The
JvL Bi-Weekly
James
van Luik
Publisher
& Editor
Sunday,
November 30, 2003
Volume
2, No. 21
An
American historian was asked what the United States response should have
been to the suicide bombers who attacked New York City and the Pentagon in
2001. "Traditionally," he said, "such an assault should have
been followed by an immediate invasion of Canada." This sensible
response caused bewilderment in the United States of Amnesia. What on earth
did Canada have to do with the recent gruesome attack? Answer: as little,
certainly, as Afghanistan, which we then proceeded to pound to pieces. But
… Canada?
Quoted
by Gore Vidal
6.
Articles
4.
Feisty Terkel Prods Compliant Media
6.
The United States Department of State Challenges The Piano Tuner
BY
NOAM
CHOMSKY
The
fundamental assumption that lies behind the imperial grand strategy, often
considered unnecessary to formulate because its truth is taken to be so
obvious, is the guiding principle of Wilsonian idealism: We—at least the
circles who provide the leadership and advise them—are good, even noble.
Hence our interventions are necessarily righteous in intent, if occasionally
clumsy in execution. In Wilson's own words, we have "elevated ideas"
and are dedicated to "stability and righteousness," and it is only
natural, then, as Wilson wrote in justifying the conquest of the Philippines,
that "our interest must march forward, altruists though we are; other
nations must see to it that they stand off, and do not seek to stay us."
In
the contemporary version there is a guiding principle that "defines the
parameters within which the policy debate occurs," a consensus so broad
as to exclude only "tattered remnants" on the right and left and
"so authoritative as to be virtually immune to challenge." The
principle is "America as historical vanguard": "History
has a discernible direction and destination. Uniquely among all the nations of
the world, the United Stats comprehends and manifests history's purpose."
Accordingly, US hegemony is the realization of history's purpose, and what it
achieves is for the common good, the merest truism, so that empirical
evaluation is unnecessary, if not faintly ridiculous. The primary principle of
foreign policy, rooted in Wilsonian idealism and carried over from Clinton to
Bush II, is "the imperative of America's mission as the vanguard of
history, transforming the global order and, in doing so, perpetuating its own
dominance," guided by "the imperative of military supremacy,
maintained in perpetuity and projected globally."
By
virtue of its unique comprehension and manifestation of history's purpose,
America is entitled, indeed obligated, to act as its leaders determine to be
best, for the good of all, whether others understand or not. And like its
noble predecessor and current junior partner, Great Britain, America should
not be deterred in realizing history's transcendent purpose even if it
is "held up to obloquy" by the foolish and resentful, as was
its predecessor in global rule, according to its most prestigious advocates.
To
still any qualms that might arise, it suffices to refresh our understanding
that "Providence summons Americans" to the task of reforming global
order: the "Wilsonian tradition … to which all recent occupants of the
Oval Office, regardless of party, have adhered"—as have, commonly,
their predecessors, their counterparts elsewhere, and their most reviled
enemies, with required change of names. But to reassure ourselves that the
powerful are motivated by "elevated ideals" and "altruism"
in the quest of "stability and righteousness," we have to adopt the
stance called "intentional ignorance" by a critic of the terrible
atrocities in central America in the1980s backed by the political leadership
that is again at the helm in Washington. Adopting that stance, not only can we
tidy up the past, conceding the inevitable flaws that accompany even the best
of intentions, but more recently, since the advent of the new norm of
humanitarian intervention, we can even go on to portray US foreign policy as
having entered a "noble phase" with a "saintly glow."
Washington's "post-Cold War interventions were, on the whole,
noble," historian Michael Mandelbaum assures us. Perhaps we are even too
saintly: we must beware of "granting idealism a near exclusive hold on
our foreign policy," more sober voices warn, thus neglecting our own
legitimate interests in our dedicated service to others.
Somehow,
Europeans have failed to understand the unique idealism of American leaders.
How can this be, since it is the merest truism? Max Boot suggest an answer.
Europe has "often been driven by avarice," and the "cynical
Europeans" cannot comprehend the "strain of idealism" that
animates US foreign policy: "After 200 years, Europe still hasn't figure
out what makes America tick." Their ineradicable cynicism leads Europeans
to attribute base motives to Washington and to fail to join its noble ventures
with sufficient enthusiasm. Another respected historian and political
commentator, Robert Kagan, offers a different explanation. Europe's problems
is that it is consumed with "paranoid, conspiratorial
anti-Americanism," which has "reached a fevered intensity,"
though fortunately a few figures, like Berlusconi and Aznar, brave the storm.
Unwittingly,
no doubt, Boot and Kagan are plagiarizing John Stuart Mill's classic essay on
humanitarian intervention, in which he urged Britain to undertake the
enterprise vigorously—specifically, to conquer more of India. Britain must
pursue this high-minded mission, Mill explained, even though it will be
"held up to obloquy" on the continent. Unmentioned was that by doing
so, Britain was striking still further devastating blows at India and
extending the near- monopoly of opium production that it needed both to force
open Chinese markets by violence and to sustain the imperial system, more
broadly by means of its immense narco-trafficking enterprise, all well known
in England at the time. But such matters could not be the source of the
"obloquy." Rather, Europeans are "exciting odium against
us," Mill wrote, because they are unable to comprehend that England is
truly "a novelty in the world," a remarkable nation that acts only
"in the service of others." It is dedicated to peace, though if
"the aggressions of barbarians force it to a successful war, "it
selflessly bears the cost while "the fruits it shares in fraternal
equality with the whole human race," including the barbarians it conquers
and destroys for their own benefit. England is not only peerless but near
perfect, in Mill's view, with no "aggressive designs," desiring
"no benefit to itself at the expense of others." Its policies are
"blameless and laudable." England was the nineteenth century
counterpart of the "idealistic new world bent on ending inhumanity,"
motivated by pure altruism and uniquely dedicated to the highest
"principles and values," though also sadly misunderstood by the
cynical or perhaps paranoid Europeans. Mill's essay was written as Britain
engaged in some of the worst crimes of its imperial reign. It is hard to think
of a more distinguished and truly honorable intellectual—or a more
disgraceful example of apologetics for terrible crimes. Such facts might
inspire some reflections as Boot and Kagan illustrate Marx's dictum about
tragedy replayed as farce. It is also worth recalling that the record of
continental imperialism is even worse, and the rhetoric that accompanied it no
less glorious, as when France gained Mill's approval by carrying out its
civilizing mission in Algeria—while "exterminating the indigenous
population," the French minister of war declared.
Kagan's
concept of "anti-Americanism," while conventional, also merits
reflection. In such pronouncements, the term anti-American and its
variants ("hating America," and the like) are regularly employed to
defame critics of state policy who may admire and respect the country, its
culture and its achievements, indeed think it is the greatest place on earth.
Nevertheless, they "hate America" are "anti-American" on
the tacit assumption that the society and its people are to be identified with
state power. This usage is drawn directly from the lexicon of
totalitarianism. In the former Russian empire, dissidents were guilty
of "anti-Sovietism." Perhaps critics of Brazil's military
dictatorship were labeled "anti-Brazilian." Among people with some
commitment to freedom and democracy, such attitudes are inconceivable. It
would only arouse ridicule in Rome or Milan if a critic of Belusconi's
policies were condemned as "anti-Italian," though perhaps it would
have passed in Mussolini's day.
It
is useful to remember that no matter where we turn, there is rarely any
shortage of elevated ideals to accompany the resort to violence. The words
accompanying the "Wilsonian tradition" may be stirring in their
nobility, but should also be examined in practice, not just rhetoric: for
example, Wilson's call for conquest of the Philippines, already mentioned; or
as president, his interventions in Haiti and the Dominican Republic that left
both countries in ruins; or what Walter LaFeber calls the "Wilson
corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, which dictated "that only
American oil interests receive concessions" within the reach of its
power.
The
same is true of the worst tyrants. In 1990, Saddam Hussein warned Kuwait of
possible retribution for actions that were undermining Iraq's battered economy
after Iraq had protected Kuwait during the war with Iran. But he assured the
world that he wanted not "permanent fighting, but permanent peace … and
a dignified life." In 1938, President Roosevelt's close confidant Sumner
Welles praised the Munich agreement with the Nazis and felt that it might led
to a "new world order based upon justice and upon law." Shortly
after, they carried the project forward by occupying parts of Czechoslovakia,
while Hitler explained that they were "filled with earnest desire to
serve the true interests of the peoples dwelling in this area, to safeguard
the national individuality of the German and Czech peoples, and to further the
peace and social welfare of all." Mussolini's concerns for the
"liberated populations" of Ethiopia were no less exalted. The same
was true of Japan's aims in Manchuria and North China and its sacrifices to
create an "earthly paradise" for the suffering people and to defend
their legitimate governments from Communist "bandits." What could be
more moving than Japan's "exalted responsibility" to establish a
"New Order" in 1938 to "insure the permanent stability of East
Asia" based on "mutual aid" of Japan, Manchuria, and China
"in political economic, and cultural fields," their "joint
defence against Communism," and their cultural, economic, and social
progress?"
After
the war, interventions were routinely declared to be "humanitarian"
or in self-defense and therefore in accord with the UN Charter: for example,
Russia's murderous invasion of Hungary in 1956, justified by Soviet lawyers on
the grounds that it was undertaken at the invitation of the government of
Hungary as a "defensive response to foreign funding of subversive
activities and armed bands within Hungary for purposes of overthrowing the
democratically elected government;" or, with comparable plausibility, the
US attack against South Vietnam a few years later, undertaken in
"collective self-defense" against "internal aggression" by
the South Vietnamese and their "assault from the inside" (Adlai
Stevenson and John F. Kennedy, respectively).
We
need not assume that these protestations are disingenuous, no matter how
grotesques they may be. Often one finds the same rhetoric in internal
documents, where there is no obvious reason to dissemble: for example, the
argument by Stalin's diplomats that "to create real democracies, some
outside pressure would be necessary. …We should not hesitate to use this
kind of 'interference into the domestic affairs' of other nations … since
democratic government is one of the main guarantees of durable peace."
Others
agree, doubtless with no less sincerity, urging that
We
should not hesitate before police repression by the local government. This is
not shameful since the communists are
essentially traitors…. It is better to have a strong regime in power than a
liberal government if it is indulgent and relaxed and penetrated by
Communists.
George
Kennan, in this case, briefing US ambassadors in Latin America on the need to
be guided by a pragmatic concern for "the protection of our raw
materials"—ours, wherever they happen to be located, to which we must
preserve our inherent "right of access," by conquest if necessary,
in accord with the ancient law of nations.
It
requires a heavy dose of intentional ignorance and loyalty to power
to delete from memory the human consequences of instituting and
sustaining "strong regimes." The same talents are needed to sustain
faith in the appeal to national security invoked to justify the use of force,
a pretext that can rarely be upheld for any state, on inspection of the
historical and documentary record.
As
these few examples illustrate, even the harshest and most shameful measures
are regularly accompanied by profession of noble intent. An honest look would
only generalize Thomas Jefferson's observation about the world situation of
his day:
We
believe no more in Bonaparte's fighting merely for the liberties of the seas,
than in Great Britain's fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object
is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth, and the
resources of other nations.
A
century later, Woodrow Wilson's secretary of state, Robert Lansing (who also
appears to have had few illusions about Wilsonian idealism), commented
scornfully on "how willing the British, French or Italians are to accept
a mandate" from the League of Nations, as long as "there are mines,
oil fields, rich grain fields or railroads" that will "make it a
profitable undertaking."
These "unselfish governments" declare that mandates must be accepted
"for the good of mankind": "they will do their share by
administering the rich regions of Mesopotamia, Syria, &c." The proper
assessment of these pretensions is "so manifest that it is almost an
insult to state it."
And
manifest indeed it is, when declarations of noble intent are proffered by
others. For oneself, different standards apply.
One
may choose to have selective faith in the domestic political leadership,
adopting the stance that Hans Morgenthau, one of the founders of modern
international relations theory, condemned as "our conformist subservience
to those in power," the regular stance of most intellectuals throughout
history. But it is important to recognize that profession of noble intent is
predictable, and therefore carries no information, even in the technical sense
of the term. Those who are seriously interested in understanding the world
will adopt the same standards whether they are evaluating their own political
and intellectual elites or those of official enemies. One
might fairly ask how much would survive this elementary exercise of
rationality and honesty?
It
should be added that there are occasional departures form the common stance of
subordination to power on the part of the educated classes. Some of the most
important current illustrations are to be found in two countries whose harsh
and repressive regimes have been sustained by US military aid: Turkey and
Colombia. In Turkey, prominent writers, journalists, academics, publishers,
and others not only protest atrocities and draconian laws but also carry out
regular civil disobedience, facing and sometimes enduring severe and prolonged
retribution. In Colombia, courageous priests, academics, human rights and
union activists, and others face the constant threat of assassination in one
of the world's most violent states. Their actions should elicit humility and
shame among their Western counterparts, and would if the truth were not veiled
by the intentional ignorance that makes a crucial contribution to ongoing
crimes.
BY
ARUNDHATI
ROY
September
11th has a tragic resonance in the Middle East too. On the 11th
of September 1922, ignoring Arab outrage, the British government proclaimed a
mandate in Palestine, a follow-up to the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which
imperial Britain issued, with its army massed outside the gates of the city of
Gaza. The Balfour Declaration promised European Zionists "a national home
for Jewish people." (At the time, the empire on which the sun never set
was free to snatch and bequeath national homes like the school bully
distributes marbles.) Two years after the declaration, Lord Arthur James
Balfour, the British foreign secretary said,
[I]n
Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the
wishes of the present inhabitants of the country…. Zionism, be it right or
wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in
future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the
700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.
How
carelessly imperial power decreed whose needs were profound and whose were
not. How carelessly it vivisected ancient civilizations. Palestine and Kashmir
are imperial Britain's festering, blood-drenched gifts to the modern world.
Both are fault lines in the raging international conflicts of today.
In
1937 Winston Churchill said of the Palestinians:
I
do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger, even
though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right.
I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red
Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a
wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher
grade race, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and
taken their place.
That
set the trend for the Israeli state's attitude toward Palestinians. In 1969,
Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said, "Palestinians do not exist."
Her successor, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol said, "Where are the
Palestinians? When I came here [to Palestine] there were 250,000 non-Jews,
mainly Arabs and Bedouins. It was desert, more than underdeveloped.
Nothing." Prime Minister Menachem Begin called Palestinians
"two-legged beasts." Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir called them
"'grasshoppers' who could be crushed." This is the language of heads
of state, not the words of ordinary people. In 1947, the UN formally
partitioned Palestine and allotted fifty–five percent of Palestine's land to
the Zionists. Within a year they had captured more than seventy-six percent.
On the 14th of May 1948 the State of Israel was declared. Minutes
after the declaration, the United States recognized Israel. The West Bank was
annexed by Jordan. The Gaza strip came under the military control of Egypt.
Formally Palestine ceased to exist except in the minds and hearts of the
hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people who became refugees.
In
the summer of 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza strip. Settlers
were offered state subsidies and development aid to move into the occupied
territories. Almost every day more Palestinian families are forced off their
lands and driven into refugee camps. Palestinians who continue to live in
Israel do not have the same rights as Israelis and live as second-class
citizens in their former homeland.
Over
the decades there have been uprisings, wars, intifadas. Thousands have
lost their lives. Accords and treaties have been signed. Cease-fires declared
and violated. But the bloodshed doesn't end. Palestine still remains illegally
occupied. Its people live in inhuman conditions, in virtual Bantustans, where
they are subject to collective punishments and twenty four hour curfews, where
they are humiliated and brutalized on a daily basis. They never know when
their homes will be demolished, when their children will be shot, when their
precious trees will be cut, when their roads will be closed, when they will be
allowed to walk down to the market to buy food and medicine. And when they
will not. They live with no semblance of dignity. With not much hope in sight.
They have no control over their lands, their security, their movement, their
communication, their water supply. So when accords are signed and worlds like
"autonomy" and even "statehood" are bandied about, it's
always worth asking: What sort of autonomy? What sort of state? What sort of
rights will its citizens have?
Young
Palestinians who cannot contain their anger turn themselves into human bombs
and haunt Israel's streets and public places, blowing themselves up, killing
ordinary people, injecting terror into daily life, and eventually hardening
both societies' suspicion and mutual hatred of each other. Each bombing
invites merciless reprisals and even more hardship on Palestinian people. But
then suicide bombing is an act of individual despair, not a revolutionary
tactic. Although Palestinian attacks strike terror into Israeli civilians,
they provide the perfect cover for the Israeli government's daily incursions
into Palestinian territory, the perfect excuse for old-fashioned,
nineteenth-century colonialism, dressed up as a new fashioned, twenty-first
century war.
Israel's
staunchest political and military ally is and always has been the US
government. The US government has blocked, along with Israel, almost every UN
resolution that sought a peaceful, equitable solution to the conflict. It has
supported almost every war that Israel has fought. When Israel attacks
Palestine, it is American missiles that smash through Palestinian homes. And
every years Israel receives several billion dollars from the United States.
What
lessons should we draw from this tragic conflict? Is it really impossible for
Jewish people who suffered so cruelly themselves—more cruelly perhaps than
any other people in history—to understand the vulnerability and the yearning
of those whom they have displaced? Does extreme suffering always kindle
cruelty? What hope does this leave the human race with? What will happen to
the Palestinian people in the event of a victory? When a nation without a
state eventually proclaims a state, what kind of state will it be? What
horrors will be perpetrated under its flag? Is it a separate state that we
should be fighting for, or the rights to a life of Liberty and dignity for
everyone regardless of their ethnicity or religion?
Palestine
was once a secular bulwark in the Middle East. But now the weak, undemocratic,
by all accounts corrupt, but avowedly nonsectarian Palestinian Liberation
Organization (PLO) is losing ground to Hamas, which espouses an overtly
sectarian ideology and fights in the name of Islam. To quote from its
manifesto: "We will be its soldiers and the firewood of its fire, which
will burn the enemies.
The
world is called upon to condemn suicide bombers. But can we ignore the long
road they have journeyed on before they arrived at this destination? September
11th, 1922 to September 11th, 2002—eighty years is a
long, long time to have been waging war. Is there some advice the world can
give the people of Palestine? Some scrap of hope we can hold out? Should they
just settle for the crumbs that are thrown their way and behave like the
grasshoppers or two-legged beasts they've been described as? Should they just
take Gold Meir's suggestion and make a real effort to not exist?
BY
MARTHA
WALLNER
Current
activist struggles to challenge corporate-controlled media can be described
using the old "good new/bad news" adage. The bad news is that on
June 2nd, 2003, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the
government agency responsible for making the policies that dictate the
structure of the media system, voted 3-2 to further "deregulate" it
by loosening the limits on media ownership. The good news is that the fight is
not over.
A
number of efforts—both grassroots and mainstream—continue to pressure
Congress to weaken the FCC's action, and on September 3rd, just one
day before the new rules were to go into effect, the Federal Appeals Court in
Philadelphia ordered a stay pending further judicial review. It's impossible
to predict the outcome of the congressional or court actions, but whatever
happens, the problem of corporate control of the media is on the public's
radar and momentum is building for change.
The
deregulatory agenda gained momentum during the Reagan years, and (in media
policy) culminated during the Clinton Administration in the Telecommunications
Act of 1996. While touted by mainstream media as pro-competitive and pro-
consumer, this legislation resulted in increased media consolidation, massive
layoffs, the shrinking of newsrooms and the disappearance of many independent
broadcasters.
Led
by FCC Chairman Michael Powell, Colin Powell's son, the recent FCC ruling
could allow media conglomerates to control an even grater variety of media
outlets, both locally and nationally. As Robert McChesney and John Nichols
summarized in the Nation for
February 24th, 2003, "These rules [which
the FCC voted to eliminate in June 2003] prevent one broadcast network
from owning another broadcast network, limit the number of local broadcast
stations that any one broadcaster can own to systems serving 35 percent of the
TV-viewing household in the US, prohibit a company from owning cable TV
systems and TV stations in the same community, and prohibit ownership of
newspapers and TV stations in the same community."
The
mainstream media framed the struggle over ownership rules as one between those
who want to "prevent change" and those who are committed to
"updating" or "overhauling decades-old rules." This frame
insidiously echoed the broader neo-liberal agenda to "free Markets"
by weakening the power of regulator agencies to act in the public interest.
Scholar Oscar Gandy has dubbed the shift in policy frame from citizens to
consumers as the "great frame robbery." This is the same frame that
has been used to justify the privatization of health-care and education and
the scrapping of environmental and labor law.
Although
the FCC voted to strike down media ownership restrictions, they did so against
widespread public opposition. In fact, by the time the vote was taken, over
two million public comments in opposition to the FCC's majority position had
been filed and letters and phone calls poured in to the offices of Congress.
According to Senator John McCain, Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee,
which oversees the FCC, "this sparked more
interest than any issue I've ever seen that wasn't organized by a huge
lobby."
How
did the challenge to big media get such attention? For years, media watchdog
organizations like Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) and social
critics like Noam Chomsky alerted us to the bias and distortion in mainstream
media content. In response, activist organizations like Gay and Lesbian
Alliance Against Discrimination and more recently the MediaCorps of MoveOn,
have organized accountability campaigns and pressured media outlets for more
accurate and less biased coverage. This year, however, activists finally
succeeded in going beyond a critique of media content to confront the FCC.
In
the fall of 2001, activists around the country began to sound the alarm about
the FCC's deregulatory plans. The Philadelphia-based Prometheus Radio Project,
a leader in the fight for the licensing of low power FM radio stations had
already developed some acumen in negotiating the FCC's arcane
rulemaking process. They set up a website that made it easy to file public
comments with the FCC, and soon a number of other organizations, including the
Communications Workers of America, followed suit.
Galvanized
by the public response and frustrated by the mainstream media's refusal to air
the debate, dissident FCC Commissioner Michael Copps decided to break ranks
with Powell and take the issue on the road. And an hoc effort by
organizations like the Center for digital Democracy and grassroots
organizations, including Reclaim the Media in Seattle, Chicago Media Action,
Media Alliance in San Francisco, and Media Tank in Philadelphia quickly
scrambled to organize the unofficial hearing that Copps would attend. Academic
institutions and several other public interest organizations also pitched in
to host forums. These were held from January through May 2003 in New York,
Seattle, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin,
Durham, Phoenix, Atlanta
and Burlington, VT.
The
public hearings across the country, and the alternative media coverage they
garnered, built an even larger constituency in opposition to the impending FCC
vote. Frustration with the media's distorted coverage of the war in Iraq and
the growing anti-war movement culminated in MoveOn mobilizing its thousands of
members to send protest messages to the FCC and Congress. Commissioner Copps'
collaboration with other organizations like Common Cause yielded bipartisan
support for his position that the vote should be delayed pending more thorough
study and public input. Organizations like the Catholic Conference of Bishops,
the Parents Television Council and even the National Rifle Association jumped
on the anti-deregulation bandwagon.
The
FCC, accustomed to acting in relative secrecy, voted on June 2 under the full
glare of public opinion. After casting his dissenting vote, Commissioner Copps
stated, "The media concentration debate will never be the same. This
commission faces a far more informed and involved citizenry. The obscurity of
this issue that many have relied upon in the past, where only a few dozen,
inside the-Beltway lobbyists, understood this issue, is gone forever."
Clearly,
whatever the courts and Congress decide to do about the recent FCC decision,
the problem of corporate domination in determining media policy remains.
Reinstatement of the old rules will not adequately redress the lack of
diversity in corporate media or the lack of support for independent media.
On
the Bay Area radio program "Commonwealth," Commissioner Copps
confidently stated, "I think we can fix this system without drastic
surgery to our rules. If we can enforce the rules we have, we'd be in pretty
good shape." Expressing doubt that there were models for better policies
in other countries, he stated that, "in this country we decided long ago
that our media would be part of the capitalist system."
Unfortunately
Copps' analysis fails to recognize that it has only been by challenging a
purely capitalist framework that public interest policies have been won.
Policies that set aside a portion of the broadcasting spectrum for
non-commercial broadcasters and guaranteed disabled and low-income access to
new technologies, were never embraced by the corporate sector. Furthermore,
just as an anti-capitalist critique has been essential in challenging the
legitimacy of the World Trade Organization, media activists need to bring to
the fore the fundamental principle that the airwaves belong to all the people,
not to corporations or government regulators.
For
more information click: http://mediareform.net
4.
FEISTY TERKEL PRODS COMPLIANT MEDIA
BY
JOHN
NICHOLS
In
addition to wisdom, Studs Terkel can point to another benefit of his advancing
years: loss of hearing.
"My
bad hearing leads me to higher truths, says the Pulitzer Prize winning author.
"For
instance, terms like embedded journalist come through to me as in bed with
journalist. My problem with the media right now is that we've go too many
in-bed-with-journalists and not enough of the skeptical, questioning,
challenging journalists who will hold George Bush and his boys
accountable," he adds.
At
91, Studs Terkel could well have been the oldest participant in this recent
National Conference on Media Reform, which took place in downtown Madison,
Wisconsin. He is certainly the feistiest.
The
author of acclaimed books such as "Working" and "The Good
War?" participated in several events associated with the conference. He
also spoke and signed copies of his new book, "Hope Dies Last: Keeping
the Faith in Difficult Times," at the Canterbury Booksellers, on Gorham
Street.
For
Terkel, who made his name as an incisive radio interviewer, the increasing
consolidation of radio station ownership, and the homogenization that goes
with it, is troubling. But Terkel is not only concerned about the sector of
media he knows best.
"Information,
news, ideas – that's the juice that gets a democracy going. When a few
corporations control all the juice, they decide how the democracy works. Or
how it won't work. I don't worry that much about people doing the right thing
if they have the facts about what their government is up to. But if they don't
get the facts, the whole thing falls apart," says the man who has spent
most of his life interviewing Americans about their work, their ideals, their
politics and, with his new book, their optimism about the prospect of making a
better world.
In
Terkel's view, the run-up to the war in Iraq provides a perfect example of how
things fall apart when the media fails to do its job. While TV news anchors
pinned on flags and conducted fawning interviews with members of the Bush
administration, the senior member of the US Senate, West Virginia Democrat
Robert Byrd, was virtually ignored as he questioned the rush to war.
"Senator
Byrd has been fantastic. He's the one guy who said 'bugger off' when Bush came
around trying to sell the idea of this war. I think he's the one guy who
really stood up for our kids in the military, when he said he did not want
them going off and invading a country that was no threat to us," says
Terkel. "But Byrd got no headlines. You hardly ever saw him on
television. I think that if he had, we might not be in this war today. That's
an example of what happens when the big media companies just give us the
administration's version of the news."
The
man who immortalized the generation of Americans who fought "the good
war" of the 1940s terms the Iraq war "a quagmire for America."
"We
were the most honored country in the world at the end of World War II,"
he notes. "Now we're the most loathed country. We need a media that asks:
'What the hell are we doing there?'"
Is
it possible to transform the media? Terkel thinks so. Like most of the
reformers who were in Madison that past weekend, he's a big backer of federal
ownership rules that control the consolidation of media companies. And he
wants to see more support for public radio and television. But he also
celebrates the development of alternatives to big media.
In
New York a short time ago, Terkel's appearance to promote his new book drew an
overflow crowd. The author credits an appearance on Amy Goodman's
"Democracy Now" radio program, which airs on the Pacifica network
and community radio stations across the country (including Madison's WORT-FM),
with getting the crowd out.
"We
didn't need NBC. We didn't need CBS. We had Amy Goodman," he says of the
host, who refers to her program as the exception to the rulers. Goodman also
participated in the Madison, Wisconsin weekend conference, along with keynote
speakers Bill Moyers, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, humorist Al Franken and others.
Terkel
says the success of Franken's new book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who
Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced look at the Right," and of other books
that dissent from Bush administration orthodoxies, such as recent
best–sellers by filmmaker Michael Moore and columnist Molly Ivins, proves
that Americans are not satisfied with what the administration or most f the
media are telling them.
"Three
of the best-selling authors in America are Franken, Michael Moore and Molly
Ivins. That should tell you something," says Terkel. "The people are
ahead of the politicians and the media, as usual."
BY
LEE
PRICE WITH YULIA FUNGARD
(Many
in the media have underestimated the severity of the current labor slump by
focusing on the unemployment rate and the gains in real hourly wages. If one
looks at the numbers, the current slump is setting records in terms of
sustained job loss, and the decline in wage and salary income, among other
areas. A number of factors must be considered in order to understand the
severity of the current labor slump:)
The
record length of time that jobs have failed to recover—Prior
to the current slump, jobs had never fallen over a two and a half year period
since monthly job numbers began in 1939. As of October 2003, payroll jobs have
fallen by 2.4 million below the level of March 2001.
The
growth in the working age population since the recession began in March 2001—Even
as jobs were shrinking by 1.8 percent the working age population (i.e., the
number of people of working age) was growing by 3.4 percent. Had job growth
kept up with working age population growth over that period, 6.9 million more
payroll jobs would have been filled in October 2003.
The
effect of the "missing" labor market on the unemployment rate—The
unusually prolonged loss of jobs has caused an unprecedented number of people
to refrain from actively looking for work, and therefore to be excluded from
the unemployment measurement. Had the labor force grown more in line with the
population—as it has in past labor slumps—another 2.3 million people would
have been in the labor force in October 2003. This "missing" labor
force is significant because the unemployment rate would have been 7.4 percent
had the 2.3 million "missing" workers been considered as unemployed.
The 7.4 percent unemployment figure proves a better measure of current slack
in the labor market than the actual unemployment rate of 6.0 percent. The 1.4
percentage-point difference reflects the people pushed to the sidelines of the
labor market who can be expected to seek work again once job prospects
improve. As a result, the official unemployment rate should not be expected to
fall very much when the employment picture actually begins to improve.
The
loss of wage and salary income—Although
real hourly wages have grown since the start of the recession, those gains
have been more than offset by declines in the number of jobs and the amount of
hours paid per job.
(The
US labor market has remained mired in a slump since the recession began in
March 2001. This Briefing Paper compares the severity of the current labor
slump with that of earlier slumps in terms of both depth and duration, and in
terms of both absolute decline and the decline relative to a target based on
keeping pace with population growth. Because of the extended period of job
loss, the current labor slump is the most severe on record by several
important measures:)
1.
This slump saw the longest duration of job loss—28 months.
2.
This slump is the first time in which there was not a full recovery of jobs 31
months after the recession began.
3.
This slump is the worst in terms of the rise of the unemployment rate (after
adjustment for the "missing" labor force) 31 moths after the
recession began—up 3.2
percentage points.
4.
The current slump has also been the most severe in terms of the loss of
aggregate real wage and salary income 30 months after the recession
began—down1.2 percent.
For
more information on jobs and the economy, and to read the full briefing paper
by Price and Fungard click:
http://www.epinet.org/briefingpapers/146/epi_bp146.pdf
6.
THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE CHALLENGES THE PIANO TUNER
BY
BENJAMIN
TREUHAFT
(Piano
Tuner)
(US
Department of State challenges Piano Tuner on Cuba Policy
Press
Conference Miami – October 11th, 2003)
[Open
letter to the US Department of State re: October 5th, 2003 trip to
Cuba in violation of silly law. October 4th, 2003]
Taki
Garousalis
Cuba
Desk
US
Department of State
2201
C Street, N.W. Rm 3234
Washington
E.C. 20522
(202)
647 – 7463
Dear
Taki,
This
is to warn you of my intent to travel to Cuba tomorrow, October 5th,
without US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) authorization. I
return via Miami October 11th at 5:45 PM.
OFAC
is seeking $10,000 from me for violating the Trading With The Enemy Act in
1994 when I tuned pianos in Cuba for $1 each. More recently OFAC sent me a
Cease and Desist letter threatening $1.3 million in fines and ten years in
jail. Last month they issued further warnings through my lawyer.
In
1995 I got Commerce Department permission to ship hundreds of American pianos
donated to Send A Piana to Havana. We tuners collect used pianos for Cuba,
visit the Island en masse to fix them, and help run our Newton Hunt
Workshop/School of Tuning and Instrument Repair At The National School Of
Music in Havana. We've delivered 210 so far, another 30 are waiting to go to
the 90 conservatories that dot that musical Island.
This
year OFAC refused to renew our license to travel to Cuba to tune the pianos we
bring. This makes no sense so I'm going anyway. Please inform Mrs. B.S. Scott
of OFAC, she won't speak to me.
Thank
you for your kind attention in this matter,
Benjamin
Treuhaft
cc
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