"In order to maintain a sense of self-respect and independence, many newspeople deny the realities of class power under which they manufacture the news. “The mass media are capitalist institutions,” notes Chomsky. “The fact that these institutions reflect the ideology of dominant economic interests is hardly surprising.” (Parenti, 1986, p. 58).
Parenti quotes Chomsky - how?
Disinformation: The Manufacture of Consent was actually published in 1984
It was an exhibit in NYC?
Chomsky, Noam and Herman, Edward S. and Berkowitz, Terry and Lebron, Michael and Ostrow, Saul and Rodriguez, Geno and Torres, Francesc. Disinformation : The Manufacture of Consent. New York, NY: The Alternative Museum, 1984.
Exhibition dates: 2 - 30 Mar. 1985, Alternative Museum (New York).
Curator Rodriguez describes his work with artists to produce politically-charged pieces as a critique of the US media. Chomsky and Herman offer several case histories of US media propaganda. Commentary by some of the artists. Biographical notes. 2 bibl. ref.
What does Parenti cite in 1986?
Full Parenti book can be "checked out" on archive
This critique builds on work that came before it. I want to express my gratitude to persons who played no active role in the preparation of this manuscript but whose efforts provided a valuable foundation and inspiration for my own, specifically George Seldes, James Aronson, Noam Chomsky, Herbert Gans,
48. Noam Chomsky, "1984: Orwell's and Ours," forthcoming in The Thoreau Quarterly, vol. 16.
Page 186
48. Other writers have criticized the media's treatment of the Third World: see Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, After the Cataclysm (Boston: South End Press, 1979) on media distortion of Indochina events and U.S. policies; Herman, The Real Terror Network on Latin America;
And as for East Timor, Noam Chomsky observed that the New York Times index gave six full columns of citations to remote Timor in 1975 when Fretilin was emerging the victor and the situation was of great concern to the State Department and the CIA. In 1977, however, as the Indonesian army's war of annihilation reached awe- some proportions, the Times index gave Timor only five lines.6 Politics rather than geography determined the amount of coverage.
5. For a thorough treatment of East Timor, see Chomsky and Herman, The Washington Connection . . . pp. 132-204;
Parenti talk in 1993:
An accountant testified under oath to Congress today that he laundered billions of dollars in illegal drug profits through Panama's banking system with the help of Gen. Antonio Manuel Noriega, commander of the country's army and police and de facto leader.
Ramon Milian Rodriguez, a 36-year-old American who was born in Cuba and is now serving a 43-year sentence for money-laundering, told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee that a ''ballpark figure'' of what he paid General Noriega for his services was between $320 million and $350 million.
Although other witnesses have described General Noriega's complicity in money laundering, drug dealing and corruption during four days of testimony, it was the sheer volume of Mr. Rodriguez's operation that seemed to stun the subcommittee.
In hundreds of trips to Panama, Mr. Rodriguez said, he moved about $11 billion in drug profits from secret safehouses around the United States run by the Medellin cartel from Colombia, through Miami to Panama. He said he personally earned about $2 million to $3 million a month, and that toward the end of his career, he was laundering $200 million a month. On Board of Companies
All the time, Mr. Rodriguez said, he ran what people thought was a respectable legal accounting practice in Miami and served on the board of several Miami banks and companies.
Describing General Noriega, who was indicted last week on drug charges, as ''sort of a slippery and tricky fellow,'' Mr. Rodriguez testified that he paid a commission of between 1 to 10 percent to the Panamanian leader, depending on the transaction. In exchange, General Noriega gave him the use of Panama's airports, banking system and security officers to facilitate the money-laundering, and provided information about the identity of American drug agents, radio frequencies and the schedules of Coast Guard and American Navy surveillance vessels. 'I'm Paying Him Back Now
Mr. Rodriguez said he laundered money not only through Panama, but also through Curacao, Switzerland, Hong Kong and the Bahamas.
Mr. Rodriguez said General Noriega first agreed to the money-laundering deal in 1979 when he was a colonel heading the country's military intelligence. The relationship abruptly ended four years later when, said Mr. Rodriguez, the Panamanian leader revealed his identity to American authorities and he was arrested for illegally transporting $5.4 million in cash.
''I'm paying him back now,'' Mr. Rodriguez, who was accompanied to today's hearing by Federal marshals, said of his testimony. ''If you wish to call that a personal vendetta, well then, that's fine.''
Mr. Rodriguez, who called himself a supporter of the anti-Sandinista rebels known as contras, also said he channeled laundered drug money to them through a shrimp processing warehouse that he set up as a front company to aid the transfers. ''Narcotics proceeds were used to shore up contra efforts,'' he said. ''I have laundered money for that network. I made it possible to transfer funds.''
When asked by Senator Kerry how the money was moved to the contras, Mr. Rodriguez replied, ''I had a liaison with the U.S. intelligence - let's not call him U.S. intelligence. Let's call him whoever was running the resupply.'' He added that the middlemen to the contras knew that the funds came from drug profits. Statements Not Pursued
The subcommittee did not pursue Mr. Rodriguez's statements about financing the contras with drug money with the help of American intelligence, an sensitive issue that Administration officials have repeatedly denied.
On Tuesday, however, the subcommittee heard sworn testimony from Jose I. Blandon, a former close aide to General Noriega, who identified a former leader of a contra group as a drug trafficker who now lives in Panama.
And in testimony on Monday, Paul Gorman, a retired general who headed the United States Southern Command headquarters in Panama from 1983 to 1985, said he would not find it surprising if the contras' operating on the southern front in Costa Rica were dependent on drug profits. ''Particularly if they'd been on someone's payroll and had their funds cut off, that would be the natural recourse of those people.''
In an indication of the increased strain in American-Panamanian relations after the Noriega indictments, Secretary of State George P. Shultz yesterday called the action appropriate. In an interview with American newspaper chains, he added that the indictment of a key figure in an important country was unprecedented.
Senator Kerry is expected to focus on the involvement of the contras in drug trafficking when he convenes subsequent hearings in March.
Mr. Rodriguez was the final witness in four days of dramatic hearings that included sworn testimony from General Gorman, Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, Mr. Blandon, convicted drug dealers and pilots who either were involved in or had knowledge of money laundering and drug trafficking.
Taken together, their story paints an extraordinarily detailed picture of how in the last decade and a half, the Panamanian leader apparently transformed his country into a clearinghouse for drug-trafficking and money-laundering operations.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/archive/gunsdrugscia.html
Billions of dollars involved in the trade, fueled by American demand have made officials from countries like Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, and the Bahamas ripe for corruption.
Brigade 2506 (Brigada Asalto 2506) was a CIA-sponsored group of Cuban exiles formed in 1960 to attempt the military overthrow of the Cuban government headed ..
John Kerry interview of Ramon Rodriguez
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