Jobs Where an Honest Day’s Work Earns You Poverty

The current minimum wage is a maximum shame on America.

By Lynn Parramore

Why should people in the richest country on Earth toil long hours for wages that would make Charles Dickens recoil in horror? A lot of Americans have been wondering the same thing.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2012, 1.57 million Americans earned the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Millions more were just above that figure, and plenty actually ended up below it. Over 60 percent of the minimum wage earners in 2012 were in retail, or in leisure and hospitality, which includes hotels and restaurants. If we raise the minimum wage, an estimated28 million will get a direct or indirect benefit, because when the wage goes up bosses often raise the wages of workers hovering right above the new minimum. So one in five American workers will take more money home. It’s not a silver bullet — employers will still try to avoid requirements by hiring contract workers and other tactics, and some workers will still end up exempt. But it’s a start.

As the fight for a raise in the minimum wage heats up, here’s a look at some of the hard-working people who don’t deserve poverty as the reward of an honest day’s work.

1. Airport workers: Union busting and shrinking public investment have taken their toll on America’s airport employees. LaGuardia Airport was built as a New Deal WPA project aimed at restoring hope and dignity to American workers (and boosting the economy in the process). But today, thousands of airport workers make a miserable $8 an hour as cabin cleaners. They work at or near the minimum wage with zero health benefits, as do many other cleaners, baggage handlers and other airport workers across the country.

2. Big-box store employees: Millions toil in the aisles of Walmart, Target, Home Depot, and other giant retailers for wages set at or near minimum wage. When you factor in rampant wage theft and other predatory practices, many make even less. That’s why in recent years, many cities such as Washington DC have taken action to demand that they raise wages while the federal government gets its act together. Home Depot, whose founder, Ken Langone, is among the most reactionary capitalists in America, loses no opportunity to voice his opposition to paying workers a living wage. His net worth is $2.1 billion. Does that make him a maker or a taker?

3. Casino workers: Pity the poor suckers losing money at the blackjack table, but pity the dealer, too. Many casino jobs, like dealers and drink servers, are either minimum wage or just a notch above, and the people doing them often have to put up with drunk, grabby customers, long hours on their feet and mushroom clouds of smoke. Often these employees depend on tips to support their livelihoods, but those working at the lower-end facilities have a hard time making ends meet even with tipping customers. In some states, like casino-packed Louisiana, these tipped workers can be paid as low as $2.13 per hour. That’s hardly a winning number.

4. Fast-food workers: You’re eating, but the person ringing up your order may be working for near-starvation wages. The median income of a non-managerial fast-food worker is a mere $8.94 an hour. The average age is 28, a far cry from the burger-flipping teen that living wage opponents pretend is the norm. About a quarter of these workers have children to support. More than half are female. The public cost of workers who can’t afford healthcare, or even food to feed their families, is enormous: nearly $7 billion a year.

5. Grandma’s aide: Home health aides, personal care aides and certified nursing assistants form a large group of minimum wage workers, and often they don’t receive overtime. Their industry is booming and they are saddled with increasing responsibilities, but they are still among the lowest-paid workers in the service industry. According to the National Domestic Workers Alliance, nearly one out of four home health aides earn below minimum wage.

6. Fishing industry workers: Jobs aboard fishing vessels, which include operating equipment, pulling in lines and preserving the catch, are among the most dangerous in America. Minimum wage laws do not apply to crew member jobs in the industry. Often wages are based on a share of harvest or a day rate. When you factor in the cost of equipment and gear the worker is expected to purchase, wages often do not even reach minimum wage. Abuses are common: some workers are little more than indentured servants, subjected to seven-day-a-week laboring and virtually kept prisoner on their vessels.

7. Truckers: Truck drivers are paid by the mile in an outdated type of payment known as piecework. Because the driver doesn’t get paid unless the wheels are moving, he or she often doesn’t receive payment for such activities as refueling or unloading. Plus, the driver incurs expenses on the road that must be paid for out-of-pocket, such as eating meals out. Sometimes this leads to a pay scale that is below the minimum wage.

8. Construction and extraction workers: Day laborers and helpers are often the lowest paid workers on construction and extraction sites. They often work with hazardous material and perform dangerous tasks that involve being around things like scaffolds and explosives. Extreme temperatures are common. The median hourly wage for day laborers is $10. But the work is unstable and insecure, making it difficult for workers to struggle above the poverty level. Few have benefits — in many states, they are denied worker’s compensation because they are considered “casual” labor. The medical bills they incur from injury are anything but casual.

9. Nail salon workers: The beauty industry has an ugly side. The number of manicurists and pedicurists in the U.S. has tripled over the last two decades, and workers are often paid minimum wage, but some are not paid overtime or even allowed lunch breaks. They are also exposed to chemicals that may not have been tested for safety. The median hourly wage for manicurists and pedicurists was $9.24 in May 2012 (not including tips).

10. Farm workers: Many farm workers are paid not by the hour, but on the amount of work they do in piecework fashion, like buckets of berries. These workers who perform backbreaking tasks are hard-pressed to earn enough to make minimum wage. Employers are adept at skirting minimum wage laws and wage theft is a common problem.

11. Housekeepers and cleaners: They make the beds, but they often don’t make enough to live on. The case of an Indian diplomat accused of underpaying and abusing her housekeeper shined a spotlight on workers who are frequently mistreated. Housekeepers in the U.S. are supposed to receive the minimum wage. But live-in housekeepers (and other domestic workers) often can’t expect even overtime pay or basic labor protections. Some hotel maids earn tips (sporadically and often paltry), but maids in motels and bargain hotels often don’t receive any tips at all. In 2011, 10 percent of all housekeepers and maids who earned the lowest wages reported earnings of $7.81 per hour or less. Half made between $8.44 and $11.39 per hour.

Lynn Parramore is an AlterNet senior editor, cofounder of Recessionwire, founding editor of New Deal 2.0, and author of “Reading the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture.”

America’s Surveillance State

This six part documentary series, America’s Surveillance State, dissects the United States’ present surveillance condition. The thesis statement of the series is that privacy as we understand it is an antiquated fantasy – that we need to adjust our way of living to factor in that someone, somewhere is very likely watching our every move for one reason or another. The US Government is often attributed with being the most usual subject for leading the charge on invading its citizen’s privacy, but the film quickly points out that there is every bit as likely a chance that a corporate entity is snooping around in your digital sandbox with the intent of turning a profit on the knowledge they seek to amass.

That stated, the first installment spends a great deal of time looking at the government’s efforts. Notorious whistleblower Edward Snowden is often mentioned for having done so much to bring this issue into the public eye. A government programmer, Brad Sumrall, who worked extensively in a similar position to Snowden, is interviewed about his experience sifting through mountains of data whether it was relevant to national security or not. That is the chief debate about these agencies’ objectives – whether or not there is genuine validity in their reasoning for examining and compiling data from any source they see fit, including the average citizen. The surface justification is safety, but critics insist that is simply not the case.

Since the historic events of 9/11 realigned the US approach to homeland security, a $60 billion a year industry has come to be. 70% of that, around $42 billion annually, goes to private contractors. That spells an awful lot of private, fiscally-driven interests in maintaining this costly approach to intelligence gathering and analysis, which in turn means there is $42 billion dollars of corporate motivation to be listening in on phone calls and reading emails regardless of whether there is any actual safety-oriented purpose for doing so.

The series maintains this trajectory throughout, scrutinizing the National Security Agency (NSA) and similar entities and programs in hopes of at least posing the question of whether US citizens are better or worse off in having a watchful eye on them at all times.

Watch the full documentary now (playlist)

 

As conditions worsen in Gaza, residents ask: ‘Where have all the activists gone?’

Pam Bailey

Palestinians take cover from rain inside a makeshift shelter near the ruins of their houses east of Gaza City, October 19, 2014. (Photo: Reuters)

I have always thought that those who resort to violence or those who go as far as exploding themselves are sick and inhuman. But now I know how it feels to have nothing to lose but your worthless life. I know how it feels to be so desperate that you literally cry from disappointment when you actually wake up in the morning, and to spend the night before asking God for a last favor … to take your life because you’re just too cowardly to take it yourself. #‎Gaza‬ is no longer a city or a territory. It is a disease. It is an unbearable pain, an un-treatable wound. Gaza is the opposite of life, but at the same time far beyond death.

This is the Facebook post to which I woke up yesterday, written by Maisam Morr, one of the few Gazans who typically serve as my “rocks” – resilient spirits who never give up, and keep my hope alive that we can beat back the grinding, dehumanizing force that is the Israeli occupation. She is the one who dreamed up the Rubble Bucket Challenge (the Palestinian response to the ALS ice bucket), and who – in the midst of the unremitting “gray” of the destruction that is Gaza – asked for a pink laptop for her birthday. And yet now, she was succumbing.

The breaking point for Maisam was the announcement Sunday that Israel had closed its two crossings into Gaza for all but the most critical humanitarian aid, in response to the firing of a single rocket fired.  No injuries or property damage resulted, and no groups in Gaza claimed responsibility or credit. According to Maisam, “almost all Gazans swear that it is some sort of a trick (a planned trap) to open another front with Israel.” F16s are now flying low over Gaza again, as if on cue.

According to news reports, Israel had not decided how long the crossing would be closed. “It will depend on the security situation.” There’s that code phrase…”security situation” – a cover for just about any action Israel chooses to take, and which no one in the international community (in the West at least) is courageous enough to challenge. (Update: the crossings re-opened today, and Palestinian officials said 330 truckloads of goods, as well as one of cement, would be allowed in. Seriously? ONE truckload of cement? In a way, I think that’s how Israel uses closures – as a device to make Gazans happy for crumbs when they come.)

Meanwhile, in the wake of the Oct. 24 attack on an army checkpoint in the northern Sinai that killed 31 soldiers, Egypt has emulated Israel. It declared a three-month lockdown in the area, including a dawn-to-dusk curfew, and indefinitely closed the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only non-Israeli-controlled bridge to the outside world. Meanwhile, Egypt is demolishing an estimated 800 homes housing 10,000 residents to set up its own buffer zone along the border with Gaza (546 yards wide, 8 miles long). As with the Israeli rocket, no group claimed responsibility, yet the Egyptian government has been quick to implicate Hamas and other Gaza-based “terror groups.” In addition to slamming its doors shut to thousands of Palestinians seeking medical treatment or opportunities to study abroad, the Egyptian government canceled indefinitely the indirect talks between Israelis and Hamas on a long-term truce.

“My dearest Egypt,” wrote Maisam on her blog. “You treat me like an infectious disease. You see me as a threat to your national security while all I ever wanted is to protect my life, my dignity and my very being. Forgive me for being so selfish and so blind for I simply cannot understand how come my call for freedom collides with your mighty security. Only few years ago, I thought we fought a shared enemy but it looks like that I AM the enemy.”

Abu Marzouk, deputy chairman of Hamas’ political bureau and a member of the Palestinian reconciliation delegation, describes the closures as collective punishment, in contradiction of all understandings, agreements and international law, and adds that it will be impossible to sit idly by. And can you blame him? Since the ceasefire was announced on Aug. 26, two Palestinian rockets were shot by unknown parties. Israel, however, has violated it 19 times by shooting at fishermen and farmers, and opened the crossings on an extremely limited basis – far less than implied by the spirit of the ceasefire terms. (It doesn’t help that Israel wants the “civilian nature” of every project to beverified by Israeli and U.N. officials.) See my blog post for a complete listing of ceasefire violations and an overall status report.

Yet, Nicole Ganz, spokeswoman for the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, says the Palestinian Authority has yet to file a complaint. And the international activist community? It sometimes seems it takes a war to mobilize us in mass numbers as well – which explains why we’re all focused on Syria and Iraq, with barely a mention or attempt to push back on the daily deteriorations in Gaza and the West Bank.

“During the war, I was getting messages all the time from foreigners who wanted to help, who promised to help me get out for a bit after it was over,” recalls Maisam. “But now..nothing. Even during the war, I never felt like I wanted to die. This is new to me. I guess we’ll just keep breathing until we stop.”

Cyberbullying and rise in self-harm highlighted by MPs voicing concern over violent video games and sexting

Cyberbullying and websites advocating anorexia and self-harm are posing a danger to the mental wellbeing of children and young people, MPs found. Photograph: Alamy

Denis Campbell, health correspondent

Violent video games, the sharing of indecent images on mobile phones, and other types of digital communications, are harming young people’s mental health, MPs warned on Wednesday, amid evidence of big increases in self-harm and serious psychological problems among the under-18s.

Cyberbullying and websites advocating anorexia and self-harm are also posing a danger to the mental wellbeing of children and young people, the Commons health select committee says in its report.

Sarah Wollaston, chair of the committee, who was a GP for 24 years before becoming a Tory MP in 2010, said: “In the past if you were being bullied it might just be in the classroom. Now it follows [you] way beyond the walk home from school. It is there all the time. Voluntary bodies have not suggested stopping young people using the internet. But for some young people it’s clearly a new source of stress.”

However, the MPs said they had found no evidence that the emerging digital culture was behind the worrying rise, of up to 25% to 30% a year, in numbers of children and young people seeking treatment for mental health problems.

The cross-party group acknowledges that forms of online and social communication are now central to the lives of under-18s, but says that a government inquiry into the effects is needed because of the potential for harm.

“For today’s children and young people, digital culture and social media are an integral part of life … this has the potential to significantly increase stress and to amplify the effects of bullying,” the committee’s report says.

Some young people experience “bullying, harassment and threats of violence” when online, the MPs say. While they did not look into internet regulation in depth during their six-month inquiry, they concluded: “In our view sufficient concern has been raised to warrant a more detailed consideration of the impact of the internet on children’s and young people’s mental health, and in particular the use of social media and impact of pro-anorexia, self-harm and other inappropriate websites.”

It calls on the Department of Health and NHS England’s joint taskforce, now investigating, alongside bodies such as the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, the mental health of under-18s, to assess the impact of social media.

The MPs appreciate the move for e-safety to be taught at all four education key-stages in England. But they also want the Department for Education, as part of a review of mental health education in schools, to “ensure that links between online safety, cyberbullying, and maintaining and protecting emotional wellbeing and mental health are fully articulated”.

Wollaston voiced concern that “sexting” (sharing indecent photographs) could be traumatic for vulnerable young women persuaded to pose for intimate pictures then finding the shots shared widely. Some would end up being harassed, she said. Sexting had “become normalised in some school environments”, she said. “We need much better education about the dangers of sexting.” She also expressed unease about the impact of violent video games played by young people. Parents, she said, should do more to check what their offspring were doing online in their free time and talk to them because “if they are spending two hours a night doing that, is that harming their child?”

Lucie Russell, director of campaigns and media at the charity Young Minds, said: “The 24/7 online world has the potential to massively increase young people’s stress levels and multiplies the opportunities for them to connect with others in similar distress. Websites like Tumblr, where there has been recent media focus on self-harm blogs, must do all they can to limit triggering content and that which encourages self-harming behaviour.”

Russell backed the committee’s view that the internet could also be “a valuable source of support for children and young people with mental health problems”. But, she added that “many professionals feel completely out of touch with, even intimidated by, social media and the net”.

The report paints a grim picture of the growing number of under-18s needing care, often struggling to access it, or becoming an inpatient hundreds of miles from home, as children’s and adolescents’ mental health services tried to cope with budget cuts, lack of staff and too few beds.

“Major problems” in accessing services ends with “children and young people’s safety being compromised while they wait for a bed to become available”, say the MPs.

Services are under such pressure that in some parts of England children only get seen by a psychiatrist if they have already tried to take their own lives at least once.

Despite growing need, criteria for being referred for NHS treatment have been tightened in most of England, the MPs say.

Liz Myers, a consultant psychiatrist with the Cornwall Partnership NHS foundation trust, told the inquiry that its services for the young were receiving 4,000 referrals a year, though were only commissioned by the NHS to do 2,000.

“This has meant that we are necessarily having to prioritise those who have the most urgent and pressing need, and we have no capacity for earlier intervention and very little capacity for seeing those perhaps with the less life-threatening or urgent risky presentations.

“There are increasing waits. It is not okay. We do not want that for our children and young people, but we have to just keep prioritising.”

Hilary Cass, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said failure to tackle emerging problems with young people’s mental health meant the issue was now “a hidden epidemic”.

Self-harm sites and cyberbullying: the threat to children from web’s dark side

Suicides linked to websites add to concerns as experts warn NHS is ill-equipped to deal with fallout from ‘toxic digital world’

• Alexandra Topping

There is a huge gap between what adults see of the online world and their children’s experience. Photograph: Ossi Lehtonen/Rex

“Some of the images do scare me, especially if it’s my friends. Once my friend cut lines down the side of his face as a ‘Chelsea Smile’, he put it online and it was the worst thing I had ever seen. He’s my friend, I don’t want to see him that upset. He got so much hate for it and ended up going into hibernation, nobody heard from him for over a week and we honestly thought he had killed himself.”

Frankie* is 15 and lives in the Midlands. For the past year or so she has updated her Tumblr blog most days. On other social networks she uses her real name, but on Tumblr – a blogging platform – she shares her darkest thoughts about depression, anxiety and self-harm anonymously. “The other day I put up a self-harm picture,” she says. “I was alone and in a dark place. […] Of course, nobody would help, but posting it boosted my confidence a little; finding it buried in amongst all the other self-harm posts reminded me I’m not alone.”

Fears about self-harm sites have been growing since the suicides of two teenagers who, it emerged, were obsessed with self-harm and depression blogs, with mental health campaigners and experts warning that the UK’s teens are at risk of becoming a lost generation if parents and adults cannot reach out to them across the digital divide.

Tallulah Wilson, a 15-year-old who killed herself in 2012, was caught up in a “toxic digital world”, according to her mother, while the parents ofSasha Steadman, a 16-year-old who died from a suspected drug overdose in January after looking at self-harm sites, said her “impressionable mind” had been filled “with their damning gospel of darkness”.

For the uninitiated, self-harm blogs present a surreal world of fantasy and pain. Countless sites dedicated to self-harm and depression are filled with images of bleeding wounds juxtaposed with pixelated gifs, flickering eerily with snippets of Hollywood angst. Helen, who is now 18, visited them regularly, before stopping to help herself move on from self-harming. “You have people asking you how to cut yourself deep enough because their therapist said it wasn’t bad enough,” she says. “I have had people tell me to kill myself. I think the most traumatic is when you find someone’s suicide note online and there is no way to actually get in contact with the person.”

Isolated and lonely, she used the blogs because they gave her a sense of belonging. “You want to find people who are similar to you. That is what humans do,” she says. “It starts off as trying to help, but then it becomes competitive and dangerous. You get sucked into this world of who can cut the deepest/be the skinniest and avoid notice by the outside world. You end up spending hours a day searching these sites for reassurance, but it just makes it harder.”

Keeping children safe online is the “child protection challenge of this generation”, according to Peter Wanless, head of the NSPCC. ChildLine, part of the organisation, registered an 87% rise in calls about cyberbullying last year, a 41% increase in calls about self-harm, and a 33% increase in calls about suicide, with the biggest increase among 12- to 15-year-olds.

While the internet provides unprecedented opportunities for young people to communicate and learn, it can be a dangerous place for vulnerable teenagers, says Sue Minto, the head of ChildLine. “Children are communicating in a way we have never seen before – all the time and instantly,” she says. “Personally, I think this kind of relentless exposure is the biggest challenge we have ever faced.”

Minto notes that while peer pressure and bullying have been around for a long time, the ability to be contacted at all times is new. The cloak of anonymity can lead children to make comments they would shy away from in “real” life, she says. “The pressure on children is immense and very worrying – there is no break for these young people, it is quite relentless. Children who are being bullied tell us there is no point in turning off their phone, because the messages will just be there waiting for them.”

A recent survey carried out by youth charities ChildLine, Selfharm.co.uk,YouthNet and YoungMinds revealed that 61% of the 4,000 young people who responded said they self harmed because they felt alone, while 25% cited bullying. Almost 40% said they had never spoken to anyone in the “real world” about it.

Rachel Welch, director of Selfharm.co.uk, which supports young people affected by self-harm, says there is a huge gap between what adults see of the online world and their children’s experience. “So many young people are drifting into a world where they are completely disconnected,” she says.

But how dangerous are self-harm sites? Do they simply show teenage angst and creative expression, or highlight a worrying deterioration of teenage mental health?

Mary Hassell, the coroner presiding over the inquest of Tallulah Wilson, was concerned enough to write to Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, to warn him of a risk of future deaths without a greater understanding of children’s online worlds. Although Tallulah was treated by healthcare professionals, they didn’t have “a good enough understanding of the evolving way that the internet is used by young people, most particularly in terms of the online life that is quite separate from the rest of life”, she wrote.

A study into possible links between suicide and the internet has just been commissioned by the Department of Health and will report in two and a half years: a department spokeswoman said children’s mental health was a priority for the government and pointed to the introduction of “family-friendly filters” and internet safety into the national curriculum.

But for Sarah Brennan, chief executive of the youth mental health charity Young Minds, the real issue is ignorance of the scale of the problem, or even denial that the problem exists. The current NHS commissioning of youth mental health services is based on data collected in 2004 – the year Facebook launched.

“It is shocking that the government is allowing NHS commissioners to plan services based on out of date and inaccurate data,” Brennan says, adding that a Young Minds freedom of information request recently revealed that 34 out of 51 local authorities in England have reduced the budget for their children and adolescent mental health services since 2010, while a Community Care/BBC investigation this week showed that a growing number of seriously ill children are being admitted to adult psychiatric wards or sent hundreds of miles from home for hospital care.

“We are sitting on a ticking time bomb here,” says Brennan. “At the same time that we are seeing an increase in need, youth mental health services are being cut. There is an explosion of bullying online and young people struggling to cope with mental health issues, anxiety, eating disorders. If we don’t do something about it we could have a lost generation.”

What can be done? Since Tallulah Wilson’s suicide, Tumblr has introduced a warning that pops up when users search for terms related to self-harm, directing them towards sites offering support and calling on users to report blogs with “inappropriate content” so they can be taken down. A Tumblr spokeswoman said the site was “deeply committed to protecting our users’ freedom of expression”, but that it draws lines “around a few categories of content we consider damaging to our community, including blogs that encourage self-harm”.

And while there have been calls to shut down certain sites, such as Ask.fm – which allows users to ask anonymous questions and has beenlinked to teen suicides – teenagers and professionals spoken to by the Guardian agreed that simply banning sites or “dangerous” search terms was futile. Regulation can also backfire – recent efforts to impose opt-out “objectionable content filters”, backed by the prime minister, have resulted in sites such as ChildLine and Refuge also being blocked.

“We cannot put our head in the sand, simply blame these sites or hope to regulate our way out of this,” says Minto. “We are playing catch-up, but we need to take responsibility. You wouldn’t let your child cross the road without talking to them about road safety and the same goes for the risks of the internet – if we don’t tackle this it’s like opening the door and letting them walk through this cyberworld completely unequipped.”

Welch at Selfharm.co.uk agrees: “Calling for any type of ban is just missing the point. What we have to do is make sure our young people are emotionally resilient, emotionally aware and they know where to go to get help if they need it.”

Others say that while parts of the internet can be dangerous for vulnerable children, it can also provide the means to keep others safe and let them talk about their problems. As many young people contact ChildLine online as call its helpline. Online friends can be a force for good.

Samantha, a 17-year-old who started self-harming when she was 14, says her Tumblr site helped her recover from depression. “I felt like I belonged somewhere, they understood me in a way I felt I had never been understood before,” she says. At one point, she was off school with depression and spent all day online, answering 10-15 messages from other troubled teenagers every day. Now she “has a life” again and is online less frequently. “I’ve been told that I’ve saved lives and it made me feel good about myself that I was helping other people,” she says. “It’s really odd – but it works for me.”

Frankie, who is still working towards recovery, has mixed emotions. While she recognises that some blogs might encourage self-harmers, or make them feel worse, she still believes they can help. “I think for [people] like myself it can be reassuring just to know there are others out there that do it too [but] what scares me is thinking how many there are, how they are all posting it online, are they all cries for help? If that many people are crying for help then something needs to be done, and fast.”

*Names of young people have been changed. If you face any of theissues in this piece, you can call ChildLine on 0800 1111

In North Dakota, Oil Industry Will Now Have A Harder Time Drilling On Tribal Land

BY ARI PHILLIPS

In this 2014 photo, a traffic accident adds to the expansion problems of U.S. Route 85 between Williston and Watford City, N.D. The highway, once a two-lane road across the lonely prairie, is being transformed into a four-lane highway as the state experiences a fossil fuel-driven boom.

CREDIT: AP/CHARLES REX ARBOGAST

On Tuesday, tribal residents in North Dakota elected a leader who is committed protecting the environment from the industry’s rapid expansion. At the same time, North Dakotans voted strongly against a measure that would have redirected five percent of the state’s oil extraction tax revenue toward conservation activities.

The “North Dakota Clean Water, Wildlife and Parks Amendment,” otherwise known as Measure 5, was defeated by a wide margin, with around 80 percent voting no. The fossil fuel industry vehemently opposed the measure, with Steve Adair, campaign chairman for Measure 5, telling ThinkProgress last week that outside oil groups such as the Washington-D.C. based American Petroleum Institute, were running their opposition “like a U.S. Senate campaign.”

North Dakota has been transformed in the last few years by the oil industry, and proponents of the measure saw it as a way of guaranteeing the long-term interests of the state are maintained even as the industry is accommodated. The proposal would have required North Dakota to use five percent of the state’s oil and gas extraction taxes — as much as $150 million a year — for creating parks, improving fish and wildlife habitats, preventing flooding, and maintaining water quality.

“This Measure is being fought by oil companies,” Evan Nelson, president of the Environmental Law Society at the University of North Dakota, told ThinkProgress last week. “There’s no more cogent opposition to Measure 5 than oil companies wanting to make more money. Careful reading of Measure 5, and common sense, led the Environmental Law Society to the conclusion that this is the right action and the right time.”

The state’s Republican governor, Jack Dalrymple, added confusion to the campaign by announcing his own plan to spend $30 million more on state parks and add an extra $50 million more for conservation efforts over the next few years. According toGoverning Magazine, this was widely seen as a way to undercut Measure 5.

In reflecting on the loss, Adair said the campaign for the measure helped “elevate the conversation” in the state and propel actions such as the governor’s announcement.

“Measure 5 was a pretty new, bold idea,” he said.“I’m not sure we would have seen the same response out of the governor and legislative leaders without pushing for something big.”

According to the Grand Forks Herald, North Dakota House Majority Leader Al Carlson, said he and Rep. Todd Porter plan to introduce a bill proposing at least $50 million in spending to enhance parks and other recreational opportunities.

Opponents of Measure 5, which included ranchers and educational advocates, were skeptical of mandating funds be spent on conservation measures. A statutory measure passed by lawmakers than can be altered by the Legislature may be more appealing to a wider group of interests. The state’s oil rush has led to an unprecedented need for spending on roads, schools, public works, law enforcement, and emergency medical services.

However, the oil industry would appear to want to use state revenue to help build the infrastructure they need to maximize profit in the near-term with little consideration for the long-term health of the state. Last year the industry tried to roll back the state’s extraction tax from 6.5 to 4.5 percent, and industry lobbyists will likely try again during the next session. The passage of Measure 5 would have made this more difficult.

North Dakotans also re-elected Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring on Tuesday, a position with a lot of clout in the state. Goehring, a Republican, will continue to hold one of three seats on the powerful North Dakota Industrial Commission, a key oil and gas regulator.

On The Reservation

In another important development for North Dakota yesterday, Mark Fox was elected to lead the Three Affiliated Tribes of Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation in a race that included less than 2,500 voters but has far broader implications for the oil and gas industry. The Tribes sit atop a large part of the Bakken Shale — a major oil formation the has helped make North Dakota second only to Texas in oil production. The tribes’ Fort Berthold Indian Reservation currently produces over 330,000 barrels of oil per day. This is about a third of North Dakota’s total output and slightly less than the daily production of Oklahoma.

The Bismarck Tribune reports that about $25 million in oil tax revenue flows to the tribal treasury each month and the tribes’ annual budget has swelled from a modest $20 million annually to $520 million.

At an Oct. 15 press conference, North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources headLynn Helms said the oil industry is “deeply concerned” about the future of Fort Berthold because both candidates “are less friendly to rapid development than the current administration.”

Fox, the tax director for the tribe, and his opponent, Damon Williams, the tribal attorney, have vowed to propose tighter environmental regulations on the industry and ensure the vast windfall of revenue is better spent on improving life for tribal members. A report commissioned by the tribal council earlier this year found that the former chairman, Tex Hall, took advantage of his position and engaged in corrupt practices. Hall, a former oil-field services company executive, denies the charges.

Fox told Reuters this week that he is worried about protecting the environment, saying, “we’ve got oil companies in the midst of this gold rush who are doing things they shouldn’t be doing.”

“Corruption is our fault,” Fox also said. “Every time we have an election, we think about the wrong thing. We think ‘What can I do for me, for my family?’ Not enough are saying, ‘What are we going to do for everybody?’”

Dark Money Fuels Election Wins for Climate Deniers

Anastasia Pantsios

In what turned out to be a bad midterm election for the environment, climate deniers won a slew of races across the country, fueled by big spending from fossil fuel interests such as the Koch brothers. Their money overruled increasing public support for reigning in carbon-spewing industries to address climate change.

the Koch brothers conceal much of their money in so-called 501 (c) 4 organizations, a form of nonprofit that can spend unlimited amounts of “dark money” without revealing its funders.

Dirty energy money also overshadowed the heaviest pro-environmental spending yet from climate-friendly billionaire Tom Steyer and his organization NextGen Climate. Some of the media are spinning this as a big defeat for Steyer and environmentalists. But it was more a matter of more money drowning them out—and how much more is unknown. While Steyer has been open about his spending through NextGen Climate, estimated at more than $50 million, the Koch brothers conceal much of their money in so-called 501 (c) 4 organizations, a form of nonprofit that can spend unlimited amounts of “dark money” without revealing its funders.

In fact, three of the seven candidates that NextGen Climate made top priorities prevailed: Senator Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, Senator-elect Gary Peters in Michigan and governor-elect Tom Wolf. Shaheen beat Scott Brown, who has changed positions on climate more often than he’s changed the state he’s run in. Peters squelched Terri Lynn Land who has said there should be a “debate” on the extent of human involvement in climate change and called Peters and Steyer “radical liberals.” Wolf beat sitting Governor Tom Corbett who also has said climate change is a “subject of debate” and ordered references to it that he thought took a position on it deleted from a state website. Corbett is also head cheerleader for Pennsylvania’s booming fracking sector.

Three of the seven candidates that NextGen Climate made top priorities prevailed: Senator Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, Senator-elect Gary Peters in Michigan and governor-elect Tom Wolf. Photo credit: NextGen Climate

“Whatever may have driven individual races, the American people want action on climate change,” said Frances Beinecke of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “They didn’t vote to roll back foundational environmental safeguards for the sake of polluter profits. We will empower the voice of the people. We will defend clean air, safe water, healthy wildlife and fertile lands. And we’ll press for real action to protect future generations from the dangers of climate change.”

Unfortunately, numerous climate-denying or climate-unfriendly governors with different goals retained their jobs, including Rick Scott in Florida, John Kasich in Ohio, Butch Otter in Idaho, Sam Brownback in Kansas and Paul LePage in Maine.

Scott edged out Democrat Charlie Crist, who committed to addressing the severe impacts climate change is having on a state exposed to rising sea levels and intense hurricanes. Scott, with the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity investing heavily in his ground campaign, has refused to meet with scientists and even Christian evangelicals concerned about the climate.

In Maine, LePage vetoed a study on preparing the state’s communities and businesses for the impacts of climate change, saying both that it’s not happening and that it’s actually good for Maine.

Kasich, elected in a landslide victory in Ohio, presided over the freeze on Ohio’s renewable energy standards, which were passed with almost unanimous bipartisan support in 2008. It was the first rollback of clean energy standards in the country, and a bill is currently in the Ohio legislature to repeal them permanently. Kasich, with his massive support from fossil fuel interests, is almost certainly involved in the effort and will sign it, although he prefers to let the legislature take the fall, refusing public comment.

Climate denier senators-elect Cory Gardner in Colorado, Joni Ernst in Iowa, Thom Tillis in North Carolina and Shelly Moore Capito in West Virginia, as well as the reelections of fossil fuel-funded senators like Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, gave Republicans a Senate majority. That will make breaking through the gridlock to get any action on climate change infinitely tougher, with McConnell now Senate Majority Leader (assuming he’s not deposed by someone more extreme, like Texas Senator Ted Cruz). With a 7 percent score from the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), $3.6 million in contributions from the fossil fuel industry and a crusade against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), he’s a dedicated foe of the environment.

Senator Mitch McConnell will become Senate Majority Leader assuming he’s not deposed by someone more extreme, like Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Photo credit: Shutterstock

New head of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee? Oklahoma’s James Inhofe, author of The Greatest Hoax: How The Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future.

Gardner defeated staunch environmental ally Mark Udall in a campaign that included millions from Koch Industries and other fossil fuel interests.

“Everything in Colorado has shifted farther to the right toward the oil and gas industry and the climate-change denial funded by millions of dollars from the Koch Brothers,” said Colorado environmental activist Gary Wockner. “Most notably, Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Udall was swept out of office by Tea Partier Cory Gardner who is a 100 percent voting member of the most anti-environmental U.S. House of Representatives in history and declined to answer climate change questions during the race.”

Iowa’s Joni Ernst, probably the most conservative candidate elected last night, has punted on whether she believes climate change is manmade and boasts of driving an electric car. But she has vowed to work to abolish the EPA and repeal the Clean Water Act saying it was one of the most damaging laws for business. That’s another measure that once had overwhelming bipartisan support and has been a huge success in cleaning up America’s waterways. She replaced the retiring Tom Harkin, a strong pro-environmental vote.

But Beinecke pointed out, “Several senators won by running clean—including Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, Susan Collins in Maine and Senator-elect Gary Peters in Michigan. All are climate champions. Peters took on the Koch brothers and promised Michigan voters he would fight in Congress to protect the Great Lakes from climate change.”

“The election may have changed the political dynamics in Washington, but it doesn’t change the science,” said Mindy Lubber, president of sustainable business group Ceres. “The reality of global warming and the need for urgent action remain an imperative. Business leaders understand this truth. Smart companies are making wise choices about their energy purchases and future operational planning in a carbon-constrained world.”

Another voice for business was Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), who urged political leaders not to leave solar behind. “It’s critically important for our leaders in Washington, as well as our state capitals, to put aside their differences and work together to find real solutions that will grow our economy and put more people to work,” he said.

“As one of the fastest-growing industries in America, solar is a shining example of how stable, consistent and reliable public policies are paying huge dividends for our economy and environment. As pundits analyze the results of Tuesday’s elections, here is one important mandate to remember: Polls consistently show that 9 out of 10 Americans want to see an expanded use of solar energy nationwide.”

Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, was also undeterred. “Despite the climate movement’s significant investments and an unprecedented get out the vote program, strong voices for climate action were defeated and candidates paid for by corporate interests and bolstered by sinister voter suppression tactics won the day,” he said.

“But don’t be fooled. This election marked a pivotal change in how candidates confront the climate crisis. Even the most anti-environmental candidates were compelled to greenwash their voting records and change their tune on climate denial. The climate on climate is changing. A Congress elected by corporate polluters may think it can force a polluter agenda on this country. But public support is solidly behind action to tackle the climate crisis. There is a growing movement of climate and clean energy voters that will be standing up to polluters and their political allies every step of the way.”

Alarm as baby whales keep dying; Since 2011 none have survived over a year

Fukushima is a pretty close approximation of ‘The China Syndrome’; Melted fuel cores burned through containment vessels and material is below reactor structures mixing with groundwater — Essentially it’s a machine that’s washing radioactivity into the sea

By ENENews

King 5 News (Seattle), Oct. 21, 2014: Baby orca death triggers alarm; The recent loss… is sounding off alarms since its been years since a baby orca has survived — “Researchers say there is no hope for a missing baby orca… The baby — which was born just last month — is nowhere in sight… The loss of yet another baby orca… A grim reality is taking shape… This isreally kind of scary, because it’s been years since one of these little guys has survived… Babies are not surviving, and [biologist Ken Balcomb] says some whales appear pregnant for weeks, only to be seen later no longer pregnant… Some scientists believe the orcas… could be poisoning their own babies with toxic mother’s milk.”

• King 5: No orca births were recorded last year and it’s been 3 years since a baby… survived more than a year
• The Journal: [The mother’s] 2nd offspring [also] died in early 2012
• Post Intelligencer: The loss of her 2nd baby must be especially traumatic
• Reuters: The number of orcas in ocean waters off the Pacific NW [are at] some of their lowest levels in history
• The Journal: [Orca] numbers continue to plummet… Chinook [salmon], the primary source of prey of the resident whales, [are at] historic lows. The population… is at a 30-year low… 30 years ago, there were anywhere between 3 to 9 babies each year
• AP: Two other whales are presumed dead after disappearing earlier this year

Interview with John Durban, NOAA biologist, Oct 7, 2014: The very skinny one, that is not what we’re used to seeing killer whales look like… You can see the skull… It’s in incredibly poor condition… While we were [taking photos] he disappeared and stopped swimming with his brother, and has almost certainly passed away… It’s a skeleton with skin… Another very skinny whale… she’s very slender… a depression behind the head… You can see the shape of her skeleton.

Ken Buesseler, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Jun 5, 2014 (53:00 in): I’m not sampling or analyzing [whales or other marine mammals for Fukushima radionuclides]… Agencies are doing this in a very, I’d say [laughs] ‘limited’ way… We should be making these measurements, we owe it to everyone… If something is happening, can we attribute it to one source of contaminants or another? Without measurements we’ll never know, so the concern will always be there… We should be monitoring… whales and seals… I haven’t seen any data that suggests it’s of concern, again that’s partly because I’ve not seen a lot of data… We need measurements.

Watch the King 5 News broadcast here

San Jose Mercury News, Nov. 2, 2014: Rare changes in wind patterns this fall have caused the Pacific Ocean off California and the West Coast to warm to historic levels, drawing in a bizarre menagerie of warm-water species. The mysterious phenomena are surprising fishermen… El Niño isn’t driving this year’s warm-water spike… Nor is climate change… All year [NOAA] scientists… have been forecasting an El Niño… But now the water is only slightly warmer than normal at the equator, leading scientists to declare a mild El Niño is on the way… The ocean changes also have affected birds. As ocean upwelling stalled in the summer, less krill and other food rose from the depths. As a result, several species of birds, including common murres, had high rates of egg failure on the Farallon Islands, 27 miles west of San Francisco.

Jaime Jahncke, California Current Group director of Point Blue in Petaluma, Nov. 2, 2014: “The krill that is usually present disappeared, and the fish that some of these birds rely on disappeared… Up until July we had an abundance of whales around the Farallons, mostly humpback whales, and some blue whales. And when we went back in September, there was no krill and the whales were nearly absent.”

Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Federation of Fishermen’s Associations in San Francisco, Nov. 2, 2014: “Our guys in Santa Barbara are saying there’s almost nothing down there. Just a lot of warm, clear water, a little bit of salmon and not much else.”

Joe Welsh, associate curator of collecting for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Nov. 2, 2014: “It is an oddball year… There’s a lot to learn out there.”

See also: Experts: Scary problems off California — Possibly “no food anywhere” along Pacific coast, except isolated areas — “Like crime scene investigation” in ocean — Certainly Fukushima is one of stresses to sea life — Dolphins, whales more likely to be bathed in radiation (VIDEO)

And: Gov’t Scientists: “Something very unusual occurring” off west coast of US, Canada — “Unprecedented in historical record” — “Will dramatically reduce productivity” in 6,500 sq. miles of ocean — Anomaly extends “across Pacific to Japan” — “Who knows what will happen?” (MAP)

See also: US gov’t analysis says Fukushima is more serious than ‘China Syndrome’ — Destroyed reactors suffered worst type of containment failure (PHOTOS)

Full broadcast here

Coalition Airstrikes Kill 7 Civilians Wound 27 in Western Iraq

Missiles Hit Crowded Marketplace

by Jason Ditz

A warplane from an unspecified member of the US anti-ISIS coalition fired a pair of missiles at the Iraqi city of al-Qaim, along the border with Syria today, hitting a crowded marketplace.

Qaim is in the ISIS-held portion of the Anbar Province, but the indications are that no ISIS fighters were in the vicinity of the attack. Rather, seven civilians were killed and 27 others wounded.

So far, coalition airstrikes around al-Qaim have been predominantly US planes, though Canadian and British planes have been involved in recent days as well, and cannot be ruled out as the culprits.

The US has insisted that their rules against killing civilians in airstrikes do not apply to ISIS-held territory in Iraq and Syria. There have been multiple incidents of civilian casualties in the Anbar Province since the US began its air war.

Anonymous Now: Million Mask March descends on London

The Million Mask March will course through London on Wednesday November 5. The march, in which all demonstrators obscure their faces to protect their identity, is in protest against austerity, mass surveillance and attacks on human rights.

Organized by the global hacktivist group Anonymous, the London protest will march from Trafalgar Square and finish at the Houses of Parliament.

It is unknown how many demonstrators will join the march, as pleas from police for information have remained unanswered.

In 2013 the event gathered crowds of more than 2,500. The Facebook event suggests over 6,000 people may attend this year.

Speaking to RT, an Anonymous source said the Million Mask March, a tradition began in 2011, was originally called OpVendetta, and initially only gathered a crowd of 50.

Within a year, the following had grown to 2,000, and in 2013 the decision was made to rename the march the “Million Mask March,” the source said.

In 2013, there were over 400 Anonymous demonstrations worldwide, held to coincide with the annual British tradition of Bonfire Night of November 5, the date on which a group of dissident plotters tried to blow up parliament in 1605. Attendants often wear a Guy Fawkes mask, made famous by the 2005 film V for Vendetta, which has become the group’s trademark disguise.

The global protests took place last year in various world cities including Vancouver, Tel Aviv, Dublin, Paris, Chicago and Sydney.

RT’s Anonymous source said: “It’s a night of grievance on a night that’s historically about parliament and how it’s not always working in the people’s interests.”

“We burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes on a fire each year as a warning against standing against parliament so we just felt it would be symbolic,” they added.

In the lead up to the march, Anonymous sent a direct message to global bodies of power.

“To oppressive governments, we say this: we do not expect our campaign to be completed in a short time frame. However, you will not prevail against the angry masses of the body politic.”

The message further addresses the British government, saying they have “made an enemy of Anonymous,” and that they have “angered them considerably.”

This annual protest against austerity comes after a wave of protests and strikes swept through the UK during September and October.

On October 12, National Health Service (NHS) workers staged a strike over an ongoing pay dispute. The four hour strike marked the first time in history in which nurses have taken strike action.

Three days later, on October 15, the Public Commercial Services union (PCS) walked out over a 1 percent pay rise cap – a pay cut in real terms. Some 200,000 public sector workers walked out for 24 hours, causing nationwide disruption to job centers, museums and courts.

More recently, police are alleged to have employed excessive violence against Occupy Democracy protesters in Parliament Square, forcibly removing tarpaulins and belongings and making over 40 arrests.

The Metropolitan Police say they wish to engage with Anonymous so they can “work together to ensure they can protest safely.”

Chief Superintendent Pippa Mills said they are trying to contact Anonymous, but “no one has come forward.”

“We are keen to talk with them to ensure they are able to protest; it is important that they talk to us so that we can work together to achieve a safe and successful event.

Israeli Cease Fire Violations and Media Propaganda

by MATT PEPPE

The Israeli conquest of Palestine has always been a difficult issue for Western mainstream media to cover. The difficulty lies not in the task of reporting the facts on the ground and transmitting an accurate depiction of them to the public, but in refraining from doing so.

The journalistic mission, to provide citizens with factual information that enables them to be informed participants in democratic decision making, conflicts with the corporate mission, to maximize profits and influence.

The role of U.S. mass media – and Western media in general – as a tool for disseminating propaganda was first argued by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky in their landmark 1988 book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Their analysis reveals a media propaganda system based not on “formal censorship” but rather “by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without significant overt coercion.”Although it does not consciously and overtly do so, Western corporate media serve the critical function of protecting the financial and business interests of institutional power.

“A propaganda model suggests that the ‘societal purpose’ of the media is to inculcate and defend the economic, social and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state,” the authors write. “The media serve this purpose in many ways: through selection of topics, distribution of concerns, framing of issues, filtering of information, emphasis and tone, and by keeping debate within the bounds of acceptable premises.”

More than 25 years later, the New York Times, Washington Post, and the BBC keep churning out work that continues to validate Herman and Chomsky’s argument in Manufacturing Consent. In no foreign policy story is this more apparent than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel would not be able to exist in its current form – an ethnic exclusivist state with discrimination inside the internationally recognized borders and apartheid in the occupied territories – without the financial and diplomatic support of the United States.

The U.S. gives Israel more than $3 billion every year, the highest amount of aid to any foreign country. The U.S. government also provides a diplomatic shield for Israel, allowing Tel Aviv to carry out its decades of criminal atrocities with complete impunity. In the United Nations, the U.S. has exercised its veto in the Security Council 43 times since 1972 on resolutions concerning Israel.

Equally as critical, the United States government provides Israel with the ideological support necessary to effectively sanitize the colonization of Palestine. This would never be possible without the mainstream media replicating Israel’s distorted framing of the narrative, which is echoed by the U.S. government.

There are innumerable examples of corporate media propaganda on Palestine. For example, the portrayal of the brutal Israeli aggression of Lebanon in 1982 and the ensuing terrorism and slaughter by Israeli invaders that killed 20,000 people. The Western media docilely followed the ideological propaganda of the Israeli and U.S. governments to portray Israeli actions as a liberation, rather than the criminal aggression it clearly was.

“Lebanese Hail Israel’s Actions as Liberation,” proclaimed former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg in the pages of the New York Times. This conflicts mildly with the view of the U.N. Secretary General, whose report to the Security Council several months earlier spurred Resolution 509, which affirmed “the strict respect for the territorial integrity, sovereignty, and political independence of Lebanon” and demanded Israel “withdraw all its military forces forthwith and unconditionally.”

The propaganda narrative requires Palestinians always to be portrayed as the aggressors, and Israel as responding in self-defense. In the last decade, four military confrontations have taken place in Gaza – in 2006, 2008, 2012 and 2014 – in which Israel has invaded and carried out wholesale slaughter. Israel in each case has been the party who routinely and flagrantly violates the cease fires.

Israelicease fire violations are simply ignored or reported as inconclusive accusations. When they are mentioned at all, it is as something Palestinians say but that journalists dare not corroborate with verifiable facts.It is instructive to study the period leading up to and after the ridiculously named “Operation Protective Edge” and its portrayal in corporate media as a test of the Herman-Chomsky propaganda model.

The previous war in Gaza occurred in November 2012. As a study in the Jerusalem Fund indicates, rocket fire from Gaza in the period afterwards was virtually non-existent.

“In the immediate aftermath of the cease-fire agreement no projectiles were launched from Gaza into Israel,” writes Yousef Munayyer. “Rather Israel continued to fire into Gaza, killing one Palestinian, injuring 42 others, committing four incursions and firing at or detaining 48 Palestinian fishermen off the coast. It was not until after most of these violations that the first projectile from Gaza post-ceasefire was launched on Dec. 24, 2012.”

Human rights groups like Visualizing Palestine analyze the data and reach the same conclusion as the Jerusalem Fund. Their data shows conclusively that Israel commits vastly more cease fire violations than Palestinians.

From November 2012 through July 7, 2014, Visualizing Palestine tallied 191 Israeli violations to 75 Palestinian violations. The Israeli violations were far more deadly. Israel was responsible for 18 fatalities and dozens of injuries, while Palestinians were responsible for 0 fatalities and 3 injuries.After Israel assassinated 6 Hamas members in July, Hamas responded with rocket fire into Israel. U.S. officials unanimously proclaimed that Israel had a right to defend itself. The press uncritically repeated these assertions, despite no such self-defense justification existing in international law.

Israel went on to carry out the slaughter of 2,150 Palestinians, including 578 children. Civilians accounted for at least 70% of all Palestinian deaths. On August 26, 2014 after the conclusion of Protective Edge a new cease fire was reached that called for cessation of hostilities, opening all crossings to Gaza, and permitting fishing for a distance of six nautical miles, increasing up to 12 miles.

Since then, Israeli cease fire violations have been an almost daily occurrence. A few examples:

*On September 9, the Isareli navy detained four Palestinian fishermen after gunboats intercepted their fishing boat.

*On September 18, the Israeli navy opened fire and injured a 70-year-old Palestinian fishermen on a beach.

*On September 25, Israel closed the Kerem Shalom border crossing for Jewish holidays. The closure lasted for three days, as critical shipments sat waiting unable to enter Gaza.

*On October 7, the Israeli navy opened fire on fishermen inside the six-mile off the coast of Sudaniya.

*On October 16, the Israeli navy sunk a Palestinian fishing boat off the coast of Deir al-Balah. A boat belonging to Jamal Abu Watfa. Watfa belongs to the family of the four boys who were killed by Israeli naval shells while playing soccer on a beach in front of dozens of foreign journalists during Protective Edge.

*On October 22, the Israeli navy detained seven Gaza fishermen from a single family off the coast of Gaza city.

In all, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights counted 18 shooting incidents against Palestinian fishermen during the month of September alone. They reported 11 arrest incidents, four confiscation of fishing boats or equipment, and four injuries.

The PCHR also reported 13 attacks by Israeli occupation forces near the border fence, in the Israeli-imposed “buffer zone” adjoining the border with Israel.

“Enforcing the ‘buffer zone’ through the use of live fire often results in, inter alia, the direct targeting of civilians and/or discriminate attacks, both of which constitute war crimes,” writes PCHR.

The violations in the buffer zone and in Gazan territorial waters added up to more than one cease fire violation per day.

A search of the New York Times reveals only one story since Protective Edge on Israel’s actions against Gazan fishermen, a one paragraph brief from September 9 with the headline “Gaza: Arrests Suggest Disagreement on Truce Details.” The story concedes that Israeli military arrested four fishermen, but predictably focuses on the “disagreement.”A Ma’an article on the same incident provides important context absent from the Times story that helps readers evaluate the veracity of the competing claims: “Prior to the [Aug. 26] agreement, Israeli forces maintained a limit of three nautical miles on all Gaza fishermen, opening fire at fishermen who strayed further, despite earlier Israeli agreements which had settled on a 20-mile limit. The restrictions crippled Gaza’s fishing industry and impoverished local fishermen.”

The Ma’an article demonstrates that Israel has a history of provoking and harassing Gazan fishermen while failing to live up to their commitments to allow Palestinians to access their own territorial waters. This context is completely absent from the Times “he said, she said” piece.

In an article on November 2, Isabel Kershner writes in the New York Times that: “Israel said it had closed the crossing points into Gaza ‘until further notice’ after a rocket was fired into Israelon Friday.”

The Times relays Israel’s official position, without doing the same for Palestinians. But Kershner tries to make up for her selection bias by a disingenuous attempt at framing complaints of cease fire violations by colonizer and colonized as equally valid.

“Each side accused the other of having violated a cease-fire that ended in this summer’s 50-day battle between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza.”

The long list of attacks on Palestinians documented by PCHR are turned into a false equivalence. They carry no more weight in the Times‘ story than the accusations of Israel, which has been occupying Gaza and the West Bank while keeping its colonial subjects stateless for 47 years.

The Times‘ silence, false equivalence, and failure to provide any historical context on Israeli actions in Palestine would serve as a perfect exhibit in an updated version of Manufacturing Consent, whose thesis holds as true today as when it was published two and a half decades ago.

Matt Peppe writes about politics, U.S. foreign policy and Latin America on his blog. His writing has appeared in CounterPunch, Dissident Voice, Latino Rebels and other outlets. You can follow him on twitter.