Karlos Guana Schmieder, communications director for the Center for Media Justice, discusses the Center’s plans for the U.S. Social Forum and why movements need to tell a good story to be successful and ultimately create real and lasting change in America and the world.

The Ocean Project, which consists of over one thousand aquariums, zoos, museums and conservation organizations, has designated June 8th “World Oceans Day.” This day, which earned official recognition from the United Nations General Assembly as the result of a resolution passed in December 2008, is a new celebrated day, and, as oil continues to gush at perhaps 100,000 barrels a day into the Gulf of Mexico (which connects to the Atlantic Ocean), this day carries even more significance.

I wasn’t one of the Americans who watched a parade of
military and civilian officers on Memorial Day one week ago just hours after Israeli
commandoes attacked the Freedom Flotilla. I did not go to a march and celebrate the past
histories of American wars and the soldiers who had fought in them, but let’s
suppose for one moment that I had.

Israel has mounted a media blitz specifically aimed at creating this belief that the Freedom Flotilla had intentions that were not exactly humanitarian. The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center is circulating talking points suggesting the IHH, which the Free Gaza Movement counts as a supporting organization, is affiliated with Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and/or al Qaeda so the IDF raid was entirely justified.

Immediately following a deadly attack by Israeli commandos on the Freedom Flotilla, a humanitarian aid convoy seeking to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza, Israeli authorities put in place, according to Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), a ban on media preventing any information about the dead and wounded taken to hospitals in Israel from being reported by journalists.

President Obama held a press conference this afternoon and gave the White House press corps an opportunity to gain more information on the oil leak in the Gulf. Obama announced four key oil explorations/operations moratoriums (both temporary and possibly permanent) during the press conference. He did not, however, announce a permanent end to offshore drilling or an end to domestic oil production.

News of Gen. Petraeus’ directive for secret Pentagon operations would be a huge revelation if history didn’t indicate that departments handling foreign and domestic defense or security operations have claimed the authority to engage in covert activity time and time again. From the Bush Administration to the Kennedy Administration, covert operations have been standard operating procedure, so long as those in power can get away with it.

In Obama’s weekly radio address on Saturday, May 22nd, Obama selected former Sen. Bob Graham & former head of the EPA William K. Reilly to head a commission to investigate the BP oil disaster. Both have good beltway environmental credentials. They also both consider nuclear energy to be part of the solution to getting off dirty carbon energy that is contributing significantly to climate change.

CBS journalists were filming a beach in South Pass, Louisiana, when, according to CBS, a “boat of BP contractors and two Coast Guard officers told them to turn around or be arrested.” The incident is thought by bloggers tracking the oil leak in the Gulf to not be the only time that BP has challenged the right of journalists to film.

The Obama Administration is putting together a presidential commission to investigate the Gulf of Mexico oil rig disaster. It is expected to be similar to past presidential commissions like the space shuttle Challenger disaster and the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. Will it make recommendations and conclusions about this deadly form of energy that are necessary? Or will it seek to re-brand and legitimize an industry?