCM, Nonesuch, and Teldec.

AOL, which, for seventeen years, has been one of the internet giants, is rapidly falling completely apart.  In the last fiscal year, AOL has lost over 3 million subscribers, many top executives, including Michael Barrett, the head of ad sales; James Riesenbach, who ran search, and David Gang, who was in charge of software development, and has been successfully sued by a number of individuals and states, among them New York which got a multi-million judgment.  Flood of complaints by subscribers that AOL refused to cancel them, even more complaints that AOL double billed them as subscribers or falsely charged them with purchasing items from them that they had not and, in all cases, refusing any credit card refunds. Disclosures that AOL voluntarily allowed DHS and FBI agents free and unfettered access to their Dulles, Virginia, headquarters to snoop into the email messages of whatever subscriber they wished has not improved their image.

AOL is now planning to stop internet access service, stop the on-going price reductions for old customers and lay off thousands of workers. Its current aim is to develop their so-called web based services and to institute an internet blog program that calls for free service to anyone and interaction with the public.

In the past, AOL has had an aggressive policy of squeezing as much money out of their subscribers without any further capital investment but this has proven to be a growing disaster.

Wall Street market analysts believe strongly that this desperate plan could well cut  AOL’s revenue from domestic subscriptions (both dial-up and high speed) by 52 percent, or $2.1 billion at an annual rate. And AOL's operating profit could fall by $251 million, 14 percent of her estimate for this year.

Time Warner, AOL’s parent company, has had badly performing stock and its shares closed at $16.84 per share on July 7, 2006, down more than 12% from a year’s high.

AOL continues to lose advertising market share as Yahoo and Google’s share grew far faster, and

AOL's well-publicized initiatives have failed, such as a new version of its AOL Instant Messenger software that is far too slow and cumbersome,and its  $25.90-a-month high-speed Internet access service, which has not proven to be economically viable , as well as the free AOL.com site.

While blogs are growing in volume, they rarely generate advertising revenue and fads like blogs that rise so swiftly, always topple when they reach a saturation point.

Disney. The second-largest media conglomerate today, with 1997 revenues of $23 billion, is the Walt Disney Company. Its chairman and CEO, Michael Eisner, was recently deposed by his board of directors.. The Disney empire, headed by a man described by one media analyst as "a control freak," includes several television production companies (Walt Disney Television, Touchstone Television, Buena Vista Television) and cable networks with more than 100 million subscribers altogether. The TV stations under Disney control include: WLS (Chicago), WJRT (Flint), KFSN (Fresno), KTRK (Houston), KABC (Los Angeles), WABC (New York City), WPVI (Philadelphia), WTVD (Raleigh), KGO (San Francisco) and WTVG (Toledo).

Disney also has a major presence in radio, owning WKHX, WYAY and WDWD in Atlanta; WMVP, WLS, and WXCD in Chicago; WBAP and KSCS in Dallas; WDRQ, WJR and WPLT in Detroit; KLOS and KTZN in Los Angeles; KQRS, KXXR, KDIZ, KZNR, and KZNT in St. Paul; WPLJ in New York City; KSFO in San Francisco; WMAL, WJZW, and WRQX in Washington; and ESPN Radio.

As for feature films, the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, under Walt Disney Studios, headed by Joseph E. Roth , includes Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, and Caravan Pictures. Roth founded Caravan Pictures in January 1993, and it is now headed by Roger Birnbaum. Disney also owned, until recently, Miramax Films, run by the Weinstein brothers, Bob and Harvey, who have produced such movies as The Crying Game, Priest, and Kids.

When the Disney Company was run by the Disney family, prior to its takeover by Eisner in 1984, it epitomized wholesome, family entertainment. While it still holds the rights to Snow White, the company under Eisner has expanded into the production of a great deal of so-called "adult" material.

In August 1995, Eisner acquired Capital Cities/ABC, Inc., which owns the ABC Television Network, which in turn owns ten TV stations outright in such big markets as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Houston. In addition, it has 225 affiliated stations in the United States and is part owner of several European TV companies.

ABC's cable subsidiary, ESPN, is headed by president and CEO Steven Bornstein,. The corporation also has a controlling share of Lifetime Television and A & E Television Networks cable companies, with 67 million subscribers each. ABC Radio Network owns 26 AM and FM stations, again in major cities such as New York, Washington, and Los Angeles, and has over 3,400 affiliates.

Although primarily a telecommunications company, Capital Cities/ABC earned over $1 billion in publishing in 1997. Besides these publishing concerns, Disney owns Walt Disney Company Book Publishing, Hyperion Books, and Miramax Books. It also owns six daily newspapers, including the Albany Democrat and the St. Louis Daily Record.

Disney's magazine titles include Automotive Industries, Biography (partial ownership), Discover, Disney Adventures, Disney Magazine, ECN News, ESPN Magazine, Family Fun, Family PC, Institutional Investor, Jane, JCK, Kentucky Prairie Farmer, Kodin, Los Angeles, Multichannel News, Penny Power, Talk, Top Famille (France), Video Business, and Quality.

Disney operates 660 retail stores worldwide (the figure is for April 2000). And, incidentally, it is also invested in crude oil and natural gas exploitation.

On the Internet, Disney runs Buena Vista Internet Group, ABC Internet Group, ABC.com, ABCNEWS.com, Oscar.com, Mr. Showbiz, Disney Online, Disney's Daily Blast, Disney.com, Family.com, ESPN Internet Group, ESPN.sportzone.com, Soccernet.com, NFL.com, NBA.com, Infoseek (partial ownership), and Disney Interactive.

Viacom. Number three on the list, with 1997 revenues of just over $13 billion, is Viacom, Inc., headed by Sumner Redstone (born Murray Rothstein).. Viacom was formed in 1971 as a way to dodge an anti-monopoly FCC ruling that required CBS to spin off a part of its cable TV operations and syndicated programming business. This move by the government unfortunately did nothing to reduce the monopoly that remains the major problem with the industry. In 1999, after CBS had again augmented itself by buying King World Productions (a leading TV program syndicator), Viacom acquired its progenitor company, CBS, in a double mockery of the spirit of the 1971 ruling.

Viacom produces and distributes TV programs for the three largest networks, owns 13 television stations and 12 radio stations. It produces feature films through Paramount Pictures, headed by Sherry Lansing. Redstone acquired CBS following the December 1999 stockholders' votes at CBS and Viacom.

Working for Redstone as CBS's chief executive is Melvin A. Karmazin. He is the boss and biggest individual shareholder of the company that owns the CBS Television Network, 14 major-market TV stations, 160 radio stations, the Country Music Television and the Nashville Network cable channels, and a large number of outdoor advertising assets.

Viacom's publishing division includes Simon & Schuster, Scribner, The Free Press, Fireside, Archway Paperbacks and Minstrel Books, Anne Schwartz Books, MTV Books, Nickelodeon Books, Pocket Books, and Washington Square Press. It distributes videos through over 4,000 Blockbuster stores (including the Video Flicks chain in Australia). It is also involved in satellite broadcasting, theme parks, and video games.

Viacom's chief claim to fame, however, is as the world's largest provider of cable programming, through its Showtime, MTV, Nickelodeon, and other networks. Since 1989 MTV and Nickelodeon have acquired larger and larger shares of the juvenile television audience. The first quarter of 2001 was the 16th consecutive quarter in which MTV was rated as the #1 cable network for viewers between the ages of 12 and 24. Redstone, who actually owns 76 per cent of the shares of Viacom, has offered Beavis and Butthead as teen role models. MTV Networks acquired The Music Factory (TMF) from the Dutch media and marketing group Wegener in 2001. TMF distributes music to almost 10 million homes in Holland and Belgium. MTV is expanding its presence in Europe through new channels, including MTV Dance (Britain) and MTV Live (Scandinavia). MTV Italy is active through Cecchi Gori Communications. MTV pumps its rock and rap videos into 210 million homes in 71 countries.  Nickelodeon, with about 65 million subscribers, has by far the largest share of the four-to-11-year-old TV audience in America and also is expanding rapidly into Europe. As of early 2001, Nickelodeon was continuing a nine-year streak as the top cable network for children and younger teenagers.

Viacom operates two major motion picture enterprises jointly with Vivendi Universal (detailed hereafter): United Cinemas International (UCI) and United International Pictures (UIP).

Vivendi Universal. Another media mogul is Edgar Bronfman, Jr. He headed Seagram Company, Ltd., the liquor giant, until its recent merger with Vivendi. His father, Edgar Bronfman, Sr., is president of the World Jewish Congress. Seagram owned Universal Studios and Interscope Records, the foremost promoter of "gangsta rap." These companies now belong to Vivendi Universal.

Gross mismanagement on the part of the Bronfman family has wreaked havoc with their companies and they were forced to sell off many of their assets.

Bronfman became the biggest man in the record business in May 1998 when he also acquired control of PolyGram, the European record giant, by paying $10.6 billion to the Dutch electronics manufacturer Philips. With the revenue from PolyGram added to that from MCA and Universal, Bronfman became master of the fourth largest media empire, with annual revenues around $12 billion. One especially unfortunate aspect of the PolyGram acquisition was that it gave Bronfman control of the world's largest producer of classical music CDs: PolyGram owns the Deutsche Grammophon, Decca-London, and Philips record companies.

In June 2000, the Bronfman family sold Seagram to Vivendi, a French utilities company formerly led by Jean-Marie Messier. The combined company, Vivendi Universal, retains Edgar Bronfman, Jr., as the vice chairman of the new company, and he will continue to be in charge of its entertainment division. The debt Vivendi incurred by buying Universal was used to scandalize Messier, who had to resign. Jean-René Fourtou became the Chairman/CEO of Vivendi on 3 July 2002. Subsequently, to pay off its debts, Vivendi-Universal began selling assets, beginning with Seagam's alcohol business, but later selling some of its media holdings, including its Houghlin-Mifflin publishing company (educational textbooks), which had been acquired in June 2001, to a consortium formed by Thomas H. Lee Partners, Blackstone Group, Bain Capital and Apax Partners.

What about the other big media companies?

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which owns Fox Television Network, 20th Century Fox Films, and Fox 2000, is the fifth largest megamedia corporation in the country, with 1997 revenues of over $11 billion. It is the only other media company which comes even close to the top four. Under Peter Chernin, as president of 20th Century Fox, is Laura Ziskin, who formerly headed Fox 2000. Peter Roth works under Chernin as president of Fox Entertainment. News Corporation also owns the New York Post and TV Guide, and they are published under Chernin's supervision. Murdoch told Newsweek magazine (July 12, 1999) that he would probably elevate Chernin to CEO of News Corporation, rather than allow the company to fall into the hands of his own children, none of whom are younger than their late twenties. For his part, Chernin was quite candid: "I get to control movies seen all over the world. . . . What could be more fun?"

As Murdoch advances into old age, his grip on his empire has weakened and his marriage to a much younger Asian woman with children has caused his family to break into warring groups.

The best known of the smaller media companies is DreamWorks SKG.  DreamWorks was formed in 1994 amid great media hype by recording industry mogul David Geffen, former Disney Pictures chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, and film director Steven Spielberg. The company produces movies, animated films, television programs, and recorded music. Considering the cash and connections that Geffen, Katzenberg, and Spielberg have, DreamWorks may soon be in the same league as the big four.

Films produced by just the four largest motion picture companies mentioned above -- Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount (Viacom), and Universal (Seagram) -- accounted for two-thirds of the total box-office receipts for the year 1997.

The big three in television network broadcasting used to be ABC, CBS, and NBC. With the consolidation of the media empires, these three are no longer independent entities. ABC is controlled  by Leonard Goldenson; NBC first by David Sarnoff and then by his son Robert; and CBS first by William Paley and then by Laurence Tisch.

The executives at NBC recently were shuffled among the key positions. Andrew Lack, who had been chief of the network's news division, ascended to become its president and chief operations officer. Neal Shapiro, who had been producing Dateline NBC, moved into Lack's old job. Jeff Zucker, who had been producing the Today show, was promoted to NBC entertainment president (a job that apparently was created for him), and Jonathan Wald moved into Zucker's old spot after shoving aside Michael Bass, who had been filling in for Zucker with Today. Some time ago, Wald became the producer of the NBC Nightly News, taking the position from Jeff Gralnick. When Wald moved to Today, Steve Capus took over as Tom Brokaw's producer.

The Print Media

After television news, daily newspapers are the most influential information medium in America. Sixty million of them are sold (and presumably read) each day. These millions are divided among some 1483 different publications (this figure is for February 2000). One might conclude that the sheer number of different newspapers across America would provide a safeguard against minority control and distortion. Alas, such is not the case. There is less independence, less competition, and much less representation of majority interests than a casual observer would think.

In 1945, four out of five American newspapers were independently owned and published by local people with close ties to their communities. Those days, however, are gone. Most of the independent newspapers were bought out or driven out of business by the mid-1970s. Today most "local" newspapers are owned by a rather small number of large companies controlled by executives who live and work hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Today less than 20 percent of the country's 1483 papers are independently owned; the rest belong to multi-newspaper chains. Only 104 of the total number have circulations of more than 100,000. Only a handful are large enough to maintain independent reporting staffs outside their own communities; the rest must depend on these few for all of their national and international news.

The Associated Press, which sells content to newspapers, is currently under the control of, Michael Silverman, who directs the day-to-day news reporting and supervises the editorial departments. Silverman had directed the AP's national news as assistant managing editor since 1992. He was promoted to his current job in 2000. Silverman reports to Jonathan Wolman who is executive editor for the AP.

In only 47 cities in America is there more than one daily newspaper, and competition is frequently nominal even among them, as between morning and afternoon editions under the same ownership. Examples of this are the Mobile, Alabama, morning Register and afternoon Press-Register; and the Syracuse, New York, morning Post-Standard and afternoon Herald-Journal -- all owned by the Newhouse brothers through their holding company, Advance Publications.

The Newhouse media empire provides an example of  the lack of real competition among America's daily newspapers. The Newhouses own 30 daily newspapers, including several large and important ones, such as the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Newark Star-Ledger, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune; Newhouse Broadcasting, consisting of 12 television broadcasting stations and 87 cable-TV systems, including some of the country's largest cable networks; the Sunday supplement Parade, with a circulation of more than 22 million copies per week; some two dozen major magazines, including the New Yorker, Vogue, Mademoiselle, Glamour, Vanity Fair, Bride's, Gentlemen's Quarterly, Self, House & Garden, and all the other magazines of the wholly owned Conde Nast group.

This media empire was founded by the late Samuel Newhouse, an immigrant from Russia who later Americanized his last name. When he died in 1979 at the age of 84, he bequeathed media holdings worth an estimated $1.3 billion to his two sons, Samuel and Donald. With a number of further acquisitions, the net worth of Advance Publications has grown to more than $8 billion today.

The gobbling up of so many newspapers by the Newhouse family was in large degree made possible by the fact that newspapers are not supported by their subscribers, but by their advertisers. It is advertising revenue -- not the small change collected from a newspaper's readers -- that largely pays the editor's salary and yields the owner's profit.

Whenever the large advertisers in a city choose to favor one newspaper over another with their business, the favored newspaper will flourish while its competitor dies. Furthermore, even those newspapers still under relatively independent  ownership and management are so thoroughly dependent upon  advertising revenue that their editorial and news reporting policies are largely constrained by the needs of the advertising agencies likes and dislikes. It holds true in the newspaper business as elsewhere that he who pays the piper calls the tune.

Three Controlling Newspapers

The suppression of competition and the establishment of local monopolies on the dissemination of news and opinion have characterized the rise of a cooperative and centralized  control over America's newspapers. The resulting control over American public opinion could hardly be better illustrated than by the examples of the nation's three most prestigious and influential newspapers: the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. These three, dominating America's financial and political capitals, are the newspapers that set the trends and the guidelines for nearly all the others. They are the ones that decide what is news and what isn't, at the national and international levels. They originate the news; the others merely copy it

The New York Times, with a September 1999 circulation of 1,086,000, is the unofficial social, fashion, entertainment, political, and cultural guide of the nation. It tells America's "smart set" which books to buy and which films to see; which opinions are in style at the moment; which politicians, educators, spiritual leaders, artists, and businessmen are the real comers. And for a few decades in the 19th century it was a genuinely American newspaper.

The New York Times was founded in 1851 by Henry J. Raymond and George Jones. After their deaths, it was purchased in 1896 from Jones's estate by a wealthy  publisher, Adolph Ochs. His great-great-grandson, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., is the paper's current publisher and the chairman of the New York Times Co.

The Sulzberger family also owns, through the New York Times Co., 33 other newspapers, including the Boston Globe, purchased in June 1993 for $1.1 billion; twelve magazines, including McCall's and Family Circle with circulations of more than 5 million each; seven radio and TV broadcasting stations; a cable-TV system; and three book publishing companies. The New York Times News Service transmits news stories, features, and photographs from the New York Times by wire to 506 other newspapers, news agencies, and magazines.

Of similar national importance is the Washington Post, which, by establishing its "leaks" throughout government agencies in Washington, has an inside track on news involving the Federal government.

The Washington Post was established in 1877 by Stilson Hutchins, purchased from him in 1905 by John R. McLean, and later inherited by Edward B. McLean. In June 1933, however, at the height of the Great Depression, the newspaper was forced into bankruptcy. It was purchased at a bankruptcy auction by Eugene Meyer, a financier and former partner of the infamous Bernard Baruch, industry czar in America during the First World War. The Washington Post was run by Katherine Meyer Graham, Eugene Meyer's daughter, until her death in 2001. She was the principal stockholder and the board chairman of the Washington Post Co. and appointed her son, Donald Graham, publisher of the paper in 1979. Donald became Washington Post Company CEO in 1991 and its board chairman in 1993.

The newspaper has a daily circulation of 763,000, and its Sunday edition sells 1.1 million copies.

The Washington Post Co. has a number of other media holdings in newspapers (the Gazette Newspapers, including 11 military publications); in television (WDIV in Detroit, KPRC in Houston, WPLG in Miami, WKMG in Orlando, KSAT in San Antonio, WJXT in Jacksonville); and in magazines, most notably the nation's number-two weekly newsmagazine, Newsweek. The Washington Post Company's various television ventures reach a total of about 7 million homes, and its cable TV service, Cable One, has 635,000 subscribers.

In a joint venture with the New York Times, the Post publishes the International Herald Tribune, the most widely distributed English-language daily in the world.

The Wall Street Journal, which sells 1.8 million copies each weekday, is the nation's largest-circulation daily newspaper. It is owned by Dow Jones & Company, Inc., a New York corporation that also publishes 24 other daily newspapers and the weekly financial tabloid Barron's, among other things. The chairman and CEO of Dow Jones is Peter R. Kann. Kann also holds the posts of chairman and publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

Most of New York's other major newspapers are in no better hands than the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. In January 1993 the New York Daily News was bought from the estate of the late media mogul Robert Maxwell (born Ludvik Hoch) by  real-estate developer Mortimer B. Zuckerman. The Village Voice is the personal property of Leonard Stern, the billionaire owner of the Hartz Mountain pet supply firm. And, as mentioned above, the New York Post is owned by News Corporation under  Peter Chernin.

News Magazines

The story is pretty much the same for other media as it is for television, radio, films, music, and newspapers. Consider, for example, newsmagazines. There are only three of any importance published in the United States: Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report.

Time, with a weekly circulation of 4.1 million, is published by a subsidiary of Time Warner Communications, the new media conglomerate formed by the 1989 merger of Time, Inc., with Warner Communications. Newsweek, as mentioned above, is published by the Washington Post Company, under Donald Graham. Its weekly circulation is 3.1 million.

U.S. News & World Report, with a weekly circulation of 2.2 million, is owned and published by the aforementioned Mortimer B. Zuckerman, who also has taken the position of editor-in-chief of the magazine for himself. Zuckerman also owns the Atlantic Monthly and New York's tabloid newspaper, the Daily News, which is the sixth-largest paper in the country.