The bad news today on RT is of renewed chaos in Egypt, of Syrian rebels threatening to use chemical weapons, as an 8,000 man US troop carrier heads for the Syrian coast. The good news is that privately-owned U.S. prisons are the perfect answer to outsourcing. People the free market doesn’t have jobs for are locked up on the slightest charge, where, in privately-owned prisons they complete with third world factories making clothes and other items for big box stores and designers, raking in billions for their keepers.

For MSNBC and its sisters, the world is limited to the debate over the ‘fiscal cliff’. Maybe that’s because even as Mitch McConnell clings to the Republican hard line, stocks rise. The bad news is that Obama’s quest for middle class tax breaks is as elusive as King Arthur’s quest for the Holy Grail. The good news is that England’s future queen Kate got her morning sickness under control, and can be seen leaning weakly on William’s arm.

No less importantly, talks jointly sponsored with Norway between the FARC rebels and the Columbian government entered their second round in Havana, as North Korea prepares to launch a long-range rocket.

Luckily, NASA issued a statement affirming that contrary to Mayan predictions, the world is not going to end on December 21st ‘or any time this year”. So what’s not to like?  After all, Pearl Harbor was seventy-one years ago!

The well-intentioned hosts of MSNBC’s news programs were right to point out the difference between the atmosphere at the Republican and Democratic Conventions: the former, angry and bellicose, the latter exuberant and dedicated.

But just as the Republicans passed over in silence the war in Afghanistan, the Democrats behaved as though the man they were supporting had no such thing as a kill list;  that authorizes the assassination of American citizdens without trial had not taken unto himself full power over all means of communication in the event of a ‘national security emergency’ (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/07/06/executive-order-assignment-national-security-and-emergency-preparedness); supported Israel’s bellicose stance vis a vis a country that has never started a war, countenanced the rise of private prisons and privatized education – and promised that the United States would never lose its status Uber Alles.

Confronted with the evidence that it is too late for the United States to undo the damage it has wrought around the world – damage brought on by his predecessors - and unable to impose a new ethos on his masters, President Obama has closed his eyes and driven full speed into deeper conflicts: a desperate attempt to control the Middle East in the face of popular opposition – all the more determined that it comes after decades of resignation – and as if that were not enough, picking up the Chinese gauntlet by sending Marines to Australia and conducting exercises in the South China Sea.

Obama’s Middle East policy harks all the way back to Franklin Roosevelt. But he alone will own his Pacific policy, and it will be doomed because unlike Roosevelt, he will be unable to justify it by a domestic policy of freedom from fear and freedom from want.

l;l;l;

If, like many progressive Americans, you despair of the major news channels, but are lucky enough to live either in the Northeast, D.C., California, the Chicago area, or the Carolinas, you have an alternative:  Russian Television, coyly known as ‘RT’ has been available since October on your local MIND TV channel.  Staffed with American, British and other native English speaking newscasters and hosts, and featuring progressive writers like Chris Hedges, Thom Hartmann, and many others, RT  broadcasts 24/7 to over 100 countries on five continents from its studios in Moscow and D.C.  It’s motto is: “Question More”.

Of course you’ll get Russian news with a Russian slant, but you can allow for that, whereas the world news covered by RT is usually absent form MSNBC or Democracy Now (though some of it may be found on Grit TV – I haven’t checked).

Today, Friday, March 23, I learned that the lower chamber of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, unanimously approved a new law which should make it easier to create and register political parties, requiring only 500 members instead of the 45,000 threshold that contributed to widespread dissatisfaction with the last election.  Also, major Russian energy companies have been trying to delay or opt out of the government’s ambitious privatization program ahead of an imminent power change in the Kremlin.  (You can see these stories at RT.com.)

In international news I learned that a European Security Conference is wrapping up in Moscow, at which President Medvedev called on the United States to get with it: although the U.S. is participating in this conference, Americans don’t hear about it.  Someone may mention in passing that the Russians want our guarantee that a projected missile defense shield will not be targeted at them in writing, making it sound like an unreasonable demand.  This item is particularly interesting because it illustrates the fact that other major players, such as the European Union, are increasingly united and bold in their opposition to America’s plans to rule the world.

RT reporting on the Syrian crisis tends to mirror Russia’s support of President Assad, but it also features members of the opposition.  Of late it has been highly critical of Al-Jazeera’s handling of the crisis, which tends to mirror the American position.  About a week ago RT reported with obvious glee that several anchors and at least one high-ranking manager had quit over what they considered ‘the supposedly third-world friendly’ Dubai-based channel’s pro-Americana bias.

In American news, RT reported today that a woman was injured Wednesday during a police crackdown on OWS, and that the Occupy Movement is calling for a general strike on May first.  This date will probably not mean anything to most Americans, but it has been the rest of the world’s Labor Day for decades.  The call itself is highly significant, since the last time a general strike affected large parts of the U.S. was in 1877 with the Great Railroad Strike.

There is a lot of business news on RT, including what sounds like pretty detailed analysis by several of the channels young, female anchors perched on high stools in short tight skirts.  (Most of the male feature anchors tend to be older and not very attractive…)

Who would have thought that some day Americans would have to rely on Russian Television to find out what’s going on in the world – and at home:

A Marine based in Camp Pendleton, California, created a Facebook page called “Armed Forces Tea Party,” which currently has approximately 19,000 likes and slogans such as “NObama” and “One Nation, under Obama, with poverty and unemployment for all.” Authorities say he has been under the microscope since 2010.

Serendipitously, only days after it cleared Congress, President Obama signed H.R. 347, which makes it a felony to cause a disturbance at certain political events — essentially criminalizing protest in the States.

A feature currently being shone analyses our infatuation with guns, featuring lengthy interviews with Virginia gun owners on the occasion of that state’s lifting of the law the limits gun purchases to one a month.

In sum, all our dirty laundry is hung out to dry by the country we think we defeated twenty years ago. Worldwide.

The man keeps repeating it, like a mantra:  the Occupy movement is not a left/right issue.  Maybe he needs to read some history that goes further back than Teddy Roosevelt, and includes the other side of the pond.

One begins to suspect that the MSNBC host is being handed a line by the White House.

It wouldn’t be the first time, but this time it’s particularly galling because Ratigan pretends to be on the side of the 99.

I’d like him to explain to me how the existence of a numerical expression 99/1 can represent anything but class warfare, which by definition pits the left (the 99) against the right (the 1 percenters).  Calling it a top/bottom issue show’s his total lack of ideological culture, on par with that of most of his audience.

Will someone with more clout than me call him on this, or is he going to get away with it?

Last night I made a list of the topics covered by Aljazeera, then by the BBC.  (In Philadelphia, Aljazeera can be heard at 5:30 on channel 35, before Democracy Now. The BBC is available on channel 23 at 5:30 and 6:30.)

Here is what each covered in one half hour:

1) The riots in Britain: not enough room in jails for all those arrested in Birmingham and Manchester.

2) Syria: Turkey expects reform within the next two weeks. Many Syrians have fled to Turkey, but Syrian security sneaks in to punish some.

3) Third week of Israeli protests over rising prices, tent cities springing up all over the country, organizers hope to bring people from different towns together, perhaps in centrally located Beer Sheba.

4) Vivid coverage of West Bank olive groves being torn up to make room for the partition wall.

5) Situation in Jordan: the Prime Minister is gambling that demonstrations will quiet down.

6) Will France lose its AAA rating?  The German opposition actually wants the government to pay more to bail out other countries.

7) Red Cross staff detained or killed in various Middle East/African countries.  Due to lawlessness, many Afghans fear to travel.

8) Italy:  In a formerly a quiet seaside resort near Rome, the Camorra mafia is losing out to a Nigerian mafia that brings in young women and forces them into prostitution.  Italian police shown taking into custody a young woman without papers.

9) China launches first aircraft carrier, bought from Russia, on a sea trial.

10. The Bangladeshi government has set up a war crimes tribunal forty years after the war of independence from Pakistan (1971).  Some are gratified, others note that many perpetrators are now part of opposition, and this is a way to get rid of them.

11. Finally, as the preferred place for Brazilians flush with money, Miami is experiencing a boom in apartment sales.  The prices are half what similar real estate goes for in Rio,   but things are very different in cities across the country.

Now to the BBC:

1) It led with a brief clip of Britain’s Prime Minister talking about the riots, then devoted three minutes to the status of French banks, which have lost 5% of their value, in particular the Societe Generale.  Heavy on interviews and comments, the BBC program devoted three minutes more to an interview with a Financial Times journalist as to where all this might lead.

2) A thirteen-year old British girl filmed riots, and three policemen were killed.  More had to be brought in, a constable spoke, the police were shown in action, and David Cameron called for a restoration of ‘standards and values’.  Labor agreed with the Conservatives that government is dealing with looters, not politically motivated rioters.

3) In Rome, Berlusconi continued talks with the trade unions over austerity measures.

4) China’s testing of an aircraft carrier elicited warnings of its military buildup.

5) The US imposed sanctions on Syria’s largest banks, according to the White House press officer, and Robin Wright was interviewed at length on the situation, noting that Syria borders on five countries, including Israel, which makes the situation more delicate than in the other Arab countries that have seen uprisings.

6) The US on Taliban: an Afghan widow says war is inevitable.

7) A NATO air raid  in Libya killed 85 civilians, poor families living in a rural area where there were no military targets. NATO had no evidence.

8) The Kenyan refugee camp of Dadar, in which thousands of Somalis have been living for two decades, is like a little town, with merchants, etc.

Which of these two news broadcasts would you rather have access to?  The BBC devotes so much time to talking heads that it covers fewer stories. (CNN and MSNBC have even more talking heads, and cover even fewer stories.) One can argue that these channels serve a more sophisticated audience, interested in what experts think, but this comes at a cost: Bangladeshi politics, Syrian refugees in Turkey being targeted by Syrian security, the Nigerian mafia in Italy, Red Cross employees being killed  – or Miami benefitting from the wealth of a BRIC country, paint a much more complex picture than the one presented to Americans. Seeing the world in more simplistic terms than other peoples results in an us versus them mentality, rather than a ‘we’re all in this together’ awareness.