Coming
in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September
19, 2003
Ilan Pappe
The
Hole in the Road Map
Bill Glahn
RIAA is Full of Bunk, So is the New York Times
Dave Lindorff
General Hysteria: the Clark Bandwagon
Robert Fisk
New Guard is Saddam's Old
Jeff Halper
Preparing
for a Struggle Against Israeli Apartheid
Brian J. Foley
Power to the Purse
Clare
Brandabur
Hitchens
Smears Edward Said
Website of the Day
Live from Palestine
September
18, 2003
Mona Baker
and Lawrence Davidson
In
Defense of the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions
Wayne
Madsen
Wesley
Clark for President? Another Neo-Con Con Job
Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Wesley Clark and Waco
Muqtedar Khan
The Pakistan Squeeze
Dominique
de Villepin
The
Reconstruction of Iraq: This Approach is Leading Nowhere
Angus Wright
Brazilian Land Reform Offers Hope
Elaine
Cassel
Payback is Hell
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Leavitt
for EPA Head? He's Much Worse Than You Thought
Website
of the Day
ALA Responds to Ashcroft's Smear
Recent
Stories
September 17, 2003
Timothy J. Freeman
The
Terrible Truth About Iraq
St. Clair / Cockburn
A
Vain, Pompous Brown-noser:
Meet the Real Wesley Clark
Terry Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Moore on Gen. Wesley Clark
Mitchel Cohen
Don't Be Fooled Again: Gen. Wesley Clark, War Criminal
Norman Madarasz
Targeting Arafat
Richard Forno
High Tech Heroin
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Website of the Day
The Ultimate Palestine Resource Site!
September 16, 2003
Rosemary and Walt Brasch
An
Ill Wind: Hurricane Isabel and the Lack of Homeland Security
Robert Fisk
Powell
in Baghdad
Kurt Nimmo
Imperial Sociopaths
M. Shahid Alam
The Dialectics
of Terror
Ron Jacobs
Exile at Gunpoint
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's War on Wages
Al Krebs
Stop Calling Them "Farm Subsidies"; It's Corporate
Welfare
Patrick Cockburn
The
Iraq Wreck
Website of the Day
From Occupied Palestine
September 15, 2003
Stan Goff
It Was
the Oil; It Is Like Vietnam
Robert Fisk
A Hail of Bullets, a Trail of Dead
Writers Bloc
We
Are Winning: a Report from Cancun
James T. Phillips
Does George Bush Cry?
Elaine Cassel
The Troublesome Bill of Rights
Cynthia McKinney
A Message to the People of New York City
Matthew Behrens
Sunday Morning Coming Down: Reflections on Johnny Cash
Uri Avnery
Assassinating
Arafat
Hammond Guthrie
Celling Out the Alarm
Website of the Day
Arnold and the Egg
September 13 / 14, 2003
Michael Neumann
Anti-Americanism:
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Jeffrey St. Clair
Anatomy of a Swindle
Gary Leupp
The Matrix of Ignorance
Ron Jacobs
Reagan's America
Brian Cloughley
Up to a Point, Lord Rumsfeld
William S. Lind
Making Mesopotamia a Terrorist Magnet
Werther
A Modest Proposal for the Pentagon
Dave Lindorff
Friendly Fire Will Doom the Occupation
Toni Solo
Fiction and Reality in Colombia: The Trial of the Bogota Three
Elaine Cassel
Juries and the Death Penalty
Mickey Z.
A Parable for Cancun
Jeffrey Sommers
Issam Nashashibi: a Life Dedicated to the Palestinian Cause
David Vest
Driving in No Direction (with a Glimpse of Johnny Cash)
Michael Yates
The Minstrel Show
Jesse Walker
Adios, Johnny Cash
Adam Engel
Something Killer
Poets' Basement
Cash, Albert, Curtis, Linhart
Website of the Weekend
Local Harvest
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 12, 2003
Writers Block
Todos
Somos Lee: Protest and Death in Cancun
Laura Carlsen
A Knife to the Heart: WTO Kills Farmers
Dave Lindorff
The Meaning of Sept. 11
Elaine Cassel
Bush at Quantico
Linda S. Heard
British
Entrance Exams
John Chuckman
The First Two Years of Insanity
Doug Giebel
Ending America as We Know It
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Blank Check Military
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Website of the Day
A Woman in Baghdad
September 11, 2003
Robert Fisk
A Grandiose
Folly
Roger Burbach
State Terrorism and 9/11: 1973 and 2001
Jonathan Franklin
The Pinochet Files
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Postcards to the President
Norman Solomon
The Political Capital of 9/11
Saul Landau
The Chilean Coup: the Other, Almost Forgotten 9/11
Stew Albert
What Goes Around
Website of the Day
The Sights and Sounds of a Coup
September 10, 2003
John Ross
Cancun
Reality Show: Will It Turn Into a Tropical Seattle?
Zoltan Grossman
The General Who Would be President: Was Wesley Clark Also Unprepared
for the Postwar Bloodbath?
Tim Llewellyn
At the Gates of Hell
Christopher Brauchli
Turn the Paige: the Bush Education Deception
Lee Sustar
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
Elaine Cassel
McCain-Feingold in Trouble: Scalia Hogs the Debate
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Hammond Guthrie
When All Was Said and Done
Website of the Day
Fact Checking Colin Powell
Hot Stories
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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September
20, 2003
Don't Blame the People
Talking
to News Dissector, Danny Schechter
By ADAM ENGEL
Engel:
Tens of millions, possibly over 100 million Americans have access
to alternative or indy media via the web. How can we blame the
corporate media, which is so transparently corrupt, for the "American
People's" support of the war and general ignorance of all
things outside of the NYT/CNN point of view? Are we merely preaching
to the converted?
Schechter:
We live in a media-ocracy. Mainstream politics and mainstream
media have morphed, converged, cross pollinated and merged to
the point of provoking a personal purge. What that means is that
"public opinion" as it is measured, and surveyed is
taken seriously by big media and cultivated as well. You are
partly right, millions turned against war despite the media brainwash,
and did seek out other\ sources, but for the most part all non-mainstream
media is marginalized. Having "access" to media does
not mean it is read or digested. Millions have access to every
book in the library too. How many are read?
Engel:
I was surprised at the turnout for the February and March anti-war
rallies in NYC, particularly since it got zero coverage in anticipation
of the event, and minimal coverage afterward. The Feb 17 rally
was covered by the Washington Post, but minimally by the New
York Times - in their own backyard. Do you think the huge turnouts
across the country (15 million worldwide) were the result of
the word being passed via blogs, newsletters, Indy and Alternative
Web sites?
Schechter:
In part, the marches have been organized by experienced mobilizers
with extensive lists, contacts and grass roots networks. The
media exposure helped by validating the impulse but don't forget
there has been a growing rage among liberals and letter people
after the Florida election, Seattle, the inauguration, and the
rightward ideological drift of an already conservative media
system.... media reinforced.
Engel:
Are we becoming a nation divided not merely along the lines of
"haves and have-nots" but "informed and uninformed?"
Schechter:
We have information haves and have-nots, but also people who
are exposed to TV news as their main form of info are often the
most uninformed. We in the indy media do have the "means
of production" to get our ideas out there but we lack the
means of distribution to market, promote and build mass audiences.
No we are not merely "preaching to the converted' but "we"
have to find better ways of getting our ideas across, and make
them more accessible to the folks who have access. Also, lacking
capital, we have few sustainable revenue models. Capisch?
Engel:
I understand this. But when I refer to "alternative"
or "indy" media I'm speaking almost exclusively of
the Web. The corporate monopoly over the airwaves, cinema, and
print is, in the foreseeable future, too powerful to confront
using traditional methods. Do you see alt media as a kind of
"guerilla" movement, using technology that anyone can
use against the behemothic corporate/state media that no one
can use?
Schechter:
In part, and it is exciting but we need more cooperation and
collaboration, linking and cross promotion. That is why we established
<Mediachannel.org>. To make our affiliates more accessible
to new audiences.
Engel:
There has always been a divide between those who prefer to know
and those who prefer not to know, but those who prefer not to
know are bombarded with propaganda in the form of both "news"
and "entertainment."
Schechter:
Why do you think people prefer not to know? That is very insulting
and demeaning. Our media system devalues information, dumbs it
down and provides news without context in an uninteresting way.
Is it any wonder that some are not interested or just hang on
the headlines. Our school systems suck. Adult literacy is low.
There is little encouragement to think or incentive for doing
so. We live in a depoliticized culture that promotes consumption,
not citizenship. So don't blame the people.
Engel:
It should be insulting and demeaning, for many, many people either
prefer not to know or simply do not care as long as it does not
affect them. Our media system's devaluation of information should
not prevent adults from behaving like adult citizens and taking
some control over their lives.
Schechter:
I don't want to engage in broad-brush arguments about THE people
because you leave out the obvious ways we are all segmented--by
race, class, gender--and then consciousness. If you start with
the assumption that people are stupid you will never reach them.
There are many examples of journalists, writers and TV program
that engage large audiences and offer challenging content.
Engel:
Are you saying someone who sees the obvious -- a cruise missile
smashing into a civilian building -- in a colorful photograph
on the front page, is excused from asking "who's in that
building?" merely because of the presentation? Adults must
be encouraged to think? Why do some, many in fact, think more
than others? What separates those who seek to empower themselves
from those who don't, even though both might have grown up under
the same socio-economic circumstances, been failed by he same
school system, and bombarded by the lies of the same media? Don't
blame the people? What of the 15 million who protested this war?
Weren't they blaming the indolence of their fellow citizens as
much as the murderous arrogance of the American Government?
Schechter:
No they were protesting the policy--appealing to fellow citizens
to join in. Here in NY protesters were penned in and the police
made it difficult for all who wanted to take part to do so. In
every movement, there is a conscious elite that takes the lead
but if the issues are clearly defined, if the leadership is good,
if organizing is effective, many will participate. Our media
system discourages a democracy of participation. It reinforces
the idea that you can't fight city hall, and that you can't win.
That's why that media system and its ideological underpinnings
need to be challenged with active resistance and a counter narrative.
Engel:
If we can't blame the people for falling under the sway of corporate
media, how can we possibly believe the people will respond to
alternative media? According to this statement, they are clay,
beyond suasion, too far gone to act in their own defense. They
need encouragement even to think.
Schechter:
Perhaps you can examine your own assumption--that people chose
not to know. Many people feel powerless. Politics and events
overseas are nothing they can effect. The media distances them
and does not encourage engagement. They are not encouraged to
have an empathetic connection with others, especially THE OTHER,
people unlike themselves. The media system is about legitimating
itself first--so when you are only fed one kind of information,
that is the info you rely on...
Engel:
Okay. You have a point. Many millions of people are overworked,
underpaid, and just plain tired. Even Barbara Ehrenreich found
herself thinking of nothing but a warm bed after a hard "day's"
(12-16 hours) work in "Nickel and Dimed." Many people
are so tired they can barely crack open a beer and watch a few
hours of television before bed. Also, I agree that generalizations
of "the people" fail to take the individuality of each
person into account.
One of the "decisions" made
by Big Media is what is worth reporting on. They have the money
to send correspondents where they think newsworthy events are
occurring. But I remember reading in Michael Herr's "Dispatches"
how the free-lancers working for (then) alternative magazines
like Rolling Stone would laugh at the NYT guys in their suits,
never leaving their air-conditioned hotel rooms while the "freelancers"
would go into the bush.
Schechter:
Well the NY Times had some great reporters in Vietnam and some
lousy ones. Some like Gloria Emerson covered all the contradictions.
The problem is that there are fewer journalists with her sensibility
and insight. I wouldn't diss everyone in the mainstream...I do
diss their companies.
Engel:
Similarly, anyone can set up a website anywhere. There were websites
put up by Iraqis before and during the invasion. In short, the
monopoly on "what's important" is being challenged
by the ability of those who were previously ignored to make themselves
heard -- and have their messages picked up by bigger, more widely
known sites.
Schechter:
True, and I think this is a very promising development but one
which the readership needs to understand the importance of, not
take for granted and support more actively., If you want a say,
you have to pay too. I know lots of lefties who think nothing
of buying the Times but won't contribute to the alt media. We
need a multi-track strategy--one that supports indy media but
also takes on big media. As you can see from the FCC issue where
TWO MILLION people wrote against pro-media monopoly rule changes,
media is an issue that activates people.
Engel:
Yes, I've seen the same phenomenon of lefties who'll plunk down
$400 for an mp3 player, demand "free" music, yet grumble
about sending $20 to a news site they visit daily, (or download
music from). The petitions and letters that went off to the FCC
were encouraging. An example of people demanding a say in the
media they actually own but which was sold out from under them.
Which brings me to another question. The internet phenomenon
is still less than ten years old, less than 7 years for most.
Is it possible to shut it down? DARPA created it to work in pockets
rather than a single connection, but still, most readers, not
to mention websites, belong to a relatively few ISPs. Why not
buy it out, or shut it down, or censor everything in the name
of "security?"
Schechter:
Nothing is fixed forever and ever. We have to defend our rights
to communicate and sustain the space we have built for free expression
and political advocacy. The government and corporations never
intended for the web to emerge the way it has. But here it is--lets
work together to have an impact through it and wish. It is not
the platform that matters. It is what we stand for and stand
with. A counter attack is coming. It is here. We have to keep
it alive. Keep punching and counterpunching.
Engel:
When I first got involved with the web in 1994 (using Lynx --
just text) I thought: this is going to be revolutionary. Then
came the dot.com thing and by 1997 I was writing copy for one
of thousands of corporate commercial pitch sites. Now, especially
since the election fraud of 2000, indy media seems to have exploded.
Hundreds of "well-known" news sites, thousands, perhaps
tens of thousands of sites covering every range of human interest
imaginable across the globe. Sites like the Mediachannel have
helped inspire this, but where is it leading? Do you see an organized
movement among people of various political persuasions who produce
web content taking on the mainstream, a kind of guild or union?
It's one thing for a few site, such as Adbusters, to call for
a boycott of a corporation or protest of government policy, it's
quite another if a confederation of thousands of sites pass along
the message for organized resistance.
Schechter:
Right now we are seeding the clouds, connecting readers to other
ideas and demonstrating that diversity of viewpoint makes a difference.
Where will it go. It already is going. A new media and democracy
movement is emerging. The FCC campaign shows that far more people
than we think will be supportive.
Engel:
So the question boils down to what people are exposed to. If
corporate media have the monopoly on information, and most people
don't have the time to verify every source, like a scholar or
journalist might, the only challenge to this endless-loop is
to introduce alternative viewpoints that are accessible to all.
The Cosmos didn't bestow the airwaves and cable to the corporate/government
elite.
Schechter:
How do people find out about new information sources. new websites?
Remember the tech boom. Some companies spent millions branding
and promoting and advertising and nothing stuck. Partly customers
didn't understand what they were selling and it was so new and
complicated. They failed. Others like the old NAPSTER or EBAY
or AMAZON which make life easier or cheaper etc succeed. Alternative
sites like ours have to figure out how to reach an audience and
grow it. Our "competitors" in the mainstream have TV
shows pushing their URLS. They are visible, and received the
benefits of cross promotion. Also, other sites of armies of people
pumping in new content, using the latest design and tech gizmos.
We can't compete. That doesn't mean our content isn't valuable,
valid or interesting. It is. How do let more people know about
it?
Hey I am not a pessimist like you. I
believe in the possibility of change, of educating people, or
motivating activism. That's why I do what I do as a film maker,
writer and journalist. Alternative media needs to be credible
too.
Engel:
I am a pessimist. Though I believe in the possibility of change
and education, I don't see it happening among a majority of the
population. On the other hand, all I know of the "American
People" comes from the images of mainstream media and the
flags I've seen waving from cars and porches since 9/11. Is it
possible that I myself am another "sucker" for mainstream
media for believing what they say about who and what the American
people are and what they're thinking (via polls etc.)?
Schechter:
What an admission--you are sucked in. Maybe you need a bit more
perspective. I was in the civil rights movement. Only a few supported
it first, but then grew and had an impact. I fought against the
war in Vietnam. Our movements helped end it. I battled apartheid.
It became a world wide issue and triumphed. (That doesn't mean
that everything is hunky dory. One set of problems always gives
way to another.) My point is that history happens. People make
change. The tide in the Bush war is turning. He is loosing support.
More lies are being unmasked.
Engel:
I grew up with and know (friends, relatives, in-laws) people
with "advanced degrees," who came from what most people
in the world would call privileged backgrounds, yet who expose
themselves to the TV News as Well as the equally misleading newspapers,
magazines and "cool" websites. When I approach such
people with the possibility that there are other points of view,
both left and right, and that many people outside the U.S. see
their own countries in far more complicated ways than we do,
they scoff at me for "always being political, never just
having fun" (as if staring at a TV were fun) or shrug their
shoulders as if to say, some people have whiskey and cigarettes,
I have this.
Schechter: Are you always being political?
If people perceive you that way, then you have to consider new
ways of relating to them, and interesting them in what you have
to say. Being righteous and shrill doesn't work. Sometimes reason
does. You can't abolish the people.
Engel:
Sometimes I am righteous and shrill, to my detriment, but often
I am reasonable and reticent, listening to the "other side"
grow righteous and shrill. Though I am never "righteous"
when arguing with informed "opponents" of different
opinions (right wing, Libertarian, Conservative etc.) rather,
the people who are allegedly "informed" but who receive
their opinions straight from the CNN/NYT/FOX corporate media
get me stomping up and down. The Right winger has sought alternative
information; the "mainstreamer," has not.
Schechter:
Keep stomping but also work on ways and means of spreading the
word and the sense that winning is possible. It isn't everything
but it helps. I work on Mediachannel in part because I want to
build a bridge where possible between mainstream media people--most
of whom are dissatisfied--and more independent minded journalists.
I want get a deeper debate going within journalism and within
our movements about the impacts media has on our lives. I also
want to encourage more Global connections--so that we lose some
of our own parochialism and see ourselves as part of a changing
world.
I need help. To get Mediachannel better
to. To fund and distribute my films (my latest are on the media
war in Iraq and unanswered questions about 911. I also want your
readers to check out my new book on the war we saw and didn't
see in Iraq. It's called EMBEDDED: WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION.
It is available on PDF online at mediachannel.org.
It is being published by Prometheus books. Onward!
Danny Schechter
is a television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes
and speaks about media issues. He is the author of "Embedded:
Weapons of Mass Deception" (Prometheus), "Media
Wars: News after 9-11" (Innovation), "Falun
Gong's Challenge to China" (Akashic Press), "The
More You Watch, The Less You Know" (Seven Stories
Press) and "News
Dissector: Passions, Pieces and Polemics" (Electron
Press). He is the executive editor of the Mediachannel.org,
the world's largest online media issues network. He can be reached
at dissector@mediachannel.org
Adam Engel,
a pessimist, can be reached at bartleby.samsa@verizon.net
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 13 / 14, 2003
Michael Neumann
Anti-Americanism:
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Jeffrey St. Clair
Anatomy of a Swindle
Gary Leupp
The Matrix of Ignorance
Ron Jacobs
Reagan's America
Brian Cloughley
Up to a Point, Lord Rumsfeld
William S. Lind
Making Mesopotamia a Terrorist Magnet
Werther
A Modest Proposal for the Pentagon
Dave Lindorff
Friendly Fire Will Doom the Occupation
Toni Solo
Fiction and Reality in Colombia: The Trial of the Bogota Three
Elaine Cassel
Juries and the Death Penalty
Mickey Z.
A Parable for Cancun
Jeffrey Sommers
Issam Nashashibi: a Life Dedicated to the Palestinian Cause
David Vest
Driving in No Direction (with a Glimpse of Johnny Cash)
Michael Yates
The Minstrel Show
Jesse Walker
Adios, Johnny Cash
Adam Engel
Something Killer
Poets' Basement
Cash, Albert, Curtis, Linhart
Website of the Weekend
Local Harvest
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