Using the screenname "roberwter," one resident of the Netherlands has posted (YouTube, 7/27/09) "a video response to a Fox News broadcast about my city, Amsterdam." The short piece starts with clips of Bill O'Reilly and guests claiming that the Dutch's "experimentation with social tolerance, free love, free drugs, clearly has backfired" and that "Amsterdam is a cesspool of corruption, crime, everything is out of control. It's anarchy." Then, all under the headline "The Truth About Amsterdam," roberwter provides something Fox's talking heads rarely bring to viewers–simple facts: Percentage of population that has ever used Cannabis USA: 40.3 percent Netherlands: 22.6 [...]
Jun
01
2009
On Corporate Media's 'Scoop'-Driven Xenophobia
"If media reports are to be believed," Gabriel Arana of the Nation writes (5/27/09), "an Armageddon-like rash of drug-related violence–unlike any seen since 'Miami Vice years of the 1980s'–has crossed from Mexico into the United States, 'just as government officials had feared.'" But that's a pretty big if, even though "in the national media, it's become a foregone conclusion that Mexican drug violence has penetrated the United States": But the numbers tell a different story. According to crime statistics for American cities along the U.S.-Mexico border and major U.S. metro areas along drug routes, violent crimes, including robberies, have either [...]
