JASON McQUINN

Down the Memory Hole

Which is more likely in mainstream U.S. media during a heavily-covered Israeli-Palestinian summit at Camp David set up to establish a long-elusive "peace in the Middle East"? Learning the devastating history of Israeli treatment of the Palestinians or learning the details of every supersonic Concorde flight incident over the last 30 years? Any reader of the U.S. press or viewer of U.S. television can tell you that ferreting out the safety history of the airliner of the super-rich, the Concorde, was an infinitely higher priority for the North American media than revealing even the most elementary facts about the lengths the state of Israel has gone to expel, dispossess, exploit and dominate the Palestinian people.

Challenging Cover-Ups

Two recent US government reports of internal investigations reveal once again how contemptuously the political bureaucracy in Washington views the general populace. And, not surprisingly, the corporate press has largely played the role of security-state watchdog in its news accounts of these investigations.

The End of the Welfare State?

While I've never been a direct supporter of the welfare system, it's hard to ignore the meaning of its ongoing process of bipartisan "reform'' for those who depend upon Aid to Families with Dependent Children or food stamps to survive at their current subsidized levels of consumption. When the money starts slowing down the logical result will be steadily increasing amounts of hunger, disease and desperation, and that's not counting the massive increases in crime, child abuse and despair that will surely follow.