Copyright (c) 1999 Jay Fenello -- All rights reserved
Yesterday, I wrote about the media blackout surrounding the protests of the WTO meeting in Seattle. In response, I got several email stating that I was *crazy*, that the story *is* being covered, and that it was my imagination.
What these critics are missing, however, is the methods of media bias, and how they are being used to hide *why* people are rioting in Seattle and London, and why workers have gone on strike throughout the world.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."
-- Noam Chomsky, American linguist
Compare for a minute the coverage of the current riots, versus the shootings at Columbine High, or the crash of Kennedy's plane. While the latter received immediate and continuous media coverage, the riots have only received a few minutes of coverage at the top of the newscasts. And this coverage has been limited to the riots themselves, the damage that has been done, the reactions of the WTO delegates, and the actions of the police to prevent a recurrence today. So while the riots have been the lead story in the news, the reasons for the riots are conspicuously absent. And the coverage has been minuscule compared to other less important topics that have recently been covered.
And yet, most in America still find it hard to believe that the corporate media can possibly be coordinating a cover up of the WTO debate. Most still believe that a free press is some kind of guarantee of a *fair* press.
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
-- John Swinton, Chief of Staff New York Times
"There's a whole journalistic-industrial complex dedicated to keeping newsprint, TV screens and radio waves clean of destabilizing scoops damaging to corporations or the state."
-- Alexander Cockburn, journalist
So, why are the protestors rioting?
If we are to believe the Television media, the protests are over jobs. They have even rolled out some "experts" (like the president of the Economic Strategy Institute, and a spokesperson for the Clinton Administration) who have said that the protests are "bizarre" and based upon the fact that "people are afraid of change."
But actually, much, much more is at stake. Surprisingly, the essence of the protests were revealed on Monday when some of the first broadcasts from Seattle featured a huge banner that read: Democracy =====> <============WTO
And in many ways, this simple banner summarizes the fight, for the very foundations of the Republic are threatened by the WTO.
In the history of human civilization, the U.S. Constitution represents a departure from most other forms of government. It places people at the top of an inverted pyramid, with the government\'s role to serve the people. But things are a changing.
Instead of a government for the people, by the people, the WTO is a government for multinational corporations, by multinational corporations. The WTO's "Mandatory Dispute Resolution Process" is one example of how this body can make decisions that supersede national laws and national sovereignty. It is exactly the same model that ICANN has fraudulently instituted in its "Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy."
"[The] media, our top elected official, and our two dominant political parties rarely criticize the growing power of large corporations because they are bankrolled by them."
-- Nancy Snow, author
So what can be done? First, we must openly acknowledge that the media is biased, as it is owned by an increasingly smaller base of corporate entities world-wide. Just to be clear, I fully support the private ownership of the press, and the biased reporting that results. What I object to is the continued denial of big media in admitting to this control, a denial that I consider to be the ultimate form of false advertising.
"As long as people are marginalized and distracted [they] have no way to organize or articulate their sentiments, or even know that others have these sentiments. People assume that they are the only people with a crazy idea in their heads. They never hear it from anywhere else. Nobody's supposed to think that. ... Since there's no way to get together with other people who share or reinforce that view and help you articulate it, you feel like an oddity, an oddball. So you just stay on the side and you don't pay any attention to what's going on. You look at something else, like the Superbowl."
-- Noam Chomsky, American linguist
"One of the intentions of corporate-controlled media is to instill in people a sense of disempowerment, of immobilization and paralysis. Its outcome is to turn you into good consumers. It is to keep people isolated, to feel that there is no possibility for social change."
-- David Barsamian, journalist and publisher
Second, we must take full advantage of the Internet while we still can. ICANN has an agenda to institute some serious controls over content, so we must work quickly. Help spread the word, and hold the media accountable for their coverage, or lack thereof.
"If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves."
-- Howard Zinn, historian and author
"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology."
-- Michael Parenti, political scientist and author
Finally, we must hold our elected officials accountable to us, the people, and not the corporate entities who fund their reelection campaigns.
"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Be silent no more -- help spread the word.
Until next time . . .
Respectfully,
Jay Fenello,
New Media Relations
http://www.fenello.com