Israel Classroom Spies - Media terror - global warming

Deputy Minister of Information & Communication (Minty), Mauricio Rodriguez has been the target of serious opposition flak for quoting Noam Chomsky. Speaking on a State channel VTV talk show, the Minister make a simple quote from Chomsky that in the USA any media owner involved in a coup d'etat against the US government would be taken to trial and executed. In the case of Europe, Chomsky states, they would have been tried and sent to prison for life. Continuing his analysis, Chomsky says one cannot imagine the New York Times or CBS channel supporting a military coup that defeated the US government, even for one day. Chomsky made the comments in reference to the role of Venezuela's media during the April 11, 2002 coup. After Minister Rodriguez completed the interview, opposition 24-hour news channel, Globovision geared into action twisting the story into convenient black bag tactics. Globovision senior TV presenter, Leopoldo Castillo suggested publicly that Rodriguez had said that opposition media owners and journalists should be executed and that since he's a top official, he must be following President Chavez' orders. Las Ultimas Noticias journalist, Blanca Gonzalez has added more fuel to the claim by repeating the spin that media bosses and journalists should be executed as though they were Rodriguez' own words and not those of Noel Chomsky. Government channels have been showing shots of the actual interview as evidence of devilment and manipulation by Globovision spin doctors, hell bent on making the world believe that media owners are in danger of their lives.

President Chavez has signed around 13 agreements with Argentina during a weekend visit to that country. Chavez says both countries were able to open an alternative road to that of the neoliberal model that almost ruined both countries. The meeting is part of a three-monthly agreement to come together to review important agreements and integration measures. Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez has given her full support to Venezuela's entry into the Southern Cone Economic Zone (Mercosur). Chavez insists on the need to create a new "international financial architecture" and not to wait for the North to make the changes, suggesting the importance of activating as soon as possible the Bank of the South and the South American financial fund made up of 10% of each country's international reserves to help countries with difficulties. Chavez has proposed a meeting of Latin American Presidents in Caracas on June 24 to launch the Bank of the South calling on those attending to come with check-books.

www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=79941

Israel lobby descends on UC- Santa Barbara
by CDAF ( CDAF.UCSB [at] gmail.com )
Monday May 18th, 2009 11:06 AM

Investigation of sociology professor is frontline in nationwide campaign to silence criticism against Israel on college campuses.

May 18, 2009

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- Noam Chomsky is no newcomer to harassment by pro-Israel organizations.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) once compiled a 150-page dossier on the famous author and linguistics professor, apparently to find information it could use against him, Chomsky said in an interview in late April.

An ADL insider sent Chomsky the file, which included conversations, correspondence and other materials. Chomsky said it read like an FBI file.

.It.s hard to nail this stuff down in a court of law, but it.s clear they essentially have spies in classrooms who take notes and send them to the ADL and other organizations,. Chomsky said. .The groups then compile dossiers they can use to condemn, attack or remove faculty members.
They.re like J. Edgar Hoover.s files. It.s kind of gutter stuff..

Such covert tactics have yet to emerge publicly at the University of California at Santa Barbara. But the effort to discredit and censor criticism of Israeli policies has taken a potentially ominous turn.

The ADL and the Israel advocacy group .Stand With Us. are leading an aggressive, direct campaign to pressure UCSB administrators and faculty to investigate and discipline sociology professor William I. Robinson for having introduced materials critical of Israel in a course on global affairs.

The materials included a photo essay that Robinson forwarded to students from the Internet juxtaposing images of Israeli abuse against Palestinians with Nazi abuses during the holocaust. Two students took offense at the images and withdrew from the course, prompting the ADL to pressure the university to pursue charges of .anti-Semitism. against Robinson.

The pressure campaign includes face-to-face meetings with university officials and faculty, use of Internet-based media to influence public opinion, and a formidable letter-writing effort that relies particularly on UCSB donors, some of whom have threatened to withdraw their support for the university.

Some meetings -- such as an hour-long encounter between ADL National Director Abraham Foxman and UCSB officials and faculty -- may have seriously violated university policies. The Foxman meeting generated concern that pressure by the Israel lobby may have influenced the Academic Senate in its decision to open a formal investigation against Robinson.

Other meetings are only now coming to light.

Aaron Ettenberg, a UCSB psychology professor and member of the Academic Senate.s Charges Advisory Committee, has confirmed that he met with Rabbi Arthur Gross-Schaefer prior to the committee.s recommendation to investigate Robinson.

Gross-Schaefer is interim director of the local chapter of Hillel, an organization that works with Jewish communities on college campuses. Hillel met with the two students who withdrew from Robinson.s class before those students filed their grievances against Robinson.

Both Gross-Schaefer and Ettenberg told Anthony Fenton -- a reporter based in Vancouver who writes for the .Asia Times Online. and .The Dominion. of Canada -- that they had met and discussed the Robinson case.

.I really didn.t discuss that with him very much,. Gross-Schaefer told Fenton in a telephone interview. .We see each other socially, it wasn.t any meeting or anything in particular.It wasn.t.set up to discuss that at all actually..

Ettenberg told Fenton he is .just friends. with Gross Schaefer.

.I can.t say anything at this point,. he said. .I didn.t have a meeting with him formally to discuss any of these kinds of things..

Whether formal or not, that they met and discussed the Robinson case may constitute a serious breach of Academic Senate procedures for dealing with student complaints.

In a public statement on May 4, Robert Potter -- professor emeritus of the Department of Theater and Dance and former chair of the Academic Senate Committee on Privilege and Tenure -- expressed deep concern about the .campaign of accusations. against Robinson.

.This orchestrated attempt by outside agencies to pressure the university into disciplining a faculty member over the content of a course is an entirely improper attack on academic freedom,. Potter said. .The campus community should express concern over this very troubling sequence of events..

Members of the California Scholars for Academic Freedom, which includes nearly 140 academics at 20 institutions, say the campaign at UCSB reflects a major escalation by the Israel lobby to silence criticism at universities in California and elsewhere.

Mark Levine, a Jewish professor of Middle Eastern Studies at UC-Irvine, said pro-Israel groups have, in effect, created a .large machine. to attack Israel critics on college campuses.

.That.s why this case is so important,. Levine said. .These are powerful, organized groups in the Jewish community who use fear and intimidation to try to make sure Israel doesn.t get criticized. They go after anyone, even more so when the critics are Jews, because they fear that if we can criticize them, then everyone can..

Sondra Hale, a UCLA professor and founder and coordinator of the California Scholars, said the Robinson case stands out because the Israel lobby.s pressure tactics have been so public.

.A lot of incidents at other campuses have been more subtle types of pressure, but this case is very straightforward,. Hale said. .The evidence is right there. It.s very clear cut..

For detailed information about the Robinson case, visit the Committee to Defend Academic Freedom Web site at http://www.sb4af.wordpress.com.

For media inquiries, call Alba Peña-Leon at (626) 665-9212

Last year, NASA climatologist Jim Hansen explained that atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) needed to be reduced from 385 parts per million (ppm) "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted." Scientists have identified 350 ppm as the safe upper limit of CO2 in the earth's atmosphere, a number Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky, Terry Tempest Williams and others have seized on in their support for the environmental activist organization

www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/05/18/18595697.php

http://www.350.org/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9POOGcQf0Yo

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