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The American public is starved for actual news. The conservative propaganda mill that masquerades as fox news is the premier example of a society that is becoming insular and uncritical of its policy and place in the world. For a country that purports to value the idea of freedom of speech and the marketplace of ideas, the US certainly seems to define Al-Jazzera outside the acceptable limits of discourse for the public.
“The network has been targeted by the US government since 2003, when former vice president Dick Cheney and former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld described it as tantamount to an arm of al-Qaeda.
Two of its reporters were later killed in Baghdad when US missiles hit its office. Al Jazeera and others voiced suspicions that the channel’s reporters had been deliberately targeted.
And, to this day, Al Jazeera, which, together with BBC News, has become one of the premier global outlets for serious television news, is virtually impossible to find on televisions in the US.
The country’s major cable and satellite companies refuse to carry it – leaving it with US viewers only in Washington, DC and parts of Ohio and Vermont – despite huge public demand.”
Ah, that must be the market making the correct decision about the needs and wants of its consumers. Or perhaps it is the politics that actually drive the market as a opposed to the cherished notion of supply demand.
“The station’s US push could hardly be more necessary – to Americans. By being denied the right to watch Al Jazeera, Americans are being kept in a bubble, sealed off from the images and narratives that inform the rest of the world. Consider the recent scandal surrounding atrocity photos taken by US soldiers in Afghanistan, which are now available on news outlets, including Al Jazeera, around the globe.
In America, there have been brief summaries of the fact that Der Spiegel has run the story. But the images themselves – even redacted to shield the identities of the victims – have not penetrated the US media stream. And the images are so extraordinarily shocking that failing to show them – along with graphic images of the bombardment of children in Gaza, say, or exit interviews with survivors of Guantanamo – keeps Americans from understanding events that may be as traumatic to others as the trauma of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.”
Not surprising, as the forces of the status-quo do not need inflammatory images stirring up the population. Seeing the actual face of American foreign policy and what it is responsible for might waken the good altruism in the American people and have them demand a stop to the atrocities committed in their name.
“For example, the leading US media outlets, including the New York Times, have not seen fit to mention that one of the photos shows a US soldier holding the head of a dead Afghan civilian as though it were a hunting trophy.
So, for America’s sake, I hope that Al Jazeera penetrates the US media market. Unless Americans see the images and narratives that shape how others see us, the US will not be able to overcome its reputation as the world’s half-blind bully.
Indeed, Egyptians are in some ways now better informed than Americans (and, as Thomas Jefferson often repeated, liberty is not possible without an informed citizenry). Egypt has 30 newspapers and more than 200 television channels.
America’s newspapers are dying, foreign news coverage has been cut to three or four minutes, at most, at the end of one or two evening newscasts, and most of its TV channels are taken up with reality shows.”
The people of America are good decent people, but are purposefully being kept in the dark about what their role in the world is and how their corporations and government are acting internationally.
“Americans have a hunger for international news; it is a myth that we can’t be bothered with the outside world. Maybe Americans will rise up and threaten to boycott their cable and satellite providers unless we get our Al Jazeera – and other carriers of international news.
We would then come one step closer to being part of the larger world – a world that, otherwise, will eventually simply leave us behind.”
Bill is hyperbolic during his segments, but using the fact and the funny he points to many flaws in how a nation can perceive itself and some of the myths people can embrace.
Important Update: It is also nice to see the skeptical community is doing its job and calling the Zeitgeist Movement on its bullshit. The site Conspiracy Science has a great breakdown of the gaping holes in the ‘logic’ and ‘reasoning’ used in the the first two films. I suspect the third film, posted here is also as full as crap as the first two.
It is nice to see a director break down such complex topics in our society. Peter Joseph places capitalism and our society under a critical lens and examines the system that is methodically stripping our planet of resources and turning it into items we really do not need.
Fractional reserve banking? Covered in within the context of this film, as well as inflation, the business cycle and how the structural features of our system are grossly inefficient and are actually harming the social fabric of our society.
I’m very glad this film points out that it is the egalitarian societies ( yes, the evil spectre of socialism once again) that fare better in almost all categories that measure a societies health, productivity and innovation. It caught my particular attention because I’m constantly bombarded with the notion that “competition drives innovation and because that’s what capitalism is ergo its all good.” This particular meme is exploded as you are shown graph after graph of data pointing out that the societies that redistribute wealth acutely are the ones that do better in the world, economically, politically and socially.
I’m not entirely happy with the movie as it gets a little tinfoil hatty around the idea of Big Medicine and Big Pharma…but one must take the bad with the good. I link to the trailer and the movie for your viewing pleasure.
I’ve only seen the first two parts, but they have been generally quite good. Its LOTHR length, so make sure you have your popcorn and comfy chair ready if you intend to watch the entire film. The website to see the first Zeitgeist and the Zeitgeist Addendum can be found here.
The content of the documentaries mentioned are pretty much guaranteed to rile my conservative readers…I look forward to the comment section of this particular post. :)
Note: Please where possible reference specific points in the movie, I’m going nuts trying to find the specific parts when referenced by name alone.
Important Update: It is also nice to see the skeptical community is doing its job and calling the Zeitgeist Movement on its bullshit. The site Conspiracy Science has a great breakdown of the gaping holes in the ‘logic’ and ‘reasoning’ used in the the first two films. I suspect the third film, posted here is also as full as crap as the first two.
Liberal viewer is one of my favorite youtube commentators. I reproduce yet again, another video of his on the mendacity of what Fox News stands for and what can be done to combat the egregious effects.
The underwhelming performance of the Democratic President Obama is really unsurprising considering the context of the current US political system. State capitalism continues to grind the general population into dust to enrich the business class with Obama at its helm. Considering where the majority where his contributions come from Obama is performing up to expectations. Noam Chomsky looks at the hollow brand of Obama and what really his particularly vacuous platform of “Hope & Change” really mean in his book “Hopes and Prospects” in the final chapters. I’ll reproduce some highlights from that last chapter.
“Labour journalist and lawyer Steve early wrote that “while running for office, Obama said he strongly backed the Employee Free Choice Act, a long overdue labour law reform measure that should be part of his promised economic stimulus plan.” However, when Obama introduced his top economic advisers on taking office “and talked about steps to ‘jolt’ the economy…the Act was not part of the package,” and Chief of Staff Emanuel “declined to say whether the White House will support the Employee Free Choice Act… [Workers] will be watching closely to see whether their plight merits the same helping hand so quickly extended to Wall Street.”
The answer has been sharp and clear, and working people did not have to wait very long to find it out. EFCA quickly vanished, And to make priorities even clearer, a few weeks after taking office, President Obama decided to show his solidarity with works by giving a talk at a factory in Illinois (February 12th, 2009). He choose a Caterpillar plant, over objections of chruch, peace, and human rights groups, who were protesting Caterpillar’s role in providing Israel with the means to devastate the territories it occupies and to destroy the lives of the population – also killing an American volunteer, Rachel Corrie, who tried to block the destruction of a home.
Apparently forgotten, however, was something else. Following Reagan’s lead with the dismantling of the air traffic controllers union, the new hardline CEO of Caterpillar, Donald Fites, rescinded the contract with the United Auto Workers in 1991, instituted a lockout, threatened to bring in “permanent replacement workers”, and later did so, for the first time in generations in manufacturing industry. The practice was illegal in other industrial countries apart from South Africa at the time; now the United States appears to be in splendid isolation. It is hard to imagine that Obama and his advisers purposely chose a corporation that led the way to undermine labour rights. More likely, they were unaware of the facts, which would be an even worse indictment of the business-run doctrinal system.
At the time of Caterpillar’s innovation in labour relations, Obama was a community organizer in Chicago and visiting fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. He must have been reading the Chicago Tribune, which ran a careful study of these events. They reported that the union was “stunned” to find that unemployed workers crossed the picket line with no remorse, while Caterpillar works found little ‘moral support’ in their community, one of the many where the union had “lifted the standard of living for entire communities.” Wiping out of those memories is another victory in the campaign to destroy workers’ rights and democracy that is relentlessly waged by the highly class-conscious American business sector, elementary facts about American society that the union leadership had stubbornly refused to understand. It was only in 1978 that the UAW president Doug Fraser recognized what was happening and criticized the “leaders of the business community” for having “chosen to wage a one-sided class war in this country – a war against working people, the unemployed, the poor, the minorities, the very young and very old, and even many in the middle class or our society,” and for having “broken and discarded the fragile, unwritten compact previously existing during a period of growth and progress.”
Placing one’s faith in a compact with owners and managers is suicidal. The UAW is discovering that again today, as the state-corporate leadership proceeds to eliminate the hard-fought gains of working people while dismantling the productive core of the American economy, with government assistance. “
– From Noam Chomsky’s Hope and Prospects pages 217 – 219.
I urge you faithful reader to purchase or get this book from the library as it provides depth and insight into the American body politic that you most definately will not find in your local newspaper.
Governments keep secrets. Some important, some not so important. Hopefully with the ushering in of a second major “leaks” site governments around the world will begin to revise their agendas with the threat of pubic examination of the actions they commit and suppress “for interests of the state”.
“A former co-worker of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange plans to launch a rival website Monday called Openleaks that will help anonymous sources deliver sensitive material to public attention.
In a documentary by Swedish broadcaster SVT, to be aired Sunday and obtained in advance by The Associated Press, former WikiLeaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg said the new website will work as an outlet for anonymous sources.”
More is better. The efforts to smear/silence Julian Assange have kicked into overdrive and rest assured, Berg will be under similar pressure as well.
“The WikiLeaks site has come under attack, while Assange, who is now in a British jail fighting extradition to Sweden on sex crime allegations, has been threatened. Swiss Postfinance, MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc., PayPal Inc. and others have cut ways to send donations to the group, impairing its ability to raise money.”
Clearly, you can see which side Corporate interests lie. It is unsurprising, as Corporations like States have many ugly secrets that they do not want the public to know about. Wikileaks is a grassroots organization, and I suggest you support an agency (see the side bar for links to the main and mirror wikileaks sites)that is dedicated to increasing the publics knowledge of the workings of their governments. The idea of government for the people by the people should be more than just a mumbled platitude.
Update: Find the openleaks page here, nothing to see yet but a logo.
Hey, quick, how does a internal combustion work in layman’s terms. You have 1 minute to get in all the pertinent information. Go!
Obviously, decisions are going to be made about what content to keep and how to say as much as possible with the time allotted. Climate change is like describing an internal combustion engine in 1 minute, only that that the science behind climate change is much more complex. Our media is guilty of not doing their homework on Climate Change. Potholer54 gets us more up to date on what the science actually says, as opposed to media mistranslations and inaccuracies.
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