Project Censored’s “Censored 2012: The Top Censored Stories of 2010-2011″

Project Censored has once again released it's annual list of the most important global events that somehow didn't manage to make it into the mainstream media. Below we have the top 10 censored news stories and a link to the remaining 15. It makes for VERY interesting reading, I'm sure you will agree.

1. More US Soldiers Committed Suicide Than Died in Combat

For the second year (2010) in a row, more US soldiers killed themselves (468) than died in combat (462). “If you… know the one thing that causes people to commit suicide, please let us know,” General Peter Chiarelli told the Army Times, “because we don’t know.” Suicide is a tragic but predictable human reaction to being asked to kill – and watch your friends be killed – for a war based on lies. Perhaps being forced to bag the mangled flesh of fellow soldiers could be another reason why some are committing suicide.

2. US Military Manipulates the Social Media

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda. A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with US Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop an “online persona management service” that will allow one US serviceman and woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world. The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers could operate false identities from their workstations.

3. Obama Authorizes International Assassination Campaign

The Obama administration has quietly put into practice an ‘incomplete idea’ left over from the Bush II presidency: creating a de facto ‘presidential international assassination program.’ Court documents, evidence offered by Human Rights Watch and a special United Nations report allege that U.S citizens suspected of encouraging “terror” had been put on “death lists.” Reports of the ‘death’ list’ say Obama’s Director of National Intelligence told a Congressional hearing that the program was within the rights of the Executive Branch of the government and did not need to be revealed. At least two people are known to have been murdered by Central Intelligence Agency operatives under the program. When the program was challenged in a New York City court the judge refused to rule saying, “there are circumstances in which the executive’s decision to kill U.S. citizens overseas is constitutionally committed to the political branches and judicially unreviewable.”

4. Global Food Crisis Expands

A new worldwide spike in agricultural commodity and food prices is generating both predictable and extraordinary fallouts. The search for causes once again leads to a conjuncture of flawed policies in trade, environment, finance and agriculture that is likely to produce more dangerous volatility in years to come. Over the past year, food prices around the world shot sharply upward, surpassing the previous price surge in 2007-2008 to set a new record, as measured by UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization.

5. Private Prison Companies Fund Anti–Immigrant Legislation

Over the past four years roughly a million immigrants have been incarcerated in dangerous detention facilities in our taxpayer-financed private prison system. Children were abused, women were raped, and men died from lack of basic medical attention. Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer received substantial campaign financing from Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group which are the nation’s two largest companies that design, build, finance and operate prisons.
CCA based in Nashville, Tennessee, and Geo Group, a global corporation based in Boca Raton, Florida, are the principal moving forces in the behind-the-scenes organization of the current wave of anti-immigrant legislative efforts.

6. Google Spying?

Earlier this year the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigated Internet search engine giant Google for illegally collecting personal data such as passwords, emails, and other online activities from unsecured Wi-Fi networks in homes and businesses across the United States and around the rest of the world. Google has claimed the data was accidentally picked up by their Street View cars while driving the world’s streets. Clearly this is an invasion of the public’s privacy and yet the FTC has done basically nothing about it, not even a slap on the wrists for Google. In late October 2010, David Vladeck, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection sent a two-page letter to Google attorney Albert Gidari saying that the FTC has ended their inquiry into the matter with little more than an assurance from Google that it will make “improvements to its internal processes” (Vladeck) and “continue its dialogue with the FTC” (Vladeck). Why was nothing done about it?

7. U.S. Army and Psychology’s Largest Experiment–Ever

In the January 2011 issue of American Psychologist, the American Psychology Association (APA) dedicated 13 articles, detailing and celebrating a 117 million dollar collaboration with the US Army, called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF). It’s being marketed as a resilience training to reduce if not prevent adverse psychological consequences to soldiers who endure combat. Because of the CSF emphasis on “positive psychology”, advocates call it a holistic approach to warrior training.

8. The Fairytale of Clean and Safe Nuclear Power

Nuclear power presents a security threat of unprecedented proportions: It’s capable of a catastrophic accident that can kill hundreds of thousands of people, with a byproduct that is toxic for millennia. To call nuclear power “clean” is an affront to science, common sense, and the English language itself, yet industry backers, inside and outside of government, are attempting to establish a new “Clean Energy Standard” to promote nuclear power. These proposals suffer from three fundamental misconceptions: 1) that pollutants other than carbon dioxide are irrelevant when defining a “clean energy” 2) that because radiation is invisible and odorless, it is not a toxic pollutant; 3) that nuclear power is carbon-free. None of these is true.

9. Government Sponsored Technologies for Weather Modification

Rising global temperatures, increasing population, and degradation of water supplies, have created broad support for the growing field of weather modification. The U.S. government has conducted weather modification experiments for over half a century, and the military-industrial complex stands poised to capitalize on these discoveries.

10. Real Unemployment: One Out of Five in US

The corporate media wants America to feel secure during a time of unemployment crisis, but people deserve to know what is really happening rather than a statistical lie.  The latest unemployment rate released by The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) stated that the unemployment rate has dropped to 9% from 9.4% in January, giving an illusion that our economy is recovering.  This false unemployment decrease is partly explained by a “seasonal adjustment,” where many people find temporary jobs during the holidays, therefore factored into the employment rate, but they don’t have job security.  Also, after a person has been unemployed for a year, the government doesn’t include them in the statistics anymore, even though they are still unemployed.

These are all massively important topics in their own right, but what makes them even more alarming is that they have consistently managed to stay out of the media spotlight, making the thought of a 'free press' absolutely laughable.

Make sure you check out the full list as each one is just as important as the last

The full list can be seen here

Great thread, S&F.

I find the story about Google very interesting. I believe Google to be more than just a search engine, they have there fingers in too many pies. The Arab spring being one of them.

The Google World Order (Do be evil?)

The food shortage is be far the most dangerous though and to me its no suprise that its not in the MSM. Can you imagine the coming unrest when us ordinary joes can't afford to feed our families.

Hard times ahead, hard times indeed.

ALS

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2bf5388dd67d.jpg[/atsimg]

I gonna bump this as well. I think the thread deserves some attention.

ALS

great read , Thanks for posting
why if you are unemployed for over a year do you drop off the unemployment statistics ?

reply to post by LiveForever8

These are all massively important topics in their own right, but what makes them even more alarming is that they have consistently managed to stay out of the media spotlight, making the thought of a 'free press' absolutely laughable.

While "the mainstream media" is guilty of much disinformation, mindlessness, and nefarious agendas, Project Censored, throughout the years, has proven to be a highly suspect organization by virtue of their own claims of what has been censored. Consider just a few of the top ten "censored" news events:

1. More US Soldiers Committed Suicide Than Died in Combat

The New York Times has been reporting on the issue of the rising rate of suicides in the U.S. military as far back as 2009. In 2010 they continued reporting on this growing problem. The New York Daily News was also reporting this issue as far back as 2009. More importantly, the New York Times had been following this phenomenon as far back as 2006, with this article:

Army Data Show Rise in Number of Suicides

The number of soldiers who committed suicide in January could reach 24, a count that would be the highest monthly total since the Army began tabulating suicides in 1980.

Even earlier than 2006, The Washington Post was reporting:

Suicides in Iraq, Questions at Home Pentagon Tight-Lipped as Self-Inflicted Deaths Mount in Military

According to William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, who discussed the suicides in a briefing last month, that represents a rate of more than 13.5 per 100,000 troops, about 20 percent higher than the recent Army average of 10.5 to 11. The Pentagon plans to release the findings of a team sent to Iraq last fall to investigate the mental health of the troops, including suicides.

That article was written on February 19, of 2004. The Chicago Tribune was reporting the problem as far back as 2008, with this:

The number of Army suicides increased again last year, amid the most violent year yet in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. An Army official said Thursday that 115 troops committed suicide in 2007, a nearly 13 percent increase over the previous year's 102. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because a full report on the deaths wasn't being released until later Thursday.

And this article:

WASHINGTON — U.S. soldiers committed suicide in 2007 at the highest rate on record, and the toll is climbing this year. At least 115 active-duty soldiers, National Guardsmen and reservists killed themselves last year, up from 102 the previous year, the Army said Thursday. The Army counted 935 reported suicide attempts.

But like the Washington Post, had been reporting about this issue at least as far back as 2004:

A long-awaited report by the Army showed a high rate of suicide among U.S. soldiers deployed in the Iraq conflict, with 23 soldiers taking their lives in 2003, including two women. A 24th soldier committed suicide this year, officials said Thursday. Two additional deaths in 2003 remain under investigation for possible suicide, officials said. Seven more soldiers killed themselves after leaving Iraq, but the Army said it had decided not to list those deaths as Iraq war suicides.

I only have less than 800 characters left to complete this post, which is not nearly enough room to continue on just what main stream news papers across the United States were reporting on this issue, and for how far back. There are several other major newspapers that have not been referenced in this post in refutation of Project Censored most disingenuous claim that the main stream media has "censored" data regarding the rising suicide rate of U.S. soldiers.

Is Project Censored unaware that this issue has been covered by the press for over seven years now? Is the rising suicide rates of U.S. solider news to Project Censored? If it is news to you, then you weren't paying attention, and if the main stream media didn't report the issue often enough in 2011 for you, it might be because no one was paying attention to the story.

reply to post by ALOSTSOUL


I agree about Google.

The internet is a mine-field of corruption and I fear that we're going to be talking about it in the past tense in the not too distant future. At least as we know it today.

reply to post by pillock


No problemo.

I don't know the answer to that question unfortunately. It doesn't sound legit to me.

Politics, eh?

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Well it isn't news to me and I'm guessing it isn't news to them either. I think that they just see it as something that deserves even more attention than it is already receiving.

It surely cant be a bad thing.

I think the military spreading propaganda on our own networks (as much as the internet can belong to any one cou try) is alarming and should be illegal. Conducting psyops on your own people should be considered a war crime and unconstitutional IMO.

TextI don't doubt what you wrote to be true to a certain extent, but I am skeptical of the doomsday nature of comments.

reply to post by LiveForever8


Any reason of why that website has not been updated since June?

reply to post by Cloudsinthesky


Eh?

It was updated just a few days ago when the 2012 list was added.